Every once in a while I come across a Non-Fiction and Fiction book that need to read together.
Jeff Shaara made a name for himself with Civil War Historical Fiction titles such as Gods and Generals and The Killer Angels but his WW2 offerings are just as good IMHO. The Rising Tideis the first in Shaara’s World War Two Quadrilogy. It recounts the North African Campaign and the early days of the Sicilian campaign as seen from Allied and Axis Viewpoints. One of the beauties of Shaara as a writer is his ability to give the reader a broad perspective of the war while a the same time constructing solid, personable characters that give you exacting details.
Rick Atkinson’s An Army at Dawn, the first book in his Liberation Trilogy.It Recounts the Allied North African campaign in stark detail, covering strategy and tactics, biographical data on Field Commanders and eye witness accounts of such famous battles as El Alamein and Kasserine Pass.
Read together, these two books compliment one another in fantastic ways. So often people think of military history books as boring, plain or tedious, and granted, some of them are. But when you combine Rick Atkinson’s flowing narration style along with Jeff Shaara’s descriptive prose, you get an experience that not only will inform and educate but entertain and delight as well.
