Friday, December 18, 2009

Books That Cut Like a Knife Through a New York Cheesecake

Reading War...
After reading Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory : the Odyssey of Pat Tillman (quick, genuine, to the point, and hard to put down) it occurred to me that for every historical period, there's at least one tome that sums up its problem and directs us to the next. Here's a list; one tome per conflagration.

Pre-WWI read : The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

The Great War itself : All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque

For the short peace in between the two wars : The Third Reich in Power by Richard J. Evans

WWII : The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich : a History of Nazi Germany by William Shirer

Korea : The Coldest Winter : America and the Korean War by David Halberstam

Vietnam : A Bright Shining Lie : John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
by Neil Sheehan

Post by Phil Carr, library staff member and
author of the novel, Giving Up Genet