What book are you currently reading?
Re: What book are you currently reading?
Really enjoying 'Red Notice' by Bill Browder. Great reading - some padding with Browder's back story but a scary indictment of Russia today.
In November 2009, the young lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by eight police officers in a freezing cell in a Moscow prison. His crime? Testifying against Russian officials who were involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million of taxes.
Red Notice is a searing exposé of the whitewash of this imprisonment and murder. The killing hasn’t been investigated. It hasn’t been punished. Bill Browder is still campaigning for justice for his late lawyer and friend. This is his explosive journey from the heady world of finance in New York and London in the 1990s, through battles with ruthless oligarchs in turbulent post-Soviet Union Moscow, to the shadowy heart of the Kremlin.
With fraud, bribery, corruption and torture exposed at every turn, Red Notice is a shocking political roller-coaster.
In November 2009, the young lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by eight police officers in a freezing cell in a Moscow prison. His crime? Testifying against Russian officials who were involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million of taxes.
Red Notice is a searing exposé of the whitewash of this imprisonment and murder. The killing hasn’t been investigated. It hasn’t been punished. Bill Browder is still campaigning for justice for his late lawyer and friend. This is his explosive journey from the heady world of finance in New York and London in the 1990s, through battles with ruthless oligarchs in turbulent post-Soviet Union Moscow, to the shadowy heart of the Kremlin.
With fraud, bribery, corruption and torture exposed at every turn, Red Notice is a shocking political roller-coaster.
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
Reading '19 With a Bullet: A South African Paratrooper in Angola' by Granger Korff.
Korff is a hard man. formerly a 'breeker' from the mean streets somewhere on the East Rand. His narrative rings true, treating it as it does his days as a South African Army (SADF) conscript try out for the Reconnaissance Battalion who finally dropped out within a gnat's priaprick of making the grade, simply because, I believe, he knew he could make it and thus had nothing more to prove to himself and dropped back to the elite 1 Parachute Battalion who were merely hardcore as opposed to dangerously psychopathic. His story of his battalion's travails, victories, losses, experiences and final ousting in Angola as per the political (but never military) defeat of SA in Angola and South West Africa makes for compelling reading.
Well worth a read, even if you are an effete RAF type who might stroll the boards on this hallowed forum!
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... 011.634143
Caco
Korff is a hard man. formerly a 'breeker' from the mean streets somewhere on the East Rand. His narrative rings true, treating it as it does his days as a South African Army (SADF) conscript try out for the Reconnaissance Battalion who finally dropped out within a gnat's priaprick of making the grade, simply because, I believe, he knew he could make it and thus had nothing more to prove to himself and dropped back to the elite 1 Parachute Battalion who were merely hardcore as opposed to dangerously psychopathic. His story of his battalion's travails, victories, losses, experiences and final ousting in Angola as per the political (but never military) defeat of SA in Angola and South West Africa makes for compelling reading.
Well worth a read, even if you are an effete RAF type who might stroll the boards on this hallowed forum!
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... 011.634143
Caco
- TheGreenGoblin
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
'Razors Edge - The Unofficial History of the Falklands War' by Hugh Bicheno (or Birchenhaugh).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/ ... aincontent
The author is a former intelligence officer and now historian and author whose detailed, iconoclastic and fascinating history of the Falklands War is well worth reading in that it is controversial, sometimes just plain wrong (he incorrectly spells names etc.) and yet still very good, not least for its detailed understanding and exegesis of Argentinian history and society prior to the war and for its detailed, often alternate, view of some of the events that occurred before and during the the war.
Highly recommended.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/ ... aincontent
The author is a former intelligence officer and now historian and author whose detailed, iconoclastic and fascinating history of the Falklands War is well worth reading in that it is controversial, sometimes just plain wrong (he incorrectly spells names etc.) and yet still very good, not least for its detailed understanding and exegesis of Argentinian history and society prior to the war and for its detailed, often alternate, view of some of the events that occurred before and during the the war.
Highly recommended.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
- tango15
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
'The Man with the Golden Gun'. The original paperback Fleming version and so different from the film.
- ian16th
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
An 'original paperback'?
I'll raise you a 1st edition hardback.
Cynicism improves with age
Re: What book are you currently reading?
As always with Bryson, an excellent read, witty, well-researched and fascinating, with an aviation theme running through it.
Re: What book are you currently reading?
The Daniel Silva series about Gabriel Allon. On number 16 or so now.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.
- ian16th
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
They were bought to read at the time.
Very dated in the 21st cent.
Cynicism improves with age
Re: What book are you currently reading?
Prince Rupert - The Last Cavalier by Charles Spencer, just finished Italy's Sorrow by James Holland, Amazon is delivering a couple tomorrow, the sixth one in the girl with the dragon tattoo series, and Burma '44 by James Holland.
Quite like this aspect of lockdown.
Quite like this aspect of lockdown.
- tango15
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
ian16th
Very impressive! As a mere youth when they first came out, I could only afford the paperback version - a whole 3/6d. I don't recall seeing them in hardback previously. The dustcovers are clearly very different from those on the paperbacks.
Very impressive! As a mere youth when they first came out, I could only afford the paperback version - a whole 3/6d. I don't recall seeing them in hardback previously. The dustcovers are clearly very different from those on the paperbacks.
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
Just finished 'Journey of the Pharaohs' by Clive Cussler and
'Call of the Raven' by Wilbur Smith.
Now half way through Tom Clancy's 'Code of Honour' written by Marc Cameron.
They will do until I can find some Aviation related books.
ian16th; Love the first editions shown!
'Call of the Raven' by Wilbur Smith.
Now half way through Tom Clancy's 'Code of Honour' written by Marc Cameron.
They will do until I can find some Aviation related books.
ian16th; Love the first editions shown!
You only live twice. Once when you're born. Once when you've looked death in the face.
Re: What book are you currently reading?
Some collected books by Nicholas Monsarrat including The Cruel Sea. All on Kindle as books are expensive here and take an age to arrive from the UK. Not the same as holding a real one though.
Re: What book are you currently reading?
Apart from the above, I thoroughly enjoyed The Cruel Sea, and Monsarrat's best known novel, The Kapillan of Malta, which I took and read when we went to Malta.
Ruark's books are a good read too, Uhuru is a classic, set against the background of the Mau Mau terrorist war in Kenya. So many books .......
Re: What book are you currently reading?
An ideal read there as I think he lived in Gozo for years before he died.
- ian16th
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
Thanks, One of them isn't!
I do have an almost full set of 1st editions, of the Bernard Cornwell Sharpe novels. One signed, but on a sticker.
Cynicism improves with age
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
An excellent series! Only read a few so far but....Bernard Cornwell Sharpe novels
You only live twice. Once when you're born. Once when you've looked death in the face.
- ian16th
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Re: What book are you currently reading?
Now that the series is finished, it seems, you can read them in chronological sequence.Pinky the pilot wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2020 11:28 amAn excellent series! Only read a few so far but....Bernard Cornwell Sharpe novels
Its interesting to read how he 'filled in the blanks' from reading the ones that he wrote later, about Sharpe's early days in India.
Of course before you read any of the Sharpe novels, you should read C.S. Foresters 'Death to the French'. It was Cornwell's inspiration.
Cynicism improves with age