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.

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 over 16.

Władysław Szpilman · 1946 · 222 pages

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

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. These soldiers describe the terror of the bombardment and the.

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.