Favorite war books?

[Nico87]

Another boring "your favorite" topic, you might think, but I feel that there are far from enough topics on the subject - war. I prefer to think that this forum is a bit biased towards novels, although not war novels (not in a bad way, absolutely not!).

Well, here's my top 10!

01. 'With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa' by E.B. Sledge
02. 'Battle of Tarawa - One Square Mile of Hell' by John Wukovits
03. 'Stalingrad' by Antony Beevor
04. 'The Middle Parts of Fortune' ('Her Privates We') by Frederic Manning
05. 'Quartered Safe Out Here' by George MacDonald Fraser
06. 'Good-Bye To All That' by Robert Graves
07. 'The Things They Carried' by Tim O'Brien
08. 'Britain's Last Tommies' by Richard van Emden
09. 'Berlin: The Downfall 1945' by Antony Beevor
10. 'Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War' by William Manchester

Honorable mentions goes to;

'The Red Badge of Courage' by Stephen Crane
'Boy Soldiers of the Great War' by Richard van Emden
'Dispatches' by Michael Herr

So, what's your favorites?

[ElectricCatfish]

caesar-gallic wars

[Janine]

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane is great! I just got an audio version; can't wait to listen. I loved reading it and loved the film based on the book.

I loved Night by Elie Wiesel, even though it's more about the prisoners being transferred from a camp at the end of the war. It's an amazing read.

I would like to read The Balkin Trilogy by Olivia Manning; it's background is WWII and the mini-series, Fortune of War is based on the novel. I loved the miniseries; so I am sure I would love the books.

Many novels have war as the background. In Women in Love by D.H.Lawrence, he said in his preface that 'war' it a big part of the story, although it is not directly featured.

I know I have read more and will try and think of them today and add to my list.

[Nico87]

Janine:

Yeah, I was thinking about listing 'If This Is a Man / The Truce' by Primo Levi. It's an extraordinary account of his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz, but I thought I'd limit this topic to straight war books, instead of novels in a World War 2 (for example) setting.

For instance, I wouldn't classify the movie 'A Very Long Engagement' as a war movie, just because it's set during World War 1 and show some battle scenes.

I'll check out 'Night', though! I've began to take some interest in Prisoners of War and Holocaust. I don't want to buy ten books about the life in deathcamps, though, and it's really hard to find that 'definitive' account, like you had regarding the Gulag camps in 'One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovic' and 'The Gulag Archipelago' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and 'Kolyma Tales' by Varlam Shamalov.

[Janine]

Janine:

Yeah, I was thinking about listing 'If This Is a Man / The Truce' by Primo Levi. It's an extraordinary account of his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz, but I thought I'd limit this topic to straight war books, instead of novels in a World War 2 (for example) setting.

For instance, I wouldn't classify the movie 'A Very Long Engagement' as a war movie, just because it's set during World War 1 and show some battle scenes.

I'll check out 'Night', though! I've began to take some interest in Prisoners of War and Holocaust. I don't want to buy ten books about the life in deathcamps, though, and it's really hard to find that 'definitive' account, like you had regarding the Gulag camps in 'One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovic' and 'The Gulag Archipelago' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and 'Kolyma Tales' by Varlam Shamalov.


That is true, Nico, but I thought I would mention them anyway. I have to think further on the subject to see what I can come up.

The book Night is incredible and a first hand account. You feel like you are right there with the young man/child being evacuated under the cover of night. I believe, Weisel finally broke his silence, when he wrote this book; now he does opening speak and write of his experiences in the Holocaust.

Another book on the topic of the Nazi's and Hitler is Explaining Hitler. It's also amazing and written well. I forget the author's name, but I happen to pick it up at a yardsale, thinking I would pass it onto another reader; but then I read it and found it fascinating myself; so now I guess it's a keeper. You might want to check that one out, too. Interesting time in history.

[Nico87]

Guess I'll have to check out that one too, then! Thanks for the recommendations!

I have a soft spot for anything from early Nazism to Victory in the Pacific Day. I'm incredibly fascinated about that era, and I try to read as many books as possible on the subject(s), but there's just too much ground to cover.

Again, recommendations are always welcome, and will definitely be looked at!

*edit*

Just read several customer reviews of 'Night', so I had to go on and buy a hardcover edition of it. Thanks alot, Janine!

[sixsmith]

The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson

[amalia1985]

''Berlin: The Downfall 1945' by Antony Beevor
"The Night of the Generals" by Hans Hellmut Kirst
"Im Westen nichts Neues" by Erich Maria Remarque

[Hurricane]

Fiction:
The Things They Carried-Time O'Brien
Gates of Fire, The Afghan Campaign-Stephen Pressfield.
Fields of Fire-James Webb
All Quiet on the Western Front-Remarque

Nonfiction:
Stalingrad-Beevor
We Were Soldiers Once, and Young-Galloway
The First World War-Keegan
Over the Beach: The Air War in Vietnam-Grant
Aftermath: The Remnants of War-Webster (I can't recommend this book enough.)

