3 Disparate Books on the Same Topic (War, or anything else for that matter)

[NCR600]

My Dad gave me a book called "Italy's Sorrow, a Year of War, 1944-45" about (obviously) the Italian campaign in the last year of WWII told from a number of perspectives on all sides via a number of interviews and historical research. It's a horrifying, depressing account of what all out war can do to a country, it's inhabitants, and those who serve on all sides, in a theatre that has been much ignored by historians.

However, it gave a new perspective on two of my favourite books, "Catch 22", which is of course set on the Italian island of Pantellaria (Joseph Heller,was like his main protagonist Yossarian, a member of a USAAF medium bomber squadron) during the same period, and part 3 of British lunatic comedian Spike Milligan's personal memoirs of WWII, "Mussolini, His Part in My Downfall"

I've found Catch 22 and Spike's book to ring true, for the most part being about what young men will get up to, multiplied by the extended periods of boredom and flashes of excitement and horror of a strategic war.

Both the Heller tome, and Spike's book make extensive references to prostitution. I never knew that in fact 45% of the Italian female population between 16 and 45 were involved in prostitution brought about by severe food shortages. Or that the German soldiers were not involved in much rape and pillage, unlike the allied soldiers (and in particular the French/Arabic "Goumiers") but when they did a war crime they killed entire villages.

The three of these books gave me a fairly complete view, through the lenses of autobiography, autobiographical fiction and serious historical study.

Anybody got anything else?

[CallofCthulhu]

I know this is an old thread but you should consider read "The Guns of August". It about the first month of WWI. An often overlooked period in history but really interesting. Read it for a college class and loved it.

[peterlies]

Check out The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw