Volume 1 of Herman Wouk's Epic Novel "The Winds of War"

BigAl: Another epic book that I picked up on Jack Carr’s recommendation…..

It was superb, wonderful sub stories providing a backdrop to the build up and commencement of WW2……

United Kingdom on Dec 31, 2023

Frank Donnelly: “Winds of War” is an excellent huge sprawling novel about an American Family as World War II approaches. The principal protagonist is a middle aged American Naval Captain. The story is constructed around him and his family. The novel touches upon every major theater of World War II. It is very lengthy. My hard back copy was 888 pages. I completely enjoyed every aspect of this historical fiction. I particularly liked the author’s development of characters. I could relate to the characters and cared about them.

I have been reading Herman Wouk novels in chronological order. This is easily my favorite. I wish to emphasize some of his other novels have been quite good, although seemingly now somewhat forgotten.
Obviously reading novels is a matter of taste. But I quite liked “City Boy” and “Marjorie Morningstar”. “The Caine Mutiny” was very good and I feel was buttressed by the author’s own service in the United States Navy. As good as these novels were, I feel they are eclipsed by this epic novel.

I purchased an audiobook, a kindle, as well as a hard backpack copy of this work. They were all consistent. I felt the audiobook was excellent. The...

United States on Dec 20, 2023

LLS: Everyone should read War and Remembrances and Winds of War. I read them about 30 years ago but thought I'd like to go back and read them again to see how fragile this Democracy that we all take for granted and how close we came to loosing it at that time. As the saying goes,"Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it".

Dare I say, it looks very much like we're getting domed to repeat it. In these 2 books you can see so many parallels.

United States on Nov 08, 2023

S. Begley: This book should be read by everyone who is interested in books about WWII. Well written and will stay with you long after you have finished reading it. I read this book years ago and wanted to read it again. I wasn't disappointed, even better on the second read.

United States on Oct 01, 2023

Tracy DeVault: I bought this audio book as a companion to the movie (DVD). As you might expect, there is a lot of story in the book that was not incorporated into the movie. My only problem with the book version of the story is that the author wants to include a lot of information about the war and the plight of the Jews that is not directly related to the story. Consuming all this additional information really takes away from the flow of the story. In the end I'm glad he included the extra information on the Jews. While I'm very interested in World War II, I would rather get that information from a book on the history of the war.

United States on Aug 25, 2023

Pierre E. Hervieux: Almost everything important you need to know about that war. It is of course heavily centered on the massacre of the jews (given the author) but other events are well described. It is a novel (and with War & Remembrance) a lengthy one, not a history book. Nevertheless the facts are true.

Canada on Jan 16, 2022

Empe: Di una storia corale sulla II Guerra Mondiale vista essenzialmente nell'ottica di una famiglia USA di marinai, cui via via si aggiungono altri personaggi le cui storie personali e relativi destini si interlacciano tra di loro.
Per chi avesse letto a suo tempo la traduzione italiana o avesse guardato le vecchie serie TV dedicate ai due libri (questo e il seguito "Guerra e ricordo" nell'edizione italiana) l'occasione di leggere l'originale in formato kindle (e pure in offerta)

Italy on Dec 08, 2021

Octavio Cabezut: Es una novela que representa el drama familiar de una familia norteamericana con miembros militares durante los preámbulos e inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial A mi me gusto, porque esta bien escrita.

Mexico on Jun 26, 2020

Kenneth C. Mahieu: “Winds of War” (WW) is a Big Book, literally and figuratively. Published in 1971 and written by Herman Wouk, it registers 886 pages on my Kindle, and considerably more depending on which printed version you might pick up, so the equivalent of up to three novels. But there’s more! Wouk saw WW as a prologue to the follow-up “War and Remembrance” (WR) which Amazon lists at 1396 pages. The story begins with the invasion of Poland in September, 1939, and concludes with the bombing of Hiroshima; the breakpoint for the two volumes is at the attack on Pearl Harbor. But wait, there’s more…. In February, 1983, ABC-TV presented a big budget WW series, shown on eight consecutive nights and totaling fourteen hours and forty minutes (there was a similar series of WR five years later). The two series were masterpieces, and won a number of awards and in my humble opinion, were a critically successful forerunner for the hundreds of series available on TV today. When I decided to “re-read” WW after all these years, it was partly triggered by the recent passing of Wouk ten days before his 104th birthday, and partly recollection of fond memories reading the books and watching the...

United States on Jul 26, 2019

Sherlock99: I have just re-read the book and he keeps you on it's thrall all the way through. As soon as I finished I bought the second part. The print on the paper versions I had at home was too small and on the kindle great

France on Jun 10, 2019