What book are you reading?

[BlueFebruary]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

I know you asked for fiction, but two of my favorite books about WWII are nonfiction - and fabulous. The Boys In the Boat, by Daniel James Brown - the story of the American rowing team at 1936 olympics held in Germany. You get a really good understanding of Germany's adoration of Hitler, in the glory days of prosperity. Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham was also fabulous. The story of their friendship. You come away with even more admiration for Churchill, and his vision, and his courage. Every page riveting.

Boys in the Boat sounds good. I haven't read much about the years preceding WWII, and it sounds like a good inspirational American underdog story. (Also, beating Hitler's team is wonderful!)

From the books I've read, FDR and Churchill always seemed like admirable, great people, but I've never actually read any books focusing on either of them. And the idea of a book on a FRIENDSHIP between them is honestly making me squee inside.


Thanks! Adding both books to my "to be read" list. :] Hopefully they will be available at the library, but if not they sound like books I might need to own anyway.


edit: Both are at my local library, but of course they're checked out. Must be popular. :]

[pinetreelover]

Originally Posted by BlueFebruary

Normally I would try to force my way through more of a slow-starting book to see if it got better, but the 3-page chapters are driving me crazy. :/ It looks like the rest of the book is about 1 to 4 page chapters. I think short chapters work great to build up urgency and suspense, but for parts where there’s no action or conflict it’s annoying. I’m not sure why he chose to use short chapters for an entire book. Was there any reason why the story would have worked better in short chapters?




If anyone has suggestions for great WWII fiction, I'm all ears. :] I love reading the nonfiction stuff, but it's nice to get it in story format once in a while too.

Anthony Doerr, the author of All the Light..., is a masterful short story writer. Perhaps that is why he prefers that short chapter format. Just speculation.

Several years ago, I read The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer which spans from 1937 in Hungary to present day. I remember really enjoying it and learned a lot about the challenges of getting a higher education during the war years in Europe (a main character was an architecture student).

[greatblueheron]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

I know you asked for fiction, but two of my favorite books about WWII are nonfiction - and fabulous. Franklin and Winston[/u] by Jon Meacham was also fabulous. The story of their friendship. You come away with even more admiration for Churchill, and his vision, and his courage. Every page riveting.

Jon Meacham....

fabulous author, Pulitzer prize winner and presidential historian...any book by him is a gem. I've just finished one on Andrew Jackson.

[brava4]

The Black Flower, A novel about the civil war.

[ylisa7]

Originally Posted by BlueFebruary

If anyone has suggestions for great WWII fiction, I'm all ears. :] I love reading the nonfiction stuff, but it's nice to get it in story format once in a while too.


I was very fond of Code Name Verity (and the companion book Rose Under Fire), The Book Thief, and David L. Robbin’s novels.
.

Code Name Verity has been on my list for awhile now

If you don't like ATHWCS then I would move on. There are so many good WWII books out there.

Originally Posted by ClaraC

I know you asked for fiction, but two of my favorite books about WWII are nonfiction - and fabulous. The Boys In the Boat, by Daniel James Brown - the story of the American rowing team at 1936 olympics held in Germany. You get a really good understanding of Germany's adoration of Hitler, in the glory days of prosperity. Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham was also fabulous. The story of their friendship. You come away with even more admiration for Churchill, and his vision, and his courage. Every page riveting.

I loved The Boys in the Boat

Winston Churchill was ruined for me during Eirk Larson's Dead Wake, which was also excellent but during WWI.
https://www.irishcentral.com/news/ir...ble-luisitania

All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer also didn't portray WC in any good light.

Originally Posted by pinetreelover

Anthony Doerr, the author of All the Light..., is a masterful short story writer. Perhaps that is why he prefers that short chapter format. Just speculation.

Several years ago, I read The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer which spans from 1937 in Hungary to present day. I remember really enjoying it and learned a lot about the challenges of getting a higher education during the war years in Europe (a main character was an architecture student).

Thanks for the reminder. I bumped The Invisible Bridge




Some WWII books that I thought were very good:
"My" 5 stars:

City of Thieves by David Benioff(thanks to (Dawn)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson




and 4 stars:

At the Water's Edge
by Sara Gruen

The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak(which was better than the movie)

Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay

Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry(YA)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
by John Boyne(YA)

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jamie Ford (some of us didn't like this, lol)

Between Shades of Gray
by Ruta Sepetys (YA)...(or this one, lol)

Winter Garden
by Kristin Hannah

The Plum Tree
by Ellen Marie Wiseman

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
by Jennifer Ryan



And many more on my want to read list

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

I know you asked for fiction, but two of my favorite books about WWII are nonfiction - and fabulous. The Boys In the Boat, by Daniel James Brown - the story of the American rowing team at 1936 olympics held in Germany. You get a really good understanding of Germany's adoration of Hitler, in the glory days of prosperity. Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham was also fabulous. The story of their friendship. You come away with even more admiration for Churchill, and his vision, and his courage. Every page riveting.

