I have a young teenager who is obsessed with World War II. Can you suggest books on WWII (historical fiction or nonfiction) that would be really engaging (remembering that the competition here is whatever she can find on youtube!). I've read a ton about WWII, but much of what I've read seems like very heavy going for a teenager looking for entertainment (e.g., Bloodlands, An Army at Dawn, All the Light We Cannot See). She can read adult books and I am not looking for YA authors. If there was a WWII book by Michael Pollan or Michael Lewis, I would give it to her!
by AggrievedGoose
7 Comments
My secret war: the World War II diary of Madeline beck
The Diary of Mary Berg
A Bag of Marbles by Joseph Joffo
All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein
Black Cross by Greg Iles is my favorite WW2 fiction.
The Nightingale
The Captain, by Jan de Hartog, is awfully good, but it’s an adventure tale — it’s about a Dutch tugboat captain in WWII
The Good Soldier Schwejk, by Jaroslav Hasek, is a classic of world literature (and a VERY engaging tale), but it’s about WWI instead of WWII
Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101, by Christopher Browning, is an absolute classic about WWII, nonfiction, about just how much freedom people really had, to do the horrible things they felt they had to do
Into That Darkness, by Gitta Sereny, is another absolute classic about WWII, from a little different angle: the story of the commandant of one of the death camps
William Shirer’s book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, was a monumental bestseller back in 1960, but it’s a little outdated (but still very engaging)
* *With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa* by E.B. Sledge, CPL, K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Mar. Div., U.S.M.C.
* *The Forgotten Soldier* by Guy Sajer, Großdeutschland Division, Wehrmacht.
* *The Battle for Burma: The Wild Green Earth* by BG Bernard Fergusson, KT, GCMG, GCVO, DSO, OBE, 16th Infantry Brigade (Chindit).
* *Japanese Destroyer Captain* by Tameichi Hara, CPT, IJN, Fred Saito and Roger Pineau.
* *Corvette Command* by Nicholas Monsarrat, LtCdr, FRSL RNVR.
* *H. M. Corvette* by Nicholas Monsarrat, LtCdr, FRSL RNVR.
* *East Coast Corvette* by Nicholas Monsarrat, LtCdr, FRSL RNVR.
* *The Cruel Sea* by Nicholas Monsarrat, LtCdr, FRSL RNVR (fiction).
* *The Laughing Cow: A U-boat Captain’s Story* by Jost Metzler, Korvettenkapitän, U-69, Kriegsmarine.
* *Out of the Smoke: The Story of a Sail* [Battle of Sunda Strait] by Ray Parkin, Chief Petty Officer, Chief Petty Officer, H.M.A.S. *Perth*, Royal Australian Navy.
* *Into the Smother* by Ray Parkin, Chief Petty Officer, H.M.A.S. *Perth*, Royal Australian Navy.
* *The Sword and the Blossom* by Ray Parkin, Chief Petty Officer, H.M.A.S. *Perth*, Royal Australian Navy.
* *The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour* by James D. Hornfischer.
* *Samurai!: The Autobiography of Japan’s World War II Flying Ace* by LT (j.g.) Saburo Sakai, 343rd Naval Air Group IJN, and Martin Caidin.
* *The Divine Wind* by CPT Rikihei Inoguchi, 1st Air Fleet IJA, and MG Tadashi Nakajima, 343rd Naval Air Group IJN.
* *Day of Infamy* by Walter Lord.
* *Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944* by Stephen E. Ambrose.
* *The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 D-Day* by Cornelius Ryan.
* *Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest* by Stephen Ambrose.
* *Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany* by Stephen Ambrose.
* *Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs* *of Major Dick Winters* by Dick Winters, MAJ, E Co. 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
* *A Bridge Too Far* by Cornelius Ryan.
* *Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II* by Thomas Childers.
* *The Man Who Never Was* by Ewen Montagu, CPT, RNVR.
* *Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat* by Reina Pennington.
* *The Forsaken Army: The Great Novel of Stalingrad* by Heinrich Gerlach, Oberleutnant, 16th Infantry Division, XXXXVIII Panzer Corps,14th Panzer Division, 6th Army, Wehrmacht.
* *Cross of Iron* by Willi Heinrich, 1st Battalion 228th Jäger Regiment of the 101st Jäger Division, German Army (fiction).
* *The Last Battle* by Cornelius Ryan.
* *The Last 100 Days: The Tumultuous and Controversial Story of the Final Days of World War II in Europe* by John Toland.
The last lion. Basically non-fiction written around World War II from Winston Churchill’s /Englands perspective.
My dad sold it to me as a semester’s worth of university level history in two volumes. Very informative and well written.