Tag Archives: war
Regeneration (reading-as-a-writer 11)
View this post on Instagram My interest – indeed, my passion – for the #GreatWar started with Jeremy Paxton’s Great Britain’s Great War (2014), after which Testament of Youth made me cry and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston’s … Continue reading
Margaret MacMillan Reith Lectures (research review)
View this post on Instagram This year’s #ReithLectures by my favourite #historian Margaret MacMillan are well worth a listen (search online or in your podcast app). The title of the 2018 series of lectures is The Mark of Cain. Erudite, … Continue reading
The joy of primary research
View this post on Instagram Fascinating and strangely emotional day @nationalarchivesuk looking at #WW1 #GreatWar medical records. It’s one thing to read in a text book about the German Spring Offensives of #1918; it’s quite another to see the evidence … Continue reading
Lawrence of Arabia (research review)
View this post on Instagram Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Micheal Korda (2011). I listened to this thoughtful, even-handed biography on @audible_books whilst driving; odd hours here and there over a couple of months – … Continue reading
Worthless Men (reading-as-a-writer 10)
View this post on Instagram Why do I bother writing when the world already contains books like Worthless Men by Andrew Cowan (2013)? Set in an English market town in post-Somme 1916, the action spans no more than a couple … Continue reading
A Subaltern’s War (research review)
View this post on Instagram A Subaltern’s War by Charles Edmonds (CE Carrington) is one of my favourite soldiers’ accounts of the #GreatWar. As the author explains in the preface to my 1984 edition, he wrote the book (based contemporary … Continue reading
Great War pilots (research review)
View this post on Instagram One of the characters in my WIP is a pilot. He’s very young, unrealistically romantic and rather unstable – and his relationship with my heroine is pivotal to the plot. In my book I devote … Continue reading
The Roses of No Man’s Land (research review)
View this post on Instagram Out of all the books I’ve read about the #GreatWar Lyn MacDonald’s histories stand out; readable, warm and packed with the minutiae of human experience set against solid historical background. I know some historians have … Continue reading
Six Weeks (research review)
View this post on Instagram If I needed a book to reassure me that I’m doing the right thing writing #historicalfiction set in the #GreatWar then this is that book. Six weeks was how long a junior officer on the … Continue reading
