World War II reading

I love these assignments from Travelin'Oma where I remember books I've read.

What is it that draws me to books about World War II? I wonder if it is the fascination with how people who lived through the war survived it. Did they handle it with grace, did they plug along, living day to day? Was it hard never knowing when it would all end? Would I be one who hung on, and did all I could to get through? Would I have looked at the worth of others, and risked my own life to save them, like so many did with the Jews? Do I have the inner strength to do what so many people did, or would I give up? Maybe by reading all these stories and accounts I hope I can somehow glean some of the survival characteristics I would need in time of war, and then those same qualities can help me live better day to day in the world I am in right now.

As you can see, I do love to read about World War II. Here is a list of some of the books I’ve read and enjoyed, in no particular order.

Juvenile/Young Adult:

North to Freedom by Anne Holm (recently retitled I am David)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.

Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata

Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian

Adult:

Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Berniere

QB VII by Leon Uris

Mila 18 by Leon Uris

Armageddon by Leon Uris

The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins

No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin – this is about FDR, and most of it is during WWII.

While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes

And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran (a French blind man who helped the resistance—autobiography)

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

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

The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

That’s all I could think of off the top of my head.