Tom Hanks names his favourite book about the Second World War
When Stephen Ambrose, a military historian and D-day veteran from whose memoirs Steven Spielberg had taken inspiration for Saving Private Ryan, sat down to watch the 1997 film, he lasted just 20 minutes before he raised his hand and asked the projectionist to pause the film. Though some were worried he might be about to dismiss it as historically inaccurate and call off the showing, he was in fact taking a few moments to compose himself – so many memories of that day on the Normandy beaches having returned to him. With Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg and Tom Hanks succeeded in making a film so brutally accurate that it seemed to have been captured through the eyes of someone who had seen action first-hand. Unsurprisingly, both Spielberg and Hanks are very well read when it comes to the history of the Second World War. Here, the Hollywood actor opens up about his favourite book about the conflict.
In 2019, Hanks sat down with the New York Times to discuss his forthcoming collection of short stories, Uncommon Type, inspired by his obsession with collecting old typewriters. Opening up about his reading habits, Hanks revealed himself to be a man with an insatiable literary appetite: “I stack up the books, three columns six or eight books at a time, and just wear that pile down. And, when someone tells me they finally read a book they could never crack, I take a whack out of a sense of a challenge. That’s how I finally read Moby-Dick, the book everyone pretends to know…”
When Hanks began naming some of his favourite tomes, a pattern quickly emerged: the actor is obsessed with history, political or otherwise. From David Hillel Gelernter’s 1939: The Lost World of the Fair to Anna Funder’s Stasiland, the actor’s bookshelves are filled with books focusing on seismic moments in world history. Unsurprisingly, then, Hanks was careful to dedicate a few words to his favourite book on the history of the Second World War, An Army At Dawn by Rick Atkinson. “The Liberation Trilogy covers WWII in Africa and Europe, where the small details hold the DNA of the entire conflagration,” he began. “The final pages will rip your heart out.”
This first volume of the Liberation Trilogy sees Rick Atkinson explore the victory of the Allied Powers through the lens of the conflict that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. An Army At Dawn trails the American and British armies as they fight their way across French Algeria, and then tackle the German and Italian forces in Tunisia. What starts as a poorly-led and inexperienced army slowly transforms, battle by battle, into an expert fighting force. With excellent research supporting Atkinson’s flair for narrative, it’s clear why Hanks is such a fan of The Liberation trilogy.
