In 1914, a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth, they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young 'unknown soldier' experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

London is poised on the brink of World War II. Timid, scrawny Willie Beech -- the abused child of a single mother -- is evacuated to the English countryside. At first, he is terrified of everything, of the country sounds and sights, even of Mr. Tom, the gruff, kindly old man who has taken him in. But gradually Willie forgets the hate and despair of his past. He learns to love a world he never knew existed, a world of friendship and affection in which harsh words and daily beatings have no place.

Then a telegram comes. Willie must return to his mother in London. When weeks pass by with no word from Willie, Mr. Tom sets out for London to look for the young boy he has come to love as a son.

The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. This first volume of Shelby Foote's classic narrative of the Civil War opens with Jefferson Davis’s farewell to the United Senate and ends on the bloody battlefields of Antietam and Perryville, as the full, horrible scope of America’s great war becomes clear.

All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac. The story is told entirely from the point of view of the people involved in it. One learns not only what was happening on all fronts but also how the author discovered it during his years of exhaustive research.

Exhaustively researched and masterfully written, Foote’s epic account of the Civil War unfolds like a classic novel. Includes maps throughout.

This first volume in Shelby Foote's comprehensive history is a must-read for anyone interested in one of the bloodiest wars in America's history.

Dans la Grande Ville qu’occupent les Armées étrangères, la disette menace. Une mère conduit donc ses enfants à la campagne, chez leur grand-mère. Analphabète, avare, méchante et même meurtrière, celle-ci mène la vie dure aux jumeaux.

Loin de se laisser abattre, ceux-ci apprennent seuls les lois de la vie, de l’écriture et de la cruauté. Abandonnés à eux-mêmes, dénués du moindre sens moral, ils s’appliquent à dresser, chaque jour, dans un grand cahier, le bilan de leurs progrès et la liste de leurs forfaits.

Le Grand Cahier nous livre une fable incisive sur les malheurs de la guerre et du totalitarisme, mais aussi un véritable roman d’apprentissage dominé par l’humour noir.

كُتب الكثير عن بطولات ومآثر الحروب، وعن مدى الحاجة إليها بوصفها وسيلةً لتحقيق أهداف قد تُعدُّ نبيلة. لكن بقي السؤال الدائم: هل يوجد تبرير للسلام ولسعادتنا وحتى للانسجام الأبدي، إذا ما ذُرفت دمعةٌ صغيرةٌ واحدة لطفلٍ بريءٍ في سبيل ذلك؟

في الحرب العالمية الثانية، قُتل وجُرح وهُجِّر أكثر من مئة مليون شخص في حرب هي الأكثر دموية –حتى الآن – في تاريخنا البشري. وقد كُتب الكثير عن مآسي ونتائج هذه المرحلة القاتمة من تاريخنا. ولكن كيف رآها آخر الشهود الأحياء؛ أطفال هذه الحرب؟

بعد أكثر من ثلاثين عاماً على نهاية تلك الحرب تُعيد سفيتلانا في كتابها آخر الشهود مَن بقي من أبطال تلك المرحلة إلى طفولتهم التي عايشت الحرب، لتروي على لسانهم آخر الكلمات... عن زمان يُختتم بهم...

Before George R. R. Martin, there was Dorothy Dunnett... THE PERFECT GIFT for fans of A Game of Thrones. 'She is a brilliant story teller, The Lymond Chronicles will keep you reading late into the night, desperate to know the fate of the characters you have come to care deeply about.' - The Times Literary Supplement

Checkmate is the sixth and final book in the series. It is 1557 and legendary Scottish warrior Francis Crawford of Lymond is once more in France. There he is leading an army to rout the hated English from Calais. Yet while Lymond seeks victory on the battlefield, he is haunted by his troubled past - chiefly the truth about his origins and his marriage (in name only) to young Englishwoman Philippa Somerville. As the French offer him a way out of his marriage and his wife appears in France on a mission of her own, the final moves are made in a great game that has been playing out over an extraordinary decade of war, love, and struggle - bringing The Lymond Chronicles to a spellbinding close.

'A masterpiece of historical fiction' - Washington Post
'Melodrama of the most magnificent kind' - The Guardian

This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered - not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives...

This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome... but so is war.

