Historical Fiction Recs: Novels of WWII
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut: beautiful account of the life of billy pilgrim, including aliens, time travel, American POWs, the idea of free will, and the devastating fire bombing of Dresden, Germany. originally banned across much of the US for mentioning homosexuality and for its anti-war and sometimes obscene content. so it goes.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: a young German foster child grows up, steals books, and befriends and helps hide a Jewish man. narrated by death in a beautiful and modernist style.
The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure: a selfish French architect is commissioned by a wealthy eccentric to build hiding places for Jewish people. soon, the stakes are high and personal. a story about becoming a better person and found family. very exciting.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: a sci fi novel with three main stories, two set in WWII and one in the nineties. involves code breaking (Alan Turing makes an appearance) and the team tasked with making sure the ULTRA secret is not revealed. ranges from Hawaii to the Philippines to Norway. one protagonist is a Japanese soldier who gradually becomes more and more disillusioned with the empire and reveals a side of the conflict we don’t often see.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: parallel stories of an intelligent and sensitive boy recruited into the German army and a blind girl living in occupied France. beautiful prose and slice-of-life scenes but little plot.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles: boys at an American private school in 1944 deal with intense friendships, rivalries, and the shadow of war hanging over their heads. never actually includes battlefields but one of the more profound and depressing books on the list anyway.
Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett: light-hearted account of a psychic boy and his gang of friends accidentally time traveling back to their own town during the Blitz and trying to save the world.
We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet: a young woman who is unable to have children temporarily adopts a girl orphaned by the Blitz. story spans from the thirties to twenty-first century. more a character study than anything else, easy and elegant prose.
The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck: a town in an unnamed, occupied nation gradually learns to fight back. written in 1942 with the specific intent to inspire resistance groups. published illegally by the French resistance.
Mila 18 by Leon Uris: tells the story of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw and they eventual fight-to-the-death uprising against the Nazis. exciting but depressing as hell.
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys: German and Polish refugees flee the oncoming Soviet forces. written for young adults w/ some romance and mysterious secrets. very sad
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk: classic story of tensions and mutiny on a minesweeper in the Pacific. weirdly compelling love story. the movie has an evil Humphrey Bogart in it which is reason enough
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah: two sisters must make their own choices about family and freedom in an occupied French village. cinematic and sweeping w/ strong female characters. for some reason very popular among book clubs.
Honorable Mentions/Novels that only partially involve WWII:
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: bizarre but fun story about an orphanage for children with superpowers stuck in a time loop. involves time travel to the Blitz
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia) by CS Lewis: four children sent away during the London Blitz discover a magical world when they wander through a wardrobe. much of Lewis’ other work, like Mere Christianity or the Screwtape Letters, was also written during WWII
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherine M Valente: a lonely American girl whose father is in the military and mother works in a war plant must save fairyland from an evil ruler.
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: classic children’s story of a pilot who crashes in the desert and meets a mysterious little boy pining for his lost love
Orphan Train by Christina Kline: an elderly woman meets a troubled young girl in the foster care system and reflects on her own traumatic childhood in the Great Depression and early adulthood during WWII.
