Outside Reading

So I have yet to find my copy of The Catcher in the Rye, but during my search for the book, I came across another book that seems very interesting. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque caught my eye because of the words BANNED BOOK printed on the binding. I'm not sure how the book found its way into my room, but in all the intrigue I picked it up and read the back. Claimed to be the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of a young twenty year old man named Paul Baumer, and his experiences in World War 1. I have only read about ten pages, but I can already tell there will not be a dull moment in this book. It starts off in first person point of view, describing the camp where the soldiers have settled at for the night, filling up on beans and other food. It seems to be a good point in the war for the Germans, because Paul describes the surplus of food and cigarettes in their possession, and how rare this is. He goes on to depict an exchange of chewing tobacco for cigarettes, which reminded me of something my seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher once told us about. I remember her describing the barter systems during the war, and how valuable things like cigarettes were to people for whom they were hard to obtain. It made me realize how much we take some things for granted that are commonplace in our society, (obviously not cigarettes for me personally), and we don’t realize that these are not of abundance in other parts of the world.