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
-
Is China winning the AI race?
Today's Big Question Or is it playing a different game than the US?
-
5 refreshing podcasts you may have missed this spring
The Week Recommends Exploring the cultural impact of Jerry Springer, a look at contemporary spending habits and more
-
Mortgages: The future of Fannie and Freddie
Feature Donald Trump wants to privatize two major mortgage companies, which could make mortgages more expensive
-
Bryan Burrough's 6 favorite books about Old West gunfighters
Feature The Texas-raised author recommends works by T.J. Stiles, John Boessenecker, and more
-
Tash Aw's 6 favorite books about forbidden love
Feature The Malaysian novelist recommends works by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and more
-
Richard Bausch's 6 favorite books that are worth rereading
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and more
-
Marya E. Gates' 6 favorite books about women filmmakers
Feature The film writer recommends works by Julie Dash, Sofia Coppola, and more
-
Laurence Leamer's 6 favorite books that took courage to write
Feature The author recommends works by George Orwell, Truman Capote and more
-
Amor Towles' 6 favorite books from the 1950s
Feature The author recommends works by Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, and more
-
Susan Page's 6 favorite books about historical figures who stood up to authority
Feature The USA Today's Washington bureau chief recommends works by Catherine Clinton, Alexei Navalny, and more
-
Ione Skye's 6 favorite books about love and loss
Feature The actress recommends works by James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more