100 books like The Glass Chateau

Reading aloud to students is my ultimate commendation for the best books, with a bonus for books that are short and powerful. Twenty and Ten is based on actual events in a French boarding school during World War II. When ten desperate Jewish children needed a sanctuary to survive, to avoid being sent to concentration camps, the nuns wisely discussed this with the twenty resident children. Those children would need to keep their life-or-death secret. Limited food and resources, barely enough for the twenty, would need to stretch to keep ten more alive, perhaps for years. If discovered, all might be taken, or killed. “What do you think they will do?” and “What would you do?” and “Why?” are among my favorite questions when sharing this book. Amazing conversations follow, for children and adults. Then eager hands reach for copies to read again.

This incredible memoir reads like a thriller. Polish-born Francoise ran a Berlin bookshop until she was forced to flee from Nazi persecution, first to Paris, then to Southern France. The term ‘unputdownable’ is a terrible cliché, but was literally the case for me with this breathtaking story of escape and survival. Clear your diary before you open the covers of this compelling book.

There’s so much texture on this cover, and the Renoir painting stands out because it’s probably the most recognizable part. The story involves Irene Cahen d’Anvers, the woman who sat for Renoir as a young girl, and how she came from a prominent Jewish family in France. Irene made some pivotal decisions that would forever change the lives of her ex-husband and daughter.

This is the beautifully written, spellbinding retelling of a remarkable moment in history where true humanity triumphed. A small protestant town in Southern France, in full view of the Vichy government managed to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death. Phillip Hallie has masterfully captured the personalities of the major rescuers and provides a detailed account of the events that led to this most unusual story of rescue. Photographs help to capture the excitement of this incredible, riveting story.

Sarah’s Key keeps us hoping in spite of ourselves—and despite the terrible odds facing a Jewish family in Paris, 1942. When the police come knocking one night, ten-year-old Sarah has no idea that her family is being rounded up for transport to an internment camp. She locks her little brother in a closet to save him, certain she’ll return the next day. That fateful choice will echo from WWII into the present, where the apartment’s new occupant uncovers long-ago choices and secrets in her own family. For me, though, the real question isn’t whether Sarah can rescue her brother. It’s about the many ways we justify our own ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and the hope that we can learn from history’s lessons.

An amazing imaginative blend of nonfiction and reportage, The Postcard sets a mystery in motion.

In 2003, with the rest of the Christmas holiday mail, a postcard arrives at the Paris home of Annie Berest. The card is blank but for the names of her maternal great-grandparents and their two children – all killed at Auschwitz. 

Fifteen years later, Annie and her chain-smoking mother embark on a journey: discovering the fates of the Rabinovitch family who flee the Russian revolution for Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. Annie and her mother discover secrets that shatter the present; mother and daughter question the past and accept a new reality in their own distinct ways. 

I loved both the mystery revealed and the unshakable resolve of these women, who spent years finding the truth.

April in Paris presents a perspective not often seen in World War II fiction: the first-person account of a German soldier.

Fluent in French, Corporal Roth is assigned to interpret prisoner interrogations in Nazi-occupied Paris. Disturbed by the torture he witnesses, Roth escapes his repugnant duties by posing as a Frenchman when off-duty, attempting to shed his identity as “occupier” by blending in with the populace.

He encounters the beautiful Chantal and ardently pursues her, unaware that she is part of the Resistance. Love ripens between Roth and Chantal, but the outcome spins out of their control, as both are hurled toward the perilous consequences of their affair.

Wallner’s fast-paced novel is more thriller than romance, as human emotion collides with the brutality of war. 

Charles de Gaulle is a consequential leader of the 20th century.

In an extraordinary turn of events, this little-known colonel emerged as the leader of France in exile during Hitler’s occupation. Following the Second World War he became a dominant political figure.

He can be seen as the founder of modern France, whose shadow reaches into our present moment.

In the 1930s he wrote a brilliant mediation on leadership, The Edge of the Sword. Though distilled from his lived experience in the military, de Gaulle provides insights that apply in many situations.

The book takes on additional significance when one considers the project of self-creation that the author undertook—first on himself, then on the re-creation of France, finally on Europe and the world, in his time and into our own.

My personal library holds dozens of histories and first-person accounts dealing with the French Resistance. Some are scholarly, others more popular in treatment, but many so boring that I barely reached the final page. Cobb’s work however is a great exception, depicting in smooth prose and outstanding research the dramatic development of the Résistance. You'll meet heroes and heroines, and see the extraordinary lengths taken by simple French citizens to undermine fascist tyranny and aid Allied efforts. Here is the insight needed to truly appreciate accurate fictional portrayals of this time.

The role of France and the activities of the French during the Second World War German occupation, spanning the range from resistance through accommodation to collaboration, has been the subject of considerable literature on both sides of the Atlantic. First published in France in 1987, The Vichy Syndrome characterizes the memory of the war years as “a past that doesn't pass away.” The book addresses the different ways in which the war years were remembered and helped popularize the study of historical memory, meaning the study not only of the events themselves but also how they are remembered and how these memories influence political and cultural life in succeeding generations. Rousso received France’s National Order of Merit in 1995 and in 2018 was chosen by President Macron to supervise the design of France’s new Memorial Museum of Societies Facing Terrorism.