Remembrance Day 2024: A Reading List

In honor of Remembrance Day on Monday, we’ve curated a reading list featuring some of our recent military history titles. From a powerful memoir, to an in-depth look at the experiences of Canadian war wives, and even a graphic novel, this selection offers diverse perspectives on the Great War.

And We Go On

A Memoir of the Great War

By Will R. Bird, Introduction by David Williams

And We Go On is a nuanced response to the trauma of war, suffused with an interest in the spiritual and the paranormal not found in other war literature. Long out of print, it is a true lost classic that arguably influenced numerous works in the Canadian literary canon, including novels by Robertson Davies and Timothy Findley.

Anxious Days and Tearful Nights

Canadian War Wives During the Great War

By Martha Hanna

The everyday struggles of war wives, lived far from the battlefields of France, have remained in the shadows of historical memory. This book highlights how Canadian women’s experiences of wartime marital separation resembled and differed from those of their European counterparts.

Lost in the Crowd

Acadian Soldiers of Canada’s First World War

By Gregory M. W. Kennedy

Gregory Kennedy presents a new kind of history focusing on the experiences of Acadian soldiers and their families before, during, and after the First World War. He significantly shifts common interpretations about recruitment in French Canada, service overseas, and the factors determining post-war socioeconomic outcomes.

Postcards from the Western Front

Pilgrims, Veterans, and Tourists after the Great War

By Mark Connelly

A groundbreaking, richly-illustrated study of how a sense of place was created on the battlefields of the Western Front by soldiers, veterans, and tourists during the First World War and in the interwar period, Postcards from the Western Front is compelling reading for the wide array of people interested in the history of war, and its aftereffects.

Through Their Eyes

A Graphic History of Hill 70 and Canada’s First World War

With a Unity of Purpose

How the First World War Changed Newfoundland

By Michael Westcott

With a Unity of Purpose examines the transformation of Newfoundland during the First World War from a society underpinned by classical liberalism to one dominated by social liberalism, in which citizens and the state recognized their responsibilities to each other.