What book are you currently reading?

[Opsboi]

Never read Jack Reacher before
Finding it strangely compelling

It's no Mick Herron, mind

[PHXPhlyer]

Never read Jack Reacher before
Finding it strangely compelling

It's no Mick Herron, mind

Just don't watch the Jack Reacher movies with Tom Cruise.
5'8" Tom Cruse just doesn't measure up to 6'5" Jack Reacher.

PP

[Opsboi]

Never read Jack Reacher before
Finding it strangely compelling

It's no Mick Herron, mind

Just don't watch the Jack Reacher movies with Tom Cruise.
5'8" Tom Cruse just doesn't measure up to 6'5" Jack Reacher.

PP

Capisce - saw one of the TC JR movies, which is another reason I'm enjoying the book more than I expected

[Pinky the pilot]

Finished the Allied Aircraft Piston Engines of WWII, then read a rather interesting one on the Boer War.

Commando by Deneys Reitz. Once again, found at a local 'Op Shop.'

Finished that one and now going through (again) The Struggle for Europe by Chester Wilmot

Last read it about 40 years ago.

[TheGreenGoblin]

then read a rather interesting one on the Boer War.

Commando by Deneys Reitz. Once again, found at a local 'Op Shop.'

+1

[TheGreenGoblin]

Really interesting chap... I recommend a read of his autobiography.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Serendipity, while reading the book noted above, I came across a photograph of a Wing Commander , who flew Lightnings, who I suspect was the father of an ex boss who hired me and then let me immediately take the week off to finish my PPL many years back. He told me about his dad at the time and I encouraged him to take up flying which he did immediately after I started flying, finishing his PPL in 2 weeks and immediately purchasing a Tampico, I flew him up to Liverpool to pick up the aircraft, and then he and an Australian colleague started up an aircraft maintenance business. He gave me my start in the UK and I owe him a lot and sadly heard, only this week that his ex wife, a lovely lady, had died, he having looked after her in the last two years. I am apt to give him a call!

[Wodrick]

Think you should

[Boac]

I came across a photograph of a Wing Commander , who flew Lightnings

I'm interested in the name.

[TheGreenGoblin]

I came across a photograph of a Wing Commander , who flew Lightnings

I'm interested in the name.

The chap I knew surname is Holmes. I never met his father personally but I know his father and his mother retired in Norfolk back in the 1990's. He had two sons, and maybe even a daughter, it is so long ago now, but one of, whom, Jeremy, is the ex boss I refer to in my post. I haven't seen him in 20 years but he crept back into my transom this week when an old girlfriend of mine told me the sad news of his ex wife's death this week and I was apt to think of him and our shenanigans back in the day. I may be promoting his father, or simply mistaking this chap for his father, but he certainly resembles Jeremy and the dates fit. I am going to send the chap I knew a note of condolence whatever the case. He was, and still still is, I am sure, a very good bloke.

Jeremy.JPG (73.78 KiB) Viewed 590 times

[Boac]

Ah! Familiar faces!

Ta. I think W/C Holmes had just left the post of OC Ops when I arrived on 23(F) in '71 I think Pete Botterill took over. Dick Bell (probably known to Alison at Leconfield as unit test pilot ) had also left 23 when I arrived. I knew him from before when he was a mad Jet Provost aeros display pilot at RAF Cranwell and I had suffered his aeros - from the inside of the cockpit several times. After the RAF I think he went to Africa missionary flying as he was 'that way'.

[PHXPhlyer]

Just finished "The Bomber Mafia : a dream, a temptation, and the longest night of the second World War" by Malcolm Gladwell.

"Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists had a different view. This 'Bomber Mafia' asked: What if precision bombing could, just by taking out critical choke points -- industrial or transportation hubs -- cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal? In his podcast, Revisionist History, Gladwell re-examines moments from the past and asks whether we got it right the first time. In The Bomber Mafia, he steps back from the bombing of Tokyo, the deadliest night of the war, and asks, "Was it worth it?" The attack was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared more by averting a planned US invasion. Things might have gone differently had LeMay's predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. As a key member of the Bomber Mafia, Haywood's theories of precision bombing had been foiled by bad weather, enemy jet fighters, and human error. When he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war." -- Provided by publisher.

Lots of interesting inof but overall a little disappointing.

PP

[TheGreenGoblin]

Just finished "The Bomber Mafia : a dream, a temptation, and the longest night of the second World War" by Malcolm Gladwell.

Lots of interesting inof but overall a little disappointing.

PP

You piqued my interest PHXPhlyer, despite your lukewarm response to this book. On the basis of your post and the review below I am going to buy the book.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/book ... 0as%20long.

