[books i've been reading]

Storm of Steel, Ernst Junger. Junger's infamous memoir of his fighting in the Great War has been praised by all sides of the conflict (the French, believe it or not, loved him and his work). Junger enlisted as an Ensign in the German army and saw action in a slew of battles on the Western Front: he saw action in the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Third Battle of Ypres. He participated in the German counterattack at Cambrai, and he somehow lived through Operation Michael, one of the wings of the German Spring Offensive of 1918. Wounded in the latter part of 1918, his lyrical and poetic memoir ends not with the end of the world but him being awarded one of the highest medals in the Prussian military, the Pour le Merite. After the war, Junger entered politics and continued writing; though he's written many other books, his memoirs rank at the top. Junger's "gifts as a writer are primarily  those of a diarist: descriptiveness and an ear for speech, attention to detail, mobility of perspective, intellectual stamina and disjunctiveness, at his best over medium distances, as a writer of passages rather than of books or sentences." Junger didn't side with the Nazis and absorbed lots of criticism in the days prior to the outbreak of World War 2; during the second world war, he showed his loyalty and served in German-occupied France. He was involved in the periphery of the infamous Stauffenberg bomb plot (an attempt to assassinate Hitler). Surprisingly, he wasn't executed when the plan apart, though he was dismissed from the army. Junger's past-times included botany, entomology, and zoology; and he loved experimenting with narcotics and hallucinagens. In other words, he was awesome.

Under Fire, Henri Barbusse. "Every great event inspires the writers of its time. Among the works they create are novels, some of which have become widely recognised as classics and which are known by almost everyone whether they have read the book or not. Tolstoy's War and Peace is one such, remarkable for its depiction of Russia in the early nineteenth century and the age of Napoleon. Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is another, widely admired for its portrayal of the First World War from the perspective of the German Army. Irrespective of the deserved status of these works, translation to the movie screen assists the phenomenon. Inevitably, there are works less well known to many but which those 'in the know' recognise as literary achievements of equal worth and stature. This book, Under Fire (Le Feu) is such a book. It is a classic novel of the experience of the Great War from the perspective of French soldiers who fought in the trenches. Whilst it is a novel, it derives its remarkable authenticity of atmosphere, detail, characterisation and events from the actual wartime experiences of its author, Henri Barbusse, who served as a soldier on the front line. Indeed, his book, a stark anti-war portrayal of the ordeals of ordinary poilou under fire is dedicated to his fallen comrades from the battles at Crouy and on Hill 119 which took place in 1915. Readers should be prepared for both a portrayal of men at war in the raw and experiences of tragic intensity. This is, of course, an essential work of twentieth century literature and is highly recommended. Available in softcover and hardcover with dustjacket. Leonaur hardcovers are full bound in real cloth with gold foil lettering on their spines and feature fabric head and tail bands." from Amazon