100 books like The Last Enemy

I love well-researched fiction that reads like history. I love this book enough that I’ve read it twice. I keep it in a special section of my library reserved for books that I will never give away or loan to friends for fear of never getting them back.

I love that this book inspires me to write fiction, something I ought to get cracking on now that I’ve written almost thirty history books. I love the characters, I love that I can’t put them down (even when I know what is next), and I love revisiting my time with the good guys and bad guys as the story reveals itself. 

Geoffrey Wellum was the youngest pilot to fly in the Battle of Britain, getting his wings as a teenager. I love this book for its beautiful descriptions of flight training, the rigors of squadron life, and the odd way he feels after taking a life in combat–all while being so young he sleeps in his childhood bedroom when returning home on leave.

But I love this book most because Wellum kept these stories to himself for almost forty years, writing these memoirs and then publishing them only when he was in his old age.

This beautiful memory of life as a fighter pilot is Wellum’s one and only book and one of the great adventure books of all time. 

I write stories about famous people and moments in history. I like to strip down the narrative and make history read like a top-notch thriller. But to do that, I need to stand on the shoulders of authors who devoted ten or a dozen years to researching and writing the detailed lives of a subject they adore. I do not have the attention span to spend so long on one character.

I love this book because William Manchester (and Paul Reid, who stepped in to finish the book when Manchester died) loves Winston Churchill. What he wore, how he spoke, who he loved, what he drank. It is hundreds of pages of gorgeous detail, waiting for a long winter’s reading night. 

I believe Len Deighton is among the great underrated authors of the last fifty years. John Le Carre overshadows his spy novels, but no less complex and subtle. His sharply drawn characters are unique and complex.

I fell in love with this one because it tells the story of the Battle of Britain in exceptional, nerd-level detail without becoming boring or dry. I was captivated. This book made me want to write my book. Left unsaid is that any author who can write great nonfiction and fiction is a true pro. 

Historian James Holland is also a novelist, and it is that parallel writing talent that makes his history books as compelling to read as a thriller novel. In this history of the Battle of Britain he casts his net back to events in France, marking the beginning of the battle proper as early May 1940, two months before the officially recorded date. This presents the battle as a continuation of the wider events that caused it to be necessary. He widens his narrative beyond the desperate struggles of the fighter pilots to include the experiences of bomber command, the navy, the back-room boffins, and the politicians. The result is a highly readable and deeply satisfying account of one of history’s most important pivotal events.

With great skill and sensitivity, Bishop depicts the human drama of the Battle of Britain. Bishop allows the pilots to speak for themselves, collecting their thoughts from letters, diaries, speeches, and memoirs, and presenting these within a chronological framework reinforced with historical context provided by the author. The result is a wonderfully readable and moving book that embraces not just the Battle of Britain itself but also explains the society in which the heroes of the Battle were born, the institution (RAF) in which they served, and the world in which they died. It ends with a chapter telling what happened to the survivors after the war. Altogether a beautiful tribute to the “Few.”

Greg Baughen had written over a million words on the evolving role and functions of the Royal Air Force from its foundation in 1918 to the post-second world war period, then decided to find a publisher!

The work is thus published in a number of volumes this being the fourth. Never frightened to challenge conventional wisdom the author deals with the RAF and British Government’s preoccupation with strategic bombing at the cost of developing effective tactical air power. As he notes German occupation of much of Europe was accomplished on the ground with effective air support.

A classic biography about one of the Royal Air Force’s most colorful fighter pilots during the early part of the war.  Robert Stanford Tuck was born into a wealthy family, but had an individualistic spirit that was sometimes at odds with that family.  Prior to the war, he went to sea aboard a tramp steamer where he did much growing up. Upon his return, he was drawn to the excitement of flight and joined the Royal Air Force. Not an intrinsically gifted pilot, he nearly washed out of training, but ultimately flourished. He excelled as a leader as one of the “few” during the Battle of Britain. 

Art Donahue is the inspiration for my character, Gerry Donaldson, in my book, and Tally-Ho! is the book he wrote about his life while the Battle of Britain was still raging around him. Art was one of many Americans who volunteered at the risk of losing US citizenship, but as a fully qualified flying instructor he jumped the queue and very quickly found himself in a Spitfire cockpit flying into hostile skies with 64 Squadron. Donahue went on to fight in other theatres and write further on his experiences. Sadly, he did not survive the war, but this unique and vibrant document serves as a memorial and a celebration of a true American pioneer.

The book is well named. The Spitfire invokes a visceral response in most people, amplified in those that feel even the slightest cultural connection to the events that unfolded in the Kentish skies in 1940. Nichol centres his book on this emotional premise, conveying the feelings of the pilots who flew the Spitfire, including the ladies of the Air Transport Auxiliary, and the crews that maintained them. We learn about the development of this most beautiful of all warbirds and follow it into all the world’s theatres of war, a story expressed through the first-hand accounts of many veterans who flew and fought behind the roar of the Merlin. This is as close as most of us will come to being inside the cockpit of a Spitfire.