83 books like A God in Ruins

This was one of the first books I read showing how, in 1939, no one knew how to fight a major air war. I didn’t know that meant the first year of World War II would be a series of bloody, deadly experiments.

This book brings out this uncertainty and the often-fatal consequences for a squadron of RAF pilots flying Hawker Hurricanes in defense of France. I’ve always loved the Hurricane, and wondered what it would be like to fly for the RAF in that time and place, to sit in the cockpit of a Hawker Hurricane, and be both hunter and hunted.

This book let me live the story, as much as any story can.

These are five books about one English family over the course of World War Two and beyond. I read the whole series over the course of one glorious summer! There is a large cast of characters, yet each one is perfectly drawn by Howard, so much so that I still feel that all of them are people I once knew well, rather than imaginary constructs. It was fascinating to see how different each family member’s experience of war could be, mostly focusing on the home front and their emotional lives, rather than the war itself. It was the perfect inspiration when I began writing my own wartime series under my pen name Mollie Walton. 

The Kent countryside has a strong enough presence in this book to become a character in its own right, when the exquisite beauty of an English summer contrasts with the lethal Battle of Britain dog fights leaving vapour trails in the sky overhead. As a local young woman befriends a group of brave, doomed fighter pilots, the story captures the desperation and the absurdities of conflict, and the tender nature of transient and yet hopeful love. The author was commissioned by the RAF to write about the war, and I can tell from his pinpoint, unflinching detail of that unsettling time, that he was a first-hand eyewitness. 

An admirable sense of rebellion and freedom that the Second World War brought young people is encapsulated in this book by the author, who herself lived through those times. Mary Wesley’s novels are quirky and unexpected, and peopled with eccentric, sympathetic, and lovable characters who face the dangers of the Blitz and all the uncertainty of war with a certain poise. I love the concepts of escaping convention and the kindness of strangers. To read this novel—which I have done at least five times—is like stepping into a warm bath. It’s my go-to when I need a dose of familiarity and comfort.

A brilliant, shocking read but one I’ve read several times, and each time I read it the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped underground leaves me feeling breathless.

Although graphic in places, this is a beautifully written novel that I know I’ll return to time and again. As an author of World War One fiction, I aim to bring a sense of how it felt to be my characters and this book achieves that perfectly as far as I’m concerned.

One of the books that got my writing about WW2 aviation.

Set during the Battle for France in 1939 it is the story of two very different RAF pilots, one a precise and reserved Englishman, the other an aggressive, volatile, and passionate American. Their methods and motivations for fighting the war couldn’t be more different but they develop an unlikely partnership and mutual respect during the chaos of France’s collapse and the Allies’ humiliation and defeat.

A work of dazzling action, humour, and historical accuracy, with vividly drawn wartime settings and well-developed, sometimes larger-than-life characters who are times endearing, frustrating, hugely funny, bleakly dark, and always well observed. A benchmark for me for everything that I’d want my own novels to be.

An intriguing dual-timeline novel about a bereaved modern-day tech CEO who discovers a link with a WW2 aircraft discovered in a Norwegian glacier.

A connection with her grandfather emerges, MIA since the war, and the Mosquito frozen in time. This is a complex tale of five intertwined lives, some modern, others in wartime, revealing the disparate views held at the end of the conflict and the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime.

It pits modern corporate greed and the cruel science of a warped ideology against the courage and often untold contribution of Canadian airmen and their moral determination to do the right thing. Like my own work, the novel unveils forgotten aspects of the past, shows that good shines through and still leaves an imprint on us today.

A moving WW2 novel set in occupied Poland and beleaguered Britain.

A dual timeline tale of love, intrigue, and the terrible choices made in war, resistance, and collaboration, during occupation. It delves into the often-forgotten contribution of Polish airmen and female ATA pilots to the Allied war effort, the precarious relationship with the invader in conquered Poland, and one of the war’s darkest secrets, the fate of the Polish officer class and the atrocity of the Katyn massacre.

This dark story is of divided loyalties, lost loves, and outcomes that depend on a twist of fate, and fragile truth subject to interpretation, divided loyalties, and clashing ideologies. Beautifully evocative of the times and wartime places, it is a story to make you think of the choices you might have made. 

Most of us believe that the Big Oil has politicians in its pocket, and that oil drives America’s actions in the Middle East.

Yergin’s terrific history shows that there’s so much more: oil has fueled the growth of empires, it has decided the world wars, it has made and broken some of the world’s biggest fortunes. (You might also like the TV documentary made from the book, narrated by Donald Sutherland.)

With compelling characters and true insights into the historical period it is set in, I consider this the best novel of all time. The movie it inspired is a classic, but the novel delivers much more.

The characters are brought to life with realistic motivations, dialogue, and inner monologues. Heinrich's masterful changes of point of view and suspenseful chapter breaks still maintain my interest every time. 

I can't praise the book enough for its pure literary quality, and even though it is a work of fiction, it has a ring of authenticity about it. The author served in the same regiment his fictional Steiner character belongs to and based him on a soldier who lived through the real-world events Heinrich set his novel in.