Last Book That You Read- Non- Fiction

Quite the mouthful by the sounds of it.

MI9: Escape and Evasion 1939-1945 MRD Foot and JM Langley.

The late Foot was known as "Mr Resistance" such was his works on the French Resistance, SOE etc. Helped (such as it was) in him being a PoW in 1944. Likewise Langley worked in MI9. MI9 were one of those MI's that existed only in WWII. In this case they helped PoW's with escape or evasion with networks across Europe, trained aircrews in case they got shot down and so forth.
Fascinating, written at a time when much was still classified (even says that some files would be declassified in 2010) and a time when Britons had backbone.

Ian Fleming's The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities

in the latter his description of Bahrain airport was deffo a "Fleming line that tickled you".

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Ian Fleming's The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities

in the latter his description of Bahrain airport was deffo a "Fleming line that tickled you".

Two very good choices; especially Thrilling Cities - some very good stuff in there!

Andrew Lycett's Ian Fleming

always curious in these books when they address the subject with the Christian name. "Ian wrote OHMSS in a week..." for example (not that he did). Interesting book filling in gaps in what I knew of Fleming. Kind of funny after Trevor Howard and then I believe Todd or Mason was suggested to him, Fleming then says a relatively unknown if inexperienced man surrounded by experienced actors.
He had a heck of a life though and well connected both via family and not. His end nonetheless sad though perhaps typical of the man to apologise to the ambulancemen for coming what with the traffic and all.
Equally tragic, son Caspar. For them, the world was not enough.

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti

If any of you guys are netflix lovers, consider this a better version of the documentary Dirty Wars. Mark Mazzetti, who is a great reporter over at NYTimes, shows in capable detail how the shadow war waged by the US has altered in the last ten plus years. Yet the book suffers from some of the same issues I have with Dirty Wars; arguments or retellings relating to top secret national security issues are hard to cover using broad brush strokes and a lack of access to key decision makers and classified information. However, the book is still interesting to see how the CIA has adapted to both institutions like JSOC and private defense companies.

I recommend it to anyone interested in national security/intelligence topics.

Licoln Child & Douglas Preston - White Fire

Once again a nice piece of Americana in a Pendergast novel, a some Sherlock Holmes for good measure, well advised

Carlos D'este's Patton: A Genius for War.

Remains a remarkable book debunking some of the film but painting a fantastic picture of the man and his life.

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Erica Ambler wrote:

The Morning After - Katie Roiphe

Quote :

When Katie Roiphe arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1986, she found that the feminism she had been raised to believe in had been radically transformed. The women's movement, which had once signaled such strength and courage, now seemed lodged in a foundation of weakness and fear. At Harvard, and later as a graduate student at Princeton, Roiphe saw a thoroughly new phenomenon taking shape on campus: the emergence of a culture captivated by victimization, and of a new bedroom politics in the university, cloaked in outdated assumptions about the way men and women experience sex. Men were the silencers and women the silenced, and if anyone thought differently no one was saying so. Twenty-four-year-old Katie Roiphe is the first of her generation to speak out publicly against the intolerant turn the women's movement has taken, and in The Morning After she casts a critical eye on what she calls the mating rituals of a rape-sensitive community. From Take Back the Night marches (which Roiphe terms "march as therapy",and "rhapsodies of self-affirmation") to rape-crisis feminists and the growing campus concern with sexual harassment, Roiphe shows us a generation of women whose values are strikingly similar to those their mothers and grandmothers fought so hard to escape from - a generation yearning for regulation, fearful of its sexuality, and animated by a nostalgia for days of greater social control. At once a fierce excoriation of establishment feminism and a passionate call to our best instincts, The Morning After sounds a necessary alarm and entreats women of all ages to take stock of where they came from and where they want to go.

The sad thing about reading this again is that, 20 years on, nothing has changed. Except it's now Prof Roiphe and she's made a career out of this stuff. I'm reminded of what my old history teacher said: "Women will never amount to anything in this discipline, because they've created a ghetto all for themselves." Sadly, I think she was right.

