War fiction and non-fiction 2
Talking Books
The titles in this booklist are just a selection of the titles available for loan from the RNIB National Library Talking Book Service.
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Fiction
Great soldiers' tales. 1991. Read by Garard Green, 9 hours 26 minutes. TB 9739.
All the heroism, sacrifice and humour of the soldier at war, captured in asuperb collection of short stories with a wartime theme. Contributorsinclude C. S. Forester, Leo Tolstoy, Kipling and Monsarrat. TB 9739.
Wave me goodbye: stories of the Second World War. 1988. Read by Carol Marsh, 12 hours 43 minutes. TB 7599.
This collection of 28 short stories of the 2nd World War, by leading authors, is a moving evocation of every aspect of life on the home front during wartime. Full of courage and compassionateobservation, this compilation focuses on the heroism of the women who "did their bit" for the war effort at home. TB 7599.
Alexander, Peter
Ryfka. 1988. Read by Robert Ashby, 9 hours 44 minutes. TB 7617.
Based on real-life events during the Second World War, this exciting noveltells a dramatic story of a chase across occupied France to find ahigh-ranking RAF Officer who has been shot down and who has informationwhich can imperil the planned Allied invasion. The order is to bring backor eliminate, by decree of SOE. TB 7617.
Allbeury, Ted
The lonely margins. 1995. Read by David Thorpe, 6 hours 51 minutes. TB10818.
To live in the shadowland of espionage, where the only certainties aredeath and deceit is to live on the lonely margins. James Harmer and JaneFrazer, brought together by the French Resistance and broken apart by theGestapo, are haunted by a sense of betrayal and a thirst for revenge. TB 10818.
Andrews, Lucilla
Front line 1940. 1993. Read by Gretel Davis, 11 hours 42 minutes. TB 10085.
London, September 1940. As the Battle of Britain rages overhead, AnnMarlowe, young staff nurse at St Martha's Hospital, battles to save thelives of wounded airmen, who are being admitted faster than she can hopeto treat them. American war correspondent, Josh Adams is caught in StMartha's during London's first daytime bomb raid. What he sees dispels hisprofessional detachment for ever, for nowhere is the indomitable spirit ofthe people more apparent. As the capital faces the fury of the blitz,Josh's admiration turns to love, but he cannot persuade Ann to leave, evenwhen St Martha's is razed to the ground. TB 10085.
Auchincloss, Louis
Watchfires. 1982. Read by James Tillitt, 10 hours 36 minutes. TB5147.
Political differences and general dissatisfaction with their marriagecause a rift between complacent New York lawyer, Dexter Fairchild and hisfiercely abolitionist wife, Rosalie on the eve of the American Civil War -the watchfires of the title are those in the battle hymn of John Brown.The war is to change the lives of both. TB 5147.
Banks, Lynne Reid
Casualties. 1986. Read by Pauline Munro, 8 hours 49 minutes. TB6666.
A week's holiday in Holland with an old friend she has not seen for 20years seems a good idea to Sue McClusky: she senses that Mariolain wantsto unburden herself of her marriage problems, and as Sue and her husband,Cal, are on the rocks also, she feels it could be useful. But Mariolainand her husband, Niels, are both unwounded casualties of the Second WorldWar, she from the German occupation of Holland in 1940, whilst he had beenin Indonesia when the Japanese invaded... TB 6666.
Barker, Pat
Double vision. 2003. Read by Robert Glenister, 8 hours 17 minutes. TB15378.
Stephen Sharkey and Ben Frobisher, journalist and photographerrespectively, are regularly faced with the reality of war. After Ben dieson assignment in Afghanistan, Stephen embarks on a book about the imagesof war - a book that will be based largely on Ben's work. But the demandsof the present - recurring nightmares of his time in Sarajevo, an affairwith a woman twenty years his junior, and a sudden emergency in the shapeof masked intruders - are turning Stephen's life into a war zone andthreatening his peace of mind. Contains violence. TB 15378.
Barry, Sebastian
A long long way. 2005. Read by John Cormack, 9 hours 20 minutes. TB14367.
A long long way evokes the camaraderie and humour of Willie and hisregiment, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, but also the cruelty and sadness ofwar, and the divided loyalties that many Irish soldiers felt. Tracingtheir experiences through the course of the war, the narrative brilliantlyexplores and dramatises the events of the Easter Rising within Ireland,and how such a seminal political moment came to affect those boys offfighting for the King of England on foreign fields - the paralysing doubtsand divisions it caused them. Contains strong language. TB 14367.
