Order this book from Amazon.com A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1929 Recommended by: Vincent Scully The book that comes to mind is one I read shortly after it came out, by a writer who's not very fashionable today. But when I read the first page of Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, the clarity, the crystalline presence of it, moved me very intensely. It's the great one about the stream running down over the stones in the summer when they're waiting for the offensive to begin. It's a famous page. I suppose that page affected the way I've tried to think, the way I've tried to write, the way I've tried to call up physical experience -- which, of course, the visual arts are -- with words. That's probably most important to me. When you ask me, it's the one that comes to mind. About the Book The unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front during World War I, and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. One of Hemingway's best -loved works, a passionate meditation on love in wartime.