One Man's War: A Novel - A Gripping Historical Fiction About Courage and Survival in WWII | Perfect for Book Clubs & History Enthusiasts

I can't imagine anyone who is interested in WW II not wanting to read this book. I'll preface this by saying that I've never been in combat. I grew up at a time when everyone's father had been in "the war" (you didn't have to say which one), but by luck of birth year, I managed to be just too young for Vietnam, and far too old for the wars that followed.This book is not an attempt to turn the combat experience into a great literary statement, and I'm glad for that - we've got a bunch of books like that. It tells the story of an ordinary combat infantryman who fights his way through part of Italy and then part of France. He never has any real sense of the big picture - not even the local big picture, let alone the grand sweep of the campaigns he participates in. He suffers and fights and then suffers and fights some more. And tries to cope with the knowledge that living or dying generally is a matter of luck. The book shows us one day at a time, and offers what seems to be a very realistic view of WW II soldiers. They swear a lot (a *lot*). They're from a pre-Interstate America where regional distinctions are much more pronounced than they are two generations later. They make up goofy nicknames for each other. They love officers who "get it" and hate those who don't. And they fight largely for each other.When I was a kid, WW II was only yesterday. Now, as the generation who fought in it and remembers the era is dying out, this is a book to be grateful for. There's no sentimentality in this book. It's about the struggle of very ordinary people to get survive a fascinating, intense, and horrifying experience. And that's what history is about. The people who fought in WW II were not some sort of magical "greatest generation." They were ordinary people of all kinds, very much like us.