Reddit mentions of The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War

There are tons of books available, but the hardest part about getting into it is that in order to fully appreciate it, there's a lot of context you'd need to know. I think that's the most off-putting thing for most people--I have friends who just want to know about the battles, but really the war was much more complicated than that. The German situation preceding the war is crucial, and that's what every book is going to start with, and then the Beer Hall Putsch and Brown Shirts etc., all of which can be pretty boring to someone who just wants to read about war. But it's actually really interesting, to me at least. Once you start to get involved in the spiderweb of history I think it becomes much more interesting.

Anyway, for recommendations, I liked The Story of World War II. It really does a good job of telling a "story" and using a lot of first-hand accounts... there are tons of great little tidbits in there, some of them funny and some just epic in their profound magnificence, and all of them sad in one way or another. But seriously there are tons of books about WW2 out there. I'm currently (on-and-off) reading The Storm of War.

Another thing you could do is listen to podcasts about it. There are several on iTunes I believe. In fact there are podcasts about pretty much every period in history on iTunes, and also iTunes U. In my opinion those aren't as good because you don't get a full sense of context and, perhaps most importantly, there are no maps. Geography is the thorn in the side of every historian, so without maps it's very hard to understand what's going on. The moment I bought my historical atlas was like finding an oasis in a desert.

Anyway, hope that helps! I think there are probably others on here who might have better recommendations as well :P

I'm not too sure how different it would have been, honestly. The final plans for Operation Herkules were not agreed to by Hitler and Mussolini until April 1942 (with the invasion to happen in July of that year). The problem for the Axis, however, is that Rommel launched a preemptive offensive toward Tobruk (and then Egypt) in June 1942, making any realistic consideration of taking Malta a moot point.

As Field Marshal Kesselring correctly noted at the time, too many men, too much equipment and material that were essential for the invasion of Malta were now diverted to support Rommel's offensive--an offensive that, without a secure supply line from Sicily to Tunisia, was doomed to failure.

It should also be noted that Hitler's decision to open up a strategic front in the Mediterranean came at the expense of critical resources that would be sorely missed by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in 1942-43. It could be argued that, just as was the case with the similarly costly invasion of the Balkans in spring, 1941, Italian incompetence made German intervention necessary and inevitable, but that is another discussion altogether.

SOURCES:

Porch, Douglas. Hitler's Mediterranean Gamble. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004.

Roberts, Andrew. The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War. Harper, 2011.

/r/books or /r/AskHistorians might be a better place to get this information.

Andrew Roberts, a British military Historian wrote a well reviewed book called The Storm of War regarding the second world war.

If you are looking for a one volume history, something like Delivered From Evil is very good.

You may also want something on Churchill, and many many good books exist on the man. I am most excited though for one which hasn't even come out yet: The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm. William Manchester wrote two previous volumes that are the definitive biography of Churchill, up until 1940. The last volume is slated for release in November. It's not by a Brit, but it's hard to get more British than Churchill.