PS - Why is it in US films, and often in books too, that the British characters are either villainous, psychopaths or even villainous psychopaths?

PPS - I may have to wait a bit...

Wait.JPG (37.43 KiB) Viewed 561 times

[PHXPhlyer]

Just finished "The Bomber Mafia : a dream, a temptation, and the longest night of the second World War" by Malcolm Gladwell.

Lots of interesting inof but overall a little disappointing.

PP

You piqued my interest PHXPhlyer, despite your lukewarm response to this book. On the basis of your post and the review below I am going to buy the book.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/book ... 0as%20long.

PS - Why is it in US films, and often in books too, that the British characters are either villainous, psychopaths or even villainous psychopaths?

PPS - I may have to wait a bit...


Wait.JPG

Might I make a suggestion regarding your prolific penchant for purchasing books.
Like you, I have amassed a large book collection which has my many bookshelves overflowing.
Usually, the only books that I buy are aviation and nature books mostly for pennies on the dollar from thrift stores.
Most of the newer books, best-sellers and books by my favorite authors, I get from my local library. Check your local library and see if they offer ebooks to check out. My local library has three or four free apps for reading different formats. also, their ebooks can be read in a browser.
The main app I use is Libby and its predecessor Overdrive. Freeding and Hoopla are also good. Hoopla books are always instantly available but Libby/Overdrive books have a limited number of each title available, so I always have several titles on reserve at all times.
Most of my ebook reading is done on a 7" Samsung tablet or my phone.
Libby will sync between devices so that if I am waiting in a line or at an appointment, etc. I can read on my phone.
If the library doesn't offer a title in ebook format I will go old school and read the physical version.

PP

[TheGreenGoblin]

Might I make a suggestion regarding your prolific penchant for purchasing books.

PP

You good advice advice will certainly delight my better half who is fighting a guerilla war against me, my bibliophilic ways (much of it aviation related like you), my overflowing bookshelves and the "clutter" she perceives, which is all my fault of course!

Due to her campaign I tend to try and purchase e-books (kindle) that I read on my tablet, but occasionally I have to use subterfuge, extreme cunning and guile to smuggle a hard copy past her!

[Archer]

I'm not the only one with that challenge then.... in my case she tries to enforce a 'one book in - one book out' policy that I strongly object to. I may have to apply same to her shoe-shopping habits....

[TheGreenGoblin]

I'm not the only one with that challenge then.... in my case she tries to enforce a 'one book in - one book out' policy that I strongly object to. I may have to apply same to her shoe-shopping habits....

Archer, that is exactly the egregious policy that my better half has tried to enforce but, like you, I will not submit to such barbaric female tyranny!

We shall not be defeated!

I am looking forward to the arrival of my hard back copy of "The Spitfire Story" by Alfred Price!


PS - The book was just delivered straight into the hands of my better half and a whole new battlefront has opened up! Literally arrived as I typed this!

IMG_20220312_092057.jpg

[Rwy in Sight]

Back in late 1980's I saw an ad for Forsyth's "The Devil's Alternate". I didn't have enough pocket money to allocate at its purchase so I forgot it. I did find it at a store in Birmingham in 1995, I bought it read it and I was fascinated. Over the last few weeks I realize how useful and ahead of its time it is. A team of Ukrainians tries to inflict a serious blow to the then USSR and plans to tell the world. They failed on the telling part and there is a race against to clock to silence them in order to save an arms reduction treaty. A British intelligence officer plays a vital role and finds an absolutely cynical way to stop the Ukrainians from talking.

[Pinky the pilot]

Just finished 'The One that got Away' by Chris Ryan, about his experiences in Gulf War 1.

Prior to that I read Sharpe's Battle' and Sharpe's Waterloo' by Bernard Cornwell. Picked them up from a pile at the local 'Op Shop' that were about to be thrown out at the local Paper Recyclers, simply because no-one wanted them.

About to start another one from the scrap pile at the previously mentioned Op Shop. 'The Legend of KING ARTHUR and his KNIGHTS" by Sir James Knowles. A 1997 reprint of something first published in 1921, it seems.

[Rossian]

....I'm sure that the F/L Bell came to 210 SQN at Ballykelly (late '60s-ish??). He had a photo taken from his gun?camera on his Lightning after he had done a from-below-vertical attack on a Vulcan at a very high altitude. All that was in the photo was the stbd intakes v v close as he passed it on the way up. This guy also went off to do a bit of Godbothering in the dark continent. Same chap perhaps??

The Ancient Mariner