Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge is my second year of tracking the books that I am reading. My first challenge had me read fifteen (15) books with a goal of twelve (12). For 2019, I decided that my goal for my Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge should be fifteen (15) books. Unfortunately, I was able to read nine (9) books only.
I had a previous blog post about my Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge and you can check it out HERE.
Contents
I failed in my Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge!!
Earlier I said that my goal was fifteen (15) books for the Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge. I failed. Since my favorite topic is nonfiction, a lot of the books that I read for my Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge turned out to be boring and I had a tendency to fall asleep faster.
Five (5) of the books in the list are about espionage and at least two (2) were quite lengthy. Four (4) of the books were about the War on Terror. I learned a lot
My Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge list (9 out of 15!)
Below are the books that I have read in 2019 in no particular order:
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
From Amazon: If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation’s communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union’s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States’s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky’s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain’s obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.
Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky’s nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre‘s latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man’s hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
From Amazon: Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize
From the award-winning and bestselling author of Directorate S, the explosive first-hand account of America’s secret history in Afghanistan
To what extent did America’s best intelligence analysts grasp the rising thread of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll recounts the history of the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks. Based on scrupulous research and firsthand accounts by key government, intelligence, and military personnel both foreign and American, Ghost Wars details the secret history of the CIA’s role in Afghanistan (including its covert operations against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989), the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden, and the failed efforts by U.S. forces to find and assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive & the Secret History of the KGB
From Amazon:
The Sword and the Shield is based on one of the most extraordinary intelligence coups of recent times: a secret archive of top-level KGB documents smuggled out of the Soviet Union which the FBI has described, after close examination, as the “most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source.”
Its presence in the West represents a catastrophic hemorrhage of the KGB’s secrets and reveals for the first time the full extent of its worldwide network.
Vasili Mitrokhin, a secret dissident who worked in the KGB archive, smuggled out copies of its most highly classified files every day for twelve years.
In 1992, a U.S. ally succeeded in exfiltrating the KGB officer and his entire archive out of Moscow. The archive covers the entire period from the Bolshevik Revolution to the 1980s and includes revelations concerning almost every country in the world. But the KGB’s main target, of course, was the United States.
Though there is top-secret material on almost every country in the world, the United States is at the top of the list. As well as containing many fascinating revelations, this is a major contribution to the secret history of the twentieth century.
Among the topics and revelations explored are:
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The KGB’s covert operations in the United States and throughout the West, some of which remain dangerous today.
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KGB files on Oswald and the JFK assassination that Boris Yeltsin almost certainly has no intention of showing President Clinton.
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The KGB’s attempts to discredit a civil rights leader in the 1960s, including its infiltration of the inner circle of a key leader.
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The KGB’s use of radio intercept posts in New York and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s to intercept high-level U.S. government communications.
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The KGB’s attempts to steal technological secrets from major U.S. aerospace and technology corporations.
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KGB covert operations against former President Ronald Reagan, which began five years before he became president.
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KGB spies who successfully posed as U.S. citizens under a series of ingenious disguises, including several who attained access to the upper echelons of New York society.
Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command
From Amazon:
The New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the 2015 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History
Since the attacks of September 11, one organization has been at the forefront of America’s military response. Its efforts turned the tide against al-Qaida in Iraq, killed Bin Laden and Zarqawi, rescued Captain Phillips and captured Saddam Hussein.
Its commander can direct cruise missile strikes from nuclear submarines and conduct special operations raids anywhere in the world.
Relentless Strike tells the inside story of Joint Special Operations Command, the secret military organization that during the past decade has revolutionized counterterrorism, seamlessly fusing intelligence and operational skills to conduct missions that hit the headlines, and those that have remained in the shadows-until now. Because JSOC includes the military’s most storied special operations units – Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, the 75th Ranger Regiment – as well as America’s most secret aviation and intelligence units, this is their story, too.
Relentless Strike reveals tension-drenched meetings in war rooms from the Pentagon to Iraq and special operations battles from the cabin of an MH-60 Black Hawk to the driver’s seat of Delta Force’s Pinzgauer vehicles as they approach their targets. Through exclusive interviews, reporter Sean Naylor uses his unique access to reveal how an organization designed in the 1980s for a very limited mission set transformed itself after 9/11 to become the military’s premier weapon in the war against terrorism and how it continues to evolve today.
No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden
From Amazon: From the streets of Iraq to the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean, and from the mountaintops of Afghanistan to the third floor of Osama Bin Laden’s compound, operator Mark Owen of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group – commonly known as SEAL Team Six – has been a part of some of the most memorable special operations in history, as well as countless missions that never made headlines.
No Easy Day puts listeners alongside Owen and the other handpicked members of the 24-man team as they train for the biggest mission of their lives. The blow-by-blow narrative of the assault, beginning with the helicopter crash that could have ended Owen’s life straight through to the radio call confirming Bin Laden’s death, is an essential piece of modern history.
