THE WAR ROOM - 2024 PLANNING

MONTH - BY - MONTH IN THE WAR ROOM

JANUARY - The Ancients (Greeks, Romans etc)
FEBRUARY - The American War of Independence
MARCH - The War of the Roses
APRIL - Wars of Religion
MAY - The Napoleonic Wars
JUNE - The English Civil War
JULY - Colonial Wars
AUGUST - World War Two
SEPTEMBER - The American Civil War
OCTOBER - American Follies (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Gulf Wars)
NOVEMBER - World War One
DECEMBER - The Spanish Civil War
WILDCARD - Pick your own fight!

JANUARY

THE ANCIENTS (GREEKS, ROMANS ETC)



Some great figures down history :
Leonidas and the 300
Alexander the Great
Julius Caesar
Hannibal

I am planning to read :

Fiction :
The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff (Warring tribes in Roman Britain)
The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault (set around the Peloponnesian War)

Non-Fiction
The Jewish War by Josephus (The sacking of Jerusalem)
History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

FEBRUARY

THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE



Probables:

Non-Fiction :
The British are Coming by Rick Atkinson

MARCH

THE WAR OF THE ROSES



Probables

Non-Fiction
The Wars of the Roses by Hugh Bicheno

Fiction
The Black Arrow by RL Stevenson

APRIL

WARS OF RELIGION

MAY

THE NAPOLEONIC WARS

JUNE

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

JULY

COLONIAL WARS (WARS OF CONQUER)

AUGUST

WORLD WAR TWO



Probables

Non-Fiction
The War in the West Volume 1
The War in the West Volume 2 both by James Holland
War Diaries 1939-1945 of Lord Alanbrooke

Fiction
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

SEPTEMBER

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR



Fiction :
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

OCTOBER

AMERICAN FOLLIES (KOREA, VIETNAM, AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ)



Probables

Fiction : Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

NOVEMBER

WORLD WAR ONE



Possibles

Non-Fiction : Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger

Fiction : Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

DECEMBER

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Please do chip in with reading ideas.

And see who can correctly identify all twelve battles depicted.

Really excited for this!

For January: The Ancients I am considering
Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
The Silver Branch - Rosemary Sutcliff. I remember liking the book I read this year.
The History of the Peloponnesian which I actually added to my shelf this year.

February
American War of Independence
Rise to Rebellion Jeff Shaara

March
Wars of Roses

April
Religious Wars

May
The Napoleonic Wars

June
The English Civil War

July
Colonial Wars

August
World War II
Tales of the South Pacific

September
American Civil War
The Killer Angels

October
American Follies
I recommend The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam (Korean I found it to be excellent

November
WWI
All Blood Is Black at Night - David Diop
Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger

December
Spanish Civil War

Wildcard
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida - Sri Lanken civil war/fiction. Read in March 2024

I'm gonna try to do this one next year. We'll see how my follow-through is... 😀

Thanks for setting this up, Paul!

For Januari I like Rosemary Sutcliff.

For April I could polish up my knowledge of dutch history.

And for December: I’m reading part 1 of three books set during the hundred year war. So part 2 or 3?

We have any number of history books on virtually every topic under the Sun, so I might join in with this.

>5 PaulCranswick: Children's fiction re War of the Roses Sun of York by Ronald Welch

I'll slowly build a list of possible reads. Out of curiosity I looked at The English Civil War and decided that I'll probably read Children of the New Forest by Captain Frederick Marryat, a book that's been on the shelves since childhood though never read.

For anyone else that likes reading children's literature, Farah Mendlesohn has an extensive list on her website from her research for Creating Memory: fiction and the English Civil War: https://farahmendlesohn.com/re-creating-memory-fiction-and-the-english-civil-war...

January: The Ancients: The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian
February: American Revolution: Susanna's Midnight Ride by Libby Carty McNamee / Ride: The Legend of Betsy Dowdy by Kitty Griffin
March: The War of the Roses: The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
April: War of Religions: Bar Kochba by Yigael Yadin / Knight Crusader by Ronald Welch
May: Napoleonic Wars: The Battle by Patrick Rambaud
June: English Civil War: Children of the New Forest by Captain Frederick Marryat
July: Colonial Wars: The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell / Monday's Warriors by Maurice Shadbolt
August: WW2: The Jungle is Neutral by F. Spencer Chapman
September: American Civil War: The Killer Angels by Michael Sharra
October: American Follies: Red Haze: Australians and New Zealanders in Vietnam by Leon Davidson
November: WW1: The Secret Battle by A.P. Herbert / Under Fire: The Story of a Squad by Henri Barbusse
December: Spanish Civil War: Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War by Amanda Vaill

I have most of these on my shelves so they are placeholders, possible or probable reads while I look for others.

