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World War I Fiction
Fiction & Novels
2010
Not Only War: A Story of Two Great Conflicts, Victor Daly, University of Virginia Press, 2010, ISBN 0 8139 2971 7, $16.95 paperback. Dubbed by the publisher as the only WWI novel written by an African-American, Daly examines the impact of the Jim Crow color line on black officers in the segregated military. The reprint included three short stories by Daly.
Beneath Hill 60, Will Davies, Random House Australia. 2010, ISBN 1 7416 6936 7, $27.95 paperback. Just released as a motion picture in Australia, this recounts the story of Australian miners digging a massive mine under German trenches on Hill 60 in Flanders 1916.
Sunnyside, Glen David Gold, Knopf, 2009, 576 pages, ISBN 0 3027 0688, $26.95 HB. A rollicking comic novel set on a single day in the winter of 1916; a tale of perversity and misfortune involving, among others, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Elsie Janis.
The Mapping of Love and Death, Jacqueline Winspear, Harper, 2010, 352 pages, ISBN 0 0617 2766 0, $25.99 HB. Set in 1932, this is the seventh novel in the Maisie Dobbs series in which Maisie, a former WWI VAD, investigates the mysterious death of an American cartographer believed killed in battle. Winspear's sixth Maisie Dobbs novel, Among the Dead, was published in 2009.
2009
The Secret Battle: A Tragedy of the First World War, Allen. Patrick Herbert, Frontline Books, 2009, 240 pages, ISBN 978 1 84832 521 0, $29.99 paperback. The fictionalized story of an idealistic young British officer first published in 1919. Also available in hardback from Kessinger Publishing at $42.95.
A Sacrifice of Innocents: A Novel of the Great War, Alan James Barker, Tommies Guides, 2009, 340 pages, ISBN 978 0 9555 6987 6, $19.49 paperback from Amazon.com. A believable work on the experiences of a British battalion on the Western Front from September 1915 to March 1916.
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Slum and Guns: Tales of the Marines in the Great War, Wayne A. Pettyjohn, illustrations Phyllis Pettyjohn, Dearinger Printing, 2009, 213 +xii pages, maps, drawings, no ISBN, $15 paperback postpaid. Available from the author at phidwaye@aol.com. The second novel in a planned Marine Corps trilogy, this one a series of short stories based on the exploits of the Fourth Marine Brigade on the Western Front.
Among the Mad, Jacqueline Winspear, Henry Hold, 2009, 320 pages, ISBN 978 0 8050 8216 6, $25 hardcover. In her sixth Maisie Dobbs detective novel, Winspear has her heroine join a high power Scotland Yard team in attempting to forestall cataclysmic disaster in 1931 London. Maisie, a WWI VAD, again uses her WWI experience to crack the case.
2008
Life Class, Pat Barker, Doubleday, 2008, 320 pages, ISBN 978 80385 52435 3, $23.95 cloth. From the Booker Prize-winning (Ghost Road) author of the Regeneration trilogy, this novel takes on the issue of art and war-time censorship. Published last year in the UK. Also available recorded on CD.
Time is the Fire -A Novel of the Great War, William Breedlove Martin, Publish America, 2008, 310 pages, ISBN 1 60610 118 8, $10 paperback. Deals mainly with the family left behind in Georgia by two brothers serving in the US First Pursuit Group.
The Given Day, Dennis Lahane, Harper Collins, 2008, 720 pages, ISBN 978 0 6881 6318 1, $27.95 hardcover; also available recorded on CD. A sprawling novel of post-World-War-One upheaval and uncertainty in Boston, by the author of Mystic River. A fictionalized account of events surrounding the Boston Police strike of 1919, racial and ethnic strife, anarchist and Bolshevik agitation, the catastrophic collapse of the North End molasses tank, the influenza pandemic, Irish politics, and Babe Ruth. (Cover photo at bn.com.)
The Overcoat, Conrad Larson, J & M Publishing, 2008, 224 pages, ISBN 978 1 9319 1653 0, $16.95 paperback. A mystery novel of WWI.
Buck's Story: A Marine in the Great War, Wayne A. Pettyjohn, illustrations by Phyllis Pettyjohn, privately published, Dearing Printing & Trophy, Stillwater, OK, 2008, 241 + xix pages, drawings, maps, no ISBN, $20 paper. A fast-paced historical novel, an entertaining mix of fact and fiction based on stories recounted by veterans of the Fourth Marine Brigade of the Second Division, AEF. To purchase, contact the author at wpettyj@aol.com (405) 372-1981.
