The Second World War by Antony Beevor (Audible)

[CountryBoy]

Not quite a full review but I wanted to give a quick recommendation for the Audible version of The Second World War by Antony Beevor. 

Two recommendations really, one for the book and the other for 'reading' books through Audible (or something similar). I do a fair bit of driving for work and also have a 30 minute drive to/from work and I don't know how I survived before I started using Audible. I think I own something like 120 Audible books which I have read over the years. It is simply amazing how quickly any car journey can go when you are listening to an engrossing audiobook. Even a trip as long as seven hours is a pleasure when listening to the right book.

As for The Second World War by Antony Beevor, I heartily recommend it. I have read some of his other work, such as Stalingrad and Berlin, so I knew what to expect to a certain extent. The book, as you might expect, covers the full story of WW2. What I found interesting was the material on the war in China, which was an area of the war which I knew very little about. Beevor also goes into detail regarding some of the politics during the war, which was also interesting, particularly the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt. He also covers the atrocities and mass killings in some depth, which was hard going on occasion but obviously could not be neglected. Again, while I had some knowledge of this topic, the scale and immensity of it was unbelievable - I kept coming home and telling my wife little facts I had learned from the book and we would end up in a deep conversation about the behaviour of humans to one another. The military side is covered in detail, with all the major theatres, campaigns and battles, so nothing was missing there. The real experts may not find anything completely new in there, but for people who are interested in WW2 the book is definitely worth a read.

The audio version of the book is 39 hours long, but at no stage did I find it to be dragging and was sorry when it ended. The narrator was excellent (which is so important in an audiobook as the narrator can make or break a book), one of the best I have listened to in my many years of audiobooks. All up I can thoroughly recommend the book, particularly if you're interested in tackling an audiobook. I've just bought 'Arnhem' by Antony Beevor, which has the same narrator, so I'm looking forward to getting that one underway.

Cheers.

[General Mod]

I have kind of soured on "popular" histories and one volume histories that try to cover everything recently. That said Beevors book was phenomenal. I shouldn't say was I am only up to Barbarossa, but so far I am very impressed. Now I am by no means an expert, but I have read a lot on WW2, as have many people. Yet there were 4 or 5 things that I learned so far in this book. For one Beevor really makes the point that Hitler invaded Russia in part to bring Britain to the negotiating table. We all know he hated communism and wanted "living space", but Beevor makes the point pretty well that Hitler didn't think the US would join for at least a year and a half. He thought that Britain was hanging around and hoping that Stalin would do the job for him. Not unreasonable either since the British are famous for getting other countries to fight their enemies.

It's a long book which I love. I actually bought it years ago at B&N but got it for free on audio format and have been listening to it. I highly recommend this book.