War Books - Page 2

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 273 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

The Shooters: A Presidential Agent Novel

W.E.B. Griffin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 56 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Great read! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I don't know what some of the other reviewers are talking about, this was a great book. It delivered everything I've come to expect from a W.E.B. Griffin novel. I can't wait for the next volume.

W.E.B. Griffin " The Shooters" 5 out of 5 stars.
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Like all of Mr. Griffin's books, I could not put it down. I cannot wait for the next installment.

Best in Class 5 out of 5 stars.
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This novel is fourth in the Presidental Agent novels and like the three before delivers from page one and leaves you wanting more as the last page is turned. Charley Castillo is a modern day cowboy sent out at a moments notice to get the bad guys. Thank you Mr. Griffin for these wonderful books.

!'m about done 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I'm about done with this author. I've read everything he has written in all of his series. The earlier works were great. Lately, (I have read that his son is doing most of the writing), the books are not nearly as well written as the earlier ones.
Ditto all the previous reviewers have said about re-hashing all the previous books in this series. It's almost as if each book had to stand alone for readers who have not read any of the earlier ones in the series.
The minor thing that has irked me the most is Griffin's absolutely amazing over use of the phrase vis-a-vis. I want to throw the book across the room every time he uses it - it seems like about every other page.

Editorial Review:

A key DEA agent has been kidnapped by drugrunners. As much as the news angers Presidential Agent Castillo, he thinks there’s no way he could get permission to rescue the man. But Castillo’s wrong—the President himself orders Castillo to do anything it takes to bring back the agent...anything except get caught.

Gates of Fire

Steven Pressfield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 659 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Thousands of years ago, Herodotus and Plutarch immortalized Spartan society in their histories; but today, little is left of the ancient city or the social structure of this momentous culture. One of the few antiquarian marks of the civilization that has survived lies scores of miles away from Sparta, at a narrow Greek mountain pass called Thermopylae.

It was there that three hundred of Sparta's finest warriors held back the invading millions of the Persian empire and valiantly gave their lives in the selfless service of democracy and freedom. A simple engraved stone marks their burial ground.

Inspired by this stone and intrigued by the lore of Sparta, author Steven Pressfield has brilliantly combined scholarship with storytelling. Narrated by the sole survivor of the epic battle--a squire in the Spartan heavy infantry--Gates of Fire is a mesmerizing depiction of one man's indoctrination into the Spartan way of life and death, and of the legendary men and women who gave the culture an immortal gravity.

Culminating in the electrifying and horrifying epic battle, Gates of Fire weaves history, mystery, and heartbreaking romance into a literary page-turner that brings the Homeric tradition into the twenty-first century.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 455 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Great Work 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I am a soldier with the US Army who has been deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom twice and Operation Enduring Freedom once. And yes I have lost some close friends to these wars.

I must say this is one of my favorite books on war that I have read next to the Red Badge of Courage. Yes soldiers are opened minded, I do know that this book focuses on the darker side of War and is considered an Anti-War Novel. I do not want to go into specific details of the book; it is something you should experience for yourself.

I will say that it is interesting how this is the German Army in World War I and yet there are many similarities of things that I have gone through that are almost 100 years later in the American Army. These are the same trials and tribulations that a soldier is put through no matter what time period you are in, the interpersonal relationships where the people around you become your family and the tragedy that you experience.
And the fear of being in combat and how after awhile you become numb from it.

"This does not mean that you are war mongers. On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato that wisest of all philosophers, 'Only the dead have seen the end of war." General Douglas MacArthur

Editorial Review:

Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
"The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first trank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW


From the Paperback edition.

The Complete Maus

Art Spiegelman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 192 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Yes. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I went to a exhibition on the history of comics a couple of years ago. They had all kinds, from Little Nemo to Jack Kirby, and many things in between. One of the things featured was several pages from Art Speigelman's Maus. I was so intrigued by what I saw that I had to buy it off Amazon, and I have not regretted it. Don't be fooled by Speigelman's seemingly simplistic black and white work. His storytelling is powerful stuff, I tell you.

For any who doubt what graphic fiction can do, this is the revelation. 5 out of 5 stars.
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The Holocaust hangs over western society in the second half of the twentieth century. One man said that poetry was impossible after Auschwitz, but great artists in numerous mediums have dedicated themselves ot proving this wrong. The great crime has provided a great canvas for stories of humanity in the face of evil, such as Steven Spielberg's film "Schindler's List". "Maus" is the comics world's prime entry in this difficult field of literature. Writer and artist Art Spiegelman brings us the story of his father (and mother, by times), two Polish Jews who narrowly survived the war. Having already chosen to tell his story in the form of a comic, a medium often looked down upon as inherently childish by those who don't know any better, he further chooses to cast his characters as anthropomorphic animal, in the manner of an animal fable.

This choice has attracted some controversy (on display in many of the reviews on this site), in some cases because they believe it trivializes the subject-matter (to which I would say "Animal Farm"), or, more commonly, because they take issue with the seeming racialist use of different animals for different nationalities (Jews are mice, regardless of nationality, other Poles are pigs; Germans cats, the French frogs, Americans dogs, etc.). Spiegelman actually discusses the implications of the latter thing within the narrative, which includes an extensive b-story set in the then-present (from the 70s to the 80s), following Art, his wife Francoise, and his elderly father as Art writes "Maus". Francoise is a French Christian who converted to Judaism, and wonders what animal she should be cast as (he chooses a mouse, for the record). Spiegelman never casts all of one group as behaving the same way.

