I really enjoyed this book about a soldiers experiences in world war one. It's written early in the war and you can already see certain themes appearing - the exhaustion and inertia of the forces, the gulf between the officers and the men and the terrifying power of modern weapons. If you are interested in what the early war was really like I think you'll find this honest and undramatic account very readable but I have to warn you there are page after page of account of long marches which take a while to get used to.
When the armies do clash the descriptions of the battles are surprisingly short but very well written. At first I was somewhat put off by these short reports of battle hidden in pages about food, sleep and marching but after a while I came to appreciate that the book is written exactly as the author remembers events and many of these early skirmishes are explosions of sudden shocking violence in between long periods of more mundane life. This book really captures that brilliantly.
The good humour of the soldiers, the personally observed little splashes of local colour and the time when this was written all make this a book well worth preserving, and reading if you have an interest in the war.
Great book, the ever resourceful and wise Jeeves is such a classic character. Bertie's attempts at playing cupid are very amusing and it's all described in such a charming way you can't help but love this book.
This book is nightmarish, and scarily relevant to the prison-like environment many politicians want to see. Everyone without exception should read this book though you may well not enjoy the experience you'll never forget its message and it's an important one about freedom. Scarier than any ghost story and as good as 1984.
More action and adventure than you can chuck a spear at! This is a great read full of scenes you'll probably never forget. I can see how this might not be to everyone's taste but it's a lot of fun and has a fantastic setting.
I laughed out loud many times reading this book just like I do whenever I read PG Wodehouse! The characters, the names..it's all brilliant. A hugely undervalued writer in my opinion and this is a great book to start on if you've never read any of his other ones. You will fall in love with these characters!
I loved this book, I found myself rereading paragraphs just because I wanted to savour the flavour of it a second time. You can see why Dickens writing sparked an outpouring of guilt from the middle classes after they were published, the picture of grinding poverty it gives you is too realistic to be anything other than rooted in cold unpleasant fact. I was gripped by this one till the last page and sad to finish it.
This is a great read, the story is absorbing and the setting and characters so vivid you'll feel like you were there and you knew them. I don't think you can really give a book more praise!
One of my favourite books, it tells a completely convincing story of alien invasion and the plight of humans caught up in it. I don't think I've ever read a science fiction book that has caught my imagination quite like this one, it's a masterpiece of storytelling that you're sure to love.
This book is really different to most fantasy books, the style is extremely - and I mean extremely - hard work. I got about a third of the way through it before abandoning it because I just got a bit sick of the style, not the story though. It might appeal to you though if you can take the saga style of writing, it's certainly very different and has some good scenes from what I read.
Recent comments: User reviews
When the armies do clash the descriptions of the battles are surprisingly short but very well written. At first I was somewhat put off by these short reports of battle hidden in pages about food, sleep and marching but after a while I came to appreciate that the book is written exactly as the author remembers events and many of these early skirmishes are explosions of sudden shocking violence in between long periods of more mundane life. This book really captures that brilliantly.
The good humour of the soldiers, the personally observed little splashes of local colour and the time when this was written all make this a book well worth preserving, and reading if you have an interest in the war.