I'm writing a novel that will be set sometime between 1915-mid 1930s (depending on some details of the events in the titles) and am diving into research in order to choose the most appropriate time period.
Wondering if anyone has any book recommendations on the above mentioned topics/time periods that are actually interesting and enjoyable to read! Open to any good documentaries as well! Open to great and accurate historical fiction as well as non-fiction 🙂
by lavgr
12 Comments
The Great Influenza by John M Barry. Its a nonfiction look at the Spanish flu.
The Coming Plague has a section on how the Spanish Flu spread
Letters to Kafka by Christine Estima
Rilla of Ingleside. It tells the story of a rural family in Canada during WWI, following the news and sending care packages to their sons/brothers. It was written just after the war, so it counts as contemporary fiction of the time and is very accurate and relatable.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer is fiction partly set in New York City during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Twilight (just kidding)
The U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passos
If you’re open to a play “Unity (1918)” by Kevin Kerr. Saw it in performance not too long back and it was fantastic, bought the script the next day (I study theatre). Centers on a trio of sisters at the end of WW1 as their small town deals with the effects of returning soliders, the approach of the Spanish flu, and how all the characters cope. Religious allusions. Great depression is touched on, but isn’t as large of a focus.
*The Long Fuse: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War I* by Laurence Lafore.
*The Guns of August* by Barbara Tuchman.
*1914: Fight the Good Fight: Britain, the Army and the Coming of the First World War* by Allan Mallinson.
*The Campaign of the Marne 1914* by Sewell Tyng.
*The Last Voyage of the Lusitania* [1915] by A. A. Hoehling and Mary Hoehling.
*The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916* by Sir Alistair Horne.
*Neath Verdun: The Experiences of a French Soldier During the Early Months of the First World War* by Maurice Genevoix, 2LT, 106^(th) Infantry Regiment.
*The Face of Battle* by John Keegan (the Battle of the Somme).
*Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century* by William Philpott.
*Pillars of Fire: The Battle Of Messines Ridge June 1917* by Ian Passingham.
*They Called it Passchendaele: The Story of the Battle of Ypres and of the Men Who Fought in it* by Lyn MacDonald.
*Passchendaele: The Sacrificial Ground* by Nigel Steel and Peter Hart.
*The Zimmermann Telegram: America Enters The War, 1917-1918* by Barbara Tuchman.
*Bloody Red Tabs: General Officer Casualties of the Great War, 1914-1918* by Frank Davies and Graham Maddocks.
*The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East* by Eugene Rogan.
*Storm of Steel* by Ernst Jünger. Hauptman, 7th Company, 73rd Infantry Regiment, 111th Infantry Division, Imperial German Army.                                                                  Â
*The First World War: An Illustrated History* by A.J.P. Taylor.
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*America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918* by Alfred W. Crosby.
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*The World Between the Wars, 1919-39: An Economist’s View* by Joseph S. Davis.
*The German Slump: Politics and Economics 1924–1936* by Harold James.
*The Great Crash, 1929* by John Kenneth Galbraith.
*The Complete Idiot’s Guide(R) to the Great Depression* by H. Paul Jeffers.
*Rethinking the Great Depression* by Gene Smiley.Â
*The Economic Recovery of Germany* by C.W. Guillebaud.
*German Economic Policy* by William Bauer.
If you want a look at how an epidemic can look like (typhus, not influenza):
– A Pandemic of Typhus in Serbia in 1914 and 1915
– The Luck of Thirteen: wanderings and flight through Montenegro and Serbia
Life after Life is fiction about this period and influenza. Definitely interesting and enjoyable.