We read a lot this year! The only criteria for this list are that a) one of us read the book in 2025 and b) it's about WWII. Here are the books from this year that we recommend most highly, in no particular order.
A Bridge Too Far - Cornelius Ryan
This is the book about Operation Market Garden for a reason. It's 600 pages that doesn't remotely feel like 600 pages, and it makes everything make sense. Our episode is here.
2. Their Finest - Lissa Evans
A fun read that nevertheless doesn't shy away from the realities of being human in the keep-calm-and-carry-on era. Our episode is here.
3. Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Fearless WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka - Clare Mulley
Against the backdrop of Poland's struggle against two occupiers, one formidable woman did extraordinary things for her country. Our episode is here.
4. The Big Show / Le Grand Cirque - Pierre Clostermann
A funny, poignant war memoir by one of France's most famous fighter pilots. It'll remind you how young these guys were, and how aware they were of how short their lives might be. Our episode is here.
5. Sonny Boy / The Boy Between Worlds - Annejet van der Zijl
You rarely come across a biography that reads like a novel, or like a love letter to someone who wasn't famous - who lived one of millions of ordinary and simultaneously extraordinary lives during WWII. Our episode is here.
6. Munich - Robert Harris
A novel that makes the halls and meeting rooms of the Munich conference of 1938 feel like there's still time to avert the calamity that's coming. Our episode is here.
7. A Wing and a Prayer - Harry Crosby
A top five war memoir for both of us, Crosby is self-effacing, funny, and articulate about what it was like to be a Group Navigator in the Bloody 100th. We talked about Masters of the Air here.
8. Angel of Arnhem: Memories of Sept. '44 - Kate ter Horst
An incredible story about how everyday people sometimes step up and make all the difference. Kate took wounded Allied paratroopers into her home at great personal risk during Operation Market Garden. We talk about her story here.
9. The Longest Day - Cornelius Ryan
If you're like, "why does Cornelius Ryan appear twice on this list?" it's because he's the GOAT. A breathless but thorough account of June 6th, 1944. We don't have an episode yet, but it's coming.
10. And No Birds Sang - Farley Mowat
Canadian novelist Farley Mowat landed on Sicily during Operation Husky and fought through the Italian campaign. This is the work of a gifted writer who is not afraid to be honest about fear. We don't have an episode about this, but maybe one day we'll hit our top war memoirs, or Hollywood will make the movie.
I haven't read this yet, but one of the quotes on the back cover says "Wodehouse meets Barbara Pym with a liberal sprinkling of Evelyn Waugh." So that's quite the recommendation!
'...If someone's never had to think about money, you can see it in their faces. They haven't ever had that worry, dripping away year after year. It wears a groove in you. Stains you.'
She often has days like today, days when she thought she might literally die of boredom and yet could think of no event or encounter that might alleviate the condition, says when she felt entirely hollow, like a plaster cast - or a ship without ballast, heeling slowly on a windless sea.
Why are so many films about filmmaking and films about writing so very bad? It boggles the mind, especially when theyāre made by filmmakers and writers who ostensibly love their professions and should know how to make them seem interesting.Ā
Their Finest is like a breath of fresh air to the genre. A film about filmmaking, screenwriting, romance, history and feminism, it is weighty enough to want to re-watch multiple times and light enough so that it is an absolute delight.Ā
Set in 1940, Gemma Arterton plays Catrin Cole, a Welsh transplant to London. A secretary who has been promoted by circumstance to copy-writer (all the male copy-writers are off fighting in WWII) her talent is spotted by Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin), an acerbic screenwriter who recruits her to write dialogue for propaganda targeting women. Needing more money to support her starving artist husband, Catrin eventually lands an uncredited position writing āslopā (that would be the dehumanising term for dialogue for female characters) on one of the few British films in production by selling a team of men on aĀ ātrueā story of twin sisters going to rescue soldiers in Dunkirk (take that Christopher Nolan!) And the more she writes the greater the respect for her talent grows.Ā
All films about filmmaking and writing are some degree of self-referential and Their Finest is no different. Where it manages to succeed where so many other films fail is that the conversations about writing and structure, which could easily come off as didactic or heavy-handed, feel like real conversations between people who are deeply in love with their work. If you pay close enough attention the first time around youāll see that while the characters themselves are writing an action-thriller, their conversations are carefully plotted themselves to foreshadow the plot of the film. Itās beautiful and itās fun to watch, not only because every conversation about writing is well-written, but because thereās a completely different conversation happening through subtext each time. Every conversation about writing is really two people who deeply respect each other telling each other that they are falling in love.Ā
I suspect that the true test as to whether people think this film is merely adequate or utterly charming is whether they buy the romance. I did. At one point in the film the screenwriters are given the note that the love-triangle they are writing in the film is too subtle which felt like a meta reference to the quiet slow-burning chemistry between Arterton and Clafin. Theirs is not a fiery, smouldering on-screen romance. Theirs is mutual respect and friendship quietly turning into love.
If thereās one other surprisingly sweet thing about the film itās the way the film was made. Itās a film about a bygone era in which a woman was openly told sheād earn 2/3rd of what a man would and was grateful for it, in which her efforts at artistry were called slop and she toiled anonymously. The story of Catrin Cole is loosely based on real-life Welsh screenwriter Diana Morgan, based on a book by a woman (Lissa Evans), with a script from a woman (Gaby Chiappe), starring a woman (Gemma Arterton) and directed by a woman (Lone Scherfig). In the film within the film men may dominate, but itās worth sticking around and watching the credits to see how many women worked behind the scenes to make Their Finest a reality.
