Sat, 08 Jan 2011 23:22:50 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/tin-drum-the-189-99353.html On his third birthday Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures is post-war Germany.

Author: Grass, Gunter  Publisher: Random House]]> Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/war-without-fronts-189-88228.html A groundbreaking investigation into the true extent of war crimes committed by US troops during the Vietnam War – shocking in its parallels with the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shortly before 8 am on 16 March 1968, C Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Regiment, 11th Brigade, Americal Division, on a search-and-destroy mission in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam, entered the hamlet of My Lai (4). By noon every living being the troops could find was dead – more than 400 women, children and old men had been systematically murdered. \n\nTo this day, the My Lai massacre has remained the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War. Yet this infamous incident was not an exception or aberration. Based on extensive research and unprecedented access to US Army archives, and tracing the responsibility for these atrocities all the way up to the White House and the Pentagon, War Without Fronts reveals the true extent of war crimes committed by American troops in Vietnam and how a war to win hearts and minds soon became a war against civilians. About the Author An historian and political scientist, Bernd Greiner is professor at the University of Hamburg and directs the research programme on the theory and history of violence at the Hamburg Institute of Social Research.

Author: Greiner, Bernd  Publisher: Vintage]]> Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/wolf-the-189-88404.html How one German raider terrorised the southern seas during the First World War In the years 1916-1918, the Wolf, an ordinary freighter fitted-out with a hidden arsenal of weapons, was sent by Germany on one of the most daring clandestine naval missions of modern times. Under the command of Kapitan Karl Nerger, the ship undertook a continuous fifteen-month cruise in which she traversed three of the world’s major oceans, destroyed more than thirty Allied vessels and captured over 400 men, women and children. During this time the Wolf maintained radio silence and never pulled into port, surviving on fuel and food plundered from captured ships. Equipped with the era’s newest technological marvels the Wolf was an instrument of terror in a new age of mechanised warfare.\n\nIn The Wolf, Richard Guilliatt & Peter Hohnen bring this little-known story to life by drawing on dozens of eyewitness accounts, unpublished memoirs, declassified government files, newspaper reports and family archives unearthed during three years of intensive research in several countries. What emerges from these accounts is a richly-detailed picture of the world through which the Wolf moved, with all its social divisions and naked xenophobia, its spirit of bravery and stoicism, its paradoxical combination of old-world social mores and rapid technological change.\n\nThis extraordinary adventure story exhibits the tremendous impact that one lone, audacious German warship made on the people of many nations during the final two years of the First World War. About the Author Richard Guilliatt is a journalist and author. Born in the UK, he was a feature writer at The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, before moving to New York in 1986 to work as a freelance writer. His work has appeared in many leading newspapers and magazines. In 2000, he won Australia’s highest award for magazine feature writing, the Walkley Award. \n\nPeter Hohnen was a partner in a prominent Canberra law firm for 20 years. A commander in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve for two decades, he was posted to Cambridge University in 1999 to study the law of the sea and the laws of armed conflict as a visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. His great-uncle, Alexander Ross Ainsworth, was chief engineer aboard the steamship Matunga when it was captured by SMS Wolf in August 1917.

Author: Guilliatt, Richard,Hohnen, Peter  Publisher: Corgi]]> Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/sophie-s-choice-189-50690.html In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb. There he meets Nathan, a fiery Jewish intellectual; and Sophie, a beautiful and fragile Polish Catholic. Stingo is drawn into the heart of their passionate and destructive relationship as witness, confidant and supplicant. Ultimately, he arrives at the dark core of Sophie's past: her memories of pre-war Poland, the concentration camp and - the essence of her terrible secret - her choice.

Author: Styron, William  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/voices-against-war-189-90964.html Based on nearly 200 personal testimonies from the Imperial War Museum’s Collections, this landmark book tells the stories of those of those who participated in anti-war protest from the First World War 1914-18 to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Voices Against War is a compelling, emotional and very moving human story, essential for understanding war in its entirety.

Author: Smith, Lyn  Publisher: Mainstream Publishing]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/capricorn-bracelet-the-189-42359.html Rosemary's Sutcliff's absorbing collection of stories cover the fall of Londinium to the building of Hadrian's Wall, and the final departure of the Romans from Britain. Set at the time of the Roman occupation of Britain, they follow the fortunes of one family over three hundred years. All soldiers, they are linked by the Capricorn bracelet, first worn by the centurion Lucius for distinguished conduct, then handed down through the generations.

Author: Sutcliff, Rosemary  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/biggles-defends-the-desert-189-42431.html Hopelessness took him in its grip. He knew he was wandering in circles but he had ceased to care. All he wanted to do was drink. His skin began to smart. His feet were on fire… It’s the Second World War and Biggles is in the desert, defending the vital air-route from the West coast of Africa to the Middle East. Urgent stores, dispatches and important officials and officers are regularly flown over this route, but lately a number of planes have unaccountably failed to arrive at their destinations. They’ve disappeared on route and Biggles is there to find out why – and stop it happening again.

Author: Johns, W E  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/biggles-delivers-the-goods-189-42432.html Ginger felt the blood drain from his face. The muscles seemed to go stiff. For a few seconds he could not speak. ‘Was the name of the prisoner given?’ he blurted. ‘No.’ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ muttered Ginger. ‘There could be only one Gosling in that area. They’ve got Algy!’ Late in the Second World War Biggles and his team are in Malaya, operating a secret commando under the nose of the Japanese occupiers. Algy is captured after his plane goes down over the Indian Ocean but Biggles will not abandon him. A night raid is called for…

Author: Johns, W E  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/biggles-flies-west-189-42433.html Out of the corner of his eyes Biggles saw Dick go overboard and disappear under the foam, but he could do nothing to help him. Indeed, as he fought to keep the flying-boat under control, it seemed certain that during the next minute or two the others must join him. Ashen, he looked at Algy. 'Jump when she hits!' he cried, in a shrill, strangled voice, and dived deliberately at the rocks. Biggles, Algy and Ginger help a young lad evade a violent thief and find themselves plunged into a dangerous treasure hunt searching for a long-lost pirate hoard of gold in the Caribbean.

Author: Johns, W E  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/biggles-goes-to-war-189-42434.html The escort fell in on either side of the prisoners, and at a word of command the party moved forward. Down the corridor it marched, and through an open door into a grim-looking courtyard. Across this it proceeded, and came to a halt against a wall on the far side.-Biggles glanced at the sky. It was just turning pink with the first flush of dawn. 'If Ginger is going to do the rescue act, he hasn't got much time left.' He observed calmly.-Algy said nothing. His face was pale. In the uneasy atmosphere of Europe between the two World Wars, Biggles, Algy and Ginger are persuaded to defend a small middle European country from an aggressive neighbour backed up by an unnamed Big Power.

Author: Johns, W E  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/biggles-learns-to-fly-189-42435.html He tilted the machine on to its side, holding up his nose with the throttle, and commenced to slip wing-tip first towards the ground. Whether he was over British or German territory he neither knew nor cared; he had to get on to the ground or be burnt alive. This is the story of the very beginning – of the Air Service and of Biggles. It’s the First World War and Biggles is just 17; the planes are primitive; combat tactics are non-existent; and pilots and their gunners communicate by hand signals and have no contact with the ground. This is where Biggles learns his craft and finds he has a certain aptitude for flying in battle…

Author: Johns, W E  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/silver-sword-189-90959.html Alone and fending for themselves in a Poland devastated by World War Two, Jan and his three homeless friends cling to the silver sword as a symbol of hope. As they travel through Europe towards Switzerland, where they believe they will be reunited with their parents, they encounter many hardships and dangers. This extraordinarily moving account of an epic journey gives a remarkable insight into the reality of life in war-torn Europe.

