Two Titles set around 1914

Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson

World War One pilots were the knights of the sky, and the press and public idolised them as gallant young heroes.

At just twenty-three, Major Stanley Woolley is the old man and commanding officer of Goshawk Squadron. He abhors any notion of chivalry in the clouds and is determined to obliterate the decent, gentlemanly outlook of his young, public school-educated pilots - for their own good. But as the war goes on he is forced to throw greener and greener pilots into the meat grinder. Goshawk Squadron finds its gallows humour and black camaraderie no defence against a Spandau bullet to the back of the head.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goshawk_Squadron


Dubliners by James Joyce

I chose this to fulfil a category on the Reader Harder Challenge 2017.  I have slipped behind with the list this year but one category was to choose a title about which there was a rumpus over publication.

Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914.^[1] They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.    

The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They centre on Joyce's idea of an epiphany: a moment where a character experiences a life-changing self-understanding or illumination. Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses.^[2] The initial stories in the collection are narrated by child protagonists, and as the stories continue, they deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people. This is in line with Joyce's tripartite division of the collection into childhood, adolescence and maturity.

Above is the cover of the First Edition - I guess what you would call a plain brown wrapper.  Since then there have been many covers generated for this book, each typifying the era in which they were printed.

I listened to a reading of these short stories; the narrator was the inimitable T.P McKenna.  His rich Irish Brogue brought the characters to life as I listened.  So much of the substance of the stories is focused in the dialogue.  What I love is that although these are stories of over 100 years ago the dialogue is familiar in terms of vernacular, the expressions people choose as they talk to each other.  It does not feel remotely old-fashioned.  For me this was definitely a 'story' to have read to me.