World War II — in fiction and nonfiction
This week’s theme for Nonfiction November (hosted by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness and Leslie at Regular Rumination) is book pairing — match a nonfiction book with a fiction book. Check out the great pairings offered by other participants at Nonfiction November Week 3.
My favorite fiction read in 2013 was Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. With that book and the companion volume, Rose Under Fire, under my belt, I think I was better equipped to read Brave Genius by Sean B. Carroll.
Brave Genius proved to be a challenging book, but like most challenging books, it was also incredibly rewarding. One of the things that kept me going through the first half was that I learned so much about World War II from the French perspective. Since Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire were World War II novels with some of the action taking place in France, they gave me a good backdrop to understand what Albert Camus, Jacques Monod, and others in the French Resistance went through during the war.
Do you have other favorite World War II books, fiction or nonfiction, that I should be reading while I’m in this mode?
