Posts in Books
The Pathfinders by Will Iredale

To see in the dark and to hit their target was the challenge Bomber Command faced in the Second World War. To see in the dark and stay hidden only complicated matters more. In Will Iredale latest book, The Pathfinders, he paints a vivid of the force set up to guide Bomber Command’s squadrons to their targets in Occupied Europe. The Pathfinders is a superior narrative history that pays the respect that is due and to the price that was paid.

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The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell

The Strategic Bombing campaign of the Second World War is still one of the most controversial subjects of that conflict 80 years on. The destruction wrought upon hundreds of cities from Coventry to Tokyo brought the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, The Bomber Mafia, looks at the titular group of USAAF thinkers who believed that they had the tools at their disposal to bring high-altitude precision bombing to a realisation.

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Two Tribes by Chris Beckett

In this time of heightened everything, how our disagreements will be viewed those who follow us is the last thing on the mind of those who hate-tweet their every thought. Will those in the future will undoubtedly look at us and wonder “what on earth was going on?” This is the premise of Chris Beckett’s latest work, Two Tribes.

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Harrier 809 by Rowland White

The story of the Falklands War has quickly become a part of the British mythos. A hastily thrown together Task Force, with two small carriers and twenty even smaller fighters taking on the might of the Argentine Air Force and Navy. It was a close-run thing. In Rowland White’s latest book, Harrier 809, he returns to two of his previous subjects, the Falklands and 809 Naval Air Squadron, and shows us that things really were, at times, upon a wing and a prayer.

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A Race With Love and Death by Richard Williams

Between the wars, motor racing came of age. From a pastime of the wealthy, national prestige came to the fore with the arrival of the Nazi backed Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz teams. The two teams would dominate Grand Prix racing before the return of war. For any driver with dreams of winning, these seats were the only ones to aspire too. Richard Williams has turned his gaze upon the mostly forgotten Dick Seaman and his remarkable, fateful, journey to the top step of the podium.

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House of Glass by Hadley Freeman

A family’s stories and legends are always a tricky place to visit. What is unsaid often carries more weight than what is. When Hadley Freeman looked into the shoebox of memories left by her Grandmother, Sala, her journey would take her from Miami Beach to Chrzanów, Poland to Paris and to Auschwitz. What she has crafted into the House of Glass can only be described as an enthralling, heartbreaking and haunting book.

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The Ghosts of Eden Park by Karen Abbott

At the height of Prohibition, a man walked up to his wife in a Cincinnati park. He pulled a pearl-handled gun and pulled the trigger. She would die soon after. The murder of Imogene Remus by her husband George became a sensation because Geroge Remus was possibly the most successful bootlegger in American history. In Karen Abbott’s fantastic new look at the case, we meet George and Imogene and the betrayal that led to the day shots rang out in Eden Park.

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Sword of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

Uthred of Bebbanburg returns for his 12th adventure in Bernard Cornwell’s latest novel, Sword of Kings. Uthred is goaded into returning south to rescue a queen and make a King. Yet Uthred is not getting any younger and the return to London prompts our ageing hero to consider that his days in the shield wall may be coming to an end.

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Arnhem: Ten Days in the Cauldron by Iain Ballantyne

In September 1944, 10,000 airborne soldiers were dropped 64 miles behind the German lines and were required to hold the vital bridges at Arnhem. What would happen would go down in legend. Iain Ballantyne crafts a breathless look at the men on the ground and the civilians who found the war entering every room in their homes.

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Normandy '44 by James Holland

D-Day can tend to be remembered by the beaches, the bocage and the Tigers. In his new history of the Normandy campaign, James Holland looks at the myths of the campaign and reminds us that without the incredible logistics machine supporting the tip of the spear, the liberation would never have gotten very far inland at all.

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The Colour of Time by Dan Jones and Marina Amaral

In Marina Amaral and Dan Jones’ The Colour of Time, we have two historians bringing the colour back to our history, one which we have become so used to seeing in monochrome. The subtle and powerful marriage of the images and text brings an excitement to each turn of the page that makes this a very special book.

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The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

Kate Mascarenhas’ sumptuous debut novel finds a woman in a locked room who has been shot to death. Taking a fractured narrative, a cast of strong, very interesting women, Mascarenhas weaves a a tale that is as much about the woman in the room as it is the women working their way towards the answer in the past, present and future.

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The Deadly Trade by Iain Ballantyne

The submarine is one of man’s greatest, and most deadly, inventions. In The Deadly Trade: The Complete History of Submarine Warfare from Archimedes to the Present, Iain Ballantyne takes us from the theory of the underwater warship, through Jules Vern to the U-Boot and today’s Intercontinental Ballistic Submarine. Where Ballantyne’s superior work excels is to look at the development of the submarine through the eyes of the men who took them to war and who, mostly, never came home.

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Nightfall Berlin by Jack Grimwood

Tom Fox returns to action in Jack Grimwood’s Nightfall Berlin. Having survived Moscow, Fox is sent to East Berlin to escort home a British defector who has express a desire to return home. For some reason, everyone is in agreement for this. There is a memoir. What the memoir contains could derail everything in the thawing environment of the mid-80’s. For Fox, nothing so simple as bringing an old man home is in his future.

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Death In Ten Minutes by Fern Riddell

The image of the Suffragette is one that has been honed for a century so that a very specific image is presented.  It is one of proper women, the ideal of the Englishwoman, fighting for her rights, in the right way.  This is not how it was and in her biography of Kitty Marion, Fern Riddell shows us that Mrs Banks had some far more interesting friends and how the Pankhursts made sure they were hidden in the shadows of history.

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The Last Battle by Peter Hart

The final few months of The Great War have rarely got the focus of those that proceeded them.  The final offensive that finally silenced the guns and ended the slaughter was one in great contrast to the static game of inches of the years before.  In The Last Battle, histoian Peter Hart superbly manages to show us the great scope of Foch's great offensive while putting us in the mud with the men tasked with marching to the "green fields beyond".

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Breakout at Stalingrad by Heinrich Gerlach

After 60 years languishing in the Russian State Military Archive, Heinrich Gerlach's novel of his experiences in Stalingrad is finally published.  Uncompromising and oppressive, Breakout at Stalingrad is a remarkable testament to the horror war and the affect on the men caught up in it.

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