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D-Day

The Battle for Normandy

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D-Day

By: Antony Beevor
Narrated by: Cameron Stewart
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Antony Beevor's D-Day: The Battle for Normandy is the closest you will ever get to war - the taste, the smell, the noise and the fear.

The Normandy Landings that took place on D-Day involved by far the largest invasion fleet ever known. The scale of the undertaking was simply awesome. What followed them was some of the most cunning and ferocious fighting of the war, at times as savage as anything seen on the Eastern Front. As casualties mounted, so too did the tensions between the principal commanders on both sides. Meanwhile, French civilians caught in the middle of these battlefields or under Allied bombing endured terrible suffering. Even the joys of Liberation had their darker side.

Antony Beevor is the renowned author of Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature, and Berlin, which received the first Longman-History Today Trustees' Award. His books have sold nearly four million copies.

'Antony Beevor's gripping narrative conveys the true experience of war.As near as possible to experiencing what it was like to be there. . . It is almost impossible for a reader not to get caught up in the excitement' Giles Foden, Guardian

'No writer can surpass Beevor in making sense of a crowded battlefield and in balancing the explanation of tactical manoeuvres with poignant flashes of human detail' Christopher Silvester, Daily Express


© Antony Beevor 2009 (P) Penguin Audio 2017

Armed Forces Europe France Great Britain Military Naval Forces War Imperialism

Critic reviews

A knockout reassessment of one of the Second World War's great set-piece battles. Swoops from the vicious close-quarter fighting in the hedgerows to the petrified French onlookers and onwards to the political leaders wrestling with monumental decisions
Beevor has succeeded brilliantly. D-Day can sit proudly alongside his other masterworks on Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin. Superbly brings the events of that summer to life again (Patrick Bishop)
As near as possible to experiencing what it was like to be there. . . It is almost impossible for a reader not to get caught up in the excitement (Giles Foden)
Impeccable, splendid, thoroughly researched and gripping. Beevor is master of narrative, expertly blending the grand sweep with the telling anecdote (Dominic Sandbrook)
Beevor can be credited with single-handedly transforming the reputation of military history (David Edgar)
His singular ability to make huge historical events accessible to a general audience recalls the golden age of British narrative history, whose giants include Gibbon, Macaulay and Carlyle (Boyd Tonkin)
No writer can surpass Beevor in making sense of a crowded battlefield and in balancing the explanation of tactical manoeuvres with poignant flashes of human detail (Christopher Silvester)
All stars
Most relevant
gives a real feeling of how people behave in that dreadful situation and the dynamics failures and successes of leadership .

Antony Beevor excellent as usual

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Very informative and factual book almost completely ruined by the awful attempt at the accents. I enjoy the use of accents as they add to the theatre of the story but his attempts at the American and German in particular we’re cringeworthy.

Stop the accents!

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Please don't put the accents on they really don't work but enjoyed it I think it could be made a bit louder as it was hard to hear every now and then

Great to listen risen in at work

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Well written and researched book, almost too detailed in places but still a complete picture of the days leading up to, during and after D Day. Narration would have been better without the accents in my view, but was still well delivered and told.

Very detailed and thought provoking

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The detail proved just how much miss reporting of the battle went on. The story was fragmented and confusing in places, but showed just how egotistical the various leaders were at the expense of other nations military leaders, especially, Monty, Patton & Degaule. There is no doubt that France suffered due to the allies advances, but to balance that the bravery of Great Britain's armed forces and populace pail in comparison.

Plenty of detail previously unheard.

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