Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
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As you know I have been reading two history books for the past weeks, Our Man in Charleston: Britain’s Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey and The Gathering Storm by Winston S. Churchill. I have read a lot of non-fiction books about both wars because I had two great-grandfathers in the Union Army and an uncle who was a pilot in WW II. I read to learn and I always learn more from each book on the same subject.
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Many people here are reading contemporary books about current history. I would like to hear about them.
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One reason I do so many lists at Bookflurries is to mention books that may have fallen off the radar of readers who are younger than I am, and I want to mention them also because they bear witness to what we are living through today, as well as in the past. Obviously, I believe it is really important to remember history. For those writers who lived through the times and bore witness or who did amazing research, I am grateful.
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Please list the books you find important in the comments. I realize that well-researched fiction books are also important so you may list those as well.
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Here is a long list, but I hope it might be helpful:
Civil War books
Ulysses S. Grant: Personal Memoirs by U. S. Grant
Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion: The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign by A. Wilson Greene
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist
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Bruce Catton’s books:
Army of the Potomac trilogy
Mr. Lincoln's Army (1951) — The first volume of the history of the Army of the Potomac, from its formation, the command of George B. McClellan, the Peninsula Campaign, the Northern Virginia Campaign, and the Battle of Antietam.
Glory Road (1952) — Continuing under new commanding generals from the Battle of Fredericksburg to the Battle of Gettysburg.
A Stillness at Appomattox (1953) — Catton's first commercially successful work, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history and the National Book Award for excellence in nonfiction in 1954, it described the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia during 1864 to the end of the war in 1865.
Centennial History of the Civil War
The Centennial of the Civil War was memorialized from 1961 to 1965 and the publication of Bruce Catton's trilogy highlighted this era. Unlike his previous trilogy, these books focused not only on military topics, but on social, economic, and political topics as well.
The Coming Fury (1961) — Explores the causes and events leading to the start of the war, culminating in its first major combat, the First Battle of Bull Run.
Terrible Swift Sword (1963) — Both sides mobilize for a massive war effort and the story continues through 1862, ending with the Battle of Fredericksburg.
Never Call Retreat (1965) — The war continues through Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and the bloody struggles of 1864 and 1865 before the final surrender.
This Hallowed Ground: A History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton 1955
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/this-hallowed-ground-bruce-catton/1102305225?ean=9780307947086
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1863: The Rebirth of a Nation by Joseph E. Stevens
The Passing of the Armies by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1864, 1865)
With My Face to the Enemy: Perspectives on the Civil War ed. by Robert Cowley
The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen based on the life of a real woman, but not much is known about Mary…more is known about Bet Van Lew
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1744446/69411908
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bowser
1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart
Gettysburg by Stephen Sears
Days of Darkness-Gettysburg Civilians by William G. Williams
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Kennesaw Mountain...June 1864 by Richard Baumgartner
Bondwoman’s Narrative...Hannah Crafts...ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War by Roy Morris
Walt Whitman’s Civil War
Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson and Hallowed Ground
Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock by Francis Augustin O’Reilly
Sarah Morgan, Diary...ed. Charles East
White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickenson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple
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Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
Chancellorsville by Stephen Sears
Sherman’s March to the Sea by General Jacob D. Cox
Sherman’s March by Burke Davis
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam by Stephen Sears
They Met at Gettysburg by General Edward J. Stackpole
The Battles for Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and East Cavalry Field by Eric J. Wittenberg
The Wheatfield at Gettysburg by Jay Jorgensen
Lincoln Biography by Carl Sandburg
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WW I
Rickenbacker: An Autobiography by Edward V. Rickenbacker
Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth
First World War by John Keegan
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WW II
Hell is so Green: Search and Rescue over the Hump in WW II by Lt. William Diebold
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose
The Healing Wound by Gitta Sereny (interviews with Stengyl and Speer and others)
We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance by David Howarth, the true story of Jan Baalsrud in 1943
No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II
Ed. by Robert Cowley
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides
Nella Last’s War …Nella Last (war diary age 49) ed by Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming
Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks
Enigma: The Battle for the Code by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
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And There Was Light: Autobiography of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance by Jacques Lusseyran my bookflurries review
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/8/225672/-Resistance-and-Joy,-The-story-of-Jacques-Lusseyran
Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Spy…Virginia Hall by Judith Pearson
An American Heroine in The French Resistance: The Diary and Memoir of Virginia D’Albert-Lake edited by Judy Barrett Litoff
Sisters in the Resistance by Margaret Collins Weitz
Resistance: A Woman’s Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert 1894-1963
Resistance: France 1940-1945 by Blake Ehrlich
The Enemy Is Listening by Aileen Clayton (The Y Service)
Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright
Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre
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Currahee! : A Screaming Eagle at Normandy by Donald R. Burgett
Stephen Ambrose books:
Citizen Soldier
D Day
Wild Blue
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle Nest
London 1945 by Maureen Waller
Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939-45 by Peter Demetz
A Higher Call : An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander (Charlie Brown, Franz Stigler)
Live Bait: WW II Memoirs of an Undefeated Fighter Ace by Clayton Kelly Gross (also mentions Franz Stigler)
Code Talker by Chester Nez with Judith Avila
The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan
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Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway by Walter Lord
World War II on the Air: Edward R. Murrow and the War that Defined a Generation by Mark Bernstein and Alex Lubertozzi
The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism by Stanley Cloud and Lynn Olson
The Dog Who Could Fly by Damien Lewis and the same story Freedom in the Air: A Czech Flyer and His Aircrew Dog by Hamish Ross
The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel with Brett Witter
The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose
In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton
Three Came Home by Agnes Newton Keith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Newton_Keith
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Holocaust stories
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Reawakening
A Lucky Child: A memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal
Schindler’s Legacy by Elinor J. Brecher
Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally (Title is also Schindler’s Ark)
Conscience and Courage by Eva Fogelman
Night by Elie Wiesel
Dawn
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All But My Life...and the sequel The Hours After by Gerda Weissman Klein
And Yet, I Am Here by Halina Nelken
Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner, memoir of Germany 1914-1934 and 39
In My Hands by Irene Opydyke and Armstrong
In My Brother’s Image by Eugene Pogany
The Seamstress by Sarah Tuvel Bernstein
Tell Me Another Morning by Zdena Berger
Fighting Auschwitz by Jozef Garlinski and sequel Survival of Love (about his wife)
Kazik, Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter by Simha Roten
Bravest Battle: 28 Days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Dan Kurzman
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I Will Bear Witness II ...1942-45 Diary of Victor Klemperer
Castles Burning by Magda Denes (Budapest)
Nazi Hunter by Alan Levy
Nazi Officer’s Wife by Edith Beer
The Choice by Irene Eber
The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal
Behind Enemy Lines by Marthe Conn with Wendy Holden
Sala’s Gift by Ann Kirschner
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We Remember the Holocaust by David Adler
The Righteous by Martin Gilbert
Memoir of Hungary by Sandor Marai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandor_Marai
Twentieth Train by Marion Schreiber
The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
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Based on real people:
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan (based on life of Pino Lella, June 1943 to May 1945)
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Odette’s Secrets by Maryann Macdonald, based on real child
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Vietnam
The Cat from Hue by John Laurence
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Iraq
Prince of Marshes by Rory Stewart
The War I Always Wanted by Brandon Friedman
In an Instant…Lee and Bob Woodruff memoir
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Your turn.