I am reading Dongri to Dubai by S. Hussain Zaidi.
Growing up in Mumbai in the 1980s/90s, I remember reading news stories about the Mumbai gang wars.
This book covers that in great detail and as such qualifies as a genuine history book.
And yet, it reads like a potboiler. It is essentially unputdownable.
10/10
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre
Oo, also his book Agent Zigzag.
Helter Skelter. It’s on the Manson family and it’s super entertaining
The Winter Fortress by Neil Bascomb. It details a British/Norwegian raid to destroy Nazi Germany’s heavy water plant.
Sounds like a great read. I’ll add this to my list! Thank you
Incredible book. Just about everything related to that raid is amazing.
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.
I finished this last week, and this is a fantastic book. Entirely eye opening the whole way through
I’m reading the Wager right now. It’s a page-turner. Killers of the Flower Moon is up next.
The Wager fits the bill!
What’s Wager about? Who is the author
It’s about a shipwreck. Author is David Grann, same as Killers of the Flower Moon. Both are great reads.
I read it in a day and a half. So hard to put down.
The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
So much scary shit happened to me when I read that book. It was like HH Holmes’ ghost didn’t want me knowing what he did.
I recently read Thunderstruck, also by Larson, and I found it to be much more tense and exciting. I knew nothing about both stories in that book though. I’d read Harold Schecter’s book on Holmes before I read DitWC, so that was likely a factor.
But I recommend Thunderstruck either way.
Yes, and also same for In The Garden of Beasts, and Dead Wake. Larson really has a knack for this subgenre.
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live by Paul Kix
The Day of St Anthony’s Fire, John G. Fuller.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden
In Harms Way by Doug Stanton. Only book I’ve read in one sitting. Could not put it down. What those sailors went through…just insane.
Erich Maria Remarque - Arch of Triumph
So good. A German doctor that fled to Paris during the Nazi occupation and works undercover as a surgion. One day he sees the Gestapo officer that killed his wife. A Cat and Mouse scenario begins.
Also beautifully written, cause Remarque 🙂
A Higher Call by Adam Makos was awesome. It reads like a war movie.
On a first date, when I walked into the lady’s house I noticed a Tom Wolfe novel on her coffee table. When I asked her what she thought of it she said it was “mind candy”. I’ve never forgotten that phrase.
I could not put down The Wager. Maybe not a thriller exactly, but the “will they make it?” suspense was brilliant.
Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
I really enjoyed this one. I got turned on to it by a character in a John le Carré novel who was reading it. It’s a page turner. Herod was certainly a mob boss villain of epic proportions.