Author: Serraillier, Ian  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/biggles-of-the-fighter-squadron-189-42436.html ‘Well if you want trouble you can have it!’ grated Biggles through set teeth. ‘See how you like this!’ In the later stages of the First World War Biggles and his fellow fliers have to use all their wit and skill to stay ahead of the German fighters so determined to bring them down.

Author: Johns, W E  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/biggles:-the-camels-are-coming-189-42437.html The Camel closed up until it was flying beside him; the pilot smiling. Biggles showed his teeth in what he imagined to be an answering smile. ‘You swine,’ he breathed: ‘you dirty, unutterable, murdering swine! I’m going to kill you if it’s the last thing I do on earth.’ Set in the last years of the First World War air combat has now become the order of the day and air duelling is a fine art. Biggles and his fellow pilots now have to contend with the enemy using their own British aircraft, a Sopwith Camel, to lure the British pilots to their deaths…

Author: Johns, W E  Publisher: Red Fox]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dark-arena-the-189-42584.html DescriptionWalter Mosca, hardened by the brutality and desecration of three long years of war, returns to the USA a changed man. But he has no sooner arrived than he knows that he must run back to the land of the enemy, to find the woman who accepts the rage and cruelty of the world around her. Back in Germany, where the bitter aftermath of war is everywhere apparent, American cigarettes will buy almost anything. Against this background the love affair between Mosca and his girlfriend Hella moves to a savage climax as vivid and violent as any scene in The Godfather.

Author: Puzo, Mario  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/garden-of-the-finzi-continis-the-189-90934.html It is the autobiography of Giorgio Bassani, told in a time span of around 15 years, a time where the ambiguous and mysterious female figure of Micol was a central part of his life. They live in a time where racial laws are being passed by fascist Italy and as a result Micol and her family open the gates of their huge mansion and even bigger garden to a handful of jeweish friends that have been banned from any recreational activity. In this garden Micol guides the narrating “I” figure through the interior journey in search of his identity and maturity. Unfortunately this journey of truth can only end but in the sourest way; the rejection of a deep love felt by the author for Micol, his spiritual guide.

Author: Bassini, Giorgio  Publisher: Everyman]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fortunate-pilgrim-the-189-42585.html From the barren farms of Italy to the cramped tenements of New York, the immigrant families struggle with an adopted life - none more so than the Angeluzzi-Corbos. At their head stands Lucia Santa, wife, widow and mother of two families. It is her formidable will that steers them through the Depression and the early years of the war. But she cannot prevent the conflict between Italian and American values - nor the violence and bloodshed which must surely follow...

Author: Puzo, Mario  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/catch-22-189-42620.html 0

Author: Heller, Joseph  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/tin-drum-the-189-90943.html Beginning with the unforgettable words ‘Granted: I’m an inmate in a mental institution’,The Tin Drum, the narrative of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. On his third birthday Oskar resolves to stunt his own growth at three feet, and on the same day he receives his first tin drum. Wielding his drum and piercing scream as anarchic weapons, he draws forth memories from the past as well as judgements about the horrors, injustices, and eccentricities he observes through the long nightmare of the Nazi era. Oskar participates in the German post-war economic miracle – working variously in the black market, as an artist’s model, in a troupe of travelling musicians – yet he remains haunted by the deaths of his parents, afflicted by his responsibility for past sins. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of publication, Harvill Secker, along with Grass’s publishers all over the world, is bringing out a new translation of this classic novel. The acclaimed translator and scholar, Breon Mitchell, has drawn from many sources: from a wealth of detailed scholarship; from a wide range of newly available reference works; and from discussion with the author himself. After fifty years, The Tin Drum has, if anything, gained in power and relevance.

Author: Grass, Gunter  Publisher: Harvill Secker]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas-the-189-49610.html The story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about the book on the cover, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about. If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this isn't a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence. We hope you never have to cross such a fence.

Author: Boyne, John  Publisher: Definitions]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas-the-189-42641.html Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us . . . Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

Author: Boyne, John  Publisher: Definitions]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-189-49531.html 0

Author: William L Shirer  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/forgotten-voices-of-dunkirk-189-90918.html It could have been the biggest military disaster suffered by the British in the Second World War, but against all odds the British Army was successfully evacuated, and ‘Dunkirk spirit’ became synonymous with the strength of the British people in adversity. On the same day that Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, German troops invaded Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. The eight-month period of calm that had existed since the declaration of war was over. But the defences constructed by the Allies in preparation failed to repel a German army with superior tactics.The British Expeditionary Force soon found themselves in an increasingly chaotic retreat. By the end of May 1940, over 400,000 Allied troops were trapped in and around the port of Dunkirk without shelter or supplies. Hitler’s army was just ten miles away. On 26 May, the British Admiralty launched Operation Dynamo. This famous rescue mission sent every available vessel – from navy destroyers and troopships to pleasure cruisers and fishing boats – over the Channel to Dunkirk. Of the 850 ‘Little Ships’ that sailed to Dunkirk, 235 were sunk by German aircraft or mines, but over this nine day period 338,000 British and French troops were safely evacuated. Drawing on the wealth of material from the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk presents in the words of both rescued and rescuers in an intimate and dramatic account of what Winston Churchill described as a ‘miracle of deliverance’.

Author: Levine, Joshua  Publisher: Ebury Press]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/suite-francaise-189-42900.html In 1941, Ir

Author: Nemirovsky, Irene  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/suite-francaise-189-90951.html In 1941, Irène Némirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, Suite Française would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, Suite Française falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion and make their way through the chaos of France; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Némirovsky's brilliance as a writer lay in her portrayal of people, and this is a novel that teems with wonderful characters, each more vivid than the next. Haughty aristocrats, bourgeois bankers and snobbish aesthetes rub shoulders with uncouth workers and bolshy farmers. Women variously resist or succumb to the charms of German soldiers. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places. Irene Némirovsky conceived of Suite Française as a four- or five-part novel. It was to be a symphony - her War and Peace. Although only two sections were finished before her tragic death, they form a book that is beautifully complete in itself, and awe-inspiring in its understanding of humanity.

Author: Nemirovsky, Irene  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/quiet-american-the-189-42978.html Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love?

Author: Greene, Graham  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/slaughterhouse-5-189-43001.html Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller – these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. Slaughterhouse 5is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centring on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

Author: Vonnegut, Kurt  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/spearhead-assault-189-43100.html On May 21st, 1982, nearly four hundred soldiers from the 2cd Battalion Parachute Regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert 'H' Jones, landed with a British Task Force at San Carlos Bay on the Falklands. Their mission: to take the strategic position at Goose Green where military intelligence reckoned there were a couple of hundred Argentine troops guarding an airstrip. The intelligence was wrong and when they attacked on May 27th, they were confronted by a 1,500-strong regiment of Argentine soldiers dug in with so much machine-gun ammunition they stood on the ammo boxes to keep their feet dry. Some of the enemy soldiers were Special Forces; some were Guarani Indians, a proud warrior race; a few even were Welsh-speaking members of a community founded in Patagoina in the nineteenth century. What they had in common were two .50 calibre machine guns in every position. It was going to be a hard and dreadful fight. Fourteen hours later when the smoke had cleared on the most ferocious battle in post-war British history, nearly 250 Argentine soldiers were killed, scores more were wounded and another 1,300 had been captured. Goose Green would cost 2 Para the lives of seventeen men, including 'H' Jones, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his role in the action. This is a no-holds barred account of what it was really like to walk into the storm of lead the Argentines hurled at their attackers.

