The Great Siege: Malta 1565 by Ernle Bradford

I was one of those who didn't know anything about this, and yet it was a critical few months when fighters of Suleiman the Magnificent almost established a base for re-invading southern Europe. (Luckily his forces were also stopped near Vienna a few years later--that was the other prong.)

The invading forces far outnumbered the defenders, with better weapons and more supplies and an armada to cut off communications. But the battle isn't always to the strong, especially when different branches of the military don't have the same goals (sound kind of familiar?) and the defenders are ready to keep fighting long past the point where it was hopeless to continue.

Bradford tries to explain what the environment would have been like given what the records (both sides kept journals) said, and remembers to praise the unrecorded and unknown Maltese without whom the Knights would have failed.

Read it.