I need book recommendations about WW2

**The Splendid and the Vile** by Erik Larson

“The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz.

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally-and willing to fight to the end.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London.

Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports-some released only recently-Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisers who comprised Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” including his lovestruck private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Frederick Lindemann.

The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when-in the face of unrelenting horror-Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.”

(Source: Goodreads)

Note: Read in 2021. I gave it 5-stars. Erik Larson always knows how to find interesting nuggets of information that other authors miss.

The Librarian of Burned Books includes elements from Germany in WW2 including the night of burning Books. It is three perspectives intertwined and is a great read.

The Librarian of Burned Books: A Novel
Book by Brianna Labuske

Catch-22

A good non-fiction read is A Higher Call by Adam Makos. Told from the perspective of a German fighter pilot and an American B17 pilot. It has a lot of good insight into the German side of the war.

BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY

I read a great trilogy which starts during WWII in Leningrad. You get a great sense of how they lived — it’s called The Bronze Horseman — the rest of the series is really great too.

This is historical fiction, however I learned a lot. Good night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea. It is about the women joining the American Red Cross and assigned to drive huge trucks equipped with coffee urns and also make donuts for the men. The author based it on his mother being one. This may not be what you’re looking for, but worth mentioning. Very descriptive too.

Unbroken –

It’s about Louis Zamperini who was an Olympic runner before World War Il, then became a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Forces.
His plane crashed in the Pacific, and he survived being stranded at sea and then became a prisoner of war in Japan.

Absolutely fascinating book and extremely well written.