This was an astonishing and heartbreaking novel. It starts as a dryly satirical depiction of a young courting couple who are deeply involved in local politics but really don't have a clue about what is happening in the rest of the world. Their arrogance and provincialism are such that they marry and

"I decided that here was material for a story; a young man and woman, enthusiastic, ignorant, who had thought of their little political scuffles as war and who stumbled accidentally into the other kind of war - of bullets and blood and high explosives." Cicely Hamilton, as quoted by Nicola Beauma

Oh my this was great! William and Griselda are pompous social activists, parroting the opinions of others instead of forming their own, listening only to those who agree with them, and believing themselves heroic, even though they risk and sacrifice nothing. That is until they find themselves, quite

I've decided to challenge myself to to read at least a dozen titles a year having to do with WWI, beginning next month. And so I laughed at myself when I realized this is what I was reading when I made that decision. OK, start the challenge a month early!

This was a very good beginning for such a cha

This is such a poignant book about yet idealized beliefs and the dangers of insulating oneself from those that disagree with you. It's message is as relevant today in the wake of Trump's election and Brexit as it was to the socialists of the pre war era.

I was not surprised to find out the author composed this novel in a tent on the front lines of World War I. The novel is a gruesome, starkly honest portrayal of the horrors of war. The author, however, draws the readers in at first with a light and satirical description of its gentle, naïve and opti