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You're welcome. Nicholas and Alexandra is on my "to read" list. Also, Peter the Great as a PP recommended. Robert K. Massie is a wonderful author.
So many posters have recommended Devil in the White City, I picked it up from the library today. Erik Larsen recommended Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked The Civil War by Tony Horwitz. I haven't started it yet.
I want to read Midnight Rising. I read Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War and enjoyed it so much I hope to read the rest of his books at some point. Confederates was funny, poignant, interesting and eye-opening - everything I could want in a book. Interesting fact: Horwitz is married to the author Geraldine Brooks.
I must spread rep before I can give it to peppermint again, but IMO, EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE should read "Night". And be prepared not to sleep well for a night or two following it.
I beg to differ. I read Night as a young kid and again earlier this year. It did nothing for me. It wasn't powerful and it felt manipulative.
Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl and Art Spiegelman's Maus are more effective IMHO.
Hugh Thomas's Conquest is thorough and very well written and more detailed account of Cortes's conquest of Mexico.
Thanks Jay Kay,I agree as well and note his other two volumes on Spain in the Golden Age complement specialized and contemporary works nicely.
Campaigns of Napoleon by Chandler is mentioned above and it is a wonderful book. One really should also read Elting's Swords Around A Throne as a co-requisite. This book deals with military organizations of the period with emphasis on French Empire force structure. It is both knowledgeable and witty as only a well read veteran soldier (Elting) can do.
Personal accounts bring a flavor to the life and times of the era moreso than any novel written decades or more later. The Memoirs of Eleazar Blaze is a very funny memoir of service in Napoleon's army. The Memoirs of Sergeant Bougogne is the opposite in describing the terror of the 1812 retreat through a Russian winter.
Thanks Jay Kay,I agree as well and note his other two volumes on Spain in the Golden Age complement specialized and contemporary works nicely.
Campaigns of Napoleon by Chandler is mentioned above and it is a wonderful book. One really should also read Elting's Swords Around A Throne as a co-requisite. This book deals with military organizations of the period with emphasis on French Empire force structure. It is both knowledgeable and witty as only a well read veteran soldier (Elting) can do.
Personal accounts bring a flavor to the life and times of the era moreso than any novel written decades or more later. The Memoirs of Eleazar Blaze is a very funny memoir of service in Napoleon's army. The Memoirs of Sergeant Bougogne is the opposite in describing the terror of the 1812 retreat through a Russian winter.
Thanks for reminding me about Elting's "Swords Around a Throne", which is sitting on one of my bookshelves, along with his four volume work on Napoleonic Uniforms. Great author!
I've read the Blaze and Bourgogne books as well. Have you also read "Captain Coignet's Memoirs"? Really enjoyed that one.
If you are seriously interested in the 1812 Russian Campaign, I recommend the three volume "1812" by Paul Britten Austin; it's full of first person accounts. Caulincort's memoirs of that campaign are also worth reading, IMHO.
Love this thread- I never read fiction and am very interested in history and World War 2.
Currently reading "Limits of Power" by Andrew Bacevich, a very thoughtful military officer vet and history professor. Very good about the current and recent military involvements of the U.S. since about 1990.
Martin Gilbert has a lot of good Holocaust writing.
There are a lot of personal memoirs coming out now about the Holocaust, apparently because those people are old and want to get their story out (sometimes dictated to a grandchild). The quality of the writing or insight in the books vary wildly, because often the point is to bear witness, and that, while honorable, doesn't always make good writing/reading or any new points.
"Haiti After the Earthquake" by Paul Farmer. A good look at the international aid world, for good and bad, especially in Haiti.
"Killing the Cranes" a history of politics/war in Afghanistan by a reporter who was there starting in 1979 and through the present. Very discouraging if one pays attention to current events and costs in blood and treasure.
Of course, there are non-fictions that aren't about war or history.
Anything by Vance Packard, regardless of the age of the writing, on consumerism, social class and anything else he wrote about in society.
"The New Indians," by Stan Steiner, in the early 1970s? the first book I saw about current Native American life, along with "Custer Died For Your Sins," by Vine Deloria, jr. anything by Vine Deloria is worth reading, including "God is Red."
Currently reading "Rez Life," about current, well, rez life, and the past life of the author on a Wisconsin reservation.
And apparently a lot of people are onto Erik Larsen!
Love this thread, will have to revisit soon.
One of the best books on European history I've ever read (and I've read a lot) is A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, as someone already mentioned.
There is a plethora of excellent historical non-fiction from the WWII era:
Night by Elie Wiesel Hiroshima by John Hersey, first person accounts of the aftermath of the destruction of that city, simply a stunning book Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary, 1939-1944 by Aranka Siegal Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, about life at a Japenese internment camp In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Princess Marie Vassiltchikov, a look into the social circle of the nobles/aristocrats who were behind the plot to assassinate Hitler The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia by Esther Hautzig
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