Irwin Shaw - Young Lions. Gift book bound in leather.

Shaw's novel "Young Lions" gained fame almost at the time of writing — and continues to enjoy deserved popularity these days. The Washington Post named it fourth in the list of the best American novels about the Second World War, and the British Guardian included it among "1000 books that everyone should read."

Three soldiers. Three boys abandoned by history on different sides of the trenches of a big and terrible war.

Naive German Christian Distl, who believed in Hitler's fairy tales about the "great fate of Germany". The harassed American Jew Noah Ackerman, eternally tormented by his own inner demons. And a brilliant bohemian intellectual-Californian Michael Whitacre.

Three boys. Three destinies. And one huge war for all, which will one day bring them together…