Reddit reviews The Good Soldier Svejk: and His Fortunes in the World War (Penguin Classics)

I loved that book so much I tried following it back to some of its roots...there's really nothing else out there like it, But there are a few other books in the "surreality/absurdity of war tradition"

Slaughterhouse V-for absurdity and surreality it's pretty hard to beat Vonnegut.

Journey to the End of The Night -Heller freely admitted he got the form of Catch 22 from this novel. Though if you are going to read this mentally prepare yourself for one of the bitterest, angriest, misanthropic diatribes in literary history.

Good Soldier Svejk -a absurd psuedo-comedy about an drunk who half-asses his way through the war. For some reason Ignatius J Reilly reminded me of Svejk

Going After Cacciato-A lesser known, and IMO, better novel by the Things They Carried author, this one follows a vietnam squad as they attempt to track down an AWOL soldier...who tries to escape Vietnam by foot...and makes it. The whole book is written in a surreal style that made we wonder if the whole thing was a dream or not.

A Case of Exploding Mangos - Amazon:On August 17, 1988, Pak One, the airplane carrying Pakistani dictator General Zia and several top generals, crashed, killing all on board --and despite continued investigation, a smoking gun--mechanical or conspiratorial--has yet to be found. Mohammed Hanif's outrageous debut novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, tracks at least two (and as many as a half-dozen) assassination vectors to their convergence in the plane crash, incorporating elements as diverse as venom-tipped sabers, poison gas, the curses of a scorned First Lady, and a crow impaired by an overindulgence of ripe mangoes.

The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek.

A remarkably unique story of Svejk trying to make his way through the war. It's a genuinely hilarious story where Svejk pokes plenty of fun at the absurdity of war and bureaucracy.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Soldier-Svejk-Fortunes-Classics/dp/0140449914/ref=sr_1_1/279-6851377-9770108?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373298551&sr=1-1&keywords=the+good+soldier+svejk

Brief History Of The Czech Lands To 2004

Novels by Josef Škvorecký:

The Cowards

The Miracle Game

Engineer of Human Souls

Jaroslav Hašek:

The Good Soldier Svejk: and His Fortunes in the World War

Edit: Another book

Czechs and Balances : A Nation's Survival Kit

L'ho comprato alla Feltrinelli nella stazione centrale di Napoli, ma l'ho visto anche da altre parti. L'ho pagato 19 euro. L'edizione è quella della Einaudi. Ne esiste anche un'edizione leggermente più economica, pubblicata da Feltrinelli, ma non l'ho degnata di uno sguardo visto che hanno deciso, fin dal titolo, di storpiare il nome del protagonista.

EDIT: L'edizione in inglese invece è questa qui.

Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel, James Hamilton-Patterson's Marked For Death - The First Air War, Frederick Libby's Horses Don't Fly are some non-fictional books that I've read and can recommend.

Storm of Steel gives you a boots on the ground-view from the German side of the war. Haven't finished the book yet myself, but it is quite powerful in reminding you of the real lives beyond the game. But be mindful of the edition you read, here is a good point from someone else's Amazon review:

>This edition of Storm of Steel is a translation from 1929 based on the second edition of the book published in 1924. It is a much more nationalist and, some might say, fascist version than the last edition, which was published in 1961. The 1961 edition leaves one with a completely different impression about Juenger's experience than the 1924 edition. Specifically, one finds less reflection on what the war meant to Juenger in retrospect. Juenger penned a much more descriptive tale in 1961 than he did in 1924. His observations about the mysteriously enchanting nature of battle remain, but his overall style is much flatter. If a comprehensive study were available, it would be most illuminating to track the changes between the many editions of Storm of Steel. Alas, no such study currently exists.

>Fortunately, a translation of the newer work is available. The 2003 Penguin edition translated by Michael Hoffman uses the 1961 edition as its source. His introduction also provides a detailed discussion of the problems of revision and translation, and I have used information from it to write this review. I recommend both English translations to anyone who wants to seriously study Ernst Juenger and his evolution of thought over 35 years of turbulent German history. However, if you are reading this book for a class, make sure you get the right one!

Marked For Death concerns the air war primarily from a British point of view.
Very informative and interesting (imo):
https://www.amazon.com/Marked-Death-First-War-Air/dp/1681771586

Horses Don't Fly is an autobiography by Frederick Libby, an American cowboy (yes, literally) who volunteered in the Canadian army and then transferred into the Royal Flying Corps. His plane was reportedly the first in the war to fly the USA flag over the trench lines (he was gifted star-spangled streamers for his plane by friends), a very affable and upbeat man, his book is full of personality.
https://www.amazon.com/Horses-Dont-Fly-Memoir-World/dp/1559705892

On the fictional side:

I heartily recommend all the Biggles books set in WW1! They were the first Biggles books written, and also the most mature ones (surprisingly so, as the later Biggles books have aquired an unfortunate reputation as juvenile and bowdlerized) W. E. Johns was in real life a veteran of the war, both as an infantryman and as a pilot, and his background gives the books a sense of authenticity.

Also, as Sharpes_Sword has already mentioned on this thread, the Otto Prohaska series is quite excellent from what I've read (Only one book so far, The Two-Headed Eagle, middle of the series but I like muh aviation). Darkly humorous, occasionally touching, and with a protagonist I very much liked, a gentleman trying his best to do his duty to an imperfect, unravelling empire and get by in a world engulfed by war and grim foreshadowings of fascism.

Also, The Good Soldier Svejk, quite a classic:
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Soldier-Svejk-Fortunes-Classics/dp/0140449914

Here's some explanation and background on the book:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheGoodSoldierSvejk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk