Reddit reviews The First World War

Yes, definitely WWI. The BBC Documentary 'World War One' has some video footage of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zViwCUtQ5o&list=PLF99D52C080463C76

I can't remember which episode it's in, but they are all great. Really shows the "world war" element of WWI.

Documentaries are based on this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-First-World-War-Strachan/dp/0143035185/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1368974043&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=hugh+strachan+world+war+i

Michael Shaara wrote historical fiction, yes? Well there are a ton of great books and documentaries with a more "narrative" perspective to help you get started with WWI.

• The Great War from the BBC, filmed and broadcast in the 1960s. It's very old school but still, in my opinion, unsurpassed in its breadth and detail (though it is, of course, somewhat more focused on the British experience). If you google it you should be able to find some options for purchase.
  
  
• They Shall Not Grow Old is a brilliant little documentary just put out by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame). You can find the trailer here and I believe there are some streaming options if you live in the US.
  
  
• The Great War youtube series is also great and geared more towards digesting the war in small bites. Very well produced and sourced videos. The best part is, they have a very global perspective. Go to their Youtube homepage and just click around until you find a video you like. You can also try and watch them in release order (they covered the war "as it happened" a hundred years later).
  
  
• Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger is, I think, the best book for getting the soldier's perspective on life during the war, and on combat. He was a highly decorated German infantry officer who, to be frank, really enjoyed his experience of war, or at least considered it to be a positive, life-changing experience. If you can read German I'd suggest the original, but you can also grab the Penguin Classics edition or see if they have it at your library. Henri Barbusse wrote a similar book, Le Feu, that was written from the French perspective and much more critical of war/combat than Jünger.
  
  
• I really want to recommend Egon Erwin Kisch's Schreib das auf, Kisch! which is the published (and lightly edited) version of his war diary from 1914 to 1915. Unfortunately, I've only ever been able to find it in German (or Czech), but I figured I'd post it here in case OP reads German or in case anyone reading this thread later does. It's a beautiful portrayal of the war from the Austrian perspective, and takes the reader to the Serbian and Galician fronts, which some readers may not be familiar with. Someone desperately needs to translate this to English.
  
  
• Oh yeah, getting back to documentaries for a second, I forgot about The First World War (2003). It's a ten-parter from the BBC and it's based on the companion book by esteemed historian Hew Strachan. I'd recommend both.
  
  Ok these next two are a bit out there, but I'm trying to answer within OP's question, so mods, don't send me over the top!
  
  
• Since you mentioned Shaara, I can recommend Fall of Giants by Ken Follett, which is a historical novel set just before and during World War I. It follows several families from Germany, Wales, Russia and America, and their intertwined stories during the Great War. There are two sequels, which follow the same families and characters through 1) the interwar period and WWII and 2) the Cold War. They are fiction but they do a serviceable job at communicating the texture of the era and they may introduce you to some interesting people/places/things that you haven't heard about before.
  
  
• Finally, if you like video games, I think Battlefield 1 is a good way to passively learn some WWI history as you play. You won't learn much just playing online, but the Operations game mode does an interesting job of having players play along some famous WWI campaigns, all while explaining in broad terms the operational and strategic implications of the battles. I don't suggest that people learn their history, per se, playing BF1, but the game very much succeeds at highlighting theaters and battles that are not first in the public's imagination regarding WWI. So at the very least, you may have your interest piqued, say, regarding Monte Grappa and the Piave Front.
  
  These books/docs do not by any means stand in for sitting down with a good book on WWI (which we can also recommend), but they should hopefully present reliable information in a more narrative and gripping fashion. These are the works I recommend to people when they say "I know nothing about World War I, where should I start?" These are interest-piquers, so whenever you're confused by something write it down and start your research.
  
  Again, I wasn't sure how to answer this question within AH's guidelines, since this isn't exactly a history question per se. Let me know if I need to edit anything.

I really enjoyed The First World War by Hew Strachan. I enjoyed the approach, and it read a little easier than other books on the topic I tried.

The First World War by Hew Strachan is an excellent read, and goes into this.

I got so engrossed in this, I started naming my EVE Online ships after German Pacific Fleet ships, like the Emden and Seydlitz.

She gave us a year, it was The Price of Glory, Strachan's First World War and The War Walk, and managed to get us rooms at [ Toc H] (http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/museum-talbot-house-history.htm), a living museum, so she was forgiven.

...If you ever have the chance to go to Toc H, do. It was one of the highlights of the trip.

I'd honestly recommend Hew Strachan's books over this. His work is much more in line with the current views in the field.

Volume one: to arms

His less in depth single volume overview of the war