The Longest Day put great personal stories to the history. It gave a wonderfully specific, but not overly laborious description of the day of battle through the eyes of the survivors. Written within 15 years of the war, this book is filled with gold--interviews with survivors of D-Day that are lost forever now, with fewer and fewer by the year. Thank goodness for this wonderful record of the events.

I have only two criticisms. One is that I felt the book was overly detailed in the lead-up to the invasion. There was a bit too much description of the terrain and the preparations than I would have liked, and the battle only really occupied the second half of the book--it took me a while to get into the read.

My second criticism is no fault of the author, editor, publisher, or anyone else involved, but merely a lament at the sad fact that no matter how we may wish for it, there is no such thing as a book starring John Wayne. ( )

Fantastic book describing the lead up to and including D-Day. I will admit though that I read the book after seeing the movie. Told from not only the German and allied point of view, but also the view of the French Resistance this book provides fascinating insight into the ordinary lives of the people in occupied France as well as the life of the ordinary soldier and the battle that still considered to this day as the greatest seaborne invasion in military history. ( )

1113 The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan (read 21 Apr 1971) I believe this is the best book I have read on World War II up to the time I read it. It tells of the day or so before June 6, 1944, and of the day itself. It is very well put together--mainly made up from interviews and accounts of personal experiences--and intensely dramatic at times. On May 25, 1967, I finished reading Cornelius Ryan's The Last Battle, which was published in 1966--this book was first published in 1959. But I believe I found this book more intriguing than I did The Last Battle. ( )

Absolutely astounding. Parts of the book had me laughing while other parts had me forcing back tears. I loved all the depth and detail Ryan included without becoming tedious with the minutiae. He made each soldier and civilian seem like they were the protagonist of the tale. My absolute favorite part was how impartial Ryan was; he made no judgments about the cast of characters and allowed readers to draw their own conclusions (told you Hartmann that you could have a good research paper without forming an argument).

Now, I'm fully aware that the way I spoke about the book made it seem more like fiction than fact, but that is because Ryan tells history so well it sounds more like an action packed movie than a brilliant piece of historical non-fiction (which seem to have the stigma of being dry...even among my fellow history majors). I completely concur with the other reviewer that said this book should be made into a Spielberg mini-series. ( )

Fascinating detail about military history, for those who enjoy this genre. ( )