LOUDspeaker on Books
Kindle Unlimited is a £8/$10 monthly subscription on Amazon that allows you to borrow books to read. The catalogue is extensive but it’s mostly self-published. I have dipped in twice many months apart (it’s easy to cancel). Going over the archived list of my borrowed books I picked out these as the better ones I’ve read. They might interest you.
Tiger Tracks – The Classic Panzer Memoir
by Wolfgang Faust (author), Sprech Media (translator)
Fascinating first-hand account of the hell of the Eastern front from a German’s point of view. I highly recommend this.
The Last Panther – Slaughter of the Reich – The Halbe Kessel 1945
by Wolfgang Faust (author), Sprech Media (translator)
Fascinating first-hand account of the hell of the Eastern front from a German’s point of view. I highly recommend this.
D DAY Through German Eyes – The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944
by Holger Eckhertz (author, editor), Sprech Media (translator)
Collected verbal recollections from the German point of view transcribed from interviews conducted in the 60s.
D DAY Through German Eyes – Book 2 – More hidden stories from June 6th 1944
by Holger Eckhertz (author, editor), Sprech Media (translator)
Collected verbal recollections from the German point of view transcribed from interviews conducted in the 60s.
SS Panzer SS Voices – Eyewitness Panzer Crews – From Barbarossa to Berlin
by Sprech History (editor)
Collected verbal recollections from the German point of view transcribed from interviews conducted in the 60s.
Hitler’s Children – Spitting Fire
by Sprech History (editor)
Collected verbal recollections from the German point of view transcribed from interviews conducted in the 60s.
Saving Mona Lisa: The Battle to Protect the Louvre and its Treasures During…
by Gerri Chanel (author)
Plodding but mildly interesting history of protecting French art from the Germans during WW2.
The Battle for the Rhine 1944: Arnhem and the Ardennes, the Campaign in Europe
by Robin Neillands (author)
I’m still slowly plodding through this highly opinionated military history book but it’s decent so far.
Test Of Greatness: Britain’s Struggle for the Atom Bomb
by Brian Cathcart (author)
Interesting history book about creating and then detonating a nuclear bomb on an Australian island in the 50s.
Death Wish
by Brian Garfield (author)
Much more respectable than the trashy 1974 Charles Bronson film.
Death Sentence
by Brian Garfield (author)
Sequel to Death Wish.
Suspended Sentences
by Brian Garfield (author)
Good short story collection.
Line of Succession
by Brian Garfield (author)
Well-written high concept thriller about terrorists kidnapping and killing the top people of the US government.
Hopscotch
by Brian Garfield (author)
Okay cold war era spy comedy later made into a so-so Walter Matthau film in 1980.
Checkpoint Charlie
by Brian Garfield (author)
A short story collection about cold war era spies with some of the same characters from Hopscotch. In my opinion this was better than Hopscotch.
Fear in a Handful of Dust
by Brian Garfield (author)
It’s a simple, spare, lean, mean nasty little survivalist tale about four people left to die in the dessert. It reminded me of The Martian (the novel and film about an astronaut stranded on Mars for four years with only a year’s worth of supplies). It has a similar survivalist story about food, water, shelter, dead landscape and escaping.
Recoil
by Brian Garfield (author)
Solid 70s thriller about a family in witness protection on the run from gangsters.
SKINFLICKS The Inside Story of the X-Rated Video Industry
by David Jennings (author)
Covers the crossover from 70s film to 80s videotape. It’s a proper autobiographical memoir and not trashy erotica.
The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the “Alt-Right”
by Jon Ronson (author)
Amusing short book.
The Truth About This Charming Man: Romance with a Heist in the Tail!
by Peter Jones (author)
Indifferent lightweight chicklit-style novel.
Alt.Film Journal!: How I Made A Low-Budget Indie Film for $32,000
by Eric Bickernicks (author)
Interesting case study of a failed indie movie.
