I reserve the right to change that statement if one comes at me with a weapon of any sort.

Reading a pile of Osprey WW1 titles. A Sharpe novel in the hope it might get me back into Naps and bits of the most recent Lardy Special.

"A family history of the Hohenzollerns", only being in German, and German being SOOO poetic, it is called "Hohenzollern". I do not know how objective it is though, considering it is by Eullenberg, whos family had their nose put out of joint in the fight for succession at some point in the history. It may be acurate, it MAY be revenge. Who knows?

The Book of Contemplation by Usama Ibn Munqidh. It's a new translation by Paul Cobb (Penguin Classics 2008), the last translation was in the 1920s. Usama was born a Syrian noble in the year that Pope Urban II first preached Crusade and died at the age of 93, a senior advisor to Saladin a year after he had captured Jerusalem . We derive a lot of what we understand of the Arab view of the Crusades from Usama's writings and it is a surpisingly easy read, packed with little details of warfare, hunting, politics, assasination and life in general.

Just read Panzer Gunner (Review to follow when I have a tick Rich B!) & have just started The White War which looks to be a cracker.

No. That is "OBAMA".

Saul Davids new one, Zule Hart. Its historical fiction from the Sharpe school but set during the Zulu period.

Fell out with Sharpe and similar for the same reason I fell out with Adam, Forrester, Pope, Reeman Etc. Except for minute differences in circumstances, they all get to be the bloody same after two or three books. And that goes not just for the individual authors, but any one character/circumstance could be interchanged between authors, and you would never know the difference.

I agree.

Yeah! And there's no pictures!

Actually, I make one exception - The Starbuck Series - I enjoyed them very much. Yes.

With historical novels I think it helps to be fairly ignorant of the period in question. I've read a few that take scandalous liberties with certain peoples reputations.

I agree. Thats why I know nothing about anything :dumb: