I'm working on an essay on "Why Germany Didn't Get the Bomb," so I just finished "Heisenberg's War" by Thomas Powers. It's brilliantly researched and covers an enormous swath of prewar and WWII science and intelligence. His basic premise is that Werner Heisenberg, a Nobel laureate physicist and head of Germany's effort to develop nuclear weapons, led the project "into a broom closet" to keep Hitler from getting his ultimate weapon.

A contrary view is taken by a book I read earlier, "Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb - A Study in German Culture," by Paul Lawrence Rose, a professor at Penn State. He believes the Germans would have developed an atomic bomb if they knew how--but they didn't. He believes Heisenberg and his colleagues put out the story that they knew how but didn't want Hitler to get it to preserve the "honor" of German science in the face of the American triumph--and also to polish Heisenberg's image from the tarnish it got by association with the Nazis.

They're both teriffic (but challenging) reads. My conclusion falls somewhere between the two.

I just bought I heard you paint houses hopefully this book is good

Me too. I'm through 40 pages. Interesting so far.

TB, That Nazi/Hilter stuff is mind-blowing. I read, "Rise Fall of the Third Reich". Tough read, but worth it.

When it comes to books at the moment I can't move for hearing about this 50 Shades of Grey. Reviews are mixed at best, has anyone on here actually read it? Care to explain why the hype? Apparently its selling quicker than Harry Potter did.

I don't know a great about this, but only had heard the version that Rose advances. I had never heard the Powers premise before. I'd be interested in knowing how prevalent the Rose view is. Also, I'd like to hear more of your opinion as to how the truth falls somewhere between both views.

I bought THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH about a year or so ago but haven't tackled it yet. I'm still feeling the affects of Stephen King's IT

Kly, look for a PM from me.

Got the first one from the library just for the hell of it, and didn't get past the first few chapters. It was awful. It was glorified fanfic, and poorly written fanfic at that.

As for the hype? It's socially acceptable porn. The daughters had "Twilight" and now the mom's have "Grey".

My wife has read all three of these Grey books and says they are utter rubbish!!

Best selling books of all time apparently........

She read all three and they are utter rubbish? Conclusion: She likes to read rubbish

She kept hoping to find the sexy bits apparently, but even they were a bit of a let down to a woman who has grown accustomed to my steamy boudoir ways.......

There's lots of lip-biting and eye-rolling. Also, the main character (Mr. Grey) is a supposed self-made billionaire at the ripe old age of 26. He also is a pilot, a concert pianist, speaks fluent French, is a oenophile, he's incredibly handsome, is well-endowed, a fabulous lover and seems to have plenty of leisure time to email the girl, send her endless text messages, can have sex about 27 times a day, in which there are tons of orgasms, and STILL run his empire!

I am shocked and disgusted by that description.


Im going to sue them for using my likeness without permission.

I thought you were going to add that his small talk has altered foreign policy; Sasquatch has a picture of him; he once ran a marathon because it was on his way.

Battles that Changed History
If you are a history junkie and/or a military history buff or weapons guru you probably want to get this book. Although there are a few horrible exclusions (where is the Battle of Vertieres or the Battle of Isandlwana or the Battle of Bannockburn) it does list 47 battles from 1457 BC at Megiddo all the way up to operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 (which was really more of a campaign)

Each battle is lavishly illustrated with prints and portraits of the typical soldiers and their commanders, as well as detailed maps showing each side's plans, weapons, tactics and what went wrong for one side or the other. There are some surprises here. For example the Battle of Agincourt is famous for supposedly showing the superiority of the English (Welsh) longbow. 5700 Englishmen defeated 25,000 French soldiers and Italian mercenaries. In point of fact though the longbow probably didn't easily get through the heavy plate armor of the French knights. But what it did do, with the aid of an aborted French charge through mud, was to kill the French men at arms without armor and break up the French charge enough to allow the English to run forward and finish them off with mauls and maces.

Other battles described still rankled losers centuries afterward. For example the 1410 Prussian defeat at Tannenburg, Poland so bothered the Germans that in 1914, when the German general Paul Von Hindenburg, a Prussian, defeated a Russian army in the same region he named the battle Tannenburg.

