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World War I
2014 marks the centenary of the First World War.
The first world war centenary is year to honour the dead, not glorify the war, says War Horse author Michael Morpurgo:
"There should be no flag waving, unless it be the lowering of the flags of all the nations who lost their sons, unless it be to celebrate the peace we now share together, unless it be to reaffirm again our determination to guard our freedom, but as far as humanly possible to do it in peace. And when we sing the anthems, let them be anthems of peace and reconciliation.You can read more about the alternative World War 1 commemorations at www.noglory.org - and read an open letter, signed by writers, actors, musicians, teachers and campaigners - that calls for the anniversary to be used to promote peace and international co-operation.
...Come each November over the next four years, let the red poppy and the white poppy be worn together to honour those who died, to keep our faith with them, to make of this world a place where freedom and peace can reign together."
(Michael Morpurgo)
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Conscientious Objection: Bertrand Russell and the Pacifists in the First World War - by Jo Vellacott - £14.99
"Jo Vellacott’s excellent book is a model of careful scholarship, clear and lively writing, and the choice of a subject that matters deeply. One hundred years on, it’s high time we honored those who had the courage to speak out against the madness of ... more
No Man's Land: Writings from a World at War - by Pete Ayrton (Editor) - £9.99
The Great War gave birth to some of the twentieth century's most celebrated writing; from Brooke to Sassoon, the poetry generated by the war is etched into collective memory. But it is in prose fiction that we find some of the most profound insights ... more
Conscientious Objectors of the First World War: A Determined Resistance - by Ann Kramer - £19.99
The story of conscientious objection in Britain begins in 1916, when conscription was introduced for the first time. Some 16,000 men — the first conscientious objectors — refused conscription because they believed on grounds of conscience that it was ... more
Under Fire - by Henri Barbusse - £9.99
'Men are made to be husbands, fathers - men, in short! Not animals that hunt one another down'
Under Fire follows the fortune of a French battalion during the First World War. For this group of ordinary men, thrown together from all over France a ... more
Charley's War: The Great Mutiny - by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun - £14.99
Renowned UK comics writer Pat Mills (Marshal Law) and legendary artist Joe Colquhoun (Johnny Red) continue the thrilling, humorous and horrifying story of World War One soldier Charley Bourne.
In September 1917, Charley is caught up in the m ... more
Charley's War: A Boy Soldier in the Great War - by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun - £19.99
From renowned UK comics writer Pat Mills (Marshal Law, Requiem, Vampire Knight, Sláine) and legendary artist Joe Colquhoun (Johnny Red) comes a truly classic piece of British comics history, by turns thrilling, humorous and horrifying. Often heralded ... more
Not Our War: Writings Against the First World War - by A.W. Zurbrugg (Editor) - £12.95
An anthology of First World War voices
Some of the voices here came to oppose the war after reflecting on experience, others opposed it on principle before a shot was fired - they may have been few in number, but gradually their influence rose.
... more
Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914 - by Stanley Weintraub - £8.99
On Christmas Eve in the early years of World War I, men on both sides left their trenches, laid down their arms and joined in a spontaneous celebration. For a brief time the war stopped, the enemies met in no-man's land and buried their dead, exchan ... more
Poetry of the First World War: An Anthology - by Tim Kendall - £8.99
'What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?'
The First World War produced an extraordinary flowering of poetic talent, from poets whose words commemorate the conflict as enduringly as monuments in stone. Their poems have come to express ... more
And You, Helen - by Deryn Rees-Jones, illustrated by Charlotte Hodes - £14.99
Poet Deryn Rees-Jones and artist Charlote Hodes have created a unique approach to the life of Helen Thomas, and through her to the women, and children, left behind by the fatalities of war. Helen Thomas was widowed when her husband the war poet Edwar ... more
The Guns of August: The Classic Bestselling Account of the Outbreak of the First World War - by Barbara W. Tuchman - £10.99
War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use . . .
Barbara Tuchman's universally acclaimed, Pulitzer prize-winning account of how the first thirty days of battle deter ... more
The Regeneration Trilogy: Regeneration; The Eye in the Door; The Ghost Road - by Pat Barker - £16.99
The Regeneration Trilogy is Pat Barker's sweeping masterpiece of British historical fiction.
1917, Scotland. At Craiglockhart War Hospital, army psychiatrist William Rivers treats shell-shocked soldiers before sending them back to the fron ... more
Private Peaceful (Play script) - by Michael Morpurgo, adapted by Simon Reade - £9.99
Private Peaceful relives the life of Private Tommo Peaceful, a young First World War soldier awaiting the firing squad at dawn. During the night he looks back at his short but joyful past growing up in rural Devon: his exciting first days at school; ... more
My Brother's Keeper - by Tony Bradman and Tom Bradman - £5.99
A novel of the First World War.
