The best history books offer a fresh perspective on often well-worn subjects.
Throughout my life, I have been keenly aware of the terrible damage the Nazis did to their neighbors. In this complex and fascinating book, Angela Findlay examines the rarely considered question of Hitler’s catastrophic impact on his fellow Germans and Austrians.
Findlay, the daughter of a British Navy officer and a German girl, makes plain the physical suffering and psychological scars inflicted on Germany’s luckless population in the post-war years.
How much were ordinary German soldiers caught up in the appalling atrocities of the SS? And what of Findlay’s German grandfather, a Wehrmacht General who died a few months after she was born, who spent his twilight years chain-smoking and staring morosely into the fire? How much did he know?
The true story of three generations of one family which examines the guilt and trauma of being part of Germany's Nazi past.
This is a moving and powerful memoir that illuminates the extraordinary power of unprocessed trauma as it passes through generations, and how when it is faced it can be healed.' JULIA SAMUEL, author of Every Family Has a Story, Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass
'A page turner of the highest calibre! Meticulously researched, searingly honest and beautifully written,.' MARINA CANTACUZINO, Author and founder of The Forgiveness Project
'An absolutely extraordinary book.' Keith Lowe, Sunday Times bestselling…
I love books that tell me things about history that I didn’t know. Here, Lucy Lethbridge turns in a fascinating non-fiction on the early years of the tourist trade.
The book is full of memorable ‘Fancy That!’ anecdotes and also sheds light on the foibles and snobbery of the British. For example, some feared the arrival of rail transport, which allowed ordinary people to travel to exciting new places, would foster moral lassitude and idleness.
And what about the Swiss health resort of Davos, which almost overnight became a magnet for tourists and invalids seeking clean, rejuvenating Alpine fresh air but was rapidly rendered unfit for purpose because the huge influx of visitors overwhelmed the town’s basic sanitary system?
*FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH*
'I really can't recommend this enough - especially if you are going on holiday' Tom Holland
'Delightful ... Lucy Lethbridge has written a glorious romp of a book' Kathryn Hughes, The Mail on Sunday
'It is the paramount wish of every English heart, ever addicted to vagabondizing, to hasten to the Continent...'
In 1815 the Battle of Waterloo brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars and the European continent opened up once again to British tourists. The nineteenth century was to be an age driven by steam technology, mass-industrialisation and movement, and, in the…
This novel has a particular poignancy for me as it comes from my mum’s vast collection of books, which she bequeathed to my daughter as she neared the end of her life.
Here, Olivia Manning conjures life in early 1960s Plymouth at a time of rapidly changing social attitudes and captures the awkwardness and yearning of her adolescent protagonists with exquisite skill. Although the events depicted are 60 years into the past, her characters are so fresh their lives come vividly to life.
My mum has died now, and I’m sad I’ll never be able to discuss this magnificent book with her.
Fifteen-year-old Laura lives with her family in the seaside town of Camperlea. It is the Swinging Sixties, and Laura's ambition is to leave home for London and work in a Chelsea boutique. Meanwhile she worships her schoolfriend Vicky Logan who is all Laura longs to popular, outrageous, sensual, she lives in a large house on "the right side of town." Vicky knows she can have any man she wants - but she chooses a rough factory worker, Clarrie Piper. She begins to frequent the factory dances and Laura watches in powerless dread and fascination as the teasing game Vicky plays…
Aliens consider how the UK treated its refugees during the Nazi Era. Most were Jews fleeing from vicious persecution, but there were others too, especially Poles fleeing both Nazis and Soviets and also children from the Spanish Civil War. Then, as now, Britain’s infamous tabloid press did much to stir resentment. Politicians, mainly from the right wing of British politics, did their utmost to stoke fear of foreigners for political gain.