Empire of Sand, Robert Ryan, Headline Review, 2008, 384 pages, map, ISBN 0 7533 2824 4, $12 paperback from Amazon.com. A novel of T. E. Lawrence before he became famous fomenting Arab revolt in the Hejaz. His foil is Wilhelm Wassmuss, a real life German agent provocateur already fictionalized by John Buchan in Green Mantle.
A Good Woman, Danielle Steel, Dell, 2008, 336 pages, ISBN 978 0 853 4026 7, $27 paperback, large print special edition. Best-selling author Steel weaves a story of a woman who loses her father and brother on the Titanic and later throws herself into the war effort doing medical work in France.
A Duty to the Dead, Charles Todd, HarperCollins, 2009, 329 pages, ISBN 0 0617 9176 8, $29.99 HB. First in a series of Bess Crawford novels in which, Bess, daughter of a distinguished army officer, volunteers to become a nurse in WWI.
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2007
The Air We Breathe, Andrea Bennett, Norton, 2007, 320 pages, ISBN 978 0 39306 108 6, $24.95 cloth. Also on CD from Barnes and Noble. Story set in 1916 in an Adirondack tuberculosis asylum. America is still at peace, but a well-meaning patient initiates a discussion group which brings The Great War home sparking anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilantism in an isolated rural community.
Horizon Blue: A Novel of the Great War, Jake Bumgardner, privately published, 2007, 352 pages, $24.95. Available from the author at www.lulu.com/content/1765825. This is the story of a friendship between a captured French officer and a German prison camp official. Well constructed fiction weaving in actual WWI situations.
Between the Sword and the Wall, Thomas De Angelo, Fine Line, 2007, 122 pages, ISBN 978 0 9749 9063 7, $12.95 paperback. A novel about British Nurse Edith Cavell and the German occupation of Brussels.
In Pale Battalions, Robert Goddard, Dell, 2007, 368 pages, ISBN 0 38533 920 8, $10.80, trade paperback. Reprint of a 1988 Bantum thriller by British novelist Robert Goddard (Into the Blue), a family mystery based on WWI. Available from Barnes & Noble.
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The Brother Keepers: The Great War Odyssey of Sable MacInnes and His Brothers, John E. (Ted) MacNintch, AquaDoc, 2007, 779 + xv pages, photos, maps appendices, ISBN 0 9787505 0 0, $29.95 cloth. A novel encapsulating and placing in perspective Canada's Great War experience through the story of the fictional MacInnes brothers from Nova Scotia. Appendices contain a glossary of terms and identification of principal historical characters, as well as the Canadian order of battle. Look for a full review in a WFA journal.
The Last Summer of the World, Emily Mitchell, Norton. 2007. 390 pages, ISBN 978 - 393 06487 3, $24.95 cloth. A novel about photographer Edward Steichen's return to wartime France and his reckoning with his painful past.
My French Whore, Gene Wilder, St. Martin's, 2007, 178 pages, ISBN 0 31236 057 6, $18.95 cloth. A serious historical novel by one of America's top comedians about a German-speaking Doughboy, Paul Peachy from Milwaukee who impersonates a famous German spy after being captured on the Western Front. American Heritage favorably reviewed this novel in its April/May 2007 edition.
By a Slow River (originally published in French as Les Amis Grizes, Philippe Claudel (translation by Hoyt Rogers), Knopf, 2006, 208 pages, ISBN 1 40004,280 1, $23.00 cloth. A French village policeman unravels the thicket of lies and deceit surrounding the 1917 death by strangulation of a young girl. Winner of the Prix Renaudot.
An Ace Minus One, Timothy M. Morrisroe, iUniverse, 2006, 618 pages, ISBN 0 59539 135 4, $30.95, paperback. A novel of WWI in the air. A 14 year-old American flees home after killing a man, and finds himself in France first as an ambulance driver at Verdun and then as a volunteer in a French fighter squadron. Look for a review in Camaraderie.
Severed Branch, Andrew R. H. Mowatt, iUniverse, 2006, 316 pages, ISBN 0 59538 994 5, $18.95 paperback, also in cloth from the same publisher for $28.95. This story of the RFC's air war in northern France moves back and forth from a present day protagonist to dream sequences, flashbacks to Royal Flying Corps aerial battles.
Megiddo's Shadow, Arthur G. Slade, Wendy Lamb/Random House, 2006, 304 pages, ISBN 0 38574 701 2, $15.95 cloth. For young adults. The story of a 16-year-old Canadian who, inspired by the deaths of his two brothers in WWI, enlists in the cavalry and is sent to fight in Palestine.
