Band of Brothers - Stephen Ambrose

OK, so I may be having a bit of a 'dig'. I apologise to any Americans reading this, but the reason for the hint of sarcasm will become apparent later, so please keep reading. To be truly fair, if you want to know how the Brits did it, then you should also read Pegasus Bridge. Another excellent book from Stephen Ambrose, which was actually published before Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers was first published in 1992. The recent TV adaptation has no doubt boosted sales once more. Having watched it and had my curiosity piqued (no it wasn't painful), I decided to buy the book with certain reservations. I rather expected it to be a bit lame really, ...  Read the complete review

We have a little tradition in our house where we celebrate the last day of Christmas. In Ireland people call January 6th Little Christmas Day. Normally the celebrations have ended and you are back at work so it is nice to have a small celebration just for the two of you. We cook a nice meal and exchange small presents and just enjoy the day for ourselves. My Little Christmas present this year was Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose. This book inspired the television series and tells the story of E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from their training until the day that they captured Hitler’s Eagles Nest at the end of the war. I had seen the ...  Read the complete review

History has never been one of my strong points and military history even less and even though I would often watch documentaries about World War 2 I still didn't properly comprehend any 'human' element in them. I'm not sure if I did this arse about face but I watched the series, Band Of Brothers, before reading the book and in fact I only decided to read the book as a result of watching the series. Of course there is always that age old problem of the film not matching up to the book, but in Band Of Brothers I feel that hasn't happened, they are pretty much equal. There are, naturally, some differences between book and film but nowhere near enough to leave me ...  Read the complete review

The Author Stephen Ambrose, author of Band Of Brothers majored and taught his at his local university. Needless to say, his knowledge of history is vast as we see in his other works such as the biography of President Eisenhower. However, as he has shown in Band Of Brothers, he also has an exceedingly brilliant way to manipulate the English language, perhaps because the two subjects go hand in hand. What Is It? Band Of Brothers is the spectacular book, telling the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne. From the early gruelling training sessions, to the march on Hitler's Eagles Nest, the soldiers' exploits are documented ...  Read the complete review

I’ve never been tempted to read a military biography before, but midway through watching the BBC/HBO television drama based on this book I found myself wondering which bits were dramatic licence and which were the soldiers’ actual experience. I also wanted a bit more detail about what happened to those who survived the war. For those who didn’t catch the series, Band of Brothers is the story of Easy Company, an American paratroops company most of whom joined up to fight in WWII. Apparently Easy were particularly well trained, and closely bonded – the surviving members still keep in touch and meet regularly today. Band of ...  Read the complete review