All Quiet On The Western Front

Another update on my reading list. I have added All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque to it since I realised it had been missed off the first edition. I have now read the book and so can remove it again. An absolutely remarkable book, and refreshing to read about the First World War from the point of view of the Germans after studying so much history from a British perspective.

I remember quite well an assembly that our head teacher gave to us once about the First World War in which he got the whole year to stand up and then class by class got us to sit down again until there were only a few left standing at the front. His point was that the soldiers in the trenches were not decimated as is so often said, decimated means ten percent of. The soldiers in the trenches were killed in much greater percentages than 10 in 100. Reading All Quiet On The Western Front brought that home to me once again.

I have also been reading up about Rwanda today and searching for blogs of other people working out there. I came across an interesting blog at www.ianwk.blogspot.com through www.rwanda-aid.org. I think I will start to brush up on my French before I go to Dundee to start my training with Signpost International too, despite working in France for Spring Harvest Holidays for 2 summers my French language skills are no further on than when I stopped studying it at year 9!

On another book note, I have also read C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed so now my reading list stands thus, all of which I have started:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Life Together
Alister McGrath - Theology The Basics
Bill Hybels - Too Busy Not To Pray
Nick Spencer - Asylum and Immigration - A Christian Perspective
Alistair Redfern - Being Anglican