August 2014 - Time Period

Time to discuss a time period for August! I believe several people suggested earlier in the year that World War I would be a great choice, given that this year is the centennial. Any objections or alternative suggestions?

I'd vote FOR.

I'm happy with that too

"War" was suggested a few months ago as a theme read and then we put it off to August with the expectation of devoting August to WW1. I'm definitely in favor.

Incidentally, there's an ongoing, yearlong, bi-monthly WW1-read on the Virago Modern Classics Group. I've been planning on using the WW1 read here on RTT as a catch-up for the Virago readings.

(And if you read through some of the WW1 threads on the Virago group, you'll get some good ideas for WW1 reading. You'll find them with subject lines that include the phrase "Great War Theme Read.")

Thumbs Up for the August theme of WW I!

The WWI era works for me, too!

Looks like we have a pretty unanimous consensus: World War I will be the August 2014 time period!

I know I have at least one book that will work for this theme, Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson. What's everyone else planning to read?

I'm going to do a reread of In Parenthesis by David Jones, which I read in graduate school back in the mid-70s. It's a novel/poem of World War I which incorporates Welsh mythology and was strongly promoted by T.S. Eliot.

I'll also be doing some catch-up on my "Great War Theme Read" in the Virago Modern Classics Group.

I'm thinking about Helen Dunmore's new book The Lie. I don't think I have any WWI books on my shelf so i have an excuse to look for something specifically now.

I think I'll be reading The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.

I think I'll read The Guns of August, too. For those who like romance, I read F P Keyes' "Came a Cavalier" years ago--it begins during WWI with a French cavalry officer who marries an American. Their sons will end up fighting in WWII.

I may finally start Pat Barker's trilogy with Regeneration. I also have The Cartographer of No Man's Land by P.S. Duffy which I have been told is really good.

Alan Furst has written multiple books on WW I which are really good! Only his latest, Midnight in Europe which I read for Early Reviewers, falls short.

>13 cfk: Do you mean WW2? 1930s-1944? Just finished Midnight in Europe, myself. The first "Furst" I've read... maybe I should have read earlier ones before this. But it was still an interesting read, I thought.

If Midnight were the first of his I read, then I might not have been disappointed in it. Try some of the earlier ones.

I have just started The Lie by Helen Dunmore.

>15 cfk: I take your point... I have Spies of the Balkans in my pile of to-be-read... I hope to get to that one sometime.
Meanwhile for August's theme I am still waiting to get my hands on a graphic anthology To End All Wars: The Graphic Anthology of The Great War because I am a bit of a graphic novel fan.

I have just completed Regeneration by Pat Barker and wow, what a thought-provoking, intelligent and moving story. Can't wait to continue on in this trilogy.

>18 DeltaQueen50: Argh, you're making me want to read Regeneration even more than before!

I finished the audio of The Return of Captain John Emmett this afternoon. After WWI veteran John Emmett kills himself after disappearing from the sanitarium where he's been confined since the war, his sister asks his old school chum, Laurence Bartram, to find out why. John didn't leave a suicide note, and his sister doesn't know what caused his despair, or why he left bequests to several people who are strangers to her and to their mother. As Laurence talks to John's heirs and some of his comrades from the war, he begins to suspect that John didn't take his own life.

Here is my review for The Lie by Helen Dunmore.

Daniel grew up in a small English coastal village. His mum worked for the wealthy families in the area doing housework. This is how Daniel comes to be friends with Frederick, who lives with his family in Albert House. The two boys grow up together and end up being called up for service to fight in France during WWI.

The book starts with Daniel returning home and everything we learn about his past is through his memories. He is not physically injured but he is definitely not the same person that went away to war. He is emotionally damaged by his experiences.

It is quite difficult to do this book justice in a review. The way the author sets the scenes and pours out the emotion, or lack of emotion on some occasions, is quite masterful. It's not that I particularly liked any of the characters but the author helped me understand them. This was a sensitive telling of Daniel's experience and would make a wonderful book club read for a group. I wish a friend would read it so I could talk about it to somebody without worrying about spoilers.

I just finished Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson, which is about a young aristocratic woman who becomes an ambulance driver in World War I. Although the novel does touch on the horrors of war, the main focus is on romance: the heroine falls in love with her brother's best friend, a young doctor who is working in a French field hospital. Generally speaking, I have no problem with a light romance, but it seemed somewhat incongruous with the very somber setting. Additionally, neither hero nor heroine really had much personality, so it was hard for me to be invested in their relationship. So I wasn't the hugest fan of the book, but it's worth a read if you want something set in WWI that isn't too dark or depressing.

I just finished In Parenthesis by David Jones, a book I read some forty years ago in graduate school and which I resolved to reread for the WW1 centennial. I gave it 3½***, maybe a bit generously, but caution: it's not, despite its relatively short length, a book for the faint-hearted and has stylistic elements (and difficulties) in common with both Ulysses and The Waste Land.

I'm in London, 1780s, with Lady Roberta St. Giles in Desperate Duchesses by Eloisa James

My reads for the August theme of WWI:

As the Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller
Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

WWI era -

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Return of Captain John Emmett was extremely well written, but painful to read. Laurence Bertram, a survivor of WW I, is asked by the sister of a friend to help her understand and make peace with her brother's suicide.

John Emmett, her brother, survived the war physically, but lost his way in guilt and grief, committing suicide three years after the armistice. The investigation into the simple suicide reveals a string of murders.