There's so many more, but that will do for now.

[Lokasenna]

The Battle of Maldon

Even we medievalists have war stories, you know?

[pagebypage]

The March of Folly--Barbara W. Tuchman
The Guns of August--Barbara W. Tuchman
Storm of Steel--Ernst Junger
From Mylos to My Lai--Lawrence Tritle

[mono]

Perhaps just a few other worthy mentions:
The Iliad by Homer
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Beowulf

[Paulclem]

In Flanders Fields about WW1

I really liked Goodbye To All by That by Robert Graves. His poetry's great too.

I was reading Sven Hassel's books when I was about 10 - my parents didn't monitor what I read - and I read the whole lot. I was into WW2 as a kid. I thought the war was centuries before, but now looking back to the sixties I can appreciate how recent it was - then, if you see what I mean.

[hellsapoppin]

Tales of the South Pacific by Michener. War was a theme in some of his other books as well.

[hellsapoppin]

Shogun by James Clavell. He also used war as theme in other books.

[Dinkleberry2010]

The Iliad
War And Peace
The Red Badge Of Courage
All Quiet On The Western Front
From Here To Eternity
On The Beach
Slaughterhouse Five
Tiger At The Gates

[kasie]

Guess I'll have to check out that one too, then! Thanks for the recommendations!

I have a soft spot for anything from early Nazism to Victory in the Pacific Day. I'm incredibly fascinated about that era, and I try to read as many books as possible on the subject(s), but there's just too much ground to cover.

Again, recommendations are always welcome, and will definitely be looked at!

*edit*

Just read several customer reviews of 'Night', so I had to go on and buy a hardcover edition of it. Thanks alot, Janine!

Nico - you may enjoy Fighter Pilot by Paul Richey. Richey wrote it in the early 1940s and it was first published anonymously, as it had to be, he was still an RAF officer engaged in active service. He gives a first-hand account of his squadron's part in the Battle of France - it can hardly be classed as 'literature', Richey was not a professional writer like Graves, for example, but it has the immediacy of the eye-witness engaged in a day-to-day fight for survival.

Someone else has recommended John Keegan's First World War - may I add his extensive but fascinating History of Warfare and his smaller scale but moving The Face of War? In the latter he looks at the composition of the fighting forces, that is to say, the 'ordinary' foot soldier, in three major conflicts in British history, Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Nico 87,
I can't offer much in the way of novels beyond what has already been mentioned; however you may be interested in the following from the Gurgle Library:

1. "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer- Prepare yourself, many parts of it are quite unsettling. I suppose many aspects of war are unsettling aren't they?
2. "The Passionate War" – subtitle: "The Narrative History of the Spanish Civil War"
3. "The Second World War” – History of the Second World War in six volumes by Winston S. Churchill
4. “Miracle at Midway” by Gordon W. Prange.
5. “Pacific Sweep” subtitled: “The 5th and 13th Fighter Commands in WW II”.
5. “The Red Wheel” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A multipart epic regarding Russia’s entry into WW I and the underlying wheel of revolution gaining momentum throughout the series eventually leading to the Revolution of 1917. We happen to have Part I titled “August 1914”.


Gilliatt

[Patrick_Bateman]

Antony Beevor is High priest of military historians

Stalingrad
Berlin
The Battle For Spain

are all tremendous books and should be the staple of anyone interested in 20th century warfare.

I also enjoyed Paul Preston's book on The Spanish Civil War

Seven Roads To Hell: the Battle For Bastogne
Panzer Commander - Colonel Hans Von Luck
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Auschwitz - The Nazis and the Final Solution
Rudolf Hoess: Commandant of Auschwitz
Inside the Third Reich - Albert Speer
Pegasus Bridge

[Mariamosis]

Some of these have already been mentioned, but what the hell, I'll be redundant.

Night - Elie Weisel
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane
... and a Hard Rain Fell - John Ketwig
Hitler's Niece - Ron Hansen
Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account - Miklos Nyiszli
The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
Nam - Mark Baker
Fallen Angels - Walter Dean Myers

[hack]

War and Peace
Paco's Story
The Last Parallel: A Marine's War Journal
Catch 22
We Were Innocents: An Infantryman in Korea
A Bridge Too Far

Some of these are already mentioned. Paco's Story is a favorite of mine, though it breaks my heart.