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Anyone got any reccomendations? Looking at factual books rather than fiction. Getting more interested in modern history after watching a few programs recently.
where to start? It was a long, big war with lots going off all over the world at the same time.
single campaign? early or late? Or just a big overview?
military campaigns, strategic bombing, island hopping, The Holocaust?
Any Anthony Beevor. All outstanding(though Stalingrad is my favorite).
Big overview to start with I think. I know the basics taught at school quite a few years ago but only recently found out for example that the former King Edward could have been a nazi sympathizer.
Churchill's History of WWII is a great read http://www.amazon.co.uk/Second-World-War-Winston-Churchill/dp/0712667024 . You can decide what is fact and what is fiction.
I've enjoyed Anthony Beevor. Read Stalingrad and Berlin. Not light reading but worth it.
Can't see one book covering the whole thing. Found out the other day we invaded Iceland in 1941, doesn't get mentioned much.
Of course all the real action takes place on the Eastern Front. Everything else is a side show. read Chris Bellamy's Absolute War for a mind blowing insight http://www.amazon.co.uk/Absolute-War-Soviet-Military-Classics/dp/0330510045/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329338384&sr=1-1 also very easy to read.
big overview..
ww2 by phillip warner.
nice balance of depth and range.
Any of the anthony Beevor books are good - very long and detailed, 'Berlin' is a bit of a depressing slog though to then end at times, Beevor's D-day is very good, the Ambrose D-Day book is a little lighter reading, along with the other Ambrose books.
Quartered Safe out Here is a good read for an insight into the Far East campaign, Bill Slim's book, 'Defeat into Victory', is very good and an insight into the problems of the larger picture.
Kenneth Sandford's book Mark of the Lion. About one man rather than the war as a whole, so may not be what you're after, but definitely worth a read.
All of WW2 in one book.
Just recently finished reading 'the man who broke into Auschwitz' an amazing book, well worth checking out if you have not read already.
True story about a British soldier who marched into Buna-Monowitz!
Go in to a good second hand book store and you can usually buy (for peanuts) some really good books. Try and get some books by authors from Germany, France etc. Get another view point.
Panzer commander by Hans Von Luck is a good book. Stephen E. Ambrose has written some good books.
I'm reading Hunting Evil by Guy Walters at the moment, very enlightening.
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Most-Secret-Wordsworth-Military-Library/dp/185326699X ]Most Secret War, R. V. Jones.[/url] for a discussion of the technology race that was going on.
APF
Beevor, +1
First Light by Geoff Wellum. Lovely, stunning, scary, moving, and awesome.
A Bridge too Far by Cornelius Ryan. As above.
Some good reccomendations there looking at amazon. Think i will look in the 2nd hand book store in town on sat to start and see if they have anything
Beervors a reasonable shout, although I would really strongly recommend "The Third Reich" by Michael Burleigh, for a fuller and details study of National Socialism. Chilling that it was only 80 years ago, and yet there are reoccuring themes to thir support and sociiological ideas that we should not lose sight of, in how we treat each other.
+1 for first light by Geoff Wellum, absolutely brilliant book, laugh out loud on one page, moved to tears on the next, haven't met anyone who's read it who didn't love it.
I am halfway through 'all hell let loose' by Max Hastings. Its an interesting overview.
'Black May' by Michael Gannon, the defeat of the U-Boats (the one thing that really worried Churchill)
'Slim, master of war' by Robert Lymam, the forgotten army turned around and defeating the Japanese
+1 for Most Secret War
+1 for Winston Churchill's books. Fascinating stuff.
What about the bombing war?
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Among-Dead-Cities-Civilians-Necessity/dp/0747576718 ]Among the Dead Cities[/url]
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Second-World-War-John-Keegan/dp/0712673482/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329340584&sr=8-1 ]John Keegan The Second World War[/url]
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nazis-Warning-History-Laurence-Rees/dp/056349333X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329340638&sr=1-3 ]Laurence Rees Nazis A Warning From History[/url]
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Auschwitz-Nazis-Solution-Laurence-Rees/dp/0563522968/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329340638&sr=1-4 ]Laurence Rees Auschwitz Nazi & the Final Solution[/url]
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Villa-Lake-Meeting-Wannsee-Solution/dp/0141003952 ]Mark Roseman The Villa The Lake The Metting[/url]
The first three are very good and when I've finished my current read I'm looking forward to starting the last one.
