What Are You Reading Now?

[OhioBlue]

Just finished Animal Farm and a Dean Koontz book called Breathless.

One of the two was a supreme waste of time and probably one of the crappier books I've ever read.

The other one was good.

[il Padrino Ute]

Just finished Animal Farm and a Dean Koontz book called Breathless.

One of the two was a supreme waste of time and probably one of the crappier books I've ever read.

The other one was good.

You're going to make us decide which was good and which was crap? C'mon, doc. This ain't therapy. You tell us your opinion.

[LA Ute]

You're going to make us decide which was good and which was crap? C'mon, doc. This ain't therapy. You tell us your opinion.

I've heard that Animal Farm is a pretty good book.

[dabrockster]

Just finished Blood Meridian. Meh.. I felt like I had to force myself to finish the book. It wasn't one where I couldn't put down or stop thinking about..

[Flattop]

Did you read the hardback or paperback. The hardback edition I read had some annoying proofreading errors ( things like calibers of arty that the US didn't use, bombidier was a sgt and had been to bombidier school thing like that) I was wondering if they had cleaned them up for the paperback release

Paperback. I would have caught the bombardier rank error. I don't recall his rank being given during the story, so they must have fixed it. In the Afterword his rank is given as lieutenant.

As for artillery, I know the US had 75s and 105s, but beyond that. . . .

[happyone]

Paperback. I would have caught the bombardier rank error. I don't recall his rank being given during the story, so they must have fixed it. In the Afterword his rank is given as lieutenant.

As for artillery, I know the US had 75s and 105s, but beyond that. . . .

The scene were the guys from the 106th run across a arty lt and they try and encourage him to come with them. He won't because he won't leave his gun. The edition I read says the gun is a 150 mm howitzer. In the standard like inf divs like the 106th, the US used 105mm's in the direct support arty bn's and 155mm's in the gen support bn. The 75 were used in light div's direct support arty bn's and the 105's went to the gen support arty, like airborne, mountain and marine divs
I know this makes me way to knowledgable about things like that, but ...

[Flattop]

The scene were the guys from the 106th run across a arty lt and they try and encourage him to come with them. He won't because he won't leave his gun. The edition I read says the gun is a 150 mm howitzer. In the standard like inf divs like the 106th, the US used 105mm's in the direct support arty bn's and 155mm's in the gen support bn. The 75 were used in light div's direct support arty bn's and the 105's went to the gen support arty, like airborne, mountain and marine divs
I know this makes me way to knowledgable about things like that, but ...

I could start talking about the main and secondary batteries of U.S. warships during World War II. Or the characteristics of the aircraft in U.S. Navy carrier air groups. Wouldn't that be fun. . . ?

In the paperback the size of the artillery piece is corrected to 105mm. Probably just a silly typo in the hardback.

[Slim]

I just finished reading "The House of God" by Samuel Shem published in 1978. It is about the psychological damage experienced by first year medical interns. The book was very cynical and very graphic.

Basically the new doctors learn that the less they do for the older patients the better because the complications of their various tests and procedures ended up doing more harm than good.

Also they learn that screwing the young women that staff the hospital leads to favors that help them run a more efficient hospital.

[LA Ute]

I just finished reading "The House of God" by Samuel Shem published in 1978. It is about the psychological damage experienced by first year medical interns. The book was very cynical and very graphic.

Basically the new doctors learn that the less they do for the older patients the better because the complications of their various tests and procedures ended up doing more harm than good.

Also they learn that screwing the young women that staff the hospital leads to favors that help them run a more efficient hospital.

Cardiac and Jarid can tell us if that book's dated now. I read it in the early 90s and was being told then that residencies were changing. Not being a practitioner of the healing arts myself, I cannot say.

[CardiacCoug]

I just finished reading "The House of God" by Samuel Shem published in 1978. It is about the psychological damage experienced by first year medical interns. The book was very cynical and very graphic.

Basically the new doctors learn that the less they do for the older patients the better because the complications of their various tests and procedures ended up doing more harm than good.

Also they learn that screwing the young women that staff the hospital leads to favors that help them run a more efficient hospital.

I read that book at some point during my own residency. I thought it was pretty entertaining.

I agree with LA Ute that it comes off as pretty dated. For one thing, there have been some scandals at academic centers regarding Medicare billing by attending physicians when all the documentation is done by residents. Attending physicians are generally a lot more involved in patient care these days than as portrayed in House of God.

That said, there were some funny things that reminded me of my med school and residency. We had a few attendings at the VA (where everything is computerized) who weren't able to log on to the computers so they had to rely completely on what we told them. Sometimes we definitely kept them on a "need to know" basis. With a lot of elderly patients, it seems that "less is more" -- so that is also something from the book that still rings very true.

