Recommended Reading: WWI

This is a list of the WWI books we own or have come across in our travels.   We are continually adding to this page.  If you’d like us to add a book, please e-mail us at warthroughgenerations AT gmail DOT com. Thanks!  (**We are constantly adding to this page**)

Most of these books are listed because the WWI is mentioned in the description.  Obviously, we haven’t read all of these, so if you read one and discover that the WWI is not a primary or secondary theme, please e-mail us and let us know so we can take it off the list.  Thanks!

FTC Disclosure:  Links will take you to an Amazon Affiliate page; No purchase is required, though appreciated to cover postage and shipping costs of challenge prizes.

A

The Absolutist by John Boyne

The African Queen by C. S. Forester

After the Armistice Ball by Catriona McPherson

After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski

After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson

Alfred & Emily by Doris Lessing

Aiding the Enemy by Julie Rowe

All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Ambassador’s Daughter by Pam Jenoff

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

Ancasta, Guide Me Swiftly Home by Diana Jackson

And the Soldiers Sang by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Gary Kelley

Angels in the Gloom by Anne Perry

Another World by Pat Barker

Archie’s War: My Scrapbook of the First World War by Marcia Williams

Artillery in the Great War by Paul Strong and Sanders Marble

The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World by Greg King with Sue Woolmans

At Some Disputed Barricade by Anne Perry

August 1914 by Alexandr Solzhenitsin

B

Back to the Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I by Stephen O’Shea

The Backwash of War The Classic Account of a First World War Field-Hospital By Ellen N. La Motte

Bad Characters – Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder in the Australian Imperial Force by Peter Stanley

The Balkans, Italy & Africa 1914-1918 by David Jordan

The Battle for Flanders by Chris Baker

The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel by Dale Blair

The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, translated by Peter Graves

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

Beneath Hill 60 by Will Davies

Bereft by Chris Womersley

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

The Best of Daughters by Dilly Court

Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace

Betsy’s Wedding by Maud Hart Lovelace

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

Birdsong by Sebastion Faulks

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres

A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd

The Blasphemer by Nigel Farnsdale

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 by Sally M. Walker

Blood and Iron by Hugh Montagu Butterwerth

Blow on a Dead Man’s Embers by Mari Strachan

Bonds of Earth by G.N. Chevalier

The Bonus by Georgia Lowe

The Bowmen by Arthur Machen-Machen

Britannia’s Daughters by Ursula Stuart Mason

Broken Music by Marjorie Eccles

The Broken Years by Bill Gammage

Brothers Far From Home: The World War I Diary of Eliza Bates, Uxbridge, Ontario 1916 (Dear Canada) by Jean Little

C

Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915-1918 by John Macdonald and Zeljko Cimpric

The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

Carnage: The German Front in World War One by Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell

The Cartographer of No Man’s Land by P.S. Duffy

The Case of Sergeant Grischa by Arnold Zweig

Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie

A Century of November by WD Wetherell

Cher Ami: WWI Homing Pigeon by Joeming Dunn and Ben Dunn

Certainty by Victor Bevine

Chronicle of Youth by Vera Brittain

Clerambault by Romain Rolland

Cold Comfort by Charles Todd

A Cold Treachery by Charles Todd

Collision of Empires: The War on the Eastern Front in 1914 by Prit Buttar

The Confession by Charles Todd

The Conjurer’s Boy by Michael Raleigh

The Crimson Rooms by Katharine McMahon

Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

D

Dance The Moon Down by Robert L. Bartram

Day of the Assassins (Jack Christie #1) by Johnny O’Brien

The Day the Red Baron Died by Dale Milton Titler

Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington

Dere Mable: Love Letters of a Rookie by Edward Streeter

A Diary Without Dates by Enid Bagnold

The Double Traitor by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie

Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd

E

The Eastern Front 1914-1920 by Michael S. Neiberg and David Jordan

Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear

The End of Innocence by Allegra Jordon

The Englishman’s Daughter: A True Story of Love and Betrayal in World War I by Ben Macintyre

