Let me say from the outset that I was not overly impressed with this book.

It is an account of the 1914 Christmas truce. As such it seems to tell the story reasonably well, drawing on personal as well as official accounts. What I didnt like was Weintraub's weaving into his story extracts from fiction. At times, I found it difficult to know if history was supporting fiction or the other way round.

The final chapter speculates on "what if" (the truce had held). The conclusion, perhaps true, is that many events of the middle part of the last century would not have occured. Similarly, he suggests that many of leaders who came to prominence over the following 40 years would not have done so (except Churchill).

Glad I read it - but also glad I didnt part with good money (it was a present)

John

I agree with your comments. I thought that the other book on the Christmas Truce was much better. I can't remember the authors' names...Wasn't one of them, Malcolm Brown?

Regards
AGWR

John,
I must agree. I found the book could be rated as OK but not great. Luckily I found my copy on a remainder table at a local book store for Can $5.00.

It takes a lot for me to put down a book, half read. Unfortunatly, I did it with this one.

Maybe I'll pick it up again, but it is going to be hard ...

marc

I have two books on the Truce. This is the other one: waste of money.

I hate agreeing with people!

I'm very pleased to read that I'm not the only one who thought that Weintraub's book is absolutely dreadful. I quite enjoyed his book on the Armistice, and expected this one to be at least average, only to be disappointed. Strangely, there are some reviews on the net that would lead people to think it's wonderful.

The other book on the 1914 incident is 'Christmas Truce' by Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton - a far superior effort.

Coincidentally, both Weintraub and Brown have also written books on TE Lawrence.

Silent Night would definitely feature in my Top Ten list of 'disappointing' Great War books. Still, I am sure that he must made some money out of it, given the number of my acquaintances (with no absolutely WW1 interest) who seem to have purchased a copy and enjoyed it!

Now here's a thing: a list of the bottom ten Great War books.

How about:

'Mud Blood and Poppycock' by Corrigan


I have just checked my 56 feet of Great War shelving for other entries, and, of course, almost by definition the real turkeys have been offloaded to Church Jumble or Charity shops.

I just keep Weintraub and Corrigan as a dreadful reminder to myself about "how not to write a gripping, attractive, factual and [preferably] non-partisan book.

I have just ordered the Corrigan book. Is it that bad? The title is certainly indicative of a robustly-held view.

I would be intrigued to know which other turkeys have been fobbed off on to unsuspecting boy scouts and well-intentioned WI members for their jumble sales?

The Corrigan book gets a pasting in this forum, try Search. Hope you didn't pay a lot.

OK, here's another dreadful load of tosh:

'The Washing of the spears' by Donald Morris:

his account of Isandhlwana could not have been bettered by Robt. Graves in that it is pure journalism, scarcely tainted by the facts. Modern scholarship, pioneered by FWD Jackson, utterly refutes his account of the battle. Morris was responsible for the one big Factoid of the Zulu War, that is that ammunition was difficult to get out of its boxes and thus the supply ran out. Bilge.

And off-topic bilge at that.

Since I mispoke about which Christmas truce book I was after for the holidays I went looking to see what all the fuss was about. Honestly I see it was a disappointing book... John says because he weaves in and out of fiction, but are there substantive inaccuracies in the book, is it hard to follow, or is it just not your type of book? (That question is to anyone who cares to comment, not sigling out John.)

Andy

Andy,
The Brown and Seaton Book is well researched and supported with facts e.g. list of German and British Battalions that participated and their locations,correspondence and recollections from Men who were there.
The Weintraub Book does not contain this information.
On a personal note. Family Folklore said that my Uncles' participated(I do not doubt the story,my Father would have been told by his surviving Brother whilst he was on home leave later or by other members of the Battalion during the War,unfortunately no written correspondence survives other than a Field Post Card in transit on 25 December 1914) .The Brown and Seaton Book shows their Battalion did participate in the Truce.Weintraub's Book does not include factual detail.
George

Got this book earlier today, have finished it already.....

that the greatest book ive read, the author seems to write in a patchy style, doesnt go into much detail, in any of the chapters.

if your stuck for nothing to do for a few hours ... then you might want to take a look

Strange that Mud Blood.... has been panned so, I didn't bother, his Sepoys in the Trenches is pretty good.

Well, I've just finished 'Silent Night', and like a number of people on this and other threads I picked it up in a second-hand book shop (for a couple of euros) so didn't think it was too much of a waste of money. In fact it wasn't that bad (there were some pictures I hadn't seen before), though the final 'what if?' chapter was a waste of space. I din't have a problem with the diversions into fiction, which was written by contemporaries, some with first-hand knowledge, and it was pretty clear when Weintraub did it. It also seemed reasonably sourced -- with two or three familiar names from this forum in his list of acknowledgements But I got the impression of a pot-boiler, and not nearly as good as his book on the end of the war.
One advantage of my copy: I accidentally spilled beer on it, so it smells good.

cheers Martin B

and, with a little mayo, or perhaps tabasco, it might taste just as good.

I'll settle for tartare, as the matter is a little fishy.