Weapons of Choice
by John Birmingham

Time travel may well be theoretically possible (at least going into the past) but as far as we know no one has ever done it. But what if someone did? And what if that someone were a 2021 multinational and multiracial carrier force, led by Americans and full of Navy and Marine personnel, that was sent back to 1942 just before the American - Japanese Midway battle?

You've likely seen stories like this before but Birmingham does a bang up job of making this book (the initial in a trilogy) really come alive. He does this by the simple fact of including human nature as a character in his book. The Americans from 1942 are initially happy to have assistance from the Americans of 2021 while the modern Americans are delighted to give it.

However this starts to change almost immediately as many of the 1942 Americans have zero use for feminism, racial equality, modern fitness techniques, non-smoking or any of the other ideas we take for granted. They become very wary of and coolly hostile to their countrymen and countrywomen from the future. They view the idea of taking orders from women of any race or blacks of either gender with profoundly deep disdain. They don't get why a carrier is named after a woman President (The USS Hilary Clinton) And they are desperate to prevent these ideas from spreading. For their part the modern Americans think that the 1942 Americans all sound like actors from old Warner Brothers movies and are generally eager to change things as quickly as possible.


However not all of the multinational ships made it through the wormhole in one piece or under American or allied control. The 1942 Japanese, Germans and Russians have gotten their hands on some of the modern military technology and worse yet, on history books. So Stalin, Tojo, Hitler and others are able to see what mistakes they made. And the countries that had nuclear programs or were thinking about them are ecstatic or frightened to find out that not only are such weapons possible, but the future Americans have them.

This entire book is an example of chaos theory in action on political, scientific, military and even romantic relationships. Some members of the 2021 multinational force that came through the wormhole are Japanese or Indonesian. They're not sure they want to be fighting their own great grandparents or fighting on the same side as the 1942 British and Dutch who intend to reestablish white colonial rule in SE Asia. This was a really fun book that was crammed with realistic characters. You can probably pick it up for cheap. I did.

I have to keep that Battles book in mind as a gift for my daughter's boyfriend. I can always tell when he was here because when I turn the TV on in the morning, it's tuned to the Military Channel.

IT'S SO EASY (AND OTHER LIES)

This was definitely not the book I was expecting. I figured it would be similar to Slash's: a detailed description about his drug use, the rise and fall of Guns N' Roses, his upbringing, etc. All of that is in there mind you, but what I wasn't expecting or even aware of was his personal rise after GNR broke up and what his outlets were that helped him defeat his drug and alcohol addictions. Pretty inspirational stuff. He's a good writer as well as I've read his column on ESPN.com before. An enjoyable read for any Guns N' Roses fan but be forewarned: Slash's book is longer with fewer chapters. He seems to have fewer stories but with more details. Duff's on the other hand is shorter. He has more chapters (A LOT more in fact) with fewer details though.

Just read BLACK HAWK DOWN by Mark Bowden. Obviously seen the film, finally got a chance to read the book which was good. The film was very good but a bit high paced and confusing at times so the book filled in a bit of info!!

Next time i watch the film now, i might have a small clue as to what is actually happening

I read "Brotherhood of the Bomb" by Gregg Herken. It's a detailed, fascinating account of how physicists Ernest Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller worked with and against each other on nuclear weapons before, during and after WWII. Has plenty of detail about Soviet espionage and the help they got from idealistic but misguided Americans. Essential to our knowledge of that era.

The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would probably because I kept getting interrupted by work and other things while reading it. It took me a while to finish.

Matthew Worth is an Omaha, Nebraska police officer who is something of a loser. He comes from a long line of police officers-his grandfather, father and deceased brother were hero cops but Matthew is evidently not cut from the same cloth. His ex-wife was cheating on him with a detective. When Matthew confronted the detective, not only did he badly lose the ensuing fight but as hitting superior officers is a no-no Matthew was given the most humiliating assignment his department could think of. This was to guard a low-rent grocery store which has been the target of a few robberies and burglaries. Most nights this means actually bagging groceries or even sweeping up while he's in uniform. His fellow officers find this to be greatly amusing and love calling in "emergencies" on the police scanner that involve "cleanup in aisle five" or "gimme a price check on preparation H stat!!".

