All Quiet on the Western Front in Pick-a-Shelf

Jun 22, 2011 Lennie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Pressured by their schoolmaster who taught his students that duty to one’s country is the greatest thing, Paul Baumer and his friends were all from the same class when they joined up to volunteer for the war. Being eighteen years old, they were called the Iron Youth. After a period of training they became tough, vicious, and hard but this helped them to prepare for what they were going to encounter in the trenches and on the front line. Then after two years of shells and bombs Paul and his frien ...more

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Jan 07, 2010 Kellie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-literature, classic, 2016-read

I think I found this book at our local goodwill. I have these ideas I'm going to read a bunch of classics. And like them.
So, after reading a few mysteries, I decided to try this. It wasn't terrible.
The author gave the reader at taste of every aspect of war. We experience the front line in the trenches, the hospital environment and all the wounded, the sound of the horses wounded during battle, soldiers on leave, soldiers returning to battle after recovering from injury. The author touches it all ...more

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Nov 26, 2008 Atishay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a must-buy and must-read again and again. All Quiet on the Western Front is a vision of war in the trenches through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a twenty year old goaded to join its glory when he is still at school. Though the story is simple enough, this book couldn't let me sleep for the night when I finished it. A true masterpiece and definitely one of those books which I would want to treasure. ...more

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May 04, 2015 Sunflower rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, fiction-read-2015

This was a topical read in the wake of the NZ 150th Anzac anniversary and memorial services, although a different time and country. However, to quote directly from the afterword: "war is not about heroism, but about terror, either waiting for death or trying desperately to avoid it, even if it means killing a complete stranger to do so, about losing all human values,....it is not about falling bravely and nobly for one's country but about soiling oneself in terror under heavy shellfire, about lo ...more

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Feb 07, 2009 Lindsay rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, z2000, 1001

I studied this at school and it was a moving account of what was like in the trenches.

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Jul 02, 2011 Bea rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

What a remarkable book! At first I was not aware of what side of what war the narrator was on. And, when I began to realize that it was German soldier in WW!, it did not change my own appreciation of the universality of the experience. It also made me more aware of the impact of war on the emotional maturity of young men (and women) and made me wonder about PTSD as a result of our new methods of fighting wars.

Very well written book!

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