Reply to: Book recommendations

[dang65]

If you want to know the truth about WW2 you need to read different authors and never believe everything you hear from any single one.

The thing about Sven Hassel is that you read his stories, think "that's outrageous", then go and look up the facts and find that (most the time) it's all true. It was the first place I heard about the British SS corps - just a passing encounter in the book - which I guess is quite a well-known story now. Also, in one of his books he has a black German soldier as one of the characters, which sounds completely absurd, but there was a BBC documentary about them a few years ago.

He's usually dismissed outright by "serious historians", but you get a really different angle on everything. Bonus being the massive dose of gallows humour running through everything.

[AtW]

If you want to know the truth about WWII then read Sven Hassel.

If you want to know the truth about WW2 you need to read different authors and never believe everything you hear from any single one.

The worst are Soviet ones because they had capability to classify everything they did not want to get out, but with cross examination of different accounts (especially from German side), a lot of things become clear.

2 years ago I bought one Russian book on Battle of Kursk, and generally I am sceptical about Russian books of this nature because they tend to go for that big lie that USSR was pushing, however that book was superb - the guy used lots of german material and basically reconstructed it all by the hour: I don't think it is translated into English, too little interest in these things but nevertheless it is excellent.

[dang65]

If you want to know the truth about WWII then read Sven Hassel.

[AtW]

I've heard good reviews of "Stalingrad" by Anthony Beevor - one you've read?

I've read this one and also others by Beevor - I don't like it because he clearly was following the line of Soviet propaganda and historical lies that they perpetrated over decades.

It's a pity Manstein only wrote about stuff he took part in, his style in my view is very objective even though he writes about his own work. Guderian also good, though his view was more tactical than strategic. Mellentein (wrong spelling here - he was Colonel General of tank corps I think) also wrote quality stuff.

[Durbs]

Faintly embarrased to recommend them as they are of the Harry Potter ilk (which i'll admit i enjoyed very much) but i recently bought the 3 'Skulduggery Pleasant' books via an Amazon email because i liked the covers and the reviews looked good.

Half way through the second but they are a good lighthearted bathtime read if you are into Pratchetty sort of stuff.

[voodooflux]

If you are into WW2, especially when it comes to Eastern Front (it is also about invasion of low countries) where most of the ground war was played out, then I highly recommend this book: Lost Victories: by Manstein - he has got very good style of writing unlike most ex-generals, I like when he talks about things in terms of probabilities rather than 100% certainity - it was big fortune that Hitler never fully trusted him.

I've heard good reviews of "Stalingrad" by Anthony Beevor - one you've read?

[dang65]

A non-fiction book I stumbled on recently and very much enjoyed is The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. It kind of examines how certain things suddenly get hugely popular and how certain people have such influence and so on. e.g. It explains how Paul Revere managed to alert so many Americans that the British were coming so that they were ready to fight, while another rider went in a different direction and hardly anyone responded to his call. It's one of those books where all the way through you keep stopping and adding two and two together in your own experiences. Over the years I've made quite a few friends who I now realise are the kind of people Gladwell refers to - people who are somehow able to make friends with pretty much everyone they meet. But there's far more to it than that. I don't usually read these kind of books (they tend to be in the "self help" kind of section in book shops), but I'm glad I picked that one up.

Another great non-fiction book is The Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin by Francis Spufford, which I had a signed copy of but leant to someone and never saw again. It covers the British space pioneers - did you know that Arthur C Clarke, J R R Tolkein, C S Lewis and Val Cleaver (British rocket pioneer) met in a pub to discuss whether space travel defied God - and other subjects like DNA. But perhaps the most interesting are the sections about the first mobile phones and the early computer games developers, both of which were British led (according to the book). Plenty of, gosh, I never knew that moments.

If you enjoy A Short History of Nearly Everything (which I did) then try The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way and his short biography of Shakespeare as well. The English one, although it includes a couple of dodgy anecdotes (recently corrected on QI), is inspiring to anyone that gets sick of pedantic "experts" in correct English.

Also, Longitude by Dava Sobel. Superb bit of historical storytelling about John Harrison and the problem of longitude.

[AtW]

I also recommend reading - "How the Greys beaten the Greens"

[AtW]

If you are into WW2, especially when it comes to Eastern Front (it is also about invasion of low countries) where most of the ground war was played out, then I highly recommend this book: Lost Victories: by Manstein - he has got very good style of writing unlike most ex-generals, I like when he talks about things in terms of probabilities rather than 100% certainity - it was big fortune that Hitler never fully trusted him.

[Pondlife]

Do you have preferred topics like say history etc?

Currently half way through Flat earth news but not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

Enjoyed freakonomics & the economic naturalist.

Enjoyed Vulcan 607 more than I thought I would, ditto for Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.

[PRC1964]

Anything by Redmond O'Hanlon. I'm currently re-reading "In Trouble Again".

[HairyArsedBloke]

Courage .... Gordon Brown.

Hang on, you said non-fiction.

[AtW]

Currently reading - "My last Budget" by Gordon Brown, A. Darling et al, 2009

[NickNick]

"A short history...." was utter tulipe. (IMHO of course)
Recent non fictions that I can recommend are:
Dreams of my Father - Obama (autobiog)
Alex and Me - Irene Pepperberg (about a talking parrot)
Yes Man - Danny Wallace
Confessions of an economic Hitman - John Perkins
Freakonomics - Levitt somebody
Zero the biography of a dangerous idea - Seife.

A varied bunch there.

Other recent ones to avoid would be aforementioned Short history and the Bill Clinton Autobiog.

[AtW]

Liddell Hart is very good - I just wish he was able to write more detailed history of what happened on the Eastern Front.