• Age: 14 to 18
• Grade: 9 to 12
• Reading age: 14 to 18

“The importance of this book … cannot be overstated.” —The Globe and Mail

As the world marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, the bestselling novel Generals Die in Bed becomes more relevant than ever. Originally published in 1930, the landmark novel was one of the first to shatter the world’s illusion that war is a glorious endeavour. Instead, this chilling first-hand account brought readers face to face with the brutal, ugly realities of life in the trenches.

Often compared to All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms, Generals Die in Bed was described by the New York Times as “a burning, breathing, historic document.” With veterans of WWI no longer here to tell their tales, this book stands as a lasting monument to the horror of war.

Charles Yale Harrison (1898-1954) was an author, activist, and editor. Harrison born in Philadelphia and raised in a Jewish family in Montreal. He served in World War One, an experience that would influence much of his subsequent fiction. A dedicated fellow traveller, Harrison moved from Montreal to New York in the 1920s, where he worked on the staff of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA)-led magazine New Masses alongside outspoken literary critics of proletarian literature such as Mike Gold. He was also a founding member of one of a series of John Reed Clubs, established in 1929 in an attempt to create a large forum for leftist writers. Drawing on his own service in the First World War, he published Generals Die in Bed (1930), a scathingly anti-war novel about the horrors of trench warfare. The novel was well received, and was followed by the novels A Child is Born (1931), There are Victories (1933), Meet Me on the Barricades (1938), and Nobody’s Fool (1948). He also authored a biography of the American socialist lawyer Clarence Darrow (1931), and the self-help book Thank God For My Heart Attack (1949).

Charles Yale Harrison's profile page

Wade Davis is professor of anthropology and the B.C. Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Between 1999 and 2013 he served as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and is currently a member of the NGS Explorers Council and Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Named by the NGS as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” In 2014, Switzerland’s leading think tank, the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute of Zurich, ranked him 16th in their annual survey of the top 100 most influential global Thought Leaders.
An ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker, Davis holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his PhD in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among fifteen indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6000 botanical collections. His work later took him to Haiti to investigate folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an assignment that led to his writing The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an international best seller later released by Universal as a motion picture. In recent years his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia, Colombia, Vanuatu, Mongolia and the high Arctic of Nunavut and Greenland.
Davis is the author of 275 scientific and popular articles and 20 books including One River (1996), The Wayfinders (2009), The Sacred Headwaters (2011), Into the Silence (2011) and River Notes (2012). His photographs have been widely exhibited and have appeared in 30 books and 100 magazines, including National Geographic, Time, Geo, People, Men’s Journal, and Outside. He was the co-curator of The Lost Amazon: The Photographic Journey of Richard Evans Schultes, first exhibited at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. In 2012 he served as guest curator of No Strangers: Ancient Wisdom in the Modern World, an exhibit at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.
His many film credits include Light at the Edge of the World, an eight-hour documentary series written and produced for the National Geographic. A professional speaker for 30 years, Davis has lectured at over 200 universities and 250 corporations and professional associations. In 2009 he delivered the CBC Massey Lectures. He has spoken from the main stage at TED five times, and his three posted talks have been viewed by 3 million. His books have appeared in 20 languages and sold approximately one million copies.
Davis is the recipient of 11 honorary degrees, as well as the 2009 Gold Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his contributions to anthropology and conservation, the 2011 Explorers Medal, the highest award of the Explorers Club, the 2012 David Fairchild Medal for botanical exploration, the 2013 Ness Medal for geography education from the Royal Geographical Society, and the 2015 Centennial Medal of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University. His recent book, Into the Silence, received the 2012 Samuel Johnson prize, the top award for literary nonfiction in the English language. In 2016 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

Wade Davis' profile page

“By far the best Canadian novel ever written about the war.”

Halifax Chronicle Herald, 11/07/14

“The spare, clear writing speaks to today’s readers, however, and this overlooked classic should stand with the better known World War I titles by Hemingway and Remarque.”

VOYA, 02/15