Messenger of Truth, Jacqueline Winspear, Henry Holt, 2006, 336 pages, ISBN 978 80805 07898 5, $24 cloth. Also available in a 2007 reprint paperback from Picador for $14. Murder at a convalescent home for disfigured British WWI veterans. Fourth in the Maisie Dobbs series about an English private detective who served as a nurse behind the Western Front.
A Long, Long Way, Sebastian Barry, Viking Penguin, 2005, 292 pages (hc), 304 pages (pb), ISBN 0 67003 380 4 (hb), 0 14303 509 6 (pb), $29.95 hard back, $14.00 in paperback. The tragic story of a young, conflicted Irish patriot serving in the British Army who attempts unsuccessfully to straddle two worlds as Irish nationalists fight for independence while war rages on the Western Front. Includes an excellent bibliography of books on the Irish experience in the Great War.
First Casualty, Ben Elton, Bantam UK, 2005, 389 pages, ISBN 0 59305 112 2, $19.95 paperback. A WWI crime novel involving an improbable combination of trench warfare, shell shock, crime detection and conscientious objection. The author is best known as a comic novelist and wrote parts of the Black Adder series. Drew decidedly mixed reactions from readers and reviewers alike.
A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Halpern, Harcourt, 2005, 880 pages, ISBN 0 15603 113 2, $16.00 paperback. An Italian veteran remembers his war… Reprint of a classic novel first published in 1991.
A Test of Wings, Owen J. McNamara, Llumina Press, 2005, 212 pages, ISBN 1 59526 018 8, $16.95 paperback. Novel of a US Navy officer flying anti-submarine patrols off the southern and eastern coasts of England in 1918. Favorably reviewed in Naval History magazine.
The Canal Bridge, Tom Phelan, Lilliput Press, Dublin, 2005, 280 pages, selected bibliography, ISBN 1 84351 075 8, $19.99 paperback. A novel of Ireland and Irish volunteers during WWI. The author will speak at the WFA New England-New York Chapter Seminar at Hartford in November 2006. Available new for $25 postpaid from Glanvil Enterprises, Ltd., 237 Church Street, Freeport, NY 11520, or online from Irish Books & Media (irishbook@aol.com), or Dufour Editions (http://www.dufoureditions.com)
The Crimson Portrait, Jody Shields, Little Brown, 2006, 304 pages, ISBN 3 16785 528 8, $23.99 hardcover. Also available recorded on DVD and cassette. A novel about the pioneering treatment of soldiers with disfiguring facial wounds mixing medical fact with romantic fiction in WWI England.
Pardonable Lies, Jacqueline Winspear, Henry Holt, 2005, 352 pages, ISBN 0 80507 897 5, $23 cloth is the author's third novel about post-WWI British private eye Maisie Dobbs, a former BEF nurse. Winspear's first novel, Maisie Dobbs, was nominated for an Edgar and her second, Birds of a Feather, is now available in Penguin paperback. Both Pardonable Lies and Maisie Dobbs are available on disc and tape from Barnes & Noble.
Red Horse Rode Out, J. C. Arlington, Infinity, 2004, 352 pages, ISBN 0 74142 342 1, paperback, price unlisted. A novel of the Lost Battalion.
To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War, Jeff Shaara, Ballentine Books, 2004, 656 pages, ISBN 0 34546 134 7, $ 27.85, hardcover. The war seen through the eyes of a frightened British Tommy, General John Pershing, and Baron Manfred von Richthofen by the best-selling author of novels on the American Revolution and Civil War. Available from the History Book Club.
The Vantage Book of War Fiction, Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen (eds.), Random House-Vantage Books, NY, 396 pages. Includes WWI short stories and excerpts from novels by Eric Maria Remarque, Siegfried Sassoon, Wm. Boyd and Pat Barker, paperback $16.00. Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bermieres, Knopf, August 2004, $25.95 (in the UK -- Secker & Warburg, 18 pounds). A novel by the author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin about the twilight of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia before, during and just after WWI. Bermieres presents a series of often quirky first-person accounts by characters in a multi-ethnic village. Interwoven is the biogrpahy of Mustapha Kamal Ataturk, founder of mono-ethnic Turkish Republic. A good read if not exactly good history.