[Flattop]

Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S. by Kenneth Sewell with Clint Richmond.

From the truth is stranger than fiction department, a book about a Soviet ballistic missile submarine sinking near the Hawaiian Leeward Islands, some 360 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor in March 1968. What was he doing there, and why did he sink? Why did the United States spend millions of dollars to try and steal the submarine from off the ocean floor, and how successful was that effort?

The author, a former submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, seeks to answer those questions while examining what intelligence he has been able to access. Though more than 40 years have passed since the incident, the intelligence is still one of the most highly guarded secrets of the Cold War. Only bits and pieces of the story have leaked, while those in the know continue to keep quiet, except on conditions of anonymity.

This story, first revealed in a book titled Blind Man's Bluff in 1998, is the single most incredible that I have ever encountered. You can't make stuff like this up! Your average technothriller pales in comparison. This book has been a great read so far. I guess the only question would be how accurate the author's conclusions are.

[Mr Incredible]

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

[happyone]

Finally finished Cromwell, the Lord Protector. It was a slog. This is not her best work. If anything Fraser is way too detailed. She details accounting info, personal corresondance, what he had for breakfast on a given day. That said howerver, it was a really good portrait of the man who really shook up the 17th century. All in all it is a sympathetic portrail of Cromwell and his times. She even excused his excesses in Ireland somewhat. She says that is just the way wars were fought then. Tradionally, if an army took a city by storm, all hell broke lose. If the city surrendered before being taken, they inhabitants were treated humanly. You have to remember this is just a generation after the 30 yrs war in Germany which was every bit as nasty as the sieges as Drogheda and Wexford. That said what happened there by modern standards were war crimes and explains the antipathy many of Irish decent have towards him to this day.

In general she paints the portrait of a very devout man who tried to do his best as he understood it. It is also a good look at the reasons behind the English Civil Wars and the politics in finally executing Charles I.

Interesting Facts
- His great grandmother was the sister of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's prime minister and responsible for Anne Boylens death and the disolution of the monestaries. His family took the Cromwell name the generation before he was born.
- He was a rather obscure MP from Huntingdon at the start of the English Civil war, but rose quickly to become the Commander of Calvery for the Parlementary Army by Marston Moor and Naseby.
- He was not the commander of the Parlimentary Army until after Charles I was executed and only then was he appointed because the previous commander, Thomas Fairfax, didn't want to go to Ireland.
- After the Resoration in 1661, his body was disinterred and it was drawn and quartered. His body was decapitated and his head was put on a spike at Westminster Hall until 1685 when a storm blew it down. A guard found it and took it home and hid it. It was sold to a collector in the early 1700s and displayed in private muesems and as side show item. It passed through various "collectors" until the Victorian age when it was taken off display. The owners eventually donated the head to Sidney Sussex College - Oxford and it was buried in secret in 1960.

Haven't decided on what to read next, either Escape from Davao by John Lukacs or Captive Queen by Alison Weir

[Flattop]

When the Odds were Even: The Vosges Mountains Campaign, October 1944-January 1945 by Keith E. Bonn

There are some who argue that the Americans prevailed on the battlefields of Europe only because of material superiority and air power. Some of these folks are even Americans, and they believe that the U.S. Army should adopt the military doctrine of the defeated German army. Bonn disagrees and argues that this view of German doctrine vs U.S. doctrine is the result of a misapplication of history. He contends that a true comparitive study would require finding a campaign in which the advantages of both sides were obviated, when the odds were even. The campaign of the U.S. Seventh Army against the German Nineteenth Army in the Vosges provides such a circumstance.

The Americans held numerical advantage in troops of roughly 1.35 to 1, but the Germans held the advantage of defending known terrain in prepared positions, and of living in shelters in increasingly bad weather, which significantly reduced their cold weather casualties and contributed to higher morale. Additionally, the weather obviated the role of air power while terrain offset the American numerical advantage in armor. "The victor, therefore, would be decided not by numbers, air power, or armor superiority," writes Bonn, "but by training and tactical proficiency."

By applying lessons learned in the mountains of Italy, the 3rd and 36th Infantry Divisions, along with the rest of the Seventh Army did what no other army had ever done, cross the Vosges Mountains in a victorious military campaign.

Excellent.

[Maximus]

Just finished A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran by Reza Kahlili.

It is a true story and a very intriguing book. He was in the revolutionary guard, studied in america at USC, and decided to spy as a member of the guard for the CIA, after seeing the atrocities committed by the Iranian leaders.