The Best Short WWII Books

Elie Wiesel · 1960 · 120 pages

At just 120 pages, Night is the most concentrated expression of the Holocaust's horror. Wiesel's loss of faith and the death of his father are its devastating core.

John Hersey · 1946 · 152 pages

Originally published as the entire contents of a single New Yorker issue, Hiroshima changed how America understood the bomb.

George MacDonald Fraser · 1992 · 225 pages

Possibly the finest infantry memoir of any theater — profane, funny, unsentimental, and written in the Cumbrian dialect of his section. The Forgotten War at ground level.

Viktor Frankl · 1946 · 184 pages

Part memoir, part psychological theory. Frankl's argument that humans can endure anything if they find purpose has sold some 16 million copies.

Władysław Szpilman · 1946 · 222 pages

Adapted into Roman Polanski's film. Szpilman's account is remarkable for its restraint — he records horror without self-pity.

Corrie ten Boom · 1971 · 241 pages

The rescuer's perspective on the Holocaust — and a testament of faith under persecution that has never been out of print.

Bill Mauldin · 1945 · 228 pages

Patton wanted Mauldin court-martialed for them; the infantry loved him for the same reason. The truest picture of the soldier's war ever drawn.

Lois Lowry · 1989 · 137 pages

The Newbery-winning introduction to the Holocaust for generations of children — built on the true story of Denmark saving almost its entire Jewish population.

David Benioff · 2008 · 258 pages

A dark picaresque through the starving city by the Game of Thrones showrunner. The most entertaining entry point to the siege ever written.

Walter Lord · 1957 · 243 pages

The original you-are-there battle narrative, written barely fifteen years after the attack from interviews with survivors of both sides.

C.S. Forester · 1955 · 256 pages

The Hornblower author's masterpiece of command under pressure — filmed by Tom Hanks as Greyhound. The entire Battle of the Atlantic in two days.

Judith Kerr · 1971 · 191 pages

Kerr's own childhood flight, gently told — the refugee experience for young readers, from the author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea.

Stephen Ambrose · 1985 · 198 pages

The perfect small battle book: one company, one bridge, one night, told from both ends of the bridge.

Ted Lawson · 1943 · 221 pages

Written and published while the war raged. The raid did little damage and changed everything — Japan's response led straight to Midway.

Holger Eckhertz · 2015 · 218 pages

A rare and fascinating collection of German perspectives on D-Day. The book claims to record soldiers' own accounts, but its authenticity has been questioned.

Pierre Boulle · 1952 · 224 pages

A dark fable of pride and collaboration on the Death Railway, by a writer who was himself a prisoner in Asia. The film softened it; the novel does not.

John Boyne · 2006 · 216 pages

One of the most read — and most criticised — Holocaust novels ever written. Historians object to nearly everything in it; eleven million readers met the subject here first. Read it, then read the survivors.