The Reading Corner.

[Flux]

Just finished "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner before I saw the movie of it.
Then I speed-read both sequels.
I've gotta say, the first made me want more but the last 2....
Just a bunch of filler, I think half the chapters ended with Thomas (main character) losing consciousness

[Lord Avalon]

Serentiy 4: Leaves on the Wind, by Zack Whedon & Georges Jeanty with Fabio Moon

[Vishniac]

Read Gotrek and Felix: Trollslayer recently.. son in law lended... was alright. Characters have a lot of personality to them, I do feel it can become somewhat episodic though. Fairly good read for an afternoon or evening.

Trollslayer is alright but fairly bland.
Its followings are much much better: Skavenslayer and Demonslayer are truly epic and entertaining.

[gwillybj]

I haven't read this one - yet.
War History Online | News
The Strangest Battle of WWII: When Americans and Germans Fought the SS Together
on January 19, 2014 at 23:00



thedailybeast.com reports: Days after Hitler’s suicide a group of American soldiers, French prisoners, and, yes, German soldiers defended an Austrian castle against an SS division—the only time Germans and Allies fought together in World War II. Andrew Roberts on a story so wild that it has to be made into a movie.

The most extraordinary things about Stephen Harding’s The Last Battle, a truly incredible tale of World War II, are that it hasn’t been told before in English, and that it hasn’t already been made into a blockbuster Hollywood movie. Here are the basic facts: on 5 May 1945—five days after Hitler’s suicide—three Sherman tanks from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the U.S. 12th Armored Division under the command of Capt. John C. ‘Jack’ Lee Jr., liberated an Austrian castle called Schloss Itter in the Tyrol, a special prison that housed various French VIPs, including the ex-prime ministers Paul Reynaud and Eduard Daladier and former commanders-in-chief Generals Maxime Weygand and Paul Gamelin, amongst several others. Yet when the units of the veteran 17th Waffen-SS Panzer Grenadier Division arrived to recapture the castle and execute the prisoners, Lee’s beleaguered and outnumbered men were joined by anti-Nazi German soldiers of the Wehrmacht, as well as some of the extremely feisty wives and girlfriends of the (needless-to-say hitherto bickering) French VIPs, and together they fought off some of the best crack troops of the Third Reich. Steven Spielberg, how did you miss this story?


The very model of a Wehrmacht officer… In this photo, newly contributed by Sepp Gangl’s son, Norbert, the man who would later help Jack Lee defend Castle Itter is seen during a rare happy moment in 1944, probably just before the Allied landings at Normandy (Source: Facebook)

The battle for the fairytale, 13th century Castle Itter was the only time in WWII that American and German troops joined forces in combat, and it was also the only time in American history that U.S. troops defended a medieval castle against sustained attack by enemy forces. To make it even more film worthy, two of the women imprisoned at Schloss Itter—Augusta Bruchlen, who was the mistress of the labour leader Leon Jouhaux, and Madame Weygand, the wife General Maxime Weygand—were there because they chose to stand by their men. They, along with Paul Reynaud’s mistress Christiane Mabire, were incredibly strong, capable, and determined women made for portrayal on the silver screen.


‘The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe’ By Stephen Harding. 256 pages. Da Capo. $25.99.

There are two primary heroes of this—as I must reiterate, entirely factual—story, both of them straight out of central casting. Jack Lee was the quintessential warrior: smart, aggressive, innovative—and, of course, a cigar-chewing, hard-drinking man who watched out for his troops and was willing to think way, way outside the box when the tactical situation demanded it, as it certainly did once the Waffen-SS started to assault the castle. The other was the much-decorated Wehrmacht officer Major Josef ‘Sepp’ Gangl, who died helping the Americans protect the VIPs. This is the first time that Gangl’s story has been told in English, though he is rightly honored in present-day Austria and Germany as a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance.
http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/wwiis-strangest-battle-americans-germans-fought-together.html

[Buster's Uncle]

This is SO Rusty...

[Rusty Edge]

Never heard of it.
Now I've got to read more about it. Purchased!

[Rusty Edge]

Meanwhile, I wanted to share one of the funniest series of books (in terms of laughing out loud) I've read since Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.

Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles. It's the fantasy story of the world's last Druid, a survivor from the Iron Age due to magical discoveries. He poses as the owner of an occult bookstore/herbal tea shop in Tempe AZ. His attorneys are a werewolf and a vampire ( who wants his help to kill Thor) . One of the Irish gods wants to kill the Druid. Another is his protector.

The Druid has a pet Irish Wolfhound, and he's telepathically linked to it. The hound, Oberon,  is obsessed with sausages, bacon, and poodles. Oberon's terrible with time estimations. He's also handy with descriptions of scents. < someone dead is coming > usually means a vampire. Oberon complains that it would be so much easier if he were allowed to sniff butts.

There is also a nosey neighbor who happens to have a grenade launcher in his garage, an old Irish widow who loves her whiskey, and a gang of ghouls with a refrigerated truck on speed dial to clean up the crime scenes.

Mostly, our hero is trying to mind his own business and survive, but he is always being tricked or drawn into supernatural turf wars and plots between ancient gods. Then there are witches, the fae, demons, and various other mythological beings from multiple pantheons and legends. Coyote is a recurring character. The Druid  also has a drink with Jesus, who observes that people mostly summon Jesus either in an emergency, or a false alarm. Nobody ever asks him to have a friendly beer.

