Books like The Verdun Affair by Nick Dybek

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 1930s wartime tale of a blind French girl and a German boy whose lives intersect in occupied France, weaving themes of survival, friendship, and the moral choices people make amid World War II.

A novel about Emma Woodhouse, a young woman's struggles with matchmaking, misplaced pride, and the dangers of meddling in others' lives in 18th-century England.

In 1935 England, a young woman’s allegation of a crime sets off a chain of events that devastates families, alters lives during the Second World War, and echoes into a later life of remorse and reflection.

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.

A woman born on a snowy night in 1910 dies and is reborn repeatedly, each life giving her the chance to alter history as the world heads toward another global conflict.

A poignant and intimate historical novel set during World War II, Suite française by Irène Némirovsky vividly depicts the desperate situation of a war-torn France.

After the Civil War, a veteran newspaper‑reader, Captain Jefferson Kidd, journeys through Texas and agrees to escort an orphaned Kiowa girl, Johanna, to San Antonio—a perilous trek that tests their survival and trust.

The Orphan Master's Son follows a man's journey through propaganda, identity, and state power in North Korea.

Set in Rome, Tom Rachman’s debut follows a diverse team of reporters, editors and executives at an international English‑language newspaper as they juggle personal turmoil and the rise of the internet.

During World War I, young Kezia Marchant and her childhood friend Thea Brissenden navigate friendship, war, and domestic turmoil as Kezia manages a farm while the men fight, each unravelling through letters and the power of gentle lies.

It is 1974 when Leni Allbright's impulsive father Ernt decides the family is moving to Alaska. But the Alaskan winter is just as unforgiving as Ernt, and life quickly becomes a struggle for survival.

In *Mothering Sunday*, Graham Swift traces the life of orphaned maid Jane Fairchild, whose years of service in an English country house and secret affair with the neighboring estate’s heir span from 1924 to the end of the twentieth century.

When a young San Francisco graduate learns he might be heir to a forgotten World War I officer’s fortune, he embarks on a continent‑wide quest that uncovers a tragic love affair and the legacy of the 1924 Everest expedition.

Cora Cash’s journey from New York to England turns a quest for a titled husband into a complex marriage, revealing that wealth cannot guarantee happiness.

A captivating tale of artistry, passion, and resilience in early 20th-century Paris

An escape from reality: A Virginia plantation wife is sent to a Florida asylum, where she encounters a Confederate soldier haunted by the color blue.

771 pages (large print) ; 23 cm

In mid-February 1916, the Germans launched a surprise major offensive at Verdun, an important fortress in northeast France. By mid-March, more than 90,000 French troops had been killed or wounded. The fighting continued for seven long months, with casualties on both sides mounting in astonishing numbers. By the end of the year, the battle had claimed more than 700,000 victims. The butchery had little impact on the course of the war, and Verdun soon became the most potent symbol of the horrors of the war in general, and of trench warfare in particular. Ian Ousby offers a radical, iconoclastic reevaluation of the meaning and import of this cataclysmic battle in The Road to Verdun. Moving beyond the narrow focus of most military historians, he argues that the French bear a tremendous responsibility for the senseless slaughter. In a work that merges intellectual substance and great battle writing, Ousby shows that the roots of the disaster lay in the French national character–the grandiose, even delusional way they perceived themselves, and their relentless determination to demonize Germans, which began in the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. Ousby analyzes the generals’ battle plans, and provides a graphic, gripping account of the deprivations and inhumane suffering of the troops who manned the trenches. His incisive, moving descriptions make it painfully clear why the influential French critic and poet Paul Valéry called Verdun “a complete war in itself, inserted in the Great War.” In telling the story of Verdun, Ousby demonstrates that the confrontation marked a critical midpoint in Franco-German hostility. The battle not only carried the burden of history, but with the presence on the battlefield of France’s future leaders–including Pétain and de Gaulle–it fed an increasingly venomous enmity between France and Germany, and lay the groundwork for World War II.