Military Book Club

I’m trying something new here as a funding vehicle; we’ll see if it works:

Over the past few years I’ve studied military history as a hobby.  There’s something  that fascinates me about the wars of two hundred years ago — or two thousand years ago, for that matter.  (Besides:  I apply the lessons of history to help me win war games.  It’s kind of a win/win/win thing.)  Trouble is, a lot of the books I wanted to find are either out of print or quite expensive.  Which is a little silly when you consider most of these accounts were written in the eighteen hundreds at the latest.  I mean, there simply can’t be a copyright on Vegetius; the man’s fifteen hundred years dead.

So I’ve been assembling a private eBook library.  Aside from volunteer labor I’ve done a lot of the work myself (thanks to Google Translate!), including format, proofing, and (in the case of Mahan) making the end result a little more readable.

Here’s how it works for the moment:  You send me an email, we talk payment, I send you a temporary link for a download.  I’m thinking eight bucks a copy, because at that rate if I sell a couple thousand copies it’ll pay for the time I spent on research, editing, and composition.  If you think my work is worth more, I’m right there with you and will gladly accept your money.  All funds will help me pay to do more eBooks, and possibly a cup of coffee or some ramen noodles.

At present these are the books I’ve got ready for distribution:

  • Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power upon History (my own edition)
  • Jomini: The Art Of War (Mendell translation, as issued by the US Army)
  • Vegetius: De Re Militaris, Complete Edition (including the hard-to-find fourth volume and the quite scarce fifth, in a new translation)

MahanCover

These ones are just about ready; kick me a few bucks and I’ll concentrate on whichever you prefer — or just give me a week or three and check back.

  • Machiavelli: The Prince (classic Marryatt translation)
  • Machiavelli: The Art Of War
  • Caesar: Gallic Wars (Everyman edition)
  • Sun Tzu: The Art Of War (modified, based on the Giles translation)

These ones are on the list for someday, but it could take a while.  Sing out if your need is urgent:

  • John Billings: Hard Tack and Coffee
  • von Borcke:  Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence
  • Onasander:  Strategikos

Non-military books:

  • Stevenson: Treasure Island (with Wyeth illustrations)
  • Robert W. Chambers: The King In Yellow
  • Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

Emails should be addressed to gnerphk at gmail (dot com — I’m not typing it out in order to avoid spambots) with BOOKS in the subject line.  In the body of your email please tell me your book interests and your preferred form of payment; I can accept Stripe, PayPal, and personal checks.  I don’t like blockchain currencies for this purpose, but otherwise I’m open-minded.

NOTE:  Please don’t email me for any other reason than this.  TheNotFakeNews at gmail is the mailbox for every other communication.

Here’s a sample, for the sole purpose of testing whether these eBook links work on your device:
Sample Link