What are you currently reading ?

[Russell Phillips]

Just on the 2nd novel by Adrian Galsworthy about the Napoleonic wars (Peninsular).  I've bought all four of them from Amazon-really enjoying them.  I only discovered them by chance.  Never seen them Waterstones - are they choosey?? I,ve also seen some Roman books (Marius's Mules etc.) which again I,ve never seen before, so I think I might be staying with Amazon for my books from now on, as they seem to have a better selection than the High Street shops.

Waterstones (and every other book shop) has limited shelf space. Consequently, most books get six weeks (at most) on the shelves. If they don't sell during that time, they're sent back for a full refund. Amazon, on the other hand, have massive warehouses to stock books, and an effectively infinite space in which to display their stock. So they can display everything, including stuff that they'd have to order from the publisher.

[Hertsblue]

Just on the 2nd novel by Adrian Galsworthy about the Napoleonic wars (Peninsular).  I've bought all four of them from Amazon-really enjoying them.  I only discovered them by chance.  Never seen them Waterstones - are they choosey?? I,ve also seen some Roman books (Marius's Mules etc.) which again I,ve never seen before, so I think I might be staying with Amazon for my books from now on, as they seem to have a better selection than the High Street shops.

Best Wishes   DaveL

The only problem there is that the high street bookshop will eventually go out of business and there will be nowhere to go to browse for likely titles. Oh, I know you can "browse" on Amazon, but it isn't the same. The same goes for the likes of Tesco cherry-picking the best-sellers at cut prices. And while I have an e-book that's useful for reading in the dark, it's a poor substitute for a real book - especially the sort of book where you have to keep consulting the maps. So I, for one, would be deeply saddened by the demise of the high street bookshop.

(ends whinge mode)

[kipt]

Just finished Max Hastings "Catastrophe".  WWI from August to December.  Great book!
Kipt

[Russell Phillips]

The only problem there is that the high street bookshop will eventually go out of business and there will be nowhere to go to browse for likely titles. Oh, I know you can "browse" on Amazon, but it isn't the same. The same goes for the likes of Tesco cherry-picking the best-sellers at cut prices. And while I have an e-book that's useful for reading in the dark, it's a poor substitute for a real book - especially the sort of book where you have to keep consulting the maps. So I, for one, would be deeply saddened by the demise of the high street bookshop.

Honestly, the demise of the high street bookshop won't affect me. I grew up in a small village, the closest thing we had to a book shop within a reasonable distance was WHSmith, which had four book shelves. I didn't move to a place with an actual book shop until I was 32, and by then internet shopping and Amazon had appeared. So yes, I wouldn't be able to browse if all the book shops closed, but I don't do that anyway, because for a long time I couldn't, and by the time I could I'd got used to not doing.

I'd be vaguely sorry to see book shops disappear, and I'd be sorry for the poor buggers who lost their jobs, but I don't have a personal attachment to book shops like a lot of people seem to.

[paulr]

Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck

Doesn't quite fit with my AWI painting project 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Great read, especially the part where he is a prisoner of war.

[Ithoriel]

Honestly, the demise of the high street bookshop won't affect me.

It might when Amazon are the only place you can get a book and it's all e-books at fifty quid a throw

[Techno]

I've listened to loads of stuff over the past few weeks.
Enjoyed "The Long Earth" & "The Long War"....(which I thought I'd hate.)
Just about to start "The road to Jerusalem".....Can't tell from the blurb on the back whether it's a 'true' historical account of 'the great crusader' or fiction.
Craig will know, I expect. 

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

George Gleig's 'The Subaltern' on kindle (account of a lieutenant of the 85th Foot of the late stages of the Peninsular War).

Regards

Edward

[wurrukatte]

Marines by Jay Allen, first of the Crimson worlds series.

pretty good so far.

W

[Russell Phillips]

It might when Amazon are the only place you can get a book and it's all e-books at fifty quid a throw

If that were to happen, then yes, it might. The "it's all e-books" bit wouldn't bother me, since I prefer e-books. I don't believe it will happen, though, for a number of reasons. Amazon are currently the big guys, but I doubt they always will be. Some years back in the US, Barnes & Noble were the big guy with shed-loads of money, and Amazon was the little guy, now it's the other way around. Jeff Bezos himself said recently that "Companies have short life spans, ... And Amazon will be disrupted one day."

Amazon are in a business where it is relatively cheap and easy to set up in competition, especially when it comes to selling e-books. Plus, books have lots of competition, and always will. Even if Amazon were the only place you could buy books, and they only sold e-books, and they charged £50 a book, there's no reason to think that Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive and the like would stop offering out-of-copyright books for free. Which means that every £50 book from Amazon has to compete with loads of free books. They also have to compete with every other form of entertainment available - TV, films, music, (even web forums )

While the demise of book shops wouldn't bother me a great deal, I would be very sorry to see the demise of libraries. Unlike book shops, everywhere I've lived there has always been a local library, and over the years I've spent a great deal of time in them. Nowadays I take my son and daughter to the local library, and I hope the library is still there when they're old enough to go by themselves.

[goat major]

Unfortunately libraries are also facing a lot of pressure Russell. In Lincolnshire the council is proposing closing 41 out of 47 libraries 

I started wargaming through finding book the Wesencraft book in my local library (which is now Leon's local library). It would be awful to think they disappear from communities altogether

[Russell Phillips]

Unfortunately libraries are also facing a lot of pressure Russell. In Lincolnshire the council is proposing closing 41 out of 47 libraries 

Yeah, I know libraries are under pressure these days, and that is a real pisser. I've not heard of any libraries being under threat here, though there is a threat to the local museums. My local council is currently seeking feedback on their budget plans for next year, I sent mine in last week, and I really hope they don't end up closing any museums, though I suspect that they will

My kids and I spend most Saturday mornings in either the library or the museum. It'd be a real shame to lose either of them.

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

Solzhenitsyn's 'August 1914'.

In relation to the ebook debate I'd looked for it on kindle and not found it, so decided that at some point I would get a second hand hardcopy.  The next weekend I saw a copy on the bookstall at the local church Christmas bazaar for 40p. 

Regards

Edward

[richinq]

Square Bashing rules 

I need to go and find my copy of Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914  to read over xmas.

Rich.