Here are 100 books that Currahee! fans have personally recommended if you like
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My journey with mental health started young and has colored my life for as long as I can remember. So, I have a fascination with storytelling and time. Time is the container for stories. But for a long time, I didn’t understand the depth of what ‘story’ really is and how much it shapes everything. When I started to write my book and unravel how inseparable the story is from the mental health journey I’d been on, my appetite for writing that could help me understand that connection became and remains voracious. I hope these books are as impactful for you as they have been for me. Enjoy!
I’ve read this book over and over and highlighted something new every time. Somehow, through the lens of Nazi death camps, Frankl validates everyone’s suffering, including my own. I’ve always known that suffering is an inescapable part of the human experience, but this helped me understand that to the brain, it isn’t relative in the ways I always thought.
Furthermore, this book helped me understand that my coping mechanisms inform suffering’s hold on me. Stories are a coping mechanism, and I learned that redirecting my attention and creating my personal narratives around what is meaningful to me rather than the source of pain is key to the cage of suffering. This book changed how I understand the importance of purpose and the power of what I build my stories around.
One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.
I am an unextraordinary individual with an ordinary skill set including strengths and weaknesses. Yet, my life experiences have caused me to reach deep inside and find my own greatness to face seemingly impossible obstacles in my path. My writing reflects this hopeful overcoming and undaunted spirit. I have learned that heroes only exist because they must face daunting villains. Such villains can arise from other individuals, outside forces, life circumstances, and even from within ourselves. Yet, I have learned that villains are not a threat to destroy us, they are in fact the vehicles by which we become heroes in our own story. There are no heroes without villains.
I love this departure from the other books mentioned. These two completely separate groups of people whose lives intersect in a horrible tragedy illustrate the randomness and brutality of war.
Each group is sympathetic in their attempt to carve out a meaningful existence amidst the chaos and loss of all-out war. I find the experiences of occupants of the doomed German town juxtaposed with the character and daily courage of the members of the bomber squadron fascinating and compelling.
I find the author’s ability to bring us into the lives of each character and walk with them almost magical. This book changed my life and view of all wars.
The classic novel of the Second World War that relates in devastating detail the 24-hour story of an allied bombing raid.
Bomber is a novel of war. There are no victors, no vanquished. There are simply those who remain alive, and those who die.
Bomber follows the progress of an Allied air raid through a period of twenty-four hours in the summer of 1943. It portrays all the participants in a terrifying drama, both in the air and on the ground, in Britain and in Germany.
In its documentary style, it is unique. In its emotional power it is overwhelming.…
I am an avid fantasy reader and writer. I have been writing for many years and love to craft detailed worlds and complex characters that surprise and delight readers. Stories are about challenges, overcoming the barriers that are put in front of us, and growing in the process. Characters do not have to be good or bad; they can be both, a mixture, just like real people. I strive to create characters that make people stop and think, make them question their assumptions, or relate to them in ways that they had not expected. Fantasy is about bringing real emotions to readers through an imaginary setting, and I love it.
Where to start? Lord of the Rings contains countless unlikely heroes. From Frodo and Sam, simple hobbits who have to undergo an impossible task to save the entire world, to Theoden or Faramir, the books are full of tales of valor and strength as the good of the world strives to overcome an impossible evil.
The books are written with the key theme that even ordinary people can do great good, and that is reflected in the Hobbits. They are an ordinary race, unimportant for most of history, but they possess the courage and the heart to save their world. I love these books above all else, and the characters are all inspiring and loveable.
This brand-new unabridged audio book of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings, is read by the BAFTA award-winning actor, director and author, Andy Serkis.
In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power - the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord Sauron's evil dominion.
Thus begins J. R. R. Tolkien's classic tale of adventure, which continues in…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I am an unextraordinary individual with an ordinary skill set including strengths and weaknesses. Yet, my life experiences have caused me to reach deep inside and find my own greatness to face seemingly impossible obstacles in my path. My writing reflects this hopeful overcoming and undaunted spirit. I have learned that heroes only exist because they must face daunting villains. Such villains can arise from other individuals, outside forces, life circumstances, and even from within ourselves. Yet, I have learned that villains are not a threat to destroy us, they are in fact the vehicles by which we become heroes in our own story. There are no heroes without villains.
George Washington was given the opportunity to become King of America as it struggled mightily following the Revolution.
I am inspired by his selflessness after giving every ounce of his spiritual, emotional, and physical might to the cause. He turned it down in perhaps the single most powerful speech in America’s history. His power and influence over this young nation was set aside in an example that resonates still today.
