Reading list advice

[Ragman]

Here’s to hoping for a full recovery for you. I agree that reading will help get you through it. My sister has been going through the chemo and surgery this past year and has read a lot during it all. Helps take your mind away for a while.

I agree with all the above suggestions and would like to read many of them. However I’m a big historical fiction fan and I suggest two different authors:
1). Anything by Wilbur Smith. Nearly all of his books (and there’s a ton of them) take place in Africa. From ancient Egypt through to the 1970s and 1980s. Great adventure/war stories with some hunting and politics as well.
2). James Michener. His books focus on different parts of the world from ancient times to the present time of their completion. “The Covenant” is about the history of Southern Africa.

Best wishes for your full and speedy recovery.

 

[Charles de Ribeau]

Charles...........you have drawn some bad cards and will have a tough hand to play in the next 5 years. I hope your battle with Bence-Jones is one that leads to remission. Take your strength from these hearty souls..............and get a speedy remission......................FWB

Thanks. I am fortunate to have a son who is well connected in the world of oncology. Through him, I got connected with an oncologist who only treats multiple myeloma. She is supposedly one of the top oncologists in the country for this particular type of cancer.

A few days ago, I saw the transcript of a lecture given by a researcher from the Mayo Clinic. The lecture was two years ago. At that time, he said that the overall 5 year survival rate was 80%.

There so many new developments.happening in this realm. I saw a quote by another oncologist who said that several years ago, there was one conference that he went to and that was enough to keep him current on new developments. Now he goes 1/quarter and that's not enough.

 

[fourfive8]

Above all best wishes and keep the dreams alive!!
Pretty good recommendations so far and not much to add. Almost easier to list authors than works so will add my must read authors, although many are duplicates already posted.

WDM Bell
Peter Capstick
Frederick Everett
Frederick Selous
Robert Ruark
Ernest Hemingway

If Hemingway was the king of dialog then Capstick was certainly the master of the metaphor.
For outright tough gritty tales of perseverance- Selous, Bell and Everett demand my respect. For our current perspectives of "safari", Ruark and Selby really become familiar hosts.

 

[2400]

I prefer to read and given a choice, I prefer paper over electronic. History (including historical fiction) and hunting are my favorite topics.

I would appreciate any recommendations that you care to offer. Thanks.

I see you have a lot of great recommendations for hunting books are you interested in other stuff to read?

I enjoyed WEB Griffins series that started with "The Lieutenants", his series on "The Corps".

 

[Firebird]

Good luck with your treatments-I’m glad you have those connections-
I would add Walter Prothero to the list as an interesting modern author about Africa and elsewhere and Russell Annabel for old stories from Alaska and into Mexico but they are wonderful stories. Best wishes!

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Anyone know how the story goes with the OP? Did Charles win his battle with cancer?

Below is an excerpt from Robert Kershaw's "24 Hours At Waterloo." This is a great read. We think war is terrible business today, but it pales in comparison to the large scale face-to-face brutality of 19th century warfare. Kershaw is describing Marshal Neye's fatal cavalry charge. Having routed Wellington's artillery, the French cavalry pursued British gun crews and their infantry protection over the ridge only to be confronted by formidable hidden reserve infantry squares.

"It was a well-known and scientifically proven fact that it is not in the nature of [cavalry] horses to ride roughshod over human beings, particularly if they are shouting and stabbing from behind a phalanx [infantry square] of bayonets. The only recourse was to get so close that if the horse went down, the momentum of the fall might collapse a small part of the square. Dying horses, thrashing around, made it impossible for infantry to remain in line, which was why horses were immediately and ruthlessly dispatched with shot and bayonet when it occurred. Both man and horse baulked short of these squares. One British witness described the impossibility of directing a horse ‘against the terrible face of the infantry square, more resembling a living volcano than any phalanx of human intervention.’ The impetus of the charge could not be maintained. ‘The animal becomes bewildered with terror, and wheeling round, in spite of rein and spur, rushes from the unequal conflict.’ Both man and horse instinctively recoil from death."

Robert Kershaw, 24 Hours At Waterloo, 18 June 1815: Eyewitness Accounts From the Battle. Casemite Publishers (2014) p. 234.