In reply to Flinticus:
This a post by detwent diluted from November last year. I’m on my phone so couldn’t post link to thread but found it and copied his excellent post here below. If you want to find thread it was authored by Rampikino in Nov last year and was titled Great War book recommendations please.
“An excellent book on tunneling is 'War Underground' by Alexander Barry, I expected a dry account with a lot of technical detail on pumps or wooden shoring, I got a read as exciting as any thriller. A real page turner, if Birdsong ignited any interest in this part of WW1 then time spent tracking this down won't be wasted.
I read of WW1 books, here are some picks from my shelves, some well known others a little more obscure. They do however represent my interest in the Land War on the Western Front. I have left out some obvious choices such as "All Quiet.." and "Goodbye to all that"as they are pretty well known.
*** essential
** very good
First person memoirs/diaries,
Somme Mud, EPF Lynch. *** Modest Australian memoir from the thick of it.
A Very Unimportant Officer, Capt. A Stewart, Edited by Cameron Stewart.
Storm of Steel, E. Junger. Well known title, War can be fun! ***
Copse 125, E Junger. More exposition of Jungers 'philosophy' and some insights into a man who defies lazy categorisation. **
Harrys' War, H Drinkwater.
A Gunner on the Western Front, Aubery Wade ** An artillerymans memoirs, captures an essence of inescapable horror.
Field Guns in France, N Fraser-Tytler*** War as fun from the British perspective, takes delight in shelling Germans and shooting partridge equally.
Some Desperate Glory, Edwin Campion Vaughan. **
Undertones of War, Edmund Blunden ***
A Nurse at the Front, Edith Appleton, Edited by Ruth Cowan *** Essential diary of nursing
With a Machine Gun to Cambrai, G Coppard.
Drawing Fire, Len Smith, An artist at war sent out into No mans land to sketch the German lines, just like in Blackadder but for real.
Sniping in France, Major H Hesketh Pritchard ** Very readable technical account of the development of sniping and use of big game hunting techniques, illuminates a 'free lance' side of the war.
The War the Infantry Knew, Capt JC Dunn *** If you picked one book from this list....
Historical/technical but very readable;
The Hell They Called High Wood, Terry Norman. Possibly the most contested few acres of the Somme battle? 8000 men still lie there unburied.
Somme, Heroism & Horror, Martin Gilbert
Raiding on the Western Front, Anthony Saunders,
The Blood Tub, Jonathan Walker. Account of the desperate fighting around Bullecourt
Fromelles, Patrick Lindsay,
The Marne, Georges Blond
Verdun, Georges Blond
The White War, Mark Thompson, The war on the Italian front
Zeebrugge, Barrie Pitt
The Price of Glory, Alistair Horne. Account of Verdun, A masterpiece still acknowledged as authoritarive after 50 years
Fiction,
Under Fire, Henri Barbusse, slow to start but inexorably leads you into hell.
Covenant with Death, John Harris. All but true account of the Sheffield Pals. 'Two years in the making, a moment in the destroying'
Reference/etc - just a small few
The Somme/Passchendaele/Arras/Battlefiields of the First World War, Peter Barton lavish comparisons of Battlefield panoramic photos
Beneath Flanders Fields, Peter Barton, Excavations and history of the underground war.
Before Endeavours Fade, Rose Coombs, Battlefield touring itineries. Often updated and ideal for exploring. Not too Ypres/Somme centric which I like.
Digging up Plugstreet, Martin Brown & Richard Osgood. Archaeology of a WW1 battlefield.
The War Walk, Nigel H Jones, Account of the Western Front on foot.
Anything by Richard Holmes, Lyn MacDonald and Richard Van Emden are usually worth reading.
Also worth hunting down, if you are into the recovery of the land are the titles from the 1930's ; "Twenty Years After", also "The Great War - I was there" and "The Western Front then and now" (not to be confused with the later book of the same title by John Giles, which is also very good). If you are going back to the 1930's look out for the photo- books printed by the Daily Express as warning about another world war, these are "The First World War - a photographic history" -prophetic title as it was published in 1933, and the quite rare "Covenants with Death" with its notorious sealed section of graphic images of the dead and atrocities. These are mostly from the Balkans and highlight the long standing animosities here.
There are loads, loads more, but all the above should be accessible to those with a casual or passing interest. Some accounts get a bit bogged down with a lot of detail.
Conversely I'm always after recommendations myself, I especially like reading the long forgotten diaries and memoirs of those who were actually there.”
Post edited at 20:34