Here are 100 books that September Evening fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been fascinated by stories of aerial warfare for as long as I can remember. I can still recall picking up They Fought for the Sky in a bookshop while on a family holiday one year, and I devoured it. The tales of bravery and innovation were all new to me, but that book sparked an interest which has lasted a lifetime. I’ve read dozens of books on the topic and visited air museums to see the aircraft for myself. I’m still reading books on this topic today, and I still marvel at the new perspectives which can be put on this most wonderful and most dreadful period of history.
I saw the movie The Blue Max many years ago and really enjoyed it. In my opinion, the book is even better.
It was one of the books which drove my deepening interest in World War 1 aviation, and it revealed a gritty side to the conflict. I could never quite make up my mind whether to admire or loathe the leading character, which made the story even more fascinating.
Bruno Stachel is a nobody, a newly recruited junior officer in a First World War German combat squadron. But he is determined not to remain a nobody for long. He has his sights on the Blue Max - the most coveted of all German decorations - and he will do anything to get it. From the very moment he shoots down his first plane, everything he does is aimed in that direction: bedding his commander's wife, courting publicity at every turn, even arranging the deaths of his competitors...Jack D. Hunter's novel is a brilliant study of a pilot tortured by…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I have been fascinated by stories of aerial warfare for as long as I can remember. I can still recall picking up They Fought for the Sky in a bookshop while on a family holiday one year, and I devoured it. The tales of bravery and innovation were all new to me, but that book sparked an interest which has lasted a lifetime. I’ve read dozens of books on the topic and visited air museums to see the aircraft for myself. I’m still reading books on this topic today, and I still marvel at the new perspectives which can be put on this most wonderful and most dreadful period of history.
I have read lots of books about World War 1 aviation. This is the most authentic novel I have read on this topic.
It was written by someone who actually flew and fought in WWI, but I think that only helps the fictional narrative. It’s a tale of friendship in the midst of horror, and I loved the descriptions of how the young pilots behaved when not flying.
There is no bitter snarl nor self-pity in this classic novel about the air war of 1914-1918, based very largely on the author's experiences. Combat, loneliness, fatigue, fear, comradeship, women, excitement - all are built into a vigorous and authentic structure by one of the most valiant pilots of the then Royal Flying Corps.World War 1REVIEWS 'Beautifully written with a poet's eye as well as a pilot's eye.' Southern Evening Echo'The only book about flying that isn't flannel.' Anonymous Fighter Pilot'Not only one of the best war books but as a transcription of reality, faithful and sustained in its author's…
I have been fascinated by stories of aerial warfare for as long as I can remember. I can still recall picking up They Fought for the Sky in a bookshop while on a family holiday one year, and I devoured it. The tales of bravery and innovation were all new to me, but that book sparked an interest which has lasted a lifetime. I’ve read dozens of books on the topic and visited air museums to see the aircraft for myself. I’m still reading books on this topic today, and I still marvel at the new perspectives which can be put on this most wonderful and most dreadful period of history.
I think John Harris is one of the great writers on warfare, and this one captures his style superbly.
The main character draws you in immediately with his youthful talent and simmering resentment against people who dismiss him because of his youth. I was engaged by his development as the story progressed, and I could relate to his disappointments as well as his successes.
I thought this book was a wonderful example of accurately portraying human behaviour in war.
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
I have been fascinated by stories of aerial warfare for as long as I can remember. I can still recall picking up They Fought for the Sky in a bookshop while on a family holiday one year, and I devoured it. The tales of bravery and innovation were all new to me, but that book sparked an interest which has lasted a lifetime. I’ve read dozens of books on the topic and visited air museums to see the aircraft for myself. I’m still reading books on this topic today, and I still marvel at the new perspectives which can be put on this most wonderful and most dreadful period of history.
For me, this is the book that began my interest in World War 1 aviation. It’s a factual book rather than a novel.
I read it again recently, and while it perhaps makes the combat more glamorous than it should, and some of the interpretations of events might be challenged nowadays, I still enjoyed it.
It is a terrific introduction to the topic, detailing key events in the development of air warfare and in the moments in the lives (and deaths) of the aces who took part.
Some of my first memories as a kid are of films and TV shows about World War Two; the theme tune and credits of The World At War TV series still haunt me even now. But to be honest, the bombing of Germany never gripped me as much as, say, the war in Russia, that is, until I started to read up on it. It was a revelation. Suddenly, I saw incredibly young men fighting to survive in the most hostile environment on the planet–or rather above the planet, miles above, in fact. To me, I find the war they fought alien, but at the same time so absorbing I lose myself in it.
