At the beginning of this year one of our group was reading A Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain and it prompted the idea that our only targeted reading this season should be on the theme of the Great War and we would review our choices in November 2015. Several of our selections  viewed the war from a woman’s point of view. Two volumes, Dorothea’s War, a first World War nurse tells her story, by Dorothea Crewdon  and Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914-15 published anonymously, both recall the experiences of women who volunteered to serve and who also endured the horrors of the conflict. The only novel amongst selection was The Lost Soldier by Diney Costeloe, which by linking letters and diaries draws attention to the injustices which happened then and are still on-going. The final choice of Silent Night – the story of Christmas 1914 by Stanley Weintraub, also drew on letters from soldiers of all ranks, on both sides of the conflict, serving along the front on Christmas 1914. A most moving record of this event and the common links that we find with an opponent. It’s final chapter poses the question “What if these thousands of men had refused to continue fighting?” How would the course of twentieth century history changed? It provided a suitable discussion point on which to conclude.

Book group meetings will resume on 27 January 2016.