November 10, 2020 The Spirit of the Blitz – edited by Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I thought I’d learnt to check how long a book is before I agreed or offered to review it, but…
June 7, 2018 The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers Translated by Margaret Bettauer Dembo Reviewed by Gill Davies The novel is set in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and was first published in…
July 11, 2017 Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s by Anne Sebba Reviewed by Helen Parry Among the many people Anne Sebba interviewed for this book was the playwright Jean-Claude Grumberg. During the German occupation of…
May 17, 2017 Q&A with Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes Helen: Hello Anne! Let me first say that I was bowled over by Les Parisiennes – it’s a real tour de force of narrative…
February 14, 2017 Heartthrobs by Carol Dyhouse Reviewed by Harriet Subtitled ‘A History of Women and Desire’, this book explores the fields of literature, film and popular romance. Ranging from the…
August 18, 2016 A Hero in France by Alan Furst Reviewed by Annabel It’s been some years since I read an Alan Furst novel, although I own up to having a shelf-full of them….
April 7, 2016 The Bitter Taste of Victory by Lara Feigel Reviewed by Rob Spence This book is a companion piece to Feigel’s The Love-Charm of Bombs (reviewed here), which examined the lives of some prominent writers in…
October 22, 2015 Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance by Robert Gildea Reviewed by Falaise Back in the ancient mists of time – or, at least, 1986 – a youthful version of me (think a bad…
July 22, 2015 The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys Reviewed by Danielle Helen Humphreys writes some of the most lyrical prose I have come across. I’m slowly reading my way through her work,…
April 16, 2015 Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris Reviewed by Victoria In this outstanding work of cinema history, Mark Harris follows the fortunes of five big name Hollywood directors who enlisted in…
April 9, 2015 A War of Flowers by Jane Thynne Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long This is the third in a series of books featuring Clara Vine, a film actress in pre-war Berlin. If you…
April 9, 2015 Interview with Jane Thynne on her Clara Vine Novels Interview by Annabel A: Firstly, congratulations on A War of Flowers! It took the life and career of Clara Vine (Anglo-German film actress and British spy)…
January 23, 2015 The Fires of Autumn by Irène Némirovsky Translated by Sandra Smith Reviewed by Harriet The Fires of Autumn, first published in France in 1957, is the most recent of Irène Némirovsky’s…
January 23, 2015 The Two Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt Written by Victoria It’s the summer of 1940 and Lisbon in Portugal is bursting at the seams with people desperate to leave mainland Europe…
October 15, 2014 First Time Solo by Iain Maloney Reviewed by Andrew Blackman Pick up a book set in World War Two, and you have certain expectations. These expectations are largely frustrated by First…
July 24, 2014 To War With Whitaker by Hermione Ranfurly Reviewed by Claire If I were knowingly heading into an active theatre of war, I like to think I would go armed with the…
July 18, 2014 Over the Ocean by Erica Fischer Translated by Andrew Brown Reviewed by Jean Morris The media were full of the D-Day commemorations as I read this book – stories of…
April 8, 2014 The Love-Charm of Bombs by Lara Feigel Reviewed by Harriet Devine For the past couple of years, I have been fascinated by the events of WW2, and have found myself drawn…
