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D-Day

The Battle for Normandy: Discover the incredible true story of WW2’s pivotal battle on the 80th anniversary of D-Day

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D-Day

By: Antony Beevor
Narrated by: Cameron Stewart
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Summary

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
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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
My initial reaction was that the narration was stilted and jarring, however the narration does get better and the accents add to the experience.

I found it difficult at first, but stick with it

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OK A B CDE f g h j k l m n o p q

Great

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Lots of details I knew nothing about. Well worth listening to. Would recommend it for sure

Detailed and excellent

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Enjoyed it immensely. Could do with maps and illustrations to go with the narrative though.

Detailed and flows well

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Beevor writes well and has done a lot to knock trashy novels off the shelves at train station bookshops, which has to be a good thing. Don't think that this is his best work though; it doesn't move the history of D-day along much and it relies on some old narratives like Carlo d'Este. Some of the sources are now seen as slightly dubious but they aren't qualified at all. Similarly, it continues old myths about German superiority, even though it constantly mentions Polish and Russian ost troops surrendering and German troops surrendering. Another example is that it continues the Sherman tank 'Ronson' narrative at the start of the book and doesn't explain how the Germans lost so many tanks to Shermans. The death of Michael Wittman and his whole troop isn't explained as a failure of German technology, yet it is an example of the difficulty of attacking - who shoots first tends to win, and if you are attacking, the defenders tend to do just that.
Again, a good account but would recommend James Holland's Normandy '44 as a more balanced history book.

Good 'read' but would query some facts/sources.

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