12 Best World War 2 Books

It doesn’t matter where you are on the globe, World War II affected your history. This six-year conflict still has a lingering effect on life today for people around the world. 

Whether you’re well-read on the subject or just diving into what happened during those turbulent times, there’s always something new to be discovered. Possibly the best way to learn about World War II is through books that offer an insight into life at the time on every side. 

Here are 12 books, both fact and fiction, to pick up if you want to learn more about World War II. 

There’s no way I could even begin to think about this list without this being the first book on my mind. Perhaps more well-known from the TV adaptation spearheaded by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, Band of Brothers is the true story of Ambrose and his brothers in the 101st Airborne. Some books stay with you forever, and this is definitely one of those. It is always worth reading if you’re interested in the time period. 

As fictional as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is, it’s still a book that you’ll want to forget but be unable to, and it’s a haunting tale that will live rent-free in your mind for as long as you live. Bruno is the son of a Commandant, and he befriends a small Jewish boy named Shmuel. They talk through the fence of the concentration camp until Bruno decides to break in so that the boys can play together, a choice with utterly horrifying consequences.

If you want to learn what went wrong leading up to World War II, there is perhaps no better book to read than The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It is the most successful non-fiction work about the terrible times, and even sold well in Germany. Shirer based the book on captured Nazi documentation, the diaries of Joseph Goebbels and other high-ranking officials, and testimony from the Nuremberg trials. 

I can’t imagine the horrors experienced by 13-year-old Anne Frank while she hid with her family in an attic for two solid years. I can even less imagine having the brain power to document it in a diary. Since Anne died in 1945, her staggeringly honest Diary of a Young Girl has been published in over 70 languages and offers a rare and terrifying insight into the fear of living under Nazi occupation. 

This is a quintessentially British entry on this list, and I’m putting it here unashamedly because I think everyone should read it, or failing that, should watch Dad’s Army. Although The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard Training Manual is a fictional recreation, it is based on actual Home Guard Training Manuals, which were used by the men who remained on British soil and were trained to protect it in the seemingly inevitable German invasion. Plus, it’s funny, and by this point, we could all do with a laugh. 

With Oppenheimer being a 2023 blockbuster hit, the world is talking about the inventor of the first hydrogen bomb more than they have in decades, but there’s so much more to the man than could be shown in the three-hour movie. Ray Monk’s biography, A Life Inside the Center, is cited as the most thorough look into the life of the father of the atomic bomb and an honest account of how much he feared his own discovery and invention. 

A fictional tale, but another that will remain with you long after you’ve finished reading All the Light We Cannot See. A blind French girl takes refuge in her great-uncle’s house after Paris is invaded by Nazi Germany, briefly encountering a German radio operator during this time. 

They develop a connection through the radio waves, with chapters alternating between their points of view and running non-linearly. If that sounds a bit too complicated, there’s also a Netflix series adapted from the book that I thoroughly recommend. 

If non-linear timelines aren’t up your alley, then you can probably skip over Slaughterhouse-Five because there’s a lot of that going on here. However, if you can get past that and appreciate the story told out of order, including some (apparent) time travel and temporal (or mental) crises, then I can’t recommend Slaughterhouse-Five enough.

It centers on Billy, who suffered severe psychological trauma during World War II and therefore feels an utter lack of agency over his own life. It employs an unreliable narrator, which ultimately only acts to make Billy and his story all the more memorable. 

After Oppenheimer created the atomic bomb, the United States then promptly dropped it on Japan. It’s a shameful moment in history, and I believe that everybody should know what life was like in the days and weeks immediately following the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

While utterly horrifying, Hiroshima also offers a tale of determination and the human ability to survive, focusing on the stories of people who were nearby when the bombs dropped. If you’ve got a strong stomach and perhaps a box of tissues nearby, then you should read Hiroshima. 

In a previous life, I was lucky enough to help care for a former employee of Bletchley Park, the code-breaking epicenter of Great Britain during World War II, where the Enigma code was eventually broken. He was a phenomenal man, and he told me many great stories, but I always wanted to learn more.

Enter The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, filled with first-hand accounts from former employees, including a couple who worked in adjacent huts but were forbidden from knowing anything about what the other did. Endlessly interesting, and utterly humanizing. 

It’s a fact that World War II was mostly fought by the men on the frontlines, with women remaining at home to take care of things while their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers were away. There were, however, many women who performed much more central roles during World War II, and The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line retells just some of their stories. 

Hilda Eisen, captor (and two-time escapee) of the Nazis, who went on to fight with the Polish Resistance. Ola Rexroat, the single Native American pilot to serve with WASP, and Ida and Louise Cook, who smuggled Jews out of Germany, all feature alongside more inspirational women of the War. 

I’m not sure they could have come up with a longer title for this fascinating book, but it is completely fascinating nonetheless. During World War II, resources were scarce, but there was still a need to appear powerful to the enemy. Enter the ‘Ghost Army’, responsible for creating cardboard tanks, completely fabricated army bases, and even entire divisions that never really existed at all, but were real enough to scare the enemy. 

Everything they did was top secret and remained so for decades after 1944, but The Ghost Army of World War II features all the details and photos of their creations that littered the French countryside between Normandy and the Rhine.