pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

The title of this book is both playfully appealing and a little confusing, as some folks I’ve mentioned it to think it might be a children’s book. It is not. It is a history of two young Northern journalists who travel south during the American Civil War to act as war correspondents, are captured and imprisoned for many months, and eventually escape to trek north again. However, the playfulness remains: in the title, in the writing, and yes, in the story itself. Our two heroes share a certain cynical wit that occasionally lightens what is a quite sad story. As in…

Browne might be the only war correspondent in history to describe his near-death experience by quoting Goethe’s grandmother.

I liked this one line for what it says about the book as a whole – both its subject, and its presentation. Don’t you think?

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: history, nonfiction |