Suburban Dad Has a Suburban Dad Question

June 9, 2023 1:59 PM

What's a good book about World War II written in the last 10-15 years?

As required by law, I went through a WWII phase back in my 30s and 40s. I read a lot of books, mostly about the ETO, a few about the PTO. I read most of the Stephen Ambrose books, read about Stalingrad, Pegasus Bridge, D-Day, Market Garden, pretty much all the well-known battles in Europe. I read Band of Brothers and a lot of adjacent stuff, including a few books by and about the various soldiers in E Company.

I haven't read much WWII since then and would like to read something new.

I'm mostly interested in books about smaller units or individual battles, rather than books about the war in general. I especially love the mundane day-to-day stuff a soldier might go through.

I'm more interested in the Army than the Navy. I'm not a boat guy. Land battles are more interesting than sea battles, though I'm interested in amphibious landings like D-Day. Books about aircraft crews are interesting as well.

Allied preferred. Non-fiction preferred but if it's a very compelling fictionalized book about a real battle, my ears and mind are open. ETO preferred over PTO. I like the drive across a continent rather than island hopping.

I'm not looking for war porn or gore, though I can handle some. I just want to read something interesting, perhaps about a lesser-known operation or battle.

Whadda ya got?

posted by bondcliff to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (19 answers total)

Need to add: Not interested in biographies of generals or anyone beyond maybe a squad leader. Although I am interested, this time around I'm not looking for stuff about WWII adjacent subjects like the atomic bomb or the Enigma. I've read a lot of that kind of thing already.
posted by bondcliff at 2:08 PM on June 9, 2023

Ian Kershaw's The End: Hitler's Germany 1944-1945 (2011) is an in-depth look at the last months of the war in Nazi Germany, including trying to answer the question of why the regime held out so long and why so many Germans continued to support it to the bitter end.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 2:10 PM on June 9, 2023

It's maybe bigger picture than you are looking for, but Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands is phenomenal. So is Resistance by Halik Kochanski, about the partisan warfare during WWII.

(Also, it's a totally different war, but I'd feel remiss not recommending Wesley Morgan's The Hardest Place about the US involvement in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan. I read it right after reading the above books, and it was very much of a piece.)
posted by Dip Flash at 2:12 PM on June 9, 2023

If you are curious about the espionage side, the two books I've read in recent years that might meat your criteria were about women in France:

Madame Fourcade's Secret War
A Woman of No Importance

The first book is about a French woman who led an organization that did reconnaissance and smuggled information out of France. The second is about an American woman (with one leg!) who worked for the British and was smuggled into France repeatedly.

I recommend both but preferred the first one. Both are solidly researched but the second one lends itself to the more sensationalist narrative which, I think, infects some of the claims about impact.
posted by mark k at 2:12 PM on June 9, 2023

Paul Fussell's last book, The Boys Crusade, is almost new enough for you.
posted by Rash at 2:13 PM on June 9, 2023

The Unwomanly Face of War by Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich, an oral history of the Soviet women who fought in WWII. It's an old book (orginally published in 1985) but it received a new English translation about six years ago which is the first unexpurgated version to be published.
posted by theory at 2:37 PM on June 9, 2023

Not quite in your age range but focussing on your other criteria, you might look for the Forgotten Voices series which are all made up of the spoken experiences of those soldiers and others who experienced war of different kinds, primarily in WW1 and WW2. There are a bunch of these now, covering different fronts and campaigns but also different types of operations. Largely from a UK and commonwealth perspective.
posted by biffa at 3:07 PM on June 9, 2023

2010's Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre, about the Allied invasion of Sicily.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:20 PM on June 9, 2023

You've read Antony Beevor's books, right? They're really well-written and factual. (Just avoid the audiobook for "D-Day." *shudder*)
posted by wenestvedt at 6:24 PM on June 9, 2023

Eric Bergerud wrote a book in maybe the 1990s called "Fire in the Sky" about air war in the PTO that might be new to you (since a lot of time was spent on the islands). He also wrote "Touched With Fire," about land warfare in the PTO, which is also good.

Charles McDonald's "Company Commander" isn't new, but it's very much into the one company.

And have you read Ernie Pyle's collected columns? There were I think three books of them, and they are really great, brief vignettes of various units. I love them: https://erniepyle.iu.edu/wartime-columns/index.html
posted by wenestvedt at 6:47 PM on June 9, 2023

It's just post-war but really worth reading if you haven't:
The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour
It gives a really good overview of the blockade, the politics and people involved.
posted by canine epigram at 9:32 PM on June 9, 2023

Was coming here to recommend Operation Mincemeat, which is fantastic and exactly what you're looking for, as well as other works by Ben Macintyre. Most of his books will fit your bill precisely, and his writing is great. In particular, check out SAS: Rogue Heroes (about the origin of special forces). If espionage appeals to you, he has several more, including Agent Zigzag and Double Cross.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 10:24 PM on June 9, 2023

Bomb Girls Britain's Secret Army: The Munitions Women of World War II [2021] by Jacky Hyams . . . is a series of memoirs captured from elderly women who had been born about 100 years ago which put them in their late teens, early 20s in 1940 when WWII suddenly got real. There was a recruiting drive for work in Royal Ordnance Factories ROFs making explosives & casings then filling the latter with the former; pay was 5x better than working in shops or service.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:52 PM on June 9, 2023

A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II

While it technically doesn't fit your guidelines - they're in the British navy - it's not about life on ship or sea battles or any of that.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:03 AM on June 10, 2023

It's probably bigger-picture than you want, but I strongly recommend The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food by Lizzie Collingham (2012). It traces how the belligerents' need to feed themselves and their allies influenced their strategies, and what effects that had on both civilians and for soldiers. The chapters on Japan, in particular, are quite eye-opening.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:05 AM on June 10, 2023

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson is about Churchill and the Battle of Britain. It's mostly politics but with some descriptions of bombing campaigns and air warfare. Larson is an excellent writer and it's an interesting view of the story.
posted by ovvl at 7:17 AM on June 10, 2023

The story in Game of Birds and Wolves was AWESOME.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:13 AM on June 11, 2023

There is a contemporary writer who is new to me named Peter Caddick-Adams, who has a number of recent books to his credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Caddick-Adams#Authorship Maybe hit the library and sample a book to see if you like him, or scroll through this excerpt on Google Books.

And on a different note, I listened to the audiobook of Giles Milton's "Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat" and loved it. I found out where the word "gubbins" comes from, for example, and the narrator's enthusiasm is crackling: he was audibly leaning forward in his chair the entire time he recorded the book.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:53 AM on June 12, 2023

P P O'Brien's How the War Was Won is interesting and controversial. For personalities and excitement, try The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.
posted by diodotos at 7:10 PM on June 16, 2023