How how much do you want to spend?
They wouldn't get much more interesting than this. Lovely thing to own as well
I tend to read Bigraphical books
The forsaken army - Heinrich Gerlach. The story of one of the German survivors from Stalingrad
Accidental agent - John goldsmith - an account of an SOE operative in France working with the resistance.
teh classics Dambusters, 633 squadren, reach for the sky of course
Just finished "All hell let loose" by Max Hastings.I`ve read the Anthony Beevor boooks on Stalingrad,D Day (and Hastings book) and Berlin too,but "All hell let loose" really puts the whole war and all the western allies campaigns in context when you start looking at them against what happened on the Eastern front.
Essential reading if you want to get a comprehensive overview.
I can also thoroughly reccomend Guy Sajer`s book which is his first hand expereience and strory of fighting on the Russian front.
Blood, Tears and Folly
very readable and pre war english political history is covered to a limited extent to
Quartered Safe out Here is a good read for an insight into the Far East campaign,
+1 But then I love most of George Macdonald Fraser's stuff.
Stalingrad and Berlin by Antony Beevor are outstanding.
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=fussell+wartime&tag=googhydr-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=8877451693&ref=pd_sl_3kpqipmkux_b ]Wartime by Paul Fussell[/url] is probably lesser known than the above blockbusters but is a fascinating read nonetheless.
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=fussell+wartime&tag=googhydr-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=8877451693&ref=pd_sl_3kpqipmkux_b#/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_13/276-0977637-8063124?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+forgotten+highlander&sprefix=berlin+antony%2Cstripbooks%2C280&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Athe+forgotten+highlander ]The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart[/url] is an amazing personal memoir, the story of a Scot taken prisoner by the Japanese in the fall of Singapore.
+1 for Stalingrad - probably the only [i]war[/i] book I've started and finished - we are very lucky people in the place and time we live
Whilst they're still alive, go find someone who was involved, and talk to them. Learned more from my parents (both active participants) than I would from any book.
Catch 22 is the closest to how it was, apparently.
Forgotten Highlander.
I had this on audio book for walking the dog, it took about 8/9 walks to finish it and for 4/5 of those walks I had tears in my eyes.
Fantastic book that I'd recommend in a flash.
Popski's private army , is a very good read . I rated Stalingrad too .
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Old-Breed-World-Pacific-Classic/dp/0091937523/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 ]With the Old Breed: At Peleiu and Okinawa[/url].
With The Jocks - an outstanding book about a reluctant lieutenant - a very personal book written from his notes he (illegally) took during the campaign.
And personally I found Stalingrad a boring read and didn't complete it. I have Berin too so can't even face starting it.
For Death Camp reading - Primo Levi. Hauntingly good reads.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Storm-War-History-Second-World/dp/0713999705
The Storm of War by Andrew Roberts
Excellent read
+1 for Len Deighton's [i]Blood,Tears and Folly[/i]
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Tears-Folly-Objective-World/dp/0099520494/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329381219&sr=8-1-fkmr0
Also quite good is Dr Richard Overy's [i]Why the Allies Won[/i]
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Allies-Won-Richard-Overy/dp/1845950658/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329381315&sr=1-1
Road of Bones - Fergal Keane
(Deals with the siege of Kohima - the turning point in the British war against Japan)
A Separate Little War - Andrew Bird
(This is pretty obscure but will be especially interesting if you live in NE Scotland. Covers the extremely dangerous aerial battle against axis shipping in Norway at the very end of the war)
The Big Show - Pierre Clostermann
I've recently finished and then reread 2 books about the Pacific war.
Both Eugene Sledge's 'With the old breed' and Robert Leckie's 'Helmet for my pillow' are very humbling and stark views of the fight against the Japanese from the perspective of an ordinary marine.
Dunno what else to say about them really. I found both books, but particularly Sledge's, deeply affecting.
