DragonCon ??? A sci-fi fanatic acquaintance stumbled across this and emailed the link. This parade was held in Atlanta? I wonder what they do in the convention hall – fire-breathing workshops? - lady troll mudwrestling? And what is served in their foodcourts? I hereby declare that the Left Coast is no longer the land of fruits and nuts, that distinction is now bestowed on Georgia. I use to think that the Civil War re-enactors were a little ‘dinky dau’. Maybe they are the same people expanding their horizons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgp2PQAV3pg
Fall Reading List – One new book on order titled: ‘How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare’ by Walter Boyne. It has some good reviews. This I understand is a history of the development of military rotary wing aviation and of the evolution of their use and tactics and not a technical discussion on aerodynamics. Coming in the mail soon I hope. I am not an aviator myself but have had a love and hate relationship with helos since I took my first ride 50 years ago over the pine savannahs and sawgrass swamps of Camp Lejeune in the passenger seat of an HOK-1 (later renamed OH-43), the one with the side-by-side intermeshed twin rotors. I would hope it covers Brute Krulak pushing the vertical envelopment concept in the 1940s when everyone else considered helos as only good for observation and search-and-rescue. The author Boyne is one of the founders of ‘Air and Space’ magazine and a pre-eminent aviation historian so I am expecting a good read. This should be on your list Al, but then you probably already have a copy. http://pacificamilitary.com/wordpress/?p=34
Plus some used books I picked up from the annual book sale at our local library listed below:
I already started on Asprey’s bio of ‘Frederick the Great’, but am only through the first chapter about his youth. What a strange relationship with his father. I thought the English royals had toxic family relationships but they were nothing compared to this household.
Also a bio of Cervantes the author of Don Quixote – how could a jarhead like me resist the life story of a Spanish Naval Infantryman who was reportedly at the Battle of Lepanto.
A bio of Graham Greene the novelist, occasional spy, friend of Kim Philby and Charlie Chaplin, and critic of American imperialism.
The memoirs of Vincent Sheean, foreign correspondent who interviewed Abd el Krim in the Rif War of 1920s Morrocco, Sun Yat Sen and Borodin in China, and who covered the Spanish Civil War, Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and the occupation of Sudetenland.
Barbara Tuchman’s ‘The March of Folly’ – I think she needs to update with a new chapter on Junior Bush.
And I have to confess some spy thrillers, I cannot stay away from LeCarre and Alan Furst, plus a few of Stuart Kaminsky’s Moscow detective mysteries. I am addicted, I use them as in-betweens of more serious reads.
