Okay, maybe three and seven out of the ten listed. (I read Undaunted Courage, about the Lewis & Clark expedition, not Lewis’s account, but that should count for something.)
Of the others, Storm of Steel impressed me the most. Ernst Jünger must be the greatest soldier who ever lived, if for no other reason that he survived all four years of WWI in the trenches of the Western Front, not as some staff flunky or quartermaster’s orderly, but as a front-line rifleman. And not a whiny little brat like Remarque‘s Paul, either: just a man of steel — which could have been the title of his book, come to think of it.
I’ve been wanting to read Last Train for years, but just never got around to it. Ditto Death Company, if for no other reason than to fill in the many gaps of my knowledge of the Italian Front. Both duly ordered.
I’ll get after the rest in due course — it’s an excellent list, so thanks to the folks at Intellectual Takeout for that. (If they aren’t on your list of daily reads, fix that now.)
Storm of Steel is an outstanding book. One of my favorites and it changed my perspective on The Great War. Never cared for Remarque
Another little known soldiers story, Lauri Allan Törni, AKA Larry Alan Thorne . I’ve read “A Soldier Under Three Flags” that tells his story, but have not read “Born a Soldier: The Times and Life of Larry A Thorne”.
Unbelievable story of determination to fight communists, working from enlisted to officer in 3 separate army’s.
Is it wrong to think that there is a happy ending to All Quiet on the Western Front? I mean, the Germans were the bad guys who started Workd War I and then upped the ante a lot with introducing poison gas, right? And the book ends with the German dying as the good guys win the war.
On a more serious note, I agree with Kim on Storm of Steel.
The “Great” in “The Great War” does not mean excellent, outstanding, admirable. This was Lloyd George’s war, the dirty little socialist. Anyone with any sense would stay as far from the cesspools of the trenches as he could. And by the way anyone who attacks the enemy armed only with a shovel is not a whiny little brat. Fuck it. I (born in 1951) knew men who had fought in WW1 and they thought that All Quiet was a good book.
Thank you for linking to various book lists. I’m always interested in reading something new or different. the pop culture of books tend to be rubbish.
Right now I’m working through Skeeter Skelton’s “Hoglegs, Hipshots and Jalapenos” that I managed to find at a rather good price.
JQ