Get Smart, Get Ready, Go!
What you guys are reading, month to date, the site’s Amazon bestsellers plus some of your own individual reading regimens:
Fit for Combat: When Fitness is a Matter of Life or Death 13 of you want to live forever, or die trying. That’s eight more since last week. I’m impressed. Still waiting on progress reports.
Going Rogue: An American Life 5. Sarah Palin’s popularity numbers may be down, but thanks to a price war between Amazon and Wal-Mart, so is the cost of her book. Hey, could make her more popular.
A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam 3. Lewis Sorley. That’s the one I want for Christmas.
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government 2. Sounds a lot like my life.
The Siege of Mecca: The 1979 Uprising at Islam’s Holiest Shrine 2. That was reader Roque Nuevo’s recommendation. He also likes With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa.
BTW it’s scary out there. Anything can happen:
PREPAREDNESS NOW!: An Emergency Survival Guide
The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It
Complete Krav Maga: The Ultimate Guide to Over 230 Self-Defense and Combative Techniques
Reader BecksH chimes in with:
How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times (#88 in book sales at Amazon, which is saying something) and,
The Illustrated Guide to Edible Wild Plants Department of the Army (and #12544 at Amazon, which is no slouch, either). RebeccaH’s quickie review in comments below.
Well, as a Fredo lookalike in a semi-fortified hilltop position in New Hampshire wearing a smoking jacket with a .25 automatic tucked in the sash once told me, “Any man who doesn’t have a 12 guage shotgun, 100 rounds of ammunition and a sack of red winter wheat in his basement is just asking for trouble.”
OK, someone’s going to Thailand:
Culture Shock! Thailand: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette
Lemongrass & Limes: Thai Flavors with Naam Pruitt
Travelers’ Tales Thailand: True Stories
Either that or someone’s in training to fake it at cocktail parties. What do you need to know? I grew up there. Thirty years out, but plenty of experience telling lies, half-truths, gross exaggerations, etc. about that part of the world.*
Meanwhile, someone’s on the fast track to be an old China hand. Interesting selection. Shoulda thought of this when I did that China rant a week or two ago:
A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World
The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History
Shanghai Splendor: A Cultural History, 1843-1949
Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor
The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China
Hmm:
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
Liddell Hart: A Study of His Military Thought
Top zombie pick of the month:
Day by Day Armageddon ”Hands down the best zombie book I have ever read,” raves novelist Brad Thor.
You’re an erudite, if slightly weird lot. Speaking of which, another suggestion from reader saveliberty:
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science saveliberty recommends against zapping your tongue with electrodes.
There were a lot more but those were some of the standouts. Thanks for the business. Your purchases help support the site. Remember A Boutique Warmongery and Crittenden’s General Store for all your Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Eid and Great October Revolution Day (coming up Nov. 7, unless you want to get PC about it and call it “Day of Reconciliation and Agreement” or go really lame and celebrate “People’s Unity Day” on Nov. 4) holiday shopping needs.
* Every last word true. Honest.
(Care to comment? Use the “contact” link to assure me you are a real human being interested in commenting on the topics at hand. Include your preferred screenname and temporary password. Lefty Kumbayah singers, moderate handwringers, meanspirited rightwingers all welcome. This is a free speech zone as long as you keep it clean and make an effort to be accurate.)
Topics: books, everything
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:15 pm on Saturday, October 17, 2009
3 Responses to “Get Smart, Get Ready, Go!”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
October 18th, 2009 at 8:24 am
LOL Thanks Jules.
October 18th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I recently read James Wesley Rawles’ How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It, and the Department of the Army’s The Illustrated Guide To Edible Wild Plants, as well as a string of apocalyptic fiction novels (just because I enjoy that kind of thing… yes, I am weird). Rawles’ book is chock full of useful info, but much of what he recommends involves lots of money. The edible plants book is fun because I’ve always wondered what I would do if I got lost in the wilderness, or had to survive during something like, you know, an economic collapse.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:02 am
re: With The Old Breed… Shima Uta. A song written after the composer found out that the majority of the 250,000 people who died during the invasion of Okinawa were killed by deliberate lies from the Japanese High Command. The Marines killed the military garrison, the rest were suicide.
Per my father.
Specifically, my father was at Iwo Jima as a radioman/gunner on a torpedo-bomber. He received the information from a Marine who was in the invasion. The Marine related the horror of watching women throwing their children over the cliffs and then jumping themselves. That was all that I heard about it.