Movie Theater Anyone Read A Good NON-Fiction Book Lately?

#101
Reading Full Circle, the story of roller locking from WWII to the present. Sturmgewehr, from firepower to striking power. Its about the MP43 series of rifles. Both are excellent books with a lot of history on the efforts to create and build simpler and more effective rifles for the troops.

Frank
 
#104
'Neptunes Inferno" Navy surface actions around Guadalcanal. Despite the USMC myth the the Navy abandoned them on the Island read how USN took more combat casualties than the Marines.
 
#105
I'm reading "Never Quit" right now. It is regarding a PJ and I'm only about half-way into it at the moment. So far, has to do with many rigors of the PJ selection and training process. It is also alluding to "something ominous" coming just around the bend....
 
#112
en.wikipedia.org

Dereliction of Duty (book) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

7035872
 
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#118
Many great books on this list!...

But one book I was surprised I didn't see or notice on this booklist was...Lions of Kandahar...
Holy sh!t that book/story is amazing...read it three times.

If I'd been in that rig with those guys, I would've been curled up under the dashboard laying in the spent brass, suckin' my thumb and shittin' purple twinkies...

Great book man!
 
#120
My list of must see movies and must read books. This list is not up to date. I'll add more in awhile.

Must read Books (all based on true stories unless noted)

-The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot (About where the first cancer cells to be grown in a lab came from and how the woman's family has been mistreated)
-Longitude-Lost at Sea (About how hard it was to discover an accurate way to tell Longitude on the sea and the average guy who spent 40 years fine tuning his invention and the mistreatment he received)
-South-Race to the Pole (About the discovery of the South Pole)
-Folks, This Ain't Normal by Joel Salatin (About the current state of the food industry. Written by a farmer)
-Sapiens- A Brief History of humankind (A look at how humans got where we are today)
-Isaac's storm (About the early days of weather reporting and the devastation of Galvaston, TX from a massive hurricane)
-Devil in the White City (Americas first serial killer who got victims from the Chicago Worlds Fair)
-Close to Shore (Jaws was based on this true story about a killer White at a time Americans were just beginning to enjoy the ocean and refused to believe a shark was responsible)
-The Book of Ruth (Fiction about the life of a woman but very good)
-Not Without Peril (The story about the deaths climbing Mt. Washington)
-In the heart of the sea-Nathanial Philbrick
-The Forgotten 500-Gregory A. Freeman
-The path between the seas-David McCullough
-The Wright Brothers-David McCullough
-Johnstown Flood-David McCullough
-The Great Bridge-David McCullough
-The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor-Mark Schatzker
-Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World-Jack Weatherford
-Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It-Gina Kolata
-Paper: Paging Through History-Mark Kurlansky
-Salt: A World History-Mark Kurlansky
-13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi-Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team
-Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus-Bill Wasik
-The Demon in the Freezer-Richard Preston
-Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10-Marcus Luttrell
-The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue-Michael J. Tougias
-Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster-Andrew Leatherbarrow
-The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachua-Alex Kershaw
-Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science-Richard Preston
-First Light: The Search for the Edge of the Universe-Richard Preston
-The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring-Richard Preston
-The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology-Simon Winchester
-Smallpox: The Death of a Disease: The Inside Story of Eradicating a Worldwide Killer-D. A. Henderson
-Fukushima-Mark Willacy
-Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident-William McKeown
-Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory-Michael C. Carroll
-Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th-Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles-Jon Wilkman
-The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueld the Rise of Hitler-Thomas Hager
-Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World-Jack Kelly

Must See Movies (all based on true stories unless noted)

-Amistad (About slaves from Africa taking over the ship and being charged with killing the crew. John Quincy Adams defends them)
-Enemy at the gates (Story about a Russian sniper in WW2)
-Defiant (Story about brothers in WW2 who hide from the Germans and let many stragglers join them)
-Shindler's List (Story of Shindler saving Jews during WW2)
-Lawless (Story of moonshine runners during prohibition)
-The Theory of Everything (Stephen Hawking's life story)
-The Finest Hours (The story of the Coast Guard doing a rescue during a horrible storm. The story is nearly unbelievable, yet true)
-Gettysburg (With Jeff Daniels) (The story of how Gettysburg was won)
-Unbroken (The story of a Japanese prisoner of war who was also an Olympian.)
-Worlds Fastest Indian (The story of a backyard tinkerer and his quest to run his motorcycle on the Bonneville Salt Flats to see just how fast it would go)
-The Blind Side (The story of a homeless kid who was taken in and is now playing in the NFL)
-Rabbit Proof Fence (True story of how half breed kids in Australia where taken from their family and their journey home)
-Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Fiction about a boy who befriends a Jewish boy in a concentration camp)
-Radio (The story of a high school coach and the developmentally challenged man whom he took under his wing.)
-Braveheart (William Wallace begins a revolt for freedom against King Edward I of England)
-The Pianist (A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II. )
-Pain and Gain (True story of a trio of bodybuilders in Florida get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.)
 
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#123
"The Odyssey of Echo Company" by Doug Stanton, Amazon.
This is an account of the Recon platoon of 1/501st, 101st Airborne, in Viet Nam.
My friend Stan Parker is featured as the central subject, although two others of my friends (Dwight Lane, and Dave Watts), are also covered pretty heavily. All three served in this outfit, and later came out to Tiger Force, where we served together in the A Shau Valley, then Phu Loc.
Stan became a reservist and later reactivated and served at SOCOM. He retired after Afghanistan (really).
I am honored to say Stan is my friend, and comrade.
 
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#128
Helmet For My Pillow. Memoir of WWII by Robert Leckie. The mini-series "The Pacific" was partially based on this book.

He chronicles his time in the Corps starting right after Pearl Harbor and through the fighting on Peleliu.
 
#133
The Year-Long Day by A.E. Maxwell and Ivar Ruud. It's about Ivar Ruud's time spent Wintering in the Arctic Circle. His experiences with Polar Bears would give Rambo nightmares.
 
#134
I just finished shed “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker. Phenomenal and easy read. It was a book suggested to me during some defensive firearms training. It’s all about listening to the inter voice that will alert you when something is wrong and not reasoning which yourself to not act.
I am currently reading “When Violence is the Answer” by Tim Larken. Another great book about retraining our brains in how to react when danger threatens.
 
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#135
E.B. Sledge's "With the Old Breed" and Michael Herr's "Dispatches" made my reading list this year and both were well worth it. WWII gets sugar coated a fair bit so it's good to get a firsthand report from Sledge. Herr was instrumental in setting the tone of how we think of the Vietnam War because he was the same age as many of the men he was embedded with as opposed to the older reporters like Tregaskis going in. Neither is a particularly glorious tale but both books give a fair accounting of war as a violently entertaining hell.
 
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#136
ActualCryptid said:
E.B. Sledge's "With the Old Breed" and Michael Herr's "Dispatches" made my reading list this year and both were well worth it. WWII gets sugar coated a fair bit so it's good to get a firsthand report from Sledge. Herr was instrumental in setting the tone of how we think of the Vietnam War because he was the same age as many of the men he was embedded with as opposed to the older reporters like Tregaskis going in. Neither is a particularly glorious tale but both books give a fair accounting of war as a violently entertaining hell.
Click to expand...

"With The Old Breed" is a great book for a gritty account of what the Pacific Theater was really like (as much as you can convey with a book). No sugar coating.
 
#146
'Misfire' by William Hallahan. It chronicles the adoption of every US Infantry rifle since The Revolution; a great example of the adage, "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
 
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