The Good War: Great Fiction About World War II
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Since the 1950s and early 1960s, World War II-set popular historical fiction has become a publishing staple and has just about become its own genre. Here are 74 representative novels (and 1 play), selected by a maverick lit. teacher and WWII buff. Some are major literary works. Others are well-done , large scale best- sellers. Still others are turgid melodramas filled with violence, sex, and controversy designed to boost sales. Many of the books here are thrillers, romances, and action/adventure stories; others are serious, smaller scale works, like " The Beardless Warriors" and "Beach Red", that were well done, well received, and are now unjustly forgotten. Finally, some are just unclassifiable. Fiction related to the Holocaust has been excluded; it deserves and requires a list of its own. The list is in no way meant to be definitive or comprehensive; as always, it is personal, subjective, and idiosyncratic.
avg. score: 4 of 75 (5%)
required scores: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
