The Pastor's Top Great War Books

My Ontario friend and avid reader, The Pastor, was kind enough to provide me with the following list of his top Great War Books

Great War Books that I recommend.

1.     Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age by Modris  Eksteins

(a masterful book that  identifies historical, cultural, philosophical, and even aesthetic causes for the Great War) 

Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age 

2.     The Great War In Modern Memory by Paul Fussell

(the impact of Great War on literature and the imagination; Fusell also offers a surprising and thought provoking reading of John McCrae’s “In Flander’s Fields”)

The Great War and Modern Memory

3.     The Guns of August  by Barbra W. Tuchman

(gives a very close account of the immediate events that led to the start of the Great War; the book has a character of s Greek tragedy because Tuchman shows the reader how easily the war could have been avoided)

The Guns of August

4.     Not About Heroes by Stephen MacDonald

(a play that dramatizes the difficulty  Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon have in applying their Edwardian education and values to the harsh and brutal reality of the Great War) NOTE: No copy available in SILS, but should be available thru Inter-Library Loan.

5.     Lost Boys by R.H. Thompson

(an      Expressionistic play that brilliantly reveals the grief and loss that h the Great War brought to individuals, families and to the Canadian nation)
Found in:

Canada and the Theatre of War. Volume 1

I also higly recommend these books:

The First World War  by John Keegan ( a very readable and comprehensive account of the Great War)

The First World War

When Your Number’s Up by Desmond Morton (the Great War from a Canadian soldier’s perspective)

When Your Numbers Up; the Canadian Soldier in the First World War

Vimy by Pierre Berton (a very readable and detailed account on the preparations that went into fighting a WW1 battle)

Vimy

Billy Bishop Goes to War by John Gray and Eric Peterson (a play about the glory and the grief of being a WW1 fighter pilot)

Billy Bishop Goes to War: a play

I also recommend a good book on Sir Arthur Currie that I read years ago.

When I am able to locate it, I will send you some information about it. Note: here is a link to the most recent book about Currie in the collection:

The Madman and the Butcher: the sensational wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie

What are your top 5 Great War books -- leave a note in the comments below!