What Are You Reading?

Flying Low by B.K. Bryans. It is his autobiography of his time flying A-6s in Vietnam and after. He has also published some fiction that IMHO is outstanding, most have aviation or military themes.
 
True North by Erikson in his SuperCub
Not dry, his style is punctuated by his many reference books on Sub-Arctic exploration and history which I find particularly interesting and which reinforce my belief at this time, that I will never voluntarily travel to the Sub-Arctic!
 
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Threefingeredjack said:
Flying Low by B.K. Bryans. It is his autobiography of his time flying A-6s in Vietnam and after. He has also published some fiction that IMHO is outstanding, most have aviation or military themes.
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Just ordered it. Didn't even realize he had any non fiction stuff. Already read Those 67 Blues. Good book.
 
I've been reading the Game of Thrones series for a while. I just finished Night Circus by Erin Morganstern, and it is probably the best book I have read in years. It's one of those that even though I'm done with it, I immediately want to go back and read it again.
 
Finished Walden. Was quite surprised it was far less "green" than the folks say. Had tins of great quotes about government and personal freedom that should be applied today.

The diatribe about essentially trying to operate corporate owned (banks in his timeframe) farms and going broke doing so, was fascinatingly familiar.

Also been reading a series called "Wool" which started as a collection of short stories. Search "Wool Omnibus Edition" on Amazon. Fun little Si-Fi/future world annihilation/good vs evil type story. ( Aren't they all. Ha. )

The omnibus is stories 1-5 and there's more now. Part if the "fun" is figuring out what to order on Amazon. Heh. Especially since the author encouraged other authors to make derivative works and their own stories and sell them online using his "world" and characters also if desired. Bunch of little $1 stories surrounding the main ones.
 
Setting the Standard by Jason Miller, a very, very quick read that is thin on volume but informative. Recently finished Killing Zone and Pilot in Command, both by Paul Craig. Also just read Fate is the Hunter (for the nth time). I'm always interested in reading technical aviation-based books and often read through my POH just to stay current.
 
Zenith 2016 by Thomas Horn

Excellent read so far.
 
denverpilot said:
Didn't know he did a book. May have to check it out.
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Like I said, it has some good information but it didn't have nearly as much as I expected, especially for the amount he's charging. The editing was also pretty poor, though I'm admittedly a big fan of his podcast and his philosophy on flying i.e.: using standard procedures and callouts whenever possible and not relying solely on the checklist. It's only available on iBook format, so only for iPad.

If anyone is thinking of buying some paper books, I highly recommend you check out half.ebay.com. I've been using half.com for more than ten years, before it was bought by eBay. You can find some incredible deals there on new and used books. I have saved a small fortune over the years. I always check them out before making a purchase.
 
denverpilot said:
Same Jason Miller from aviation podcast and Foreflight worlds?
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cocolos said:
same guy.
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Uhhh... Nate, that's TWO guys. They just have the same name*. ;)

The book, however, sounds like Jason Miller the CFI/Podcaster. :thumbsup:



* They knew each other from working together online, met in person, and one said to the other, "Well, I guess I'll just have to be Jason Andrew Miller." The other one said, "You have got to be freaking kidding me." Then, When CFI-Jason worked at the ForeFlight booth in 2010, he was wearing a name tag that said "TO-JAM". Our own Greg Bockelman was the only one to get it - The Other Jason Andrew Miller. :rofl:
 
saracelica said:
Is it necessary to read the other books in the series to understand this one?
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It is a good series starting with "Flight of The Old Dog". A slightly modified B52 which 2nd Lt Patrick McLanahan leads a group of engineers on a mission to destroy a Soviet Laser site. The B52, known as Megafortress, is being modified and test flown from Dreamland. While stepping out of order, most of what you need in that story is there.
Along similar lines, another good series starting with "Flight of the Intruder", later made a movie with Willem DeFoe, Danny Glover, and a bunch of others.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Uhhh... Nate, that's TWO guys. They just have the same name*. ;)

The book, however, sounds like Jason Miller the CFI/Podcaster. :thumbsup:



* They knew each other from working together online, met in person, and one said to the other, "Well, I guess I'll just have to be Jason Andrew Miller." The other one said, "You have got to be freaking kidding me." Then, When CFI-Jason worked at the ForeFlight booth in 2010, he was wearing a name tag that said "TO-JAM". Our own Greg Bockelman was the only one to get it - The Other Jason Andrew Miller. :rofl:
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I used to work with a guy with the same name spelled slightly different. Constantly getting each others E-mail / phone calls / etc.

