Here are 100 books that An Invisible Friendship fans have personally recommended if you like
An Invisible Friendship.
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The topic is essentially letters, in this book, letters written during the Second World War. My grandmother, my mother and aunt – and other aunts – all wrote voluminously to each other. They also kept diaries. Every day is recorded, often in duplicate. I have them all – an absolute treasure trove of firsthand history. I myself, from the age of 12, have had penfriends in large numbers. My mother and I both belonged to "correspondence magazines." Letters were central to our lives. I still write long, newsy emails as if they were letters, plus some actual sheets of paper with writing on, sent in an envelope…
I found this book of utter fascination. I read it twice.
The author’s character and reactions to the ravages of war resemble, to some extent, my aunt’s own behaviour. Stoicism, pragmatism, just getting on with it. Whether German or British, this generation of women had a strength and confidence that I breathlessly admire.
Whilst Berlin at the end of the war was very different from Manchester, there are definite shared experiences and thoughts.
For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. "With bald honesty and brutal lyricism" (Elle), the anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. "Spare and unpredictable, minutely observed and utterly free of self-pity" (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex relationship between civilians and an occupying army and…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
The topic is essentially letters, in this book, letters written during the Second World War. My grandmother, my mother and aunt – and other aunts – all wrote voluminously to each other. They also kept diaries. Every day is recorded, often in duplicate. I have them all – an absolute treasure trove of firsthand history. I myself, from the age of 12, have had penfriends in large numbers. My mother and I both belonged to "correspondence magazines." Letters were central to our lives. I still write long, newsy emails as if they were letters, plus some actual sheets of paper with writing on, sent in an envelope…
I had long wanted to read this book, and when I finally got around to it, I was absolutely immersed in it from start to finish.
The writing is magnificent, the subject grueling. Nobody in it is safe. It is an unflinching account, told from first-hand experience but fictionalized, of the realities of war at sea. I have read several other Monsarrats, and they are all brilliant.
This one fits best with my own quieter story of the women left behind. An additional detail makes it even more appropriate, because my Aunt Wendy knew Nicholas Monsarrat.
Based on the author's own vivid experiences, The Cruel Sea is the nail-biting story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys in World War Two.
Darting back and forth across the icy North Atlantic, Compass Rose played a deadly cat and mouse game with packs of German U-boats lying in wait beneath the ocean waves.
Packed with tension and vivid descriptions of agonizing U-boat hunts, this tale of the most bitter and chilling campaign of the war tells of ordinary, heroic men who had to face a brutal menace which would strike without warning…
The topic is essentially letters, in this book, letters written during the Second World War. My grandmother, my mother and aunt – and other aunts – all wrote voluminously to each other. They also kept diaries. Every day is recorded, often in duplicate. I have them all – an absolute treasure trove of firsthand history. I myself, from the age of 12, have had penfriends in large numbers. My mother and I both belonged to "correspondence magazines." Letters were central to our lives. I still write long, newsy emails as if they were letters, plus some actual sheets of paper with writing on, sent in an envelope…
This is a Persephone Books reissue, which was recommendation enough for me when I first ordered it.
That was before I began to write the family memoir series, and it worked as encouragement and inspiration. The story is all about women coping with the strains and challenges of World War II, using ingenuity and stoicism when everything changes so drastically.
It perfectly fits what I was then working on, and is a thoroughly enjoyable novel that should never have been forgotten. It has wit, insight, and romance.
Set in the exotic and romantic realm of international rare bookselling, this is a story about protecting the written word against a digital world threatening to destroy it.
Michael Ashe, a young Los Angeles bookseller, must confront the fact that his once-thriving business is collapsing. Reading is in decline. Refusing…
The topic is essentially letters, in this book, letters written during the Second World War. My grandmother, my mother and aunt – and other aunts – all wrote voluminously to each other. They also kept diaries. Every day is recorded, often in duplicate. I have them all – an absolute treasure trove of firsthand history. I myself, from the age of 12, have had penfriends in large numbers. My mother and I both belonged to "correspondence magazines." Letters were central to our lives. I still write long, newsy emails as if they were letters, plus some actual sheets of paper with writing on, sent in an envelope…
As a crime writer, I am always looking for fellow authors with a different approach to "whodunnit."
This book has echoes of "Foyle’s War" and the difficulty in taking one small murder seriously in the face of wholesale wartime slaughter. The research is deftly employed, and the story is satisfying.
When writing my own book, I was grateful for this additional angle, which linked to my other writing as well as adding background knowledge.
