BF2S Forums BF3s Book Club

rdx-fx wrote:

Recommend.
House to House SSG David Bellavia

http://www.amazon.com/House-Soldiers-Me … amp;sr=1-1

FEOS wrote:

Recommend:

The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, both by Khaled Hosseini.

The writing style is immersive, taking the reader back to pre-Soviet invasion Afghanistan, through civil war and Taliban rule. Helps a westerner better understand the many cultural schisms that make up Afghan society.

In the middle of A Thousand Splendid Suns right now.

ghettoperson wrote:

DC Confidential by Christopher Meyer

'Blair was pretty determined to go all the way with President Bush not because he's hanging on to this relationship for dear life but because he truly believed that Saddam Hussein was an offence to the integrity of the UN.'

Christopher Meyer was Ambassador to the United States from 1997 to 2003, during which time he was an eyewitness to and participant in the events following 9/11 and the preparations for the Iraq war. Never before has there been such a riveting and candid memoir of life behind the diplomatic scenes. Meyer's is an honest account of what he saw, what he heard and how he felt.

The cast list of characters who feature here includes Margaret Thatcher, Bob Hope, the Clintons, Steven Spielberg, Condoleeza Rice, Alastair Campbell and Jack Straw. The book reveals close encounters with Tony Blair, Robin Cook and Peter Mandelson; KGB honey traps in Russia; a major row with Bill Clinton; inside stories on Number 10 and the Foreign Office; and of course life behind the scenes with Blair and George W. Bush. It was clear that the Prime Minister's office and not the Foreign Office would control relations with Washington, and Meyer shows in close up how he helped facilitate the 'special relationship'.

For anyone whose definition of a diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for their country, Christopher Meyer's memoir is the perfect rejoinder. It will also be hailed as one of the most important political memoirs of the decade.

http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/HB-36992/dc … ntial-.htm

I first read this book two years ago, and have been meaning to reread it for a while. Well, now that I'm home from uni, I'm part way through, but it suddenly occured to me that the intellectual machine that is D&ST might be interested

Anyway, if you can't be bothered to read the PR blurb, it's the memoirs of the former British Ambassador to the United States, starting with his first appointment to Downing Street in 1994. From this position he was privy to all kinds of information, and especially high on the list at the time of his retirement, the war in Iraq. It's not all about that though, and provides a great insight into political life, as well as a personal look at all the major figures in British and American government.

Wiki on the author

ghettoperson wrote:

Making a Killing by James Ashcroft

Between coalition troops and the Iraqi security forces lies an unnamed and uncounted third column:  soldiers of fortune.  In September 2003, James Ashcroft, a former British Infantry captain who served in West Belfast and Bosnia, landed in Iraq as a 'gun for hire'.  It was the beginning of an 18-month journey into chaos.  Ashcroft provides a first-hand view of the secret world of private security where ex-soldiers employed to protect US and British interests can make up to $1,000 a day.  But he also reveals a new kind of warfare where the rules - if you can call them that - are still being written.

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Killing-Ja … 1852273119

I bought it a few days ago when I was at the airport, and it's a great insight into what Iraq is really like, and paints quite a different picture to what you hear in the media; especially with regard to all the good that occurs every day there, with both troops, contractors and Iraqi's. Ashcroft also appears quite informed in Iraqi history, so it isn't entirely an action novel, but also a lot of analysis of the problems that face the people on the ground there.

Obviously I don't expect everyone to rush out and buy it, but if you're interested in the Iraq conflict and get the opportunity to read it, I would most definitely recommend it.

Last edited by ghettoperson (2009-01-05 06:25:20)

Amazon.co.uk wrote:

This is a comprehensive account of the behind-the-lines missions that supported the D-Day landings and the breakout from Normandy. The SAS mounted 36 operations behind enemy lines, sabotaging railways, calling in airstrikes and ambushing German units on their way to the battlefront. Some achieved results out of all proportion to the small numbers of SAS involved. Others, like the ill-fated 'Operation Bulbasket', led to the capture and execution of many SAS men. It is a sanguinary tale that exposes the limits as well as the potential of elite military units and the civilian resistance movements they fought alongside.

Between D-Day and October 1944 the SAS Brigade mounted some thirty-six operations behind German lines in France. This is the first comprehensive history and assessment of these missions. Some achieved exactly the sort of success intended, tying down disproportionate numbers of German forces and fanning into fierce flames the sparks of resistance kept alive by the French maquisards. Others, most notoriously 'Operation Bulbasket', were disastrous failures leading the deaths of many SAS personnel and resistance fighters. One controversial issue explored by Roger Ford is the degree to which British officers knew about Hitler's order to execute captured 'commandos'. The SAS men captured at Verrières were murdered in cold blood, a war crime for which several German served short prison sentences after the war. Should they have known the Germans would not treat them as normal prisoners of war?