Alfie signs up for the army aged just 15, carried away by patriotic fervour at the start of the Great War. But life in the trenches is very far from his dreams of glory. It's hard, and cold, and it's boring. ... more
Wilfred Owen - by Wilfred Owen, poems Selected by Jon Stallworthy - £7.99
In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an ... more
The Ghost Road - by Pat Barker - £8.99
1918, the closing months of the war. Army psychiatrist William Rivers is increasingly concerned for the men who have been in his care – particularly Billy Prior, who is about to return to combat in France with young poet Wilfred Owen. As Rivers tries ... more
When This Bloody War is Over: Soldiers' Songs of the First World War - by Max Arthur - £8.99
A heart-rending compilation of the greatest soldiers' songs from the First World War.
The haunting songs of the First World War still have a powerful emotional impact. These are the funny, bitter, sad and romantic words the soldiers actually sang o ... more
Oh What a Lovely War (Play Script) - by Joan Littlewood (Editor) - £9.99
Oh What a Lovely War is a theatrical chronicle of the First World War, told through the songs and documents of the period. Devised and first performed by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London in 1963, it rece ... more
Somme: The Heroism and Horror of War - by Martin Gilbert - £12.99
The definitive story of the First World War's bloodiest conflict.
The Battle of the Somme, fought between July and November 1916, was among the bloodiest conflicts of all time. The aim was to end the stalemate on the Western Front - the resu ... more
Passchendaele: The Story of the Third Battle of Ypres 1917 - by Lyn MacDonald - £9.99
The third battle of Ypres, culminating in a desperate struggle for the ridge and little village of Passchendaele, was one of the most appalling campaigns in the First World War. A million Tommies, Canadians and Anzacs assembled at the Ypres Salient i ... more
A Farewell to Arms - by Ernest Hemingway - £8.99
Ernest's Hemingway's powerful autobiographical war classic - considered by many to be the greatest war novel ever written.
In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war, to the 'war to end all wars'. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was woun ... more
Life Class - by Pat Barker - £8.99
In the Spring of 1914 a group of students at the Slade School of Art have gathered for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant is easily distracted by an intriguing fellow student, Elinor Brooke, but when Kit Neville — himself not long out of the Slade bu ... more
Forgotten Voices of the Great War - by Max Arthur - £9.99
In 1960, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous and important task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing WWI veterans and interviewing them at length in order to record the experiences of ordinary individuals in war. Th ... more
Stay Where You are and Then Leave - by John Boyne - £10.99
The day the First World War broke out, Alfie Summerfield's father promised he wouldn't go away to fight - but he broke that promise the following day. Four years later, Alfie doesn't know where his father might be, other than that he's away on a spec ... more
The Eye in the Door - by Pat Barker - £8.99
London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men – pacifists, objectors, homosexuals – conflict with his duties as a soldier, and it is not long before his sense of hims ... more
The Great War and Modern Memory - by Paul Fussell - £12.99
Winner of both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and named by the Modern Library one of the twentieth century's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books, Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory was universally acclaimed on p ... more
Goodbye to All That - by Robert Graves - £8.99
'There has been a lot of fighting hereabouts. The trenches have made themselves rather than been made, and run inconsequently in and out of the big thirty-foot high stacks of bricks; it is most confusing. The parapet of a trench which we don't occupy ... more
Her Privates We - by Frederic Manning - £8.99
A new edition of a classic First World War novel, a brilliant and bitter picture of human conflict.
First published privately in 1929 as The Middle Parts of Fortune, Her Privates We is the novel of the Battle of the Somme told from the perspect ... more
The Flowers of the Forest: Scotland and the First World War - by Trevor Royle - £9.99
On the brink of the First World War, Scotland was regarded throughout the British Isles as ‘the workshop of the Empire’. Not only were Clyde-built ships known the world over, Scotland produced half of Britain’s total production of railway equipment, ... more
Women, Men and the Great War: An Anthology of Stories - by Various authors - £15.99
"A wide ranging, challenging and constantly surprising collection ... focusing on the divisions the war created between men and women."(Pat Barker)
This is an anthology of short stories of World War I from 25 classic writers.
Gertrude Stein, ... more
Regeneration - by Pat Barker - £8.99
Craiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, where army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by me ... more
Somme - by Lyn MacDonald - £9.99
'There was hardly a household in the land', writes Lyn Macdonald, 'there was no trade, occupation, profession or community, which was not represented in the thousands of innocent enthusiasts who made up the ranks of Kitchener's Army before the Battle ... more
Women in the First World War - by Neil R. Storey and Molly Housego - £6.99
As millions of young men marched off to war, they left behind mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts who were determined to contribute to the British cause. Women enrolled as nurses to treat wounded soldiers, and over 700,000 became workers in fact ... more
The Great War (Fold-Out Panorama) - by Joe Sacco - £20.00
From ‘the heir to R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman’ (The Economist) comes a monumental, wordless panorama capturing the horror of World War I.
