Domain: tiger-web1.srvr.media3.us Need Book Recc: Historical Fiction | Book Board
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Need Book Recc: Historical Fiction

Posted on 11/30/18 at 9:03 am
Posted by WarmBubble
Member since May 2007
1891 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 9:03 am
A friend of mine is being hospitalized the next week and I want to gift him a few books.

I know he is a big fan of historical fiction, especially WWII related.

Will be going to Barnes and Noble later today, but figured I'd ask here first...

Any books that have been released within the last year that someone can reccomend? Doesn't have to be war related, but would be ideal.

Thanks in advance!
Posted by Rockbrc
Attic
Member since Nov 2015
9531 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 10:47 am to
Thomas B Costain has written several historical novels that are informative and entertaining. Older books but still good ones.
Posted by Sus-Scrofa
Member since Feb 2013
10652 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 1:00 pm to
The Starbuck Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell (civil war)
Posted by Tigris
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Member since Jul 2005
13090 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 2:21 pm to
Neither are in the last year, both are WWII related and very well written. The first deals with McArthur and the aftermath of the war in Japan and the Philippines. The second has some similarities to Casablanca, set in Japan just before the war.



Posted by Kafka
I am the moral conscience of TD
Member since Jul 2007
155417 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 5:33 pm to
As always:

quote:

Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC KCB KCIE is a fictional character created by George MacDonald Fraser, but based on the character "Flashman" in Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), a semi-autobiographical work by Thomas Hughes.

In Hughes' book, Flashman is the notorious bully of Rugby School who persecutes Tom Brown, and who is finally expelled for drunkenness. Twentieth century author George MacDonald Fraser had the idea of writing Flashman's memoirs, in which the school bully would be identified with an "illustrious Victorian soldier": experiencing many 19th century wars and adventures and rising to high rank in British army, acclaimed as a great soldier, while remaining by his unapologetic self-description "a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and oh yes, a toady." Fraser's Flashman is an antihero who runs from danger or hides cowering in fear, betrays or abandons acquaintances at at the slightest incentive, bullies and beats servants with gusto, beds every available woman, carries off any loot he can grab, gambles and boozes enthusiastically, and yet, through a combination of luck and cunning, ends each volume acclaimed as a hero.
The books are like James Bond set in the 19th century -- and hilarious to boot. Flashman experiences (always against his will) The Charge Of The Light Brigade (which he somehow ends up leading!), The Sepoy Mutiny, the Taiping Rebellion, Little Big Horn and other great moments of history, all the while getting mixed up with Queen Victoria, Bismarck, Wild Bill Hickok, Lola Montez, Lincoln, The Empress of China, Oscar Wilde, John Brown the abolitionist and other such immortal personages.

My favorite book in the series is the third, Flash For Freedom (which takes place in pre-Civil War NO and Mississippi), but I'd start out with the first, Flashman. After that you can really read them in any order. There are 12 books in the series; I reread them every 4 or 5 years.
Posted by Sody Cracker
Distemper Ward
Member since May 2016
3409 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 8:45 pm to
Flashman is great entertainment. Flashman said, "The road to fornication is truly often paved with misunderstanding."
Posted by Ace Midnight
Between sanity and madness
Member since Dec 2006
95061 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 10:45 pm to
quote:

I know he is a big fan of historical fiction, especially WWII related.


I would go into a bizarre set of details as to why I thought of this book (and it is old, so not within your last year timeline) but long story short - Panzer Spirit.

I have just 4 words for you - Nazi Ghost Magic Tank(destroyer). Think Christine, but with an old German tank - during Cold War Germany, at that.
Posted by geauxpurple
New Orleans
Member since Jul 2014
16952 posts
Posted on 11/30/18 at 11:15 pm to
Winds of War and War and Remembrance. Two great works of historical fiction . They will keep him occupied for a good while.
Posted by boxcarbarney
Above all things, be a man
Member since Jul 2007
25985 posts
Posted on 12/3/18 at 2:03 pm to
Not WW2 and not within the past year, but anything by Steven Pressfield, especially Gates of Fire, is well worth reading.
Posted by lostzeppelin
Van
Member since Oct 2015
78 posts
Posted on 12/3/18 at 3:26 pm to
The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb by Neal Bascomb
Posted by Tigertown in ATL
Georgia foothills
Member since Sep 2009
30276 posts
Posted on 12/3/18 at 4:02 pm to
W.E.B. Griffin

He has several series and they are all good. Easy to read too which will be nice when someone is laid up.

I'd start with The Corps series

LINK
Posted by Ace Midnight
Between sanity and madness
Member since Dec 2006
95061 posts
Posted on 12/4/18 at 7:44 am to
quote:

anything by Steven Pressfield, especially Gates of Fire, is well worth reading.


I second this and also offer that Michael Curtis Ford's The Ten Thousand deserves mention with Pressfield's Gates of Fire.
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