Amazon.co.uk wrote:

In Black Hawk Down journalist Mark Bowden delivers a strikingly detailed account of the 1993 nightmare operation in Mogadishu that left 18 American soldiers dead and many more wounded. This early foreign-policy disaster for the Clinton administration led to the resignation of Secretary of Defence Les Aspin and a total troop withdrawal from Somalia. Bowden does not spend much time considering the context; instead he provides a moment-by-moment chronicle of what happened in the air and on the ground. His gritty narrative tells of how Rangers and elite Delta Force troops embarked on a mission to capture a pair of high-ranking deputies to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid only to find themselves surrounded in a hostile African city. Their high-tech MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters had been shot down and a number of other miscues left them trapped through the night. Bowden describes Mogadishu as a place of Mad Max--like anarchy--implying strongly that there was never any peace for the supposed peacekeepers to keep. He makes full use of the defence bureaucracy's extensive paper trail--which includes official reports, investigations and even radio transcripts--to describe the combat with great accuracy, right down to the actual dialogue. He supplements this with hundreds of his own interviews, turning Black Hawk Down into a completely authentic non-fiction novel, a lively page-turner that will make readers feel like they're standing beside the embattled troops. This will quickly be realised as a modern military classic. --John J. Miller

Stalingrad is a narrative history of the epic battle fought in and around the city of Stalingrad during World War II, as well as the events leading up to it and those which occurred after.

The book starts with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, and the subsequent drive into the Soviet Union. Its main focus is the Battle of Stalingrad, and it details the following battles and war crimes committed by both sides. The book ends with the defeat of the Germans and the beginning of the Soviet advance on Germany. Beevor returned to the subject with Berlin: The Downfall 1945.

The book won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in 1999.

kylef wrote:

Kmarion wrote:

kylef wrote:

non-biased

Now that's a tough one.

Yeah hence the brackets. My opinion is 'fragile' as it is, a bit of benevolency never hurts though. Been looking around but nothing really seems to catch exactly what I'm after.

Last edited by KEN-JENNINGS (2009-01-05 21:16:26)

Varegg wrote:

TheAussieReaper wrote:

Stalingrad - Antony Beevor


It was a great read.

I find Beevor rather tiresome to read, Stalingrad was okay but Paris and a couple of others was boring ... his writing skills does not impress me tbh ...

kylef wrote:

Thanks KJ I'll took a look into that. To widen the circle a bit I guess reading both views separately wouldn't be that bad. So any single-sided recommendations?

Booklist wrote:

Sweeping in scope, brimmming with luxurious and telling detail, electric in prose style, and deeply comprehending in its understanding of the subject, this Dutch writer's magnum opus is the result of a commission he accepted from the newpaper he worked for: a record of his year-long travels throughout Europe at the end of the millennium. His charge was to see if a workable definition of Europe still had relevance—specifically, if there exists sufficient commonality among the European nations to make a definition feasible. The second layer of his writings takes the form of his simultaneous consciousness of the history of each place he visited; it came home to him during his jaunts that "all the different stages of the twentieth century are being lived, or relived, somewhere." The history of the twentieth century, he discovered, was indelibly etched into how almost all Europeans have led their lives at any point in the century. Mak moves thoroughly but nimbly through both time and location, correlating now to then in particularly dramatic episodes, resulting in a beautiful way to learn about both European history and current events.

.Sup wrote:

TheAussieReaper wrote:

Stalingrad - Antony Beevor

Stalingrad is a narrative history of the epic battle fought in and around the city of Stalingrad during World War II, as well as the events leading up to it and those which occurred after.

The book starts with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, and the subsequent drive into the Soviet Union. Its main focus is the Battle of Stalingrad, and it details the following battles and war crimes committed by both sides. The book ends with the defeat of the Germans and the beginning of the Soviet advance on Germany. Beevor returned to the subject with Berlin: The Downfall 1945.

The book won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in 1999.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e … adbook.jpg

Note: The book was published in the United States under the title of Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-43

It was a great read.

This book is win. Heard there one from the same author called Rush to Berlin or something along those lines. Read this book. Period

Last edited by Wreckognize (2009-01-11 20:04:53)