Second paragraph of third chapter of The Postmistress:

There was France and Germany. Austria. England. Poland. Letters printed in straight lines in the comforting typeface of school, the world ordered as neatly as the men now were. Since the draft had begun in October, each man’s number pulled by hand from the War Department’s glass fishbowl and recorded, the roads and rails were full of American boys being sent all over the country, leaning over books and maps in their olive drab, sprawled in the too tight seats moving from Ohio to Omaha. Tennessee. Georgia. The Carolinas. From town the two Snow brothers would go first, then a Wilcox, a Duarte, and a Boggs. Johnny Cripps and Dr. Fitch had numbers so high, it was as good as if they hadn’t been called. They’d never be needed now.

A novel about three American women during the second world war, two of whom are rather boring and live in Massachusetts and one of whom is more interesting and does some gripping journalism from Europe. One of the two in America is a postmistress who doesn’t deliver a letter. It didn’t really engage me. You can get it here.

This was my top unread book by a woman, my top unread book acquired last year and my top unread non-genre book. Next on the first list was 84k, by Claire North, which I have since read. Next on the other two is Intimacy, by Jean-Paul Sartre.