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William Costello
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Joined: 30 August 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 792
Posted: 19 November 2025 at 1:25am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

1929 - Andrew Ross Sorkin 
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Wallace Sellars
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Joined: 01 May 2004
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Posted: 20 November 2025 at 1:02am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

I’m rereading DEAD INSIDE: A SPACE TEAM UNIVERSE NOVEL.
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Jason G. Michalski
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Joined: 03 June 2019
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Posted: 20 November 2025 at 11:20am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Just finished Slow Horses by Mick Herron and Jack Reacher: The Killing Floor by Lee Child. I've started Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, which I realized, after reading Slow Horses, I never read.
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James Best
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Posted: 04 January 2026 at 6:29am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Starting off 2026 with some hefty non-fiction: DEGRADE AND DESTROY: The Inside Story of the War Against the Islamic State, from Barack Obama to Donald Trump by Michael R. Gordon.

Published back in 2022 this is the first book that Gordon wrote solo. He had written three books with Lt. General Bernard Trainor (USMC, Retired) when they both worked as military correspondents for the New York Times. Starting in 2017 Gordon began working in the same capacity for the Wall Street Journal.

The three previous books, which are part of my permanent library, are THE GENERAL'S WAR (1995), COBRA II (2006), and THE ENDGAME (2013) and cover the first Persian Gulf War (aka Operation Desert Storm) and the U.S. invasion of Iraq starting in 2003.

Sadly, Trainor (who served in Korea and did two tours in Vietnam) passed away in 2018 at the age of eighty-nine. But so far Gordon is keeping the quality level right up there with his previous works. 
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Evan S. Kurtz
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Joined: 04 July 2022
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Posted: 04 January 2026 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Just started a reread of “The Truth,” by Terry Pratchett. It’s possibly been 20 years since my last read. I could just read and re-read Pratchett and I’d never get tired, or feel like I wasn’t learning something.
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Peter Hicks
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Joined: 30 April 2004
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Posted: 06 January 2026 at 1:02am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I’m about to finish the 1966 Nebula Award winner Behold The Man by Michael Moorcock.  A theologian uses the first human trip with a Time Machine to see if Jesus was real.  Spoiler Alert: Yes and No.
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James Best
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Posted: 12 January 2026 at 3:24am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Now about a quarter of the way through ACCESSORY TO WAR: The Unspoken Alliance between Astrophysics and the Military by Neal deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang.

While I have read a lot of Tyson's previous stuff and have enjoyed his views and insights, I find that his books are often weaker when a co-author is involved. Thankfully, this one is proving to be an exception so far.


Edited by James Best on 12 January 2026 at 5:32pm
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James Best
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Posted: 03 February 2026 at 3:58am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Now entering the final chapters of AT WAR WITH OURSELVES: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House (2024) by H.R. McMaster which recounts his time serving as the National Security Advisor during Trump's first term before he was dismissed in 2018.

Not really a tell-all book, but it does paint a very interesting picture of what an uphill battle it was to develop and implement national security policies in the face of all the challenges that the U.S. had to deal with at the time.

Though I am no fan of Trump, the book does give credit to him for being willing to shake things up and take new approaches to foreign policy. But there were too many bad actors (both inside the beltway and across the globe) to get those efforts across the finish line.

McMaster, who retired as a three-star general shortly after leaving the NSA position, served 34 years in the Army with service in Operation Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq. His PhD history thesis was reworked and published as the book DERELICTION OF DUTY (1997) and in 2020 he wrote BATTLEGROUNDS which reviews the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. foreign policy towards Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, The Middle East, and South Asia.

I hope this latest book of his finishes strong so I can consider adding it to my permanent collection along with his earlier work.

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Edward Aycock
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Joined: 13 July 2024
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Posted: 18 February 2026 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I am rereading some short stories by Flannery O'Connor.   From the look of her, you'd never have suspected she wrote such twisted tales.  Love her.   I just signed up for an online course about O'Connor's works. I was an English major but never studied her in class and I have been dying to discuss her for over 30 years with anybody ... anybody at all.  
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 18 February 2026 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

THE CAVES OF STEEL, Asimov’s first “robot novel”, last read in my teens.
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Dave Kopperman
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Joined: 27 December 2004
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Posted: 18 February 2026 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Just finished up the Wings oral history, which is faaantastic if you're an absurd McCartney fanboy (as I am).
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James Best
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Posted: 18 February 2026 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I'm about halfway through THE ACHILLES TRAP: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq (2024) by Steve Coll.
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