2 Books Like The Wren and the Swordfish Pilot

This is a biography, not a novel, told by a man towards the end of his military career by chance stumbled upon a little mystery that triggered his curiousity. He set off to find the story behind the episode and uncovers bit by bit an entire world -- Malta in the war years. At its heart, this is a memorial to an exceptional woman and her tragic love for a wartime hero. It pieces together through primary sources and the memories of people who met her a remarkable life that spanned being a showgirl (dancer/entertainer) in North Africa in the 30s to being a Fighter Controller in Malta during the most intense air raids in the Second World War. However, it also encompasses her contemporaries, particularly the famous flier who cast a shadow of her life, and other women struggling to survive in wartime Malta. What I found particularly moving… show more.

I read this book because I knew and respected the author for his academic work on the Crusader States. WWI had never been a topic that particularly grabbed my interest and Australia is a country I've never visited and whose people I don't know. So I was sceptical -- and all the more delighted to be drawn into a world I had not known and to be carried along on a story that I had not chosen but which held my interest because of the power of the author's voice. This is an intelligent, sensitive, and at times lyrical exploration of the "Great War." It shuns cliches, cheap judgments, and melodrama. It traces a single Australian soldier's journey from enthusiastic enlistment through training, battle, boredom, despair, and grief. While some younger readers might find its narrative style "old-fashioned," this allows for profound reflection and the integration of tiny but powerful… show more.