July-September 2015: World War II (1939 -1940)

It’s time for the our third quarter theme, World War II (1939 - 1945). There are a lot of books to choose from that cover a variety of themes and locations. From the homefronts of England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.A., to actual battles in the European or Pacific Theatres. There are stories of concentration camps, resistance fighters, abstainers, spies etc. Biographies of the famous like Generals Eisenhower, McArthur, Montgomery etc. and the infamous Adolph Hitler, Benito Muussolini, Hideki Tojo, etc.

Here are some suggestions:

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Helmet For My Pillow by Robert Leckie
Beside a Burning Sea by John Shors
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Three Came Home by Agnes Newton Keith
The Cazalet Chronicles: The Light Years etc. by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre

These are just a few from my library, there is a wide choice of excellent fiction and non-fiction books set during this time period that we can explore during July, August and September of this year.



Please remember to visit the www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Reading_Through_Time_Quarterly_Theme_Reads

I have just read the beautifully written Coventry by Helen Humphreys and would definitely recommend it.

I'm going to be doing a reread of The Naked and the Dead. It's been nearly a half-century since I read it (back in high school), so it should be much like a new read.

Connie Willis' "Blackout" and "All Clear" are excellent reads. They both use time travel by historians as the vehicle for these stories and on my first read I was a bit confused, but it was all sorted out by the time I was well into the first novel. The original two Winston Churchill books by W. Manchester are excellent reads, though only the 2nd one is set in the appropriate frame for this month.

Thanks for setting this up! I haven't been feeling well lately and every time I thought about putting this up, something came up that made me forget to do it.

I hope you feel better soon, Samantha.

>>6 DeltaQueen50: Thanks! I've been having lots of small health issues - a cold, tooth ache, stuff like that. Nothing serious, but just enough to make you feel not up to much, The warm weather doesn't help. But I'm feeling better now, at least enough to hopefully get some reading done this quarter. I haven't done much reading at all this year!

As for this quarter, I am definitely trying to do some reading! World War Two is one of my favorite time periods when it comes to historical fiction. In recent years I've read:

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett (loved it! Much better than the movie. 5 stars)
The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Claus (loved it! 5 stars)
My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young (very thought provoking. 5 stars)
Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia McNeal (nice mystery series with a very good sense of the time period. 5 stars)

I've also tried to read The Book Thief after hearing rave review about it, but I couldn't get into it at all. It might be a very good book, but it's not for me.

As for what I plan to read this quarter, I definitely want to get to: Enigma by Robert Harris, The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean (will this one be better than the movie?), and The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett.

Should I have more time this quarter to read, I also have Princess Elizabeth's Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal, Night Over Water by Ken Follett, and Jackdaws by Ken Follett on my TBR stack. I did mention I love this time period in historical fiction, right? ;)

>5 Samantha_kathy:, I have Princess Elizabeth's Spy too. Thanks for the reminder that it is prefect for this quarter.

I read Light of the Moon by Elizabeth Buchan. It is about the French Resistance during WWII and the main character is an English woman who is dropped into France by the SOE with orders to help form resistence cells and to undertake various missions. I thought it was quite well done.

Just finished A Separate Peace, which I've never read over all these many years. I do want to get to a reread of The Naked and the Dead, which I haven't read since high school so it's almost like a new read. But I think I may next go to something a bit shorter – Mary Renault's The Charioteer.

ETA: Holding off on The Charioteer until August because it's a Virago and will tie in with ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST.

The White Pearl by Kate Furnivall was about a group of characters trying to outrun the Japanese on a 60 foot sailing yacht as they invade Malaysia. Unfortunately, the plot didn't quite hold together, but this was both an adventurous and colorful read.

"Coventry" by Helen Humphreys is a small novel which begins on November 14, 1940 with the massive bombing of Coventry. It immediately flashes back to the early days of WW I in Coventry when two of the main characters first meet as young women. The story is a terribly intimate experience of just that one night.

>11 DeltaQueen50:, I read that one a while back and liked it.

I am currently reading Zoo Station.

