Tag Archives: WW2

Yamamoto

Posted on December 3, 2015 by smellincoffee

Yamamoto: The Man Who Planned Pearl Harbor© 1990 Edwin Hoyt271 pages Isoroku Yamamoto was the indispensable man of the Japanese navy,  the author of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and an object of such interest to the United States … Continue reading →

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December 6

Posted on December 3, 2015 by smellincoffee

December 6© 2002 Martin Cruz Smith400 pages Between his girlfriend and a samurai intent on revenge, Harry Niles isn’t sure who will try to kill him first.  Raised in Japan to American parents, Harry is a misfit who trouble would … Continue reading →

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This week: yep, still at war

Posted on November 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

I don’t know how most people spend Thanksgiving, but after a day with family eating sweet potatoes and admiring chickens and a late-fall collard garden, I’ve been reading nonstop about World War 2.  I’m moving closer to the end of … Continue reading →

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The Devils’ Alliance

Posted on November 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939 – 1941© 2014 Roger Moorhouse432 pages On August 23rd, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shocked the world by entering into a nonaggression pact.  They were not merely neighbors and rival … Continue reading →

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The Rape of Nanking

Posted on November 27, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Rape of Nanking© 1997 Iris Chang290 pages Long before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were at war in China.  ‘War’ is not quite the word to describe  the aftermath of their invasion of Nanking, however.  There the … Continue reading →

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Blitzkrieg

Posted on November 21, 2015 by smellincoffee

Blitzkrieg© 1979 Robert Warnick200 pages As much as I’d hoped to read Len Deighton’s Blitzkrieg, it’s weeks overdue at the library and I’m ready to close out the first stage of this WW2 reading set.  This volume of the Time-Life … Continue reading →

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Convoy

Posted on November 18, 2015 by smellincoffee

Convoy: The Greatest U-Boat Battle of the War© 1976 Martin Middlebrook384 pages In his memoirs,  Winston Churchill admitted that nothing worried him quite so much as the U-boat menace. Britain could stand alone against a continental menace, but not without … Continue reading →

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The Foxes of the Desert

Posted on November 18, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Foxes of the Desert© 1960 Paul Carell370 pages When Erwin Rommel was dispatched to Africa to rescue his nation’s ailing ally against the small-but-feisty English Eighth Army, he earned the lasting respect and dread of those commanders tasked with … Continue reading →

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War, spam, and more war

Posted on November 14, 2015 by smellincoffee

Today I finished Spam Nation, a journalistic takedown of the spam industry which is centered in Russia. The book is a strange collection of memoir and journalism on criminal relationships so entangled that I felt like I was reading about … Continue reading →

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Battles for Scandinavia

Posted on November 11, 2015 by smellincoffee

Battles for Scandinavia© 1981 John Elton203 pagesTime-Life History of WW2 In Battles for Scandinavia, John Elton takes readers into the three nations who had the distinct bad luck to lay between the warring powers of World War 2.  Norway, Sweden, … Continue reading →

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