Tales from the Bedroom Floor

London: John Murray, 2005 Why is this book on the bedroom floor?: This is another of the bargains I picked up in the library booksale when I worked there. The price inside showed that it would have cost one lucky punter 40p, so I got it for half that because of library privilege. About the Author: A prolific writer and television producer, Stephen Walker has won numerous awards for his work including an Emmy, a BAFTA and the Rose d'Or at Montreux. He is currently working on a book surrounding the events of Major Yuri Gagarin's flight into space. Plot: A tense account of one of the most vivid events in history, when the city of Hiroshima suffered a spectacular bombing raid, destroying the city and ushering in the start of the nuclear age. Review: On a bright, clear morning, high above the mountains which surrounded the port of Hiroshima, air raid sirens began to shriek. Although this was not an uncommon occurrence, this particular air raid differed in three important respects...

London: Yellow Jersey, 2016 Why is this book on the bedroom floor?: I’m somewhat of a collector of football books, but only if they give me some insight into the theoretical aspect of the game; the why rather than the what. And what better way to find out how to win stuff than listen to the Germans? And it was a Christmas present from my Amazon list, if any fans of mine are feeling generous. About the Author: A former law student, Raphael Honigstein moved to London in the early nineteen-nineties. He is the English football correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the German football correspondent for The Guardian and talkSPORT . Most recently, Honigstein has become a major contributor to The Athletic and a regular presence on BT Sport . He is also the author of Englischer Fussball: A German View of Our Beautiful Game . His Twitter handle is @honigstein . Plot: How does a team win a World Cup, particularly if they are paradoxically a perennial favourite but expected to fail? D...

London: Corgi, 2007 Why is this book on the bedroom floor?: From time to time I get a bit of a yearning to read about laddish things and stuff that explodes. I also like reading about British social history, so when I came across this in Banardos’ for 75p I snaffled it, sandwiched between an Iris Murdoch novel and the complete plays of Alan Ayckbourn. About the Author: A publishing director of some reknown, Rowland White is a self-confessed aviation nut and regular author of accessible works on the subject. This book was his first and he’s working on a project about the Space Shuttle as I type, which at least puts him ahead of NASA. Plot: It’s 1982. Argentina’s military junta has invaded the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, and immediately the United Kingdom has hit back by lobbing a task force their way. But in the meantime, a crazy plan involving an obsolete bomber force and an eight thousand mile round-trip is conceived, and if successful will change the balance of ...

London: Allen Lane, 2016 Why is this book on the bedroom floor? - It was a birthday present from my wife. About the Author - Norman Ohler is a well-known German writer and screenwriter, partly responsible for the 2008 Wim Wenders film Palermo Shooting. His literary fame is based around his City Trilogy, but Blitzed is his first work of nonfiction. Plot - Nazis on drugs! Not just a dodgy plot in a straight-to-Netflix, but apparently true. Ohler blows the lid off the National Socialist pill-pot, exposing just how off their mash the silver medal winners of the Second World War actually were. Review - It’s been estimated that the only person with more words spent on him than Adolf Hitler is Jesus Christ. In the seventy-four years since Time ’s ‘Man of the Year’ for 1938 bit the big cyanide capsule in the sky, it’s almost improbable that a year will go by without a startling new biography or study of Hitler and the National Socialist regime being published. At t...