I started this book Wednesday evening and finished it Friday morning, with tears running down my face. Wow. I didn't expect to be so moved by a war novel (not usually my choice of reading material.) But Michael Shaara, even when speaking the language of generals and writing words of battle, still finds a way to convey the humanity, the grace, the sadness, the exaltation of the men who fought the battle of Gettysburg. Whatever you learned in school about the Civil War, whatever small bits you may remember were all dry facts and statistics compared to this account. Shaara makes you feel it and I, for one, am grateful there are books that can leave me sitting on my sofa, on the last day of spring break, with a lump in my throat that won't go away, hoping it will be awhile before the girls awake, demanding pancakes and the plans for the day.
Superb. If you read no other Big Read title for this year, please, please, read this one.
Kim F
355 pp
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