Book Review : Once There Was a War by John Steinbeck

A collection of news reports written by John Steinbeck covering England, Africa and Italy during the Second World War. As always Steinbeck writes with brilliance, and although it doesn't hit the heights of some of his novels, it is still a great pleasure to read him. His humour is unparalleled and I especially enjoyed the chapters on the people of Dover : "Jerry is like the weather to him. He complains about it and then promptly goes about what he was doing. Nothing in the world is as important as his garden..." and the character of Private Big Train Mulligan who manages to make the Army work for him and gets enormous quantities of sandwiches! The chapter called CRAPS (one of Mulligan's lies) is the best in the book.

Of course, the subject matter is extremely serious and it opens up some aspects of the War that you may never have heard or read about before.

Like a bottle of fine claret, savour every word of a book by John Steinbeck.