I’d like to suggest June Hutton’s novel Underground, the story about a man who is buried alive at the Somme in WWI, then later signs up for the Spanish Civil War. Here’s a snippet from junehutton.com:

The fight against fascism in Spain became one of the greatest rallying cries of a generation, and yet the 1,700 who volunteered from this country are Canada’s forgotten soldiers. One quarter of them died in Spain, but they are seldom named at Remembrance Day ceremonies and are given only scant reference in school texts. Only four works of non-fiction have been written about Canada’s volunteers. The latest is Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War by Michael Petrou.

Three Cheers for Me by Donald Jack. Winner of the Leacock Award, it and its sequels garnered an interesting range of acclaim:

“These books represent as powerful an indictment of the bloody waste of war as has ever been written by a Canadian.” – J. L. Granatstein

“Jack does more than play it for laughs. Men die on barbed wire and a hand sticks out of the water in the bottom of a shell hole –It seemed to be waving at us cheerfully. Rollo shook hands with it– This mingling of humour and horror is like a clown tap-dancing on a coffin, but Jack is skilful enough to get away with it.” -Time Magazine

“I enjoyed every word… terrifically funny.” -P.G. Wodehouse

“Hero” by Paul Butler also deserves a spot on this list.

I think that no Canadian Remembrance Day list should be without the only book about the Canadian homefront novel that was written contemporaneously to World War I: Rilla of Ingleside by LM Montgomery. It’s an amazing picture of Canadian life on the homefront and gives great insight into beliefs and attitudes of the time about war and sacrifice that, in most cases, ring true today.