Ken Follett’s “Fall of Giants” (1st of a 3 part trilogy about the 20th century) is a great historical fiction read.
Scott Anderson’s “Lawrence in Arabia” (yes, that’s “in” and not “of”) distills the essence of T.E. Lawrence’s magnificent (but very difficult) “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” into a readable format. It deals almost exclusively with the Middle East and therefore will not give the background necessary to understand much of the main European facets of the War, but it certainly broadened my understanding of the the precursors of the current unstable Middle East situation.
Thank you for the info about Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I just picked that one up so I may have to get the Anderson book to go with it. :-)