Here are 100 books that Ordinary Men fans have personally recommended if you like
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Andrew is a long-time WWII history buff and writer who looks for any excuse to do a deep dive into his favorite history topics. For his WWII horror novel One Last Gasp, he spent over a year researching the Battle of the Bulge, from first-hand accounts of front-line soldiers to official U.S. Army documents.
A bit dry and occasionally over-focused on rattling off official numbers and unit designations, The Fall Of Berlin is also a low-key horror novel. Surrounded on all sides by a massive Russian army hell-bent on revenge, the people of Berlin are caught between those invaders and their own leadership forcing them into a suicidal last stand. The scale of brutality is numbing; this is a battle fought without mercy by two adversaries locked in a death struggle.
"A tale drenched in drama and blood, heroism and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal."-Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Third Reich in January 1945. Frenzied by their terrible experiences with Wehrmacht and SS brutality, they wreaked havoc-tanks crushing refugee columns, mass rape, pillage, and unimaginable destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred; more than seven million fled westward from the fury of the Red Army. It was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known.
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I’m a combat veteran and longtime soldier trying to figure out my own wartime experiences by learning about what others did. Soldiers may join up for mom and apple pie and the grand old flag. But they fight for each other, and they follow leaders they trust. I tried to be one of those solid combat leaders. Since I had never been under fire before that day came, I endeavored to learn from—and write about—the lives of others who led soldiers in war. I’m still reading and still writing about battlefield leadership.
There are a lot of books about the Battle of The Bulge, the biggest American engagement of World War II. I think this one is the best, and that’s because author Charles B. MacDonald fought in the Bulge as a rifle company commander, then for years after the war served as an official U.S. Army historian writing about the Bulge and the other major campaigns. MacDonald had that rare opportunity to figure out what really happened to him and his fellow soldiers. He makes a brief appearance in his own gripping narrative, just another tired, cold, young officer trying to keep himself and his troops alive in the biggest clash of the entire war. MacDonald understands how and why the Bulge went the way it did.
On December 16, 1944, the vanguard of three German armies, totaling half a million men, attacked U.S. forces in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg, achieveing what had been considered impossible -- total surprise. In the most abysmal failure of battlefield intelligence in the history of the U.S. Army, 600,000 American soldiers found themselves facing Hitler's last desperate effort of the war.
The brutal confrontation that ensued became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the greatest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army -- a triumph of American ingenuity and dedication over an egregious failure in strategic intelligence.…
These books have defined my life, giving me focus, direction, and purpose through a career that embraced 25 years at the United States Senate at senior staff levels and then served as the inspiration to co-found four national charities, including the Heart of America Foundation (HOA). The resulting activities have touched the lives of millions of adults and children and blessed my life beyond belief. I am a voracious reader with an extensive backlist of favorite books I have read and, in some cases, re-read. They are interesting, informative, and entertaining, but these books are a step beyond. This is where I go when I need hope and inspiration.
Frankl, de Tocqueville, Love, and Tocquigny focus on affirmative action, success, meaning, and purpose, and Arendt provides a sobering reflection on the alternative. After observing the greatest horror the world has produced, she concludes much of the wickedness in the world is created by people in the neutral zone, people with no allegiance to good or evil, people who “just let it happen.”
What happens when we don’t choose but are content to let others choose for us when we deny our “response-ability.” Who is responsible when no one is responsible?
'A profound and documented analysis ... Bound to stir our minds and trouble our consciences' Chicago Tribune
Hannah Arendt's authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi SS leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in The New Yorker in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt's postscript commenting on the controversy that arose over her book. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative - a meticulous and unflinching look at one…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
As soon as I could read, my dad introduced me to the science fiction greats like Bradbury and Asimov. From there, I branched out to comics and fantasy. However, the tales that connected to me always had one thing in common: relatable characters. Whether it was the musing of Bradbury’s protagonists or the Hulk’s desire to be left alone, they all resonated with me personally. As a science fiction and fantasy author, it’s my job to make that same connection. Instead of escaping into imaginary realms, I have to figure out how to better observe the real world so I can tell better stories.
This book took me on a journey with a group of unlikely heroes, starting with their decision to enlist to fight in the war, following them through their training as paratroopers, and ending the conflict. Like many World War II veterans, they were volunteers. But the anticipation leading up to D-Day and the hell they went through in the woods of Bastogne was more than anyone could have ever expected.