No Graves as Yet - An Novel of World War One, Anne Perry, Brilliance Audio, unabridged, four cassettes, six hours, ISBN 1 59355 050 2, £13.45 from Amazon.co.uk. Also in mass market paperback from Ballantine Books, 2004, 368 pages, ISBN 0 34545 653 X, $7.50 from Barnes & Noble. Mystery novelist Anne Perry turns to WWI writing the story of the efforts of a British intelligence officer Matthew Reavley, and his Anglican priest brother Joseph to solve the mystery of their parent's murder on the eve of WWI. Unimpressive. Pedestrian plot, character sketches thin; panned by several reviewers in the US and England.
Shoulder the Sky, Anne Perry, Brilliance Audio, 2004, unabridged, 10 cassettes or 10 CDs, 12 hours, ISBN 1 59355 054 5, $30 from Barnes and Noble. Also in hardcover Ballentine Books, 2004, 352 pages, ISBN 0 35545 654 8, $18.95 from Barnes & Noble. Second in Perry's new WWI series opened with No Graves Yet. Now an army chaplain, Joseph Reavley investigates the mysterious death of an obnoxious London Times war correspondent whose body is found between the lines in Flanders. Second in a series.
A Century of November, W. D. Wetherall, University of Michigan, 2004, ISBN 0 47211 1432 X, C$29.42 cloth. The story of a Canadian magistrate seeking the spot in Belgium where his son was killed in WWI.
The Patriot's Progress, Henry Williamson, illustrated by William Kermode, History Press, 2004, 194 pages, ISBN 978 0 7509 3640 8, $12.96 paperback. Story of a young British Tommy, who went on to be a noted nature writer.
The Officers' Ward (Chambre des Officiers), Marc Dugain, translated by Howard Curtis, Gale Group, 2002, ISBN 0 78624 482 8, 24.95 large print paperback. The story of the long treatment, and slow mental and physical recovery of French officers with severely disfiguring facial wounds suffered on the Western Front. Recently made into a fine motion picture now available with English subtitles on region two DVD from Amazon.co.uk.
A Sailor of Austria, John Biggins, McBooks Press, newly reissued, 376 pages, ISBN 1 59013 107 X, $16.95 trade paperback. In which, without really intending to, the fictional protagonist Otto Prohaska becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire.
Through the Wheat, Thomas Boyd, Nebraska, 2000, 266 + xvii pages, ISBN 0 8032 6168 3, $13.95 paper. A fine novel about U. S. Marines in World War I by a veteran first published by Scribner in 1923 and still in print. A contemporary of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Boyd never reached their level of expertise or popularity, though this is a memorable work of fiction.
A Month in the Country, J. L. Carr, NY Review of Books Classics, 2000, 160 pages, ISBN 0 940 32247 1, $12.95 paperback. First published in 1978, this is the story of a shell shocked WWI veteran who finds solace in restoring a work of art in a Yorkshire village church. This novel was made into a 1987 movie starring Colin Firth and Natasha Richardson available on Region Two DVD from Amazon.co.uk. Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize.
One of Ours, Willa Cather, Dover, 2007, 352 pages, ISBN 0 48645 599 8, $8.95 trade paperback. Reprint of a Pulitzer Prize-winning (1922) novel about a Nebraska farm boy who, alienated from his parents and rejected by his wife, finds his destiny on the Western Front. An American classic despite what have been described as stilted combat scenes.
Paths of Glory, Irwin S. Cobb, Dodo Press, 2007, 240 pages, ISBN 978 1 40651 379 4, $16.99 paperback. Written in the 1930s, this classic WWI novel of the French Army was authored by an American veteran of the Canadian forces. The 1957 movie version directed by Stanley Kubrick and still available on VHS and DVD earned Kurt Douglas an academy award nomination. DVD and book available from several publishers at Barnes and Noble.
The Enormous Room, E. E. Cummings, Dover Thrift Editions, Mineola, NY,, 2002, 192 + xiii pages, ISBN 0 486 42120 1, $3.00 trade paperback; an autobiographical account of Cummings' arrest and imprisonment for alleged treason in France during WWI. Cummings served as an American volunteer driver in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps. First published in 1922.
One Man's Initiation: 1917, John Dos Passos, Cornell, 1960, first published by George Allan & Unwin in 1920, LCC #69-15945, 179 pages, sketches by the author, notes, introduction. A passionate indictment of war with colorful descriptions of France during the conflict, this was Dos Passos first novel. He served Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France and with the American Red Cross Northern Italy before volunteering for the U. S. Army Medical Corps in 1918. Available used from several booksellers.
