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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.
...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)
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.

Most books can be ordered within 7-10 days, subject to availability. If you need a book urgently, or by a specific date, you can always contact us before ordering to ask how long it will take
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

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 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

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

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

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 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 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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Quiet on the Western Front - by Erich Maria Remarque - £9.99
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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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