The books that honour the bloodiest of battles

On the centenary of the Somme, these are the titles that best bring the horror show to life

I was still a teenager when I first struggled through Somme by the great Lyn MacDonald, a book that I both could not put down, and dreaded picking up. At school, we’d “done” the war poets, of course, to which I had responded by duly adding a desperately naive form of pacifism to my burgeoning portfolio of hormonal opinions. But this, a history based on many first-hand accounts, was different. There was no beauty in it – and so, for the first time, the full horror show flashed before my eyes.

Related: Scenes from the Somme: surreal, sickening spectacle

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