Stalingrad

Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman.

As German forces advance toward Stalingrad in 1942, Vasily Grossman follows a wide range of soldiers and civilians, with the Shaposhnikov family at the center. The battle emerges from lives distributed far beyond the front.

Read it for the relationship between a vast historical event and its many local experiences. It asks how a war novel can hold a family, an army and a society in the same frame.