Books for bedtime read

[John W EParticipant @johnwe]

hi there,

I don't know if this topic has been covered before – but – if not, here goes.

Anyone bought or own a book that they like and would like to share and may think it's interesting to the Forum.

I have purchased 3 books

1. 150 years of the Maltese Cross. It's the storey of Tyne, Blyth and Wear Tug Companies – by John H. Proud ISBN 0952272105

2. Tools by Dominic Chinea (BBC Workshop fame) a Visual History of Handtools ISBN 978-0-2415-6196-6

3. British Motor Coasters Charles V Waine – ISBN 9781903599242

Along with Model Boats Magazine – that is me set for a good winter read. Anyone else have any books to recommend.

John

[John W EParticipant @johnwe]

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I read lots of stuff on all sorts of subjects but at bedtime I like something that winds me down ready for sleep and I can dip in and out of. At the moment, for the 4th or 5th time I am reading John Campbell's Jutland, an Anaysis of th Fighting. Literally a shell by shell account of the battle with a huge amount of detail which takes you into what it must have been like to be there. Another of my many Jutland books is Innes McCartney's Jutland 1916: The Archaeology of a Naval Battlefield which draws on surveys and explorations of the various wrecks with some surprising conclusions. For example, when the battlecruiser Queen Mary blew up, the sill exploding afterpart ended up in front of the sinking forepart on the seabed as the still functioning propellers pushed it forward. Similarly, it was believed at the time that the armoured cruiser Defence was instantly blown to bits by the German fleet but the wreck is surprisingly intact and sitting upright on the bottom with the secondary armament still pointing at the enemy. Very poignant.

Colin

Edited By Colin Bishop on 29/11/2022 18:10:59

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Lots of good reads John, I think I have all the C V Waine series of books but the one I enjoyed the most was one that was a description of living on Irish Sea coasters in the early 20th century. I'll find the title tomorrow but it wasn't a Waine book although in the same series. It tells of life on board for the crew living in the foc's'le, going ashore and buying their own food, cooking on a wood burning stove in the cabin etc. Fascinating read.

Another that sticks in my mind was a blow by blow account of the battle of Trafalgar, called Trafalgar, The Biography of a Battle. I thought it was going to be quite dry and hard going but it was an absorbing read as it told the battle from the perspective of the crew using writings from the time. Did you realise that crew on Nelson's ships actually thought they were far better off than soldiers in the army because they were closer to a surgeon and so limbs could be amputated quicker with consequently a higher chance of survival.

Finally, not a marine based book but Vulcan 607 tells the entire story of the Vulcan bomber raid on the airfield at Port Stanley during the Falklands war. The book describes the unbelievable amount of work that went into the preparation and the staggering complexity of the use of 14 tanker aircraft, all refuelling each other all the way down there from Ascension, just to get one aircraft over the target. This then dropped one stick of bombs, one of which landed slap bang in the middle of the runway. An absolutely amazing feat of airmanship, organisation, navigational skills and just about everything else imaginable just to make this happen.

At the moment I'm reading Blackfriar's Bobby. A little hard going trying to understand the old dialect as written by an American!

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

i don't read in bed anymore as i fall asleep fast enough as it is,

but when I used to do so, i didn't read none fiction, leaving that to day time reading.

But my favourite books were by an American author called Clive Cussler, who wrote gung ho boys own adventure stories. Sadly in his later writing career he co wrote with another authour, and the plots became unrealistic to a point where they were just too stupid and unreal, and i gave up buying them.

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Yes Neil, Cussler's earlier books were good stuff but he turned himself into a multi author franchise and the quality went way down!

Colin

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

it did, Colin………only ever read one after he took on other authors, and didn't finish that one.

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

When I first went to sea, before e-mails and internet entertainment, I read quite a bit and used to enjoy a few authors. If I wanted a laugh, I would turn to Tom Sharpe, his two South African based books are a couple of books that I actually did laugh out loud at, if I fancied a horror story I used to like James Herbert but a lot of what I read was Wilbur Smith books. That was all going very well and I quite enjoyed the lengthy trilogy books he put together but then I read a book that was about building and operating a ship. The whole thing was so ridiculously far fetched that I didn't read any more of his after that.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Most of my light reading comes from the free Public Domain downloads from Librivox. They can either be for e-readers (Kindles etc) or talking books that can be played on tablets.

