Want to remind R&BLers that aravir has inaugurated the annual Netroots for the Troops (NFTT) fund raising Challenge. Especially want to draw this to the attention of our regular series Editors.
For those who were not involved in R&BLers last year at this time, the group was one of the top 2 groups on Daily Kos in terms of raising money for NFTT. I have set up an R&BLer group NFTT team page on the NFTT donation site. Here is the link:
https://bos.etapestry.com/....
I leave it to each diary series editor to decide for themselves whether or not to formally participate in the donation push. . .please use the link above to give credit for any donations to the R&BLer team. Our goal, as it was last year, will be $3000.
Big thank-you to R&BLers Team Captain,
aravir, for his initiative and dedication to a great cause. I believe he will be writing in a future diary the details of this year's fund drive, including the dates it is officially underway and when it ends. I hope as many of you who can will add whatever you are able to the cause, and I hope you will do it under the R&BLers Team. Again,
here is the link to make your donation.
If you'd like to learn more about NFTT, please follow this link.
Each year for the past four years, we at the non-profit Netroots for the Troops® have raised money to send hundreds of specially designed Care Packages to U.S. combat troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I suppose this is a good time to ask you all what is your favorite war novel or nonfiction history book on the topic. I've not read too many books with warfare or battles as their raison d'être, but of the few I have read, that have war, its effects, and its aftermath as a main subject or theme, I suppose I'd have to say Tolstoy's War and Peace is the best known and probably greatest literary excursion into the romantic and realistic side of war.
Just removed from Oscar weekend, let me bring up for consideration the novel War Horse, by Michael Murpurgo, on which the movie is based that was runner-up for the Whitbread Award a couple of years ago.
How often do we consider war from the point of view of the domestic animals we ask to accompany us into bellicose endeavors? By 1914, both barbed wire and machine guns were common to the battlefield but unknown to the horses that were combatants with the men who bled on the fields of France. The tank was on its way.
Have you seen the movie, read the book? If yes, can you offer a comparison of the two experiences -- viewing and reading? Here Morpurgo discusses his book in "War Horse is a Story I Had to Write." He has written several books taking an animal's p.o.v.
I attempted something along those lines myself. Last May, I wrote a diary, This Memorial Day Remember Our Canine Warriors asking Kossacks to honor our canine heroes while paying homage to our human ones. It got a mixed reception.
Like War Horse my favorite war novel is also set during WWI in France. The book is A Very Long Engagement by the late Sébastien Japrisot. It too was made into a film, by the same name, which I've seen, starring Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame. I found the movie to be faithful to the novel and visually stunning in its treatment of the horrors of no holds barred trench warfare. The novel is a war story but also a love story.
The premise is very simple. In 1919, wheelchair-bound Mathilde Donnay sets out to discover if her fiancé, accused of treason and marched into "no man's land" with four others, could still be alive. It is the story of the quest of a true heart. But it is also a subtle yet damning exploration of the issue of executing "shell-shocked" soldiers accuse of cowardice. It is beautifully reviewed here.
For me, it is the stories that feature WWI that seem especially touching, tragic, and memorable. Could it be because so much poetry seems to have been inspired by the War to End All Wars? Could it be because so many promising (especially British) writers met too early ends fighting that war? Or could it just be the irony of its nickname that makes stories about it so poignant? It certainly seems to have been the war that gave mankind the most pause and turned his opinion away from glorification of war. What the American Civil War should have done for our views on war's glories, certainly WWI did for other nations'. Goodbye, Mr. Chips immediately comes to mind as an example of a book that emphasizes the waste of war. Of course, All Quiet on the Western Front makes a direct political statement about the dangers of nationalism.
Is it possible to write a war story that is not a love story? Love of one person for another, of one's country, for humanity, possibly for war itself. That's a question that someone should answer in another diary.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of books about war -- perhaps more have been written on this topic in nonfiction than any other. Certainly war as a subject of novels can best compete with love in terms of numbers of books about it.
Supposedly, Aristotle tells us, "We make war so that we may live in peace." But about WWI, said Clemenceau, "It is easier to make war than to make peace." If this is true, then man will always have war, and there will always be books written on the subject. I hope no one thinks that we make war so that we may write books about it.
Here are titles of and links to lists of those considered to be the best.
30 Greatest War Novels of All Time A personal list. No specific criteria for selection.
200 Best War Novels Ranked. If you can't find it here. . .
300+ Most Compelling Nonfiction War Books
Karl Marlantes (Vietnam vet) list of Top 10 War Stories includes an interesting article and gets my affirmation as a (chronological) strong and considered compilation.
1. The Iliad by Homer
2. The Red Badge of Courage by Steven Crane
3. Egil's Saga
4. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
5. The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry
6. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
7. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
8. In Parenthesis by David Jones
9. The Thin Red Line by James Jones
10. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
Please tell us what your favorite war stories are and why you like them.
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
DAY |
TIME (EST/EDT) |
Series Name |
Editor(s) |
SUN |
3:00 PM |
The Magic Theater |
ArkDem14 |
SUN |
6:00 PM |
Young Reader's Pavilion |
The Book Bear |
SUN |
9:30 PM |
SciFi/Fantasy Book Club |
quarkstomper |
MON |
8:00 PM |
Monday Murder Mystery |
Susan from 29 |
Mon |
11:00 PM |
My Favorite Books/Authors |
edrie, MichiganChet |
TUE |
8:00 PM |
Readers & Book Lovers Newsletter |
Limelite |
TUE |
10:00 PM |
Contemporary Fiction Views |
bookgirl |
WED |
7:30 AM |
WAYR? |
plf515 |
WED |
8:00 PM |
Bookflurries: Bookchat |
cfk |
THU |
8:00 PM |
Write On! |
SensibleShoes |
FRI |
8:00 AM |
Books That Changed My Life |
aravir |
FRI |
10:00 PM (first of month) |
Monthly Bookposts |
AdmiralNaismith |
SAT |
11:00 AM (fourth of month) |
Windy City Bookworm |
Chitown Kev |
Sat |
9:00 PM |
Books So Bad They're Good |
Ellid |
Other than that, nothing's happening.