“Entertaining and moving … This is a brilliant introduction for anyone seeking to understand the origins and outcomes of the battle. A dramatic tale, well told” News of the World

“No one can relive the battle except the men who fought it, and here they are in a tide of telling testimony…expertly tracked down and anthologised by our foremost oral historian of the war, the self-effacing Max Arthur…The Battle of Britain has been encrusted with myth. The Few have sometimes been caricatured as cheerful, beer-swilling slang-using, devil-may-care kite prangers. There is none of that jolly exaggeration here. Read it, and remember.” Daily Mail

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and Max Arthur’s Last of the Few, published earlier this year, is a remarkable collection of first-hand memories from this pivotal conflict. Recreating the events of the summer of 1940, it tells the story of the young men of the RAF who became lauded by Churchill as The Few. Max will be heard on BBC local radio stations across the country this morning, but some of the extracts below give a flavour of the testimonies within the book:

Flying Officer Al Deere
(New Zealander) 54 Squadron
“We used to try and get up above them and come in from out of the sun. But it didn’t always work that way. Sometimes you didn’t see them – they were somewhere up in the sun. When you became engaged it was every man for himself. One minute there were Spitfires and Me 109s going around in circles; the next you were all by yourself. That was if you were still there”

Sergeant James A Goodson
(American) 43 Squadron
“Even the Germans got to respect the Spitfire. Peter Townsend went to see one of the German pilots he has shot down. The German said to him: ‘I’m very glad to meet the Spitfire pilot who shot me down.’ Peter said: ‘No, no. I was flying a hurricane.’ The German kept arguing and Peter kept saying: ‘No – you were shot down by a Hurricane.’ The German said: ‘Would you do me a favour? If you ever talk to any other Luftwaffe pilots, please tell them I was shot down by a spitfire.”

Pilot Officer George Bennions
41 Squadron
“I was annoyed at myself for having been shot down. I felt very sorry for myself, which is not a good situation for anybody. But one person put me on a more even footing. As I opened the door in Ward 3 I saw what I can only describe now as the most horrifying thing I have ever seen. This chap had been really badly burned: his hair was burned off, and his eyebrows and eyelids. You could just see his staring eyes, two holes in his face. His nose and lips were also badly burned. I looked down and saw that his hands and feet were burned. I got through the door on my crutches, and then this chap started propelling a wheelchair down the ward. He picked up the back of a chair with his teeth…Then he brought this chair down the war and threw it alongside me and said ‘Have a seat, old boy.’ It was then that I cried. I thought, ‘What have I got to complain about?’”

Pilot Office Bob Doe
234 and 238 Squadrons
“I wasn’t fighting for the King. I was fighting for my mum. I didn’t want them over here.”

Caroline - Deputy Publicity Director
Read more of this book

Is there anything better than a really chunky book full of bitches, bonking and backstabbing? Crammed with beauties, baubles and billionaires? No, there is not. And anyone who makes a case for well-behaved literary classics in the height of summer is not the kind of person I want to hang out with poolside on my holidays. For make no mistake, the blockbuster is best consumed whilst high on a cocktail of cocktails, a bucket of sunscreen and the kind of intense sunshine that requires not only Victoria Beckham-sized shades, but also a gigantic hat that enables you to channel 70s-era Joan Collins. Preferably your drinks will be brought to you by a buffed and well-oiled local youth with a glint in his eye so that you can pretend that you’re one of the book’s fabulous heroines, but generally, as long as the drink has some classy umbrellas in it and plenty of ice, that’s enough for me.Silk delivers on all fronts – at 480 pages, it’s the blockiest of blockbusters. With three fantastic leading ladies (an up-and-coming fashion designer; her ball-busting barrister mother, who specialises in celebrity divorces, and the mistress of a European mogul) there is high drama and there are low morals; there is manipulation and blackmail, triumph and tragedy; unrequited love and very-much-requited lust. Rupert James has created a world that you can immerse yourself in totally, with bags of insider gossip (fun times are to be had working out who the various fashionistas might be based on…), a ludicrously gripping plot and more highs and lows than the rollercoasters at Alton Towers.

When the first third of the book came in, most of Ebury devoured it instantly and then beat down the editor’s door demanding more. ‘Rupert hasn’t written it yet!’ she protested, barricading herself against the onslaught with a wall of inferior manuscripts. ‘Tell him to type faster!’ we screeched. Luckily Rupert obliged and his editor was left alone as we greedily devoured the rest of the book. If you want to forget the recession, ignore the torrential rain of yet another British summer on your ‘staycation’ and indulge in diamond-encrusted fabulousness, then grab yourself a copy of Silk and tell your friends not to expect a word out of you for the next couple of days. More flamboyant than Vivienne Westwood’s hair; sexier than a roomful of Cavalli-clad models and more guiltily moreish than a shopful of Krispy Kremes, Silk is the one accessory you really must have this summer.

‘Taking on the gossipy tone of the very best Jilly Cooper novels and giving it a modern twist, this is a 21st century bonkbuster with attitude… If you secretly wish Dynasty had never ended and enjoy reading Lace whenever you take a sick day, this is the book for you. Pass the cocktail shaker…’ Elle

Alex - Marketing Manager

As a teenager in the ’80s, the golden age of all things bonkbuster (Dallas, Dynasty, Jackie Collins and the rest), I mainly aspired to big shoulderpads and even bigger hair. I managed a couple of jackets with the former, and years’ worth of the latter, and my Mum still wistfully gazes at my now straight, normal-sized ’do from time to time, and tries to persuade me to go back to my gigantic blonde perm. Well, that’s not going to happen, but, and who would’ve thought it, the bonkbuster is BACK. Yes, once more we’re treated to women wearing slinky frocks and fabulous shoes on the covers, a big, meaty read (usually taking in at least 3 major female characters; all fabulous in their own way, and all at loggerheads for various reasons; posed against a backdrop of glamorous global locations, designer outfits, power, money and of course sex).

