Regeneration by Pat Barker

'A brilliant novel. Intense and subtle.' Sunday Times

Regeneration is the classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men. It is the first book in the Regeneration trilogy.

Regeneration is a work of historical fiction focusing on Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland in 1917.

Though Barker traces her interest in World War I back to her early childhood, she attributes the immediate inspiration for Regeneration to her husband, a neurologist, who was familiar with Dr. W.H.R. Rivers's experiments on nerve regeneration in the early twentieth century.

At least three of the novel's characters are based on real individuals who knew each other while they were at Craiglockhart. Siegfried Sassoon, a soldier and famous poet, protested the war in 1917, and for this, he was sent to the mental hospital. Wilfred Owen, perhaps the most famous war poet of his era, was also at Craiglockhart, and was greatly influenced by his older and more experienced fellow patient, Sassoon. Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, a scientist known originally for anthropological studies, served as a psychiatrist at the hospital for a short period near the end of the war; nevertheless, his influence on Sassoon was substantial. Sassoon mentioned or referred to Rivers in several publications after his "treatment."

Although Barker bases her characters on real individuals, her work is a fictional account of the period they spent together at Craiglockhart.

Regeneration is a morally nuanced anti-war novel, reflecting the issues and the concerns in wartime Britain. By focusing on the experience of Rivers, the psychiatrist who attends his patients, Barker heightens the conflict between duty and sympathy.

Principles become blurred as similar experiences are viewed through different lenses. Barker, with her insightful and direct writing style, succeeds in presenting a microcosm of "madness" in society. Yet the novel refrains from drawing conclusions for us.

Ultimately, Regeneration asks us to question for ourselves the large concepts of duty, sanity, and sympathy.

About the Author

Novelist Pat Barker was born in Thornaby-on-Tees in Yorkshire, England, on 8 May 1943. She was educated at the London School of Economics, where she read International History, and at Durham University. She taught History and Politics until 1982. She began to write in her mid-twenties and was encouraged to pursue her career as a writer by the novelist Angela Carter. Her early novels dealt with the harsh lives of working-class women living in the north of England. Her first book, Union Street (1982) won the Fawcett Society Book Prize, while her second, Blow Your House Down (1984), was adapted for the stage by Sarah Daniels in 1994. The Century's Daughter (re-published as Liza's England in 1996) was published in 1986, followed by The Man Who Wasn't There in 1989.

In 1983 she was named as one of the 20 'Best Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by the Book Marketing Council and Granta magazine. Her trilogy of novels about the First World War, which began with Regeneration in 1991, was partly inspired by her grandfather's experiences fighting in the trenches in France. Regeneration was made into a film in 1997 starring Jonathan Pryce and James Wilby. The Eye in the Door (1993), the second novel in the trilogy, won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and The Ghost Road (1995), the final novel in the series, won the Booker Prize for Fiction. Another World (1998), although set in contemporary Newcastle, is overshadowed by the memories of an old man who fought in the First World War.

Her novel Border Crossing (2001), describes the relationship between a child psychologist and a young man convicted of murder 13 years earlier. Double Vision (2003), concerns the atrocity of war and two men who are caught up in its shadow.

Pat Barker was awarded a CBE in 2000. Her most recent novel was Life Class (2007).

Watch the trailer to the 1997 film version of the book here...

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

'A poignant, elegiac novel.' Daily Mail

'Full of warmth as well as grief, conveying vividly how precious it is to be alive' Sunday Times

'Michael Morpurgo is expert at getting through to his readers. He writes here about events that should never be forgotten nor forgiven...' The Independent

Longer novels from Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo are always a particular treat, and Private Peaceful is no exception. Tragic, surprising and engaging in equal measures, Morpurgo's novel charts both the childhood of young Thomas Peaceful in the early years of the 20th century, and his eventual underage enlistment in the British army to help fight the First World War.

It is, above all, a poignant story of war and about all of its many life-changing effects on those involved - also the brutality of the commanding regimes and the relentless squalor of trench warfare. It's not for the squeamish - Morpurgo tells it like it was and his honest insight is on every page for all to appreciate.
 
"Tommo" Peaceful is recalling his childhood from those terrible battlefields. He remembers his big brother Charlie taking him to his first day of school, the death of his father, his mum working hard to keep a roof over their heads and food on their table. He remembers his brother Joe, who some called simple, but who to Tommo was very special. He also recalls the only girl in his life, Molly, and how Charlie somehow took her away from him. But as the World turned to War, he had to grow up fast.
 
Together Charlie and Tommo enlist and are sent to France, almost immediately, to what could only be described as pure hell on Earth. Bullets, bombs, death. Shells, noise, dirt. Disease, rats, stench. Charlie and Tommo fight for their lives and to stay together - facing certain death in the face every time they try to advance the British lines.
 
Morpurgo rattles through his narrative at some speed, gracefully capturing both the horror of war and the ecstasy of life. The ending is shocking and memorable. This is difficult, emotionally draining but highly recommended reading. John McLay

The lost generation - Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful enables Diane Samuels to explore distant memories of the first world war in her review for The Guardian...

