Why am I passionate about this?

Mary Doria Russell is the New York Times best-selling and award-winning author of The Sparrow, Children of God, A Thread of Grace, Dreamers of the Day, Doc, Epitaph, and The Women of the Copper Country. Widely praised for her meticulous research, fine prose, and compelling narrative drive.


I wrote

Dreamers of the Day

By Mary Doria Russell,

Book cover of Dreamers of the Day

What is my book about?

A novel about the making of the modern Middle East. A schoolteacher still reeling from the tragedies of the Great…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

Mary Doria Russell Why did I love this book?

A wonderfully researched and written account of both the Influenza of 1918-1919 and of America's entry into the Great War. Barry included the only mention I had come across about the catastrophic illness of President Wilson on the eve of the Versailles treaty negotiations. We can only wonder what might have been, had Wilson caught influenza just a few weeks later.

By John M. Barry,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Great Influenza as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

At the height of WWI, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, "The Great Influenza"…


Book cover of Assignment: Churchill

Mary Doria Russell Why did I love this book?

It will take some digging, but do try to hunt this down. Thompson was assigned as Churchill's bodyguard just a week before the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference began. His account of his boss's attitudes and habits is refreshingly irreverent. (While smoking a cigar, Churchill “looked like an upholstered toad, slowly incinerating himself.”) Thompson also provides an important contemporaneous description of how T. E. Lawrence was regarded by Arabs in 1921, before either he or Churchill became enveloped in mythology.

By Walter Henry Thompson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Assignment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

AN UNIQUE, INTIMATE VIEW OF WINSTON CHURCHILL BY THE MAN WHO GUARDED HIM NIGHT AND DAY FOR 20 MOMENTOUS YEARS.

When Tommy Thompson as assigned to guard Winston Churchill by Scotland Yard he shuddered. Churchill was considered a tough assignment and Thompson had had his share of tough ones. From Lloyd George to King Alexander of Yugoslavia. But he did it for almost 20 years.

Here is a delightful intimate view of the great statesman and his contemporaries—Lawrence of Arabia, F.D.R., Joseph Stalin, seen with the well-trained eye of a Scotland Yard man.

“As intimate a portrait of Churchill as…


Book cover of Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

Mary Doria Russell Why did I love this book?

This wasn't available to me when I was writing Dreamers of the Day, but it deepened my compassion and respect for Lawrence, despite and because of his complexity. IMO, this is the best and most complete biography with much detail not available to prior biographers, particularly about Lawrence's later work as a marine engineer and technical writer.

By Michael Korda,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hero as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'This magnificent, monumental portrait at a stroke makes all others redundant, and re-establishes Lawrence as one of the most extraordinary figures of the 20th century' Sunday Times

Michael Korda' s Hero is an epic biography of the mysterious Englishman whose daring exploits made him an object of intense fascination, known the world over as Lawrence of Arabia.


An Oxford Scholar and archaeologist, one of five illegitimate sons of a British aristocrat who ran away with his daughters' governess, T.E. Lawrence was sent to Cairo as an intelligence officer in 1916, vanished into the desert in 1917, and re-emerged as one…


Book cover of Death of a Hero

Mary Doria Russell Why did I love this book?

An ironic, sarcastic, ferocious, and funny novel about the Great War by one who fought in the trenches of the Western Front. Aldington became a venomous critic of Lawrence in later years – possibly because Lawrence seemed to have had a much easier war and had become a hero, whereas Aldington never quite got the attention he hoped for as a veteran or a writer.

By Richard Aldington,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Death of a Hero as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the great World War I antiwar novels - honest, chilling, and brilliantly satirical

Based on the author's experiences on the Western Front, Richard Aldington's first novel, Death of a Hero, finally joins the ranks of Penguin Classics. Our hero is George Winterbourne, who enlists in the British Expeditionary Army during the Great War and gets sent to France. After a rash of casualties leads to his promotion through the ranks, he grows increasingly cynical about the war and disillusioned by the hypocrisies of British society. Aldington's writing about Britain's ignorance of the tribulations of its soldiers is among…


Book cover of Testament of Youth

Mary Doria Russell Why did I love this book?

A beautiful autobiography by a young Englishwoman who came of age as a nurse on the Western Front. Taken together with Death of a Hero, the books of these two young adults gives a sense of a generation whose lives were blighted by the war. Their stories are all the more heartbreaking when you realize that the Great War would be followed by the Great Influenza and the Great Depression, and all that it would all lead to the Second World War.

By Vera Brittain,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Testament of Youth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An autobiographical account of a young nurse's involvement in World War I.


Explore my book 😀

Dreamers of the Day

By Mary Doria Russell,

Book cover of Dreamers of the Day

What is my book about?

A novel about the making of the modern Middle East. A schoolteacher still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic travels to the Middle East in this memorable and passionate novel. With prose as graceful and effortless as a seductive float down the Nile, Mary Doria Russell illuminates the long, rich history of the Middle East with a story that brilliantly elucidates a few pivotal days in Cairo that changed the world.

You might also like...

After Me

By J. Shep,

Book cover of After Me

J. Shep Author Of The December Issue

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

J.'s 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

"an intense narrative of family and intangible inheritance. . .this novel unfolds like a fragrant, steeped tea." -Chanticleer Book Reviews, 5 Stars

"like a glorious sunrise, we are gifted the 'après,' the hope and goodness of 'after me.'" -Maria Giuseppa, author of R&R:  A Feast of Words

A man in France receives a package from America containing an autobiographical manuscript relating the events of a summer long ago. 

When Ellande and Madeleine-Grace visit the family summer house on the Alabaster Coast of Normandy for the first time without their parents, they find themselves growing aware of the importance of their…

After Me

By J. Shep,

What is this book about?

A man in France receives a package from America containing an autobiographical manuscript relating the events of a summer long ago.

When Ellande and Madeleine-Grace visit the family summer house on the Alabaster Coast of Normandy for the first time without their parents, they find themselves growing aware of the importance of their parents' choices in raising them. Under the care of their beloved Aunt Adèle, they explore their heritage and what their parents stood for while determining the value of customs and traditions of both family and France's stunning Pays de Caux. In the face of cruelty, carelessness, and…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in World War 1, T. E. Lawrence, and pandemics?

World War 1 926 books
T. E. Lawrence 7 books
Pandemics 36 books