Vintage by Olivia Darling ticks all these boxes and more – as you might expect, the story takes place in the exotic world of champagne-making, with three women duking it out to win a huge cash bet as to whose vineyard can produce the finest vintage at an international competition. From California to France, by way of an obscure English vineyard called Froggy Bottom (yeah, that name doesn’t get any better, even by the end), there’s backstabbing, blackmail, success and failure on a grand scale, personal growth and plenty of romptastic shenanigans.

Reading Vintage in January, when you’ve given up booze for a month, isn’t the best idea, as, naturally, everyone in it is drinking buckets of the stuff, and having a brilliant time, whilst you’re trying to stick to water and feeling really boring. It’s not the best in the bonkbuster class (too many secondary characters you don’t really care about; a messy subplot that’s brought in very late and an unsatisfactory ending whereby not everyone gets their just deserts), but I’d give it a B+ on the bonk-o-meter. Much like its subject matter, it’s satisfying and glamorous at the time, if a tad fizzy and ephemeral once you’ve polished it off.

Alex - Marketing Manager

Once a month, we will be asking our fellow Ebury-ites to let us know what they are reading (whether we publish it or not). Last month Luthfa reviewed The Burial by Neil Cross. This month Katie looks at What is the What by Dave Eggers.

Not so long ago in the Telegraph, there was a story about novels being “better at explaining the world’s problems than reports”.

Now, I’m not sure whether this is 100% true and I take the point that fiction is overwhelmingly about emotion rather than fact, but I have to say I have never had a news story brought to life so well as in the book I am about to finish. It has been sitting on my bookshelf for months, unread, because I was nervous about it being too heavy for my morning and evening commutes. But finally I picked it up thinking “I suppose I should read this”.

What is the What is about one of the Lost Boys of Sudan – Valentino Deng. By focusing on one person, Dave Eggers has managed to capture what a news report never would – all the complexities of every day life at every stage of Valentino’s life – from living with his family in a village in Sudan to his escape from the militiamen to his life in America, which he sometimes feels is no better than the refugee camps he left behind.

It is definitely is not a light read and the story is often heartbreaking. But, at the same time, the narrative draws you in and it is actually very easy to read. Apart from an article in the New York Times magazine I remember reading when I was in school, I didn’t know anything about Sudan before reading this book. Now I want to do research and get involved. It’s definitely a book worth reading even if, like me, you are not usually into “heavy” reading.

Sometimes, as the article says, it takes a book to change your outlook on life. What are the books (fiction and non-fiction) that have done that for you?

Katie - Digital Marketing Executive

Once a month, we will be asking our fellow Ebury-ites to let us know what they are reading. Last month Alex reviewed A Good Girl Comes Undone by Polly Williams.  This month Luthfa looks at The Burial by Neil Cross.

I’ve been a fan of Neil Cross since I read Mr In-between, back when I was a buyer at Books etc. and I picked it up then, not least because he was such a likeable sales director (at Macmillan). I’ve read most of his fiction over the years and, without fail, he delivers a cracking thriller. His writing is concise, lyrical and compelling and he has a knack for creating believable characters that invariably find themselves in exceptional circumstances.

The Burial starts with the sinister man at the door encroaching on a modern suburban idyll. Obvious perhaps but moreish nonetheless. Nathan, the main protagonist, is lonely, likeable, but his complicity in the tragic events of a drug-fuelled night casts a shadow over him. The story that unfolds makes clever use of the conceits of recent ghost films and had me having to think nice thoughts before I could switch the light off for the night. Loved it.

Luthfa - Time Out Marketing

Once a month, we will be asking our fellow Ebury-ites to let us know what they are reading. It might be something we publish or it might not. One of the side-effects of working in publishing is that you read a lot. A lot. So, we kick the reviews off with A Good Girl Comes Undone by Polly Williams.

Once over the age of 30, classic chick fic books (ditzy girl looks for Mr Right – and that’s about it) fail to hit the spot. And in these credit crunchy times, it feels even more frivolous to be reading straight-up fluff. So covers featuring women cropped off at the knees and a pair of Louboutins aren’t out of the question, just to be chosen with care. Lisa Jewell seems to have gone off the boil lately, and Marian Keyes’s latest was a bit too ‘ooh, here’s another book about issues’. Plus I was disappointed by Jane Fallon’s second outing into so-called ‘chic noir’ (shouldn’t that be ‘bitch lit’?), which was distinctly lacking in bite. Refusing to give up, I picked up Polly Williams’ A Good Girl Comes Undone, having enjoyed her previous two. She has the knack of writing believable characters with real-life problems – tricky relationship issues, job worries, even the unexpected death of a parent. Her women are older and more complex than classic chick fic heroines; not always 100% likeable, they have flaws, and make sometimes unpredictable decisions. Here Annie has to weigh up the relative merits of her partner Nick, who’s taking a ‘career break’ to, well, doss about doing nothing, versus the powerful charms of Don, a director at the magazine company she works for. Annie’s ambition, independence and the desire to make her own way in the world are set against her sister Georgia’s decision to give up work and be a pampered ‘City wife’. Could a relationship with Don be a meeting of minds and result in equality? Though the men are still slightly in the Sex and the City cipher mould, and the ending lets down anyone who hopes that women can still aim to ‘have it all’, overall I found this a satisfying, compulsive read.

Alex – Marketing Manager

Look out for Alex’s review in the next few weeks in The Bookseller…