Film is Hell:: Surviving the Indie Apocalypse
by Matthew Howe (author)
Very funny tales about making awful straight to rental action trash with no money (they use a lot of stock footage and they constantly sneaked into military bases to capture shots of their actors beside tanks and planes).
Rebel without a Deal: or, How a 30-year-old filmmaker with $11,000 almost…
by Vincent Rocca
Interesting case study of a failed indie movie.
ACTORS TURNED DIRECTORS: POWERFUL WISDOM REGARDING THE ELICITING OF BEST…
by Jon Stevens Alon (author)
Interviews with film actors turned directors.
What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?
by Killian H. Gore (author)
Q&As about horror films, mostly with people in the film business.
The Dudes Abide: The Coen Brothers and the Making of The Big Lebowski
by Alex Belth (author)
Mildly interesting short book written by an assistant who worked on the cult film The Big Lebowski in 1997-98.
Behind the Screens: Programmers Reveal How Film Festivals Really Work
by Jon Gann (author), Kelley Baker (introduction)
More interesting than it sounds set of interviews with film festival programmers about what they’re looking for in the submitted films.
So You Want to Start a Film Festival?
by Jon Gann (author)
Interviews with film festival people about the business side. Not as interesting as the previous film focused book Behind the Screens but still worth a read.
My Seinfeld Year (Kindle Single)
by Fred Stoller (author)
Mildly interesting short memoir about spending a year trying and mostly failing to write a produced script for the TV show Seinfeld.
The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters, 10th Anniversary Edition…
by Karl Iglesias (author)
Interviews with scriptwriters.
Hints & Tips for Videogame Pioneers
by Andrew Hewson (author), Rob Hewson (editor)
A memoir by an 8-bit and 16-bit British games publisher (not a designer or maker of games).
I would recommend avoiding these:
SS Panzer SS Pride – Eyewitness Panzer Crews – Barbarossa to Italy: Part 1…
by Sprech History (editor)
Repeats chapters in a different order to the books I recommend above. As far as I could tell there was no new material.
SS Panzer SS Inferno – Eyewitness Panzer Crews – Normandy to Berlin: Part 2…
by Sprech History (editor)
Repeats chapters in a different order to the books I recommend above. As far as I could tell there was no new material.
SS Panzer: Sherman Killers – Eyewitness Tank Crews
by Sprech History (editor)
Repeats chapters in a different order to the books I recommend above. As far as I could tell there was no new material.
The Romanov Succession
by Brian Garfield (author)
It starts good but it quickly lost my attention after about 15%.
Hopefully you are researching a book about a vigilante Tiger tank commander (with a sense of humour) 🙂
Mein Godt! That’s a lot of reading!
It`s no good to me and I have thought about it. Trouble is when I pass a book shop I come out with 4-6 every time which take me more than a month to read. Of course if I sat down every day and just read….
A book on tanks by a German called Faust? That’ll make it a PanzerFaust then…
The D-Day through German Eyes books were really interesting, and a lot more involving than the usual historical tomes
Are you Brian Garfield? Otherwise probably good recommendations if you are obsessed with the 2nd World War.
Brian Garfield is worth a damn. And I say that as someone who usually doesn’t read crappy “airport fiction”.
Scribd is a good alternative , about $7 per month and (I think) a better catalogue
E.g. I’m Currently reading :
The Spooky Art by Norman Mailer (audiobook)
Stranglers Song by Song – Hugh Cornwell
Play it Loud – a biography of the Electric Guitar (audiobook)
Wrestlecrap! The worst of WWE
Call of Nature (the secret life of dung)
Invasion of the Space Invaders – Martin Amis (in Spanish)
Edit: $8.99. pcm
Just a note that The Last Panther book recommended above is a Kindle deal of the day today – 99p to buy outright
Did you know that on KU you can borrow some mags. Q, Mojo, SFX and Empire plus others. They are very readable and well-formatted on my circa 5-year-old B&W Kindle. Take a look for yourself.