Twice a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, author Barbara Tuchman tackles the pervasive presence of folly in governments throughout the ages. Defining folly as the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives, Tuchman details four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly in government:

• The Trojan War
• The breakup of the Holy See provoked by Renaissance Popes
• The loss of the American colonies by Britain's George III
• The USA's persistent folly in Vietnam

The March of Folly brings the people, places, and events of history alive for today's reader, showcasing Tuchman's incomparable talent for animating history.

A Separate Peace is a poignant exploration of adolescence set against the backdrop of World War II. This American classic, which has captivated readers for over thirty years, unfolds within the confines of an all-boys boarding school in New England. We witness the story of Gene, an introverted intellectual, and his friendship with Phineas, a charismatic and daring athlete.

Their summer together is marked by a series of events that irrevocably change both their lives, mirroring the loss of innocence experienced by the country as a whole during the war. John Knowles' novel is not only a bestseller but also a profound parable about the darker aspects of adolescence and the complexities of friendship.

This book is a confession, a document, and a record of people's memory. More than 200 women share their stories, describing how young girls, who dreamed of becoming brides, became soldiers in 1941. Over 500,000 Soviet women participated alongside men in the Second World War, the most terrible conflict of the 20th century.

Women not only rescued and bandaged the wounded but also fired sniper rifles, blew up bridges, went on reconnaissance missions, and killed... They killed the enemy who, with unprecedented cruelty, attacked their land, homes, and children.

Soviet writer of Belarus, Svetlana Alexievich, spent four years working on this book, visiting over 100 cities, towns, settlements, and villages to record the stories and reminiscences of women war veterans.

The most important aspect of the book is not merely the front-line episodes but the heart-rending experiences of women during the war. Through their testimony, the past makes an impassioned appeal to the present, denouncing yesterday's and today's fascism.

Exodus is an international publishing phenomenon—the towering novel of the twentieth century's most dramatic geopolitical event. Leon Uris magnificently portrays the birth of a new nation in the midst of enemies—the beginning of an earthshaking struggle for power. Here is the tale that swept the world with its fury: the story of an American nurse, an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a glorious, heartbreaking, triumphant era. Here is Exodus—one of the great bestselling novels of all time.

In 1936, George Orwell travelled to Spain to report on the Civil War and instead joined the fight against the Fascists. This famous account describes the war and Orwell's own experiences. Introduction by Lionel Trilling.

Catch-22 is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944, and follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. The narrative primarily takes place while the fictional 256th Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy.

The book delves into Yossarian's experiences and those of his fellow airmen as they strive to maintain their sanity amidst the chaos of war, with the overarching goal of fulfilling their service requirements to return home.

Catch-22 is renowned for its unique blend of hilarity and horror, its originality, and its powerful vitality. It presents a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as perceived by someone dangerously sane, offering both outrageous humor and a poignant reflection on the human condition.

Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution.

Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and to the ancient stories of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremony that defeats the most virulent of afflictions—despair.

A vivid depiction of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I, The Bridge on the Drina earned Ivo Andric the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. A great stone bridge built three centuries ago in the heart of the Balkans by a Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire dominates the setting of Andric's stunning novel. Spanning generations, nationalities, and creeds, the bridge stands witness to the countless lives played out upon it:

Radisav, the workman, who tries to hinder its construction and is impaled on its highest point; to the lovely Fata, who throws herself from its parapet to escape a loveless marriage; to Milan, the gambler, who risks everything in one last game on the bridge with the devil his opponent; to Fedun, the young soldier, who pays for a moment of spring forgetfulness with his life. War finally destroys the span, and with it the last descendant of that family to which the Grand Vezir confided the care of his pious bequest - the bridge.

Strange Meeting is a classic novel by Susan Hill that explores the power of love amidst the atrocities of war. The story follows young officer John Hilliard as he returns to his battalion in France after a period of sick leave in England. Despite having trouble adjusting to all the new faces, the stiff and reserved Hilliard forms a friendship with David Barton, an open and cheerful new recruit who has yet to be bloodied in battle.

As the pair approach the front line, facing the proximity of death and destruction, their strange friendship deepens. But each knows that soon they will be separated. Hill masterfully communicates the feeling of men under appalling stress at a particular moment in history with uncanny power.