I love how his story of courage against impossible odds and his steadfast confidence in the support of providence allowed the birth of something unique and wonderful. Thomas Jefferson attributed the “…moderation and virtue of a single individual…” to the survival of the cause of freedom in America.
Grounded in the latest research, this comprehensive volume explores the frequently overlooked fact that, despite charismatic leadership and eventual success, the revolutionary movement never garnered the support of more than half the American colonists. 30,000 first printing.
Since the mid-1990s, I’ve written thirteen volumes in The Canadian Battles Series—more than a million words on the battles, campaigns, and experiences of my nation’s army during World War II. I started this because Canadians were usually no more than a footnote in the WWII histories written by American and British historians, despite having been the third-largest army serving alongside their armies in Italy and Northwest Europe. Realizing that the Canadian story would only be told if we wrote it ourselves, I embraced the task and continue to do so thirty years later.
Why two books instead of one. Well, because the two are equally excellent accounts that taken together span the combat service of a young Canadian artillery forward observation officer (FOO). The life span of many FOOs was short, the long antennas of the wireless sets they carried out front with the advancing infantry to call in artillery support were magnets for Germans snipers. But Blackburn beat the odds and survived to write this remarkably frank and honest memoir of eleven months of almost constant battlefield action. Over this course of a journey from Normandy through Belgium, the Netherlands, and into northwestern Germans in the final push, the reader feels literally by Blackburn’s side and inside his thoughts and emotions. From early confidence in his abilities and training to a slow descent toward fatalism and a simple grim determination to survive, Blackburn’s journey is both highly individualistic and simultaneously an epic…
In the weeks after D-Day, the level of artillery action in Normandy was unprecedented. In what was a relatively small area, both sides bombarded each other relentlessly for three months, each trying to overwhelm the other by sheer fire power.
The Guns of Normandy puts the reader in the front lines of this horrific battle. In the most graphic and authentic detail, it brings to life every aspect of a soldier’s existence, from the mortal terror of impending destruction, to the unending fatigue, to the giddy exhilaration at finding oneself still, inexplicably, alive.
I’ve been curious about how reporters covered D-Day, and their interactions with the army, for more than thirty years, and my research into media-military relations, begun in earnest fifteen years ago has led to more than a dozen archives in several countries. Most accounts suggest that the press and the military fully cooperated during World War II, but documentary evidence reveals a far more nuanced story, with far more conflict between officials and the press than is supposed. After publishing work about the campaign in French North Africa, and a book about Ed Kennedy’s scoop of the German surrender, I’m now back where I started, working on a book about press coverage of D-Day.
I first encountered Liebling’s work about Normandy during World War II when I received a Fulbright fellowship to teach at the university in Caen in the 1980s.
His Normandy Revisited was the only book in the library at VCU that had Normandy in the title. I’ve been a fan ever since, as his work is both canny and often laugh-out-loud funny. Liebling worked for the New Yorker for many decades, and wrote the best long-form journalism of the war.
Liebling possessed an intimate knowledge of French language and culture, which gave him unparalleled access to civilians both in French North Africa and in Normandy in the months after D-Day.
One of the most gifted and influential American journalists of the 20th century, A. J. Liebling spent five years reporting the dramatic events and myriad individual stories of World War II. As a correspondent for The New Yorker, Liebling wrote with a passionate commitment to Allied victory, an unfailing attention to telling details, and an appreciation for the literary challenges presented by the discursive, centrifugal, both repetitive and disparate nature of war. This volume brings together three books along with 26 uncollected New Yorker pieces and two excerpts from The Republic of Silence (1947), Liebling's collection of writing from the…
The first and only full-length biography of Hazel Ying Lee, an unrecognized pioneer and unsung World War II hero who fought for a country that actively discriminated against her gender, race, and ambition.
This unique hidden figure defied countless stereotypes to become the first Asian American woman in United States…
I have a lifetime interest in military events of the First and Second World Wars, and my current status as an Associate Professor teaching military history within the Royal Military College of Canada’s RMC History Department allows me to live my dream of exploring past conflicts for a living. I am currently also a contracted author at Casemate Publishing of Havertown, PA, and I am very lucky to have this company support me and publish my work.
This is the best book out there to introduce the reader to the 1944 Normandy Campaign.
Clash of Arms examines how the Western Allies improved their battlefield combat effectiveness in order to defeat the forces of the Third Reich and break out of the Normandy bridgehead.
Critically, Hart also examines the German way of war and how the Germans stubbornly sought to adapt in the face of Allied superiority. Packed with detail and superb analysis, this book examines in detail the military campaign of each army within the Normandy bridgehead.
