All Quiet on the Western Front

A young soldier runs from his first battle and spends the rest of the war trying to earn back his own respect. Crane was born after the war he describes and still wrote the most convincing account of it.

Stephen Crane

A squad in the trenches, written by a man who served in them and published while the fighting was still going on. The first book to describe the Western Front without any of the usual glory.

Henri Barbusse

An ambulance driver and a nurse fall in love in wartime and discover that the war is not the only thing that can take everything. Hemingway rewrote the ending dozens of times before he was satisfied.

Ernest Hemingway

A disfigured pilot comes home to a town that has already moved on without him. Faulkner's first novel is about the people waiting at the station rather than the fighting.

William Faulkner