Biography of a year

One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson
That Fateful Year: 1914 by Mark Bostridge

It is no secret that I like to read non-fiction, in fact so far this year I've read a lot more fact than fiction but one new trend that I really like is the fashion for picking a year or a season and writing its biography.

Last year Bryson's 1927 made my top 5 books and I loved the way that he flitted from topic to topic, place to place, person to person but connected them all to tell the story of just a few months. I know his style is light and almost whimsical but it was also informative and got a lovely balance between being too scatty and too in depth.  I raced through it.

Mark Bostridge's book about 1914 can't be quite as light-hearted but he does manage to pick a wide variety of stories to show what England was like in the last few months before the First World War broke out.  He moves from child murder on a train, to the Prime Minister's love affair with a much younger woman to the serious situations caused by the Suffragettes and the Irish Troubles. The war almost sneaks up on you, and even by the end of 1914 the true horror hasn't quite hit home to most people.  There is also a lovely chapter all about the Burston School Strike here in Norfolk - something I'd heard of but not known much about.

Both authors manage to bring their subjects to life in a way that a straight history or the biography of just one person could never do.  They are popular reads not complicated reference tomes but they are good starting points and both have excellent bibliographies if you want to explore further.

Your Country Needs You...

Dorothea's War by Dorothea Crewsdon

In my stack of books from the library were two more of my weaknesses - published diaries from people serving in World War One.

The first was from a horse-mad doctor who signed up at the out break of war and served in France throughout the war.  Henry Owens' family came from Long Stratton here in Norfolk and I had high hopes for the book but sadly I found the detail too sparse. While there is no doubt that Henry was a brave man - he served with his units in the trenches and didn't take the safer option of working in the hospitals behind the lines - I didn't find anything to connect with in his story.

The second book was far more to my taste and the tale of another brave person.

Dorothea trained as a VAD before the out break of WW1 and once war was declared, along with a friend, she volunteered for overseas service. From autumn 1914 until spring 1919 Dorothea worked in hospitals behind the lines in Northern France, she nursed the wounded and those out of the fighting due to illness and rarely returned to the UK on leave through the 4 1/2 years.  Towards the end of the war the hospital she served in was subjected to air raids and her brave actions (and injury) lead to a medal.

Despite surviving the diseases of war, air raids and the Spanish Influenza there sadly isn't a happy ending to the book - this isn't a spoiler it is mentioned in the introduction - and by the end I had a huge lump in my throat. Dorothea's writing style, anecdotes and drawings really made her live and I felt like I was reading about a friend.

I'm sure that with next year being the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War there will be many books published on the subject - all I can hope is that I have time to read them, and that they are of the quality of Dorothea's War.

This is a post to shock my dad...

Strange Meetings by Harry Ricketts

... well this is a book review post to shock my dad (and many others that know me)

I think I've read a book that could be my book of the year, and it is about poetry and poets.

Now while I'm not a poetry fan normally I've always liked much of the poetry that came out of the First World War, for once studying a topic didn't put me off totally.

This book isn't about the poetry primarily but more about how the lives of the famous war poets were linked - either intimately, casually or via the six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

All of the characters came back to life on the page, they were neither demonised nor lionised and the excerpts of poetry complement the biographies perfectly. 

I can honestly say that I almost missed my train stop on Saturday as I was reading this, it really was an undignified scramble to get off the train in time! I've been recommending the book left, right and centre since finishing it and that makes only the 3rd book this year that I can say that about.  

It won't be to everyone's taste but I was blown away by the book.

Book review

Double Cross - by Ben MacIntyre

This was one of the books I'd been saving up for my holiday. I've been a fan of Ben MacIntyre's books ever since I read Operation Mincemeat a few years ago. Agent Zigzag was a real treat last year on the World Book Night 2011 list and I was really looking forward to this one.

I didn't get to read it as quickly as I'd have liked as Mr Norfolkbookworm wanted to read it first and he is not the fastest of readers.

The wait was worth it, as ever the narrative was engaging and accessible. There is just the right amount of technical and historical detail to fully round out the story but this never swamps the human stories that are the key to the tale.

I have two criticisms of the book - one of my own and one from Mr Norfolkbookworm.

I found the constant use of cricketing terms really got on my nerves after a while. I can see why they are used - old boys' network, typically British etc. etc. but even though I am a cricketing fan they stuck out like a sore thumb to me as they were used so much. I do worry that if you aren't familiar with the terms then you might think this was another secret code being smuggled into a books about spies.

It was an anachronism that stuck out for Mr. N - one of the spies is given a transistor radio at one point. From the outset Mr. N said that this was too early for such a device and to prove this hunted out an Internet hotspot to look this up and according to Wikipedia he was right.  The version of the book I read was a proof thanks to the Netgalley website so this may have been corrected in the final draft but once I knew that there was an error like this in the book I was constantly wondering if there were many other errors in the book.

In general this was an excellent book, I found that the twists and turns of the double/triple/quadruple agents clear and exciting and while we do now know the outcome of WW2 at the time it was far more uncertain and this book really explores another side of the battles we fought.

Theatrical Interlude 7 (Reprise)

War Horse, New London Theatre, June 2012

Since seeing this last year, and since being a little disappointed in the recent film version, I've been trying to convince Mr Norfolkbookworm that he should see this play.

It didn't take a lot of work and so this past weekend we went down to the 'Big Smoke' in order to see some theatre together.

It was a lovely weekend and despite the dreadful forecast we had lovely weather and a great time.

