Eavan Boland
Eavan Boland is the author of Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time. Against Love Poetry is her most recent collection of poems.
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (Penguin, $17). I’m always struck by the difference between “the past” and “history.” For that reason, this seems the most eloquent of all the First World War memoirs. Maybe because it’s not written from the center of the action at all, but from a quiet corner—a young woman watching her world disintegrate.
Burned Child Seeks the Fire: A Memoir by Cordelia Edvardson (Beacon, $10). Edvardson is the daughter of a German poet I admire, Elizabeth Langgässer. She spent part of her adolescence in Auschwitz as Mengele’s assistant. This is a searing Holocaust memoir, only recently translated.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Dead as Doornails by Anthony Cronin (Lilliput, $18). The best account of Irish literary life in the ’50s. A bittersweet critique of the waste, exuberance, and self-destruction of writers like Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan, and Myles na Gopaleen. It begins as memoir and ends as elegy.
Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer by Richard Holmes (out of print). Just the perfect book of and about biography. The main biography in this series of linked portraits is of the biographer himself: part snoop, part groupie of the lost lives of his heroes. Plus magical, subversive reconstructions of 19th-century writers like Stevenson, Shelley, and Wollstonecraft.
Charlotte Mew and Her Friends by Penelope Fitzgerald (out of print). An essential book. Fitzgerald reconstructs the quirky, wounded life of a wonderful poet—a sexual and literary outsider in 19th-century London.
The Hidden Ireland
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Why are student loan borrowers falling behind on payments?
Today's Big Question Delinquencies surge as the Trump administration upends the program
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Not there yet: The frustrations of the pocket AI
Feature Apple rushes to roll out its ‘Apple Intelligence’ features but fails to deliver on promises
By The Week US Published
-
George Foreman: The boxing champ who reinvented home grills
Feature He helped define boxing’s golden era
By The Week US Published
-
John McWhorter’s 6 favorite books that are rooted in history
Feature The Columbia University professor recommends works by Lyla Sage, Sally Thorne, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Abdulrazak Gurnah's 6 favorite books about war and colonialism
Feature The Nobel Prize winner recommends works by Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Elliot Ackerman’s 6 favorite books on war and duty
Feature The Marine veteran recommends works by Robert A. Heinlein, John le Carré, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Xochitl Gonzalez’s 6 favorite books that shaped her storytelling
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Stephen King, Julian Barnes, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Jason Isaacs's 6 favorite books that changed his perception on life
Feature The British actor recommends works by George Orwell, C.S. Lewis, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Tessa Bailey's 6 favorite books for hopeless romantics
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Lyla Sage, Sally Thorne, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Pagan Kennedy's 6 favorite books that inspire resistance
Feature The author recommends works by Patrick Radden Keefe, Margaret Atwood, and more
By The Week US Published
-
John Sayles' 6 favorite works that left a lasting impression
Feature The Oscar-nominated screenwriter recommends works by William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and more
By The Week US Published