Why isn't this GREAT Book better known here in the States?!

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	• Vera Brittain: Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 (Penguin ... Vera Brittain Penguin Classics, 1994 - 672 pages average customer review:based on 32 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Testamony

Vera Brittain enrolled in Summerville College, Oxford, in a time before degrees were granted to women. This was just before The First World War changed almost everything for almost everyone. When it was over, her best friends, her fiance and her brother had all been killed. She also personally witnessed the agony of thousands in the surgical wards where she worked as a volunteer nurse.

In response, she became a suffragette, a feminist and a liberal writer and lecturer. She sought to prevent such tragedy from reoccurring.

The answers to the political and social questions with which she struggled elude us still. But Vera Brittain's autobiographical account of her generation's trials, Testament of Youth, remains both a stunningly-honest portrait of a courageous young woman and a vivid chronicle of a time almost out of living memory. Through her words we see what we might have thought, felt and believed, had we been born into her era.

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Why isn't this GREAT Book better known here in the States?!

Reading the first few pages of this extraordinary memoir convinces me that Vera Brittain was truly one of the great writers ever! In fact, it must be among the very greatest memoirs ever. So when I mention this book to friends, they without exception , have never heard of it! Granted it's about a war from long ago, starting 90 years ago, a horror that Vera B. looks at, and condemns with all her passionate genius. And there were hundreds of classics written at the time, written about this most senseless of wars, a slaughter worse than anyone could ever have predicted. But she describes with great compassion this nightmare, and its effect on herself and her generation. When you read about how her fiance is killed, it will be difficult not to put the book down, and do some serious thinking. And her nursing efforts aboard the SS Brittanica (later sunk by a German U-Boat) make a fine story as well. The book may be a bit dense, and overly literary, but it seems that during this era quoting poetry was a normal part of conversation, unlike today!.Anyway, give this book a chance and you'll be completed entranced by this incredible author!

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Great WWI Living History

A real sleeper - I'm surprised after reading it that the book isn't more well known. Very well written and compelling. The author juxtaposes the war and it's history with the daily life of the people living it. She's a keen observer of both history and human nature. She does, I think, leave out some history that seems important now but maybe they weren't to her at the time. Highly recomended.

Beautifully Written by a World War 1 Survivor!

I couldn't put this book down and I don't usually have little interest in WWI. I tend to read more about World War II and the Holocaust of Nazi Germany, but this book grabbed me and did not let me go until the last page! I wish more people knew about this rich and engrossing book. It has so much to say to us moderns about life as it was in the early 19OO's. A spectacular read for anyone interested in history.

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Gift Book

I first became aware of this author when I saw the PBS series of this book. Another reviewer was right, it should be a movie, instead it was a television series. I also had this book, then someone borrowed it and they lost it. I found a new copy at a garage sale and everytime I find a copy, I buy it as I am always giving them away as gifts telling people that they must read this book.My 16 year old daughter loves it also. It is well-written. As someone who taught high school history, I know how important having an interesting book dealing with history is when trying to get most teens to think about the past.. I also recommend reading Testiment of Friendship and Testament of Experience, the continuation of this story.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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recommendations

Autobiographies of clever and interesting women
Best of 1930 to 1939: Nonfiction
Women and World War I, 1914-1918
War Work in the First World War
The "Great War"

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