What Are You Reading?

Fried, Let us know what you think of the Burleigh book. I bought it a few months ago, thought it would be a great read but a great number of pages!!! Am very interested in reading this but want to know if it is worthwhile...

Would appreciate any thoughts on the book!

TIA

Stevin

 

Alright, Stevin.

Think it has alright so far. Very good introduction with many literary annalysis —Hannah Arendt and George Orwell.

His phraise of Ebert and the Weimar early régime is quite good, but he still keeps the sense of German megalomania, militarism, racism and anti-democratic feelings. Just hope he doesn't contradict himself later by trying to justificate or apologise the German people.

I bought a pocket edition —still huge, 1.300 pages— for $8 but I hate that it has no end notes! These kind of books must have 1/5 of their pages of notes. Otherwise, I might disthrust the information…

I'll keep you informed on the book, Stevin.

 

Fried, Thanks, I appreciate it! I am a bit of a slow reader, so starting on almost 1,000 page book is an undertaking for me...

my hard back edition got over 100 pages of end notes!

 

Well, I read Burleigh's book and let me tell you it was a long read definetly but very worth while. I had to bear through alot of it with it's jibberish words but it was a very insightful look into the Third Reich. Go for it Stevin and enjoy but bear through the jibberish part.

 

When Burleigh's book came out a couple of years back the reviews were unanimously very good indeed.

He is now regarded as one of the UKs foremost Third Reich historians currently working.

 

Thanks very much guys! Your remarks definately made me put the book on top of the To Read list...

However, the last few days were very exciting for me in terms of on-going research. After years of looking for information on S/Sgt Barker of the 8th Combat Camera Unit (thread about this was unfortunately KIA), in my January 11, 1944 research, and finding ZILCH on the man or his unit, the last few days I found my mailbox being avalanched with mails with information from (family of) veterans from the unit and those who knew S/Sgt Barker.

The Jan.11 reserach has taken a flight the last few months and I am going to concentrate on that for the time being.

WHOHOO!

An (over-)excited Stevin

 

Bad news about Burleigh's book: he mentions colonel Thorwalt being sent into Stalingrad to fight Zaitsev…

But I didn't expect a lot of accurate military information…

 

Finishing "Diplomacy" by H. Kissinger and "Panzer Lehr Division" by Jean Claude Perrigault

Best Regards
Clausewitz

 

Just started, and almost finished, Von Luck's 'Panzer Commander' A very good read finding hard to put down. I would rate it up there with Baron de Marbot's Memoirs of the Napoleonic Wars which, IMHO, is one of the best war memoirs out there.

 

Hmmmm...

I like Von Lucks memoir but dont you find him a little too 'perfect'???

 

A little. But it is a good read. He has a very conservative view on everything though.

 

Reading through Flaubert's "Madame Bovary". Very enjoyable classic book and Max Aub's "Exemplary Crimes" —very, very funny reading.

 

Moving away from Friedrich's highbrow stuff ( ) I'm quite enjoying Dilip Sarkar's 'Bader's Tangmere Spitfires - The Untold Story 1941' .

Although he does great research I can find Mr S a little self-aggrandizing ; but this book offers good insights into Fighter Command's 'Leaning Into France' period which is overshadowed by the BofB.

 

Just picked up a very interesting book in my local book shop.

The sword and The Cross by Fergus Fleming about Colonial France and Algeria, its about two French explorers of the time 1890-1910 and how they conqured the Sahara, Henri Larerrine and Viscounte Charles de Foucauld, two very different men. Very intereting read can't put it down. Anyone else read this book. Its a cracker!

 

Just finishing a book on "Red Orchestra" on the Russian spy network in Nazi Germany.

Finished a book on the peace negotiations between USSR and Finland in Sept 1944. Molotov was definitely a total ***hole.

At the moment reading a book called "The Gretchen Army" on women´s behaviour and the code Himmler gave them in nazi Germany.

Next going to read "Erich Hartmann; German Fighter Ace; Schiffer Military Histor". Has a great deal of pics from childhood to old age.

 

Deffinatly not WW2, i'm currently reading Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome.

I did pick up a copy of Speer's Inside the Third Reich a few weeks back, anyone got any comments on that.

 

Currently reading John Terraine's To Win a War; 1918 - The Year of Victory, having recently finished The Right of the Line by the same.

 

Having finished those two, I've now dashed through Heinz Knoke's I Flew for the Fuhrer and have nearly finished John Golley's Day of the Typhoon.

 

Have just finished reading the Osprey series for the Great War: "The Eastern Front 1914-1918" and "The Western Front 1914-1916". VERY, VERY good tittles. I like them much more detailed, but these two were great.

Now I'm looking forward to purchase all the Osprey tittles I can get my hands on, which I found in a comic shop around here.

 

Osprey titles are generally good, but some of them strike me as being overpriced. I expect they would be a bargain if I could find them somewhere second hand.