Books Set In WW2

[LouReidPark]

What are your favourite books set in WW2?

I liked a few as a child - Carrie's War, the Judith Kerr series and I've read a couple I liked as an adult - Dear Mrs Bird, The Frequency Of Us and The Night Watch.

Looking for recommendations for more. TIA

The Boat

I can't remember the author. It's a translation of a German book, Das Boot, about a U-boat. Excellent.

Several already mentioned. Could also add Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. Gorgeous book

Oh whoops sorry wrong war! Was WWI

Life After Life, seconded. Also much of the Cazalet Chronicles.

The Provincial Lady in Wartime by EM Delafield deals with the eponymous heroine's attempts to volunteer for the war effort in the earlier stages of the war.

Several Angela Thirkell books are set during WW2, including Cheerfulness Breaks In, Northbridge Rectory, Marling Hall
Growing Up, The Headmistress, Miss Bunting and Peace Breaks Out. These focus on the lives of the people (mainly women and children) on the home front, and on how the war affected their everyday experiences.

I've recently read the three books of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time that deal with the 1940s and there's a lot in there about the experience of being a soldier (albeit one who didn't see much actual fighting!). The relevant books are The Valley of Bones, The Soldier's Art and The Military Philosophers (although it's probably best if you've already read the preceding 6 books, which is quite a commitment!).

Yes, thirded!

I really enjoyed Restless by William Boyd. About a woman working as a secret agent in WII and her life afterwards.

Life after life and also its sort of sequel A God in Ruins.

La's orchestra saves the world.

I'm also a big fan of the Diary of a provincial lady and one of the series was set at the beginning of the war.

Another vote here for All The Light We Cannot See. I loved that novel.

The Siege by Helen Dunmore is excellent. Set in Leningrad.

And Life After Life is partly set in WW2.

Also Diary of an Ordinary Woman

Elizabeth Bowen's The Heat of the Day -- a love affair and espionage set during the Blitz in London, published just after the war. (Also her short story collection, The Demon Lover.)

Less literary, more realist, very good on countryside, farm work, nature -- Angela Huth's Land Girls (three very different women working as landgirls on a remote farm).

The Silver Sword.

Chilbury ladies choir

"
The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
Jennifer Ryan

Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Best Debut Goodreads Author (2017)

The village of Chilbury in Kent is about to ring in some changes.
This is a delightful novel of wartime gumption and village spirit that will make your heart sing out.

Kent, 1940.

In the idyllic village of Chilbury change is afoot. Hearts are breaking as sons and husbands leave to fight, and when the Vicar decides to close the choir until the men return, all seems lost.

But coming together in song is just what the women of Chilbury need in these dark hours, and they are ready to sing. With a little fighting spirit and the arrival of a new musical resident, the charismatic Miss Primrose Trent, the choir is reborn.

Some see the choir as a chance to forget their troubles, others the chance to shine. Though for one villager, the choir is the perfect cover to destroy Chilbury’s new-found harmony.

Uplifting and profoundly moving, THE CHILBURY LADIES’ CHOIR explores how a village can endure the onslaught of war, how monumental history affects small lives and how survival is as much about friendship as it is about courage.

And, if you like the Chalet School, The Chalet School in Exile. Written in 1939, distinguishing between Germans and Nazis, and including a lynching of a Jewish man.

I had one that I can't remember the name of but would love to read again. It was either non-fiction or semi-true and involved a young Jewish girl who was taken in by a Catholic family and 'converted' in order to escape the Nazis. It was about her observations of her new life - the ending saw her as an adult climbing the stairs to the flat she was hidden in. I think she still wore the crucifix.

It was called something like a patch of sky or a patch of blue and I cannot find it. It was for 'older readers'.

Anyone know it?

I liked Jackdaws by Ken Follett

I have some more that he has done but have not read them yet

@Luckyboo if you enjoyed the code girls and the bomb girls you will enjoy The Shipyard Girls series by Nancy Revell

In Spite of all Terror by Hester Burton. Aimed at early teen readers, but well worth reading. Covers 1939-40 from the pov of a teenage girl and boy.

Those who like the Provincial Lady night like the Mrs Tim books by D.E. Stevenson. Mrs Tim Carries On is the wartime one.

Oh, also Nella Last's War which is the mass observation diaries of a housewife in Lancashire during the war. There's a TV film adaptation written/starring Victoria Wood which I absolutely love and is my go-to if I need a good sob

The End of the Affair by Grahame Greene

Requiem for a Wren by Neville Shute

Balkan and Levant trilogies, Olivia Manning.

Mary Wesley's Chamomile Lawn.

The Provincial Lady in Wartime.

Some of Nevil Shute's books. Pastoral is a gentle romance between a bomber pilot and a WAAF officer set against the background of day to day life on an RAF station. And others that I can't remember the titles of. (Other than A Town Like Alice, of course.)

Total trash but the Rainbow through the Rain by Elvi Rhodes.

I read this during the pandemic: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54873322-blitz-spirit

Non-fiction but so good and very interesting.