Vote for your choice for Hopkinton READS! 2017
    This year's books will be World War I themed in conjunction with OverThereOverHere.com - WWI and Life in NH Communities - a year long exhibition recognizing the 100th anniversary of America's entry into WWI.
    Scroll down to the bottom of the page to vote.

    1. Cather, Willa.  One of Ours. (1922, 371 pages) FIC
    Winner of the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, the book follows the story of Claude Wheeler a native Nebraskan as he grows into adulthood eventually volunteering to go to WWI where he feels that he has finally made a difference.

    2. Empey, Arthur Guy. Over the Top. (1917, 174 pages)  NF
    Empey left the US at the end of 1915 frustrated at its neutrality in the conflict at that point and traveled to England, where he voluntarily enlisted with the 1st London Regiment, going on to serve on the Western Front as a bomber and a machine-gunner. He was medically discharged from the British Army after being wounded in action at the commencement of the Battle of the Somme.

    3. Remarque, Erich Maria.  All Quiet on the Western Front.  (1929, 248 pages) FIC
    This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another.
     
    4. Shreve, Anita. Stella Bain.  (2013, 273 pages)  FIC
    In this historical drama that transports us from Europe to America and back again, Shreve weaves a tale about love and memory. Suffering from shell shock and memory loss from her time spent as a nurse's aide on a French battlefield during World War I, American Stella Bain is taken in by a London surgeon and his wife.

    5. Simonson, Helen.  The Summer Before the War.   (2016, 479 pages) FIC
    The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand returns with a novel of love on the eve of World War I.  Arriving in the village of Rye, England, in 1914, Beatrice Nash, a young woman of good family, becomes the first female teacher of Latin at the local school and is entangled in the life of her host family further complicated by the impending war.
     
    6. Weintraub, Stanley.   Silent Night : WWI Christmas Truce (2001, 206 pages) NF
    In the early months of World War I, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides of the trenches laid down their arms and joined in a spontaneous celebration. Despite orders to continue shooting, the unofficial truce spread across the front lines.  Throughout his narrative, Stanley Weintraub uses the stories of the men who were there, as well as their letters and diaries, to illuminate the fragile truce and bring to life this extraordinary moment in time.
     
    **Summaries adapted from Good Reads and Amazon.