What is Ian Patterson reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Ian Patterson, professor of Modern English Literature at the University of Cambridge and author, most recently, of Guernica and Total War (Harvard University Press).

Part of his entry:

I read Clair Wills's wonderful history of Ireland during the Second World War, That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War (Harvard: Belknap Press), before it was published in the spring, and I'm already reading it again. It uses literature, popular culture and social history as well as high politics to provide a complex and comprehensible account of the difficult dynamics of the period, and (apart from being beautifully written) it really brings that culture to life and illuminates the writing that came out of it. As soon as I've finished it, which I don't want to do too quickly, I shall plunge into Volume 1 of David A. Moody's new biography of Ezra Pound (Oxford University Press). [read on]

The Page 99 Test: Guernica and Total War.

Visit the Harvard University Press website for more information about Guernica and Total War and read an excerpt.

Read Patterson's essay, "Why Guernica Speaks to Us Now More than Ever."

Writers Read: Ian Patterson.

--Marshal Zeringue