Author: Geddes, John  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/birdsong-189-43180.html Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

Author: Faulks, Sebastian  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/one-that-got-away-the-189-49836.html The SAS mission conducted behind Iraqi lines is one of the most talked about stories of courage and survival in modern warfare. Of the eight members of the SAS regiment who set off, only one escaped capture. This is his story. Here Chris Ryan has also written an introduction detailing the aftermath of his extraordinary experience; how the former members of the patrol have fallen out and revealing documentary evidence that settles once and for all what really happened on that fateful mission. This edition also includes photographs censored at the time of the original publication.

Author: Ryan, Chris  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/david-golder-189-49972.html Translated by Sandra Smith, with an introduction by Patrick Marnham. In 1929, 26-year-old Ir

Author: Nemirovsky, Irene  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/first-to-land-the-189-90935.html 1899, China. The Mandarins are becoming troublesome again and there are rumors that attacks will soon begin on British trade missions and legations. Captain David Blackwoodof the Royal Marines, received a VC in the bloody battle for Benin, Africa but is now being packed off to this apparent backwater. But there are plenty of troubles in store for Blackwood in the shape of an errant nephew and a beautiful German Countess who insists he personally escort her up river on a small steamer into the heart of the country.China is a sleeping tiger that will soon awake when the Boxer Rebellion erupts into bloody war in 1900. True to their motto, the Royal marines are the first to land – and the last to leave. This is the second novel in the Blackwood saga, spanning 150 years in the history of a great seafaring family and the tradition in which they served.

Author: Reeman, Douglas  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/bravo-two-zero-189-50102.html In January 1991, eight members of the SAS regiment embarked upon a top secret mission that was to infiltrate them deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab, they were to sever the underground communication link between Baghdad and north-west Iraq, and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: BRAVO TWO ZERO. Each man laden with 15 stone of equipment, they patrolled 20km across flat desert to reach their objective. Within days, their location was compromised. After a fierce fire fight, they were forced to escape and evade on foot to the Syrian border. In the desperate action that followed, though stricken by hypothermia and other injuries, the patrol 'went ballistic'. Four men were captured. Three died. Only one escaped. For the survivors, however, the worst ordeals were to come. Delivered to Baghdad, they were tortured with a savagery for which not even their intensive SAS training had prepared them. Bravo Two Zero is a breathtaking account of Special Forces soldiering: a chronicle of superhuman courage, endurance and dark humour in the face of overwhelming odds.

Author: McNab, Andy  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/immediate-action-189-50108.html Immediate Action is a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary life, from the day Andy McNab was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War. As a delinquent youth he kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS Regiment he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years - on five continents. Recounting with grim humour and in riveting, often horrifying, detail his activities in the world's most highly trained and efficient Special Forces unit, McNab sweeps us into a world of surveillance and intelligence-gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage rescue.There are casualties: the best men are so often the first to be killed, because they are in front. By turns chilling, astonishing, violent, funny and moving, this blistering first-hand account of life at the forward edge of battle confirms Andy McNab's standing in the front rank of writers on modern war.

Author: McNab, Andy  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/day-189-50189.html Alfred Day wanted his war. In its turmoil he found his proper purpose as the tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber; he found the wild, dark fellowship of his crew, and – most extraordinary of all – he found Joyce, a woman to love. But that’s all gone now – the war took it away. Maybe it took him, too. Now in 1949, employed as an extra in a war film that echoes his real experience, Day begins to recall what he would rather forget...

Author: Kennedy, A. L.  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/plot-against-america-the-189-90933.html When the renowned aviation hero and rabid isolationist Charles A.Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt by a landslide inthe1940 presidential election, fear invaded every Jewish household in America.Not only had Lindbergh publicly blamed the Jews for pushing America towards a pointless war with Nazi Germany, but, upon taking office as the 33rd president of the United States, he negotiated a cordial 'understanding' with Adolf Hitler. What then followed in America is thehistorical setting for this startling new novel by Pulitzer-prize winner Philip Roth, who recounts what it was like for his Newark family during the menacing years of the Lindbergh presidency, when American citizens who happened to be Jews had every reason to expect the worst.

Author: Roth, Philip  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/boer-war-the-189-90937.html The first shots of the Boer War were fired at Kraaipan on 12 October 1899. Winston Churchill, though he had left his Regiment, the 4th Hussars, in the previous March, was eager as ever to be within the sound of guns and wasted no time in getting himself accredited to the Morning Post as war correspondent. He sailed from Southampton aboard the Dunottar Castle on 14 October and reached Cape Town on the 31st. For the next eight months he filed his copy regularly for the Morning Post and it is these despatches which were later reprinted in book form as London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March. As both are comparatively short and as the one follows on from the other, they have since been published together under the title The Boer War. In both books Churchill adopts the personal approach and recounts his own experiences set against the background of the War rather than attempting to give a picture of the conflict as a whole. As he says himself, 'Sometimes it happens that these letters are devoted to describing small incidents, and often personal experience, in a degree of detail which, if the rest of the campaign were equally narrated, would expand the account to limits far beyond the industry of the writer or the patience of the reader.' What emerges is a vivid and dramatic picture of the conditions under which the War was fought and of the problems which confronted the long untried British Army when faced with the dogged and determined resistance of the Boers.

Author: Churchill, Winston S.  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/black-water:-by-strength-and-by-guile-189-90912.html Don Camsell joined the men in black of the SBS in 1974. From the deserts of Oman to the hills of Port Stanley, from the bottom of Gibraltar harbour to the deep, cold, black waters of Loch Long and from the QE2 to the back alleys of Belfast, his new role demanded that Don fought in just about every theatre of war - overt or covert.

Author: Camsell, Don  Publisher: Virgin Books]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/heroes-of-the-sas-189-90913.html The riveting true stories of the men of Britain’s Special Forces revealing what it’s really like being a member of one of the world’s most elite military regiments. The SAS has played a vital role in innumerable military operations since World War II. Along the way the daring and bravery of it’s men has produced incredible stories of courage and devotion to duty. Heroes of the SAS is packed with thrilling accounts of the events and men involved in some of the most dramatic incidents in the division’s history, from covert operations to major campaigns. It shares numerous gripping tales of outstanding bravery and reveals just what it takes to make it as an SAS soldier.

Author: Davies, Barry,Davies, Barry  Publisher: Virgin Books]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hunt-for-zero-point-189-90914.html In 1966 a group of highly respected aerospace engineers revealed that US scientists were perfecting ways to control gravity. They predicted a breakthrough would come by the end of the decade, ushering in an era of limitless, clean propulsion for a new breed of fuelless transport systems - and weapons beyond our imagination. Of course it never happened. Or did it? Forty years on a chance encounter with one of the engineers who made that prediction forces a highly sceptical aerospace and defence journalist, Nick Cook, to consider the possibility that America did indeed crack the gravity code - and has covered up ever since. His investigations moved from the corridors of NASA to the dark heartland of America's classified weapons establishment, where it became clear that a half century ago, in the dying days of the Third Reich, Nazi scientists were racing to perfect a Pandora's Box of high technology that would deliver Germany from defeat. History says that they failed. But the trail that takes Cook deep into the once-impenetrable empire of SS General Hans Kammler - the man charged by Adolf Hitler with perfecting German secret weapons technology - says otherwise. In his pursuit of Kammler, Cook finally establishes the truth: America is determined to hang onto its secrets, but the stakes are enormous and others are now in the race to acquire a suppressed technology.