Anyway- action, plot, humor, and all of the books seem to have 4&1/2 stars out of 5 on average as a composite review on Amazon.

Even if I didn't convince you with this review, I'm certain it's worth your time to read the reviews of these books at one of your favorite websites.

[Unorthodox]

Never heard of it.
Now I've got to read more about it. Purchased!

Me too. 

[Unorthodox]

Meanwhile, I wanted to share one of the funniest series of books (in terms of laughing out loud) I've read since Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.

Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles. It's the fantasy story of the world's last Druid, a survivor from the Iron Age due to magical discoveries. He poses as the owner of an occult bookstore/herbal tea shop in Tempe AZ. His attorneys are a werewolf and a vampire ( who wants his help to kill Thor) . One of the Irish gods wants to kill the Druid. Another is his protector.

The Druid has a pet Irish Wolfhound, and he's telepathically linked to it. The hound, Oberon,  is obsessed with sausages, bacon, and poodles. Oberon's terrible with time estimations. He's also handy with descriptions of scents. < someone dead is coming > usually means a vampire. Oberon complains that it would be so much easier if he were allowed to sniff butts.

There is also a nosey neighbor who happens to have a grenade launcher in his garage, an old Irish widow who loves her whiskey, and a gang of ghouls with a refrigerated truck on speed dial to clean up the crime scenes.

Mostly, our hero is trying to mind his own business and survive, but he is always being tricked or drawn into supernatural turf wars and plots between ancient gods. Then there are witches, the fae, demons, and various other mythological beings from multiple pantheons and legends. Coyote is a recurring character. The Druid  also has a drink with Jesus, who observes that people mostly summon Jesus either in an emergency, or a false alarm. Nobody ever asks him to have a friendly beer.

Anyway- action, plot, humor, and all of the books seem to have 4&1/2 stars out of 5 on average as a composite review on Amazon.

Even if I didn't convince you with this review, I'm certain it's worth your time to read the reviews of these books at one of your favorite websites.

Sounds right up my alley. 

While one it, have you looked into the Dresden files?  Sounds like it would be on a similar vein.  Wizard detective in Chicago, the series starts off as something of an homage to hard-boiled detective novels with Harry helping the police with cases that involve occult killings or werewolves, but after a couple novels establish the players, Harry is sucked into bigger events of the supernatural world, often against his will. 

The list of recurring characters is hard to list without making spoilers, but they are many, and little nuances and things that happen always seem to come back in later novels. 

There was a TV series loosely based on the books a while back (only one episode was based on a story from the books, iirc).  They don't do the books justice, but get the basic idea across. 

[Rusty Edge]

Sounds right up my alley. 

Uh... Now that I think about it, that may very well be. You might love them- or hate them. He trades favors with Coyote, and winds up fighting some "Skin walkers" on Dine lands in one of the books. I have no idea if he got his facts straight  or if it's artistic license.

So I'll make you, and you only an offer. I'll guarantee the stuff. If you buy an Iron Druid book or audio book and decide you don't like it,  I'll buy it back from you. I'm thinking about getting the stuff for a friends & family lending library anyway. If you go the e-book bundle route and don't like it... I'll refund your purchase price, but you'll owe me a consult for fog/ snow machine selection.

While one it, have you looked into the Dresden files?  Sounds like it would be on a similar vein.  Wizard detective in Chicago, the series starts off as something of an homage to hard-boiled detective novels with Harry helping the police with cases that involve occult killings or werewolves, but after a couple novels establish the players, Harry is sucked into bigger events of the supernatural world, often against his will. 

The list of recurring characters is hard to list without making spoilers, but they are many, and little nuances and things that happen always seem to come back in later novels. 

There was a TV series loosely based on the books a while back (only one episode was based on a story from the books, iirc).  They don't do the books justice, but get the basic idea across.

 

This sounds very similar. Except that Harry is a private detective, and "Atticus" ( as he likes to be called ) is more like "The Fugitive".

I ordered the e-sample. Well, it's a busy day, and company just arrived.

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Unorthodox]

oh, I'll just library a couple before I decide to buy. 

[Rusty Edge]

It took me a while to get into the groove of a private detective novel.

I am enjoying Dresden. Getting a sense of the rules of his world. I care about him and some of the other characters- Lt. Murphy, Susan the reporter, Bob the skull. The mysteries intrigue me. I'm about 2/3rds of the way through the werewolf book now. I recognize some of the Chicago locations. I expect to complete the series.

Thanks, Uno!

[Geo]

Insurrection by David Weber and Steve White.
From Baen Books Free Library.

[Rusty Edge]

I started The Last Battle. It  was educational. I read about the history of the castle and the biographies of some of it's VIP prisoners.  Apparently the labor unions thought that if they could reach across borders, the factory workers could actually prevent/ stop  wars.

An interesting idea. Idle factories means no war machine. Trouble was that the various flavors of socialists and Communists couldn't agree. Revolutionaries aren't pacifists at heart.

But it wasn't the page-turner that The Dresden Files are, and I returned to that series. I'm about ten books in now.

Uno, I'd say Iron Druid is right up your alley. While the characters and settings are different, the deeper I get into it, the more parallels I find.

[Geo]

The stars at war by David Weber and Steve White.
Hey, it's free to read.