Check It Out: Reading up on the Greatest Generation

Nonfiction audiobooks offer compelling and listenable narratives on a variety of subjects. The following selections are true stories from World War II, from the beginnings of the Third Reich to D-Day, the Pacific and the end of the war. Some focus on individuals or specific groups, and some have a much larger scope.

“In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” by Erik Larson. Events take place before the start of war, but the book offers a look into the beginnings of the Nazi regime. America’s ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, and his family in 1930s Berlin see an increasingly scary world developing around them, with persecutions, book burnings, the Gestapo and ultimately the Night of the Long Knives.

“Band of Brothers” by Stephen E. Ambrose. This audiobook is an abridged version of the book. It seems especially short if you’ve seen the miniseries or read the book. While it doesn’t go into as much detail about the individuals in E Company, it’s still an amazing story. Members of “Easy” Company, created in 1942, were paratroopers who fought in major battles at the end of WWII. They were key players in D-Day, Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge, and occupied Berchtesgaden at the end of the war.

“The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II” by Judith M. Heimann. When an American bomber is shot down over the jungles of Borneo, several survivors end up living among the Dayak tribe, who in turn take great risks to help the American airmen. The tribe also returns to previously banned headhunting ways to fight the Japanese. It’s an interesting look into the culture of the Borneo natives as well as a true adventure story culminating in an airstrip built out of bamboo in the middle of rice paddies.

“Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” by Laura Hillenbrand. Louis Zamperini grew up in Torrance, competed at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and served as a bombardier aboard B-24 Liberators in the Pacific theater. He survived a plane crash and over a month in an open raft at sea, starving and surrounded by sharks, only to be captured and held as a prisoner of war. This well-told story packs a real emotional punch, and is coming out as a major motion picture this Christmas.

“An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943,” “The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944” and “The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945” are the three volumes in the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson. This trilogy offers a very detailed account of the American side of the campaigns to liberate Europe. Each audiobook is 20-plus discs long; combined, they equal 77 discs. The audiobooks tell the big-picture stories of the campaigns, the political situations and the evolution of the U.S. Army as well as focusing on details about the lives of the generals and the soldiers involved, including selections from soldiers’ diaries and letters.

“The Envoy: The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II” by Alex Kershaw. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, working in Budapest, saved thousands of Jews from Auschwitz, and also saved lives within the city. There are horrifying scenes describing what the Jews endured under the Nazis, then Hungarian fascist party Arrow Cross, and then the Red Army. The stories of a few Hungarian Jewish families are woven within the larger story. There are regular people who show incredible strength and bravery here.

“Bomb: The Race to Build — and Steal — the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon” by Steve Sheinkin. This is a science and history book written for teens and older kids. It tells how fission was discovered, about Fermi and the first chain reaction pile, about Oppenheimer and Los Alamos and the race against the Germans to develop the first atomic bomb. Even with the high level of secrecy at Los Alamos, there were spies who did sell the science of the bomb to the Soviets. The main players in this book are scientists, some of whom really struggled with the morality of building such a destructive weapon.

CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library. All titles may be reserved from home or office computers by accessing the catalog at https://www.newportbeachlibrary.org. For more information on the Central Library or any of the branches, please contact the Newport Beach Public Library at (949) 717-3800, option 2.