Books I am reading

I have always had a penchant for reading too many books at the same time. I have numerous interests and too little time. In 1993, I found that I have started too many books and have been rather listless. I had just too many unfinished volumes lying in a large pile. I had sometimes abandoned books with somewhat dense prose for easier reads. This, I found, to be a somewhat sorry state of affairs, hence, I endeavoured to end this little habit. I started recording the books that I have finished reading, starting with magic realism, fantasy and science fiction, hence, a book list was created. This assisted me by fostering a sense of achievement. I was more apt to finish a volume once I had started.

Anyway, presently, I had fallen into my age-old habit of reading too many things at the same time.

Last week, I finished Tim Flannery’s rather disorganised ‘The Weather Makers’. The book had too many leaps in reasoning throughout, lacking clear elaboration and it wasn’t until the last section on possible solutions that experienced writer Flannery started to be focused. Diamond, in ‘Collapse’, despite being whimsical at times and meandering all over the place, was more effective in conveying ideas. Even then, ‘The Weather Makers’ is recommended.

I have on my bedside Ken Macleod’s ‘Learning the World’, a science fiction novel on first contact. Macleod is a British writer who is known for espousing utopian communist worlds in his book and some have said that he is extremely strident in his views. I have only read a chapter. I can’t say more.

I am also in the midst of the rather dreadful novel, ‘Artifact’, by known hard SF writer Gregory Benford. Benford is a known professor and is best known for ‘Timescape’. ‘Artifact’ features paper thin European racial stereotypes, unconvincing characters who spend time glancing at women, sizing them up and convincing ugly American characters. Funny eh? It’s probably inadvertent. Where is the science? I have half a mind to stop reading this rather tiresome novel now.

I am midway through ‘Introducing Anthropology’ by Merryl Wyn Davies. This is something new for me. It has been both intriguing and fascinating so far. I wonder if there is any relation to a lot of radical work on post-colonial studies.

After reading Wedgwood and part of Parker’s ‘Thirty Years’ War’, I wanted something that is more concise and illustrative. Richard Bonney’s ‘The Thirty Years’ War: 1618-1648’ fits the criteria perfectly. The work from the Osprey Essential History series offers a chronology, background and causes, narrative history, the portraits of some of the participants including common mercenary soldiers, civilians, the conclusion and consequences and more. The volume is lavishly illustrated. Recommended.

I have also been flipping through the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide to Istanbul. Again, the lavish illustrations within impress. I prefer DK over Fodor, Lonely Planet and others.

I have read a little of J.R. Hale’s classic ‘War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620’. This will be a challenging read and it will take considerable amount of time. I will probably lay off this for now.

Meanwhile, I have read a third of Colin Imber’s ‘The Ottoman Empire: 1300-1650 The Structure of Power’, a rather fascinating study on the power structure, the chronology of the rise and, of course, the army and navy.

In the midst of all these books, I picked up Rory Muir’s ‘Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon’ and Philip J. Haythornthwaite’s ‘The Napoleonic Source Book’ from my shelves to search on information on the Waterloo campaign and the experience of the infantry squares and if it had often been broken by cavalry. Well, the square was supposedly invincible mostly. Earlier, Terence, Sng and I had played an old Avalon Hill game ‘Napoleon’ against Seow Buay and also June Hwang. ‘Napoleon’ is now published by Columbia Games.

I also peeked at Robert Graves eloquent fictional yet hardly historical account of Belisarius. Marvellous writing.

I gave Adam Tooze’s hefty ‘The Wages of Destruction: The making and breaking of the Nazi economy’ a glimpse. I won’t be reading this anytime soon.

I read a few chapters of John Gribbin’s ‘Father to the Man’, a SF novel of intelligent life and also increasing global disruption. I am distracted! I will need to drop this and then get back to it in future.

I also did some reading in the events leading to September 4^th, 1939 in Lt-Colonel E. Bauer’s superlative one volume history ‘The History of the Second World War’. As the events showed, the Poles did not even have the opportunity to cede Danzig, the Nazis were dead set on war.

I looked up the development history of the M24 and M41 again after the coup in Thailand. The reference volume consulted? ‘Camp Colt to Desert Storm: The History of the US Armoured Forces’. While looking that up, I read the chapter on J. Walter Christie’s association with the US Army. I followed that up with the sections on the early British Cruiser Tanks Mark II, Mark III and Mark IV which featured the Christie suspension. ‘British and American Tanks of World War II: The complete illustrated history of British, American and Commonwealth tanks, 1939-1945’ by Peter Chamberlain and Chris Ellis is the definite single volume on British, American and Commonwealth AFVs. There is a softcover reprint out. Not to be missed.

I also had the ‘World Encycopedia of the Tank’ by Christopher Chant out. I was looking up a few details on the Vickers Six Ton Tank.

I don’t what came over me when I took the Soviet General Staff Study of the Battle for Kursk 1943 out of my shelves. I checked certain statistics before returning it to my shelf.

I also finished reading two illustrated volumes published by Concord Publications on the Waffen-SS last night.

Finally, I am halfway through Eric Christiansen’s ‘The Northern Crusades’, the only volume of its kind dealing in the crusades in the Baltic region in existence. I will be focusing most of my energy in reading this volume first, hopefully finishing it within the week. While reading this, I took out a book on the Teutonic Knights by William Urban for a swift glance through as well as something on Swedish castles.

As usual, I am curious as to what everyone is reading. What are you reading?