Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Whatcha Reading Lately?

I just got Gun Notes Volume 1 from Larry Potterfield today. So going to to read some Elmer Keith.

What are you reading?

-John


PS They messed up my scope ring order for my Model 70 Super Grade and I'm really pissed about that...pay for return shipping on a thing advertised that it would fit? Goddamitall....ok ok relax, breath, go to LGS and get some hands on fitting...read EK. Be positive...live in the positive Campfire way and ignore the badness...

Reacher books

Book about Henry Knox.

Old stuff again. Shogun by James Clavell and short stories by Franz Kafka.

Finished all the Reachers out so far, now doing the same with CJ Box, Joe Pickett series - fun stuff.

Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. Set during the Napoleonic Wars and unlike the disaster times we are living these portray what real men can do. Granted these are fictional works, but based on real events from history. I on book 20 (of 20) just now and hate to see the end coming! I HIGHLY recommend this series!!!!!


Mark in GA

Among the Aspens - Mark Parman

Great series.

Need to read all the Bob Swagert books again

I read posts on 24hr CF

Oh and my 7yr old niece left a Hardy Boys mystery book here. Figured why not, I read some of those when I was young.

Good book, may have to get some more

SHOOTING AT THE MOON Roger Warner. America's clandestine war in Laos. Great read.

Westerns by Louis L'Amour

The current one is Kiowa Trail

book about Kit Carson

G23

It certainly is. I've got the entire set and will read again soon. Fantastic, evocative writing from O'Brian. I'm a fan.

Currently reading Barrow's Boys. Factual accounts of British funded exploration in Africa and the search for a Northwest Passage.

Just finished the latest release in the Galaxy’s Edge series. Started a post collapse (emp by the norks) series. Most in this genre suck so bad I quit halfway through the first book but I figured I’d give this guy a shot.

Kinda caught in the middle of two that are very interesting.
“Shattered Sword”, about the Battle Of Midway.
“An Army At Dawn”, the first of Richard Atkinson’s trilogy about the US Army’s role in WW2 in Europe and Africa.
To be honest, both of these books have been recommended here on the ‘fire, and I got in a little over my head reading both!
I had been planning on reading the transcripts of the “Reno Court Of Inquiry”, which has long been on my radar, but these two great books have put other stuff on hold for a while.
7mm

If you like fiction ; Paul Doirion and the poachers son series is good ……fact …..try band of brothers or the things our fathers saw will amaze you more than fiction.

Not to side track but which medium ; hardback , SoftBack , tape or kindle ?

After a lifetime of reading real books, I’m hooked on kindle. Sucks to be a slave to battery power, but the ability to have 10+ books on tap in a lightweight slim package is damned cool

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The History of Greece, by Will Durant.

Our western civilization came from the Greeks.

L.W.

Read them all years ago, need to read them again

My last book was American Sniper by Chris Kyle. A buddy recommended it and loaned his copy to me.

He was right, it's pretty good. Fugg the movie.

I read shattered sword, very good. Ian Tolls Trilogy is extremely good

Gospel of John chapter 5

I’ve been slowly reading The Green Hills of Africa. I used to be a huge book reader. I probably still read as much as ever but since Al Gore invented the internet I read a lot less books and more online articles.

I've been wanting to read The Gulag Archipelago. Currently reading Stud Terkel's Hard Times, an oral history of the Great Depression. I consider it preparation for the next one. Shouldn't be too long now.

Love James Clavell books. Never a bad thing to reread.

American Marxism by Mark Levin.

Durant is a good read

Been reading Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Rupert. I don’t buy into his peak oil theory but it’s an interesting read covering a lot of evils perpetrated on the American public by a corrupt govt.
also reading “the Sovereign Individual” and an old book called “living the good life, how to live sanely in a troubled world” by Scott Nearing about a couple who left corporate life in the 30’s (?) and decided to live sustainably in New England.
I like political satire and read Heller, Vonnegut, Robbins, etc.

Two books by Dennis Covington are extremely interesting and keep your attention are “Salvation on Sand Mountain” about snake handling Pentecostal churches, and the “redneck Riviera about rural Florida back in the 60’s and 70’s when it was the wild Wild West. Some crazy true stories.

