Books like Six Weeks — picked by fans

It is very important to me to write about the home front in World War One with as much accuracy as is possible at over one hundred years’ distance. Kate Adie’s brilliant, readable, and engaging book is full of the kind of details a novelist thrives on.

Written with her authority and expert eye, I couldn’t put it down. It provided me with ideas and inspiration, along with Kate’s unique perspective and knowledge.

As I read, I felt I was in the hands of a reliable author whose take on the social and political context as it affected women during World War One was credible and true. It was an invaluable resource for me as I carried out my research.

I read this book to make sure that I captured the experiences of returning PoWs accurately, neither downplaying their suffering nor missing its essential elements.

John Lewis-Stempel’s superb book is full of diary entries and letters from British PoWs detailing their harsh, barren lives in prison camps. I knew little about this topic before reading and was shocked at the way privates were routinely used as slave labour while officers were often treated to a sit-down dinner by their captors.

The passages covering the return of veterans from the PoW camps were particularly moving, as I learned that many of the soldiers who survived until victory was declared were too ill to make it home and died in the camps, in hospital, or en route.

The book was invaluable for my research.

I wanted to read an authoritative book about the social, political, and historical context on the home front during World War One. I settled on this book by a senior historian at The Imperial War Museum to learn about the challenges facing civilians from an academic, learned perspective.

I enjoyed its wide lens as it focused on rationing, zeppelin bombing raids, the changing role of women, and government propaganda. I appreciated its facts and figures and while I would have welcomed more of the author’s thoughts or personality appearing on the page every now and then, I gained so much from reading it that I am including it here.

I love this book.

I bought it from the bookshop at Hedd Wyn’s Eryri/Snowdonia museum-home Yr Ysgwrn, and I have returned to the poems and beautiful photos in it many times.

The poems are presented in Cymraeg and English, alongside evocative imagery of the area where Hedd Wyn lived. It’s a collection of poems that I find haunting, beautiful and simple, made all the sadder for the fact that Hedd Wyn, an established poet who had won several poetry awards, died within the first two hours of his first battle in July 1917 but went on to posthumously win the Black Chair at the National Eisteddfod that Autumn.

Truly moving and exquisite poetry and images.

Johns wrote nearly 100 Biggles books, with this one published amongst the first in 1932. He actually fought in WW1 as a pilot, then was shot down, and became a prisoner of war. So he certainly knows whereof he speaks, and this carries through in his descriptions of fighting in the air and the loss of friends. Nevertheless, this book is essentially light-hearted despite its moments of pathos, being aimed primarily at what would be called today “young adults.” I loved them as a boy and love them today as an adult. The plot and characters are not complex, but if you want to be entertained while finding out how a pilot who fought in the conflict approached WW1 flying, this is an excellent and enjoyable read by someone who was there.

I was fascinated by A.J. Evans’s 1922 memoir, relating his experiences as a WWI Royal Flying Corps pilot working for Army Intelligence before his plane went down and he was captured by the enemy. His words illuminated for me the hardships he faced as a POW, and all of the energy and genius he put into planning his numerous escape attempts – and nearly succeeded. With each failed attempt, the enemy moved him to a different camp, until finally he did gain his freedom in an incredible feat of human strength. Evans’s story was as valuable as it was entertaining and offered me a personal look at his life behind the barbed wire.

World War I caused 20 million deaths and left 21 million wounded.

Soldiers who survived the gas attacks and trench warfare often returned to societies eager to forget the atrocities of the conflict and move on. Remarque’s insightfully written novel details the struggles of three German soldiers who return home only to discover that they may have no place in a nation that has learned almost nothing from what they regard as a senseless and immoral war.

In May of 1933, this novel and the rest of Remarque's writing were declared “unpatriotic” by the Nazi dictatorship and all his novels were banned.

This is the first novel I read about grieving families who commissioned photographers to search for the place where their loved one died, in order that a photo could be taken for them to have as a keepsake.

I love learning something new when I read a book and I discovered so much about the after-effects of losing someone without having knowledge of their last moments and a place to pay one’s respects. 

This is about Edie, a widow wanting answers about her husband who she believes might still be alive, despite being classed as ‘missing, presumed dead’ in 1917. She commissions her late husband’s brother to search for him and photograph his final resting place, if indeed there is one.

A wonderful, haunting story of enduring love and loss.

The late historian, Thomas Fleming, was a friend. It was an article he wrote for American Heritage magazine in 1968, “Two Argonnes,” about his father, a lieutenant in the 78th Division, that inspired me to write my first World War I book centered on my great uncle as the main character.

Thomas authored 19 books, The Illusion of Victory, is his last book, and he paints a different picture of America’s role in the war, showing how President Wilson and our country were “duped” by Great Britain and France to enter the war, thinking the war was almost won. He not only writes about the Western Front but goes into detail about the home front. After reading his book, you’ll get a different perspective on World War I.

In 2020, to honor one of our most imminent historians, Military History Quarterly magazine inaugurated the annual Thomas Fleming Award for… show more.

The most influential spy novelist of them all, John Buchan, had the Germans planning to disable the British army with anthrax germs. While an admittedly small part of all the various plots in the complex novel, Buchan’s Richard Hannay touched all the bases in the five books in which he starred. For another example, in 1924 The Three Hostages, international demigods stirred up trouble with brainwashing and hypnotism. This device was a popular weapon employed by the likes of Fu Manchu.