I'm wondering how many of you are like me? Has your reading and researching of your various armies or time periods of interest developed into a hobby of it's own? Every time my girlfriend drags me off to the mall, "just to get out of the house", I rarely miss the opportunity to wander into the resident bookstores therein for a quick perusal. I think the entire staff of both the neighborhood "used" bookstore and library apparently know me on a first name basis.

I originally began reading in the history, military history and historical fiction genres to develop my armies more historically, make my tabletop scenarios a bit more "period" and see if I could get a better "feel" for the time. Lately however, I've noticed that my reading has certainly developed an impetus of its own.

In the beginning, my history library amounted to my old college texts. That was about it. Over the past few years, it's grown to literally hundreds of books (some of which I've honestly never fully read) on everything from the conflicts and civil wars of Akkadian Sumeria, to the recent Persian Gulf War, to speculative historical fiction of possible wars of the future.

Now I find myself wondering is my reading more to further develop my armies, tactics, and figure painting along historical lines or is my miniature gaming more of a three dimensional exercise of my reading"? Anyone else pondering this? I do know that all in all it's a very heady and quite enjoyable combination.

So, taking the chance that I'm not alone in this, I thought I'd let you all know of a couple of excellent books I recently stumbled across.

The first is Storm from the East: from Genghis Khan to Khublai Khan by Robert Marshal, from University of California Press, Berkeley California 94720 ($24.95) 256 pages.

At my first glance, I thought "Ho hum, just another book on the Mongols". I was very pleased to see I was quite mistaken This book is dynamite, Not only is the text well written, it is fast, smooth reading and does not take itself overly seriously. It's also jam packed full of excellent color illustrations. The book accompanies the NHK (Japanese) television series. And the major buying point for me was the many full page and double full page photographs taken directly from the series.

Apparently Little to no expense was spared in the costuming and authentic garb for the actors. These photographs alone are well worth the price of the book. Of note, is the scene of John of Plano Carpini at Guyuk Khan's coronation ceremony complete with naccara drummers. Another noteworthy photograph is Hulgu's cavalry thundering across a marshy plainscimitars waving and water splashing! My absolute favorite however, has to be the double page photograph of a unit of highly enthusiastic mangudaibanners furled, steep hills in the background charging right at the camera!

I would strongly encourage anyone with even the most passing interest in the Mongols to pick this book up. It gives an excellent feel for a fascinating period. You will not he disappointed.

I'm trying to get a hold of the television series, so far, with absolutely no success. I'll let you all know if I ever do.