One time, my dad was meeting me for lunch - I was running late, so he came into the lobby and asked the first guy to walk out if he knew "Geoff Thorpe" - guess who he asked.

Oh, to get back to the topic - "Calculus and Analytic Geometry" S. Stein. Slow going, but I need the refresher.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Uhhh... Nate, that's TWO guys. They just have the same name*. ;)

The book, however, sounds like Jason Miller the CFI/Podcaster. :thumbsup:



* They knew each other from working together online, met in person, and one said to the other, "Well, I guess I'll just have to be Jason Andrew Miller." The other one said, "You have got to be freaking kidding me." Then, When CFI-Jason worked at the ForeFlight booth in 2010, he was wearing a name tag that said "TO-JAM". Our own Greg Bockelman was the only one to get it - The Other Jason Andrew Miller. :rofl:
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Didn't even realize they were two different people. Heh. Nice.
 
silver-eagle said:
It is a good series starting with "Flight of The Old Dog". A slightly modified B52 which 2nd Lt Patrick McLanahan leads a group of engineers on a mission to destroy a Soviet Laser site. The B52, known as Megafortress, is being modified and test flown from Dreamland. While stepping out of order, most of what you need in that story is there.
Along similar lines, another good series starting with "Flight of the Intruder", later made a movie with Willem DeFoe, Danny Glover, and a bunch of others.
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Been reading the Old Dog series since it started. Fun stuff. Probably the Cold War stuff toward the beginning would be lost on a younger crowd now. The spin-off Tin Man series was fun in a different way also.

And then the Space stuff and "rogue Brigadier General" stuff got kinda weird. Still fun reads, but the whole concept that the General had to somehow fill his rogue eccentric entrepreneur friend's shoes, didn't strike a chord with me. I think he let the characters change a little too much from their original personality types. Tigers not changing their stripes and what-not...

Nevertheless Brown is a fun yarn-teller as long as you don't over analyze it too much. Clancy (RIP), he isn't.
 
Just received Alan Cassidy's 'Better Aerobatics' - bought on Amazon and got it a day ahead of schedule.

Only a few pages in but like his writing style, very conversational - this book is one of the most highly recommended books on aerobatic technique, glad I finally got a copy.

'Gimp
 
Recently I've been reading through the "Area 51" sci-fi series, by Bob Mayer. Basically every historical event or site that has ever caused anyone to scratch their head over is woven seamlessly in to an awesome 10-book series. He started writing under a pseudo-name, but all of this series has been re-issued under his own name in ebook format.

The Wool Omnibus (the first 5 books in the Silo series) by Hugh Howey was great. I tend to like books that keep me guessing, and this series had a few blind corners.

John Scalzi's Old Man's War was awesome. I immediately started reading everything of his that I could find (more books in the series are The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony and Zoe's Tale). I stopped reading Scalzi when I got to his latest work "The Human Division". Not because it isn't good, but because he published it one.chapter.at.a.time. And priced each ebook chapter as if it were just another kindle book. I highly recommend his writing, but he lost me as a customer when he did the money grab.

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is also extremely good, and is written in the same style as Old Man's War.

The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell was great. It was the first sci-fi I had read that incorporated the reality of time lag due to distances involved in to the fabric of his space fleet warfare tactics.

Richard Bode's book "First You Have To Row A Little Boat" should be required reading for everyone. It's a fairly short book and a very easy read, but it will grab you by the shirt tell you some important things about life. A quote from the book: "For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze."

"The Martian" by Andy Weir is a great sci-fi Robinson Crusoe kind of book about an astronaut that gets stranded on Mars. Believable techie survival story with some humor tossed in. Very enjoyable.

The Art Of Racing In The Rain, by Garth Stein. Be prepared for spontaneous onion-cutting and inexplicable allergy attacks.

02 Golf, by John Purner. Non-fiction about a new pilot and his new-to-him plane. Some parts will make you want to reach through the book and slap the back of his head, but it's an honest and completely engrossing enjoyable book.

A Lonely Kind Of War: Forward Air Controller, by Marshall Harrison. A non-fiction book about the life of an OV-10B pilot FAC in Viet-Nam. I had a hard time putting it down.

I bought/read Mop Men by Alan Emmins and Dead Janitors Club by Jeff Klima after watching the movie Sunshine Cleaning. Both are non-fiction books filled with funny/gross/disgusting/fascinating stories about the life and times of crime scene cleaners.

For pure fun reading where you are required to suspend all disbelief before opening page one, I highly recommend anything by A. Lee Martinez. Monster is a good one to start with. Kind of like crime scene cleaner meets monster hunter, and hilarity ensues.

