Wartime fiction recommendations

[Annunziata]

Evening!

So I'm on a bit of a WW1/2 fiction kick at the moment and was wondering if anyone had any further inspiration?

I liked Atonement and Birdsong and loved Love and the Loveless and All Quiet on the Western Front.

I wasn't too keen on My Dear I Wanted To Tell You, I thought it was a bit sappy. I also couldn't get into A Farewell to Arms.

Restoration trilogy by Pat Barker. Fab.

Oh, DH has the first part of that, cheers.

As above, Restless by William Boyd is brilliant, some fact books are Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat. Ernest Hemmingway for whom the bell tollsm for the Spanish Civil War.

Another fact book is A Train in Winter.

That Summer by Andrew Greig. Fabulous.

The first of the Regeneration series is superb. I hated the other two though, as they were mainly about Billy Prior shagging around.

Winter In Madrid by CJ Sansom = Spanish Civil war and well worth a read.

I''ve just read Ken Follet's Fall Of Giants which is pre WW1 and WW1/Russian Revolution - it's not terribly well written (and has far too much sex for my liking!) but it's got a couple of interesting characters.

I liked 'The Book Thief' but lots of people on here hated it.

Waugh's Sword Of Honour trilogy is worth a read.

Pat Barker's Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road.

Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth is meant to be very good - her memoir of her life during WWI.

Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard is an interesting twist on the genre.

Catch 22?

The English Patient is brilliant; The Reader is fascinating.

Have you tried Captain Corelli's Mandolin? It's a bit of a Marmite read - people either love it or hate it!

If you liked Birdsong, have you tried Charlotte Gray?

This list might help!

And this one

Thanks everyone! Think I might avoid the Hemmingway though- I didn't really enjoy A Farewell to Arms. A Train in Winter and That Summer look great.

Testament to Youth has just popped up on Amazon- any thoughts?

Oops cross posted. That's the one I meant, IamSherlocked, think I'll add it to the queue.

LOVED Captain Corelli's Mandolin!

Those sound fab. Thank you again!

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - I liked this (I skipped the ranting Mussolini parts and thought the ending was stupid, but otherwise I liked it!)

The English Patient - beautifully written but I was really frustrated by it because I just didn't feel it went anywhere: I felt cheated on finishing it tbh.

Alone In Berlin = 2nd WW: it's okay, not great.

Thanks! Re Captain Corelli's Mandolin- I didn't think that Antonio would be that easily scared of tbh. But liked them coming together eventually.

I think I'll give the English Patient a go- Alone in Berlin doesn't really appeal.

*off

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. It's set in Russia during WWII and is the story of Tatiana and Alexander, a Red Army officer, set against a backdrop out the siege of Leningrad. It's one of my favourites :-)

Suite Francaise is beautifully written and all the more poignant in the light of the fate of Irene Nemirovsky the author.

Nevil Shute wrote a few set around WW2.

Especially since it will be dramatised this autumn in five hour-long episodes by the BBC but even more especially because it's one of the best books ever written anyway -

Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford (1914-18 war)

(This is a sequence of four books together; the middle two are more war-focused and set in France and on Armistice Day.)

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves is not a novel but is based on his experiences in the 1914-18 war.

I would certainly recommend both Alone in Berlin and Suite Francaise. Both worth it for shedding light on the European perspective. Actually, Alone in Berlin is fantastic - do overcome your reluctance and give it a go!

Also agree about Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy and Goodbye to All That.

Balkan trilogy and Levant trilogy by Olivia Manning (televised many years ago as Fortunes of War series).

Dr Zhivago (Russian Revolution) - would you include that?
Schindler's Ark - harrowing, did it for A levels
Someone else mentioned The Reader - Bernhard Schlink - I would recommend this one too, although it isn't set in WWII it does examine the central character's actions during WWII
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Neville Shute (as a PP mentioned) - esp loved A Town Like Alice
I loved My Dear I Wanted to Tell You and thought that Riley Purefoy's experiences very moving.

The Siege by Helen Dunmore - about the siege of Leningrad during WWII - is fantastic.

Jackdaws by Ken Follet is a great read about female spies being sent into ocupied FRance.

Fo a slightly different take I would thoroughly recommend Sisters in Arms by NIcola Tyrer. Its a non fiction account of the British Army nurses who served in the second world war, very emotional and moving, well worth reading if you enjoy reading about that era.

I loved Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy

Thanks everyone! They all look great- plenty of summer reading now!
I'll give them all a go for sure. I read Dr Zhivago when I was younger too, do I might go over that again.

*so. Stupid phone!

The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat. Now out of print but had a huge number of copies printed so v easy to get in a second hand bookshop.

Quite possibly the best book I've ever read.

Small Island by Andrea Levy
and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows