Weekend reading roundup

[nanila]

How did your weekend reading go? If you planned on anything specifically, did you read it?

Comments

[nanila]

I'm nearly finished with C. Stross' The Nightmare Stacks. It's been a lot of fun. I'm happy to have gotten successfully stuck into a novel-length piece of fiction - it has been quite some time since I was able to do that.

[davidgillon]

I stumbled on, and have been sucked into, a transcription of "ADM 186/259 C.B. 1640 PROGRESS IN GUNNERY MATERIAL 1922 and 1923" http://www.admirals.org.uk/records/adm/adm186/adm186-259.pdf, which was an (bi?-)annual publication of the Royal Navy for its gunnery specialists. It's fascinating because of the depth of research that's going on and the casual mention of things like using a 25' solenoid (yes, 25 feet) as part of a test rig for calculating shell velocity. Another experiment measured the varying rotational speed of a shell during its flight, from inside the shell... (obviously this does mean some poor sod had to trudge all across the sands at low tide trying to find the thing afterwards, but that's what enlisted men are for ;) ). More soberingly, extensively detailed full scale tests of shell impacts on a captured German battleship.

I might have hesitated if I'd looked at the page count first, 386 pages, and that's without the original illustrations, but I'm glad I didn't as this is so fascinating. It does semi-intersect with the stuff I used to do professionally when I wasn't doing flight controls, though I actually came across it while searching for hobby stuff.

[fred_mouse]

I'm reading a fascinating (but probably not for the reasons the author intended) book about the importance of nutritional supplements in long term health. I guess it counts as intended reading, given that the plan was 'try and finish something I've already started'.

(I did finish one book, but it was Monday morning at that point, so I don't know that it counts)

[bonnefois]

I haven't finished anything, but I've gotten through most of the stories in Frosting On The Cake 2 by Karin Kallmaker. There's only one and a half left at this point. (Though I still need to read the book associated with one of the short stories here)

[ironed_orchid]

Saturday was stormy and I stayed in and read one and a half books! I rarely do that anymore.

The books were The Winter Long and A Rose Red Chain, books 8 and 9 of the October Daye series. I've read them before, and re-read the series in order over the last couple of weeks.

[bonnefois]

I think I might've finished it a bit earlier than the weekend, but I finished Above Temptation, and moved on to reading 18th and Castro (also by Karin Kallmaker).