A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

I first read this book in the 10th grade. It was assigned reading by our English teacher. It might have been the first classic assigned to me that I actually read cover to cover and had some interest in. Later that year we read To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye. Miss Kelly was not one to fool around with less than great books.

There are great books written today, every year in fact and I read them. Not many three combined books of any time frame would rival what these three books offer.

As an adult I have fallen in love with Hemingway's work. For Whom the Bell Tolls is a fantastic read and his collection of short stories may be my favorite book of all. This book however, A Farewell to Arms, ages very gracefully and may, perhaps only because I have read it most recently, surpass For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Set in WWI centering on an American Captain Henry who joins the Italian army in the ambulance service. He is wounded, convalesces, and then is involved in the huge Italian retreat. The actions seen and taken in that retreat disillusion him of the glory of war.

He also romances an English nurse Catherine Barkley and the book tells of their romance. This book might have been seen as controversial in the early 1920's but it stands today as a great piece of literature telling of a specific war and action as only Hemingway could.

This book is close to a 10.