First published as Direct Hit Saturday 7th September, 1940. The sun is shining, and in the midst of the good weather Londoners could be mistaken for forgetting their country was at war - until the familiar wail of the air-raid sirens heralds an enemy attack. The Blitz has started, and normal life has abruptly ended - but crime has not. That night a man's body is discovered in an unmarked van in the back streets of West Ham. When Detective Inspector John Jago is called to the scene, he recognises the victim: local Justice of the Peace, Charles Villiers. The…
I’ve been heavily immersed in the fantasy and sci-fi world since the age of nine, across fiction novels, role-playing games, tabletop miniature gaming, and movies. My first love was fantasy, and that’s one of the reasons why the post-apocalyptic genre particularly appeals to me when it comes to sci-fi. It plays in that dark, gritty place between futuristic, sci-fi, technology, and dark-age style fantasy. In addition, I’ve always felt socially conscious and value writing that highlights themes that are relevant today. This is another place that the post-apocalyptic genre slides comfortably into. And, of course, there’s the zombies. Another fantasy element that works beautifully in post-apocalyptic, sci-fi settings.
I loved that this book took me back to my fantasy roots and is epic fantasy at its best.
The post-apocalyptic theme in this book is not obvious at first and is only really explained as the trilogy progresses. I love that Kelsea is nothing like a normal protagonist, perhaps a result of this mysterious and uncertain history. I found it authentic that she was inexperienced, lacking in confidence, and had to labour hard to mature and find her place and role in the story.
I loved the dark, sinister, and mysterious nature of the antagonist, the Red Queen. And I loved the setting, the kingdoms, the threat of war, the chivalry of knights, and the threat of assassins.
Kelsea Glynn is the sole heir to the throne of Tearling but has been raised in secret after her mother - a monarch as vain as she was foolish - was murdered for ruining her kingdom. For 18 years, the Tearling has been ruled by Kelsea's uncle in the role of Regent however he is but the debauched puppet of the Red Queen, the sorceress-tyrant of neighbouring realm of Mortmesme. On Kelsea's nineteenth birthday, the tattered remnants of her mother's guard - each pledged to defend the queen to the death - arrive to bring this most un-regal young woman…
I have a degree in history and political science, with a particular interest in military history—especially World War II history, and most especially Eastern Front history. My family has Polish roots, and my own stories tend to focus on the Polish and Ukrainian experiences, but I keenly feel the need for more YA books not only about the Eastern Front but about other, even lesser-known theaters of World War II.
Marina Scott’s The Hunger Between Us fills a curious gap in YA fiction about World War II: This is the only YA novel I’ve ever read that deals with the Siege of Leningrad.
But it’s not really about the Siege of Leningrad; it’s about a girl searching doggedly for her lost friend, refusing to give up hope in a city where hunger has turned neighbor against neighbor, father against daughter, and nobody can be trusted. A profoundly character-driven war novel.
In a city ruled by hunger, the black market is Liza's lifeline, where she sells or steals whatever she can get her hands on just for enough food to survive. Morality, after all, has become a fluid thing during the brutal year her city has been under siege. But when Liza's best friend proposes that they go to the secret police, rumored to give young women food in exchange for 'entertainment,' Liza thinks there surely must be some other way. Then her friend disappears, and Liza devises a plan to find her, entangling herself with two dangerous young men -…
I was born in New Zealand and now live half the year in London and the other half on the border of The French and Italian Riviera. I am fascinated by the history of the buildings and the color of the European lifestyle. I love to write novels about the past and how that past relates to scenarios of present day. I am keen to tell the untold stories of WW2 that are based on fact. Then weave them with embellishment from my own imagination.
My focus often wanes when I am reading a lot of historic facts, but this biography of the British titled Mountbatten couple is a riveting read. Whilst their public lives and public duties brought them accolades and respect, their private lives were totally outrageous, given the time and their close connections to the Queen of England. The book offers a wonderful descriptive prose and informative insight into life around the Royal family. Andrew Lownie is a thorough, brilliant researcher and this book definitely deserves its best-selling status.
'Richly entertaining... impressively well-researched' Daily Mail, Biography of the Year
The Sunday Times bestselling biography of the glamorous couple behind the modern royal family, the aunt and uncle of Prince Philip.
DICKIE MOUNTBATTEN: A major figure behind his nephew Philip's marriage to Queen Elizabeth II and instrumental in the Royal Family taking the Mountbatten name, he was Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia during World War II and the last Viceroy of India.