"Dreams and Shadows" by Rosemary Simpson ranges from the sands of North Africa to the streets of New York and Paris. The novel is based upon the true story of the author's aunt.

Abby Sullivan is an Irish Catholic from New York City and Joseph Kelemen is a Jewish art dealer in Paris. The first part of the story is focused on Abby's journey from New York to Paris. The second part follows Joseph from Budapest to North Africa to Paris. The third part picks up their lives as husband and wife on the eve of WW II and the struggle which follows to survive the Nazi occupation and roundup of the Jews in France.

Just finished a reread of the 5***** The Naked and the Dead, which I haven't read since high school (back in the late 60s). My own opinion is that it's the greatest American war novel (topping The Red Badge of Courage) and that it's the second greatest American novel written since WW2 (topped only by Invisible Man). I'm not sure if it's Mailer's greatest, though, because I do need to do a reread of The Executioner's Song, which is more "faction" than fiction, and which I read when it was first published and haven't ever reread. I may do The Executioner's Song (and also Harlot's Ghost) for the "Modern History" read next quarter.

In "Zoo Station" by Downing, John Russell, a successful Anglo-American journalist, lives and works in Germany with deep ties in the community. He has a son being raised as a member of Hitler's youth group by his German ex-wife and he has a German girlfriend. Consequently, he avoids the kind of writing which could get him evicted from Nazi Germany as long as possible.

Unfortunately for Russell, events and international agendas will over take him as the Soviets, English and Germans all demand his assistance in spying on each other. What makes this a fine and satisfying novel is his successful juggling act using each of his adversaries to manipulate the other and gain his ultimate goals.

I just finished The Tiger Claw which was based on the real life of Noor Khan, who was sent into Nazi-occupied France as a radio operator. She was eventually captured and executed at Dachu. This was an interesting read from a historical and political standpoint, but the main character was flat and the book suffered from too many storylines so it never totally grabbed me.

The new quarter's thread is up, since October 1st is coming up fast! See here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/196098

This thread is pretty much finished and I just noticed today the silly mistake I made with the dates in the title!

I didn't notice either until you mentioned it :D No matter, everyone knows what you meant. We'll do it right in four years time when we get to WW2 again.

I did notice your mistake, Judy, and thought it was pretty funny!

Since there will be no HistoryCat next year, I thought I should become active in RTT. Active for me means reading, but little posting.

I have two and a half books that work for this theme. I joined you in reading Coventry back in July, Judy, and I just read the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Literature winner, A Bell for Adano by John Hersey. My half a book is A Town Like Alice, which focuses for a time on civilians caught up in in WWII in the Pacific Theater.

I'll try to do better about posting - and focusing my reading!

I just finished an ARC of Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson, with a review to be forthcoming -- extensive review, since this is an Early Review copy. Good book, and could also be good for use by high school history teachers for advanced students, but I have one quarrel that's going to make me reduce the STAR rating significantly, maybe even to just 1*, as I'll explain in my review. Problem is, I need to take a look through another book first before writing my review.

I only read one book this whole quarter for WWII.

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø

I have a question about the quarterly wiki. Will we be adding our new reads for the quarters that we're doing again into the Past Time Periods part of the wiki or starting fresh. I can see it both ways, but think I'd prefer to see current reads added into the old lists (adding month read). Two reasons: first, it already contains ideas for the next round of reading; second, it creates a more comprehensive list of this group's reads. Has this already been discussed?

I plan to add new reads to the old list. I plan on having a new list for Prehistory in Jan-March 2016 under This Quarter's Time Period and then adding those books to the Prehistory list we already have under Past Time Periods when the quarter's over. That is also why I added the time period in which we read the books (like feb-mar 2012) so we can see which books are 'old' and which are 'new'.

I like that! Thanks, Samantha_kathy!

>22 CurrerBell: I just posted my 2½** review of Symphony for the City of the Dead. My delay was occasioned by my need to get Brian Moynahan's Leningrad: Siege and Symphony from a public library and take a skim through it. Absolutely no plagiarism by M.T. Anderson, but I'm disturbed by his failure to acknowledge (as far as I can see) Moynahan's two-year-old work which is currently on retail shelves in trade paperback.