I’ve always read a lot of history and biography. Going through a biography of every president gave me an incomparable crash course in American history as a whole. When it comes to specific time periods, though, I’ve generally been more of a Civil War reader than anything else. I’ve read plenty of bestsellers about the great conflict of the 20th century, but I’ve never really done a deep dive. In the last month or so, I’ve read a handful of WWII books, largely by happenstance, that have piqued my interest to a new level.
So, as a 37-year-old suburban dad, I’m more than ready for my WWII era. It was bound to happen at some point.
What’s great about WWII reading is that it spans genres and audiences more than almost any other subject. From prize-winning literary fiction (Catch-22 and All the Light We Cannot See) to mystery novels (Kate Quinn and Ken Follett) to pop history (Erik Larson) and serious scholarship, the options truly run the gamut.
Your turn: What are your favorite WWII books? Fiction, non-fiction, old, and new — I want ‘em all.
WWII is one of my favorite areas of study. So many options to choose from.
- The Nightingales by Kristin Hannah - women in the French resistance.
- The Requisitions by Samuel Lopez-Barrantes - metafiction by one of our Substack authors.
- The Corps series starting with Semper Fi by W.E.B. Griffin - 10 books covering 1941-Korean war.
- There is a trilogy by Ian Toll covering the war in the Pacific. First book is Pacific Crucible.
- Flyboys by James Bradley.
- The Second War by Winston Churchill (6 volumes)
- Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose.
- The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
- Night by Elie Wiesel
- The Desert War: The North African Campaign, 1940–1943 by Alan Moorehead
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle
- The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick - Alternate history/speculative fiction
- Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
I joke with my neighbor sometimes that I could literally spend the rest of my life just reading about WWII.
Here are some of my favorites:
Nonfiction:
The Second World War by Anthony Beevor (great overview)
D-Day, Band of Brothers & Citizen Soldiers, all by Stephen Ambrose
Hitler:Downfall, 1939-45 by Vilker Ullrich
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Daniel Goldhagen
Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides
Nimitz at War by Craig Symonds
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
FDR & Eisenhower in War and Peace, both by Jean Kennedy Smith
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Fiction:
Anything by Alan Furst (starting with Night Soldiers)
City of Thieves by David Benioff
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr