WWI and WWII historical fiction faves

Which historical fiction books written about these era's garner your interest?

The Maisie Dobbs series written by Jacqueline Winspear includes WWI, WWII and the period between the two wars. It takes place in England and Europe. It includes about 15 books up to this point.

Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce (WWII in London)

Sarah Sundin's WWII Sunrise at Normandy Trilogy:
The Sea Before Us
The Sky Above Us
and not yet released, but I have high hopes . . .
The Land Beneath Us
There is inspirational content, and romance, but they are very well done.

I love Charles Todd's WWI Bess Crawford mystery series, starting with A Duty to the Dead. Bess is a battlefield nurse.

And if you care for sprawling epics, there is Herman Wouk's WWII saga The Winds of War and War and Remembrance

And even all these years later, for WWI, it's hard to beat All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

My two favorites are totally unlike as are their authors. Leading the list of Best of the Best IMO WW I novels is Sébastien Japrisot's A Very Long Engagement. Second is a great big book by Mark Halperin, A Soldier of the Great War.

As for WW II novels that stick in my mind, only one impresses me as much as the previous two and that is The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A Novel by Richard Flannagan. On the other hand, the most brutally fearsome novel about either war that I've ever read is Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea.

I believe anyone who reads these four books will, like me, find them residing in their memory for the rest of their lives.

check out Philip Kerr novels about being a cop in Germany before, during and after the war.

>5 Jasper: I enthusiastically second Jasper's endorsement of Kerr's novels, the "Bernie Gunther" series.

Thumbs up on Maisie Dobbs, here, too. Also enjoyed The Passing Bells by Phillip Rock as well as its two sequels. Very Downton Abbey-esque, with a stronger emphasis on the history.

World War I & II Historical fiction favorites of mine:

First up is Captain by Jan De Hartog. As a young man considering my military service obligations, this book lent something for me to consider.

Stepping back to WWI, I found Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong memorable. Same war, different front, I liked Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novels August 1914 and November 1916.

I gained some small amount of insight into the experiences of WW2 aviators by reading Len Deighton’s Goodbye Mickey Mouse.

From the same war, I still appreciate my homeroom teacher, a bit of a rebel herself, who hepped me to Catch-22.

Finally, I have experienced many hours of enjoyment from reading and talking with my buds about the cannon of W.E.B. Griffin, especially The Brotherhood of War series.

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You must read the Alice Network and the Huntress, The Only Woman in the Room, Code name Helene Just to name a few

I liked The Alice Network, All the Light You Can Not See, and anything by Hans Fallada.

>11 Tess_W: " anything by Hans Fallada."

I have only read Every Man Dies Alone. That is one of the most horrifying and utterly compelling novels I've ever read. Just brilliant.

I've enjoyed Salt to the Sea, When We Were Young & Brave, The Book Thief and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

>7 gmathis: Thanks for mentioning The Passing Bells. That sounds like the type of HF story I'd enjoy, especially with the inclusion of historical details.

>12 rocketjk: Yes, Fallada's books are out of print and becoming more difficult to find. I also have on my TBR shelf Little Man, What Now which is pre-Hitler including the Weimar Republic, the great depression, and German poverty.

>14 Tess_W: fyi, Every Man Dies Alone is relatively easily available in paperback in the U.S. now. The first English translation was evidently published in the U.S. in 2009 and Melville published a 10th anniversary edition of that translation in 2019.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/47815/every-man-dies-alone-by-hans-fall...

>15 rocketjk: Also published under the name Alone in Berlin.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, if not my favorite story ever, is extremely high on the list. Some people might consider it "historical fiction 'lite,'" but it provides some lovely insight about how ordinary people got by in extraordinary times. Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher fits the same description nicely.

I've got two to recommend: The Women in the Castle is set in Germany mostly during the immediate aftermath of World War II, with frequent flashbacks to the war period, and deals with how ordinary Germans coped with losing the war. The other is The Silver Music Box, which spans World War I up to World War II, and then picks up the same family's story in the 1970s to fill in the blanks. I like both of these (The Women in the Castle especially) because they focused on the effects of war outside the combat zones.

I couldn’t put down Every Man Dies Alone when I read it.

I haven’t read all of Alan Furst’s books, although that is a goal of mine, but the two that stand out for me so far are Night Soldiers and The Polish Officer.

I'm a big fan of Helen MacInnes' While Still We Live. It's only marginally "historical" since it was written in 1944 about events in 1939, but a lot of history happened in those few years!

I just read Everyone Brave is Forgiven and while it's not perfect, there's a lot to be said for it.

J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun is a great novel about the war in China, based on the author's own experiences as a child.

>22 annamorphic: Empire of the Sun is on my TBR to be read this year!

>22 annamorphic: Empire of the Sun is really good. They made a pretty good movie out of it too.

>23 Tess_W: I saw the movie before I even knew there was a book. I enjoyed both.

Liked the movie, but I mostly remember them eating the weevils in the flour or rice or whatever. Ugh, what a way to get protein!

The French Baker's War is new and I found it really captured the time and atmosphere of WWII France.

My all-time favorite for WWI is Stefan Hertsman's War and Turpentine. Based on his Belgian grandfather's memoirs, it's a harrowing recreation of one man's life and experience. I think it evokes what it felt like to be in the trenches better than anything I've ever read. I had misgivings about some aspects of Daniel Mason's Winter Soldier, but the writing is so brilliant it's worth it. And Pierre Lemaitre's The Great Swindle is a big, sweeping, eccentric, tragic "Dickensian" tale, translated from the French. The film version, called "Au Revoir La-Haut," is even better!

>4 Limelite: The film of Very Long Engagement is also brilliant!

>29 JulieStielstra: Agreed! Ive seen it 3 times and marvel at all I missed in previous viewings. The trouble with me and movies is I examine the backgrounds and focus on little stuff going on nearly off camera, which makes me often miss a lot of the foreground action. I still don't feel that I've seen the whole picture when it comes to that movie. Or, the novel, which also can't be totally perceived after just one reading.

I'm currently reading The War Librarian by Addison Armstrong. It's set during WWI France, with alternating, interweaving stories from 1918 and 1976 - hard to put down!

Touchstone
The War Librarian