In No Easy Day, Owen also takes listeners onto the field of battle in America’s ongoing War on Terror and details the selection and training process for one of the most elite units in the military.
Owen’s story draws on his youth in Alaska and describes the SEALs’ quest to challenge themselves at the highest levels of physical and mental endurance. With boots-on-the-ground detail, Owen describes numerous previously unreported missions that illustrate the life and work of a SEAL and the evolution of the team after the events of September 11.
In telling the true story of the SEALs whose talents, skills, experiences, and exceptional sacrifices led to one of the greatest victories in the War on Terror, Mark Owen honors the men who risk everything for our country, and he leaves listenres with a deep understanding of the warriors who keep America safe.
The Secret History of MI6
From Amazon: The authorized history of the world’s oldest and most storied foreign intelligence service, drawing extensively on hitherto secret documents
Britain’s Special Intelligence Service, commonly called MI6, is not only the oldest and most storied foreign intelligence unit in the world – it is also the only one to open its archives to an outside researcher. The result, in this authorized history, is an unprecedented and revelatory look at an organization that essentially created, over the course of two world wars, the modern craft of spying.
Here are the true stories that inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond’s novels and John le Carré George Smiley novels. Examining innovations from invisible ink and industrial-scale cryptography to dramatic setbacks like the Nazi sting operations to bag British operatives, this groundbreaking history is as engrossing as any thriller – and much more revealing.
“Perhaps the most authentic account one will ever read about how intelligence really works.” –The Washington Times
Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad
From Amazon: In the secret world of spies and covert operations, no other intelligence service continues to be as surrounded by myth and mystery as the Mossad. Gordon Thomas reveals that all too often the truth exceeds all the fantasies about the Mossad. Revised and updated for 2015, this new edition includes:
– Mossad’s secret meeting in 2013 with Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief to plan for Israel to use Saudi to attack Iran should the Geneva discussion fail to be honored by Iran.
– The attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor that will be the flight path to an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
– Mossad’s new cyber-war unit preparing to launch its own pre-emptive strike.
– Why Mossad’s former director, Meir Dagan, has spoken out against an attack on Iran.
– Mossad agents who operate in the “Dark Side” of the internet to track terrorists.
– Mossad’s drone and its first killing.
– Mossad’s role in the defense of Israel’s Embassy in Cairo during the Arab Spring.
– An introduction to Mossad’s new director, Tamir Pardo.These and other stunning details combine to give Gideon’s Spies the sense of urgency and relevance that is characteristic of truly engrossing nonfiction.
Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII
From Amazon:
The “lively and engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) story of how OSS spymaster Allen Dulles built an underground network determined to take down Hitler and destroy the Third Reich.
Agent 110 is Allen Dulles, a newly minted spy from an eminent family. From his townhouse in Bern, Switzerland, and in clandestine meetings in restaurants, back roads, and lovers’ bedrooms, Dulles met with and facilitated the plots of Germans during World War II who were trying to destroy the country’s leadership. Their underground network exposed Dulles to the political maneuverings of the Soviets, who were already competing for domination of Germany, and all of Europe, in the post-war period.
Scott Miller’s “absorbing and bracing” (The Seattle Times) Agent 110 explains how leaders of the German Underground wanted assurances from Germany’s enemies that they would treat the country humanely after the war. If President Roosevelt backed the resistance, they would overthrow Hitler and shorten the war. But Miller shows how Dulles’s negotiations fell short. Eventually he was placed in charge of the CIA in the 1950s, where he helped set the stage for US foreign policy. With his belief that the ends justified the means, Dulles had no qualms about consorting with Nazi leadership or working with resistance groups within other countries to topple governments.
Agent 110 is “a doozy of a dossier on Allen Dulles and his early days spying during World War II” (Kirkus Reviews). “Miller skillfully weaves a double narrative of Dulles’ machinations and those of the German resistance” (Booklist) to bring to life this exhilarating, and pivotal, period of world history—of desperate renegades in a dark and dangerous world where spies, idealists, and traitors match wits and blows to ensure their vision of a perfect future.
Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan
From Amazon: THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A riveting story of American fighting men, Outlaw Platoon is Lieutenant Sean Parnell’s stunning personal account of the legendary U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division’s heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan.Acclaimed for its vivid, poignant, and honest recreation of sixteen brutal months of nearly continuous battle in the deadly Hindu Kush, Outlaw Platoon is a Band of Brothers or We Were Soldiers Once and Young for the early 21st century–an action-packed, highly emotional true story of enormous sacrifice and bravery.
A magnificent account of heroes, renegades, infidels, and brothers, it stands with Sebastian Junger‘s War as one of the most important books to yet emerge from the heat, smoke, and fire of America’s War in Afghanistan.
