[sasastro]

The Night watch by Sarah Waters

[Wasp]

Inca Gold by Clive Cussler - no literary masterpiece but still a good read.

[Kerrowdown]

A fine Christmas present from my No2 Daughter.

For more than 30 years on numerous film sets, Jeff Bridges used his specialised panoramic camera (Widelux F8) capturing Hollywood behind the scenes views of moviemaking. Taking pictures of coworkers on the job results in compelling photographs, especially when those people include the likes of Meryl Streep, Robert Duvall, Julianne Moore, Olivia Wilde, and Matt Damon.

ISBN-10: 1576879364, ISBN-13: 978-1576879368, Size 9.9 x 0.8 x 12.2 inches

[Wasp]

A fine Christmas present from my No2 Daughter.

For more than 30 years on numerous film sets, Jeff Bridges used his specialised panoramic camera (Widelux F8) capturing Hollywood behind the scenes views of moviemaking. Taking pictures of coworkers on the job results in compelling photographs, especially when those people include the likes of Meryl Streep, Robert Duvall, Julianne Moore, Olivia Wilde, and Matt Damon.

SBN-10: 1576879364, ISBN-13: 978-1576879368, Size 9.9 x 0.8 x 12.2 inches

Looks fascinating.

[Kerrowdown]

Looks fascinating.

Aye it is really good, I've only had a chance for a quick flick through so far.

[clackers]

Max Hastings' 'Vietnam':

'[South Vietnamese air force chief Nguyen] Ky made a spectacular entrance. He walked in breezily, wearing a tight, white dinner jacket, tapered formal trousers, pointed patent leather shoes and brilliant red socks. A Hollywood central casting bureau would have grabbed him for a role as sax player in a second-rate Manila night club.'
Ky, who projected himself as an anti-corruption prime minister, said that the police officer responsible for enforcing vice law in the casino district of Cholon ' ... paid $US130,000 to secure his post, and showed a profit on the investment after two years.'

Hastings was at the fall of Saigon, clambering the US Embassy wall on the last day while reporting for the British press.

Many previous books have only told the war from the Western side because of lack of information. During the Tet Offensive, there was no North Vietnamese organizational chart available to the Americans, and General Westmoreland talked of how he was whipping Giap's campaign.

In fact, Giap and Ho Chi Minh were ornaments by this stage. Giap's chief-of-staff was arrested, and Giap himself thought of staying in Moscow for his own safety. Ho remained only as figurehead.

What had gone wrong? Both were victims of an emboldened China after it acquired the atomic bomb in 1964. It offered protection in the event of North Vietnam being invaded, whereas Khrushchev's Soviet Union was committed to 'peaceful coexistence' with the West and refused to help their comrades escalate the war.

Le Duan best represented the pro-Chinese faction, and despite the handicap of being from the South, took over and ruled as iron-fisted dictator until 1986. For better or worse, he was the North's war leader who finished the job, and gets credit here just as Ken Burns gives in his recent docco.

[Liney]

Max Hastings' 'Vietnam':

Hastings was at the fall of Saigon, clambering the US Embassy wall on the last day while reporting for the British press.

Max Hastings also reported on the Falklands war, and other reporters were less than complimentary about his style.

[timb64]

Between Max Hastings' -Vietnam and Neil Sheehan's - A bright shining lie, I much preferred the latter.

[Dartmoor Dave]

I've started rereading some of the books that have been on my shelves since the eighties or nineties. After all, I must have decided to hang onto them with that in mind.

I've just finished "Bluebeard" by Kurt Vonnegut, and wow I'd forgotten what a truly great writer he was. Time for a major Vonnegut binge, methinks.

[clackers]

Max Hastings also reported on the Falklands war, and other reporters were less than complimentary about his style.

His Falklands book - cowritten - is fantastic, Liney. Wrote about it further back in this thread, some services emerge as winners from it, others, not so much.

[clackers]

Between Max Hastings' -Vietnam and Neil Sheehan's - A bright shining lie, I much preferred the latter.

The latter's really a bio of Vann, right, rather than an overall history?

[clackers]

I've started rereading some of the books that have been on my shelves since the eighties or nineties. After all, I must have decided to hang onto them with that in mind.

I've just finished "Bluebeard" by Kurt Vonnegut, and wow I'd forgotten what a truly great writer he was. Time for a major Vonnegut binge, methinks.

I still haven't read 'Slaughterhouse Five', Dave. Mea Culpa.

[timb64]

The latter's really a bio of Vann, right, rather than an overall history?

Correct,but it goes into enough depth about the background and chronology within the telling of Vann’s story to make it comprehensive enough.

[sundown]

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

[Liney]

His Falklands book - cowritten - is fantastic, Liney. Wrote about it further back in this thread, some services emerge as winners from it, others, not so much.

I'm not doubting his book that he wrote himself or with others, but I've read works from other reporters who were there who were less than complimentary about the man himself.

Mr Hastings has a his way of interpreting the facts and his way of reporting them. As with so many case others have their own views.