Few histories of World War II hit me as hard as this one. As a child of the 1960s and 1970s, the war has always fascinated me. I’d read about the strategy, the epic battles, and the atrocities committed by the Axis Powers, but I’ve returned to this book many times over the past thirty years.
They fought on Utah Beach, in Arnhem, Bastogne, the Bulge; they spearheaded the Rhine offensive and took possession of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden. Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company, which kept getting the tough assignments. Easy Company was responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. BAND OF BROTHERS is the account of the men of…
I am an American citizen who taught Classical Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. I have taught Homer (in translation and in Greek), ancient myth, and “reception” of ancient myth. All the books that I discuss below I have taught many times in a first-year seminar about creative “reception” of the Odyssey. Other topics include comparable stories (like The Tempest by Shakespeare) and other great works of reception (like Derek Walcott’s stage version of the Odyssey and his epic poem "Omeros"). Every time I’ve taught the class, I’ve learned the most from free-wheeling discussions with students.
I thought it was great to have Circe herself narrate her love affair with Odysseus.
The first half of the novel interestingly shares her tribulations growing up as a child in a family of gods. I found that this establishes a theme of immortality vs. mortality that the book explores in profound ways. Especially fascinating was Circe’s personal story of her love affair with Odysseus.
I was surprised and delighted that Miller included the resulting child, Telegonus, who is not in Homer but is in ancient myth. Even more surprising to me was Circe falling in love with Telemachus, Odysseus’ son by Penelope (also not in Homer!). This relationship allows the novel to end on a positive note as Circe learns to live like a mortal in her new life with Telemachus.
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens…
I am a Ukrainian American artist and author and I have always been interested in the “story behind the story” about Ukraine, the home of my parents and ancestors. I love books that explain things through stories. Much like, I think, paintings explain things through visuals. Russia’s war on Ukraine has only sharpened my interest. In my paintings, I discovered that much of U.S. history and geography enjoys an unexpected similarity to the situation of Ukraine. And, just as Ukraine includes the many disparate nationalities of its inhabitants, the U.S., a nation of immigrants, is comprised of people of every skin color, religion, and outlook.
I took up this gigantic novel on the recommendation of a friend who recommended Grey Bees. I was skeptical that I would read much of it because it is about Russia during the Second World War. However, once I got into the book, I was blown away.
Grossman is a bigger artist with words than any painter. He had a deep insight into humanity, every aspect of it. The chapters are short, but the book is over 800 pages long. I wanted to stop, but each chapter presented such insights that it was impossible not to be in awe at his writing. The story includes descriptions of the battle of Stalingrad from both sides, family life, the plight of Jews, and much, much more.
After reading this book, I feel that I have lived another lifetime. There is a lot of sadness, some comedy, and lots of horror and…
Based around the pivotal WWII battle of Stalingrad (1942-3), where the German advance into Russia was eventually halted by the Red Army, and around an extended family, the Shaposhnikovs, and their many friends and acquaintances, Life and Fate recounts the experience of characters caught up in an immense struggle between opposing armies and ideologies. Nazism and Communism are appallingly similar, 'two poles of one magnet', as a German camp commander tells a shocked old Bolshevik prisoner. At the height of the battle Russian soldiers and citizens alike are at last able to speak out as they choose, and without reprisal…
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I came to England on a Rhodes Scholarship from South Africa in 1961 and have been a Professor at the London School of Economics and Brandeis University. I am the Chief Historian of the Global Educational Outreach Project at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. My interests are the politics of Eastern Europe, the history of the Jews, and the conflict in the Middle East. I have witnessed the transition from communist rule to democracy in Poland and the end of apartheid in South Africa. There are growing threats to democracy and political pluralism, and I very much hope that these can be successfully resisted.
This remarkable book shows how it is possible to encapsulate the history of the mass murder of the Jews in the former Soviet Union in a single object, in this case, a photograph that documents the horrific final moments in the life of a Jewish family, one of the nearly 1.5 million Jews shot by the Germans and their collaborators after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
Wendy Lower was able to locate the killing site and find the identities of the mother and her children and of the killers. I was deeply moved by the way it enables one to put a human face on the millions who were murdered in the Holocaust, and, in particular, the women and children who constituted an important part of the victims.
