The ask@AAR: What’s your favorite WWII novel?
I am on my yearly week long vacation with my extended family of 21 and almost all the women in the group are reading books set in or around WWII. My daughter and I are reading Pachinko, which begins in the early 30s, my mom is reading a book about female code breakers in Britain, and on of my sister in laws is reading The Nightingale. Today, at the lakefront, we got into a conversation about books set in this time period and my mom asked me to recommend some superb ones.
So, what should I tell her?
Gone to soldiers
*Life After Life
Sorry for the duplicate post!
All 5 and 4 star reads:
Life After Like by Kate Atkinson
The Paris Apartment by Kelly Bowen
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Every Secret Thing by Susanna Kearsley
Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
Alice Network by Kate Quinn
The Huntress by Kate Quinn
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
Verity Kent Mysteries Series by Anna Lee Huber is set just after WWII.
The Girl from Berlin by Ronald Balson and Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey next on TBR.
Currently available on Netflix:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
A Call to Spy
Imitation Game
Erik Larson has another good nonfiction pre- WWII book which tells the story of the family of William Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany from 1933-1937. The family was initially impressed by Nazi Germany and their daughter Martha got caught up the social whirl and even dated Gestapo officers, including the chief, Rudolf Diels. It’s called In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin.
Some others I haven’t seen mentioned yet that I thought were very good:
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer about a Hungarian Jewish family during the war. This made a big splash when it first came out but I don’t see it talked about as much these days.
Two big fat family sagas that are quite good that cover both world wars that are OOP but worth looking for:
Csardas by Diane Pearson (Hungary)
Journey into Fire by Patricia Wright (Russia)
Wright also wrote a WWII historical that takes place in Dover, which I thought was pretty good—Heart of the Storm.
The Bronze Horseman, by Paulina Simmons it’s -for me- one of the best romance novels ever, and it is set in WWII
Lots of AAR readers have expressed love for that trilogy over the years. Someday I will read it!
How could I forget to mention Ben Macintyre, whose nonfiction books are completely engrossing and read like the best fiction, with spies and heroes and questionable characters who nonetheless do the Right Thing, full of derring do and clever and not so clever plots that sometimes still manage to help the Good Guys win the war.
I agree with so many of the recommendations. Here are a few to add:
Every Secret Thing – Susanna Kearsley
Not as well known as her other novels. This is more suspense with lots of twists and turns. Explores some of the lesser known parts of WWII spying.
Enigma – Robert Harris
I feel like this is the flip side to The Rose Code. It is a mystery and not a romance. It explores the codebreaking side of Bletchley Park.
Bird’s Eye View by Elinor Florence is a book that doesn’t get a lot of press. It’s about a Canadian heroine who signs up and goes to England to work with the group that analyzes the aerial photography.
If you don’t mind a bit of time travel, Connie Willis wrote a pair of books that mostly take place in England during WWII: “Blackout” and “All Clear”.
I absolutely recommend Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. There are a few interwoven books in this cycle, as well as several other series touching on other WWII themes. Marketed for Youth. Exceptional.
I love that book.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is amazing. I went to a talk by him and he said a lot of the stories in the book were true, told to him by his German father and Austrian mother.
That is a great book. It’s been years since I read it but it is such a moving, beautiful story.
How can you not love a book narrated by Death, who finds himself so entranced by a little girl so that he has to tell her story? How can you not love a book where a housepainter foster father teaches that same little girl to read by painting the letters on a wall? How can you not love a boy who idolizes Jesse Owens even though he’s growing up in Nazi Germany? There is just so much to love about The Book Thief, one of my favorite books ever.
My daughter read that in middle school, loved it, and, then at the end, asked who the narrator was. I always thought that meant Zusak had written a book that worked for adults and young people!
Despite (or possibly because of) the fact that both of my parents were children of the London blitz—evacuated out of the city from Paddington Station with numbered boards around their necks—and certain foods were still being rationed when I was born (1957) and the whole specter of the war informed my childhood, WWII has never been an era I actively sought in my reading. However, I would recommend Sarah Waters’s THE NIGHT WATCH, which traces several interconnected stories (in reverse chronology) through the years of the war in England. It isn’t a romance, although there are a couple of central love affairs in the story. I’ve always found Waters writes books that are great through about the 80% point and then lose steam (she’s admitted that she doesn’t always know how her books will end when she starts writing them). Perhaps because THE NIGHT WATCH is told backwards, it’s strong the whole way through and is my favorite Waters book.
I read Tipping the Velvet years ago and then have never read another of her books. I’ll have to check her out again.
The Bornze Horseman was an outstanding book. I learned all about the siege of Leningrad. I didn’t know anything about that before I read the book.
There’s also The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean. A deeply moving book.
It’s a horrific history. I’ve been to St. Petersburg–which used to be Leningrad–and been to the museum there. I had no idea 1.5 million died there.
I’ve read a lot of non fiction about WWII and top of that list would be Stalingrad and Berlin, both by Anthony Beevor. But for a novel, I also concur with The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Another good non-fiction book about the end of the war in Berlin is The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan. In fiction I remember being deeply affected by Armageddon by Leon Uris, which depicts Berlin from the end of the war through the partitioning between the allies to the Berlin airlift.
Yes, I remember Armageddon and another Uris book about the Warsaw ghetto.
And, forgot Captain Corelli’s Mandolin that I mentioned on a recent post!!