EDWINA MOUNTBATTEN: Once the richest woman in Britain and a playgirl who enjoyed numerous affairs, she emerged from World War II as a magnetic and talented…
I’ve always adored stories of courageous, sometimes outrageous women who forge aheadinto the unknown, survive in strange lands in troubled times, pursue their career dreams. Like my favourite picks, I’ve relished my own adventures in distant countries (Libya, Czechia, Kyrgystan, Mongolia…), while always earning my crust from writing. From motivational research in Dublin and London, I switched to financial journalism in Holland, where I met and was inspired by ground-breaking journalist Nel Slis whose story I’ve told in my book Hellcat of the Hague. Now I’m settled in London to concentrate on my novels and short stories and be near my family, I hope you love these books too.
Helen Marquard’s search for a piano teacher led her to Hedwig Stein who had fled Berlin in 1933 with her Russian Jewish husband, both concert pianists, to start again from nothing. A large, vivid woman, Hedwig freely shared her ideas on music, art, philosophy, literature. Later, Marquard discovered Hedwig had written a diary, and determined to bring us this story that would otherwise have been lost, enabling Hedwig and her husband to take their rightful place in the roll-call of émigrés who have contributed so much to UK cultural life. Hedwig put her husband’s career and her children first, yet she never gave up on her own career, which continued its own quiet flourishing after her husband’s sudden death.
Hedwig Stein was starting to make her mark as a concert pianist in Germany in the early 1930s when she fell in love with a Russian emigre pianist, Iso Elinson. He was half-Jewish, and quickly the pair knew they had little choice but to flee, despite vehement family opposition to that and to their proposed marriage. They chose England as their destination although neither had visited the country or spoke the language. They arrived with just twelve bags, a very small amount of money, a recommendation about Iso from Albert Einstein, and a few letters of introduction. Bit by bit,…
In 2013, I found a red suitcase under my mother’s guestroom bedroom filled with letters and radiograms. I shipped it home, combined its contents with her brother’s papers, and my family’s Pearl Harbor story emerged but questions remained. Seven years later, after a lot of research which included the books I’ve listed for your consideration, and the help of many people, I was able to answer the question of why Pearl Harbor was taken by surprise. I also unpacked my family’s story, long-buried for fear of prosecution. My book shows the civilian Pearl Harbor story as it weaves its way through the world of cryptology, spies, and 1941 radio technology.
Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision is the baseline for researchers interested in the story of early cryptology and why the surprise attack happened at Pearl Harbor. She reveals who knew what, when, and exposes the disasters reaped by hubris and uncoordinated intelligence often quoting original communiques and cables.
For decades the controversy has raged: Was the Pearl Harbor disaster a result of criminal negligence by military officers in the Pacific theater? Was it, as some have claimed, a deliberate plot by the President in Washington?
It seems unlikely that a country could have so many warnings pointing to the danger, and yet be so unprepared for the event itself. American intelligence could read top-secret Japanese codes and the U.S. was therefore in a posistion to transmit vital information to American commanders throughout the world. Most of the time Washington was able to predict both Japan's diplomatic moves…
NORVEL: An American Hero chronicles the remarkable life of Norvel Lee, a civil rights pioneer and Olympic athlete who challenged segregation in 1948 Virginia. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to working-class parents who valued education, Lee overcame Jim Crow laws and a speech impediment to achieve extraordinary success.
My family was divided by religion, leaving me skeptical about belief systems. After a background in science, I studied philosophy and became intrigued by Heidegger's ‘pitiless atheism.’ The power of his thought but his personal failings have long been an issue for academics. I have since been fascinated partly by powerful personalities but more by the struggle of their followers as they suspend critical thinking and make huge sacrifices to offer their support. This struggle and difficulty of turning back, particularly as the systems begin to collapse, are a feature of many of the works of fiction that intrigue me most, particularly in the books I have chosen.
The book offers a powerful evocation through snapshots of lives in South London through recent post-war history. Something that emerges almost without you noticing is how much they were all affected by the political and economic changes of the eighties and early nineties. There is no political polemic here, but even those who prosper from these changes suffer from them, possibly more than the others.
It presents recent history in which a way of life was changed forever without us realizing it, and we are still living with the consequences.
Named a Best Book of the Year by TheNew York Times, NPR, Slate, Lit Hub, Fresh Air, and more
From the critically acclaimed and award‑winning author of Golden Hill, an “extraordinary…symphonic…casually stunning” (The Wall Street Journal) novel tracing the infinite possibilities of five lives in the bustling neighborhoods of 20th-century London.
Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: the Woolworths on Bexford High Street in South London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages—after all, everything’s been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated.…
