OK guys, I'm looking for your input on my next book because I'm having trouble making up my mind.

I had thought I'd decided on James Hornfischer's "Neptune's Inferno", but then I was looking at one of his other books "The Fleet at Flood Tide" and it looks pretty good too.

Then, I made the mistake of starting to browse. Last year I read Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad" and it was excellent. So, I was browsing his other books and saw "The Fall of Berlin". That looks good, as well as ...

Now, I completely undecided. Any thoughts on those mentioned above? Or, something else?

Happy New Year.

Target Switzerland, by Stephen Halbrook.

Neptune's Inferno is exceptional and arguably Hornfincher's best work.

Deadly Crossroads by Danny Parker.

Shattered Sword by Parshall and Tully. About Midway from the Japanese view.

The First Team, US Naval aviation from Pearl Harbor to Midway by John Lundstrom

Incredible Victory by John Lord. About the Battle of Midway but very story like. Not as well researched as first two but has a lot of first person perspectives some of which has to be taken with a grain of salt.

A Man Called Intrepid by William Stevenson.

John Toland's "The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire" 1936-1945 is an excellent read.

Jim

Two stand out to me.

Growing up, we lived near the author, William Shirer. My parents had a copy of this rather large book with a big swastika on book shelf that he gave them. I didn't read it until a few decades later when I bought my own copy.
It's long, but doesn't seem long when you read it, as it covers a lot of ground. He was a reporter for CBS News (radio back then) in Europe as Hitler came to power and covered developments in real time. He traveled relatively freely and met and spoke to many at the time. He was actually outside the railroad car that Hitler made the French bring out to surrender to him and describes the events.
Those Germans were into keeping records so he also had access to all sorts of notes and documents after the war. He fled just before they would have arrested him and the war was getting started.
You feel like you are in the room listening to the conversations and decisions being made, as the Nazis came to power and started overpowering and double crossing their neighbors.
To us that didn't live then the question is, how could this happen? This explains how like you were there. Look at the Amazon page below and scroll down to the reviews from people that have read this and you'll get a better idea of what others think of this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fa...istory/dp/1451651686

Another stand out is With The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge. This book's story and character is part of The Pacific mini-series. Rated by many as the best ever personal account of what real combat was like (brutal and horrifying) in the Pacific.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000...encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

"Crusades In Europe" by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Another vote for Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

I second A Man Called Intrepid. One of my favorite WWII books. Also Thunder Below by Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey.

Leo Marks - Between Silk and Cyanide

R.V. Jones - Most Secret War

Karl Doenitz - Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days

Herman Wouk's "Cain Mutiny", "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" are very good novels based on WWII. A lot of research went into them for accuracy. Well worth the time to read.

Jim

Me too please. Anthony Beevor's Fall of Berlin is excellent. I'm fascinated by the maelstrom of chaos and tragedy of the collapse of Berlin.

The Last Hero: William B. Donovan by Anthony Cave Brown author of Bodyguard of Lies

quote:

Originally posted by Blackmore:
The Last Hero: William B. Donovan by Anthony Cave Brown author of Bodyguard of Lies

I know the author of the other major biography of "Wild Bill" Donovan.

Fleet at Flood Tide is excellent, as is Tregaskis' Guadalcanal Diary. Toland's Rising Sun is very good.

The best I have read recently is Shattered Sword by Parschall and Tully about Midway. I learned so much...

Since you have already read some Hornfischer, you may want to give The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors a whirl.

quote:

Originally posted by divil:
Since you have already read some Hornfischer, you may want to give The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors a whirl.

As an old sailer, I really enjoyed reading of the courage of these Navy brothers.