Three Soldiers, John Dos Passos, Dover Giant Thrift Editions, Mineola, NY, 2004, 309 = ix pages with an introduction by Heywood Broun, ISBN 0 486-43467 21, $5.00 trade paperback; first published in 1921, a grim fictionalized depiction of life in the WWI era America Army by the author who typifies the Lost Generation.
The General, C. S. Forrester, Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1982, 263 pages, ISBN 1 87785 339 9, $19.95 paper. First published in 1936, this novel recounts the experiences in WWI of Herbert Curzon, a mediocre cavalry officer who rises from battalion command to head up a BEF army on the Western Front which collapses in the face of the German onslaught of spring 1918. Often thought to be the fictionalized story of General Hubert Plummer, this book makes an exceptional read. Forester is best known for the fictional Napoleonic War-at-sea Hornblower series and for his novel The African Queen set in WWI-era Africa.
In the Company of Eagles, Ernest K. Gann, Simon & Schuster, 1966, 247 pages. Gann (1910-1991) barnstormer, commercial and WWII USAAF transport pilot was the author of The High and the Mighty, Fate is the Hunter and 19 other bestsellers and one of America's premier novelists who specialized in aviation. This is the fictional tale of two combat fliers, one French, one German, fighting over the Chemin des Dames in the spring of 1917. Several of Gann's books have been made into major motion pictures.
Class 1902, Ernst Glaeser, South Carolina, 2007, 416 pages, ISBN 978 1 57003 712 2, $21.95 paperback. Another in the Joseph M. Broccoli WWI Series, this novel was first published as Jahrgang 1902, this book tells the story of the German home front as seen through the eyes of an under-draft-age youth.
Covenant with Death, John Harris, Arrow Books, 1961, Alibris pin #32025284-1. Traces the fate of one battalion of Kitchener volunteers through training to the Somme. Available used from Alibris and other used booksellers.
Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, Jaroslav Hasek, Everyman's Library, Knopf, 1993, 800 + xlvi pages, chronology, pronunciation guide, maps, pen and ink drawings by Josef Lada, ISBN 0 679 42036 3 $14.95 cloth. Hilarious classic satire first published in 1917 from a leading Czech author and WWI veteran about the adventures of a bumbling yet cunning Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Also available in Penguin paperback from Barnes & Noble. Buy this affordable hardcover copy for the fine illustrations.
A Very Long Engagement , Sabastien Japrisot (translated from the French by Linda Coverdale), Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004, 327 pages, ISBN 0 31242 485 2, $14.00 paperback. Also on nine CDs (10 hours) from the same publisher; ISBN 1 59397 566 X, $39.95. A young, polio-crippled Frenchwoman, Mathilde Donnay, investigates the web of deception that shrouds the fate of five soldiers condemned for self-inflicted wounds. All five, including her fiancé, are reported dead. Refusing to believe this, the shrewd Mathilde hires a private detective, enlists the help of family and acquaintance and travels far and wide to unravel the cover-up and find her missing lover. Told at many levels and in many voices, the is at once a war novel, mystery and a love story.. The author uses many techniques including documents, flashbacks and brief, but brilliant character sketches to paint a vivid vision of wartime and postwar France.
Loss of Eden, a trilogy by John Masters, McGraw Hill, 1979. Three novels Now God Be Thanked, Heart of War and By the Green of the Spring tracing the experiences of a family of aristocratic landed English gentry, their associates and servants during the Great War. Available from used booksellers. John Masters, a retired British Indian Army officer, is best known for his novels about India including The Night Runners of Bengal and Bwani Junction.
The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth, Knopf, Everyman's Library, 1996 (1932), 384 pages, ISBN 0 67945 100 5, $20 hardback; first volume in the Trotta family saga tracing the decline of the Habsburg dual monarchy.
Emperor's Tomb, Joseph Roth, Overlook, 2002, 157 pages, ISBN 1 58567 327 7, $14.95 paperback. Written by an Austrian novelist, essayist, journalist and war veteran about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during WWI and the post war-world of mitteleuropa. The second of two ironic novels tracing the saga of three generations the Trotta family; of world literary rank.
Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters at War, Helen Smith (pseudonym of Evadne Price), Feminist Press CUNY, 1993, 304 pages, ISBN 978 0 9353 1282 9, $15.95 paperback. First published in 1930, this is a bitter- sweet novel about British volunteer nurses (VADs) behind the Western Front. Advertised as autobiographical, it is likely based on the diaries of ambulance driver Winifred Young.