A remarkable feat of imaginative and descriptive writing, this novel captures the essence of human connection in the face of war and is a testament to the enduring spirit of camaraderie.

Acclaimed entertainer Hans Schnier collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won’t marry her within the Catholic Church. The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life—the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father, and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked for “reconciliation” afterwards.

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war.

The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny.

Considerada una obra maestra, esta novela supuso el reconocimiento de Simin Daneshvar como una autora indispensable de la moderna literatura persa. Reeditada en numerosas ocasiones, Suvashun fue una novela valiente, la primera escrita por una mujer iraní y narrada por su protagonista femenina. Ambientada en el Irán de la Segunda Guerra Mundial durante la ocupación de los Aliados, la historia está narrada por Zahra, una joven ama de casa que es testigo de los acontecimientos.

El amor que siente por su marido, sus tres hijos, su casa y su jardín, a los que considera su país, y la educación en el colegio de los misioneros ingleses han hecho de ella una mujer culta pero sumisa, tolerante ante las injusticias que ve a su alrededor, una actitud que choca frontalmente con la personalidad de su marido, Yusef, que se rebela frente a los invasores, como el mítico héroe persa Suvashun.

Wilfred Owen was twenty-two when he enlisted in the Artists' Rifle Corps during World War I. By the time Owen was killed at the age of 25 at the Battle of Sambre, he had written what are considered the most important British poems of WWI.

This definitive edition is based on manuscripts of Owen's papers in the British Museum and other archives.

Diamond Head, Hawaii, 1941. Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt is a champion welterweight and a fine bugler. But when he refuses to join the company's boxing team, he gets "the treatment" that may break him or kill him.

First Sgt. Milton Anthony Warden knows how to soldier better than almost anyone, yet he's risking his career to have an affair with the commanding officer's wife.

Both Warden and Prewitt are bound by a common bond: the Army is their heart and blood... and, possibly, their death.

In this magnificent but brutal classic of a soldier's life, James Jones portrays the courage, violence, and passions of men and women who live by unspoken codes and with unutterable despair... in the most important American novel to come out of World War II, a masterpiece that captures as no other the honor and savagery of men.

The Thin Red Line is James Jones's fictional account of the battle between American and Japanese troops on the island of Guadalcanal. This gripping narrative shifts effortlessly among multiple viewpoints within C-for-Charlie Company, including commanding officer Capt. James Stein, his psychotic first sergeant Eddie Welsh, and the young privates they send into battle.

The descriptions of combat conditions—and the mental states it induces—are unflinchingly realistic, painting a vivid picture of the chaos and brutality of war. This novel delves deep into the psychological impacts of combat and the nature of male identity in the face of such adversity.

More than just a classic of combat fiction, The Thin Red Line stands as one of the most significant explorations of identity and survival in American literature.

Väinö Linnan suurteos Täällä Pohjantähden alla on piirtynyt suomalaisten muistiin lähihistorian näkemyksellisenä kuvauksena. Sen sivuilla syrjäinen hämäläiskylä elää alkuvoimaista, maanläheistä elämäänsä kansamme suurina murroskausina.

Trilogian ajallisina rajakohtina ovat helmikuun manifestia edeltänyt vuosikymmen, josta edetään torppariperheiden tragedian kautta kansalaissotaan ja Suomen itsenäisyyden vuosikymmeniin aina 1950-luvulle saakka.

Varttuneempi lukijapolvi tuntee katselevansa silmästä silmään omiakin kokemuksiaan, nuoremmille avautuu ennen tuntemattomia näkymiä kansakunnan kulkemalta tieltä.

The Unknown Soldier is a story about the Continuation War between Finland and Soviet Union, told from the viewpoint of ordinary Finnish soldiers. Gritty and realistic, it was partly intended to shatter the myth of the noble, obedient Finnish soldier, and in that it succeeded admirably.

Freedom or Death by Nikos Kazantzakis is a novel on the heroic or epic scale about the rebellion of the Greek Christians against the Turks on the island of Crete, where Kazantzakis was from.

The story follows the exploits of a Greek: Captain Michalis and his blood brother, Nurey Bey, a Turk, through war, love, friendship, hatred, and a backdrop of the island of Crete with all its beauty, drama, joy, and sadness.

