Through poetry, rites and music, Confucian education sought to teach moral subtleties – easily memorised in the form of singing, The Book of Songs helped to lay down rules for behaviour. Its poetry, as opposed to the Western tradition, was largely anonymous and apparently simple. Yet beneath the surface, the poems are multi-layered. To this day, the Songs – and especially the Airs – are speaking in multiple voices. In delightful ambiguity, they have survived every attempt to be reduced, and hence diminished, to a single message or meaning. I am driven by a greater force than I can resist. I believe that force has its own reason and it's own morality even if they may never be clear to me while I am alive."

The way that the characters and the atmosphere are built by Sebastian Faulks is just amazing! The reader is taken in to that atmosphere, and shares the feelings of the main character, Stephen. You cannot fail to be totally captivated. British Trust for Ornithology, BTO, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU, Tel: +44 (0)1842 750050 Fax: +44 (0)1842 750030 It was not his death that mattered; it was the way the world had been dislocated. It was not all the tens of thousands of deaths that mattered; it was the way they had proved that you could be a human yet act in a way that was beyond nature.” Hey! I was just setting out the book composition, this is a review of sorts, don't ya know! Alongside the fictionalised first-hand descriptions of the harsh reality of trench warfare, there's also depictions of: Sebastien Faulks won my heart with his WWII espionage book, Charlotte Gray. Well, right until that ending that left me scratching my head. But Birdsong truly moved me and is quite simply- an AMAZING book. It is less the romance, but Stephen's time on the frontlines and his time with his men that was truly the gem of the book.There are lines you must ponder. Why does one fight in a war? Who do we fight for? Do you fight for your land, your family, your friends....or for those comrades who have fought and died next to you? You are in the trenches and in tunnels, in the middle of bombardments. You are in a tunnel and you may be suffocated and buried alive. This book is about fear. This book is about the warfare of WW1. I approached this book, the third time I have read it, with extreme caution. I felt like I was meeting up with friends that I hadn’t seen for a while. Situations had changed, circumstances had changed and, perhaps most importantly, my reading tastes had changed. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time as it has all the elements of a 5 star read for me. Its got the passion, the history and a great plot. It has the ability to make the reader exclaim out loud and to remember a time when precious lives were lost in the name of war. I loved the characters and they are so well developed that I found they not only had faces but voices and I had such a connection with each and every one of them.

Umm --- my nine-year old knows how old I am. Elizabeth was raised by her mother, Francoise, and is the managing director of her company. There is no indication whatsoever that her mother wants to keep any family history secret. The implication is that they are curiously dull, or so bovinely indifferent, that such basic facts simply never came up in their family life.Being able to identify a bird's song is a skill that brings joy and fosters an appreciation of nature. Learning how to differentiate between the songs of a house finch and a goldfinch, however, is not easy. That is where this enchanting book comes into its own. It features recordings of twelve bird songs from some of the best-known garden bird species seen and heard across North America. commenting on its behavior, instead of playing. Then he demanded that we take a picture to share with the family! This book contains probably the most raw accounts of war, that I have ever read. This is beautifully and skillfully balanced out with a romantic story, which I didn't think I would love as much as I have. I have always wanted to know more about birds in an abstract way. When we decided that I would be homeschooling I decided this would be a perfect time to act on this desire. Like many people who chose to take English Literature as an A-Level, I was told that I should read this for my War Literature Module. I’ve had bad experience with course books, experiences that started in high school and stretched right up until I graduated university. So I was sceptical to say the least.

It's the sort of book which children have to plead with the adults to let them have a look at. Everything about it is superb. Highly recommended." The gruesome, gut wrenching realities for soldiers fighting this war are told in phrases so descriptive that you almost wish you hadn't read them - about the smell of blood, wounds and body parts, the claustrophobic, horrific conditions in the tunnels and ultimately what the men lose of themselves .There are friendships and brotherhoods that grow making for some moving and very sad scenes. Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong tells the story of Stephen, starting in pre-war France and taking us right through the war and through a terrible period of history.There's a love affair, so passionate, but yet illicit and at first I thought that this is what was going to get to me in this novel. It did, but the most powerful, thought provoking thing about this book is what happened to the men in the trenches during WW I. Faulks' writing is truly outstanding, the fear and hopelessness felt by the men is made vivid and terrifyingly portrayed. oh yeah and all the women want children??? literally all of them??? excuse me but having children is not the be all and end all of womanhood. Halfway through the story we jump to 1978, where Elizabeth Benson has taken a sudden interest in her grandfather, Stephen Wraysford and the fate of the men who died in or limped home from the trenches of World War I. Here the narrative stumbles a bit. Elizabeth, now in her late 30s, seems entirely unaware of the horrors of The Great War. This rang utterly false. "No one told me," she says upon seeing the battlefields and monuments of the Somme. I think a British citizen of her generation would have been well aware of the magnitude of that war. But Faulks gives Elizabeth a strong voice and her own personal dilemmas that bring the existential quest for meaning and truth full circle. We don't stay in late 70s London for long, but we dip in and out until the novel's end as Elizabeth's story becomes woven into her grandfather's.