THE GREAT WAR: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme
AN ILLUSTRATED PANORAMA - WITH ... more
The Boy I Love - by Marion Husband - £7.99
The story is set in the aftermath of World War One. Paul Harris, still frail after shellshock, returns to his father’s home and to the arms of his secret lover, Adam. He discovers that Margot, the fiancée of his dead brother, is pregnant and marries ... more
Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders - World War I - by Tony Robinson - £5.99
Everything you need to know about World War I!
Tony Robinson takes you on a headlong gallop through time, pointing out all the most important, funny, strange, amazing, entertaining, smelly and disgusting bits about World War I. It's history, b ... more
All Quiet on the Western Front - by Erich Maria Remarque - £8.99
All Quiet on the Western Front is the most famous anti-war novel ever written.
One by one the boys begin to fall...
In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'gl ... more
Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War - by Alan Kramer - £24.99
On 26 August 1914 the world-famous university library in the Belgian town of Louvain was looted and destroyed by German troops. The international community reacted in horror - 'Holocaust at Louvain' proclaimed the Daily Mail - and the behaviour of th ... more
The Christmas Truce - by Carol Ann Duffy, illustrated by David Roberts - £6.99
A new tale celebrating the magic of Christmas from the Poet Laureate, illustrated by David Roberts.
Down at the front, on a cold winter’s night in 1914, amidst the worst war the world had ever seen, an inexplicable silence spread from man to ... more
Wilfred Owen - by Jon Stallworthy - £18.99
A revised and updated edition of Jon Stallworthy's prize-winning and classic biography of the great World War One poet, Wilfred Owen.
Of all the poets of the First World War, Wilfred Owen most fires the imagination today. This biography is mor ... more
The Daughters of Mars - by Thomas Keneally - £9.99
By the author of Schindler's Ark, a profoundly affecting tale of love, courage and sacrifice and a searing evocation of the First World War from a fresh, female perspective.
In 1915, two spirited Australian sisters join the war effort as nur ... more
The Red Sweet Wine of Youth: The Brave and Brief Lives of the War Poets - by Nicholas Murray - £12.99
A group portrait of the poets of the First World War, seen in their full historical, military and biographical context, out now in paperback.
The poetry that emerged from the trenches of WWI is a remarkable body of work, at once political mani ... more
The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry - by George Walter (Editor) - £8.99
This anthology reflects the diversity of voices it contains: the poems are arranged thematically and the themes reflect the different experiences of war not just for the soldiers but for those left behind. This is what makes this volume more accessib ... more
Stories of World War One - by Tony Bradman (Editor) - £7.99
A must-have anthology featuring stories by award-winning, bestselling authors, to commemorate the centenary of World War One.
Tales to remember yesterday's fallen - from today's bestselling authors.
Compiled by Tony Bradman, this collection of ... more
The First World War: An Illustrated History - by A.J.P. Taylor - £9.99
A. J. P. Taylor was one of the most acclaimed and uncompromising historians of the twentieth century. In this clear, lively and now-classic account of the First World War, he tells the story of the conflict from the German advance in the West, throug ... more
Because You Died: Poetry and Prose of the First World War and After - by Vera Brittain, edited and introduced by Mark Bostridge - £8.99
Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,And I shall see that still the skies are blue,And feel once more I do not live in vain,Although bereft of You... So wrote twenty-two-year-old Vera Brittain, mouring the loss of her fiance Roland Leighton on t ... more
War Horse (Script) - by Nick Stafford - £9.99
At the outbreak of the First World War, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Caught up in enemy fire, fate takes Joey on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no m ... more
Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 - by Vera Brittain - £14.99
In 1914 Vera Brittain was eighteen and, as war was declared, she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life - and the life of her whole generation - had changed in a way that was unimaginable in the tranquil pre-war era. Testament o ... more
When the Guns Fall Silent - by James Riordan - £6.99
Jack, standing among the war graves, sees a face he recognizes. Suddenly, it's 1914 again and he's a young lad back in the trenches. Visions of killing and misery come to him with horrible clarity. But then Jack remembers too the incredible moment wh ... more
What Are We Fighting For? New Poems About War - by Brian Moses and Roger Stevens - £4.99
What Are We Fighting For? explores the concept of war in a brilliantly accessible way for younger readers.