This book is a work of a master with characters that come to life and are destined to live forever.

For eight weeks in 1945, when Berlin fell into the hands of the Russian army, a young woman recorded her diary in the building of her apartment and its surroundings. The "unknown" writer portrayed Berliners in all their human natures, in their cowardice and corruption, firstly due to hunger and secondly due to the Russian soldiers.

"A Woman in Berlin" speaks about the complex relationships between the civilians and the occupying army, and the humiliating treatment of women in an occupied city, which is always a subject of mass rape that all women suffered from, regardless of age and infirmity.

"A Woman in Berlin" is one of the essential books for understanding war and life.

Based on Mailer's own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two, The Naked and the Dead is a graphically truthful and shattering portrayal of ordinary men in battle. First published in 1949, as America was still basking in the glories of the Allied victory, it altered forever the popular perception of warfare.

Focusing on the experiences of a fourteen-man platoon stationed on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific during World War II, and written in a journalistic style, it tells the moving story of the soldiers' struggle to retain a sense of dignity amidst the horror of warfare, and to find a source of meaning in their lives amidst the sounds and fury of battle.

All My Sons is a profound drama set during World War II, capturing the complex relationships and ethical dilemmas within the Keller family. Joe Keller and Steve Deever were business partners who, during the war, produced defective airplane parts leading to the deaths of many men. While Deever faces imprisonment, Keller avoids punishment and prospers.

The narrative intensifies as Keller's son, Chris, engages in a love affair with Ann Deever, Steve's daughter. George Deever returns from war only to find his father incarcerated and his father's partner free. The unfolding events and the burden of guilt bear down on the characters, culminating in a gripping and electrifying climax.

Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons not only established Arthur Miller as a pivotal figure in American theater but also introduced recurring themes seen in his later works: the intricate bonds between fathers and sons, and the perpetual conflict between business interests and personal morality.

With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose.

He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in The Periodic Table and The Wrench, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him.

He was himself a magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known.

Ultima noapte de dragoste, întâia noapte de război is a remarkable novel by Camil Petrescu, first published in 1930. The book presents a classic love story intertwined with a war diary, creating a narrative that challenges traditional genres.

The novel is narrated in the first person, offering a unique perspective that blends emotions of jealousy and the harsh realities of war. This combination provides an innovative approach to storytelling, distinguishing it from other novels of its time.

Ultima noapte de dragoste, întâia noapte de război marks a profound and radical reform in the novel genre, ensuring that literature would never be the same after its release.

Louisa May Alcott's classic tale of four sisters.

Grown-up Meg, tomboyish Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. The four March sisters couldn't be more different. But with their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they have to rely on one another. Whether they're putting on a play, forming a secret society, or celebrating Christmas, there's one thing they can't help wondering: Will Father return home safely?

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,” including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

Sarmiento, proscrito por la tiranía rosista y exiliado por dos veces en Chile, fue periodista brillante, político y polemista literario. "Facundo" es una biografía concebida como historia, historia de las guerras civiles de su patria centradas en la figura de Juan Facundo Quiroga, el más famoso, cruel, violento y despiadado caudillo de las guerras civiles argentinas. El desarrollo de los acontecimientos impulsó a Sarmiento a unir el tema biográfico a la realidad presente, denunciando a su enemigo Rosas.

A história de uma grande paixão em tempo de guerra. Quem sabe se a vida do capitão Afonso Brandão teria sido totalmente diferente se, naquela noite fria e húmida de 1917, não se tivesse apaixonado por uma bela francesa de olhos verdes e palavras meigas. O oficial do exército português estava nas trincheiras da Flandres, em plena carnificina da I Guerra Mundial, quando viu o seu amor testado pela mais dura das provas.

Em segredo, o Alto Comando alemão preparava um ataque decisivo, uma ofensiva tão devastadora que lhe permitiria vencer a guerra num só golpe, e tencionava quebrar a linha de defesa dos aliados num pequeno sector do vale do Lys. O sítio onde estavam os portugueses.

