To mark the centenary of the start of the Great War, we’ve compiled an extensive reading list to help you explore the lead up to war, what happened, its meaning and how it affected our region. It includes non–fiction, novels and poetry.
You can reserve any of these books for collection from your local library.
The road to war
- The fateful year: England 1914 by Mark Bostridge
- The sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914 by Christopher Clark
- Europe’s last summer: Why the world went to war in 1914 by David Fromkin
- Catastrophe: Europe goes to war 1914 by Max Hastings
- The war that ended peace: How Europe abandoned peace for the First World War by Margaret MacMillan
- 1914: Britain, the army and the coming of the First World War by Allan Mallinson
The war
- A nurse at the front:the Great War diaries of Sister Edith Appleton by Edith Appleton and edited by Ruth Cowen
- Elsie and Mairi go to war: Two extraordinary women on the Western Front by Diane Atkinson
- Undertones of war by Edmund Blunden
- Testament of youth: An autobiographical study of the years 1900–1925 by Vera Brittain
- First World War in the air by Phil Carradice
- Gallipoli by Les Carlyon
- Great War Tommy: An insight into the uniform, equipment, weaponry and lifestyle of the British Great War soldier by Peter Doyle
- Harry’s war: The Great War diary of Harry Drinkwater by Harry Drinkwater, edited by Jon Cooksey & David Griffiths
- The ‘baby killers’: German air raids on Britain in the First World War by Thomas Fegan
- The pity of war by Niall Ferguson
- Great War tank: An insight into the history, development, production and role of the main British Army tank of the First World War by David Fletcher, David Willey & Matt Sampson
- Goodbye to all that by Robert Graves
- The Great War: A photographic narrative by The Imperial War Museum
- The unknown soldier: The story of the missing of the Great War by Neil Hanson
- Major & Mrs Holt’s pocket battlefield guide to Ypres & Passchendaele by Tonie Holt & Valmai Holt
- Storm of steel by Ernst Junger
- The First World War by John Keegan
- The Penguin book of First World War stories edited by Barbara Korte & Ann-Marie Einhaus
- Six weeks: the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War by John Lewis-Stempel
- Somme mud: The experiences of an infantryman in France, 1916-1919 by E.P.F. Lynch, edited by L. Will Davies
- Passchendaele: The story of the Third Battle of Ypres 1917 by Lyn MacDonald
- Wounded: From battlefield to Blighty, 1914-1918 by E.R. Mayhew
- The first day on the Somme: 1st July, 1916 by Martin Middlebrook
- The last fighting Tommy: The life of Harry Patch, the oldest surviving veteran of the trenches by Harry Patch & Richard Van Emden
- The Great War: An illustrated panorama by Joe Sacco & Adam Hochschild
- Memoirs of an infantry officer by Siegfried Sassoon
- The First World War in 100 objects: The story of the Great War told through the objects that shaped it by G.D. Sheffield
- 1914-1918: The history of the First World War by David Stevenson
- World War One: A short history by Norman Stone
- Silent night: The remarkable Christmas truce of 1914 by Stanley Weintraub
- The Wipers Times: The famous First World War trench newspaper by Christopher Westhorp
The legacy of the war
- Fighting on the Home Front: The legacy of women in World War One by Kate Adie
- War memorial: The story of one village’s sacrifice from 1914 to 2003 by Clive Aslet
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission website
- Empires of the dead: How one man’s vision led to the creation of WWI’s war graves by David Crane
- Tracing your First World War ancestors by Simon Fowler
- Great Britain’s Great War by Jeremy Paxman
- The long shadow: The Great War and the twentieth century by David Reynolds
Poetry
- 1914: Poetry remembers edited by Carol Ann Duffy
- The war poems of Wilfred Owen by Wilfred Owen, edited by Jon Stallworthy
- The Penguin book of First World War poetry edited by George Walter
Fiction
- The regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker
- The absolutist by John Boyne
- Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
- Parade’s end by Ford Madox Ford
- A farewell to arms by Ernest Hemingway
- All quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, translated by Brian Murdoch
Suffolk’s war
- Norfolk and Suffolk in the Great War by Gerald Gliddon
- The History of the Suffolk Regiment 1914-1927 by CCR Murphy
- No glorious dead: The impact of war on Sudbury, a Suffolk market town by Valerie Herbert
- Bombardment of Lowestoft & Great Yarmouth by the Germans, 25th April 1916 by Robert B. Jarvis
- Zeppelin over Suffolk by Mark Mower