Rec of BandoBrother type books for summer?

Grasshopper

Grasshopper

100+ Posts
Was wondering if any of my fellow hornfans can recommend some good books for summer reading. I'll have some downtime in the next few months and would like to procur a few good books. I've read several of the BoB books - the original for the movie and the one written by (I think) Major Winters. I've also read "With the Old Breed" and am looking forward to Pacific coming out in March of 2010.

Any good ideas for those sorts of book? Thanks for any suggestions!

GH
 
If you liked BoB-book, read any other WW2 book by Stephen Ambrose. I've read the following:
Citizen Soldiers - about all us soldiers from Normandy to VE day
D-Day - in depth look at all the action in Normandy on june 6th
The Wild Blue - follows George McGovern and WW2 bomber pilots in europe

Wild Blue was really good since it's a change from foot soldiers to air soldiers. You could make a road trip to NOLA and go through the D-Day Museum Ambrose used to run.
 
"One Bullet Away" by Nathan Fick.

same story as gen kill...told by a usmc office instead of the rolling stone dude. same unit.
 
Wild Blue - Ambrose
D-Day - Ambrose
Pearl Harbor Final Judgement - Henry Clausen & Charles Lee - I could not put this book down.
At Dawn We Slept - Prange
 
There's a book about the USS Indianapolis that was pretty good too. Can't recall the name, but the stories about what happened in the water with the sharks makes you not want to ever get on a boat.
 
Stalingrad by Beevor is an excellent WW II book. I also thought Guadalcanal by Frank was a good read.
 
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors - James Hornfischer
A Bridge too Far - Cornelius Ryan
Decision in Normandy - Carlo D'Este
 
I haven't read it but, seeing Cornelius Ryan's name brings the idea of reading The Longest Day, the book off which the movie was based.
 
Completely different style, but An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson is giving me perspective on the war that I never had before.
 
Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester. [personal account of Marines in Pacific. and I would just go ahead and read everything he ever wrote]

In Harms Way about USS Indianapolis

Masters of the Air by Donald Miller [Eighth AF in Europe]

The Forgotten Soldier [Eastern Front German Army]

Flags of our Fathers [Iwo JIma]
 
Patton and Rommel by Dennis Showalter

Conduct Under Fire by John Glusman. The experiences of four American doctors as prisoners of the Japanese.
 
Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949
by Siegfried Knappe

I found this book very interesting since it was written by a German soldier.
 
What you are looking for is Donald Burgett's series of books about the 101st Airborne in WW2.

"I have read a lot of books on the experience of combat from both World Wars, and this is by a longshot the best. Without qualification."
-- Stephen E. Ambrose (from the Foreword)


Currahee!, etc.
 
Don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. This is absolutely the best non-fiction aviation book to come out of WWII.
Perhaps the finest of all RAF pilot memoirs is from a Free French pilot who flew with Fighter Command, Pierre Clostermann. His The Big Show is one of the best memoirs from any airman at any time.

It is essentially his daily flight log/diary of every mission he flew, including during the Battle of Britain.
 
For a good World War II tome, I'd suggest "Slaughterhouse Five."

It's not evocative of "Band of Brothers." It's not even non-fiction (though it is somewhat autobiographical). But it is a meaty read and it won't take you more than a few hours, start to finish.

I'd also suggest anything that focuses on the Eastern Front, particularly the battles for/sieges of Stalingrad, Leningrad, Kursk and Moscow. Growing up in the U.S., we naturally were raised with the notion that the war was all about D-Day and Pearl Harbor, but it was won and lost on the Soviet steppes.
 
William Manchester's American Caesar the biography of Douglas MacArthur was a great read and is largely concerned with the Pacific campaign. I should find Goodbye Darkness and read that, too.

For fiction, The Thin Red Line by James Jones was the first and still one of the most gripping realistic war novels I've read. I read it when I was about 19, but suspect it's a great read for any age.
 
Here are a couple more I thought of:

"To The Far Side Of Hell" by Derrick Wright

About the not-very-well-known-about battle for Peleliu Island in the Pacific.

An even better book is "A Perfect Hell" by John Nadler

A very much "Band of Brothers"-like story about the 1st Special Service Force, an elite joint US/Canadian group that was the forerunner of our Special Forces today.

They fought mostly in Italy and a little in southern France. Known as the "Black Devils" they were very much feared and respected by the Germans.

They were also essentially the first guys into Rome.

If it could be done just as well, I think it would rival "Band of Brothers" if it were made into a series.
 
Rogue Warrior - Richard Marcinco
The Civil War- Shelby Foote
And a Hard Rain Fell- Can't remember the guys name but he's a pacifist mechanic in Vietnam. It's kind of hard to read but interesting. I didn't really care for the author much after I read it.
 
I enjoyed David Webster's character in Band of Brothers. Turns out the show wasn't only Ambrose, but a lot of Webster's work. As you can guess, the mini series took some liberties. David WebSter's book is pretty interesting. I don't read much but thoroughly enjoyed it.

Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich
ISBN: 978-0-385-33649-9 (0-385-33649-7)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top