A book called The Dark Valley by Piers Brendan is an excellent introduction to European politics in the years leading up to WW2.
Is the Eugene Sledge one what the Pacific mini series was based on?
Look for Saul David as an author.
His book on how Churchill sacrificed the Highland Division to allow the rest of the British army to evacuate from Dunkirk is very interesting.
Then there is Clay Blair on the U-boat war. See Churchill deliberately allowing convoy HX229 to sail directly into the line of U-Boats with huge loss of life and ships, all so he had a negotiating point for more US protection. The Merchant Navy had the highest death rate of any of the services - something like 30+%. It was safer in the army.
Is the Eugene Sledge one what the Pacific mini series was based on?
Yes, he was the young lad who was kept back from the draft by his father. Both books I mentioned formed the basis for the HBO series although there is a certain amount of weaving of the stories that never actually happened.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Germany-1945-Peace-Richard-Bessel/dp/0743239555
Germany 1945
Quite a stunning book which basically charts why Germany had to be finished off totally, but also details the suffering caused to the average person - more Germans were killed in January 1945 than the UK suffered throughout WW2...
History of the Second World War by Liddell Hart is a pretty dry read but comprehensive and fairly rigorous. Maybe a bit dated in style.
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I struggled with Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor, so i haven't tried any of his other books.
With regards novels, along with Catch 22 (i've never simultaenously loved and hated a book as much as that one), some that i found particular arresting are "Schindler's List" by Thomas Keneally and "Alone in Berlin" by Hans Falleda.
Probably a lot lesser known than most British commanders, but [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Night-Wingate-Burma-Ethiopia/dp/033372576X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1329387464&sr=8-4 ]this biography[/url] of the frankly mad Wingate is fascinating.
The Chindits and their commander are hardly remembered these days, and their strategic achievements were highly debatable, but this is another example of the off the wall operations that peppered the Second World War.
The SE Asia/Pacific campaigns seem a bit forgotten from the British perspective these days- or is that just my imagination?
no-one for martin gilbert? either the middle book on the history of the twentieth century or the holocaust book. for a more personalised insight into the mechanism of extermination then into that darkness, a biography of franz stangl the treblinka commandant, by gitta sereny is a deserved classic
both of primo levi's if this be a man/ the truce. and, if you're reading them this way for the gas ladies and gentlemen by tadeusz borowski is one that shouldn't be missed.
The book I mentioned before (I couldn't recall the author at the time)
[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jocks-Peter-White/dp/0750930578 ]With the Jocks by Peter White[/url]
[i]As a 24-year-old lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers, Peter kept an unauthorised journal of his regiment's advance through the Low Countries and into Germany in the closing months of the war in Europe. Forbidden by his commanding officer from doing so for security reasons, Peter's boyhood habit of diary keeping had become an obsession too strong to shake off. In this graphic evocation of a soldier at war, the images he records are not for the faint hearted. There are heroes aplenty within its pages, but there are also disturbing insights into the darker sides of humanity - the men who broke under the strain and who ran away; the binge drinking which occasionally rendered the whole platoon unable to fight; the looting, the rape, and the callous disregard for human life that happens when death is a daily companion. Hidden away for more than 50 years, this is a rare opportunity to read an authentic account of the horrors of war experienced by a British soldier in the greatest conflict of the 20th century.[/i]
mastiles_fanylion - MemberAnd personally I found Stalingrad a boring read and didn't complete it. I have Berin too so can't even face starting it.
I downloaded them from iBooks and read them on my iPhone. The combination of the smaller column width and not having a daunting big door-stop of a book in your hands made them easier to read and quicker to get through.
WW2 - Huge Area.
The Forgotten Highlander.
Stalingrad
Pegasus Bridge
First Light
Loads of good suggestions in the thread. A lesser known book well worth a read for the picture of everyday life in a Scots Battalion from the Western Desert via Italy to D-Day is Battalion by Alistair Borthwick. He was an officer in the unit, The 5th Seaforths, throughout the war. It's well written. The author is better known for his 1930s account of rock climbing and hillwalking in Scotland, a classic still in print today, - Always A Little Further.
Battalion is out of print but available second hand.