If you like Cold War stories, Nelson Demille's The Charm School is a must read. I could seriously believe that this place and those people actually existed.

Those are most of the good ones I've read (or re-read) so far this year. Oh - and I'm frequently seen with my nose between the pages of the Gliem PPL study guide. :yesnod:
 
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I'm FINALLY Audibling Niven and Pournelle's collaboration "The Mote in God's Eye". Pretty good so far.
 
Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly

So far it has been an easy read like his other books are.
 
I am half way in the last of a three volume set biography of Winston Churchill by William Manchester. It was a gift from last Christmas. Started on volume I straight away. I hope to have it all done by this coming Christmas. A good read if you are into the man and the time period.
 
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Reading Wolfgang's 'Stick and Rudder' for the first time.

Wish I had read it long ago....
 
Say Again Please. I started Stick and Rudder but didn't get too far in before switching. Hopefully I'll have time to finish both soon

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 
Just finished Flight of Passage, excellent read highly recommended!!!
 
Flight of passage was a great book."we" written by Lindbergh about his flight to Paris is very good, especially what he felt necessary to take with him compared to today's small plane pilots. Fate is the hunter, by Ernest Gann is one of the best. " spitfire" by jeffery quill, a test pilot for spitfire during WW 2 , tells very matter of fact the flying he did, the near disasters, forced landings. He flew every model. Douglas bader, spitfire pilot with both legs amputated, flew combat, book is called "reach for the sky" . Another great flying book is "B17"
By Jablonsky. Tells the history of the plane and a lot about the "bloody 100th" squadron over Germany. Pilots like "big frank" valesh are not to be missed. I'm currently reading " Lawrence in Arabia" an excellent account of the history the Middle East and how it got all screwed up by other country's meddling. Sound familiar? Anything about Churchill I grab. Amazing person!
 
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Sorry but I forgot......just finished " A question of Honor" which tells about refugee polish pilots who fled to England after Poland was invaded. The British didn't take them seriously until the Battle of Britain when they finally allowed them to fly spitfires and hurricanes. They were found to be much more experienced than the British and were superb pilots. They shot down a lot of Germans during the war and had their own squadron. In the end, they were screwed by the allies who gave their country to Russia. They were not even invited to March in England's victory parade. Very interesting book.
 
Just started "An Army At Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943" by Rick Atkinson. First of a three book series on WWII. Looks to be a solid read with a lot less revisionist history than many history books.

He is a talented writer. Has you from the first sentence of the Prologue.

"Twenty-seven acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage , Tunisia."

Anyone ever been there, out of curiosity? I known plenty of folks who've been to the Pacific Theatre cemeteries scattered across the ocean, and ones in France and other Northern European locations, but haven't seen much about the North Africa campaign's military cemeteries.
 
On my Kindle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes. I haven't read it since I was a kid, and am starting from scratch again.

On dead trees: Stick and Rudder, and working my way through a small pile of magazines I haven't gotten to yet.
 
Currently reading " the brothers" which is about the Dulles brothers under Eisenhower, etc. and how Allen, meddling in Irans affairs, helped bring us to where we are today, as well as many other country's he meddled with. Great book.
 
Empire of Stars by William J Miller. A biography of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the astrophysicist who performed the calculations which determined at what mass white dwarf stars would become dense bodies. (neutron stars or black holes) That mass is now known as Chandrasekhar's Limit.
 
I just finished "Lone Survivor" by Duncan Lutrell and "Sycamore Row" by John Grisham. Both good books and quick reads.
 
"The Wars of Justinian" by Procopius of Caesarea. It's surprisingly applicable to the work I am doing in air-ground communications.
 
DaleB said:
On my Kindle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes. I haven't read it since I was a kid, and am starting from scratch again.

On dead trees: Stick and Rudder, and working my way through a small pile of magazines I haven't gotten to yet.
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I go back and read Sherlock Holmes every decade or so. "A Study in Scarlet" sure has some inflammatory content by today's standards.
 
Has anyone read My Log Book by Gunther Rall? My aunt's friend really wants to read it but every copy I can find on the internet is very expensive. Or, if you have read it and are of the opinion it's not worth megabucks, that would be good to tell him, too. :D

http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/17980


http://www.ebay.com/itm/MY-LOGBOOK-GUNTHER-RALL-FAMOUS-WWII-BEYOND-PILOT-AUTOBIOGRAPHY-XLNT-COND-/300952994951?pt=Antiquarian_Collectible&hash=item4612324487

http://www.amazon.com/Logbook-Gunth...8&qid=1385349974&sr=1-3&keywords=gunther+rall
 
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