As I devoured the pages, I saw a normal young German Catholic boy who loved camping and the outdoors turn into a fanatical Nazi fighter pilot revelling in the slaughter of Russian ‘sub-humans.’
Because it’s based on Knoke’s diary, I could chart his war day by day, week by week, and see his innermost thoughts and feelings. He holds nothing back, and reading his words gave me a fascinating–if terrible–insight into what makes an unrepentant Nazi.
Heinz Knocke was one of the outstanding German fighter pilots of World War II and this vivid first-hand record of his experiences has become a classic among aviation memoirs, a best-selling counter-balance to the numerous accounts written by Allied pilots.
Knoke joined the Luftwaffe on the outbreak of war, and eventually became commanding officer of a fighter wing. An outstandingly brave and skilful fighter, he logged over two thousand flights, and shot down fifty-two enemy aircraft. He had flown over four hundred operational missions before being crippled by wounds in an astonishing 'last stand' towards the end of the war.…
I lived in London for eighteen years and acquired an abiding affection for my nation’s capital. I wanted to write a sequel to Bluebirds and jumped at the chance of giving Bryan Hale an adventure where he could walk the streets that I knew and loved. The scars caused on the fair face of London by sticks of Nazi bombs landing in ragged lines across the streets and terraces may still be discerned from the incongruity of the buildings that have since risen to fill the gaps. London heals and thrives. Ultimately, I believe every English writer harbours an ambition to write a London novel. I did, and I did.
Juliet Gardiner blends memoirs, official accounts, and personal experiences, many derived from Mass Observation, to present a gripping and emotive history of the Blitz and illustrate the strength and resilience of the civilians whose lives were torn apart in its indiscriminate violence. She uses eyewitness accounts to throw the horrors of total war into sharp relief. Although London absorbed the brunt of the campaign, the reader is also taken to the smouldering bombsites of Coventry, Birmingham, the south coast ports, Belfast, and other cities that the Luftwaffe ranged across, where the voices of rescue squads and fire services shine an unwavering light on the harrowing consequences of aerial bombardment for civilian populations.
From the author of 'Wartime' comes an outstanding history of the most sustained onslaught ever endured by Britain's civilian population - the Blitz.
September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's aerial attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight months, the Blitz was the form of warfare that had been predicted throughout the 1930s, and that the British people had feared since Neville Chamberlain's declaration that Britain was at war. Images of Britain's devastated cities are among the most iconic of the Second World War.
Yet compared with other great moments of that war - Dunkirk, the North African…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
I was seeking a direction for the third novel in the Bluebird series and my dates led me to Malta. Even as an avid reader of history, I knew shockingly little about the island’s tortuous punishment at the hands of Axis air forces. After much reading I was compelled to visit Malta myself, to tour the locations I would use, and ensure my fiction reflected the character of the landscape and the nature of the people that defended it so doggedly. Standing at Ta’Qali, where an airfield received in one single raid the same tonnage of bombs that crippled Coventry, I felt I’d been given permission.
This compact, but detailed, history has been painstakingly researched from original Italian and German sources. The author explains the technical and tactical capabilities of the Axis air forces involved in the attacks on Malta and how their campaigns related to the wider Mediterranean war. We are treated to three full colour battle scenes painted by the renowned aviation artist, Graham Turner, as well as 3D tactical diagrams that recreate the airspace during key moments of the battle. The concise text is peppered with contemporary photos of the aircraft used, the personalities involved, and scenes on the ground. An essential handbook to fully understand the siege of Malta.
In 1940, the strategically vital island of Malta was Britain's last toehold in the central Mediterranean, wreaking havoc among Axis shipping. Launching an air campaign to knock Malta out of the war, first Italy and then Germany sought to force a surrender or reduce the defences enough to allow an invasion. Drawing on original documents, multilingual aviation analyst Ryan Noppen explains how technical and tactical problems caused the original Italian air campaign of 1940-41 to fail, and then how the German intervention came close to knocking Malta out of the war. Using stunning full colour artwork, this fascinating book explains…
I had finished The Bluebird Trilogy, three novels that centred on the first half of the Second World War, and I heard echoes of the Great War ringing faintly in the egos of my older characters. I started to read more of the history and was drawn to the aerial maelstrom that befell the RFC over Arras in 1917. I was also interested in working with a larger cast of characters, many transients, and telling their stories over a short stretch of time. The result was Major Claypole and Jackdaw Squadron, Glory Boys every last one.