Volume 1 and 2 are fun reads. I am reading Hell I Was There that I recently bought from Shrapnel. Short of stuff like that, I don't read.

I have his other book, "American Gun, a history of the US in ten firearms. Pretty good read.

Working on Sword and Scimitar off and on. Its a bit hard to read, lots of detail on the origins of the murderous cult Islam.

Hell I Was There is a great book with a lot of short fun stories from what I remember. My best friends dad let me borrow it as a kid but that was 30 years ago.

That’s hard core man hats off to you

W.E.B. Griffin's The Corps, again!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074CDLQSR?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks

Stephen Moore, Patton's Payback. About the lead up to Kassarine

Fools, Frauds, & Firebrands by Roger Scruton which was EXCELLENT then almost as a 180 I went to The Best & the Brightest by David Halberstam which touches a fair bit on one of the men Scruton classifies as a “fools” John Kenneth Galbraith who loomed large in the Kennedy Admin.

Next up I need a good classic work of fiction. Chesterton is at the top of my list I think… The Ball & The Cross? Anyone read it and have comment(s)?

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell. Just finished The 33 Strategies of War, by Robert Greene.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the Gladwell book when you're finished.

His book Outliers was brutal. My kids had to read it for school. It is not a book I would normally read since I could smell from a mile away the pop culture b.s. it contained, but I read all the books my kids read for school so I persisted. Sure enough the book did not disappoint.

It was a contrived parsing of anecdotal bits and pieces attempting to support his flimsy claims. My kids who read it saw through the thin veneer of wannabe scholarship immediately. I think Gladwell's true strength is fleecing the pockets of the psuedo-intellectuals who laugh at the New Yorker cartoons they don't understand and look down on the plebs they disdain.

Sorry to rip on Gladwell. Hopefully Blink is better. But my son was just raging about that book and the author the other day and what now gets passed off as scholarship. That book and its reception really bothered him and occasionally he just erupts with vitriol for that guy.

But to answer the OP's question I'm currently reading different articles and excerpts from books my one son is reading in college. -tnscouter

All Tony Hillerman books. Fiction on the Rez.

April 1945, The Hinge of History by Craig Shirley.

about the last few months at the end of WW 2.

Another book I picked up at Costco...

That or Barnes and Noble is where I pick up most books I plan on reading...

Right now I am behind in my reading... got 17 new ones I've bought over the last 3 or 4 months that have interested me..

but been too darn busy this summer, taking care of "crap" around the house and for the family...

I’ve read Toll’s trilogy of the Pacific War twice. Once a year or so ago, then again this spring.
You’re right, it’s excellent reading.
I read a lot of Louis L’Amour’s books when I was in Jr High in the late ‘70s.
They had a rack full of them at Murphy Mart, and Mom bought one for me about every week.
I had a side cabinet of the bookcase filled with them.
My older brother borrowed them when he started driving truck, and by ones and twos, they all disappeared.
7mm

Not as harsh, but I've had a similar view of Gladwell. Quaint stories but misses obvious logical gaps. Can't remember if it was Blink or Outlier in which he discussed Ted Williams. Gladwell quoted a doctor who said nobody could see the stitches on the ball, so Ted was wrong. Gladwell didn't consider the possbility that maybe Ted had better eyesight than everyone else. I mean, compared to all the others who hit 400.

Catching back up on the Bowditch series by Paul Doiron. Kinda like CJ Box's series, except this game warden in in Maine.

Recently finished Rising Tiger by Brad Thor, the latest in the Scot Harvath series.

Also on the 5th book of the Jaka Mahegan series by AJ Tata. Lead character is a 1/2 Native American former Army Ranger that gets back into the business. Setting is mostly along the East Coast, specific the Carolinas.

New Longmire book out by Craig Johnson, iv read the rest.

Run With the Horsemen. Fiction, but in fact an autobiography of a kid growing up on a farm in central Georgia in the 1930's.

I am still going through 3 to 5 books a week. Some on the schedule this week are John Sandford's scifi book "Saturn Run', Robin Cook's "Host", Nigel Calder's "Einstein's Universe" and Patrick Wyman's "The Verge",( 1490-1530. Forty Years that shook the world). I'll finish up with Bernard Cornwell's "Sword of Kings"

The Return by Dick Morris.

Just finished April 1945.

Both good reads.

