[Rick Nebiolo]

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I have been told 'Stalingrad' is an excellent book, and would fit my criteria a lot. Confirm/deny?

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I've read "Stalingrad" by Anthony Beever and it was very good (as was "The Fall of Berlin"). But there are other books with that title that may be just as good or better.

I'm playing a donkament on the other monitor so I won't have time to link but most of Stephen Ambrose's books are very good and relatively easy reads. Here are the ones I've read and liked best:

"Undaunted Courage" - about Lewis and Clark (but mostly Lewis)

"Band of Brothers" - As good as the HBO series is I liked the book a little better. This follows one company from D-Day to the end of the war.

"D Day"

"Citizen Soldiers" (this should be read after D Day)

"The Wild Blue" is just awful. I think this one involved the charges of plagiarism and was written near the end of his life.

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I'll second the rec for whoever mentioned "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes.

If you are going to read just one book on the Civil War then read "Battle Cry of Freedom" mentioned elsewhere. The "Killer Angles" would be a great second book (along with the whole Shaara father and son historical fiction trilogy). If you have a year or so then of course read the Shelby Foote trilogy. Nothing can top that; each volume is so heavy that one time I fell asleep in bed reading it dropping in on my chin leaving a big bruise!

John Keegan's books on war, wars and warfare are also top reads.

One more. "The Fifties" by David Halberstam. This is the guy who wrote "The Best and the Brightest" on Vietnam but "The Fifties" might be a good cover for that decade.

~ Rick

PS Not pure history but the twenty volume Aubrey/Matrurin series(the film Master and Commander was based on this) by Patrick O'Brien is just great reading and tells a lot about life on the high seas and in Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. My gf read the whole thing in about three months! (Edit to say it took me about five months).