>22 avatiakh: I re-read Children of the New Forest a couple of years ago and enjoyed it again.

It is a good idea to read The Black Arrow - I may well join you on that one, Kerry.

Nobody willing to have a go at guessing the 12 battles depicted above?

>24 PaulCranswick: July: Little Bighorn?

>25 amanda4242: Correct.

Dates of the battles in random order

1805 - Austerlitz
1461 -
1965 -
1644 -
1876 - Little Big Horn
216 BC -
1861 - Bull Run (First)
732 -
1916 -
1942 -
1937 -
1775 - Bunker Hill

>26 PaulCranswick: Yippee!

Let's see if I can get any more.
February: Bunker Hill
September: Bull Run
May: Austerlitz

>28 amanda4242: Impressive - you are four for four. First Bull Run

>22 avatiakh: That first title (Children of the New Forest) is very familiar. I suspect it's one we had at home when I was a child; if it's the book I think it was, I liked it a lot at the time.

No ideas yet about what I'll be reading, but most of will probably be non-fiction, in spite of my fond memories of various children's fiction in this area.

It does occur to me that I could fill half the challenge with books by Ronald Welch, if I wanted to do so. And all but one of the books listed below are on my shelves.

Jan (Ancients) : -
Feb (American Independence) : -
Mar (War of the Roses): Sun of York
Apr (Wars of Religion): Knight Crusader
May (Napoleonic Wars): Captain of Foot
June (English Civil War): For the King
July (Colonial Wars): Zulu Warrior, Ensign Carey, or in a pinch Mohawk Valley
Aug (WW II): -
Sep (American Civil War): -
Oct (American Follies): -
Nov (WW I): Tank Commander
Dec (Spanish Civil War): -

>23 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul. My father had his childhood copy of Settlers in Canada by Marryat and I enjoyed that but never picked up the New Forest book.
I've updated my list with a bunch of books that I mostly already have on my shelves.
>30 ArlieS: >31 ArlieS: I think it was also a tv show too.
I have a copy of Knight Crusader somewhere so will add it to my list.

Two YA books worth looking out on the Spanish Civil War - A world between us by Lydia Syson & The Freedom Tree by James Watson

I have some ideas for many of the topics but I'm not sure I want to read a year of war! Possibles from my shelves include Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman. Birdsong , God and General Longstreet, Circe, An Army at Dawn, Where Eagles Dare, Conquer and Colonize. I might fit in a re-read of For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Also, Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, and Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth

I know that in January I will be reading A War Like No Other by Victor Davis Hanson, Tides of War by Steven Pressfield, and The Battle of Salamis by Barry S. Strauss.

I have a ton of books on WWII, but the rest of the list is going to make me highly dependent on my local library :)

Funnily enough, I also own another book called Tides of War by Stella Tillyard, but this one is set in the Napoleonic War. I will probably read that one in May.

I went looking through my books and did a little shopping and I think I have each of the topics covered. I have a lot of WW2 related novels and non-fiction which will be my primary interest to read next year. This should help get my reading started for 2024.

Aargh! I can't think of a good way to find books I haven't read that I'm likely to like, if I also require them to be on a specific topic.

Classic recommendations here has the ability to filter by other members' tags, but only one tag at a time. So I can have "war" or "non-fiction", but not both together. And it appears most of my recommended books tagged "war" are fiction.

It appears as if the new recommendation system can handle multiple tags, but in practice it reports that there are no books tagged "non-fiction war", and "non-fiction, war" is equivalent to "non-fiction". Also, the new recommendation system is very hit-or-miss for me - far more miss than hit.

And as for asking for e.g. "non-fiction", "rome", and "war" - the underlying database can doubtless handle that, but the developers apparently can't conceive of anyone wanting more granularity rather than less.

*sigh*

OK, my best options seems to be: new recc, all-time, history, and then the tag "war". This gave me a number of choices for January, even after I dropped all the period pieces in translation (not in the mood for them) and Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Hopefully local libraries will have at least one of these, that's actually about war rather than inappropriately tagged.