Author: Cook, Nick  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/bulletproof-189-90915.html AFGHANISTAN, FEBRUARY 2008: in an out-of-control, dangerous country torn apart by war, littered with Taliban guerrilla forces and thousands of miles from home, Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, a Royal Marine with 40 Commando, accidentally activates a grenade whilst on a covert patrol behind enemy lines. With only a split second to react, Croucher’s instincts kick in and he throws himself beside the grenade, reasoning that saving the lives of his three comrades was worth the likelihood of losing his own. Miraculously, and against all the odds, Croucher survived, and mere hours later was taking part in a gun battle against local insurgent fighters, demonstrating a raw, unique courage and devotion to military duty that would later see him awarded the George Cross – a distinction bestowed only on those who perform acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger. Croucher’s George Cross would make him famous around the world. But his story is much more than just one heroic act in isolation. His is a life of bullets, blood and loyalty, and of lives saved and lives taken. From a young marine aged 19, when he was one of the first 200 Allied soldiers to invade Iraq back in 2003 as part of an elite force of British Marines and US Special Forces, through to his second tour of duty in 2004, when he suffered a fractured skull following a roadside bomb attack, only to return to action just a week later, and then being thrust into hellish Afghanistan, Croucher has seen vicious fighting, intense gun battles, roadside ambushes, and witnessed the death and injury of close colleagues on an almost daily basis. This is his incredible story: a searing, vivid, non-stop account of one man’s heroism and courage under fire, in the most gruelling combat environment since the Second World War.

Author: Croucher GC, Matt  Publisher: Century]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/bullet-proof-189-90916.html AFGHANISTAN, FEBRUARY 2008: in an out-of-control, dangerous country torn apart by war, littered with Taliban guerrilla forces and thousands of miles from home, Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, a Royal Marine with 40 Commando, accidentally activates a grenade whilst on a covert patrol behind enemy lines. With only a split second to react, Croucher’s instincts kick in and he throws himself beside the grenade, reasoning that saving the lives of his three comrades was worth the likelihood of losing his own. Miraculously, and against all the odds, Croucher survived, and mere hours later was taking part in a gun battle against local insurgent fighters, demonstrating a raw, unique courage and devotion to military duty that would later see him awarded the George Cross – a distinction bestowed only on those who perform acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger. Croucher’s George Cross would make him famous around the world. But his story is much more than just one heroic act in isolation. His is a life of bullets, blood and loyalty, and of lives saved and lives taken. From a young marine aged 19, when he was one of the first 200 Allied soldiers to invade Iraq back in 2003 as part of an elite force of British Marines and US Special Forces, through to his second tour of duty in 2004, when he suffered a fractured skull following a roadside bomb attack, only to return to action just a week later, and then being thrust into hellish Afghanistan, Croucher has seen vicious fighting, intense gun battles, roadside ambushes, and witnessed the death and injury of close colleagues on an almost daily basis. This is his incredible story: a searing, vivid, non-stop account of one man’s heroism and courage under fire, in the most gruelling combat environment since the Second World War.

Author: Croucher GC, Matt  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/intelligence-in-war-189-90917.html No war can be conducted successfully without early and good intelligence,' wrote Marlborough, and from the earliest times commanders have sought knowledge of the enemy, his strengths and weaknesses, his dispositions and intentions. But how much effect, in the 'real time' of a battle or a campaign, can this knowledge have? In this magisterial new study, which will fascinate readers of both military and more general history, the author of A History of Warfare goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about intelligence in war. From the Napoleonic Wars to the sophisticated electronic warfare of the twenty-first century, John Keegan finds linking themes which lead to a compelling conclusion. His narrative sweep is enthralling, whether portraying the dilemmas of Nelson seeking Napoleon's fleet, Stonewall Jackson in the American Civil War, Bletchley as it seeks to crack Ultra during the Battle of the Atlantic, the realities of the secret war in the Falklands or the polymorphous intelligence issues of the contemporary fight against terrorism.

Author: Keegan, John  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/nazi-gold-189-90920.html Nazi Gold is the real-life story of theft of a fabulous treasure - the German national gold and foreign currency reserves worth some 2,500,000,000 at the time of the original investigation - which disappeared in transit following the collapse of the Nazi regime in 1945. It is also the story of a mystery and cover-up in an American scandal which pre-dated Watergate by nearly 30 years.The authors' quest led them to a murky, dangerous post-war world of racketeering, corruption and gang warfare. Their brilliant reporting, matching eyewitness testimony with recently declassified Top Secret deocuments from the US Archives, lays bare this monumental crime in a narrative which throngs with SS desperadoes, a redheaded queen of crime, American military governers living like Kings, investigators impeded at every step and in fear of their lives... This fully updated edition of NAZI GOLD includes startling new evidence that throws further light on the crime, including the authors' recent discovery of some of the missing treasure in the Bank of England.

Author: Botting, Douglas,Sayer, Ian  Publisher: Mainstream Publishing]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/auschwitz-189-90921.html In this compelling book, highly acclaimed author and broadcaster Laurence Rees tells the definitive history of the most notorious Nazi institution of them all. We discover how Auschwitz evolved from a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners into the site of the largest mass murder in history - part death camp, part concentration camp, where around a million Jews were killed. Auschwitz examines the mentality and motivations of the key Nazi decision makers, and perpetrators of appalling crimes speak here for the first time abouty their actions. Fascinating and disturbing facts have been uncovered - from the operation of a brothel to the corruption that was rife throughout the camp. The book draws on intriguing new documentary material from recently opened Russian archives, which will challenge many previously accepted arguments. This is the story of murder, brutality, courage, excape and survival, and apowerful account of how human tragedy of such immense scale could have happened.

Author: Rees, Laurence  Publisher: BBC Books]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/bismarck-189-90922.html Late in the morning of 27 May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck was sunk by an overwhelming British armada in a fierce battle that lasted ninety minutes. Admiral Gunther Lutjens, Captain Ernst Lindemann and 2,206 men of her crew were lost, only 115 survived. Five days earlier, an RAF reconnaissance plane flying low off the coast of Norway spotted four large warships in the sea below. At 19,000 tons fully loaded, the sight of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen was shocking enough; even more so was the sight of the 50,000 ton battleship Bismarck - the pride of the German navy - a ship shrouded in myth, an awesome and mysterious behemoth of destruction. Their purpose in these waters was obvious and chilling: the German navy was sending this powerful four-battleship task force to seize control of the North Atlantic sea lanes. The survival of free Britain was at stake. With almost all of Europe under Hitler's thumb, and the United States still frustratingly neutral, Britain was left alone to fight Nazi Germany. The only hope lay in the convoy route across the North Atlantic from the United States. The fate of Britain and the United States hung in the balance, and all knew that the destruction of the Bismarck would be a dramatic turning point in the war. Noted historians Bercuson and Herwig have uncovered much new information on the Bismarck, including a close examination of classified British and United States diplomatic files, only recently opened, revealing secret diplomatic manoeuvrings between Churchill and Roosevelt. They tell the full story of the Bismarck for the first time, from the key strategic decisions of the national leaders, to the gripping hour-by-hour account of the battle. This is the definitive account of one of the most dramatic and momentous events of the Second World War.

Author: Bercuson, David J,Herwig, Holger H  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/trautmann-s-journey-189-90923.html He was the best goalkeeper I ever played against.' Bobby Charlton Every football fan knows the legend of Bert Trautmann. Fifteen minutes from the end of the 1956 FA Cup Final, Trautmann – the goalkeeper for Manchester City – falls spectacularly mid-tackle. He continues to play on to the end of the game, ensuring Manchester City win the cup. An X-ray later reveals a broken neck. But there is more to this legend than a plucky goalkeeper. Bert Trautmann was born Bernhardt Trautmann in Germany in 1923. Brought up in a country already in the grip of National Socialism, he joined the Hitler Youth at the age of ten and went to fight for the Vaterland when he was seventeen. Despite enduring inconceivable hardships in the name of war, Trautmann continued to believe wholeheartedly in the cause. Until one day he stumbled into enemy territory to be greeted by the words, ‘Fancy a cup of tea, Fritz?’ What follows is an extraordinary story of transformation. Bernhardt – a Nazi living in a POW camp in Cheshire – becomes Bert. From an amateur footballer working on a bomb disposal unit in Liverpool, to celebrated Manchester City goalkeeper adored by thousands, Catrine Clay charts Trautmann’s conversion from Hitler Youth star to all-England football hero, mirroring Europe’s own journey through the horrors of war to a fragile post-war peace.

