History book recs?

[gaudior]

Hey, does anyone know any really, really readable (like, relatively fast-moving, more stories-about-people than theory-driven, fun) books about New York/Brooklyn in the 1930s and 40s, and/or about World War II?

Asking for a friend.

(Who is writing an Avengers fanfic.)

(And is me.)



(I'm aware that the world does not have a dearth of Avengers fanfic, but-- I'm having fun. I haven't had this kind of enjoyment and enthusiasm for writing for over a year. Most of the past year, I've either not written at all, or felt like I was dredging words out of my brain with a fork, and they weren't even very good words. But this-- I'm writing every time I've got a spare minute, and I'm finding more of them than I thought I had. I have about 15.5k words so far, and I like the words I've got. And if this fic is nothing but fun for me and food for my id-- well, those are still good things! So I am writing it. And book recommendations would be really helpful-- I have a hard time getting through a lot of nonfiction, especially if it's dense, but I trust you guys to have some good ideas!)

--R

Comments

[skygiants]

This is more UK than US, but all the same: Ben Macintyre, Ben Macintyre! His WWII books about spy-related shenanigans are super interesting and often HILARIOUS -- and might I think legit be useful for proto-SHIELD stuff, things Peggy might have been involved with, etc. The two I read were Double Cross, which tracks various eccentric double agents (the wildly inventive chicken farmer! the bisexual debutante socialite! the prim French lady with the dog!), and Operation Mincemeat, about the brilliant operation to drop a fake corpse filled with fake information on Spain and MI5's subsequent desperate quest to find the aforementioned corpse proper underwear.

A couple years back I also read The Irregulars, which is the book about Roald Dahl and other British wartime spies stationed in the US -- more about Washington than New York, but also has some wartime New York-relevant bits.

New York Night: The Mystique and its History has one of the most hilariously purple-prosed introductions I've ever read ("toward dawn, as if released by the rasp of iron hinges, succubae and incubi fly out: nightmare thoughts, in check during the day, point with skeletal fingers to remorse, death and vanity, their victims everywhere!") but, uh, once you get past that, there's some fun and interesting stuff in there about the relevant period! Taxi Dances and Vaudeville: Excavating New York's Lost Places of Leisure also has some really interesting chapters on Tin Pan Alley, the Harlem club scene in the 30s, and Times Square from the 30s through the 70s.

This is going broader afield, but I also rec Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times, which is a really, really fun book about Depression-era public theater, a lot of which took place in New York.

OK I'M DONE I'LL STOP THROWING BOOKS AT YOU (...for now!)

[sovay]

Ben Macintyre, Ben Macintyre!

Seconded, plus Leo Marks' Between Silk and Cyanide (1998) if you're interested in the SOE. (Since nothing in canon has ever told me otherwise, I've always assumed that's where Peggy came from.)

My knowledge of 1930's/'40's New York in books is much worse than my knowledge of 1930's/'40's New York in film. I've asked derspatchel to chime in.

[genarti]

I don't have any recs off the top of my head, although if I do think of any I'll sing out. But I'm delighted that you're having fun, and totally looking forward to reading the results whenever they're posted!