5 Books on World War II

One of my favorite settings is wartime. It doesn’t specifically have to be World War II, there is just a lot of great fiction set during this time period. I feel kind of bad saying that World War II is a favorite setting of mine, because this was very much a real time and place with real people living through atrocities, and large numbers of people not surviving. If feels wrong to exploit that for my pleasure, but at the same time I do think these books are important. They tell the personal stories of the people of the time, and if not based directly on true events they can share snippets of the history that may have drowned in the larger telling of the historical events. If it is done well, that is. Below are 5 books that I think are not only great fiction, but that gave me new insight into the history of a period I thought I was pretty well versed in. 

City of Thieves by David Benioff

This is the story about Lev, a young boy in Leningrad during the Nazi siege of the city. Scrounging for something (anything!) to eat he is arrested for looting. In prison he is given a proposition; if he can find a dozen eggs for the colonel’s daughter’s wedding cake he will be pardoned. Along with Kolya, an eternally optimistic soldier accused of deserting, Lev sets off to find eggs in the starved city. 

This book gave me an insight into the plight of the people on the eastern front of the war. Being from Western Europe, my history lessons have always focused on the western allies and their part in the war, so it was nice to get a different perspective and learn some new things. At the same time this was just a good heist story with action and good characters. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I don’t think I can talk about WWII books and not mention this one. This book details the story of Liesel, a young German girl living under the rule of the Nazis. Her mother has to put her in foster care and she ends up living with the Hubermanns, slowly building a new life and family from the ruins of her old one. There is a whole lot going on in this book, including Liesel learning to trust her new family, coming to terms with the the dissolution of her old one, growing up and finding love, learning to stand up for what you believe is right and even learning to read. 

This book has so much to offer on so many levels, and on top of that I do like to see the perspective of the “ordinary” German citizen during the Nazi regime. 

Atonement by Ian McEwan

This book follows a young English girl named Briony. When she is a young teenager in the early 1930s she is instrumental in a sequence of events that she doesn’t fully understand until much later. Her sister Cecilia quits the family when these events send her friend Robbie to jail for a crime she is sure he did not commit. When the war comes around Robbie is offered a chance for freedom in exchange for joining the army. We follow him in Europe as he contemplates what led him to the muddy battlefields, and we follow Briony back home in England as she tries to atone for what she has come to realize was a great mistake on her part. 

This is mainly a story about atonement and seeking forgiveness, and the war setting comes second to that. But the war does play a major role in the evolution of the plot so I decided to include it here. I did try to figure out if the pardoning of crimes in exchange for military service really happened, like it did for Robbie in the book, and while I couldn’t find anything on British prisoners joining the army it certainly has happened before, which I never really thought about. 

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

This story details one of the great maritime disasters of history, but it often seems to drown in other wartime history. In East Prussia people are panicking as the end of the war is drawing near. Large numbers of people are headed for the coast where they hope to board a ship and sail to freedom. Amongst these people we meet Joana, Florian, Emilia and a few others and we follow their path to the seafront and their struggles to gain access to the “Wilhelm Gustloff” that is set to sail soon. They all have different goals and desires and some have secrets that they are desperate to keep. 

As I said above this episode of history is often overlooked in the grand scheme of the war, but a story like this helps bring these events to light. Fiction is a good way to introduce such a topic and is a great place to start on a journey of discovery through history. 

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

This is one of my all time favorite books. It is about two British women who both do work for the war effort. One of them is a pilot and the other seems mostly to do intelligence work, but the details are not very specific. When one of the women is caught behind enemy lines and taken to the Gestapo things come to a head. She faces torture and she slowly starts giving away information, as her friend struggles to find her and free her. 

This book was emotional, thrilling and surprising in equal measures and while it isn’t necessarily a happy book, it is a great one. As with “Salt to the Sea” this book also brought my attention to another part of the wartime history I hadn’t really considered before, namely women pilots in the RAF. Now, if I remember correctly they weren’t REALLY allowed in the RAF, but had their own group in the military and flew the planes back and forth in England for repairs, moving goods etc. So while they weren’t fighter pilots they did fly a number of missions, and while I knew that women took over a number of “mens” jobs during the war I didn't really know about their work in the military. 

So that was 5 books on World War II, all with something new to teach me about periods, places and events during the war, as well as having really great story lines and characters. What’s your favorite WWII book and did it give you a different perspective that you hadn’t considered before?