Top Ten Favorite Books Set During World War II

This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for ten great books with the setting of our choice. I picked World War II, because I have always been drawn to those books and I feel like there are a wide variety of books set during that time period.

1) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – One of my favorites, this novel tells the story of a young German girl during the war. Oh, and did I mention it’s told from Death’s POV?

2) Maus by Art Spiegelman – This Pulitzer-prize-winning graphic novel is about the author’s father’s time in a concentration camp. Just incredible.

3) Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein – Women are not often the focal point of WWII stories, but this gem tells the gripping fictional story of a female pilot and spy.

4) Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys – Ever wonder what was happening in Lithuania during the war? This intense book is about the work camps in Siberia.

5) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller – Finding the humor in the direst of circumstances, Heller gives the soldier’s POV.

6) Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand – Plane crash, torture, shark attacks, a nonfiction account of soldiers who survive the unimaginable in the Pacific. 

7) Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli – The Warsaw ghetto shown through the eyes of a young orphaned boy.

8) The Reader by Bernard Schlink – There are very few books that focus on the German guards during the war. This slim book handles the subject in a very personal and delicate way.

9) City of Thieves by David Benioff and The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean – Both of these books deal with Russia during WWII. One focuses on a soldier’s time and the horrors he sees, the other is more about the famous Heritage museum and the people who lived there during the war.

10) Night by Elie Wiesel and The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank – Two real life accounts of the Holocaust and Jews living in hiding. They are essential for any WWII list.

Image from here. 

The Madonnas of Leningrad

The Madonnas of Leningrad

by Debra Dean

★★★☆

Marina works at the Hermitage in Leningrad during World War II. Her fiancé Dmitri leaves to fight at the front in the war, while Marina is trapped in the Russian city during the Siege of Leningrad. She and her aunt and uncle must move into the Hermitage (the art museum seen above) with dozens of others. They are all staving to death, trying only to survive.

The secondary plot deals with Dmitri and Marina’s adult daughter Helen and her struggle with her parents’ declining health. Marina has Alzheimer’s and as she looses her recent memories, those long buried memories from the war come to the surface. The combination of the war story and modern day disconnect between children and their parents works well. Immigrants who survived horrific events during the war don’t often want to rehash their heartbreak, but their children may not understand how their current actions have been formed by their past experiences if they never share them.

I felt like the book was a bit short. There are so many more details that could have been included. I loved learning about the real events that happened during the siege. It’s a fictional story, but the author did some excellent research. I had no idea about this whole part of WWII and I’m still curious about it.

BOTTOM LINE: A short but powerful story of the Siege of Leningrad. Read it if you are interested in learning more about WWII in Russia.

"Hunger has eaten away the veneer of civilization, and people are not themselves."

"Over the years, they have grown together, their flesh and their thoughts twining so closely that he cannot imagine the person he might be apart from her."