The Longest Day

June 6, 1944

By: Cornelius Ryan

Narrated by: Clive Chafer

Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

The classic account of the Allied invasion of Normandy....

The Longest Day is Cornelius Ryan’s unsurpassed account of D-day, a book that endures as a masterpiece of military history. In this compelling tale of courage and heroism, glory and tragedy, Ryan painstakingly re-creates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany.

This book, first published in 1959, is a must for anyone who loves history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand how free nations prevailed at a time when darkness enshrouded the earth.

©1959 Cornelius Ryan; 1987 by Kathryn Morgan Ryan, Victoria Ryan Baida, and Geoffrey J. M. Ryan (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“What I write about is not war but the courage of man.” (Cornelius Ryan)

“Fifty years from now, the history of D-day, I am sure, will lean heavily on this book.” ( New York Times Book Review)

“A dramatic, moving masterpiece, a living memorial to the men who died, and as suspenseful as the most gripping mystery story.” ( Chicago Sunday Tribune)

Good Book, Performance So So

Excellent book, but the reading leaves much to be desired. Droning, without much inflection. Very moving, all the same.

Still a Classic

There have been many books written about D Day, but this still remains a touchstone standard history. Well written and presenting a complete picture from both sides.

Great detail and insight

The Longest Day gives great detail and insight of the D Day invasion from verified accounts from both sides of the battle lines. A must read for anyone who loves history, studies war, or those who are interested in how one of the biggest battles in history played out.

Readable History

I bought this for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and I'm glad I did. It's very readable. We all know the outcome, of course, but the details of preparation, scale, and German thinking come across as fresh and informative. Sprinkled with short quotes from letters home by GIs that are fairly predictable. The agony, gruesome deaths, and inevitable instances of cowardice are not much if at all in evidence. It's not very l;ong, since it ends at the end of the day itself. The tone of the narrator is downbeat, with little range, and almost disinterested. I found that annoying at first, but got used to it eventually.

great book

great historical account, should be listened to by everyone. da da da da da

Loved the book

Absolutely great book of course. Narration of this edition is annoyingly robotic, but sufficient. It added nothing to the book and often was a distraction, but it wasn’t a deal breaker.

Weirdly monotonous narration...

… gives every sentence the same tiresome rhythm. What bad luck for the late Cornelius Ryan, that his best-known book was assigned to so off-putting a reader! Chafer sounds as if he's perusing a legal brief. His oddly sterile delivery, sentence after sentence, each ending with precisely the same drawn-out note, intrudes upon the meaning and robs this heroic tale of its drama.

An Unsurpassed Account of D-Day

The most surprising thing about Cornelius Ryan’s D-Day classic The Longest Day is how short it is. This, combined with Ryan’s novelistic writing style, made for a surprisingly quick read.

Ryan flew along on bomber missions with the U.S. Air Force and was later embedded with General Patton’s Third Army. When he decided to write about D-Day, he and a team of researchers sent questionnaires around the globe. These went to all manner of participant, from the German high command to French Resistance members to ordinary civilians. According to Ryan, a thousand interviews were collected, collated, cross-checked, and then bolstered with further questions.

The ground-level storytelling is so propulsive you don’t really stop to think how all these disparate anecdotes twine together to form a historical result. Ryan’s style is such that you can be absorbed into these accounts despite having no idea – spatially, temporally – where many of these individual actions are taking place.

Overall: The author does history a great service by showing it for the endlessly fascinating thing that it is. History should never be boring. History is life, only yesterday. Ryan’s version of D-Day will be read and reread as long as people care about World War II.

If this review helped you please click the button below...thanks.

Great Story, Poor Story Narrator.

Where does The Longest Day rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Better than average

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Longest Day?

The air drop over France

What three words best describe Clive Chafer’s voice?

Monotone, not very exciting

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

There already is a movie.

Easy to Understand

I have read many books about WWII in an effort to understand what it was all about. Some have been great, some not so great, and some very hard to understand. This book by Cornelius Ryan is well written and very easy to follow. I would recommend it to anyone who would like a better understanding of D-Day. It is really hard to read about many of the things that went on, and it made me appreciate the freedom I have, and that I personally have never had to go to war.