A truly wonderful book, capturing the innocence of the golden age before WWI and the tragedy and futility of that war. Beautifully written with not a word out of place or superfluous, the reader is transported to the places and experiences of an idyllic childhood through to the rude awakening of a premature adulthood. I was a little apprehensive about reading it as I suspected it might be too raw or too sad, but it was neither of those things. Or rather it is both of those things in places but these aspects are so effortlessly woven into the narrative that they seem to become an integral part of the human condition and tell a story needing to be told. So engrossed was I in Private Peaceful's life that the ending took me completely by surprise.