Bates, H E
The purple plain. 1947. Read by Franklin Engelmann, 8 hours 21 minutes. TB 1090.
The story of a young British pilot in Burma, and of the Burmese girl whoselove inspired him to live. TB 1090.
Bingham, Charlotte
The chestnut tree. 2002. Read by Judy Bennett,10 hours 35 minutes. TB 14819.
Bexham; book 1.1939, and the residents of Bexham are preparing for war. Beautiful JudyMelton, social butterfly Meggie Gore-Stewart, Mathilda Eastcott, and RustyTodd, tomboy daughter of the local boatyard owner, are all determined tobe active while their men are away fighting. But knitting socks anddodging bombs are not what they have in mind. Meeting under the chestnuttree on the green, the women look over the landscape they have helped toalter. They too have changed, and yet, as the men return, they areexpected to play "mother", "daughter", "grandmother" once again. TB 14819.
Blake, Sarah
The postmistress. 2011. Read by Lorelei King, 9 hours 57 minutes. TB18622.
It is 1940, and bombs fall nightly on London. In the thick of the chaos isyoung American radio reporter Frankie Bard. She huddles close to terrifiedstrangers in underground shelters, and later broadcasts stories aboutsurvivors in rubble-strewn streets. But for her listeners, the war is farfrom home. Listening to Frankie are Iris James, a Cape Cod postmistress,and Emma Fitch, a doctor's wife. Iris hears the winds stirring and knowsthat soon the letters she delivers will bear messages of hope or tragedy.Emma is desperate for news of London, where her husband is working - shecounts the days until his return. But one night in London the fates of allthree women entwine when Frankie finds a letter - a letter she vows todeliver. TB 18622.
Burgh, Anita
Clare's war. Read by Jilly Bond, 15 hours 13 minutes. TB 13108.
1938: At seventeen Clare Springer is sent to Paris to complete hereducation. Relishing freedom, she's too busy to notice the onset of war.France is invaded and Clare is trapped, though happy to be so when herFrench lover Fabien is reported missing. She is determined to find him.Yet despite her wish not to become involved, Clare is sucked into thechaos and suffering around her, for how can she not help this country andpeople she has come to love? TB 13108.
Collins, Norman
London belongs to me. 1945. Read by Robert Gladwell,30 hours 45 minutes. TB 1961.
A realistic novel of London people in wartime, especially the inhabitantsof one particular boarding house. TB 1961.
Cook, Gloria
Touch the silence. 2003. Read by Daniel Philpott, 10 hours 33 minutes.TB 14241.
It is 1917 and the First World War is casting its shadow over the Harveyfamily of Ford Farm. One brother has been killed, Tristan is at the Frontand Ben is desperate to go but is declared unfit. Tensions mount as he isforced to stay at home with older brother, Alec, who has secrets of hisown. TB 14241.
Cornwell, Bernard
Sharpe's Christmas: two short stories. 2003. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 3 hours 32 minutes. TB 15016.
Sharpe's Christmas contains two short stories, Sharpe's Christmas andSharpe's Ransom. Sharpe's Christmas is set in 1813, towards the end of thePeninsular War and falls after Sharpe's Regiment (book 17, TB 10728). Sharpe's Ransom comesafter Sharpe's Waterloo (book 20, TB 11396), is set in peacetime and provides a glimpse ofSharpe's life in Normandy with Lucille. TB 15016.
Cornwell, Bernard
Azincourt. 2009. Read by Damien Goodwin, 13 hours 45 minutes. TB16640.
Agincourt, fought on October 25th 1415, on St Crispin's Day, is one of thebest known battles, in part through the brilliant depiction of it inShakespeare's Henry V, in part because it was a brilliant and unexpectedEnglish victory and in part because it was the first battle won by the useof the longbow - a weapon developed by the English which enabled them todominate the European battlefields for the rest of the century. BernardCornwell's Azincourt is an account of this momentous battle and itsaftermath. From the varying viewpoints of nobles, peasants, archers, andhorsemen, Azincourt skilfully brings to life the hours of relentlessfighting, the desperation of an army crippled by disease and theexceptional bravery of the English soldiers. TB 16640.
Crisp, N J
Yesterday's gone. 1983. Read by Bruce Montague, 12 hours 22 minutes. TB 6443.
