Category Books about War
Daughters of War by Dinah Jefferies
Daughters of War, set in 1944, follows the story of the Baudin sisters while they live under the Nazi occupation in Southern France. The three sisters are separated from their widowed mother, who now lives in England, before the war, which has made Hélène, the eldest sister, their de facto mother. Hélène, an artist turned […]
Dear Ann by Bobbie Ann Mason
In this novel, the titular character, Ann is looking to the late sixties with nostalgia and wondering how her life would have turned out if she had made a different choice back then. In 1966, fresh out of college from Kentucky, Ann had decided to attend Harpur College in Upstate New York for her doctoral […]
The Night Portrait: A Novel of World War II and Da Vinci’s Italy by Laura Morelli
Reading this book was such a treat for me! There are a few paintings I wish to see in person one day, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine is on that list. This painting, which is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, is my favorite out […]
The Parade by Dave Eggers
It has been a few days since I read The Parade, and I’m still not sure what to make of it. In this novella, two construction workers are sent to an unnamed foreign country to finish a highway that will connect its divided Northern and Southern halves. The country has been through a decades-long civil […]
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
Set in the early 1940s when Axis was gaining momentum in the war front, The World That We Knew recounts the story of Lea, a teenage Jewish girl. When it became clear that Berlin was becoming unsafe for the Jews with each passing day, Hanni, Lea’s mother decides to send her off to France. But with her […]
Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert
Michael Gilbert’s Death in Captivity is the twelveth British Library Crime Classic I read, and let me tell you it’s not their usual murder mystery offering. Set in 1943 after the Sicilian Campaign when Allies had started gaining momentum in the war-front, this vintage crime novel takes place in Campo 127, a prisoner-of-war camp in […]
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Warlight begins in 1945, after WWII had ended, as Nathaniel’s parents are getting ready to move across the world for work. The fourteen-year-old Nathaniel and his elder sister, Rachel, aren’t invited to accompany them on this voyage – instead, they are expected to stay behind in England and continue their education under the watchful eyes […]
Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar
Auschwitz Lullaby, which is based on a true story, begins one morning in Berlin when Nazis arrive at Helene Hannemann’s home while she is getting ready to leave for work. Helene is a German Aryan nurse married to Johann, a Gypsy. So since the WWII started times have been tough for the Hannemann family. Johann has […]
War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 by Iris Origo
After reading Iris Origo’s diary A Chill in the Air a couple weeks ago, I was glad to get my hands on War in Val d’Orcia, the most popular of Iris’s works. Iris stopped writing A Chill in the Air on 23 July 1940, a few days after Mussolini declared war against the Allies. The […]
A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary 1939–1940 by Iris Origo
I was thrilled when A Chill in the Air slipped through my mailbox on Monday. Before 2017, I avoided wartime memoirs like the plague. I’ve been an avid reader of war fiction, but I always thought reading factual accounts of wars would be more than I could handle. Then I spent the last year working […]
Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy
Akil Kumarasamy’s debut novel Half Gods is presented as a collection of interwoven short stories that explores the immigrant experience. Those who have been following my blog for a while might know that I’m from Sri Lanka, where a 26-year civil war was fought between the Sinhalese, Sri Lanka’s ethnic majority and the Tamil minority. […]
A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert
Longlisted for Women’s Prize for Fiction A Boy in Winter is set during WWII in a newly occupied small town in Ukraine. SS armies are rounding up Jews when Yankel, a young Jewish boy decides to make a run for it with Momik, his baby brother. Yankel has no clue of the trials that lie […]
Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper
Today is the final day of Persephone Readathon, so I thought I would pick a slim book which I’ll be able to read in a day. The book I chose is Operation Heartbreak which only has 167 pages, and right off the bat before I get into the story I must urge you not to […]
William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton
William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton is the first book Persephone Books published. So to kick off the Persephone Readathon, I decided I’d read it. It is the story of William Tully, a “mild-mannered, pale-faced, and under-sized” young clerk. He comes to a small fortune when his mother passes away, but having spent his […]
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Sympathizer was a fascinating read. Having never read literature related to Vietnam War before, this book written by Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Vietnamese American helped me put things into perspective. I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds. I am not […]
Red Lips and Bibliomaniacs 