Tendo como pano de fundo o cenário trágico da participação de Portugal na Grande Guerra, A Filha do Capitão traz-nos a comovente história de uma paixão impossível e, num ritmo vivo e empolgante, assinala o regresso do grande romance às letras portuguesas. O Capitão Afonso Brandão mudou a sua vida quase sem o saber, numa fria noite de boleto, ao prender o olhar numa bela francesa de olhos verdes e voz de mel.

O oficial comandava uma companhia da Brigada do Minho e estava havia apenas dois meses nas trincheiras da Flandres quando, durante o período de descanso, decidiu ir pernoitar a um castelo perto de Armentières. Conheceu aí uma deslumbrante baronesa e entre eles nasceu uma atracção irresistível. Mas o seu amor iria enfrentar um duro teste.

O Alto Comando alemão, reunido em segredo em Mons, decidiu que chegara a hora de lançar a grande ofensiva para derrotar os aliados e ganhar a guerra, e escolheu o vale do Lys como palco do ataque final. À sua espera, ignorando o terrível cataclismo prestes a desabar sobre si, estava o Corpo Expedicionário Português.

Decorrendo durante a odisseia trágica da participação portuguesa na Primeira Guerra Mundial, A Filha do Capitão conta-nos a inesquecível aventura de um punhado de soldados nas trincheiras da Flandres e traz-nos uma paixão impossível entre um oficial português e uma bonita francesa. Mais do que uma simples história de amor, esta é uma comovente narrativa sobre a amizade, mas também sobre a vida e sobre a morte, sobre Deus e a condição humana, a arte e a ciência, o acaso e o destino.

It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and to two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution.

Five families, American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh, move through the dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. The plot contains profanity, graphic sexual situations, and violence. Book #1

War and Mystery Beyond the Stars

Sgt. “Det” Cox has just spent three years under psych observation on Earth; now that he’s out-system, he isn’t about to tell anyone he’s seeing aliens again. Paige Barnett has lost everything, even her name, because she knows too much about the rebellion spreading through the Earth-Space mining colonies.

Together, Cox and Barnett stumble upon the mystery at the revolution’s heart and learn why the rebels are willing to die for it. Is their discovery humanity’s worst threat or greatest gift? The authorities are willing to destroy whole planets to keep the revolution’s secret from reaching Earth… What’s to stop them from destroying two people?

Join the thrilling adventure as the duo uncovers cosmic secrets that could change the fate of humanity.

Regeneration is a historical fiction novel set during World War I. It documents characters based on real people and their experiences with shell shock and recovery at the Craiglockhart Hospital.

This novel explores the psychological effects of war on soldiers and the attempts at recovery in a medical setting. It provides a deep insight into the human mind during times of extreme stress and trauma.

On a summer morning in Sarajevo a hundred years ago, a teenage assassin named Gavrilo Princip fired not just the opening shots of the First World War but the starting gun for modern history, when he killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Yet the events Princip triggered were so monumental that his own story has been largely overlooked, his role garbled and motivations misrepresented.

The Trigger puts this right, filling out as never before a figure who changed our world and whose legacy still has an impact on all of us today. Born a penniless backwoodsman, Princip's life changed when he trekked through Bosnia and Serbia to attend school. As he ventured across fault lines of faith, nationalism and empire, so tightly clustered in the Balkans, radicalisation slowly transformed him from a frail farm boy into history's most influential assassin.

By retracing Princip's journey from his highland birthplace, through the mythical valleys of Bosnia to the fortress city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding both of Princip and the places that shaped him. Tim uncovers details about Princip that have eluded historians for a century and draws on his own experience, as a war reporter in the Balkans in the 1990s, to face down ghosts of conflicts past and present.

The sweeping plains held the promise of a lifetime.

Linnea
Eager to begin her first teaching position, lovely Linnea Brandonberg stepped off the train looking as grown up and worldly as her eighteen years would allow. The golden fields and fragrant wheat of Alamo, North Dakota, were as new and different as the Westgaard family with whom she would live.

Teddy
Farm life in 1917 was hard and bitter—but tiny, spirited Linnea was determined to brave its challenges. And as World War I threatened to take those she held dear, Linnea grew to womanhood in the arms of Teddy Westgaard, a man who thought he'd never find love.

Years
A story of passion. A story of heartache. A story of a way of life that will long be remembered—with people and places as real as the emotions of the heart.