Aren't they always? Otherwise they are called history :)

I'm a Jitterbug Perfume kinda guy. myself

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Too lazy to post a pic here. Half of my library consists of economics text books, books written by economists, economic journals, etc. I've probably read about 60% of the pages therein. The other half consists of books on science, technology, and philosophy. I've probably read about half of those.

OK--well,

It took me a while to even figure out what Robbins was talking/writing about--but now am well into Skinny Legs. NOT something i would have picked out on my own so I appreciate the recommendation from CC. I'll wait till the end of the book to decide whether i want to get more from the author or not. This kind of stuff i load on my Kindle.

Fixing to head back to Asscrackistan so i need some books loaded on the Kindle to read when off duty.

Our son wanted to read--and discuss--a book together during my next rotation. So for Christmas i got us both a copy of Millard's "Hero of the Empire" a bio of Churchill during the Boer War. So we will each be reading sections and discussing them over email/Whatsapp. It's history so i bought hard copy.

take good care

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Steve

Great book.

Question for the group, everyone seems to be buying books, doesn't anyone use their local public library anymore? All the books there are free. I struggle to even consider paying cash for a book. Only downside is I don't get to keep it.

I feel like an idiot when I read my daughter Dr. Seuss. If you heard me reading "Fox in Socks" you would think I'm drunk.

I do both. I like to reread and lend out books so it's nice to own, but it does get expensive. Often what I want to read has a long wait list so I might buy it instead. My library's website allows me to tag books I want to read and I can check on their availability to see if I want to put in a hold. I can sign out ebooks but my tablet isn't great to read books from and I'm not really interested in getting an ereader.

I also borrow DVDs. I think I'm 345th in line for season 7 of Game of Thrones (there are 30 copies and people tend to binge watch so it goes quickly).

And any time I go to my local library branch there are always a lot of people.

That's a big downside for me. For no rational reason I just like accumulating books. In my yoof I travelled for a bit and after 6 months 35l of my 70l backback was filled with 30+ books that I refused to give up.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

I’m a fan of John Le Carre. Great spy novels, ver well written, nuanced and everything is shades of gray. Real spies think highly of his work.

Similar vein but nonfiction - The Man Without A Face. Autobiography of the guy who ran the East German counterintelligence unit for decades. Interesting stuff.

ETA: if you like military fiction, I recommend the Richard Bolitho series by Alexander Kent. Follows an English naval officer from midshipman to admiral from roughly 1765-1812.

I try to use the library, but the problem is that I don't read the books I borrow. And I figured out why -- the books I want to read are also books that I want to mark up by underlining passages that I find meaningful, putting margin notes in, and referring back to later. This includes novels. It's hard for me to engage in the same way with a library book when I know that it's going to be returned. I borrow movies from the library occasionally and purchase used books there. Occasionally I'll borrow a book that I know will just be a one-time reference or to get into the first chapter and see if I want to purchase it, but more often than not I'll just hit the used bookstore or pick up a used copy on Amazon and save the trip to the library.

Good chance that I'm an outlier with this.

I'll assume your library contains at least a book or two by Victor Davis Hanson, but if it doesn't, might give him a try. For a preview of what to expect, this video about his latest book The Second World Wars will give you a pretty good idea.

Might as well go straight to the original: the Hornblower series by C.S. Forester. I always felt the Bolitho books were more or less just copycat off Forester's work.

Have read both series. Of the genre I greatly prefer the Aubry/Maturin series by O'Brian. Vastly superior writing style IMO

/r

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Steve

Certainly similar. Maybe it’s because I read them first but I always liked the Bolitho ones better.