Ask Paul: February 24 (Premium)

Happy Friday! We sold our house and are freaking out, so let’s kick off this weekend a bit early with another great round of reader questions.
History books
j5 asks:

Paul I think I’ve read a few times on the site that you’re a big history buff, maybe even WWII. What are some of your favorite history books? Do you have a period of history that you really enjoy reading about? Or some that really left an impact on you? What history books are you reading right now?

Yes. World War II in particular, for sure.

Ah boy. This could be a big list so I will look at straight-up history and not things like true crime, memoirs/biographies, sports history, personal computing history, auto history, historical fiction, and so on. There are still too many to choose from. This is an incomplete list of what I can recommend based solely on my Kindle library.

World War I

Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Sir Max Hastings
World War One: A Short History by Norman Stone

World War II

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose
The Coming of the Third Reich (The History of the Third Reich Book 1) by Richard J. Evans
The Third Reich at War: 1939-1945 (The History of the Third Reich Book 3) by Richard J. Evans
The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
The Second World War by Antony Beevor
Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor
The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts
Year Zero: A History of 1945 (ALA Notable Books for Adults) by Ian Buruma
Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955 by Harald Jähner
Hitler: Downfall: 1939-1945 by Volker Ullrich
Paris After the Liberation 1944-1949: Revised Edition by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper

Spycraft

Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed by Sandra V. Grimes

Modern era

Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward

Paris

The Golden Moments of Paris: A Guide to the Paris of the 1920s by John Baxter
The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Chronicles of Old Paris by John Baxter

Vietnam

Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall
Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings

Mexico

Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico by T. R. Fehrenbach

There’s a lot missing there. I recall one Vietnam War history book that I really enjoyed and read at least three times, but I can’t find it. I’ve read almost everything by Bob Woodward over the years. I can recommend anything by Antony Beever and Max Hastings, basically. Also Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough. Also, Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo, and Hue 1965...