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May 7th, 2016
 | 07:47 am
Bouts of being very busy interspersed with very slow times allowed me to finish several books recently.
First was Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli, not the first book I've read on this subject, but this one was more about the history of this type of restaurant, rather than the present status. I enjoyed it.
Next, Osprey Elite #16: NATO Armies Today, a misnomer since it was written in the 1980s sometime, and since the 90s several more nations have joined NATO. Mildly interesting given that it's so out-of-date.
Then, The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff, the second book of SF military work in this series. Very engaging writing. A team of recon Marines is gathered to explore a huge alien ship found accidentally by a salvage operator adrift in space, and the adventures thereof. A good follow-on to the previous novel. I will be forging ahead with this series and probably others by the author.
Next, Osprey Fortress #9: English Civil War Fortifications 1642 – 51 which was not quite as interesting as I'd hoped, though I found one tidbit amusing: commanders reporting spoils of war would announce that they'd taken shovels, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows because of their uses in building fortifications and in siege warfare. Cool!
Then, Firefly: The Gorramn Shiniest Language Guide and Dictionary in the 'Verse. I admit it, I didn't read this one word for word, but I did read thoroughly several parts, including the translations of the Chinese that they used in the show. One interesting detail is that they'd originally intended to use Cantonese, but ended up with Mandarin...
And next and last, Osprey Men-At-Arms #6: The Austro-Hungarian Army of the Seven Years War, a bit boring; the plates aren't the high quality that appeared years later, but they are somewhat interesting as the style is very much that of painters of the period.
I also dumped a couple books, but those I don't count for much of anything...
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