Standard Journal Book Club August selections online for vote

Only a couple of days remain to vote for the next selection for the Polk County Standard Journal Book Club’s August meeting.

The deadline to vote is Friday in the online poll at www.thepolkfishwrap. com on three World War I themed books in honor of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the conflict in Europe.

Editor Kevin Myrick has provided three choices for this month’s book: Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms,” Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August.”

Hemingway’s classic published 11 years after the war’s end is not just a book about war, but also a love story between it’s main character American Frederic Henry, who is serving as a lieutenant in the Italian Army’s ambulance corps and falls in love with a woman named Catherine Barkley. Look at World War I as a backdrop to the love story in one of Hemingway’s greatest works.

Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” first published in a German newspaper in December 1928 but released as a book in early 1929. The novel follows German soldiers’ stresses during the war, and later their feeling of exclusion in civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.

“The Guns of August,” one of Tuchman’s most famous works in a long line of great historical works, focuses on the first month of World War I in great detail, explaining how the actions of opposing forces during August 1914 created the conditions for trench warfare and the long stalemate on the Western front.

The book with the most votes will be the group’s selection for the coming month.

Those interested in joining the club should come for the monthly meeting tentatively set for August 21.

For more information, e-mail editor Kevin Myrick at kmyrick@npco.com.