Author: Clay, Catrine  Publisher: Yellow Jersey]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fall-of-berlin-the-189-90924.html The battle for Berlin in 1945 was one of the most violent ever fought for a city. For Stalin it was the ultimate prize. More than 300,000 Soviet soldiers alone died in the attack. The scene is set during the 1936 Olympics, with Berlin as the showcase of the 1,000 year Reich. Then, sketching the history of this extraordinary city, Read and Fisher chart its transformation by the Prussians from a political and cultural backwater into a formidable garrison town. Seedy yet glamorous, it fell under Nazi sway in 1933 and, with the approach of war, it became the hub of Hitler's war machine. After four years of relentless Allied bombing, Berlin was faced with its ultimate test - the final battle, in which no building or street was left unmarked as the fanatical and terrified remnants of Hitler's armies attempted to hold back the 'barbarians from the east'.

Author: Fisher, David,Read, Anthony  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/nuremberg-interviews-the-189-90925.html The Nuremberg Interviews reveals the chilling innermost thoughts of the former Nazi officials under indictment at the famous postwar trial. The architects of one of history's greatest atrocities speak out about their lives, their careers in the Nazi Party and their views on the Holocaust. Their reflections are recorded in a set of interviews conducted by a U.S. Army psychiatrist. Dr Leon Goldensohn was entrusted with monitoring the mental health of the two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide, as well as that of many of the defence and prosecution witnesses. These recorded conversations have gone largely unexamined for more than fifty years. Here are interviews with some of the highest-ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails, including Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernest Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Here, too, are interviews with lesser-known officials who were, nonetheless, essential to the workings of the Third Reich. Goldensohn was a particularly astute interviewer, his training as a psychiatrist leading him to probe the motives, the rationales, and the skewing of morality that allowed these men to enact an unfathomable evil. Candid and often shockingly truthful, these interviews are deeply disturbing in their illumination of an ideology gone mad. Each interview is annotated with biographical information and footnotes that place the man and his actions in their historical context and are a profoundly important addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission.

Author: Goldensohn, Leon  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/proper-study-of-mankind-the-189-90926.html Isaiah Berlin is one of the leading thinkers of our day, and one of the finest writers. This book selects some of the best of his essays and represents the full range of his work. The opening sections include Berlin's defence of philosophy and history against assimilation to the methods of science; his seminal essays on liberty; his exposition of his most distinctive doctrine - pluralism. These are followed by brilliant studies of intellectual originators, Russian writers and some of his most distinguished contemporaries. Berlin encapsulates the principal movements that charaterise the modern age; from romanticism and Fascism to exitentialism and nationalism. His insights both illuminate the past and offer a key to the burning issues of the today.

Author: Berlin, Isaiah  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/escape-from-baghdad-189-90927.html Gun-for-hire James 'Ash' Ashcroft thought he’d left Iraq behind. Last time he only got out alive thanks to the bravery of his interpreter and friend Sammy. But now a call for help means Ash must once again face the chaos of war-torn Baghdad - and this time there's no pay cheque. Abandoned by the occupying Coalition Forces, Sammy and his family face certain death at the hands of the Shia-dominated Iraqi Police and the death squads that roam the streets unless Ash and his team can get in and get them to safety over the border. This is the action-packed story of their audacious escape from Baghdad. It is a gripping account of the chaos of war, where the only thing that can be relied upon is the bond between former brothers-in-arms.

Author: Ashcroft, James  Publisher: Virgin Books]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/good-soldier-svejk-the-189-90928.html An attack on war which broadens into a satire on the ANCIEN REGIME of the Austro-Hungarian empire, THE GOOD SOLDIER SVEJK recreates the age-old figure of the simple soldier whose sheer determination to survive brings into question the mighty social and political institutions he confronts. Set in a Central Europe which has long since vanished, Hasek's novel is nevertheless a timeless portrait of the 'little man' doughtily waging his own war against authority

Author: Hasek, Jaroslav  Publisher: Everyman]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/horizon-the-189-90929.html 1914-1918 ... This is the third book in the Blackwood saga. For three generations, members of the Blackwood family served the Royal Marines with distinction. With the outbreak of World War I, at last comes Jonathan Blackwood's turn to carry the family name into battle. But as the young marines embark for the Dardanelles, and a new kind of warfare, it dawns on them that the days of scarlet coats and an unchanging tradition of honour and glory have gone forever. First in Gallipoli, and two years later at Flanders, comes their horrifying initiation into a wholesale slaughter for which no training could ever have prepared them. Caught up in the savagery of a conflict beyond any officer's control, Blackwood's future rests on the 'horizon' - the dark lip of the trench which was the last fateful sight for so many.

Author: Reeman, Douglas  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/very-long-engagement-189-90930.html During the First World War five French soldiers, accused of a cowardly attempt to evade duty, are bundled into no-man's land and certain death. Five bodies are later recovered, the families are notified that the men died in the line of duty and the whole, distasteful incident appears closed. After the war the fianc-e of one of the men receives a letter which hints at what might have happened. Mathilde Donnay determines to discover the fate of her beloved amid the carnage of battle. A Very Long Engagement turns into an unusual and engrossing thriller as she discovers an increasing number of people trying to put her off the scent. Japrisot's achievement is to have written a novel that is both a suspenseful thriller and one which transforms a single small incident into the epitome of all wartime atrocities. The d-nouement, when it finally happens, is moving and horribly convincing.

Author: Japrisot, Sebastien  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/birdsong-189-90931.html Birdsong is a novel about the tenderness and the limits of human flesh, it is about men and women living at the edge. Set mostly in France spanning the years before and during the First World War it captures the drama and destruction of that era as it tells the story of Stephen, a young Englishman who is impelled through a series of extreme experiences, from a traumatic clandestine love affair which rips apart the bourgeois French family he lives with, through grim insanity of the Great War. In the vast scenes of suffering and the tender depiction of human love, Birdsong is at times almost unbearably moving to read.

Author: Faulks, Sebastian  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/heat-of-the-day-the-189-90932.html On the face of it the story is about a woman who is given reason to suspect that the man with whom she is in love is betraying his country Another man is on his track, and a triangular situation develops. All the elements of a hunter-and-hunted thriller are here, but what she makes of them is an internal drama of remarkable perception and understanding in a domestic setting in embattled London. Her imagin-ative interpretation of the effect of war on the manners, morals and emotions of those not directly engaged in the fighting is drawn from an uncannily poignant recall of the wartime London scene.

Author: Bowen, Elizabeth  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/command-a-king-s-ship-189-90936.html In March 1784, at a time when most of the fleet was laid up, His Majesty's frigate Undine weighed anchor at Spithead to begin a voyage to India and far beyond. As her new captain, Richard Bolitho was glad to go, despite the nature of his orders and the immensity of the voyage - for he was leaving an England still suffering from the aftermath of war. But he was to learn that signatures on proud documents did not necessarily make a lasting peace, and found himself involved in a conflict as ruthless as the one which had given him his first command during the war with France. In an uneasy peace the expansion of trade and colonial development in little-known areas of the East Indies soon pushed aside the pretence and brought the guns' fury into the open. There was no set line of battle or declared cause to rally Undine's small company. But the dangers and the endless demands had to be faced by the man who commanded the only King's ship available.