Barely a decade after The Wright brothers’ first tentative take-off, flying machines were thrown into the scorching crucible of war in Europe. The men who flew them were pioneers, members of what many saw as a military flying club. But the flying club soon developed into a bear-pit of mortal combat, fought behind synchronised machine guns without the solace of a parachute. Levine paints his pictures with the personal accounts and anecdotes of the pilots that fought these battles, seeking to understand the feelings and motivations of the young men who volunteered to risk all in the frightening new theatre of aerial warfare. These truths, are in many instances, stranger than fiction, forged, as they were, on the cutting edge of the new aviation technology.
Rewriting the rules of military engagement and changing the course of modern history as a result, the pioneering airmen of the First World War took incredible risks to perform their vital contribution to the war effort.
Fighter Heroes of WWI is a narrative history that conveys the perils of early flight, the thrills of being airborne, and the horrors of war in the air at a time when pilots carried little defensive armament and no parachutes.
The men who joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914 were the original heroes of…
Born in London at the height of the Blitz I am a retired NHS Director with a lifelong interest in military aviation. My first journal article, on the Suez Campaign, was published in 1965 since when I have written some 90 articles and eight books and have contributed chapters to several more. Most of my books are triggered by a challenge and I always try to cover ground hitherto ignored so that my books become a unique reference. Works in progress include a history of the RAF involvement in Greece from 1940 to 1950 and the work of the RAF between the wars. I live in Sherborne, Dorset, England.
Thomas McKelvey Cleaver is a screenwriter of some considerable experience and it shows in his writing. Of late he has been a prolific writer, especially on aspects of the air war in the Pacific and post-war in Korea.
His work is a combination of authoritative research and verbatim accounts collected firsthand from those who were there. His writing is highly readable, without being patronising, and in this volume he describes the contribution of naval air power to the United Nations' fight against North Korea.
A characteristic of all of Cleaver’s writing is that he looks beyond the United States: thus in this book he includes a full description of the part played by Britain’s Fleet Air Arm.
Naval and air power were crucial to the United Nations' success in the Korean War, as it sought to negate the overwhelming Chinese advantage in manpower. In what became known as the 'long hard slog', naval aviators sought to slow and cut off communist forces and support troops on the ground. USS Leyte (CV-32) operated off Korea in the Sea of Japan for a record 93 continuous days to support the Marines in their epic retreat out of North Korea, and was crucial in the battles of the spring and summer of 1951 in which the UN forces again battled…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I lived in London for eighteen years and acquired an abiding affection for my nation’s capital. I wanted to write a sequel to Bluebirds and jumped at the chance of giving Bryan Hale an adventure where he could walk the streets that I knew and loved. The scars caused on the fair face of London by sticks of Nazi bombs landing in ragged lines across the streets and terraces may still be discerned from the incongruity of the buildings that have since risen to fill the gaps. London heals and thrives. Ultimately, I believe every English writer harbours an ambition to write a London novel. I did, and I did.
British Radio Direction Finding stations (RDF), later to be dubbed Radar, with their iconic arrays of masts along England’s south coast, contributed greatly to the RAF’s success in the Battle of Britain by detecting approaching raids and giving early warning. Both sides in the European war possessed similar technologies operated from ground stations. The race to miniaturise RDF sets for airborne interception, once realised, would have devastating consequences for intruding bomber crews facing A.I. equipped night fighters over Britain and Germany. Price takes an even-handed approach in relating the development of these technologies in Britain, Germany, the US, and Japan, making this an absorbing and enjoyable read that demystifies an aspect of the war that is usually only mentioned in passing.
The rapid evolution of radio and radar systems for military use during World War II, and devices to counter them, led to a technological battle that neither the Axis nor the Allied powers could afford to lose. The result was a continual series of thrusts, parries, and counter-thrusts, as first one side then the other sought to wrest the initiative in the struggle to control the ether. This was a battle fought with strange-sounding weapons-"Freya," "Mandrel," "Boozer," and "Window"-and characterized by the bravery, self-sacrifice, and skill of those who took part in it. During the war, however, and for many…
