Author Topic: Review the latest book you have read  (Read 6426 times)

Offline Mayhemic.MAD

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #45 on: 05-10-2010, 19:10:23 »
Sorry for double post, but I like this thread :)

So i´ve been reading some more books about WW2 the last two weeks.

Guy Sawjer - The Forgotten Soldier
A damn impressive book.
Many authors try to state only facts that "happened" and account for every day. Not like sawyer. He tells what happened from his subjective viewpoint and states not only emotionless facts. Sometimes this can be annoying when you don´t have a clue what his is talking about (geschnauz ?!) and you just wish that he would be more precise. Best compared to Willy Peter Reese "Stranger to myself".
Compared to the other eastern front books i´ve read, this one might give you a bit of a chaotic impression about the German army in Russia. From this book it seems to be very unorganized mostly. Reasons might be that he was serving in army group center from late 1942 and lived through the Stalingrad retreat and later in east Prussia were chaos was all around and his german wasn´t the best as well.

It´s unbelievable what humans can survive.

Wilhelm Johnen - Duell unter den Sternen
Biography of a German Night-fighter pilot who fought with his ME110 against british and american bombers during their attacks on german cities. Pretty interesting technical details about the devices they used and the development of the Night-fighter weapon in Germany.
Scary to imagine starting, landing and flying in pitch black nights with only the instruments to use. Closing in on the shadows of enemy bombers, shooting only regularly when less than 50 meters distance.
Climbing to 5000 or 6000 meters, they could see the fires from Berlin and Kassel and Duisburg and Leipzig for hundreds of miles. He said that in late 1944 Berlin was burning for several weeks. With the sky over Germany a constant deep red glow it must have been hard to go out night after night without the slightest hope of any meaning of this actions. He saw a lot of cities die as he fought a hopeless cause; 30 planes against 800 bombers ..
Very sad as to read about the enemy bombers exploding midair or crashing down as burning wrecks. On one occasion he tells of a british rear gunner who jumped out of his MG turret as he saw the plane appear out of the dark and went right into his propeller.
Of course this book tells of the knights spirit they had. Calling sea rescue for downed enemy planes over the north sea or how he tried to shoot the wings or engines of bombers only because he did not want to kill the enemy crew.


My WW2 book collection .. can review more books if anyone wants
http://books.google.de/books?uid=17350761908364432639&as_coll=1001&source=gbs_lp_bookshelf_list
Der Motor des Panzers ist ebenso seine Waffe wie die Kanone.
Heinz Guderian

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Offline Jobabb Jobabbsen

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #46 on: 06-10-2010, 17:10:37 »
Seems like theyre making a movie about Guy Sajer, or its maybe finished already. Really looking forward to see that  :)

Offline hOMEr_jAy

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #47 on: 06-10-2010, 17:10:58 »
I´m currently reading Sajers book, and I really love it. He´s not a hero, but a young teen in the army, going through a living hell over and over again and somehow always surviving it.
I really love the way he describes the rear of the combat lines, a thing you don´t always read about. The scene at the beginning where his train is being attacked by partisans is really exciting, for example.
A movie about this book would be really nice as it shows the war from a very unusual perspective (a half-German Alsatian fighting at the Eastern Front).
"geschnauz" is another name for the StuG IIRC. ;)
And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere,
But now the rains weep o'er his hall, with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.

Offline hslan.Corvax

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #48 on: 06-10-2010, 18:10:03 »
Whats a ... "book" ?  ???

Offline Jobabb Jobabbsen

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #49 on: 06-10-2010, 21:10:42 »
Its hard to explain what a book is ... its kinda like a long dull movie, where you have to use physical energy to turn the pages, right ?

  About Guy Sajer , i somehow really liked the part about the defence of Memel. It had such a great mood, scary, dangerous and apocalyptic, on a weird rocky shore covered with fog.
  Also some retreat over a huge river where the germans was slaughtered, and their dock was "built" with soldiers as supporting pillars. Most of the time pinned down by russians at the hill above, and planes diving down shooting their rafts too pieces. And the few who managed to cross it was sent to the prison-companies if they had lost any equipment on their wild chaotic escape.
  Or the crazy scene where Guy is escaping, beeing under direct fire, running from shellhole to shellhole for the impressing time of 9 HOURS. Thats insane. I wouldnt be able to simply run for 9 hours, even without beeing shot at. 

Offline NTH

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #50 on: 07-10-2010, 10:10:10 »
Whats a ... "book" ?  ???

It's where you put pictures in  ;D


Milton Gault roared, "Roffey, I know bloody well that Jerry knows we are here but you don't need to advertise the fact!"
(From: First in the Field, Gault of the Patricias by Jeffery Williams, page 72.)

