Books like Winter of the World by Ken Follett

During World War II, a foster girl in Nazi Germany steals books to share with neighbors and a hidden Jewish man, proving literature’s power to nourish the soul amid darkness.

A historical novel set in the 12th century, focusing on the building of a cathedral and the surrounding community's fortunes amidst historical events of the time.

Sisters Vianne and Isabelle are pulled into the turmoil of World War II, each forging a path of courage and resistance against the Nazi occupation of France.

In 1911, a Welsh coal‑mining family’s fortunes intertwine with the aristocratic Fitzherberts as love, espionage and ambition collide on the eve of World War I, shaping the lives of five families across Britain, Russia, Germany, and America.

David McCullough’s Pulitzer‑winning biography chronicles Harry S. Truman’s life from Missouri frontier to presidency, detailing his pivotal decisions—atomic bombing, Cold War diplomacy, and Korean conflict—while drawing on new archival sources and personal interviews.

The final book in Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy follows a generation’s tug‑of‑war between ideological loyalty and moral conscience during the Cold War, blending family drama with international intrigue.

A privileged English son, Harry Cane, abandons family life after a dangerous affair and emigrates to the Canadian prairies, where isolation, war, and a charismatic antagonist force him to discover resilience, love, and identity.

Four orphaned teens on a perilous escape through icy mountains battle tyrannical dog‑men in a totalitarian regime that killed their parents fifteen years ago.

Overview: "It was a cold December morning in 1944, deep in the Ardennes forest of Belgium. Eighteen men of a small intelligence platoon commanded by twenty-year-old lieutenant Lyle Bouck were huddled in their foxholes, desperately trying to keep warm. Suddenly the early morning silence was broken by the roar of a huge artillery bombardment. Hitler had launched his bold and risky offensive against the Allies - his "last gamble" - and the American platoon was facing the main thrust of the entire German assault." "Vastly outnumbered, the platoon repulsed three German assaults in a fierce day-long battle to defend a strategically vital hill. Only when Bouck's men had run out of ammunition did they surrender." "But their long winter was just beginning." As POWs, Bouck's platoon experienced an ordeal far worse than combat - surviving in captivity with trigger-happy German guards, Allied bombing raids, and a starvation diet. While hundreds of other captured Americans in German POW camps were either killed or died of disease, the men of Bouck's platoon miraculously survived - all of them - and returned home after the war. More than thirty years later, when President Carter recognized the unit's "extraordinary heroism" and the U.S. Army approved combat medals for all eighteen men, they became America's most decorated platoon of World War II.