Lynn Female, 47, Married. Pittsburgh, PA, USA

E.B. Sledge, in what some call the best description of combat soldiering ever written, gives a harrowing account of his WWII Marine service. He describes his entire journey--from training, to first invasion, to battle-hardened veteran.

Sledge is a sensitive and intelligent young narrator, one who is eager to serve his country. He crafts his account carefully, never quick to judge, always appreciative of the glimpses of valor and nobility he sees amongst his fellow Marines.

Sledge does not flinch from describing atrocities committed by American as well as Japanese soldiers--nor does he apologize for them. Desperate times result in desperate actions, and his description of the Pacific war's hellish and nightmarish conditions make one begin to appreciate that desperation. Almost miraculously, Sledge survives. Even more wonderously, he survives as a human being and gentle man, despite his extended immersion in war's barbarity.

book 1 is an excellent, lyrical story of the exodus from Paris ahead of the Nazi army's invasion, following a number of different people and family groups as they leave; book 2 is an account of village life which conveys the mixed attitudes--hatred, camaraderie, love, lust, admiration, etc.-- of French townspeople and farmers toward their German occupiers, and vice versa, with some overlap of characters from book 1. Made all the more poignant because of the author's subsequent arrest and murder in Auschwitz.

Be sure to read the "Preface to the French Edition," which in my copy is at the end of the book. Then read the Appendix II--Nemirovsky's husband's heart-wrenching and increasingly-frantic correspondence chronicling his frustrated efforts to find and help his wife after her arrest and deportation.