Definitely a guy thing but as lots of women are being seen at our tills buying books for Father’s Day, it occured to me to put together a list of stuff for all year round as it is usually women who buy books for gifts.
Unusually for such a list, I’ve more clearly separated the fiction from the historical and biographical simply because male readers tend to be a lot more partisan and there are some who simply won’t read fiction. To make things a little easier still, I’ve split the books into very approximate historical periods beginning with books that have a general overview.
General warfare (all periods) including theories, ideas, politics:
- Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers: The Conflict Between Religion & Politics from the French Revolution to the Great War, nf
- Michael Burleigh, A Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda, nf
- Victor Davis Hanson, Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam, nf
- John Julius Norwich, The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean, nf
- Lewis Page, Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs: Waste and Blundering in the Military, nf
- Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, nf
Swords, Sandals, Skirts… Ancient times
- Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, nf
- Stephen Dando-Collins, Nero’s Killing Machine: The True Story of Rome’s Remarkable 14th Legion, nf
- Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great, nf
- Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome, nf
- Adrian Keith Goldsworthy, Caesar: The Life of a Colossus, nf
- Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C., nf
- Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War, nf
- Peter J Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History, nf
- Tom Holland, Persian Fire: The First World Empire, Battle for the West, nf
- Gwyn Morgan, 69AD: The Year of the Four Emperors, nf
- John Peddie, The Roman War Machine, nf
- Plutarch, On Sparta, nf
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, nf
- Brian Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization, nf
- Xenophon, The Persian Expedition, nf
- Xenophon, A History of My Times, nf
The Dark Ages: The Making of Europe up to the Twentieth Century
- Max Adams, Admiral Collingwood: Nelson’s Own Hero, nf
- John Adamson, Noble Revolt: The Otherthrow of Charles I, nf
- Roy & Lesley Adkins, The War for All the Oceans: From Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo, nf
- Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, nf
- David Cordingly, Billy Ruffian, nf
- Tim Harris, The Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685-1720, nf
- Richard Holmes, Wellington: The Iron Duke, nf
- Richard Holmes, Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket, nf
- David McCullough, 1776: America and Britain at War, nf
- F J McLynn, Lionheart and Lackland: King Richard, King John and the Wars of Conquest, nf
- Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation, nf
- Adam Nicolson, Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero, nf
- Charles Spencer, Blenheim: Battle for Europe, nf
- Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of The Crusades, nf
- Mark Urban, Rifles: Six Years with Wellington’s Legendary Sharpshooters, nf
- Mark Urban, The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes, nf
- Adam Zamoyski, 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow, nf
The Great War
- Henri Barbusse, Under Fire, nf
- Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War, nf
- Les Carlyon, Gallipoli, nf
- WH Downing, To the Last Ridge, nf
- Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War, nf
- Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That, nf
- Richard Holmes, Imperial War Museum: The First World War in Photographs, nf
- Ernst Junger, Storm of Steel, nf
- John Keegan, The First World War, nf
- Lyn Macdonald, They Called it Passchendaele, nf
- Lyn Macdonald, The Roses of No Man’s Land, nf
- Lyn Macdonald, The Somme, nf
- Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, nf
- David Stevenson, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War, nf
- Denis Winter (ed.), Death’s Men: Soldiers of the Great War, nf
The Second World War
- Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, nf
- Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, nf
- Antony Beevor, Stalingrad, nf
- Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, nf
- John Bierman & Colin Smith Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia and Zion, nf
- Patrick Bishop, Fighter Boys, nf
- Alan Clark, Barbarossa: The Russian German Conflict, 1941-45, nf
- Robin Cross, The Battle of Kursk: Operation Citadel 1943, nf
- Norman Davies, Rising ‘44: The Battle for Warsaw, nf
- Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45, nf
- James Holland, Together We Stand: North Africa 1942-1943, Turning the Tide in the West, nf
- James Holland, Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege, 1940-1943, nf
- Richard Overy, Russia’s War, nf
- George Psychoundakis, The Cretan Runner, nf
- Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier, nf
- Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, nf
- Geoffrey Wellum, First Light, nf
The Cold War
- Ken Alibek, Biohazard, nf
- Max Hastings, The Korean War, nf
- Michael Herr, Dispatches, nf
- Jonathan Kaplan, Contact Wounds: A War Surgeon’s Education, nf
- Tom Mangold, The Tunnels of Cu Chi, nf
- Tim O’Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, nf
- Ben Sherman, Medic! The Story of a Conscientious Objector in the Vietnam War, nf
“Aren’t we done yet?”
- Charles Allen, God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad, nf
- Hugh Bicheno, Razor’s Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War, nf
- Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred, nf
- Max Hastings & Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, nf
- Richard Holmes, Dusty Warriors: Modern Soldiers at War, nf
- Anthony Swofford, Jarhead, nf
- Evan Wright, Generation Kill, nf
…and some fiction:
- John Del Vecchio, The 13th Valley
- Willi Heinrich, Cross of Iron
- Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
- Allan Mallinson, A Close Run Thing
- Frederic Manning, Her Privates We
- Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War, nf
