TSF Book Club
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I haven't read the Fitzsimmons book on Mawson but 'Mawson's Will' by Lennard Bickel rates up with 'Into Thin Air' by Jon Krakauer if you want a riveting read of astonishment and man's ability to (sometimes) survive. Right to the last you keep thinking 'this can't get worse' yet something else happens.<br />
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In a similar vein, if you are interested in exploration, "Mr Stuart's Track" about John McDouall Stuart opening up the Australian interior is great. Modern day softies will be quite astounded at the lengths he went to to find and chart a passage north from Adelaide through some of the most inhospitable country imaginable. There are some very good books on the Burke and Wills clusterfuck as well.<br />
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On a pulpy summer reading note, I have been reading more of the Sam Carver series of stories by Tom Cain. The main character is a hitman that only kills bad guys for good guys and does so by arranging 'accidents'. It obviously gets more complicated than that as the series goes on but if you like readable light 'spy/thriller' stuff this is quite good. -
There was an even earlier movie adaptation of I am Legend too ([I]The Omega Man[/I] was awesome though). Vincent Price starred and Matheson contributed to the screenplay.<br />
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[URL]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058700/[/URL] -
An excellent but short book , about 130 pages , is Shane by Jack Shaefer . The one the Alan Ladd movie was made from . I have read it three or four times over the last ten years or so and enjoyed it every time .
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Finished reading a book abut Typhoon pilots a few months back, a bit slow in places it mentions one "Mac" McCaw a few times which is pretty cool.Got Alan Deere's book to read too at some stage.Halfway through Ghost soldiers which is about this, [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabanatuan_Raid[/url]<br />
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Had to order a copy of Angels of vengeance in as the only book chain in NZ prepared to carry it is Poppies [url]http://www.poppiesbooks.co.nz/newplymouth.php[/url] .Whoever decided that Whitcoulls and Paper plus should buy in the first two books in a trilogy but not the third deserves to have their entire body covered in papercuts and lemon juice squeezed into them. -
Rereading [I]God Is Not Great:[/I][FONT=arial][I] How Religion Poisons Everything[/I] by the late Christopher Hitchens.[/FONT]
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[quote name='Scorz']"Ten Fighter Boys" is basically ten stories by guys flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. It was assembled by their Sq Ldr, and it's a great little read. Cheap as chips too.[/QUOTE]<br />
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In that vein, there is an excellent trio of fiction books by Frank Barnard "Blue Man falling" ;"Band of Eagles" and "To Play the Fox" that follow a couple of charactesr through the early stages of the RAF. The second book was my favourite and is set around the defence of Malta. Good reads. -
after a brief interlude with summer, when I struggled to find time to read, I finished the 3rd installment in the Conqueror Series about Genghis Khan, Bones of the Hills.<br />
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Thoroughly enjoyed the read, given it is largely fact based (with some poetic licence) it is an amazing story about how he rose to greatness and how feared and respected he was, and despite all this, his own visions didnt look much further past having all his enemies fear him rather than building a lasting civilisation (when you compare the Mongols to the Romans, Egyptinas etc) <br />
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Recommend it to everyone! -
[quote name='taniwharugby']after a brief interlude with summer, when I struggled to find time to read, I finished the 3rd installment in the Conqueror Series about Genghis Khan, Bones of the Hills.<br />
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Thoroughly enjoyed the read, given it is largely fact based (with some poetic licence) it is an amazing story about how he rose to greatness and how feared and respected he was, and despite all this, his own visions didnt look much further past having all his enemies fear him rather than building a lasting civilisation (when you compare the Mongols to the Romans, Egyptinas etc) <br />
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Recommend it to everyone![/QUOTE]On that note, I'm well into the 5th in the series, Conqueror. I was going to say what's it about, but that might be a bit of a spoiler so will just say it's yet another fantastic read so far, if a little bit different in that it jumps between quite a few people and areas! -
wow, I thought there was only the 3, will seek out the 4th!!
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yep, just checked out my library and theyhave a copy of Empire of Silver. Nah you can count, but I aint gonna jump to the 5th now am I <img src='http://www.daimenhutchison.com/invision/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />
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"Paying For It (A memoir about being a john)" by Chester Brown. The award-winning cartoonists' autobiographical matter-of-fact expose abandoning all hope for love in a relationship and instead hooking up with prostitutes for regular sex.<br />
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[img]http://www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/chester_brown_paying_for_it.jpg[/img]<br />
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Good stuff! -
Discussion of John Scalzi's [i]Redshirts[/i] novel has been moved to the [i]Nerd stuff and pop culture discussion[/i] thread.<br />
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http://www.daimenhutchison.com/rugby/index.php?/topic/35695-nerd-stuffpop-culture-discussion-thread/ -
Whats with all the moving Tim? <br />
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If you really want to move all the Nerd stuff this thread will be down to one page when you move all the fantasy stuff <img src='http://www.daimenhutchison.com/rugby/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />.