Author: Kent, Alexander  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/gunpowder-189-90938.html For many, gunpowder is associated with Guy Fawkes and the attempt to blow up parliament on 5 November 1605. Fewer people know that the formula for gunpowder was in fact discovered more than 1,000 years ago - in China - and by accident. Known as 'fire-drug', its origin was the alchemists' search for immortality, 'the elixir of life', and it was initially a medicine, not an explosive. It is a myth that the Chinese used gunpowder only for fireworks; in fact, within a few hundred years of the discovery, the Chinese military was equipped with every type of weapon that ever used gunpowder - bombs, incendiaries, rockets, mines, guns and cannons. This fascinating book tells the story of the huge impact of gunpowder on every state and empire in the world. For 400 years the Chinese kept it to themselves, until a Mongol soldier leaked the secret to the Islamic world, where gunpowder played a crucial role in the rise of the great empires of the Ottomans and the Mughals: the spectacular capture of Constantinople in 1453 was accomplished through new siege tactics, while India was conquered with muskets and artillery mounted on 700 carts held together with ox harnesses. Even more important was the impact of gunpowder on Europe where, driven by the demands of almost constant warfare, new weapons created new states. Equally, gunpowder helped Europeans destroy the Aztec and Inca empires and then go on to dominate the rest of the world. Its extraordinary history ended during the nineteenth century when even more destructive high explosives took over. Gunpowder is packed with unexpected and interesting facts, and reveals its exciting, devastating and important story with global sweep and storytelling power.

Author: Ponting, Clive  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/killing-rommel-189-90939.html Autumn,1942: Hitler’s legions have swept across Europe. Soviet Russia reels under the German onslaught while across the channel, Britain struggles on. And in North Africa, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps have routed the 8th Army, threatening the oil fields of the Middle East. The war hangs in the balance... Out of this, the British hatch a desperate plan – to send a small, highly mobile fighting force behind enemy lines to strike a blow that will stop Rommel's army in its tracks. It is to be called the Long Range Desert Group and its exploits will become the stuff of legend. Based on real events, Steven Pressfield’s bold new novel brings to pulse-racing life the ingenuity and daring of this maverick commando unit - a disparate, dedicated ‘band of brothers’ who sacrificed so much for the sake of freedom...

Author: Pressfield, Steven  Publisher: Bantam]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/phoenix-squadron-189-90940.html January 1972: the tiny outpost of British Honduras is threatened with imminent invasion by battle-hardened, US-trained Guatemalan paratroops. Britain’s response must be immediate and decisive. But there is only one deterrent the government can offer: HMS Ark Royal, once the Navy’s most powerful warship, now a white elephant on the verge of being scrapped. To save the small colony, she must launch a pair of Buccaneer fighter bombers on an unprecedented long-range mission. But first the old carrier must make a high-speed, 1,500 mile dash across the Atlantic towards the Gulf of Mexico. The odds of arriving in time are very slim indeed… Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts and previously unseen, classified documents, Rowland White has pieced together one of the most audacious and thrilling missions of post-war British military history.

Author: White, Rowland  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/life-and-fate-189-90941.html At the centre of this epic novel, overshadowing the lives of its huge cast of Russian and German characters, looms the battle of Stalingrad. Within a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies. Completed in 1960 but confiscated by the KGB, this sweeping panorama of Soviet Society rejected the compromises of a lifetime and earned its author denunciation and disgrace. It remained unpublished until it was smuggled into the West in 1980, where it was hailed as a masterpiece.

Author: Grossman, Vasily  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/twelve-seconds-to-live-189-90942.html The mine is an impartial killer, and a lethal challenge to any volunteer in the Special Countermeasures of the Royal Navy. They are brave, lonely men with something to prove or nothing left to lose. Lieutenant-Commander David Masters, haunted by a split second glimpse of the mine that destroyed his first and only command, H. M. Submarine Tornado, now defuses 'the beast' on land and teaches the same deadly science to others who too often die in the attempt. Lieutenant Chris Foley, minelaying off an enemy coast in ML366, rolls on an uneasy sea with a release bracket sheared and a lie mine jammed, and hears the menacing growl of approaching E-boats. And Sub-Lieutenant Michael Lincoln, hailed as a hero, dreads exposure as a coward even more than the unexpected booby-trap, or the gentle whirr of the activated fuse marking the last twelve seconds of his life.

Author: Reeman, Douglas  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/sword-of-honour-trilogy-the-189-90944.html MEN AT ARMS, OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN, UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER This trilogy of novels about world war two, largely based on his own experiences as an army officer, is the crowning achievement of Evelyn Waugh's career. The focus of the action is Guy Crouchback, head of an ancient but decayed Catholic family, who at first discovers new purpose in the challenge to defend Christian values against Nazi barbarism, but then gradually finds the complexities and cruelties of war too much for him. Yet, though often sombre, the trilogy is also a brilliant comedy. Peopled by the fantastic figures so familiar from Waugh's early satires, it presents a moving but often hilarious picture of war's consolations and vicissitudes, and there is a tenderness towards the characters which is new in the author's work.

Author: Waugh, Evelyn  Publisher: Everyman]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/articles-of-war-189-90945.html e reader into the unimaginable fear, violence and chaos of the war zone. Like the very best war fiction – Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy, Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong – he shows how ordinary lives are transformed by extraordinary events.

Author: Arvin, Nick  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dark-room-the-189-90946.html The Dark Room tells the stories of three ordinary Germans: Helmut, a young photographer in Berlin in the 1930s who uses his craft to express his patriotic fervour; Lore, a twelve-year-old girl who in 1945 guides her young siblings across a devastated Germany after her Nazi parents are seized by the Allies; and, fifty years later, Micha, a young teacher obsessed with what his loving grandfather did in the war, struggling to deal with the past of his family and his country.

Author: Seiffert, Rachel  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/for-valour-189-90947.html Commander Graham Martineau was awarded the Victoria Cross for pressing home an attack against impossible odds. Few survived, and crimson ribbon remains a haunting symbol of the sacrifice of ship and men. Now, as captain of the crack Tribal Class destroyer H.M.S. Hakka, Martineau must once again call from ordinary seamen the ultimate in courage, and prepare to defend to the death vital convoys to Russia. There is no hiding place in these bitter Arctic seas, where a pitiless enemy awaits a fatal rendezvous. All are heroes, and no man and no ship is immortal.

Author: Reeman, Douglas  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/go-in-and-sink-189-90948.html February 1943. As the balance of the war slowly shifts in Britain's favour, Lieutenant-Commander Steven Marshall brings his battle-scarred submarine into home port. Captain and crew are exhausted after fourteen months' continuous service, but for most there can be no thought of leave. If the enemy collapse in North Africa is to be exploited, every experienced man will be needed. Marshall must return to the Mediterranean, but this time to a very different kind of war. For his new command is secret and extremely hazardous - a captured German U-boat . . .

Author: Reeman, Douglas  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/captain-corelli-s-mandolin-189-90949.html It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscien-tious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consumate musician. when the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender

Author: de Bernieres, Louis  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/captain-corelli-s-mandolin-189-90950.html It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscien-tious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consumate musician. when the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender

Author: de Bernieres, Louis  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/spycraft-189-90953.html Secret instructons written in invisible ink. Cigarettes that fire bullets. Covert communications slipped inside dead rats. Subminature cameras hidden in ballpoint pens. If these sound like the stuff of James Bond's gadget-master Q's trade, think again. They are all real-life devices created by the CIA's Office of Technical Services. Now, in the first book ever written about this ultrasecretive department, the former director of the OTS gives us an unprecedented look at the devices and operations from the history of the CIA - including many deemed 'inappropriate for public disclosure' by the CIA just two years ago. Spycraft tells amazing life and death stories about this little-known group, much of which has never before been revealed. Against the backdrop of some of the most critical international events of recent years - including the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the war on terror - the authors show the real techinical and human story of how the CIA carried out its most secret missions.

