What are some of the best war novels? Fiction or nonfiction doesn't matter

Sorry man, I have the German version, can't really comment on any translations.

Finnish war literature.
Turns out many of the men in the Finnish army were grade A poets and writers.

Slaughterhouse-5

Although there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.

Dispatches is my favorite book I’ve read about Vietnam. There are better depictions of combat, better historical overviews, etc., but Herr’s account is just fantastic.

If you’re interested in a somewhat complementary work I would recommend Greene’s The Quiet American

Anything translated into English? Or do you have to be able to read nip nong?

Sharpe series. Bernard Cornwell in general, really. I've also read Death of Kings, The Fort, and 1356, the last two details the Penobscot Expedition in the American Revolutionary War and the Battle of Poitiers if memory serves.

Probably a scratch of them have been translated if even that.

The Unknown Soldier by Linna is, that I know of. He also wrote Here Under the Northern Star which is the biggest Finnish epic and fucking amazing piece of Finnish literature and essential in understanding Finnish history desu.

Godspeed in your attempt to find them outside of Finland, or even Internet download sites.

PS. Just fucking checked for Unknown Soldier english translation in Germany's Amazon and it's fucking butchered. Hilarious, the title of the Penguin release is "UNKNOWN SOLDIERS" when the correct title should be "The Unknown Soldier"

Good fucking GOD.

Just ordered The Unknown Soldier. Will give it a try.

I'm quite fearful about that Penguin translation when even their title is mistranslated from Finnish.

I personally rate Here Under the Northern Star higher than TUS. It's about our civil war and its so beautiful.

Storm of Steel
Goodbye to all that
Fear by Gabriel Chevallier
With the old breed
Dispatches
Kaputt

This is just off the top of my head. I'll post some more later if the thread is still up.

Might check that one out too. I'd rather read about Finns killing Russians than each other though.

The Iliad.

>" But Achilleus drawing his sharp sword struck him beside the neck at the collar-bone, and the double-edged sword plunged full length inside. He dropped to the ground, faced downward, and lay at length, and the black blood flowed, and the ground was soaked with it.

>Achilleus caught him by the foot and slung him into the river to drift, and spoke winged words of vaunting derision over him: 'Lie there now among the fish, who will lick the blood away from your wound, and care nothing for you, nor will your mother lay you on the death-bed and mourn over you, but Skamandros will carry you spinning down to the wide bend of the salt water. And a fish will break a ripple shuddering dark on the water as he rises to feed upon the shining fat of Lykaon. Die on, all; till we come to the city of sacred Ilion, you in flight and I killing you from behind.; and there will not be any rescue for you from your silvery-whirled strong-running river, for all the numbers of bulls you dedicate to it and drown single-foot horses alive in its eddies. And yet, even so, die all an evil death, till all of you pay for the death of Patroklos and the slaughter of the Achaians whom you killed beside the running shios, when I was not with them."

Without a doubt In Parenthesis by David Jones

David Irving's Nazi Germany books to be honest.

Holy fuck, her ugly face. The body is wasted.

Soulseek a e-book, nigga

Why does they change the romanization style? Pisses me off. Stick with a scheme, if it's Achilleus it should be Patroclus and Lycaon, or alternatively if they prefer a more Hellenistic translation, Patroklos, Akhilleus, and Lukaon

And Quiet Flows the Don comes to mind. So does the White Guard and parts of Doctor Zhivago.

Gates of Fire, Afghan Campaign - Steven Pressfield
Forgotten Soldier - Guy Sajer
House to House - David Bellavia
Thunder Run - David Zucchino
Generation Kill - Evan Wright
Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes
Rumor of War - Philip Caputo
Chickenhawk - Robert Mason
Band of Brothers - Stephen E. Ambrose

Fallen Angels - Walter Dean Myers
Guadalcanal Diaries - Richard Tregaskis
The Dirty Dozen - EM Nathansan
Command and Control - James D. Mitchell

this.

I also liked Swofford's Jarhead. not exactly in the same league, but I liked it.

My War Gone By, I Miss it So is my favorite

Catch-22 needs to be mentioned.

>meme-22
It's shit

Your shit

Surprised no one mentioned this. Probably my favorite war book and quite a good read. There's even a semblance of a main villain in it, this specific tiger tank "Tuttie" he just cant ever seem to kill.
Also found it funny how stupid some of the GIs where, and I mean really dumb. Somethings never change I suppose. We had a lot of dumb marines when I was in.

Ah nice. I need to check this out. Sounds like I can relate with this.

Storm of Steel
Goodbye to all that
All Quiet on the Western Front

Dispatches
A Bright and Shining Lie
Homage to Catalonia
An Intimate War

>Your
Thanks for proving me right, shitter.

Has anyone here read "Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer? I am thinking of buying it later on, is there a better alternative?

It really makes War seem so comfy and fun, until he goes to the Chechen war, and it isn't fun anymore ;^(

But yeah, it's great.

The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman.

hey wtf that's mean