Books Old & New

Frankly you can't beat sitting down with a good book to read rather than one of those Kindle thingy's! I can see their appeal, don't get me wrong, but I just love to have a physical book in my hand. Over the past few months I've tried to spend the first part of the morning reading a chapter or two, which has been a real pleasure. I used to always read in bed at night, but recent back problems have meant that this is not always possible, plus often I would begin to fall asleep half way through the chapter, which is less than ideal as you can imagine.

At the weekend some more books arrived to add to the 'to read' pile and I must admit a slight frisson when I open the packages and get my grubby mitts on them! the first flick through the pages is always a joy, reading bits here and there, looking at the photos, maps etc. So enough waffling from me and onto the books:

That excellent chap, David Crook of 'A Wargaming Odyssey' Blog fame, gifted me these two books whilst he was having a clear out. They had been ones that I had considered buying for sometime but had never quite gotten around to it, so I was more than happy to take these off his hands. Earlier I had sent him a booklet on Shermans used in Burma that I too was gifted by a friend a good few years ago, which would be  of more use to him than myself.

Having really enjoyed his book on Sicily 1943, I'd had my eye on this book, but when it came out in paperback. These are much my preferred type of book than hardbacks, as the latter take up too much space in my 'library'. However I needed to add something to an Amazon order to qualify for free postage and this was heavily discounted due to a torn cover. Along with the good price this book has lots of good images that I know from experience lose something when in paperback form. Given that many of them would be perfect reference for wargames scenarios, I was quite happy to make some space for the hardback version.

Can one have too many books on the Normandy campaign? A moot point of course but given that I learnt quite a few new things abut the Sicily campaign, I'm looking forward to reading this and see what fresh new perspectives he brings. An author that I find a pleasure to read and one that I put up with Hasting, Beever & Kershaw.

I've had this book for over 5 years or more now and really enjoyed the first book in the series. Bought at a time when I had planned some Hundred Years War games, which never materialised, it has sat on the shelf rather forlorn as my attention turned elsewhere. But no longer! Wanting a change from recent periods being read, I picked this off the shelf (another advantage of books over Kindle et al) and was immediately taken once again my Sumption's fantastic skills as an author. Impressive for any normal author but he was also a practising QC at the time then this was written! For any one interested in the HYW his books really should be your first choice. It certainly has given me many more ideas for Lion Rampant games, which is good.

Sadly real life in the form of decorating means that my chapter or two reading this morning failed, but maybe I might squeeze in sometime this afternoon, if I'm lucky. So I must crack on and make progress so that I can justify having a day or two off to play my campaign game!