Might have to track this down to give it a read.

Have you picked up Quadrant Ambler? Had an interesting article on 'Feminazis and the devaluation of human life' (i.e. abortion).

Spent about 12 days reading Roy Jenkins' Churchill biography. Mine is a dog-eared, 14 year old copy (much used for my dissertation such good it did me) but the content remains the same and that is to say, gripping. Some might say for the good, but we'll never see the like of Winston Churchill again. More's the pity.

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Spent about 12 days reading Roy Jenkins' Churchill biography. Mine is a dog-eared, 14 year old copy (much used for my dissertation such good it did me) but the content remains the same and that is to say, gripping. Some might say for the good, but we'll never see the like of Winston Churchill again. More's the pity.

Boris Johnson is our last hope...albeit a watered down version.

As Winston might've said, some hope, some water.

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Hilly KCMG wrote:

As Winston might've said, some hope, some water.

"Some chicken, some neck!"

Currently reading INTO THE WILD by John Krakauer. The movie, INTO THE WILD, starring Emile Hirsche, was based off this book and tragic story of a lost soul...a wayward young man who gave up all he had...social connections, privilege, money, credit, clothes, a car, education...in order to hitchhike across the country, live as a tramp, and eventually hike into the Alaskan National Forest; a trek that would prove sad and fatal. Captivating book...hard to put down.

x

Erica Ambler wrote:

The Trouble with Europe
by Roger Bootle

Excellent analysis of how the UK found itself ruled by a bunch of third-rate nations.

'Fascist, innit.' -- Sabine

Ben Macintyre's A Spy Among Friends looking at the Philby betrayal through and around his friendship with Nicholas Elliott. Elliott in his darker moments must surely have felt the worlds biggest fool when Philby buggered off to Moscow. Can't help feel disdain for Philby but then marvel at how these intelligence agencies operated as boys clubs all the while. Everyone in London at one point and their dog seemed to know Elliott worked for SIS.

Little Failure, Gary Shteyngart's autobiography. This is the funniest book I've read in a long, long time. Shteyngart's family left the USSR for the US in 1979 where they were accepted as refugees. Changing one system of lies for another, they raise their son in a curious mix of socialist by-the-book ideology and a - wickedly hilarious! - unwavering faith in the neon promises of ads and commercials. The Shteyngarts receive their fake cheques and notifications of winning in the lottery often enough as 'Shitgarts' but never once question the dubious reality around them, in a way they never really leave their naïveté behind, though now it's a sharkish greed they are out to cultivate. Amid the violent clash of cultures, Russian, Jewish and what they perceive as American their son becomes "Failurchka", his mother's pidgin for "Little Failure" because she realises he won't likely become a lawyer.

Gary himself didn't subscribe to his parent's brand of Russo-American pseudo-religious hooray-nationalism, he was bullied too long and hard as "Shitfart" at school and had not many illusions left after this true American childhood. He had his hands full with besting his brutal schoolfellows at their own language, took his Americanisation seriously and set out on his own path. A teacher in acting class chides him as fake and manipulative, Gary's silent answer is simply 'This is New York'. You seldom find a more fitting - and in the age of the Internet more relevant - commentary on a character's journey. I loved it!

Anyone know of any good books about the Cold War?

Currently reading Christopher Lee's autobiography 'Lord of Misrule'. Been sitting on my self since '09. Only a couple of chapters in but very fascinating so far. His mother's family comes from a region in Italy that's very close to where my mum's family comes from. And there is a mention of Ian Fleming, though he hasn't met him yet.

Currently alternating between 'So, Anyway ... ' (John Cleese's autobiography) and 'Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse' (a compilation of David Mitchell's Guardian columns) for my bedtime reading.

Just finished THE LOST CITY OF Z (Five-Stars). Had bought the book over the summer and just now got around to reading it after finding out that a movie had not only been made about the subject, but was coming out soon with Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland (excellent in Captain America:Civil War; made me interested in SPIDER-MAN again) and Robert Pattinson.

Just started: "AFRICANS IN AMERICA: America's Journey Through Slavery".