Here is a recommended talking book download link – Sea Waif **LINK** Concerning a yound lad's early years at sea in the 1860s in the merchant navy.

 

 

Edited By Bob Wilson on 02/12/2022 15:42:10

[John W EParticipant @johnwe]

Hi there

Talking of reading whilst at sea, how many remember doing the film and book swap whilst in port or at anchorage with other ships? We would pick a selection of well read books from our library and also, along with some well watched 'cine films' and go aboard other British / European ships with British speaking crews and see if you could do a swap with them for better books that were not in your ships library.

I have one quick story – whilst at anchor outside Karim Shar the first mate decided to pick a crew from all the young ones to row one of the lifeboats around the ships to see who had books to swap – we ended up on in one of P & o ships and came back well fed and near enough mortal. We came back by engine and not by oar – followed by a good bollocking from the skipper – for not taking him.

John

[John W EParticipant @johnwe]

Whilst reminiscing I went on google maps – and Karim Shar (my Geordie version) is actually Khorramshahr. By God I used to travel them days….the heat, oh the heat.

John

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

There's a memory jogger John, Walport movies! Three movies, each on three reels, housed in a cardboard sleeve, with the whole lot kept in a large aluminium case. We were supposed to be allocated a box per month but always used to go on a mission in port to try to swap the box as soon as we had showed them..

Saturday night was always movie night in the crew bar and it was the cadet's job to show the movies. I remember a deck cadet once, not the sharpest pencil, who rewound the movie reel and managed to wind it the wrong way round onto the new spool. It took forever for everyone to work out which way round it was supposed to be but we had to wind it onto a spare reel first before we could rewind it to the start.

Then there was the deck cadet who had a couple too many and fell asleep on the projector while it was running! Do you remember the splicing kit that you used to get with the projector? Useless glue never worked.

Then there was the deck cadet who thought he was being clever by re-winding the spools faster and faster until his hand slipped off the handle and the movie started to fly off the spools into a big pile of film on the floor.

We had more fun on a movie night on cargo ships that I've ever seen since with all the fancy entertainment there is available nowadays.

[geconParticipant @gecon]

I am not building anything that floats for the moment, so only look in on the Forum occasionally to find out what is going on.

Interesting to note the different subjects that folk read as 'bedtime stories'. Very surprised that Colin reads An Analysis of the Fighting to help "wind him down". Maybe I have misunderstood but I don't think "Jutland" would put me to sleep.

Since starting planning the Fisher 34 build in early 2019, I have written down notes for the different bulding sequences planned for the following day on a small Samsung Lite6 note book. Did the same thing when building the Colin Archer and also when planning the more recent N-scale train layout. Made small sketches of construction techniques too.

After a short while my head is empty and in 'neutral' (there not having been much in there in the first place!) and I'm ready to hit the pillow. zzzzzz

Wish a continued, happy festive season to all,

George

Edited By gecon on 27/12/2022 17:26:53

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Very surprised that Colin reads An Analysis of the Fighting to help "wind him down"

It's all the statistics! I am already familiar with the general facts. I have probably got a dozen or so books about the battle.There is one about exploring the wrecks which sheds a new light on what was observed at the time. There is always something new to discover.

Colin

[geconParticipant @gecon]

Ahhh yes, now I understand, nothing like statistics to increase the 'displacement' of the eyelids

George

[Andy Stone 1Participant @andystone1]

Neville Shute is one of my favourite writers, His best two novels are "Requiem for a Wren " and "Trustee from the Toolroom " I have read both these novels many many times about 5 years apart and I still get the old thrill of reading them. Anyone else a fan of Neville Shute ?

Andy

[harry smith 1Participant @harrysmith1]

Clive Cussler next book is DEAD MEN DO TELL TALES !!!!!

Harry

[Author]

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