Virgil B.

Rereading "The Hill" by Leonard B. Scott (Col. USA ret.)

Absolutely one of my favorite books of all time

The author has painted vivid and accurate scenes of the battles of Dak To, the story seems to follow the same sequence of events as listed in the historical registers. Although, "The Hill' is fiction, yet, it is clear that the author called upon his own memories of these terrible times.

Corbett Collection, Rio7

The Science of Evil

Working my way through John Macdonald’s Travis McGee books. Entertaining and easy reading to pass the time.

Read two of them and Dennys Reitz’s Boer Commando while weathered in the tent moose hunting a couple weeks ago.

Helmet For My Pillow- Robert Leckie.
Chesapeake- James Michener.
I've read Chesapeake many times and try to reread it every couple of years.

Yeah, there's a not-so-thin veneer of the current fashionable correctness but he does go beyond it to some extent. The cases he presents are no doubt cherry-picked so by no means an exhaustive study, but the subject of the unconscious mind interests me. I'm listening to this one on library audio while working so if it's all blow and no show at least I haven't wasted other valuable time or any of my money.

I'm about 1/3 through it and so far I'd say, if you can look past the spin, the case he's making is correct; many if not most of the decisions and judgements people make are very much influenced by the subconscious mind. Sometimes that's a good thing--vital in fact--and sometimes it's not so good.

Mark Manson's consciousness car analogy is much more straightforward and useful IMO.

Not that most people who read either book will ever actually try to exercise their conscious mind in order to put it in the driver's seat. Embracing confirmation bias and bellowing into echo chambers seems to be much more popular among the unwashed masses and pseudo-intellectuals alike.

Its a tough read. Not because of the writing, or the length, but because of where the stories Solzhenitsyn tells take your mind.

I don't read a bunch of fiction but the Aubrey/Maturin series has me hooked. The amount of historical scholarship involved is complimented by great writing. I am also reading the Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock which might prove to be a bombshell, I will update upon completion.


mike r

Should be required reading, especially for people who vote democrat.

Book about a mutiny on a Russian ASW destroyer written by the chief engineer after he immigrated to US. Supposedly the inspiration for the Hunt for Red October.

Mutiny: The Inside Story of the True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October. Hagberg, David; Gindin, Boris (2008).

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Charles Mann

Last book I read was Between Two Fires, by Christopher Beuhlan. A blend of historical drama, horror, and fantasy. A 14th century French knight-turned-vagabond escorts a strange orphaned girl to Avignon to see the Pope, during an outbreak of the Black Death. Evil stands in their way. It wasn't bad. Heavy on the horror/fantasy elements.

Even if I had time, I would not read.

Feel like I could always be getting something done. It would eat at me. Sitting idle.


I’ll go pull honeysuckle vines out of my cyclone fence with needle nosed pliers first.

I just found a copy of Karamojo Safari by W.D.M. Bell. I am not into it very far but it reminds me of "Maneaters" by Jim Corbett which I finished just a few weeks ago.

The Wright Brothers by David Mccullough. Not sure it's as good as some of Mcculloughs other works, say John Adams, but interesting nonetheless. The Wright Brothers were some focused and driven guys.

Arizona Wildlife Views.

The Ag Mag
Cattle Mag

Local paper.

Handloader that came last week or so. (Barsness writing about that dang 6.5 Creedmor deal.......................again)

Got thru most of it many many years ago.

And, I agree about the required reading............................but that's probably not allowed in schools any more.

Have you watched the series on AMC "Dark Wind" based on Hillerman novels?

Penthouse Letters.

They still gots them?

Shattered Sword, on the recommendation of the Campfire. Slower read than Ian Toll so far.

Got 3 others in line.

I just picked up Karamojo on my Kindle for 1.99. I have never read any Bell before, looking forward to this.

I read it during the lockdown. Not sure I could have gotten through it under any other circumstances; I am certain I could not have done it while in school. Perhaps a condensed version, or something like the comic-book-like "Classics Illustrated". (Those things got me through more than a few book reports!)

King James 1611 Holy Bible.

Latest issue of Claremont Review of books has an excellent article from Christopher Caldwell entitled Why are we in Ukraine?

I know a few folks here who’d call a guy named for even asking the question…

Word of God, New American Standard