On Memorial Day, keep in mind these books about soldiers in wartime, says Sen. John McCain
By SEN. JOHN MCCAINMay 26, 2007; Page P6
For Whom The Bell Tolls
By Ernest Hemingway
Scribner, 1940
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
By Edward Gibbon
1776-88
This Kind of War
By T.R. Fehrenbach
Macmillan, 1963
Hell in a Very Small Place
By Bernard B. Fall
Lippincott, 1966
All Quiet on the Western Front
By Erich Maria Remarque
Little, Brown, 1929
Three of these books (Hemingway, Gibbon, and Remarque) were required readings when I was in 10th grade (World Literature class)... Heh... I love Remarque..
ReplyDeleteGood grief.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if our kids even read Hemingway any more.
10th grade.
I've read only the Hemingway.
ReplyDeleteI was educated by wolves.
I read none of these in school. I'm not sure I'd heard of Hemingway before college.
ReplyDeleteBut I was required to read Go Ask Alice in the 11th grade.
I was educated by slugs.
I think A Bright and Shining Lie could make McCains' list of best war books. But that's Vietnam and I don't think the nation is ever going to be ready to talk much about that war.
But that's Vietnam and I don't think the nation is ever going to be ready to talk much about that war.
ReplyDeleteWell sure.
After we're all dead.
Actually, I always had the opposite impression; it seems like we never stop talking about that war. Korea seems to be the one that nobody ever talks about.
ReplyDeleteWhich, incidentally, would seem to be a great reason to pick up Fehrenbach's book. I would be tempted to say it should be required reading for HS seniors, except everybody knows that HS history ends on on 6 June 1944.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it say about me that I've read 4 of the 5, but none while I was in school?