One of the greatest war novels to come from any conflict, Erich Maria Remarque’s grisly tale of the brutality and horror of the German trenches during the Great War was so powerful that it earned him nominations for the Nobel Prizes in both Literature and Peace, and was soon widely banned in a Europe that was preparing for a second cataclysmic conflict.
'; break; case 'url:https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ernest-hemingway/a-farewell-to-arms': - $description = 'Called “the premier American war novel from World War I,” Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical story of an American ambulance driver serving in the Italian front, and a bright and cynical British nurse, cemented his reputation as one of the generation’s foremost literary figures. Unlike Remarque, whose All Quite on the Western Front paints the war’s destruction in full color, Hemingway’s story is one of the mundanity of war—of the quotidian smallness that underpins even the most horrific of events.
'; + $description = 'Called “the premier American war novel from World War I,” Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical story of an American ambulance driver serving in the Italian front, and a bright and cynical British nurse, cemented his reputation as one of the generation’s foremost literary figures. Unlike Remarque, whose All Quiet on the Western Front paints the war’s destruction in full color, Hemingway’s story is one of the mundanity of war—of the quotidian smallness that underpins even the most horrific of events.
'; break; case 'url:https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-steinbeck/cup-of-gold': $description = 'Cup of Gold is John Steinbeck’s first novel, the swashbuckling story of the real-life Captain Morgan, legendary pirate. Little of Morgan’s actual life is known, but Steinbeck fills in the blanks of this rich historical fiction with rich portraits of Caribbean ports and flourishes of magical realism.
While one might expect a rollicking tale of adventure, the novel is actually a deep meditation on the pursuit of—and inability to find—true happiness, and its skillful craft deftly foreshadows Steinbeck’s later ascension to literary titanhood.
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