Fascinating and moving in equal measure, there are poems about incredibly brave dogs, cats and pigeons; the Christmas truce of WWI wh ... more
How Many Miles to Babylon? - by Jennifer Johnston - £8.99
Alec and Jerry shouldn't have been friends: Alec's life was one of privilege, while Jerry's was one of toil. But this hardly mattered to two young men whose shared love of horses brought them together and whose whole lives lay ahead of them.
Wh ... more
Death of a Hero - by Richard Aldington - £9.99
One of the great World War I antiwar novels — honest, chilling, and brilliantly satirical.
Based on the author's experiences on the Western Front, Richard Aldington's first novel, Death of a Hero, finally joins the ranks of Penguin Classic ... more
A Long Long Way - by Sebastian Barry - £8.99
One of the most vivid and realised charcaters of recent fiction, Willie Dunne is the innocent hero of Sebastian Barry's highly acclaimed novel. Leaving Dublin to fight for the Allied cause as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, he finds himself c ... more
Heart Specialist - by Claire Holden Rothman - £8.99
Agnes White has only ever wanted of one thing: to follow in her father’s great footsteps and become a doctor. But her remarkable intelligence is regarded as disruptive, and her awkward manner and careless appearance nothing but the mark of a spinster ... more
Three Poets of the First World War - by Ivor Gurney, Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg, edited by Jon Stallworthy - £8.99
This new selection brings together the poetry of three of the most distinctive and moving voices to emerge from the First World War.
Here are the controlled passion and rich metaphors of Wilfred Owen's celebrated verses such as 'Anthem for ... more
My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You - by Louisa Young - £9.99
While Riley Purefoy and Peter Locke fight for their country, their survival and their sanity in the trenches of Flanders, Nadine Waveney, Julia Locke and Rose Locke do what they can at home. Beautiful, obsessive Julia and gentle, eccentric Peter are ... more
The Picture Book - by Jo Baker - £8.99
Set against the rolling backdrop of a century of British history from WWI to the 'War on Terror', this is an intimate family portrait captured in snapshots.
First there is William, the factory lad who loses his life in Gallipoli, then his s ... more
The First World War: A Very Short Introduction - by Michael Howard - £7.99
By the time the First World War ended in 1918, eight million people had died in what had been perhaps the most apocalyptic episode the world had known. This very short introduction provides a concise and insightful history of the 'Great War', focusin ... more
Casualty Figures: How Five Men Survived the First World War - by Michelle Barrett - £14.99
Casualty Figures is not about the millions who died in the First World War; it is about the countless thousands of men who lived as long-term casualties - not of shrapnel and gas, but of the bleak trauma of the slaughter they escaped. In this p ... more
The Absolutist - by John Boyne - £8.99
September 1919: Twenty-years-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a clutch of letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian's brother Will during the Great War. They trained together. They fought together. ... more
We Will Not Go to War: Conscientious Objection During the World Wars - by Felicity Goodall - £11.99
During the First and Second World Wars thousands of men and women refused the call to arms. Reviled, starved and beaten, theirs was a battle of conscience.
In the First World War, seventy-three conscientious objectors died as a result o ... more
Letters from a Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends - by Edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge - £12.99
"Nothing in the papers, not the most vivid and heart-rending descriptions, have made me realise war like your letters."(Vera Brittain to her fiance, Roland Leighton, 17 April 1915)
Letters from a Lost Generation is a memorable selection of letters ... more
Worthless Men - by Andrew Cowan - £8.99
A novel about the First World War that is as mesmerising as it is unusual, a triumphant new work by one of the most acclaimed writers of the 90s.
It's market day in an English city two years into the Great War. The farmers are coming in f ... more
The Roses of No Man's Land - by Lyn MacDonald - £9.99
'On the face of it,' writes Lyn Macdonald, 'no one could have been less equipped for the job than these gently nurtured girls who walked straight out of Edwardian drawing rooms into the manifest horrors of the First World War . . . '
Yet the ... more
The Best Christmas Present in the World - by Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman - £5.99
Echoes of Christmas 1914 in the trenches call to the present day when a letter found by chance in an antique desk brings one soldier's experience hauntingly to life. Writing home from the front, the soldier has an extraordinary story to tell... &nbs ... more
Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived without Men After the First World War - by Virginia Nicholson - £9.99
Before the First World War a single woman had one aim in life: to get married. But three-quarters of a million British soldiers were killed in that war, leaving not enough men to go around and a generation of so-called 'Surplus Women'. What became of ... more
The Good Soldier Svejk: And His Fortunes in the World War - by Jaroslav Hasek - £10.99
Hasek's most important work was centered around the deeply funny story of a hapless Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army -- dismissed for incompetence only to be pressed into service by the Russians in World War I (where he is captured by his o ... more
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