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Original poster

Book recs please - easy but lovely reads maybe wartime fiction

61 replies

Grockle · 24/05/2011 07:01

I haven't read book I loved in ages. I need something light & easy to read. Not Marian Keyes and such but something similarly easy with a little more weight. As a teen, I loved wartime romance type books and think I'd like to read some again Blush but am open to anything that I can read whilst dealing with 3 small boys, a huge workload and poor health. TIA

OP posts:
aliceliddell · 24/05/2011 15:57

'Fair stood the wind for France' by HE Bates. (Tearjerker, nothing like 'Darling buds of May)

MurielTheActor · 24/05/2011 15:48

You can't beat Elizabeth Bowen for wartime fiction - IMHO....

toughdecisions · 24/05/2011 15:06

Also a big Delderfield fan.

Rule Britannia by Daphne Du Maurier
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

SpangledPandemonium · 24/05/2011 15:02

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

Not perfect but easy to read.

WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes · 24/05/2011 14:57

Rosamunde Pilcher?

steviesmith · 24/05/2011 14:53

Agree with R F Delderfield. I loved A Horseman Riding when I was a teenager. I think that one ends with WW1 though. Also Henry Green was writing in the 30's and 40's. Caught was particularly good although it might be a bit too grim to count as light.

KurriKurri · 24/05/2011 14:46

The Cazalet Chronicles (a whole series) by Elizabet Jane Howard are good and set in wartime.

Also R.F.Delderfield has written a few set in and around WW2. The Dreaming Suburb and The Avenue Goes To War (the sequel) and Diana is a wartime story. (They may be a bit old fashioned but I often return to them as comfort books Smile)

Atonement by Ian McEwan is set in the war - but it seems to be a bit 'marmite' - you love it or hate it.

elkiedee · 24/05/2011 12:58

Some I've enjoyed recently, set in WW2 (a current reading obsession)

Barbara Euphan Todd, Miss Ranskill Comes Home
Noel Streatfeild, Saplings
Monica Dickens, Mariana
Marghanita Laski, To Bed with Grand Music
Mollie Panter-Downes, Good Evening, Mrs Craven (short stories)
Sarah Blake, The Postmistress
Catherine Hall, Days of Grace
Laura Wilson, The Lover, Stratton's War and An Empty Death (crime fiction)
(The top 5 of these are Persephone reprints of books published in the 1940s, which I collect)

Original poster
Grockle · 24/05/2011 07:37

I used to LOVE Elizabeth Elgin. I shall scour the library and look for Small Island too, thank you

OP posts:
TanteRose · 24/05/2011 07:14

Small Island, Andrea Levy is good

LawrieMarlow · 24/05/2011 07:07

I like books by Elizabeth Elgin which are definitely easy to read but I like them Smile.

She wrote a series of books which start at WW1 and go through to WW2 and after following a family and others. The first one is I'll Bring You Buttercups which is showing at a silly price on Amazon but you can get in charity shops or libraries and I am pretty sure ordinary bookshops. There are another 4 in that series and she also wrote other wartime fiction.