The Saga of Pappy Gunn

Story of a guy who started as a navy mechanic in WW1. Learned to fly via the enlisted flight program before booted from the navy in the drawdown. Moved to the Philippines and started a airline in the thirties. Drafted into the Army Air Corps along with his airplanes as his wife and family were captured by the Japanese. Quickly rose to the rank of Colonel as he begged, borrowed, stole, rebuilt and redesigned the aircraft the army had in the pacific while flying hundreds of combat missions in many different aircraft. General Kenney commander of the Pacific AAF considered him one of the most important men in the Pacific. The Army ordered him back to the US at one point to go to flight school when they discovered he was not a rated army aviator despite thousands of hours and more combat missions than almost any other pilot. Read the book to see how it turned out!

 

CAN' HURT ME - David Goggins. A retired Navy Seal and now Ultra marathon stud.
FREAKANOMICS, SUPER FREAKANOMICS, and THINK LIKE A FREAK - Levitt & Dubner. Good series, funny, and good for critical thinking.

 

Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi

 

The Saga of Pappy Gunn is free right now on Kindle....and you can't beat free. I haven't read that one, but there is a newer book on Pappy Gunn called Indestructible: One Man's Rescue Mission that Changed the Course of WWII by Bruning that I highly recommend. It is right up there with Boys in the Boat & Unbroken.

 

Maybe on Audible as it's sorta long (27 hrs) but broken into chapters on different subjects:

Memoirs or Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

First published in 1840, it catalogs the madnesses of society as cataloged in the 1800's. To a modern reader/listener, it becomes clear that although the subjects might change, humanity basically has the same reactions over time.

 

Into Thin Air - John Krakaur
Is Paris Burning? Larry Collins
Chernobyl - Sergii Plohky
The Coldest Winter - David Halberstram
Playing Hurt - John Saunders (John U Bacon)
The Gulag Archipelago - Alexander Solsynitchen
The Demon in the Freezer - Richard Preston
Medium Raw - Anthony Bourdain
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families (stories from Rwanda) - Philip Gourevitch
A slow death - 83 days of radiation sickness
Hells Angels - Hunter S Thompson
Gulag - Anne Applebaum


So many to list!

 

For those who want a good mind warp:
Just Six Numbers - Martin Rees

 

Undaunted Courage is a no brainer if you haven't read it.

Bill Bryson - Short History of Everything

Alas, Babylon: dystopian account of aftermath of nuclear war set in Florida in a smaller town unaffected by radiation but isolated from the rest of the war ravaged U.S. Written 50 years ago, which actually makes it better somehow. I listened on audible.

 

+1.

Answers a lot of questions I had just locked away at some point.

 

All books by Bernard Cornwell. Particularly the Richard sharpe series. 18 books, Napoleonic war, it follows the life of a gutter born son of a ***** British private as he rises through the ranks. Avid reader here and these are probably my favorite military fiction of all time. Very very good

its basically the land version of “master and commander” series by Patrick obrian. If you haven’t read that series then giddy up for about a years worth of awesome military fiction