Author: Melton, Keith H,Schlesinger, Henry Robert,Wallace, Robert  Publisher: Bantam]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/originals:-the-secret-history-of-the-birth-of-the-sas-the-189-90954.html We've been approached something like 25 times since the war. I kicked each out the window because they weren't going to make it with the integrity we require the story of the SAS to be told.' - Colonel Sir David Stirling, OBE, DSO, Founder of the SAS Based on over 120 hours of recently uncovered video and audio tape, The Originals tells the story of the birth of the SAS in the words of its founding members for the first time. Even David Stirling, founder of the regiment, contributed to the project - most historians believe he died without giving a single interview. It is also a very human story of a gang of misfits coming together to create a unit like no other: a maverick son of a Scottish laird; a boy who lied about his age to enlist; a policeman; a cheeky cockney; a Lincolnshire boxer; an Irish rugby international imprisoned for beating up his commanding officer; an Oxford rowing president and a quietly spoken man of God. The Originals covers the regiment's formation in 1941 to its supposed disbanding in 1945. With only two founding members alive today, it is not only an important document but a thrilling and moving read that will leave you reeling.

Author: Stevens, Gordon  Publisher: Ebury Press]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/black-hawk-down-189-90956.html Already winning acclaim as one of the best accounts of combat ever written, Black Hawk Down is a minute-by-minute, heart-stopping account of the 1993 raid on Mogadishu, Somalia. Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3 1993, 140 elite US Soldiers abseiled from helicopters into a teeming market neighbourhood in the heart of the city. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them about an hour. Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. Two of their high-tech helicopters were shot out of the sky. When the unit was rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were dead and more than seventy badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse - more than five hundred killed and over a thousand injured. Authoritative, gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is destined to become a classic of war reporting. It is already the most accurate, detailed account of modern combat ever written.

Author: Bowden, Mark  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/sea-hunters-2-the-189-90957.html Clive Cussler is the world's foremost author of maritime adventure thrillers. His many bestsellers include Inca Gold, Atlantis Found and Valhalla Rising. The Sea Hunters II is a sequel to the author's The Sea Hunters, also written with Craig Dirgo. Cussler is one of the world's foremost maritime diving experts and has formed a charitable institution, NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency which searches for lost ships of historic significance. NUMA is also the name of the government agency in the author's Dirk Pitt adventure books. In this book Cussler relates NUMA's recent activities and takes his fiction into the sphere of fact and in a series of daring and audacious dives seeks to reclaim wrecks lost beneath the surface of sea, lakes and swamps. Each of the sections of this book contains both an exciting account of the loss of the wreck concerned and Cussler's attempt to bring it back to the surface. Here Cussler and Dirgo recount the discovery of a seventeenth-century man-of-war, Civil War Ironclads, the wreck of the Marie Celeste, the Carpathia, the ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic and JFK's PT 109. This book is sure to entrance Cussler's legions of devoted fans as well as the increasing number of people fascinated with extreme sports.

Author: Cussler, Clive,Dirgo, Craig  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/knife-edge-189-90958.html January 1970, and the final chapter in the Blackwood history appears to have closed with the murder in Cyprus of Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Blackwood, and the subsequent sale of the ancestral home. Disillusioned and grieving for his distinguished father, Lieutenant Ross Blackwood believes there is no future for him in the Corps. The Royal Marines have been reduced in strength, and their role in a modern world, after so splendid a tradition, diminished to policing and paperwork. But Ross remains a Blackwood and a Royal Marine, and the loyalty and dedication of a Blackwood to the Corps sustain him from vicious guerilla warfare in Malaysia through the moral and political minefields of Northern Ireland, where one man's terrorist is another's patriot, to the South Atlantic, and a conflict as bloody as it is unpredictable. And he learns, as every Blackwood has before him, that jungle or moor, insurrection or invasion, mere courage is not enough. Survival and victory balance on the knife edge of destiny.

Author: Reeman, Douglas  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/saving-rafael-189-90960.html There was a vehicle pulling up outside. I heard the booted feet running up the stairs, then the hammering on the apartment door and the shouting. ‘Open up! Gestapo!’ You’re fifteen years old. You’re in love. Only this is Nazi-ruled Berlin and he’s a Jew, so it’s against the law to love him. There are spies everywhere. And they’re taking the last Jews away from Berlin. To the gas chambers. This novel of love and courage in the face of danger is one that you won’t be able to put down.

Author: Wilson, Leslie  Publisher: Andersen]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/second-world-war-the-189-90961.html Churchill's history of the Second World War is, and will remain, the definitive work. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable both for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it is universally acknowledged as a magnificent historical reconstruction and an enduring work of literature.'He is not writing history so much as reliving it - with its animosities still remembered, its wounds still smarting. This is a story told while the sweat and shock of mortal combat are still upon the teller.' Evening Standard'That the acclamation has been even greater than might have been anticipated is the measure of his unique achievement - to have given the authority and the majesty of history to the stuff of his own times.' Daily Telegraph

Author: Churchill, Winston S.  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/on-war-189-90962.html ON WAR is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832 it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soilders statemen, and intellectuals from Marx and Bismarck to Raymond Aron.

Author: Clausewitz, Carl Von  Publisher: Everyman]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fire-strike-7-9-189-90963.html ‘Being a JTAC is the closest a soldier on the ground in the midst of battle can get to feeling like one of the gods – unleashing pure hellfire, death and destruction’ – Duncan Falconer Meet Sergeant ‘Bommer’ Grahame, one of the deadliest soldiers on the battlefield. He’s an elite army JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller- pronounced ‘jay-tack’) – a specially trained warrior responsible for directing Allied air power with high-tech precision. Commanding Apache gunships, A10 tank-busters, F15s and Harrier jets, he brings down devastating fire strikes against the attacking Taliban, often danger close to his own side. Due to his specialist role, Sergeant Grahame usually operates in the thick of the action, where it’s at its most fearsome and deadly. Conjuring the seemingly impossible from apparently hopeless situations, soldiers in battle rely on the skill and bravery of their JTAC to enable them to win through in the heat of the danger zone. Fire Strike 7/9 tells the story of Bommer Grahame and his five-man Fire Support Team on their tour of Afghanistan. Patrolling deep into enemy territory, they were hunted and targeted by the Taliban, shot at, blown-up, mortared and hit by rockets on numerous occasions. Under these conditions Sergeant Grahame notched up 203 confirmed enemy kills, making him the difference between life and death both for his own troops and the Taliban.

Author: Grahame, Paul,Lewis, Damien  Publisher: Ebury Press]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/face-of-battle-189-90965.html This without any doubt is one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language since the end of the Second World War.' Michael Howard, Sunday TimesThe Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at 'the point of maximum danger'. It examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and behaviour generated by battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles, John Keegan vividly conveys their reality for the participants, whether facing the arrow cloud of Agincourt, the levelled muskets of Waterloo or the steel rain of the Somme.'In this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle.' J. H. Plumb, New York Times Book Review

Author: Keegan, John  Publisher: Pimlico]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fighter-pilot-189-10624.html Originally published anonymously in 1941, this was the first and finest story of a World War Two fighter pilot. The author's personal journal takes us into the action of the air battles preceding the fall of France, recounting both the unnerving lull right before the violence--and the fatigue of the Blitzkrieg, with its non-stop combat.