- The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece by Victor Davis Hanson
- Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland
- Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World by Adrian Goldsworthy
- Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor
- Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization by Richard Miles
- Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors by Adrian Goldsworthy
- The World of Odysseus by M. I. Finley
- Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece by Paul Cartledge
- The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy by Myke Cole
- Crassus: The First Tycoon by Peter Stothard
- The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor
- The Enemies of Rome: The Barbarian Rebellion Against the Roman Empire by Stephen Kershaw

Failing that, there are some interesting-sounding books mentioned on _A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry_ at https://acoup.blog

>37 ArlieS: I do have a couple of those on the shelves - Richard Miles and Adrian Goldsworthy (Carthage).

>37 ArlieS: I was hoping to find a good LT List on War and did come across War Literature which has listed 82 books on war and it's consequences - https://www.librarything.com/list/9434/all/War-Literature

I have started a list under the title "The War Room" - give me a couple of days to add to it and add your own suggestions at will. 178 books listed at the moment and adding. I will continue to add.

That's a great idea using the List feature. I've added a couple, and I used the Explanation button to indicate which war the book's for

To those adding to the list with explanations - I'd appreciate if they also specified fiction or non-fiction, at least where non-obvious.

>42 ArlieS: Good idea. I'll do that (tho mine are somewhat obvious ;)

>41 mahsdad: ? >42 ArlieS: Good idea. I will go and clean it up later when I have added a slew more.

I added several books with explanations to your list, Paul. I may join you on some of the months / battles.

>45 vancouverdeb: I will be interested to see how many books we collectively list, Deb.

>46 PaulCranswick: So far, I've been restraining myself. If I haven't read it, and wanted to give it a decent rating, I didn't add it.

It is, however, tempting to add books recommended to me which I'm considering reading for the challenge.

I've also so far restrained myself from adding books that only meet the wild card requirement. But I intend to read some, starting with The Face of Battle, which comes highly recommended.

I've been reluctant to add war fiction other than several Nevil Shute books. What I have added are NF books that I own or have read since I have been on LT plus just a couple fiction. I could add more American Civil War and others but it seems like we have a very large list already for folks to pick from.

Nicely done, Paul. A long list already.

Does anyone know? Is it possible to export a list?

We are up to 416 books listed already. Should be above 500 by the end of the day.

>50 PaulCranswick: Well, I thought I was adding books to the list, but they are showing up as a separate list for me. Is that the way it is supposed to be? I just finished 2 books yesterday that I believe would qualify for this challenge, The Confidence Men by Margalit Fox (WWI) and We Are at War by Simon Garfield (WWII).

>51 alcottacre: Definitely they would qualify, Stasia.

>51 alcottacre: When I added books, they both went into the main list *and* became a separate list for me. That was fairly obvious when I added books that weren't already on the list. But then I added a book that Paul had already added, not knowing he had. The results were very confusing.

>53 ArlieS: The list feature is certainly not a perfect tool as yet, Arlie.

Weird - looking at the lists section for The Confidence Men I found it in War Literature (https://www.librarything.com/list/9434/all/War-Literature) and not The War Room (https://www.librarything.com/list/45101/THE-WAR-ROOM)

I confirmed that this was correct by sorting The War Room in author order. Which list did you try to add it to, Stasia?

>54 PaulCranswick: Is anything?

In other news, I'm happily reading The Face of Battle, which I added to the War Room list once I'd read enough to anticipate rating it at least 4. (I then found Paul had already added it.)

I hope folks don't mind me counting a book as read for a 2024 challenge (wild card) even if I finish it in 2023. (I'm not very good at following the precise schedule for a challenge.)

And yesterday I picked up a number of books about war in the Ancient period, suitable for January, with more coming, some of which won't be renewable. It's likely I'll also be early with The Bronze Lie: shattering the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy.

Yes, I needed a new theme for my reading. I'm running out of books in my usual subjects that are both excellent reads and recent enough to be reliable. I'll get back to my more usual subjects in time, but at a slower pace, as good books just don't come out fast enough for me.

>57 ArlieS: I have no discernible rules as you must have long ago realised Arlie!
Go ahead and count the books for the challenge as you like. xx

>52 PaulCranswick: Thank you, Paul!

>55 ArlieS: I added it to the list that Kerry referred to up in >37 ArlieS:, so obviously that is not the right one. I will go and add it to the correct one. Thank you for letting me know, Arlie!