Offline :| Hi

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #51 on: 08-10-2010, 01:10:30 »
Re-reading
We were soldiers once... an young
about landing zones Xray and the Ia Drang battle, vietnam

[2:06:54 PM] Tolga: cant use tha shit underwater -Tolga on the G3

Offline Rawhide

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #52 on: 11-10-2010, 18:10:56 »
Quote
Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven has discussed with Mouminoux the possibility of turning The Forgotten Soldier into a film

This has been a rumor for quite sometime (and the Financial crisis didn't help) but still would be great to see what Paul could do with such a book

Offline Jobabb Jobabbsen

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #53 on: 11-10-2010, 18:10:18 »

  On wiki it say it will come a movie sometimes after 2011

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_films

Offline Rawhide

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #54 on: 11-10-2010, 19:10:41 »

  On wiki it say it will come a movie sometimes after 2011

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_films
I hope so, from what I've heard all the interested parties behind the production backed out during the Financial crisis

Offline hOMEr_jAy

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #55 on: 13-11-2010, 18:11:00 »
/revive
Alright, so I finally finished The Forgotten Soldier and my oppinion I wrote about it here still stands. Great book, sure theres a great discussion going on wether it´s legit or not, but apart from that it´s a book telling an unbelievable story. These men went through hell and somehow made it back again. What the common soldier went through on the Eastern Front was pure terror and now I can fully understand why my grandfathers didn´t really want to talk about what they experienced.

Now that I finished said book I started reading a new one, again. It´s "War" by Sebastian Junger, an embedded journalist who stays embedded with an US Army plattoon and follows them into Korengal Valley, in Afghanistan. The book was also made into a movie, called "Restrepo" and both the book and the movie got a really good rating, so I´m really excited to read it.
And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere,
But now the rains weep o'er his hall, with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.

Offline Mayhemic.MAD

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #56 on: 13-11-2010, 21:11:28 »
Recently finished
Will Fey - Panzerkampf im Bild. Panzerkommandanten berichten
(Tank Warfare in Pictures. Tank Commanders give account.)
http://www.amazon.de/Panzerkampf-im-Bild-Panzerkommandanten-berichten/dp/3895550345/

Really worth the money if you want to get an insight into German Tank Warfare in WW2.
Large size with more than 400 pages. About half of this are pictures (some double sided) and the other half is him telling about the different operations the SS Panzer divisions were in, each with a few accounts from him or other tank commanders or crew who got deployed in this operations.
It starts in Russia 1943, from the fierce tank battles on the eastern front like charkov and kursk, to the tough battles in the Normandy landscape where tanks were often deployed alone. Storys from participants of the Ardennes offensive and the final battles in hungary and vienna are also there as well as his personal account from the Russian breakthrough on the Oder front at April 1945. Very impressing was the story from a tank commander who broke with the 9th army out of the pocket of Halbe and the several accounts from the last fights in Berlin and the last escapes.
Downside of the many different accounts is that it is not easy to figure out were Will Fey really participated during the end but instead it has many amazing reports from the guys inside their steel monsters and their actions, showing an unbelievable contempt of death.
Der Motor des Panzers ist ebenso seine Waffe wie die Kanone.
Heinz Guderian

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Offline Unleashed

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #57 on: 13-11-2010, 22:11:15 »
Just finished Orwell's Coming up for air

Although it looks like a shallow account of someone reliving his youth, it's actually quite a detailed and scary picture of an intellectual mind in the UK right before WWII. Some descriptions in this book (it was finished in '39) are true prophecies about the horrors that the war would bring to England less than a year later. Interestingly, some of the things that Orwell speaks about in this novel are still the same in the UK today!

If you like books like "Hommage to Catalonia" or "Burmese Days", I can only recommend this novel!

At the moment I'm fighting my way through Ernst Jünger's "On the marble cliffs". Imho too philosophical and not very pleasent for the reader, but the author must have been very brave to publish this in the 3rd Reich as it contains some very direct critic of Hitler and the Nazis.
I wanna dance with the sun - reborn as a flame
This is the final chance - for glory and victory
I feel the honey in my veins - so bitter and so sweet
I wanna see the eagles fly - before I depart to die.

Offline Yustax

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #58 on: 13-11-2010, 23:11:46 »
Dexter - Dexter is Delicious.

Another great book by Jedd Lindsay.

I greatly enjoy the work of Lindsay; and the books are better than the series in my opinion. It has that wicked black humor and human primal behaviour that I like so much while keeping you on laughs about certain situations.

This book its about cannibalism, and it surprised me how easily its to get into the book, from the first page out to the 256 one.

I recommend it; in fact I recommend that you read all Dexter books, they are very good and well done.

Offline :| Hi

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Re: Review the latest book you have read
« Reply #59 on: 13-11-2010, 23:11:29 »
Currently reading: SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam

46 pages in and its good so far. Full review when I'm done
« Last Edit: 13-11-2010, 23:11:08 by 9.Pz Erich »

[2:06:54 PM] Tolga: cant use tha shit underwater -Tolga on the G3