The log book which belonged to Squadron Leader David Kirby, DSO, DFC, isstill in existence, a relic of a forgotten era. There are 29 operationsrecorded. 28 are against familiar targets; Stettin, Berlin, Hamburg, butthe final raid is against a target so secret at the time that it isscarcely appears in histories of the air war, its tragedy virtuallyignored. TB 6443.
Davies, Peter Ho
The Welsh girl. 2007. Read by Charlotte Stevens, 12 hours 2 minutes. TB 15662.
It is Wales 1944 and Captain Rotheram, a Jewish refugee working forBritish Intelligence, arrives to interrogate the infamous captive, RudolfHess. In a prison camp near a remote Snowdonian village, a young Germansoldier wrestles with the shame of his surrender. And among the curiouslocals is seventeen-year-old Esther Evans, who longs to experience thewider world. When their paths connect, all three will come to questiontheir deepest loyalties, as the war irrevocably alters the course of theirlives. Contains strong language. TB 15662.
Delderfield, R F
The Avenue goes to war. 1958. Readby Stephen Jack, 22 hours 30 minutes. TB 118.
The Avenue Story; book 2. Sequel to: The dreaming suburb, TB 108. War has overtaken the families in the Avenue, and we see how itsprivations bring out the best and the worst in them. TB 118.
Deighton, Len
Goodbye Mickey Mouse. 1982. Read by Ian Craig, 13 hours 41 minutes. TB4622.
A group of young fighter pilots wait for their orders on an Americanairbase in East Anglia. It is the penultimate winter of the war and thewar is seen through the eyes of Captain James Farebrother, his friend, thetough, ambitious Mickey Mouse and many other equally different characters. TB 4622.
Dobbs, Michael
Winston's war. Read by Terry Wale, 19 hours 33 minutes. TB 13840.
Winston Churchill; book 1.Saturday 1 October, 1938. Two men meet. One is elderly, the other in histwenties. One will become the most revered man of his time, and the otherknown as the greatest of traitors. Winston Churchill met BBC journalistGuy Burgess at a moment when the world was about to explode. The encounterwas the first of the extraordinary events that propelled Churchill fromthe lowest point of his career to Downing Street, changing the course ofthe Second World War. In contrast, the man who played a part inChurchill's return would later be revealed as a Soviet spy. TB 13840.
Dorfman, Ariel
Widows. 1983. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 5 hours 19 minutes. TB 5233.
The setting for this story is Nazi-occupied Greece in 1941-42, but itcould belong equally to El Salvador or Chile or any other oppressivemilitary dictatorship, for it is about the horror of being "disappeared".When the men are taken from a patriarchal society, the women must findstrength in each other. Their courage, and their insistence on knowing whois alive and who is dead, is a compelling indictment of the cruelty andindifference of such regimes. TB 5233.
Elgin, Elizabeth
Whisper on the wind. 1992. Read by Diana Bishop, 20 hours 1 minute. TB 10117.
World War Two. Against the express wishes of her absent husband Barney,Kath joins up as a landgirl and moves from Birmingham to work on MatRamsden's farm in the Yorkshire countryside. Next door the Fairchildestate has been harnessed for the war effort. Roz, exempted from call-upto work on the land, has something to hide from her grandmother, who hassecrets of her own. A moving story of women caught in the emotionalcrossfire of war. TB 10117.
Fallada, Hans
Alone in Berlin. 2009. Read by Steve Hodson, 25 hours 46 minutes. TB17820.
Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule intheir different ways: the nervous Frau Rosenthal, the bullying Hitlerloyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassumingworking-class couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive thedevastating news that their beloved son has been killed fighting inFrance. Shocked out of his quiet existence, the usually taciturn factoryforeman Otto is provoked into an action that will endanger both his andAnna's life. TB 17820.
Farrell, J G
The siege of Krishnapur: a novel. 1973. Read by Garard Green, 15 hours 45 minutes. TB 2503.
Boredom at Krishnapur, a remote town on the vast plains of Northern India,gives way to panic and violence when the spring of 1857 finds India on thebrink of mutiny. This book was the Booker Prize winner in 1973. TB 2503.
Faulks, Sebastian
Charlotte Gray. 1998. Read by Jamie Glover, 16 hours 47 minutes. TB12560.
A young woman travels to occupied France in 1942, both to carry out amission for British Intelligence and to search for her lover, an Englishairman who is missing in action. Once there she witnesses the horror ofFrench collusion with the Nazis and also the tremendous courage of theResistance. TB 12560.
