Your favourite WW2 novels

30th September 2018

Your favourite WW2 novels.

A short while ago we ran a competition on the TripFiction site giving away copies of the excellent WW2 novel I Can’t Begin To Tell You by Elizabeth Buchan. To qualify for the draw, readers had to give us the name of their favourite WW2 novel… we were overwhelmed by the response! We have now sorted through all the answers and are pleased to publish – in descending order of popularity – the top 5 titles you gave us. There were 37 named titles in total, but these 5 really stood out from the rest in your judgement.

1. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.

Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

2. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Nine-year-old Liesel lives with her foster family on Himmel Street in Molching, a fictional village just outside non-ficitonal Munich, during the dark days of the Third Reich. Her Communist parents have been transported to a concentration camp, and during the funeral for her brother, she manages to steal a macabre book: it is, in fact, a gravediggers’ instruction manual. This is the first of many books which will pass through her hands as the carnage of the Second World War begins to hungrily claim lives. Both Liesel and her fellow inhabitants of Himmel Street will find themselves changed by both words on the printed page and the horrendous events happening around them.

3. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Despite their differences, sisters Viann and Isabelle have always been close. Younger, bolder Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann is content with life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. But when the Second World War strikes, Antoine is sent off to fight and Viann finds herself isolated so Isabelle is sent by their father to help her.

As the war progresses, the sisters’ relationship and strength is tested. With life changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Viann and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.

4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

It’s 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer’s block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey – a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book – she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Through their letters, the society tell Juliet about life on the island, their love of books – and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation. Drawn into their irresistible world, Juliet sets sail for the island, changing her life forever.

5. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks

In 1942, Charlotte Gray, a young Scottish woman, heads for Occupied France on a dual mission – officially, to run an apparently simple errand for a British special operations group and unofficially, to search for her lover, an English airman missing in action.

As the people in the small town of Lavaurette prepare to meet their terrible destiny, the harrowing truth of what took place in ‘the dark years’ is finally revealed.

What do you think of the 5 that were selected? Are there others that you would add to the list?

Let us know in the Comments box below – and we’ll shortly issue a revised and definitive list!

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