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What book are you currently reading?


touchthesky
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"Calculated Risk"

Biography of Virgil (Gus) Grissom.

The second American in space and would probably have been the first man on the moon if he had lived.

Good read- doesn't paint him as a saint and goes some way to redressing the balance after Tom Wolfe decided to portray him as a bungling panic merchant in "The Right Stuff".

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Just finished "Sniper Ace" autobiography of Bruno Sutkus, a top WW2 German sniper on the Eastern Front. He was caught by the Russians (who didn't know his true identity). He was banished to Siberia and endured decades of hardship before finally getting back to Germany. Would make a good film.

Edited by Bumper8
Grammar correction
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"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" Richard Rhodes (25th Anniversary Edition).

Tells the story from the beginning of atomic theory and the Physicists who were instrumental in those discoveries, to the practical implementation of their work.

An outstanding book.

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Just finished "The Double Cross System" by JC Masterman.

All about the activities of the XX Committee in WW2 that ran a network of double agents to feed the Germans false information.

The Abwehr thought they had a good spy network in the UK; in reality the British controlled everything.

The most celebrated agent was "Garbo" who played a big part in the D-Day deception plan (Operation Fortitude).

Now reading "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes which is about the development of the hydrogen bomb.

First part focuses on how the Soviets got their own atomic bomb with a lot of help from their spies at Los Alamos.

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Gripping true-life story of a top KGB officer who spied for the UK.

A fascinating insight into post-war spycraft on both sides of the Iron Curtain and how the actions of one person could affect world politics.

Superb.

 

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Just finished this.

A story of two ships really, as the fate of HMS Terror was closely bound to that of her sister ship.

I like how the author intersperses the story with a travelogue of his recent visits to some of the places the ships visited on their epic journeys to the farthest known places south and north of the globe.

 A great tale of discovery, endurance and tragedy.

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A British expert sniper travels to war-torn Iraq to fulfil a promise made by his Grandfather.

An Iraqi counter-sniper is despatched to engage him.

Gripping story-telling from a master of the political thriller genre.

If you liked "Enemy at the Gates" film you will enjoy this.

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10 hours ago, Bumper8 said:

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As a massive fan of the film (as no doubt many of you also are) I'm enjoying the extra subtle layers Alan Dean Foster's novelisation weaves into the story.

I once wrote my own novelisation of the film, from memory, but it didn't sell so well.

'So they were eating dinner, the usual space rubbish, and suddenly John Hurt was like "Owie, my tummy hurts", but they ignored him and were joking about stuff, but he was like "seriously guys, I feel like something's gonna burst out of my tummy". Then he started foaming at the mouth and convulsing and the beardy guy said "John Hurt, are you alright?" but John Hurt couldn't answer and that's how they all knew that he wasn't alright because John Hurt would never ignore a direct question from beardy guy.

"Aaaargh, ummf, oo-er" said John Hurt.

"Hey", "Whaaa?", "Oo-er" said the other people.

John Hurt flopped back on the table and they all knew they had to do something, but nobody knew what to do because none of them had done the course on tummy burstage. To be fair, it was a full week course which seemed excessive, but in retrospect made sense.

They ripped open John Hurt's shirt and he had this manky vest on underneath which he was clearly embarrassed about. But he got over it as this spam looking thing burst out of his chest, then burst out of his vest. He tried to be pretty chill about it and didn't even swear once, mostly because there were ladies around and he didn't like to use bad language in front of ladies.

One of the ladies was all like "Ermigod!" 'cause John Hurt's semi-digested dinner got on her face, but the black guy said "Calm down love, this isn't really about you, John Hurt's just exploded". Although he didn't actually say it, but you could tell he was thinking it because of the look he gave her.

So basically it was this little alien thingy that had popped its head out like a slimy whack-a-mole. It was kind of cute but kind of really not cute. It turned and looked at John Hurt as if to say "Thank you for your hospitality" then ran off.

So now John Hurt's dead and everyone else just kind of looks at each other all like "well, I didn't see that coming".

Also, Sigourney Weaver was there.'

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3 hours ago, natedammit said:

I once wrote my own novelisation of the film, from memory, but it didn't sell so well.

'So they were eating dinner, the usual space rubbish, and suddenly John Hurt was like "Owie, my tummy hurts", but they ignored him and were joking about stuff, but he was like "seriously guys, I feel like something's gonna burst out of my tummy". Then he started foaming at the mouth and convulsing and the beardy guy said "John Hurt, are you alright?" but John Hurt couldn't answer and that's how they all knew that he wasn't alright because John Hurt would never ignore a direct question from beardy guy.

"Aaaargh, ummf, oo-er" said John Hurt.

"Hey", "Whaaa?", "Oo-er" said the other people.

John Hurt flopped back on the table and they all knew they had to do something, but nobody knew what to do because none of them had done the course on tummy burstage. To be fair, it was a full week course which seemed excessive, but in retrospect made sense.

They ripped open John Hurt's shirt and he had this manky vest on underneath which he was clearly embarrassed about. But he got over it as this spam looking thing burst out of his chest, then burst out of his vest. He tried to be pretty chill about it and didn't even swear once, mostly because there were ladies around and he didn't like to use bad language in front of ladies.

One of the ladies was all like "Ermigod!" 'cause John Hurt's semi-digested dinner got on her face, but the black guy said "Calm down love, this isn't really about you, John Hurt's just exploded". Although he didn't actually say it, but you could tell he was thinking it because of the look he gave her.

So basically it was this little alien thingy that had popped its head out like a slimy whack-a-mole. It was kind of cute but kind of really not cute. It turned and looked at John Hurt as if to say "Thank you for your hospitality" then ran off.

So now John Hurt's dead and everyone else just kind of looks at each other all like "well, I didn't see that coming".

Also, Sigourney Weaver was there.'

I've read parts of a few fanfics that are as bad as that.

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uM472Nt.jpg

 

Engrossing thriller about a plot to assassinate the President of France, General Charles De Gaulle, in 1963.

A top detective has been given the unenviable responsibility of catching the assassin but he has little to go on:

He is a foreigner.

He is a master of his craft.

His codename is "Jackal"

Highly recommended.

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