The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings

Eunice Fleet by Lily Tobias

Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? by David Fromkin

The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker

Eyes Like Willy’s by Juanita Havill

F

The Faces of World War I by Max Arthur

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

In Falling Snow by Mary-Rose MacColl

A False Mirror by Charles Todd

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Fear – La Peur by Gabriel Chevallier

A Fearsome Doubt by Charles Todd

Fifteen Rounds a Minute: The Grenadiers at War, August to December 1914 edited from the diaries of Major ‘Ma’ Jeffreys and others by Michael Craster

The First World War by John Keegan

The First World War by Michael Howard

Flanders by Patricia Anthony

5516606::Company K by William March

Flight Without End by Joseph Roth

Fly Away Peter by David Malouf

Fly, Cher Ami, Fly!: The Pigeon Who Saved the Lost Battalion by Robert Burleigh

The Forbidden Zone by Mary Borden

Forgotten Voices of the Great War by Max Arthur

The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgewick

Fort Vaux: Battleground Verdun by Christina Holstein

Fritz:  The World War I Memoirs of a German Lieutenant by Fritz Nagel

Fromelles 1916 by Michael Senior

G

Gallipoli & The Middle East 1914-1918 by Edward J. Erickson

The Gendarme by Mark T. Mustian

The General by C.S. Forester

Generals Die in Bed by Charles Yale Harrison

The George and the Crown by Sheila Kaye-Smith

George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I by Miranda Carter

German Assault Troops of World War I by Thomas Wictor

The Germans in Flanders 1914-1915 by David Bilton

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

The Girl on the Cliff by Lucinda Riley

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

The Great War 100:  The First World War in Infographics by Scott Addington

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves

The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek and Cecil Parrott

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry

The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age by Juliet Nicolson

The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussel

The Great War: Perspectives on the First World War edited by Robert Cowley

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

H

Haking:  A Dutiful Soldier by Michael Senior

A Hand for Each: Three Short Stories by J. Kathleen Cheney

The Harlem Hellfighters by Walter Dean Myers and Bill Miles

The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks

Harvard 1914: A War Romance by Allegra Jordon

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

The Head Girl at the Gables by Angela Brazil

Her Privates We by Frederic Manning

Hill 60: Ypres by Nigel Cave

Holding the Line by Sergeant Harold Baldwin

Home by Morning by Alexis Harrington

Horsemen in No Man’s Land by David Kenyon

The Horse’s Mouth: Staging Morpurgo’s War Horse by Mervyn Millar

How Many Miles to Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston

The Hunters and the Hunted: The Elimination of German Surface Warships Around the World 1914-1915 by Bryan Perrett

Hunting Shadows by Charles Todd

I

An Ice Cream War by William Boyd

If You’re Reading This…:  Last Letters From the Front Line by Siân Price

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd

An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear

Intimate Voices from the First World War by Svetlana Palmer and Sarah Wallis

Into the Silence by Wade Davis

The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein

It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi

J

Jack of Spies by David Downing

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Journey’s End by R C Sheriff

July Crisis: The World’s Descent into War, Summer 1914 by Thomas Otte

Justice Hall by Laurie R. King

K

Kipling’s Choice by Geert Spillebeen

Knit Your Bit: A World War I Story by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Steven Guarnaccia

L

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by The Countess of Carnarvon

Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth

The Last of the Ebb by Sidney Rogerson

Last Post by Ford Madox Ford

The Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn

Legacy of the Dead by Charles Todd

A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Letters from the Front by J. Gresham Machen

Letters from a Lost Generation edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge

Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

The Lie by Helen Dunmore

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Life in the Tomb by Strates Myriveles and Peter Bien

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce, Portland, Maine 1918 (Dear America) by Lois Lowry

Little England by Sheila Kaye-Smith

Lone Hawk: The Story of Air Ace Billy Bishop by John Lang

A Lonely Death by Charles Todd

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry

A Long Shadow by Charles Todd

Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Iain Lawrence

The Lost History of 1914: Reconsidering the Year the Great War Began by Jack Beatty

Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy by Diana Preston

M

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear

A Man Could Stand Up by Ford Madox Ford

The March on Paris: The Memoirs of Alexander von Kluck, 1914-1918 by Alexander von Kluck