Matthew tries to make the best of it. As he became a police officer out of a sense of family obligation he doesn't have a whole lot of pride that could be injured by this assignment although he is too stubborn to quit. As a side benefit at least Matthew gets to talk to and occasionally flirt with the fallen angel checkout clerk Gwen, who when she's not being abused by her violent thug boyfriend, actually has a kind word for Matthew.

This all goes belly up one night when Matthew gets a frantic call from Gwen. Tiny little Gwen has just removed her hulking boyfriend from the planet and needs Matthew's help. Immediately Matthew has to make a choice about how he wants to play this and if he is going to place the law over his feelings of affection (both lustful and protective) for Gwen.

The decision that Matthew makes sets in motion an avalanche of activity which gets attention all the way up to the Chicago Outfit, which doesn't get an expected delivery at the promised time. And when the Outfit doesn't get what it wants, people die. Matthew will have to rely on 1) Gwen, who has reserves of strength and cunning unknown to him, 2) the detective who "stole" his wife and beat him up and 3) on his estranged big brother who as an ex-con is the black sheep of their law enforcement family.

One nice technique I liked is that the author lets conversations play out very realistically. People don't always explain every little thing and it can take a while before you realize for example that two supposed "good guys" are discussing murder. Characters make mistakes, take actions based on wrong assumptions and generally make a mess of things. It reminds me of some of Elmore Leonard's work.

RUM PUNCH

This was the book that the movie JACKIE BROWN was based upon. I liked the movie better but only because it cut out some of the things in the book I didn't fill needed to be in there. They also expanded upon some things in the movie better. The book is a very easy read but unfortunately not very rich in details or story. JACKIE BROWN, with a runtime of 154 minutes is able to expand in some areas.

This is my first Elmore Leonard novel and I hear he has a fairly big following. I would definitely be interested in reading the prequel to this, THE SWITCH, as I hear they may make it into a movie as well. There are a few minor differences in the book as opposed to the movie.

Have you ever looked out your window at night and seen the IT's face in the moon.

LOL, no

THE HOBBIT

I hadn't read this book in probably 7 or 8 years and remembered very little from it. The only reason I read it now was to gear up for the film that's about to debut in a little more than 2 months time. I don't however remember enjoying this book as much as I did the second time around. It could be for a variety of reasons: I'm a little bit older, I care more about the characters, I've enjoyed the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy much more since the last time I've read THE HOBBIT; but now I'm even more excited for the films. I do enjoy how the book reads as if J.R.R. Tolkien himself is telling you the story. Some parts of the book I feel could have been expanded upon and in some areas I was hoping for more description/details but failed to receive any.

I can honestly see how they could make this book into 2 films but I am worried of them trying to stetch it into 3. I am willing to give Peter Jackson and company the benefit of the doubt though.

Just read a superb book called THE FORGOTTEN HIGHLANDER by Alistair Urquhart.

A young Scotsman is sent to Singapore at the start of WWII and is captured by the Japanese. Here starts an extradorinary story of courage and bravery matched by Japanese brutality and sadism. Young Urquhart is sent to work on the Death Railway and lives in the hell camps, systematically starved and tortured by the Japs. For 4 and a half years he ate one bowl of rice a day, was beaten every day and never had a day off even when riddled with malaria and dysentry....

This is a must read book about the forgotten Japanese Asian atrocities......some of it is horrendous to read!!

Book alert, Yogi. Michael Connelly's new Harry Bosch is out next week. It's called "The Black Box."

Cheers PB. With a title like that it is either about a crashed airplane or it is a porn novel i reckon.....

Harry Bosch?? Black Box? I'm guessing the latter of your choices applies, Yogi.

I can't read it then Kly.... i am much to innocent and wet round the ears for any saucy shenanigans....