Author: RICHEY, PAUL  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/one-morning-in-sarajevo-189-10638.html It was the shot that led to World War I and the death of countless millions: the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. This historical account of what happened on that day in June 1914 is every bit as gripping as "The Day of the Jackal," Focusing on the man behind the killing, and using newly available sources (including the few surviving witnesses), David James Smith brilliantly reinvestigates and reconstructs the events that determined the shape of the twentieth century. - An exciting non-fiction account that reads like a popular thriller

Author: SMITH, DAVID JAMES  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/above-all-courage-189-12102.html On the 20th anniversary of the Falklands conflict-where the British and the Argentineans clashed over a small group of islands--English soldiers, sailors and airmen speak firsthand of their experiences. These are the fighters who participated in every incident of the war, and in vivid accounts they disclose personal stories of hard-fought battles and difficult circumstances.

Author: ARTHUR, MAX  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/last-post-189-12103.html From the author of the bestselling "Forgotten Voices of the Great War" comes a final look at the last 21 living British veterans of the First World War. These interviews, conducted in 2004, will never be repeated, as the youngest was 106 years old, and most are now gone. These first-person accounts follow the young soldiers from their homes throughout Britain to the raging battles while in the service of the Royal Field Artillery, Black Watch, Royal Navy, and others. These combat experiences should never be forgotten.

Author: ARTHUR, MAX  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/battle-for-spain-189-12106.html BATTLE FOR SPAIN

Author: BEEVOR, ANTONY  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/das-boot-the-boat--189-12110.html The thrilling wartime novel that inspired Wolfgang Petersen's Academy Award-nominated, blockbuster film Written by an actual survivor of Germany's U-boat fleet," Das Boot" is one of the most exciting stories of naval warfare ever published, a tale filled with almost unbearable tension and suspense. In autumn 1941, a German U-boat commander and his crew set out on yet another hazardous patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic. Over the coming weeks they brave the ocean's stormy waters and seek out British supply ships to destroy. But their targets travel in well-guarded convoys. When contact finally occurs, the hunter quickly becomes the hunted, and a cat-and-mouse game begins as the U-boat hides deep beneath the surface of the sea. Soon, claustrophobia becomes an enemy almost as frightening as the depth charges exploding around them. The release of this supremely gripping, merciless intense story commemorates the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

Author: BUCHHEIM, LOTHAR-GUNTHER  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/barbarossa-189-12111.html BARBAROSSA

Author: CLARK, ALAN  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/ghost-force:-the-secret-history-of-the-sas-189-12112.html GHOST FORCE: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE SAS

Author: CONNOR, KEN  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/blood-sweat-and-arrogance-189-12114.html Why were the British, victorious in 1918, unable to match the Germans in 1940--and why were these pioneers of tank warfare overcome for so long by Germany's panzers? This caustic critique exposes just how close England came to losing World War II, and in the process overturns the reputations of some of Britain's most famous generals. Churchill takes heavy blame for the poor state of the British forces in 1939, while Montgomery is revealed to have much skill with a pen...but very little in command. It's a brilliant, eye-opening reassessment, from policy decisions in the 1920s to the great campaigns of 1939-45.

Author: CORRIGAN, GORDON  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mud-blood-and-poppycock-189-12115.html The popular view of the First World War remains that of 'Blackadder': incompetent generals sending brave soldiers to their deaths. Alan Clark quoted a German general's remark that the British soldiers were 'lions led by donkeys'. But he made it up. Indeed, many established 'facts' about 1914-18 turn out to be myths woven in the 1960s by young historians on the make. Gordon Corrigan's brilliant, witty new history reveals how out of touch we have become with the soldiers of 1914-18. They simply would not recognize the way their generation is depicted on TV or in Pat Barker's novels. Laced with dry humour, this will overturn everything you thought you knew about Britain and the First World War. Gordon Corrigan reveals how the British embraced technology, and developed the weapons and tactics to break through the enemy trenches.

Author: CORRIGAN, GORDON  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/eisenhower-189-12116.html EISENHOWER

Author: D'ESTE, CARLO  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-road-to-berlin-189-12118.html The follow-up to the acclaimed "The Road to Stalingrad "tells the compelling story of the Red Army's epic struggle to drive the Germans out of Russia and back to Berlin. Using Soviet, German, and Eastern European primary sources, John Erickson describes fighting and hardship on an almost unimaginable scale. The detailed narrative covers battles on all the fronts. The inside information on the Soviet system of war reveals how, under maximum stress, the Russian army achieved near-impossible feats in the field and the factories. All the diplomatic moves and counter-moves, including the all-important conferences at Tehran and Yalta, also come vividly alive. 

Author: ERICKSON, JOHN  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-road-to-stalingrad-189-12119.html A new paperback version of the first volume in John Erickson's monumental, critically acclaimed history of the Soviet-German war.In fascinating detail, "The Road to Stalingrad" takes us from the inept command structures and strategic delusions of the pre-invasion Soviet Union through Russia's humiliation as her armies fell back on all fronts, until the tide turned at last in Stalingrad. The assessment of the generals and political leaders, as well as of the wranglings within both the Allied and Axis commands, is completely unsparing. The climactic battle, so vividly described here, leaves the Red Army poised for the long fight towards Berlin.

Author: ERICKSON, JOHN  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/thin-ice-189-12120.html Charles Harwood is an out-of-work actor, but fill-in jobs aren't for him. He doesn't want to drive a cab, deal dope, or add "another string to his bow"—he's a purist. And without any acting to do, the main event of his day is an audition for an ice-cream commercial. But first he's got to get there... It means escaping the bed of a regrettable liaison and dodging death-by-juggernaut and trial by Job Center. And that's just the morning. But the evening starts to pick up when a chance encounter leads to a big night out—complete with paparazzi, cocaine, and sex. This is Charlie's world, and that of many other actors: a hand-to-mouth life spent in a state of controlled desperation.

Author: FORD, ALAN  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/steel-from-the-sky-189-12121.html To pave the way for the Allied liberation of France, spies and resistance fighters were ordered (in Churchill's words) 'to set Europe ablaze'. The 'Jedburgh' teams were created in 1943 to do just that. It was the first modern multi-national combat unit: American, British and French soldiers combined to form a unique special forces organization. They fought in uniform, behind German lines, and played a key role in the Allied victory in 1944. Roger Ford has tracked down survivors and their after-action reports to tell their amazing story: classic 'behind the lines' real life action.

Author: FORD, ROGER  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-somme-189-12122.html The Somme: these words conjure the image of war rigidly fought by traditional means even when catastrophe clearly loomed. Relying on personal testimonies never before published, this study of those who survived the first day of battle (July 1, 1916) captures this epic conflagration from all angles. Follow the action as soldiers crawl across No Man's Land in the face of German guns, struggle with the conditions in the trenches, and survey the scene from the air as the RFC tries to control the skies above the battlefield.

Author: HART, PETER  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/jutland-1916-189-12123.html Based on letters, diaries, unpublished memoirs, interviews, books and other sources, this detailed study examines the whole event from the perspective of participants on both sides and from all ranks. Relive the dramatic intensity of the battle, and the all too sad aftermath.

Author: HART, PETER;STEEL, NIGEL  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/cross-of-iron-189-12128.html CROSS OF IRON

Author: HEINRICH, WILLI  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fortress-malta-189-12129.html FORTRESS MALTA

Author: HOLLAND, JAMES  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/acts-of-war-189-12130.html ACTS OF WAR

Author: HOLMES, RICHARD  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fatal-silence-189-12136.html FATAL SILENCE

Author: KATZ, ROBERT  Publisher: ORPG]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0100