About the Author

Multi-award winning author, Michael Morpurgo, is one of Britain's best-loved writers for children and has won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, The Writers Guild Award and the Blue Peter Book Award for his recent novel, Private Peaceful, which has also had two successful runs as a play devised by Bristol Old Vic.

From 2003 to 2005 he was the Children's Laureate, a role which took him all over the UK to promote literacy and reading, and in 2005 he was named the Booksellers Association Author of the Year.

Find out more about the author by clicking here to visit his website...

Want to know Michael Morpurgo's favourite book? Watch him answer his 5 most common questions here...

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

From master storyteller, Michael Morpurgo comes an incredibly moving story about one horse's experience in the deadly chaos of the first world war.

In 1914, Joey, a young farm horse, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges towards the enemy, witnessing the horror of the frontline.

But even in the desolation of the trenches, Joey's courage touches the soldiers around him.

About the Author

Multi-award winning author, Michael Morpurgo, is one of Britain's best-loved writers for children and has won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, The Writers Guild Award and the Blue Peter Book Award for his recent novel, Private Peaceful, which has also had two successful runs as a play devised by Bristol Old Vic. From 2003 to 2005 he was the Children's Laureate, a role which took him all over the UK to promote literacy and reading, and in 2005 he was named the Booksellers Association Author of the Year.

About the National Theatre Production

The award-winning smash hit War Horse is still playing at the New London Theatre.

War Horse is a thrilling and spectacular production based on the celebrated novel by Michael Morpurgo.
The First World War is the backdrop for this tale of bravery, loyalty, and the extraordinary bond between a young recruit and his horse.

Actors, working with astonishing life-sized puppets by the internationally renowned Handspring Puppet Company, take audiences on an unforgettable journey through history.

Winner of Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards.

Find out more here at the official website.

Here's the trailer to the theatrical production...

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

"Ambitious, outrageous, poignant, sleep-disturbing, Birdsong is not a perfect novel - just a great one."

Simon Schama. New Yorker

"One of the finest novels of the last 40 years."

Brian Masters, Mail on Sunday

Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

Readers who are entranced by sweeping historical sagas will devour Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks' drama set during the first world war.

The book's hero, a 20-year-old Englishman named Stephen Wraysford, finds his true love on a trip to Amiens in 1910. Unfortunately, she's already married, the wife of a wealthy textile baron. Wrayford convinces her to leave a life of passionless comfort to be at his side, but things do not turn out according to plan. Wraysford is haunted by this doomed affair and carries it with him into the trenches of the war.

Birdsong derives most of its power from its descriptions of mud and blood, and Wraysford's attempt to retain a scrap of humanity while surrounded by it. There is a simultaneous description of his present-day granddaughter's quest to read his diaries, which is designed to give some sense of perspective; this device is only somewhat successful. Nevertheless, Birdsong is a rewarding read, an unflinching war story and a touching romance.

The novel came 13th in a 2003 BBC survey called the Big Read which aimed to find Britain's favourite book.

About the Author

Sebastian Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 and educated at Wellington College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was the first literary editor of The Independent and became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. He has been a columnist for The Guardian (1992-8) and the Evening Standard (1997-9). He continues to contribute articles and reviews to a number of newspapers and magazines. He wrote and presented the Channel 4 Television series, Churchill's Secret Army, which was broadcast in 1999.

Though his best known work is the bestselling Birdsong (1993), The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives is a multiple biography of the lives of the artist Christopher Wood, airman Richard Hillary and spy Jeremy Wolfenden. His fifth novel, Charlotte Gray (1998), completes the loose trilogy of books about France with an account of the adventures of a young Scottish woman who becomes involved with the French resistance during the Second World War. A film adaptation of the novel, starring Cate Blanchett, was first screened in 2002. His next novel, On Green Dolphin Street (2001), is a love story set against the backdrop of the Cold War. Human Traces, a book set in the 19th century and telling the tale of two friends who set up a pioneering asylum, was published in 2005. Engleby was published in 2007.

Faulks on Fiction is a compelling and personal look at the British novel through its greatest characters - the heroes, lovers, snobs and villains - and is also a major BBC series. Click on the video link to see Faulks interviewing contemporary writers on characters in fiction.



Sebastian Faulks lives with his wife and three children in London. He was awarded the CBE in 2002.

Find out more by clicking on the link below.

Find out more about Sebastian Faulks here...

Click on the link to hear Faulks discussing Birdsong on the BBC World Service's World Book Club.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/133_wbc_archive_new/page3.shtml

The BBC produced a TV version of the novel in early 2012. Here's the trailer...

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then a murder is committed in his flat, just days after a chance encounter with an American who had told him about an assassination plot which could have dire international consequences.

An obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers, Hannay goes on the run in his native Scotland where he will need all his courage and ingenuity to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.

About the Author
John Buchan (1875-1940) was born in Perth, Scotland and educated at Oxford where he published five books and won several awards, including one for poetry.

He went on to be a barrister, a member of parliament, a soldier, a publisher, a historical biographer, and - in 1935 - he became the Govenor-General of Canada.

John Buchan's hero, Richard Hannay, was a patriotic precursor of James Bond whose appeal is undiminished nearly a century after he was created. Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, celebrates this most gentlemanly of spies...click here...