Our history is sadly defined by the wars we engage. Our collection is rife with nonfiction accounts of strategies and battles, with World War II attracting the most attention. The actual re-telling of victories and defeats is essential to our understanding of the era. However, it is the novels, through the authors' imagination, creativity and vision that capture the true "feelings" of war and the "mood" of the times.
Spend some time this Memorial Day weekend with the following novelists writing about
World War II:
Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg
After sending their men off to fight in the war, sisters Kitty and Louise Heaney join their flirtatious younger sister, Tish, in writing letters to servicemen overseas.
Shining Through by Susan Isaacs
The ordinary life of legal secretary Linda Voss explodes into passion with her handsome boss and into danger as an OSS spy caught in the heart of Nazi Germany.
Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
Captures the hardships and cruelty of life in the ghettos of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of World War II, through the eyes of a Jewish orphan who must use all his wits and courage to survive unimaginable events and circumstances.
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
A story told from five different points of view, chronicles the experiences of Japanese Americans caught up in the nightmare of the World War II internment camps.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
In a novel of alternative history, aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh defeats Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election, negotiating an accord with Adolf Hitler and accepting his conquest of Europe and anti-Semitic policies.
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
Suppressed by the KGB, Life and Fate is a rich and vivid account of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Presents the contemporary classic depicting the struggles of a United States airman attempting to survive the lunacy and depravity of a World War II airbase.
Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
Hiding his past as a Nazi officer while living the life of an entrepreneur and family man in northern France, Dr. Max Aue remembers horrifying acts of violence he committed during World War II.
Sword of Honour Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh
It consists of three novels, Men At Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961, published as The End of the Battle in the U.S.).
This trilogy of novels about World War II, largely based on his own experiences as an army officer, is the crowning achievement of Evelyn Waugh’s career. Its central character is Guy Crouchback, head of an ancient but decayed Catholic family, who at first discovers new purpose in the challenge to defend Christian values against Nazi barbarism, but then gradually finds the complexities and cruelties of war too much for him.
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