A single photograph—an exceptionally rare “action shot” documenting the horrific final moment of the murder of a family—drives a riveting process of discovery for a gifted Holocaust scholar
In 2009, the acclaimed author of Hitler’s Furies was shown a photograph just brought to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The documentation of the Holocaust is vast, but there are virtually no images of a Jewish family at the actual moment of murder, in this case by German officials and Ukrainian collaborators. A Ukrainian shooter’s rifle is inches from a…
My father survived the Holocaust in Budapest and my mother’s immediate family fled Poland just before she was born, leaving behind a large extended family. I grew up witnessing the trauma of suffering and loss. As a professional historian, I had already written several books on Russian-Jewish history, mostly on culture and theater, when I joined a group that was interviewing Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivors in Ukraine. Since 2014, I have been teaching courses on the Holocaust at the University of Michigan and soon after became involved with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where I serve on the Academic Committee.
In deeply personal terms, Father Desbois describes how his curiosity about his grandfather’s incarceration in Ukraine led him to study the atrocities committed there against the Jews. The book is written in an almost conversational style, creating a sense of intimacy between Father Desbois and the reader. Desbois is able to persuade those who witnessed atrocities to open up and confess what they have seen and what they remember. Together with a team of ballistic experts, interpreters, historians, and archaeologists, he identified numerous sites of mass graves. Desbois, who popularized the term “The Holocaust by Bullets,” has been instrumental in expanding our understanding of the Holocaust beyond the death camps and the ghettos to the more intimate killings that took place in Ukraine and elsewhere in the Soviet Union.
In this heart-wrenching book, Father Patrick Desbois documents the daunting task of identifying and examining all the sites where Jews were exterminated by Nazi mobile units in the Ukraine in WWII. Using innovative methodology, interviews, and ballistic evidence, he has determined the location of many mass gravesites with the goal of providing proper burials for the victims of the forgotten Ukrainian Holocaust. Compiling new archival material and many eye-witness accounts, Desbois has put together the first definitive account of one of history's bloodiest chapters.Published with the support of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
I’m passionate about the theme of this list because I’ve experienced a lot in life already, even though I’m only 24 years old, and I know about the different situations that these books describe well. I’ve experienced a few traumatic situations later in my life (after I read these books) that these books have, it has turned me into somewhat of a realist over time, and I like to use my own talent of writing and creating characters to create, teach, and make people aware of scary and traumatic situations that can happen to anyone in real life. I hope more people will see the valuable lessons in these books.
This book is nonfiction, so it’s about real people rather than fictional characters. I love this book because it gives a descriptive perspective on what was happening and what was going on in Nazi-occupied Germany and Poland during World War II, and the horrors of the concentration camps (mainly Auschwitz) that were built and used to kill everyone the nazis hated for whatever insane reasons they had.
I’ve always had an almost alarming interest in World War II. It was my favorite lesson from the history classes I’ve taken, and this book really put some of the evil things that were done during that time into perspective.
Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, as a child, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity: the ever-increasing horrors he endured, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of humanity, dignity and faith. Describing in simple terms the tragic murder of a people from a survivor's perspective, Night is among the most personal, intimate and poignant of all accounts of the Holocaust. A compelling consideration of the darkest side of human nature and the enduring power of…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Professor Elie Wiesel was instrumental in my translating and researching my mother’s journals. My awakening to the dark period in the chapter of the Jewish history happened between 1971-1974 at CCNY, when our paths crossed while I was taking his classes at the department of Jewish studies. It was in his classes that the things that bewildered me as a child growing up in communist Poland in the shadows of the Holocaust aftermath started to make sense. I asked my mother to commit to paper the painful memories, she buried deep inside her. She and the next generations have an obligation to bear witness, to be this history's keepers.
Remembering the heroes, Witold Pilecki got himself arrested. After two and half years as a prisoner in Auschwitz, he escaped. He witnessed the brutality, the mass gassing of Europe’s Jews, thousands each day. He was among the first to set off the alarms that Auschwitz was the epicenter of the Nazis' plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews.
COSTA BOOK AWARD WINNER: BOOK OF THE YEAR • #1 SUNDAY TIMES (UK) BESTSELLER
“Superbly written and breathtakingly researched, The Volunteer smuggles us into Auschwitz and shows us—as if watching a movie—the story of a Polish agent who infiltrated the infamous camp, organized a rebellion, and then snuck back out. ... Fairweather has dug up a story of incalculable value and delivered it to us in the most compelling prose I have read in a long time.” —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and Tribe
The incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter’s infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage…