I think I will read Helen of Troy by Margaret George (Trojan War). Yes, I know the stories of the Trojan War, as written by Homer, may have been an embellished compilation of many battles fought by the Mycenaeans in the Bronze Age......but I'm still hoping will be a good read, culturally.

I can recommend:
Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic by T. Holland
The Judgment of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Novels of Ancient Rome) by Steven Saylor
I Am Livia by Phyliss T. Smith
Belisarius: The Last Roman General by Ian Hughes
Caesar's Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire by Josiah Osgood

All of the Roman novels by Colleen McCullough (The Grass Crown, The First Man in Rome, etc.) Warning: these are addictive, to the exclusion of all else! And don't forget the Bard: Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.

Are there going to be monthly threads for the War room topics Paul? Once I wrap up the various books I have in progress I plan to read The Women of Troy by Pat Barker. I also have one or two unread Saylor novels on the shelf and other potentials.

Yes that is the idea, Ron. I will try to get the January one up over there today.

Have started Carthage Must Be Destroyed. Much more engrossing than I would have predicted. V glad to have this incentive to read it—-my copy was a gift from Christmas 2012.
Interesting to contemplate how some wars have generated a lot of fiction and literary memoirs—-WW I, notably, but also The American Civil War and the Spanish Civil War—-while others didn’t seem to leave much of a literary legacy. Think I will have to scrounge to find any quality fiction inspired by the American War of Independence. Of course it was the proximate cause of the resettlement of African-Americans in Nova Scotia, which remained the home of almost 40% of Canada’s Black population until immigration reform in the late 60s. Many significant authors in this community. Will look into a possible pick.

>58 PaulCranswick: He’s just kidding, folks. Stray outside the guidelines and your entire LT Home Page starts showering sparks. And that’s just for starters. Don’t risk it.

>60 Tess_W: How about The Private Life of Helen of Troy? Picked it up for the title alone. Apparently a feminist take on the situation.

>65 booksaplenty1949: Adding to me WL!

>27 PaulCranswick: Hey, Paul, I came back over here to see what other wars are upcoming for the year, and I realized that there are a lot of the battles you posted pictures for that haven't been solved yet. Is World War II El Alamein?

By the way, I can no longer see the picture for January.

>67 atozgrl: Irene, I will try to remember to put all the months on my threads but they seem to be moving so quickly these days. El Alamein is correct!

>68 PaulCranswick: Oh, wonderful, thanks!

Bump! - I want this thread, with the list of monthly topics, to move higher in my list of threads.

It's about time I start planning for April's topic, even though I still haven't finished anything for March. (2 in flight; one looks like it'll be abandoned for being soporific.)

April's topic is Wars of Religion. Those have been plentiful. I suspect Paul was thinking about the European wars between Protestants and Catholics when he selected this topic, but we can arguably start with Charlemagne (who forced baptism on those he conquered), and of course include the Arabic/Muslim wars of expansion. And this would also include some large portion of Middle East conflict since at least World War II.

And that's just the ones I can think of offhand. It seems pretty common to invoke religion as reason why "they" deserve to be killed; it apparently is more motivating than "they have stuff; our leaders want that stuff" though perhaps not as motivating as "they have stuff; *I* want it".

Edit to add: also the Hebrew conquest of Canaan.

>70 ArlieS: Hope April isn’t going to be a tedious month of Boomers widdling on religion as inherently a Bad Thing. We can get that anywhere.

>71 booksaplenty1949: It's pretty clear that many "wars of religion" can fairly reasonably be understood as "wars of greed, ambition, etc., with religion as an excuse," so probably not.

OTOH, who knows?

Another bump, since I'm here checking on the topic for September.

It turns out to be the American Civil War; I imagine I'll be spoiled for choices in both library systems, what with living in the US. Time for me to do a bit of planning, even though I'm still not finished with the one large book I'm reading for August.

While I'm here, I'll note that either people have been adding a lot to the War Room list since I last looked at it, or last time I was there I was confused by the UI into thinking it was only 5 pages long. I just went through the whole list, selecting "open in new tab" for everything about the US civil war (Sep) or the Korean, Vietnam, or Iraq wars (Oct), or simply looking interesting to me. This resulted in a lot of book tabs open; it'll need some pruning before I start adding books to ye olde TBR list. Thank you all.