Name: Homage to Catalonia
Rating: 4.09 (70474 reviews)
Author: George Orwell

Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq

★ 4.14

Riverbend

"In August 2003 a young Iraqi blogger began reporting her experiences as a civilian observer in Baghdad. Calling herself Riverbend, she has offered searing eyewitness accounts of daily life in the war zone and has garnered a worldwide audience hungry for unfiltered news and fresh analysis." "Riverbend's blog, Baghdad Burning, collected here for the first time, responds to events both personal and political - from the impact on her family of the invasion's aftermath to the Abu Ghraib prison abuses. She reveals for us most sharply the fate of Iraqi women, whose rights and freedoms are falling victim to rising fundamentalisms." Describing the reality of regime change in Iraq in a voice at turns outraged, witty, and deeply moving, Riverbend is a witness to the recent events that are shaping the future of her homeland.

Storm of Steel

★ 4.15

Ernst Jünger

A memoir of astonishing power, savagery, and ashen lyricism, 'Storm of Steel' illuminates not only the horrors but also the fascination of total war, seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier.

Young, tough, patriotic, but also disturbingly self-aware, Jünger exulted in the Great War, which he saw not just as a great national conflict, but more importantly as a unique personal struggle.

Leading raiding parties, defending trenches against murderous British incursions, simply enduring as shells tore his comrades apart, Jünger kept testing himself, braced for the death that will mark his failure.

Published shortly after the war's end, 'Storm of Steel' was a worldwide bestseller and can now be rediscovered through Michael Hofmann's brilliant new translation.

The Fire Next Time

★ 4.55

James Baldwin

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.

Goodbye to All That

★ 3.93

Robert Graves

An autobiographical work that describes firsthand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War, Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That is a matchless evocation of the Great War's haunting legacy, published in Penguin Modern Classics.

In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and looks at his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraits of an artist ever written.

Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985) was a British poet, novelist, and critic. He is best known for the historical novel I, Claudius and the critical study of myth and poetry The White Goddess. His autobiography, Goodbye to All That, was published in 1929, quickly establishing itself as a modern classic. Graves also translated Apuleius, Lucan and Suetonius for the Penguin Classics, and compiled the first modern dictionary of Greek Mythology, The Greek Myths. His translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (with Omar Ali-Shah) is also published in Penguin Classics.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph

★ 3.91

T.E. Lawrence

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (em português, Os Sete Pilares da Sabedoria) é um clássico da literatura mundial, designado por Winston Churchill como "um dos maiores livros já escritos na língua inglesa". Narra a participação de seu autor, Thomas Edward Lawrence, conhecido universalmente como Lawrence da Arábia, no movimento nacionalista árabe contra a dominação turca, como parte do esforço britânico na Primeira Guerra Mundial para derrotar a Alemanha, da qual a Turquia era aliada.

Seu título é uma alusão a uma frase da Bíblia, no Livro dos Provérbios (IX,1).

Escrito originalmente em 1919, Lawrence perde os manuscritos na Estação ferroviária de Reading. Uma segunda versão é finalizada no ano seguinte, mas, insatisfeito com o resultado, o autor a destrói. Finalmente em 1926, Lawrence escreve uma terceira versão, revisada por George Bernard Shaw e distribuído em uma edição artesanal restrita a amigos e escritores. Foi publicado pela primeira vez em 1935.

O escritor britânico E.M. Forster assim resume seu conteúdo: "Descreve a revolta na Arábia contra os turcos, vista por um inglês que nela tomou parte. No que seria aparentemente uma simples crônica militar, Lawrence da Arábia teceu um painel inusitado de retratos, descrições, filosofias, emoções, aventuras e sonhos. Para levar a cabo sua missão, serviu-se de uma extraordinária erudição, uma memória impecável, um estilo que ele próprio inventou...uma total desconfiança em si mesmo e uma fé ainda maior".

Em 1962 o épico do deserto é levado às telas de cinema. Sob a direção de David Lean, o filme Lawrence of Arabia ganhou sete oscars e a consagração do American Film Institute como um dos dez melhores filmes de todos os tempos.

(Fonte:Wikipédia)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

★ 4.16

Ishmael Beah

The devastating story of war through the eyes of a child soldier. Beah tells how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and became a soldier.

My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life.
“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”
“Because there is a war.”
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Cool.”
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime.”
“Yes, sometime.”

This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.

In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.

This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

Black Like Me

★ 4.11

John Howard Griffin

In the Deep South of the 1950s, journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross the color line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man. His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity-that in this new millennium still has something important to say to every American.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

★ 4.37

Malcolm X

Alternate cover for ISBN 9780345350688

Through a life of passion and struggle, Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century. In this riveting account, he tells of his journey from a prison cell to Mecca, describing his transition from hoodlum to Muslim minister. Here, the man who called himself "the angriest Black man in America" relates how his conversion to true Islam helped him confront his rage and recognize the brotherhood of all mankind.

An established classic of modern America, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" was hailed by the New York Times as "Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, important book." Still extraordinary, still important, this electrifying story has transformed Malcolm X's life into his legacy. The strength of his words, and the power of his ideas continue to resonate more than a generation after they first appeared.

Homage to Catalonia

Books similar to Homage to Catalonia