"Maus" reminds me a bit of Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" in its depiction of wartime Europe's complexity, including the now-uncomfortable degree of collaboration or prejudice found in the occupied countries. Vladek and Anja encounter everything but solidarity with their fellow Poles on the journey through the war; fellow Jews rat them out to the Nazis, others require payment to help Jews avoid death, something that Art expresses amazement at, but Vladek seems to see as very reasonable. Spiegelman doesn't paint his father as a saint, indeed, expressing concern that his father comes across as a stereotypical miserly Jew; at one point, Vladek is shown to be strongly racist against blacks, again to Art and Francoise's amazement. The animal characterizations are never binding; for all Spiegelman's concern over France's history of anti-Semitism, the one French frog we see is an amiable fellow-inimate of Vladek's; even among the German cats we find a Polish Jew married to a German woman, the product of this union being peculiar cat/mouse hybrids.

"Maus" is ultimately a very affecting, personal work from Art Spiegelman, and does a fantastic job of communicating the life story of his father. it is a shining example of what the graphic novel form is capable of achieving.

Editorial Review:

Combined for the first time here are Maus I: A Survivor's Tale and Maus II - the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe. By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival - and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents. A contemporary classic of immeasurable significance.

The Killer Angels

Michael Shaara

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 519 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

After more than a quarter of a century and three million copies in print, Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War classic, The Killer Angels, remains as vivid and powerful as the day it was originally published. This handsome new hardcover edition introduces a whole new generation to Shaara’s masterpiece–and offers readers everywhere a literary keepsake for years to come.

July 1863. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia is invading the North. General Robert E. Lee has made this daring and massive move with seventy thousand men in a determined effort to draw out the Union Army of the Potomac and mortally wound it. His right hand is General James Longstreet, a brooding man who is loyal to Lee but stubbornly argues against his plan. Opposing them is an unknown factor: General George Meade, who has taken command of the Army only two days before what will be perhaps the crucial battle of the Civil War.

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fight for two conflicting dreams. One dreams of freedom, the other of a way of life. More than rifles and bullets are carried into battle. The soldiers carry memories. Promises. Love. And more than men fall on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty are also the casualties of war.

The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable–a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America’s destiny.

The Spies of Warsaw (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series)

Alan Furst

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Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A new thriller from "the greatest living writer of espionage fiction"

-- Houston Chronicle

Autumn 1937: War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-François Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations.

Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal and dangerous characters -- Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence; the mysterious and sophisticated Dr. Lapp, senior German Abwehr officer in Warsaw; Malka and Viktor Rozen, at work for the Russian secret service; and Mercier's brutal and vindictive opponent, Major August Voss of SS counterintelligence. And there are many more, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed.

The Spies of Warsaw is Furst's finest novel to date -- exciting, atmospheric, erotic, and impossible to put down.

Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Leslie Marmon Silko

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 128 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A MASTERPIECE 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice
A classic in Native American literature, Ceremony tells the story of Tayo, a young Native man who returns from W.W.II with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Silko's masterful writing interweaves the personal, social and societal causes for Tayo's illness with traditional Native legends and cures. Beautiful, inspiring and very harsh. Like Tayo's life. A stellar book. I have a list of study questions our Book Review used in examining this book. E mail me if you want them.

Editorial Review:

Thirty years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power.

The Last Days

Joel C. Rosenberg

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Total reviews: 82 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Osama bin Laden is dead.
Saddam Hussein is buried.
Baghdad lies in ruins.

Now the eyes of the world are on Jerusalem as Jon Bennett - a Wall Street strategist turned senior White House advisor - his beautiful CIA partner Erin McCoy, and the U.S. Secretary of State arrive in the Middle East to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

On the table: a dramatic and potentially historic Arab-Israeli peace plan, of which Bennett is the chief architect. At the heart of the proposed treaty is the discovery of black gold deep underneath the Mediterranean - a vast and spectacular tract of oil and natural gas that could offer unprecedented riches for every Muslim, Christian, and Jew in Israel and Palestine.

But in the shadows lie men whose hearts are filled with evil - men who do not relish a post-Saddam era, men for whom the prospect of a Palestinian peace accord with Israel goes against everything for which their fathers have fought and died. Such men - and the countries that finance them - are ready to do anything necessary to slaughter those who stand in their way. The clock is ticking. Can Bennett, McCoy, and the American president make peace before the Middle East once again erupts in war?

Halo: Contact Harvest

Joseph Staten

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Definite Winner... 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Contact Harvest was surprisingly good. The author thoroughly fleshed out Johnson's character and, like the other novels, added much more depth to the overall Halo storyline. Staten did a great job at describing Humanity's first contact with the Covenant, shedding light on exactly what their motives are, as well as a great deal of their internal politics. A definite 'must read' for anyone interested at all in the Halo story arch.

Editorial Review:

This is how it began... It is the year 2524.  Harvest is a peaceful, prosperous farming colony on the very edge of human-controlled space.  But we have trespassed on holy ground--strayed into the path of an aggressive alien empire known as the Covenant.  What begins as a chance encounter between an alien privateer and a human freighter catapults mankind into a struggle for its very existence. But humanity is also locked in a bitter civil war known as the Insurrection.  So the survival of Harvest's citizens falls to a squad of battle-weary UNSC Marines and their inexperienced colonial militia trainees.  In this unlikely group of heroes, one stands above the rest...a young Marine staff sergeant named Avery Johnson.