Follett, James
A cage of eagles. 1990. Read by Richard Owens, 7 hours 14 minutes. TB8311.
The locals call it "Hush, Hush Hall". The British Army calls it No. 1 POWCamp (Officers), Grizedale Hall. British intelligence calls it the Cage ofEagles. The Hall is the biggest concentration of German prisoner-of-wartalent in wartime Britain. U-boat ace Otto Kruger, the senior Germanofficer, turns the camp into a clearing house for sending vitalintelligence back to the Fatherland. TB 8311.
Follett, Ken
Jackdaws. Read by Jilly Bond, 12 hours 50 minutes. TB 13907.
Two weeks before D-Day, the French Resistance attack a chateau containinga telephone exchange vital to German communications but the building isheavily guarded and the attack fails disastrously. Flick Clairet, a youngBritish secret agent, proposes a daring new plan: she will parachute intoFrance with an all-woman team known as the Jackdaws and they willpenetrate the chateau in disguise. But, unknown to Flick, Rommel hasassigned a brilliant, ruthless Intelligence colonel, Dieter Franck, andhe's on Flicks trail. Contains strong language.TB 13907.
Forbes, Colin
Tramp in armour. 1969. Read by Sean Barrett, 9 hours 40 minutes. TB9448.
It is May 1940 and the invading German forces are pouring through NorthernFrance. Only the British Expeditionary Force stands between the enemy andthe coast. TB 9448.
Forester, C S
Gold from Crete: short stories. 1971. Read by Michael de Morgan, 7 hours 12 minutes. TB 1642.
Collected stories about the war at sea against the German navy. TB 1642.
Frizell, Bernard
Timetable for the general. 1972. Read by RobertGladwell, 10 hours 45 minutes. TB 2093.
A fictional account of an actual escape by a top French general from thefortress where he was imprisoned in the Second World War. TB 2093.
Francis, Clare
Night sky. 1983. Read by Judy Franklin, 24 hours 48 minutes. TB 5090.
This wartime story binds the fate of three characters: Julie Lescaux, ayoung Englishwoman exiled in France who helps smuggle Allied servicemenout of occupied France across the Channel; the collaborator Paul Vasson,flourishing in war as he never did in peace; and the scientist DavidFreymann, caught up in the Holocaust and losing everything except hisfaith in his own discovery and the will to survive. TB 5090.
Furst, Alan
Dark voyage. 2005. Read by Stephen Thorne, 9 hours 18 minutes. TB 14508.
Tangier, 1941 - for Eric DeHaan, captain of the Dutch tramp freighterNoordenam, life at sea has always been his great, but not his only, loveaffair. Recruited by Dutch navel intelligence while in the port ofTangier, DeHaan steers his ship, disguised as a neutral Spanish freighter,through a series of secret missions for British naval interests. TB 14508.
Gale, Iain
Alamein. 2010. Read by Eamonn Riley, 11 hours 18 minutes. TB 18317.
In October 1942, Britain and its allies were in difficulties: Germany andits partners seemed to be triumphant everywhere - in Europe, in Russia, inthe Atlantic and were now poised to take the Suez Canal. It was in NorthAfrica that the stand was made. It was a battle of strong characters: thefamous battle commander Rommel and the relatively untested new Britishcommander, Montgomery, leading men who fought through an extraordinaryeleven day battle, in an unforgiving terrain, amid the swirling sandstormsand the desert winds. TB 18317.
Gilbert, Michael
Death in captivity. 1952. Read by Garard Green, 7 hours 30 minutes.TB 254.
Allied prisoners in an Italian P.O.W. camp trying various methods ofescape suspect that there is a traitor in their midst. TB 254.
Harry, Lilian
Goodbye sweetheart. 1995. Read by Rachel Atkins, 13 hours 24 minutes.TB 11619.
April grove series; book 1. From the outbreak of World War II to the evacuation of Dunkirk, this book follows the fortunes of the people who live in a working class street inPortsmouth. The joys, sorrows and friendships of April Grove are played out against the backdrop of a seaport arming for war. TB 11619.
Hassel, Sven
Legion of the damned. 2004. Read by Daniel Philpott,9 hours 10 minutes. TB 17621.
This novel is based on the author's experiences in the Germany army.Convicted of deserting the Germany army, Sven Hassel is sent to apunishment regiment on the Russian front. He and his comrades are regardedas expendable, cannon fodder for Hitler's war. Outnumbered and outgunnedon the frozen steppe, they fight for survival against the implacable RedArmy. TB 17621.