BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS!

Reflecting a Remembrance theme a mixed selection this month.

 

A fascinating military memoir, “The Last Fighting Tommy – the life of Harry Patch the only surviving veteran of the trenches” published in 2008 following a 2005 documentary.  Also based on a superb TV programme, “The World at War”.

Over turning popular myths about the outbreak of WW2 historian A.J.P.Taylor’s  “The Origins of the Second World War” caused a storm of outrage when published in 1961.

More personal recollections in “D-Day 1944” told in the words of those who were there, people of every nation, and all ranks.

Novels too, “Guernica” by Dave Boling – fictitious characters loosely stapled to historic events with the 1937 bombing and “Whisky Galore” by Compton Mackenzie – a joyous comic novel, subsequently made into two films.