Title: When Books Went to War
Author: Molly Guptill Manning
Genre: Nonfiction, History, Informative
Pages: 267
Publication Date: 2 Dec 2014
StoryGraph* Moods: Informative, Inspiring, Reflective
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: I had originally heard about it from a friend and thought to put it on my TBR; then I read a historical fiction novel for book club that included these books going to war, and I had to get it immediately.
Other Books by this author: The Myth of Ephraim Tutt and The War of Words: How America’s GI Journalists Battled Censorship and Propaganda to Help Win World War II
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.
Description: Outraged by the blatant banning and burning of over 100 millions books in Germany during World War II, librarians in the U.S. banned together and launched a program to send free books to American troops – 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks, that a soldier could carry in their pocket, went to war. They had over 1,200 titles, helping to “rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity” and making “Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. ” This is the story of that program.
Why I recommend this book: I mean, what a cool piece of history that I knew nothing about. Librarians are magicians in my eyes, so to learn that they did this – and that it helped the soldiers fighting war – do I really need to say more to convince you to give this a read? I just wish I had learned about this before my grandfathers passed – both were Navy during WWII, and I wonder if they ever had such a book in their hands.
I will note – this is something to read for the history, not necessarily the writing and structure. But if you love books and librarians, and you hate censorship, give it a go.
“You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.”
~ Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War
Ami Maxine 