Boys in the Boat was another one that disappointed me. I expected to LOVE that book. It should have been right up my alley, with all my favorite attributes -- nonfiction, WWII, underdog story, did teach me some stuff about rowing. But I thought it was poorly executed. I actually did not think that the interspersing of history/what was happening with the war in Germany with the story of the WA rowing team worked at all. Other than taking place at the same time, the events didn't really connect to each other. The only tenuous connection was the team going to the 1936 Olympics, but that wasn't really enough for me. (I thought it was far more compelling when it was described in Unbroken.) Really, I thought this book was trying to be Unbroken, but it failed. This book should have been two separate books - the historical and war strategy of the Germans, and the story of the team. But it half did both. And to top it off, we didn't really learn about the team so much -- we learned most about one person on the team, and his story was interesting, but perhaps the author didn't have enough information about him.

So, I'd recommend Unbroken above Boys in the Boat.

If you don't want nuts and bolts history or micro-snapshots of the war (ala Stephen Ambrose, etc), I love the biographies of Franklin and/or Eleanor Roosevelt. Doris Kearns Goodwin has a good one.

Philip Roth wrote an alternative history novel about WWII, where FDR loses the presidential election to Charles Lindbergh. It was interesting, but I had a major problem with some of the things that happened, in that if certain things did not happen, then certain later events would not happen, but in Roth's novel they still happened. But it can provide for an interesting thought exercise.

[Mayvenne]

Since I have not been reading books lately but I do check in here often I will add to the WW2 books commentary and suggestions.
YES to Guernsey Literary
Sarah's Key
City of Thieves
and might I add---the Zookeeper's Wife.
Years ago I read Mila 18 (leon uris) and that was stellar.

[greatblueheron]

Originally Posted by Mayvenne

Since I have not been reading books lately but I do check in here often I will add to the WW2 books commentary and suggestions.
YES to Guernsey Literary
Sarah's Key
City of Thieves
and might I add---the Zookeeper's Wife.
Years ago I read Mila 18 (leon uris) and that was stellar.

ZKW...

[ClaraC]

Originally Posted by chicagoliz

Boys in the Boat was another one that disappointed me. I expected to LOVE that book. It should have been right up my alley, with all my favorite attributes -- nonfiction, WWII, underdog story, did teach me some stuff about rowing. But I thought it was poorly executed. I actually did not think that the interspersing of history/what was happening with the war in Germany with the story of the WA rowing team worked at all. Other than taking place at the same time, the events didn't really connect to each other. The only tenuous connection was the team going to the 1936 Olympics, but that wasn't really enough for me. (I thought it was far more compelling when it was described in Unbroken.) Really, I thought this book was trying to be Unbroken, but it failed. This book should have been two separate books - the historical and war strategy of the Germans, and the story of the team. But it half did both. And to top it off, we didn't really learn about the team so much -- we learned most about one person on the team, and his story was interesting, but perhaps the author didn't have enough information about him.

So, I'd recommend Unbroken above Boys in the Boat.

If you don't want nuts and bolts history or micro-snapshots of the war (ala Stephen Ambrose, etc), I love the biographies of Franklin and/or Eleanor Roosevelt. Doris Kearns Goodwin has a good one.

Philip Roth wrote an alternative history novel about WWII, where FDR loses the presidential election to Charles Lindbergh. It was interesting, but I had a major problem with some of the things that happened, in that if certain things did not happen, then certain later events would not happen, but in Roth's novel they still happened. But it can provide for an interesting thought exercise.

Well, it's a specific rower's story. The author learned about the 1936 rowing victory over Germany, and when he was researching it came across this one main character, and told his story of growing up in poverty and working his way through college and getting on the rowing team. So it's not the same as a nonfiction story, where you create everything in the book - this was a true story of one man's experience.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

Well, it's a specific rower's story. The author learned about the 1936 rowing victory over Germany, and when he was researching it came across this one main character, and told his story of growing up in poverty and working his way through college and getting on the rowing team. So it's not the same as a nonfiction story, where you create everything in the book - this was a true story of one man's experience.

Exactly. It may have worked better if he had used it as the basis for a novel. But the odd thing is that it was marketed as being the story of the team, and at the end, it gives info about what happened to the various team members, but most of them I didn't remember very well, or didn't really care that much about because they were minor players in the narrative.

I wished it focused more just on him, rather than weaving in the other historical info (which, again, was interesting, but didn't work well in the context of this one man's story). My guess is that the author discovered this story too late, and didn't have enough information to work with to make the book exclusively about him alone -- too many of the people who could relay the events probably had died. Which is a shame. My complaint is not with the experience of the man, but with the execution of the storytelling.