The Great War, Book 1: American Front, Harry Turtledove, Random House, 1999, 562 pages, ISBN 978 03454 0560 9, $7.99 mass market paperback. The first in a series of counter-factual historical novels set during WWI. This one finds a divided America on opposite sides of the conflict with Wilson's Confederate States of America allied with Great Britain and the USA led by Teddy Roosevelt aligned with Imperial Germany. The second in this series is subtitled A Walk in Hell (ISBN 978 0 34544 0562 3).
Captain Conan, Roger Vercel, University of South Carolina Press, Joseph M. Broccoli Great War Series, 2007, 304 pages, ISBN 978 1 57003 713 9, $19.95 paperback. First published in 1934, this novel of WWI of French troops on the Bulgarian front and postwar occupation duty in Bucharest won a Prix Goncourt and war made into a motion picture available on DVD and video tape.
The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West, Dover, Mineola, NY, 2002 (1918), 77 pages, ISBN 0 486 42207 0, $5.95 trade paperback; a shell shocked British officer returns to his stately upper class English home suffering from amnesia. A view of the shifting nature of the British upper classes after the upheavals of the Great War.
Patriot's Progress, Henry Williamson, Sutton, 2004, 194 pages, ISBN 0 75093 640 1, $12.95, paper. One of two autobiographical novels describing the author's experiences as an infantryman in WWI which turned him into a Pacifist. First published in 1930. Williamson is best known for his prize-winning 1927 novel Tarka the Otter.
2006
The Emperor's Coloured Coat, John Biggins, McBooks Press, 2006, 349 pages, ISBN 1 59013 108 8, $16.95 trade paperback. The hapless Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire almost, but not quite averts World War One. Second in a series; the third book, The Two-Headed Eagle, is coming soon
2005
2004
2002
Earlier Works and Reissues
The Devil's Lieutenant, M. Fagyas, G. P. Putnam & sons, NY, 1970, 384 pages, Library of Congress card #77-105600. Available from independent booksellers found at Barnes & Noble online for less than $10 used in hardcover. A murder mystery featuring the Austro-Hungarian officer corps in 1910 Vienna and elsewhere in the ramshackle, multinational and polyglot Habsburg Empire. Intrigue in the Imperial and Royal Army as Austria-Hungary stumbles toward war. A fast-paced and finely crafted fictionalized glimpse of a decaying Empire written by the daughter of an imperial officer.
The Secret Battle: A Tragedy of the First World War, A. F. Herbert, Pen & Sword, 2009, ISBN 1 8483 2521 5, $29.99 paperback from Barns & Noble. First published by Methuen in 1919 and in print virtually ever since, this semi-autobiographical novel follows the career of a young man who left Oxford to enlist later taking a commission and serving at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. This was the first book to freely discuss executions for desertion in the British forces.
Winner of the prestigious Prix Interallie in 1991, and a best-seller in France, this novel received well deserved praise in the United States when it was first published here in translation in 1996. A movie based on it was released in 2004 and was subsequently nominated for two Academy Awards.
Goshawk Squadron, Derek Robinson, Da Capo, 2005 (reprint), 230 pages, ISBN 978 0 7867 1595 4, $14.95 paperback. Novel by the author of Piece of Cake, published in 1971 and shortlisted for a Booker Prize. The cynical and often hilarious story of the misfortunes of an imaginary RAF pursuit squadron on the Western Front in 1918. A sort of WWI Catch 22.
The Post-Office Girl, Stefan Zweig, translated by Joel Rotenberg, New York Review Books, 2008, 257 pages, ISBM 978 1590 1726 29, $14 paper. First published posthumously in Germany in 1982, this is a novel about post-WWI Vienna and the frayed society left behind with the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Zweig (1881-1942), an Austrian Jew and author of The World Yesterday (1941) was forced into exile in 1934 and died by his own hand in Brazil in 1941. Stefen Zweig should not be confused with the German Arnold Zweig, author of the classic WWI novels Education Before Verdun and The Case of Sergeant Griska.
- Sixty Minutes with St. George, a novel of the Zeebrugge Raid (2001)
- The Blooding of the Guns, a novel of the Battle of Jutland (Due Nov 02)
- Patrol to the Golden Horn, a novel of the submarine attack on Constantinople (Due Nov 02)
- The Horizon, 2002, $15.95 paperback, a novel of the Royal Navy and of combat in Gallipoli and Flanders. ISBN 1 59013 027 8.
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The Last Raider, Douglas Reeman, $12.95 used paperback, fictional story of the German commerce raider Vulkan sailing from Kiel in late December 1917.
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