Tag archives for book review - Page 33
Defeat Into Victory
Image via Wikipedia A friend sent me a copy of Field Marshal Bill Slim's Defeat Into Victory. It has always been on my list of books I'd like to read, but somehow I'd never quite got round to acquiring a copy. The version I have is a reading copy of the original edition, with fold out maps all through it. The reading style is very engaging and easy to read, especially if you have the space to fold out the map at the end of the chapter so that you can follow all the places when they appear in the narrative. It was the first time I'd read about the ebb and flow of the war in Burma (even though my grandfather drove a DUKW out there). So I found it very interesting, the nature of warfare was hugely different that both Europe and North Africa (and I suspect even…
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Folklore of Discworld
This is the first of the 40 books I got for my birthday that I have read. While I'm not committing to reviewing them all, I have set myself an internal target to read them all before my next birthday. I'm a fan of both Terry Pratchett and folklore. I definitely learnt some things, but also knew quite a lot of it already, which perhaps reflects the four star rating rather than the five one might otherwise expect given my stated interests. You don't need to have read all the discworld novels to get this book, but you do need to be a discworld reader or a large chunk of it will be lost on you. This book is a reference list that explains how earth's folklore (primarily British, but not exclusively so) has influenced the stories, and it comes…
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Condor Blues – British soldiers at war
A very interesting book about the British Army experience from the point of view of two platoons embedded in training the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) in the aftermath of the invasion (so the first half of 2004 approximately). Both platoons belonged to the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, but one was on secondment from the PWRR. From the content of the book it is clear that it was not authorised by MOD as it is highly critical in places. Also none of the main players come out of it looking terribly good, you see their flaws and the bad side as well as the bravery and the compassion in places (as well as other emotions at other points). For example, after a severe contact two of the Iraqi insurgent casualties were found to be carrying ICDC identity cards – which…
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The Defense of Jisr Al-Doreaa
This is an excellent update of an old classic. Two books in one, the author's have brought Swinton's Duffer's Drift and re-written it for the modern conflicts (which bear more than a passing resemblance to the Boer War). Swinton's book is in the second half of the volume. The basis for Duffer''s Drift (if you aren't familiar with it already) is that a young officer en route to the Boer War has a series of dreams about his first independent command. In each dream it all goes horribly wrong, but on waking he learns some lessons which he then takes with him into the next dream (without remembering the details of the previous dream). Over the course of six dreams he manages to learn enough lessons for a successful outcome. The scenario is well set out, with appropriate maps and…
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Charlie Stross Rocks
I've just finished reading "The Jennifer Morgue", the second of Charles Stross's Laundry series (the first is the "The Atrocity Archive" and there is a third and a few more short stories as well). It is a fantastic read, I really didn't want to put it down, even though family life wouldn't let me read it all in one sitting. Avoiding spoilers the two books are both very readable and set in a sort of modern day techno-magic spy thriller piss take. The premise is that magic is just applied mathematics and there is a very low budget Government cover up, the British civil service meets Delta Green. Having been an official computer geek in the British civil service I can relate to some of this very well, which makes the humour very close to home, in a Dilbertesque sort…