I loved “The Wedding Officer” by Anthony Capella. It is both a serious book about the fight to retake Italy during WWII but also a charming tale of food and love. Captain James Gould arrives in wartime Naples assigned to discourage marriages between British soldiers and their gorgeous Italian girlfriends. But the innocent young officer is soon distracted by an intoxicating young widow who knows her way around a kitchen. Livia was sent to distract James precisely because she is such a good cook and so attractive, and he finds that sometimes love is more important than orders.
I really liked that one, too, Susan – it’s been a while since I listened to it, but I remember enjoying it a lot.
Dabney, you actually introduced me to a WWII romance that I loved, His Very Own Girl by Carrie Lofty. You recommended it years ago at book club, and then I read a review you wrote.
I think I’d also include A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute even though it’s more a historical fiction with romantic elements.
I think you can’t get it now, at least as an ebook. She’s completely quit writing.
WWII is not usually a time period I look for, but Kate Quinn’s The Huntress was on sale and was recommended, so I tried it. It’s set not too long after the war and involves hunting down a war criminal. The heroine is Russian and was one of the Nacht Hexen – Night Witches – which made it even more interesting to me.
I want to second “Morning Glory,” even though the war is background, for foreground and works mainly to separate the lovers. If you can read just the first chapter and not be hooked, you must be, well, I will say it: you must be an alien, that’s what. Great, great romance.
I’ve been trying to find the recent book which opens with food rations in England during WWII and involves a cooking contest for the BBC radio. Does anyone know this title?
The Kitchen Front Jennifer Ryan
Oh, thank you. Thank You!
You’re welcome :-)
Angela Thirkell wrote a very long series which begins just before WWII – around 1935- and ends in the 1950’s. She wrote of County Life in her fictional Barchester using that county and a few families from Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles. Ms. Thirkell wrote concurrently- as the events of WWII were unfolding – Dunkirk, food rationing, child evacuees,and massive upheaval in the class system – yet every book has an HEA or two and an optimism that wasn’t entirely probable in certain years. There are about 26 books in the series- one each year- and I have them all. This was before the age of computer hunts and online sales so I had to haunt used bookshops in my own city (NYC at the time- Mendoza! The Phoenix!) and every city I visited. If you love books and bookshops, this is not a bad thing and if you ever did it, you know it was really a lot of fun.
Wow! That’s a lot of books to track down. years ago when I was looking for Georgette Heyer books, before Sourcebooks reissued them,I loved visiting used book stores in every city I visited.Along with Heyer, I kept a list of books and authors I was looking for,and always came home with at least a few. But the best part was really just spending a couple of hours perusing shelves. Even after Kindle and the ease of ebooks, I made regular trips to the used book stores in my area, right up until the pandemic closed just about all of them forever. My husband and I have a tradition when visiting a town or city. We try to find a used book store, and not matter what, we buy at least one book, even if we could get it cheaper on kindle.
One of the things I miss (well, remember with nostalgia) is hunting down books I wanted in the pre-Internet days. I subscribed to a lot of book newsletters and used book catalogs back in the day and it would be a real adventure hunt to find the books I wanted. Now it seems most books are just a click away—the excitement of finding that missing jewel has completely evaporated.
/Well, I’m off to yell at kids to get off my lawn!
How funny! I hunted Georgette Heyer too! My biggest haul was from a cat infested fire trap of a shop where I found about 10 with those old Bantam covers for $1 each. And I kept a list of authors and missing titles too. The thrill of the hunt!
Going back a bit, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. (For me, WWII isn’t history.)
I recently finished a re-read of Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer. Still love it.
Such a great book!
Need to read that one too!
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is one of the best books I have ever read. Beautifully written it is a story set during WWII the action taking place in France. It is certainly not a traditional romance, although like so many books, it has romance. It is simply an outstanding book and I cannot recommend it enough!
I agree! So beautifully written and meticulously researched. I went to an author talk with him, and he said he had to keep looking up things like the weather on specific days or what weapons or vehicles would have been present, etc. He really labored over every word, writing and rewriting until he was satisfied.
I also loved this one. I CRIED a lot of tears reading it.
That is my personal favorite WWII book. Just extraordinary. I too sobbed and sobbed through the ending.
American Home Front: A Woman’s Place Lynn Austin, Sentimental Journey Barbara Bretton, Sentimental Journey Jill Barnett England: Goodnight from London Jennifer Robson, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Schafer, The Spies of Shilling Lane Jennifer Ryan, The Kitchen Front Jennifer Ryan, Tamar Mal Peet The Last Train to London Meg Waite Clayton, The Rose Code Kate Quinn, Eternal Lisa Scottoline , Our Darkest Night Jennifer Robson But the book I would most strongly recommend is The Splendid and the Vile Erik Larson. Reads like fiction altough it is non-fiction.
My mom is a huge Churchill fan and has read The Splendid and the Vile–my husband thought it was fabulous as well. It’s on my TBR. She’s reading The Rose Code right now!
Hah I was just at a lake with my mother and I recommended The Paris Apartment by Kelly Bowen – dual timeline of modern day and WWII. Heavy topic, clearly, but I felt uplifted at the end.
I wondered how “light” that Bowen was. So it’s not?
It’s not light – the reality of life during WWII is front and center. But it manages to be uplifting at the same time.
This sounds perfect for her and her retirement community. Thank you!