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I'm looking forward to your WWI Top 10!!

Welcome, and hello from Maine! 🍁🍂👋😀📖🍂🍁

i love this vid title!!

Another anthology to add to my list. This was really moving. Thank you.

On the subject of Great War memorials and memories of the war itself, I can offer a few books from the Canadian perspective. One is “Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War” by Jonathan Vance, published in 1997. Vance interprets Canada’s participation in the Great War as an exercise in nation-building, a time when our young country stepped forward onto the world stage and fielded an armed force to help defeat the tyranny of the Kaiser. There is less emphasis on the tragedy and bloodshed of the war, and more attention given to its role as “the crucible of Canadian nationhood.” The contrast between how veterans viewed their experience in the Great War and how subsequent generations of Canadians interpreted the sacrifices of their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents is explored more fully in “The Vimy Trap: or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War” by historian Ian McKay and journalist Jamie Swift, published in 2016. McKay and Swift examine how a modern generation of conservative-minded politicians and public figures have used the April 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge to promote their own ideas of Canadian nationalism. Rather than presenting the war as the bloodily destructive and futile exercise in mass slaughter experienced by the men and women who lived through it, modern day exponents of Canadian unity cite the Battle of Vimy Ridge as an occasion when citizen-soldiers from across the country came together to achieve a great military victory, one that not only demonstrated the fighting prowess of Canadian soldiers, but showed their common dedication to “democracy, freedom, justice, and Christianity.” When I was in public school, we were taught that the main theme of Canadian history was the struggle for responsible government. That is, how Canadian politicians over the course of the latter 19th century negotiated with Crown officials to achieve a greater degree of freedom to manage their own affairs within the British Empire. Advocates of the Vimy Myth, however, wish to replace this narrative with the more soul-stirring drama of a nation baptized in blood, a country which only found its true national identity on the battlefield, not in the council chamber. There is also a novel-which, alas, I’ve never read-called “The Stone Carvers”, written by Canadian writer, Jane Urquhart, and longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001. It tells the story of the men and women who worked to construct and sculpt the figures for the Canadian National Vimy Memorial on Vimy Ridge after the war. War and remembrance are the general themes of the novel.

Thank you so much for doing this project. Lovely poetry about war, which we just can’t seem to stop engaging in even after all this beautiful, wrenching literature. You introduced me to much that I was not familiar with, and I bought several of the collections you recommended. Good luck with your channel. I will stay tuned to see what you do next.

Great reads!!

I have always thought how awful it must have been- maybe thinking your husband/son would be 'safe' now and then to hear that he died in the last hours or minutes. So many of the deaths were pointless, there is something especially pointless in it happening when the top brass have already decided that it will all be over at 11am but hey we'll go on with the shooting until the last seconds... Not many people are aware that there's more to 'The Fallen' than the famous 'They shall not grow old' lines, or that it was written so very early in the war- in fact published only weeks after it started. Thank you.

Welcome to BookTube - really glad you've decided to join us. Maybe next year we can do a proper Remembrance Reads in November and see if we can convince everyone else to get involved?

Great video, and a wonderful introduction to Owen. If you've not yet read them, I'd recommend reading all his letters, I think they're better than any biography for getting to know him and really getting to hear his voice (and his sense of humour). It's really hard to get hold of the original complete collected letters now (edited by John Bell and Harold Owen) as it's been out of print for a very long time, but the new Selected Letters has most of his letters in and is very good (edited by Jane Potter - my phd supervisor, and proofread by me before publication, so I'm biased😂)

You edition of Testaments of Youth is so pretty

I read this last year and thought it was well done.

I don't suppose you've seen the 2021 film called "Benediction" about the life of Siegfried Sassoon. I saw it at my local independent cinema a couple years ago, and really enjoyed it. The film touched upon Sassoon's friendship with Wilfred Owen, as well. I've been really interested to see how, in recent years, now that all the Great War veterans have gone, historians have begun tackling some of the larger questions of the war in a way that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. Questions such as, should Great Britain have decided to stay out of the war? Really difficult to see how that would have been possible, it seems to me.

Way to get going. It’s so hard to get over the initial intimidation factor due to comparison. Heck I still have that. Glad you got started! I have mild curiosity for other genres than SFF, but my backlog is so long I just don’t feel any drive to branch out until I get a “handle” on it all.

Let me know if you need help with editing and I'll do my best to help yo figure out how to do whatever it is you want to do with whatever software you're using.

HAPPY DAY 7!!!! I'm finally catching up!

yahoo!! welcome to booktube! love the "like god" joke lol

Welcome to the tube, from a fellow newb. Subbed for support, and I look forward to seeing your channel grow. Good luck!

Yesss sl glad you're making videos now, Tony! This looked and sounded great 👍 I am indeed impressed 😆

Really interesting, especially as a composer. His music is hauntingly beautiful.

Interesting first week, thank you. Lots to think about with remembrance reads. Great that you're going to continue - I'll look forward to seeing what's next as a topic.

Thanks for the video. Another new poet for me to discover.

Thank you for introducing me to Mary Borden. I'm getting so much out of your videos and so glad you are creating content. You're providing a unique and needed voice to booktube.

i am loving this series bc there is so much i dont know about ww1!!!

Wilfred Owen is actually one of my favourite poets. I've got his book on my shelf and it was the only poetry I enjoyed learning at school. I really felt his emotion and the realism in his writing, compared to other poets.

I only discovered Wilfred Owen last year, which is such a shame. The US education system is quite lacking, but that's a story for another day. I've enjoyed what I've read by him.

Thank you Tony. Really enjoying your videos. World War 1 isn't a topic that I know a huge amount about and I'm finding these really interesting 😊

i haven't heard of wilfred owen before! but now i'm excited to read some of his poems!!

this is great tony!!

Great recommendations. I happened to pick up Poetry of the First World War edited by Tim Kendall this week. I ended up ordering In Parenthesis after watching your last video. The video is not too long at all, in my opinion. I would even watch longer videos.

I started my WW1 reading today. I have several books on my list for the month. I will check out In Parenthesis.

Yay! I can't wait to see your videos.

I think “a prose poem in seven parts” is right. Good discussion of a book I’ve attempted several times, but not gotten far into. (Mine is the NYRB edition.)

The quality of both video and audio is just fine for booktube. And you have a lovely, comfortable style. Welcome to booktube!

yipee!! welcome to booktube tony!!

Really interesting watch. Thank you so much