Oblomov: The Greatest Russian Novel You’ve Never Heard Of
1842 to 1880: what a forty years for readers of literary masterworks! Beginning with Gogol’s Dead Souls and ending with …
Tag Archives: Books
Just and Unjust Wars: Just and Unjust Combatants: The Theory
Despite being an adult-long pacator I’ve never paid too much attention to Just War Theory. Being brought up by Roman Catholics I …
Under Fire: A French Novel of WW I Trenches
Although All Quiet on the Western Front is the best known, and possibly the best written, novel of soldiers …
A Farewell to Arms, or Not? WW I Through American Eyes
Pop the question: “WW I fiction?” and 10 out of 10 who have an answer at all will say “A …
Generals Die in Bed: A Novel from WW I
Generals Die in Bed (1930) is a slender and undeservedly little known novel from WW I, by Canadian-American, Charles Yale Harrison …
Storm of Steel: Another German’s View of the Trenches, WW I
World War I was the bloody birthing ground for war literature, both of the trenches and the years of recovery. …
Breaking Knees – Stories from Syria by Zakaria Tamer
Syria is in the news, unhappily. Citizens are fleeing the fighting and overwhelming the resources in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. …
The Devil in the Flesh: Adultery in WW I, France
Raymond Radiguet, the 16 year old author of The Devil in the Flesh / “Le Diable au Corps,” 1923, died …
Post War: A History of Europe since 1945, Tony Judt
Tony Judt’s magisterial work, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 wasn’t his last before his sadly premature death, but it was …
The Absolutist: A Novel of War Time Refusal
John Boyne, born in Dublin in 1971, manages to summon the spirits of two very particular men, sent to fight …
Cities of Salt: The Trench — The Pit in the Desert
Abdelrahman Munif‘s trilogy,* Cities of Salt is one of those era-defining efforts of literary imagination and craft. It has been called …
Cities Of Salt: Wadi No More
Cities of Salt, a sweeping trilogy* of novels, and particularly the first, with the same name, by Abdelrahman Munif does …