It was nice to also see and evening performance of a play, I don't think that there is any particular difference in a matinee but if certainly felt more of a treat to be seeing a play in London at night!  It certainly didn't make any difference in the behaviour of the audience - how can so many people be so incapable of sitting through an act of a play?  I can understand the children needing to leave but the adults?

Anyhow none of the audience fidgets spoilt the play for me, and neither did it matter that this was a repeat viewing.  From start to finish I was captivated and immersed in the story. I think that this time it took even less time for me to see the horses on stage as real animals rather than puppets if I am honest!

War is a brutal thing and this play shows this, but it also brings out the best (and worst) in people and again that is shown fully.  An adaptation of a book written for children played on stage with puppets shouldn't be that emotional but all credit to everyone it really is. I was sniffling by the end that is for sure.

Last time I saw the play I was sitting in what they class as restricted view seats as you lose a little of the view at the edge of the stage, this time we were pretty much dead centre of the stalls, I discovered that we hadn't lost much of the action last time. I also discovered that these seats right at the front but at the side did in fact make the play a little more immediate - when the horses gallop across the stage it is impressive from the centre but at the side you do think the horse is going to run you down!

This was certainly a play that stood up to repeat viewing, but unlike one person that I overheard I don't think I'll be going to see it 11 times!

Lest we Forget

War Diaries, published by Simon and Schuster and the Imperial War Museum

I've written in other places about my fascination with the diary format and I've reviewed quite a few books set during war time.  Now two of my favourite genres have collided with these new books from the Imperial War Museum:

A Chaplain at Gallipoli: The Great War Diaries of Kenneth Best
A Nurse at the Front: The First World War Stories of Sister Edith Appleton

Kenneth Best was, as the title says, an army Chaplain in WW1 and he served in Egypt and then at Gallipoli. After being invalided home from this battle front he continued as a Chaplain on the Western Front.  He is very frank in his diaries, he criticises and questions constantly and unlike a lot of his fellow priests he spent a lot of time right on the front line and got a reputation for bravery from the men he ministered to.

While I knew that the Gallipoli campaign was ill fated, badly planned and ultimately a disaster this book with the full explanation of Kenneth's comments really brought this home.  I really didn't realise how many British and Indian soldiers were involved, I did have the idea that it was almost a solely ANZAC affair.

Edith Appleton was a career nurse with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Nursing Service and served in France throughout World War One.  I knew more about this aspect of the war, Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth was the first memoir of WW1 that I read and she was a nurse in France during some of the war. This lead me on to other nursing memoirs and novels.

What I wasn't aware of was the animosity between the various nursing services and especially towards the VADs such as Vera Brittain.  In most of the books about this era that I've read the VADs have been pretty much the equivalent of the 'brave Tommies' who could do no wrong...Edith's diary certainly gives another view!

There are already another two books planned in this series and I for one can't wait to find out more about these lesser known theatres of war. I'm personally hoping for a more personal account of the naval experience of WW1 but I know I'll read what ever is published.

Theatrical Interlude 18

War Horse, New London Theatre, November 2011

This is a play that has been on my 'to see' list for a long time but as the booking period stretched through until 2013 it wasn't one I wanted to see urgently. However once the film version was announced I knew that I wanted to see the stage show before the film.

I've long been a fan of Michael Morpurgo and I've read the novel War Horse several times but I was still a little nervous about seeing the show - after all I'm renowned for sitting there going "it didn't happen like that in the book!"

I needn't have worried from the first instant that actors appeared on the stage I was captivated, everyone raves about the model horses but it is true - after a couple of seconds you really do forget that they are puppets, it really is just like live horses are on the stage. I'm not a great horse lover - the ones I've know have either tried to bite me or have trodden on me but Joey and Topthorn could easily win me over to being a fan. It was the goose that repeatedly stole the show however...

The story has been altered from the book but for me it worked totally and to include everything from the book would have given the play an impossibly long run time. Like Black Beauty the original book is told from the horse's view point and to try and do this on stage would have diminished the power of the play.

I can't put in to words how I feel about this play because it was so totally absorbing and moving. It is incredible that the brutality and horror of war can be so comprehensively portrayed without any violence or fake blood being used. I wonder if playing on the very British love of animals to depict the war is one way to bring the horror home?

I laughed and cried throughout the play and if it had been possible I think I would have stayed in my seat and watched it again straight away.

I'm looking forward to the film but I will be going to see this play again - as soon as I can manage.

World Book Night Challenge 10/25

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque.

This was another re-read for me but it has been a very long time since I last picked a copy of this up and apart from the bare bones of the story I had forgotten what an incredible piece of literature that it is.

I have read many novels set in the First World War, some for adults and some for children but it is this one that really emphasises for me just how bloody and pointless the conflict was.

Written by a German and focusing on the German experience of the trenches the book really brings home that the PBI really were the same on both sides, that neither side wanted to be there and that very few fighting in the trenches really knew exactly what the war was about and why they were there.

All Quiet follows one class of students who have been encouraged to join up by their class teacher. We learn about their training and the battles they have fought as slowly, one by one, they fall.

Remarque pulls no punches when he is describing both the day to day and combat experience, and it may not be for the faint hearted because of this. For me if I could only keep one novel about the First World War it would have to be this one. There is no glamourising of the conflict, it is brutal, stark and uncompromising. So honest in fact that it was banned in the 1930s in Nazi Germany for being defeatist and anti-German.

Of the 25 on the World Book Night list it was this one that I knew I had to apply for to be my give away. Even now having stretched myself and having tried lots of new styles and authors I don't regret this choice. It is a book that I feel everyone should read as a teenager, and then again as an adult.