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In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowWhen Books Went to War
The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II
Narrator
Bernadette Dunne
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Length
6 hours 49 minutes
Language
English
When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned over 100 million books and caused fearful citizens to hide or destroy many more.
Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered twenty million hardcover donations. In 1943 the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks for troops to carry in their pockets and their rucksacks in every theater of war.
Comprising 1,200 different titles of every imaginable type, these paperbacks were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights.
They wrote to the authors, many of whom responded to every letter. They helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity. They made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. When Books Went to War is an inspiring story for history buffs and book lovers alike.
Molly Guptill Manning is a staff attorney at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and sits on the board of editors of the Federal Bar Council Quarterly. She earned a BA and MA degree in American history from the University at Albany and a JD at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Bernadette Dunne is the winner of more than a dozen AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.
Reviews
“Manning has scoured archives to retrieve soldiers’ touching accounts of the therapeutic, life-saving influence of stories that took their minds away from daily horrors.”
“[A] delightful history of a little-known aspect of the war in 1940…Manning’s entertaining account will have readers nostalgic for that seemingly distant era when books were high priority.”
“This is the beautiful story of a great, nearly forgotten chapter in our history. In addition to sending men, bombers, and rifles overseas to win World War II, America sent books—filling the bored hours that separate war’s terrors, helping give purpose to the fight, and shaping the taste of generations. What a wonderful thing.”
“A careful account of what it took—a lot—to ensure that US fighting men had the right stuff to read.”
“Illuminates a dusty slice of WWII history that most of us know nothing about.”
“Dunne…depicts a wide range of voices…[and] a spot-on German accent eerily laced with Nazi evil. This audio is perfect for different generations of readers.”
“While re-telling the history of the war, Manning threads through the impact that books had in fighting the Nazis.”
“Highly readable and extremely appealing.”
“A fresh perspective on the trials of war and the power of books.”
“[An] uplifting account of America’s counterattack against Nazi Germany’s wholesale burning of books…I was enthralled and moved.”
“A thrilling and concise history of World War II featuring the written word.”
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