A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon

Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Spear

The Middle Parts of Fortune by Frederic Manning

Miracle at Belleau Wood: The Birth of the Modern U.S. Marine Corps by Alan Axelrod

The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer

Mr. Darcy’s Angel of Mercy by Mary Lydon Simonsen

The Month that Changed the World July 1914 by Gordon Martel

The Moonlight Mistress by Victoria Janssen

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Mopping Up! Through the Eyes of Bobbie Burns Regimental Mascot by Jack Munroe

My Brother’s Shadow by Monica Schroder

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young

N

Naval Warfare 1914-1918 by Tim Benbow

Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty by Robert K. Massie

1918: Year of Victory by Malcolm Brown

No Graves as Yet by Anne Perry

No More Parades by Ford Madox Ford

Not So Quiet by Helen Zenna Smith

November 1916 by Alexandr Solzhenitsin

Nuncio and the Gypsy Girl by Kristin Alexandre and illustrated by Tom Loepp

Nurses at the Front: Writing the Wounds of the Great War edited by Margaret R. Higonnet

O

Old Soldiers Never Die by Frank Richards

One Man’s Initiation: 1917 by John Dos Passos

One of Ours by Willa Cather

Other Kingdoms by Richard Matheson

Overseas by Beatriz Williams

The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War by Hew Strachan

P

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

A Pale Horse by Charles Todd

Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford

A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

In Parenthesis by David Jones

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan

Passchendaele by Philip Warner

A Passionate Prodigality by Guy Chapman

The Passing Bells by Phillip Rock

Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb

The Patriot’s Progress by Henry Williamson

A Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin

The Penguin Anthology of First World War Stories edited by Barbara Korte and Ann-Marie Einhaus

The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry edited by George Walter

The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry edited by Jon Silkin

The Penguin Book of First World War Prose edited by Jon Silkin

People Who Say Goodbye by P.Y. Betts

The Perfect Summer by Juliet Nicolson

Petrograd by Philip Gelatti with art from Tyler Crook

The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson

The Platoon: An Infantryman on the Western Front 1916-1918 by Joseph Steward, edited by Andrew Robertshaw and Steve Roberts

The Poisonous Cloud by L.F. Haber

The Poppy Factory by Liz Trenow

The Poppy Lady by Barbara Walsh

Primary Source Accounts of World War I by Glenn Sherer and Marty Fletcher

Prisoners in the Promised Land:  The Ukranian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk, Spirit Lake, Quebec, 1914 by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Private 12768: Memoir of a Tommy by John Jackson

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

Promise Me This by Cathy Gohlke

The Proud Tower: A portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman
Q

A Question of Honor by Charles Todd

R

Random Harvest by James Hilton

The Ravi Lancers by John Masters

The Red Dancer by Richard Skinner

The Red Door by Charles Todd

Regeneration by Pat Barker

Remember the Lusitania! by Diana Preston

Retreat and Rearguard 1914: The BEF’s Actions From Mons to the Marne by Jerry Murland

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

Rheinsberg: A Storybook for Lovers by Kurt Tucholsky

The Riddles of Wipers by John Ivelaw-Chapman

Rilla of Ingleside by L.M Montgomery

Rivka’s War by Marilyn Oser

A Rose for the ANZAC Boys by Jackie French

The Roses of No Man’s Land by Lyn Macdonald

Rutherford Park by Elizabeth Cooke

S

Sagittarius Rising by Cecil Lewis

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

The Sardinian Brigade by Emilio Lussu

Sea Warfare by Rudyard Kipling

Search the Dark by Charles Todd

The Secret Battle by A.P. Herbert

The Secret Life of Violet Grant by Beatriz Williams

September Evening: The Life and Final Combat of the German World War One Ace Werner Voss by Barry Diggens

Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence

Shadows Walking by Douglas Skopp

The Shell House by Linda Newbery

Sherston’s Progress by Siegfried Sassoon

The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani

Shot at Dawn: World War I, Allan McBride, France, 1917 by John Wilson

Shoulder the Sky by Anne Perry

Siberian Prison by E.V. Enzmann

Silent Night by Stanley Weintraub

Silver Threads by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, illustrated by Michael Martchenko

Singled Out:  How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War by Virginia Nicholson

Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History by Jay Winter

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark

The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak

Soldier Dog by Sam Angus

The Soldier’s Song by Alan Monaghan

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin

Some Desperate Glory The First World War the Poets Knew by Max Egremont

Some Do Not by Ford Madox Ford

Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson

Somme by Lyn Macdonald

The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War by Martin Gilbert

Somme Mud by E.P.F. Lynch

The Somme Stations by Andrew Martin

Stalemate! by J.H. Johnson

A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith

Stay Where You Are & Then Leave by John Boyne

The Steady Running of the Hour by Justin Go

Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

Stolen Air by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Christian Wiman

Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger

The Storms of War by Kate Williams

Strange Meeting by Susan Hill

Strangers in a Strange Land by Michael Amara

Sulva: August Offensive — Gallipoli by Stephen Chambers

The Summer of Katya by Trevanian

The Sweetest Dark by Shana Abé

T

Ten Years and Twenty Days: Memoirs by Karl Doenitz

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

A Test of Wills by Charles Todd

They Shall Not Pass: The French Army on the Western Front 1914-1918 by Ian Sumner

Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos

Through the Wheat by Thomas Boyd

A Time of Angels by Karen Hesse

To Arras, 1917 by Walter Reid

Toby’s Room by Pat Barker

To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild

To the Last Man by Jeff Shaara

To the Slaughterhouse by Jean Giono

Top Secret Files of History: Spies, Secret Missions & Hidden Facts from World War I by Stephanie Bearce

Toward the Flame by Hervey Allen

Trench Art by Nicholas J. Saunders

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting by Jim Murphy

U

Under the Devil’s Eye by Alan Wakefield and Simon Moody

Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden

Under Fire by Henri Barbusse

The Underground War by Phillip Robinson and Nigel Cave

An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd

Unravelled by M.K. Tod

Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I by Ann Bausum

V

Valour in the Trenches: ‘Bombo’ Pollard VC MC DCM HAC in the Great War by N.S. Nash

A Very Long Engagement by Sébastien Japrisot

W

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

Wake by Anna Hope

Walking the Somme by Paul Reed

The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd

The War to End All Wars:  World War I by Russell Freedman

The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan

War Game: Village Green to No-Man’s Land by Michael Foreman

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

The Wars by Timothy Findley

War Surgery 1914-1918 edited by Thomas Scotland and Steven Heys

War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America by Beth Linker

The War Workers by E.M. Delafield

Watchers of Time by Charles Todd

We Shall Not Sleep by Anne Perry

We That Were Young by Irene Rathbone

The Western Front 1914-1916 by Michael S. Neiberg

The Western Front 1917-1918 by Andrew Wiest

When Christmas Comes Again: The World War I Diary of Simone Spencer, New York City to the Western Front, 1917 by Beth Seidel Levine

Why Did the Whole World Go to War by Martin W. Sandler

The Wild Dark Flowers by Elizabeth Cooke

The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

William: An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton

William Orpen, An Onlooker in France: A Critical Edition of the Artist’s War Memoirs by Robert Upstone and Angela Weight

Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh by Sally M. Walker, illustrated by Jonathan D. Voss

Winnie’s War by Jennie Moss

The Winter of the World by Carol Ann Lee

The Winter of the World: The Definitive Collection of World War I Poetry by Dominic Hibberd and John Onions

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse

Wipers: A Soldier’s Tale from the Great War by Jeff Simmons

Without Warning: Ellen’s Story, 1914-1918 by Dennis Hamley

Women Heroes of World War I: 16 Remarkable Resisters, Soldiers, Spies and Medics by Kathryn J. Atwood

Woodrow Wilson: A Biography by John Milton Cooper Jr.

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918 by G.J. Meyer

World War I and The American Novel by Stanley Cooperman

World War I for Kids: A History with 21 Activities by R. Kent Rasmussen

World War I: Scottish Tales of Adventure by Allan Burnett

World War One: History in an Hour by Rupert Colley

X

Y

The Yanks Are Starving by Glen Craney

The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey

Yesterday’s Dead by Pat Bourke

Z

The Zimmerman Telegram by Barbara Tuchman

Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore

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