This volume examines how the Western Allies learned - on the battlefield - how to defeat the Nazi war machine. Beginning with an investigation of the interwar neglect that left the Allied militaries incapable of defeating Nazi aggression at the start of World War II, Russell Hart examines the wartime paths the Allies took toward improved military effectiveness. Central to his comparative study is the complex interplay of personalities, military culture, and wartime realities that determined how accurately the combatants learned the lessons of war, and how effectively they enhanced their battle capabilities.
Since the mid-1990s, I’ve written thirteen volumes in The Canadian Battles Series—more than a million words on the battles, campaigns, and experiences of my nation’s army during World War II. I started this because Canadians were usually no more than a footnote in the WWII histories written by American and British historians, despite having been the third-largest army serving alongside their armies in Italy and Northwest Europe. Realizing that the Canadian story would only be told if we wrote it ourselves, I embraced the task and continue to do so thirty years later.
On June 6, 1944, Charles (Charlie) Martin was twenty-four and one of the youngest Company Sergeant Majors in the Queen’s Own Rifles. He was also one of the first Canadian soldiers to pile out of a landing craft onto Juno Beach in the face of heavy German machine-gun fire. From that day on the beach to when he was finally wounded for the first time on April 16, 1945, Martin was always at the forefront of the battle. While an excellent account of his combat experience, Martin also deeply examines the role of a Company Sergeant Major in leading and running an infantry company during the war. And he provides detailed descriptions of how such a company conducted itself during specific types of combat from patrols, to set-piece assaults, to setting up defensive positions. For anyone wanting to understand the experience of soldiers in World War II, Battle Diary is…
A fast-paced account by a soldier who was twice decorated. Charlie Martin, company sergeant-major in the Queen's Own, was with his beloved A Company in all of the significant Normandy actions.
I am the author of two books (the second is Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression), a blogger, Iowa historian, and a regular contributor to Our American Stories. I’ve woven WII letters and newspaper clippings, along with memoirs and family stories, into the narrative. As Clabe and Leora Wilson’s oldest granddaughter, I also enjoy giving programs about the Wilson family, as well as TV and radio interviews.
This is a wonderful WWII memoir on so many levels. Robert von der Osten kept a journal during his time of service. He and his journal not only survived the war, but his ship did as well. The son of a WWI veteran became a radioman on the new LST-388 (Landing Ship Tank) which hauled equipment and men to North Africa, the UK, and made landings on Sicily, Salerno, and many trips to the beaches of Normandy. The US shipped over 1000 locomotives and about 20,000 rail cars to the UK. Railroad tracks were welded to the deck and ramp of LST-388. It made 29 round trips between England and France carrying rail cars.
This is not only the story of a young sailor and his corner of the massive war, but the story of a ship, taking it to its eventual fate after the war. Robert von der Osten…
Through his journal entries, von der Osten takes us with him to war, from his training days in the newly created amphibious force, to practice beachings on the Chesapeake Bay; from the ports of North Africa and the United Kingdom, to the hostile shores of Sicily, Salerno, and Normandy. All the while serving as a radioman aboard this new kind of ship, the landing ship, tank.
Yet LST 388 is not just a sailor’s story but the story of a great landing ship, a ship that would sail with the largest armada in history during the invasion of Sicily. A…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan. The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the…
Listening to my father’s stories about flying for the U.S. 15th Air Force in the Second World War kindled my love for military history at a young age. He brought to life the individual experiences and strategic context of bombing targets like Ploesti and Brenner Pass. Later, I pursued my doctorate in history and focused on U.S. Marine Corps history. More recently, my interests shifted to writing about broader topics like American military history, grand strategy, and race and gender in warfare. Even so, my father left me with an enduring desire to understand human interests and emotions, whether among common soldiers or senior generals. This desire affected my work as a teacher and author.
First published in 1959, some 15 years after the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day, Cornelius Ryan’s book stands as a classic narrative of that amphibious assault. Writing in the vivid prose of an experienced journalist, Ryan also conducted research like a seasoned historian. He interviewed combatants of every nation and rank and sent questionnaires to many others. I feel like I am in the thick of the fight alongside Allied soldiers in the landing craft approaching the beach and with Germans hunkered down in the fortifications trying to stop their amphibious assault. Throughout his narrative, Ryan blends analyses of the good and bad decisions made by both sides.
Cornelius Ryan tells the story of the hours that preceded and followed H-Hour of D-Day ? June 6, 1944, when as dawn approached, as paratroopers fought in the hedgerows of Normandy, the greatest armada the world had ever known assembled off the beach -- almost 5000 ships carrying more than 200,000 soldiers. a military This is the story of people: the men of the Allied forces, the enemy and the civilians caught up in the confusion of battle. 700 D-Day survivors were interviewed for the book.
