Why am I passionate about this?

I read my first book on WWII when I was 8 years old. It was about the Battle of Britain and I’ve never looked back. I began specializing in 20th Century Canadian military history in very literally all its facets. Discussing the war with hundreds of Canadian veterans over the last half century has been immensely inspirational to me. I’ve obtained a Ph.D. in Canadian military history from McGill University, visited Canadian battlefields in Europe at least 15 times, worked as the WWII historian at the Canadian War Museum, and have published on many aspects of Canadian military history. For more than 30 years I have been able to teach these subjects to students.


I wrote

Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec

By Serge Durflinger,

Book cover of Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec

What is my book about?

How did the Second World War affect ordinary Canadians on the home front? Based on extensive research into local sources,…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Arms, Men, and Governments: The War Policies of Canada 1939-1945

Serge Durflinger Why did I love this book?

This is a book of unparalleled scholarship by Canada’s finest military historian of all time.

Stacey’s magisterial, wide-ranging, immensely insightful, deeply researched, and engagingly written masterpiece illuminates those many policies and personalities that governed Canada’s tremendous war effort during the Second World War. It is literally one-stop shopping for understanding Canada’s wartime political intricacies (and intrigues!), diplomatic manoeuvring, and industrial and military mobilization.

No stone is left unturned, and Arms, Men, and Governments is, and will remain, unequalled. It has greatly influenced my understanding of this pivotal moment in Canadian military history, and I refer to it constantly in my research and teaching.

Book cover of Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy

Serge Durflinger Why did I love this book?

Terry Copp is one of Canada’s foremost military historians and his towering knowledge is on full display in this brilliant study of Canada’s role in the 1944 Normandy Campaign. Copp interviewed dozens of veterans and visited Normandy some 20 times to walk the ground and see the unfolding of the battle through the men’s eyes.

Fields of Fire redresses an imbalance in our understanding of Canada’s battlefield performance in Normandy that several leading international and some Canadian scholars feel was underwhelming. But not Copp.

He minutely and compellingly re-examines and convincingly contextualizes Canadian generalship, the terrain over which the men fought, the nature of German defences, Canadian casualties of 18,000 in just ten weeks, including psychological casualties due to battle exhaustion, and other factors that oblige us to assess the Canadians’ performance more positively.

He is palpably proud of these men’s achievements and deeply sensitive to the cruel fates of so many. So am I, thanks in part to this book.

By Terry Copp,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fields of Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Fields of Fire offers a stunning reversal of accepted military history. Terry Copp challenges and refutes the conventional view that the Canadian contribution to the Battle of Normandy was a 'failure': that the allies won only through the use of 'brute force,' and that the Canadian soldiers and commanding officers were essentially incompetent. His detailed and impeccably researched analysis of what actually happened on the battlefield portrays a flexible, innovative army that made a major, and successful, contribution to the defeat of the German forces in just seventy-six days. Challenging both existing interpretations of the campaign and current approaches to…


Book cover of U-boats Against Canada: German Submarines in Canadian Waters

Serge Durflinger Why did I love this book?

How many Canadians knew of the Second World War German submarine campaign against our east coast and even the inshore waters of the St. Lawrence River?

Michael Hadley delivers this fascinating story in a richly detailed book based in masses of Canadian and German sources. German U-boats sank more than 20 merchant and naval vessels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in the river without loss to themselves and also landed spies and erected an automated weather station in Labrador.

Some of these sinkings were within sight of land and one vessel, the small ferry Caribou, was sunk with heavy loss of civilian life. Hadley’s well-illustrated, authoritative book takes you from the U-boat attacks to the Canadian military responses to the political and social consequences of unpreparedness. It’s a reminder that Canada, too, was a battlefront.

By Michael L. Hadley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked U-boats Against Canada as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The U-boats constituted a serious threat to North American security and a major challenge to coastal and convoy defence. Hadley reveals the military and political impact on Canada of in-shore submarine warfare and vibrantly documents the successful German strategy of deploying daring long-range solo sorties to pin down the enemy close to home.


Book cover of North Atlantic Run: The Royal Canadian Navy and the Battle for the Convoys

Serge Durflinger Why did I love this book?

North Atlantic Run was the first hard assessment of the Royal Canadian Navy’s campaign in the North Atlantic shepherding supply convoys to Britain.

Milner’s understanding of the naval war and Canadian naval policy is unsurpassed. His descriptions of Canada’s corvettes and destroyers going to sea with hastily trained crews and often inferior technology help us realize just how hard the men’s tasks were in the face of experienced U-boat crews.

The navy was stretched very thinly, and it is sobering that many convoys under Canadian protection suffered grievous losses in the desperate years 1942-43 when compared to those escorted primarily by British forces that benefitted from the latest submarine detection equipment. But the tide turned in 1943 and the Canadians played a massive role in ensuring that it stayed that way until war’s end.

By Marc Milner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked North Atlantic Run as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

At the height of The Battle of the Atlantic, half of the Allied convoy escorts on the main trade routes were Canadian, but history has largely ignores their contribution and their bitter sacrifices of their struggle against U-boat attacks in 1942 and 1943.

In North Atlantic Run, noted military historian Marc Milner tells the story of this drama at sea, detailing the dynamic role played by Canada and The Royal Canadian Navy in the battle for the convoys.


Book cover of Turvey: A Military Picaresque

Serge Durflinger Why did I love this book?

I have read this hilarious and sometimes poignant novel several times over the years, and it is the only work of fiction in my selection.

The great poet and exquisite writer Earle Birney served overseas during the Second World War and later created the character of the hapless Private Thomas Leadbeater Turvey whose less-than-stellar military career sees him getting into all manner of trouble, much of it relatable.

We follow Turvey’s escapades from Canada to Britain to the gruelling Normandy Campaign in 1944 and the liberation of France and the Low Countries. Through Turvey’s eyes we observe the absurdities of war, the frailness of human nature, and the need to get on with the business of killing. And living.

By Earle Birney,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Turvey as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Birney, Earle


Explore my book 😀

Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec

By Serge Durflinger,

Book cover of Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec

What is my book about?

How did the Second World War affect ordinary Canadians on the home front? Based on extensive research into local sources, Fighting from Home carefully and fully reconstructs wartime life in Verdun, Quebec. This generally working-class, mixed-language city of 67,000 (58 percent English speaking) was a microcosm of Canada and the book allows a deep dive into Canada’s domestic war experience at all levels. Verdunites’ powerful civic identity and their vibrant patriotism help explain the city’s enormous enlistment rate. The desire to support their townspeople on active service shaped all Verdun citizens’ responses to the war. Still, many families dealt with wartime anxiety and the crushing tragedy of losing a husband, son, or daughter. More positively, the war galvanized the community across language and class lines and proved economically transformative.

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The Stark Beauty of Last Things

By Céline Keating,

Book cover of The Stark Beauty of Last Things

Céline Keating Author Of The Stark Beauty of Last Things

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Novelist Environmentalist Beachcomber Classical guitar player

Céline's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

This book is set in Montauk, under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montauk’s last parcel of undeveloped land. Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who are struggling to hold onto their property against pressure to sell. When Clancy…

The Stark Beauty of Last Things

By Céline Keating,

What is this book about?

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Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who…


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