I read this book in the wrong order as it precedes Akunin’s Black City, which I recently completed. And it does set the stage (sorry – couldn’t resist) for the latter book, with…Read more…

Boris Akunin is the pseudonym for Grigory Chkhartishvili, one of the most successful crime writers ever to emerge from Russia. His series of books featuring …Read more…

This book has now gone through several editions, and was recently re-issued with a slightly different title. It is a very short history of the Battle of Britain of 1940-41 and in just a few…Read more…

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been in the news a lot lately. Her book is now considered a classic, a recent television adaptation was a huge success, and a sequel is due out…Read more…

The colourful Eugene V. Debs would make a wonderful subject for a graphic novel but unfortunately, this is not the book I’d recommend. A text-heavy graphic novel that cannot decide if…Read more…

I admit to being a bit of a latecomer to this party, having only discovered Rutger Bregman following his extraordinary non-interview on Fox News recently. This is his best-selling book laying out the…Read more…

This short memoir, written by the author when in his eighties, looks back at his experience as a German soldier during the Second World War. I would not recommend it to others. Sometimes in…Read more…

There is a tendency, I think, among some who write about the Nazi Germans to become – too put it mildly – somewhat too close to their subject. That is the case with this book…Read more…

This tiny little book, which you can read in under an hour, is a reminder of how much Amos Oz is missed today. The book consists of two short speeches he gave in Germany in…Read more…

It was one of the iconic images of the early 1960s: a young Bob Dylan walking down a snow-covered street in Manhattan, looking down, while a young woman clutching his left arm walks with him,…Read more…

I lived for nearly 18 years on a kibbutz. Amos Oz, who passed a way a few weeks ago, also lived for a number of years on a kibbutz. This collection of stories takes place…Read more…

Having just read a couple of non-fiction books about the British people who worked for a German victory in the Second World War, I thought it was time to read a work of fiction on…Read more…

This new graphic novel is a beautifully-drawn, powerfully-told story about a group of seven Soviet female snipers during the Second World War. Sara, the best shot in the group, is plagued by doubts…Read more…

Having just read The Meaning of Treason by Rebecca West I was keen to read a more recent account of the British subjects who betrayed their country and worked on behalf of Nazi Germany. I…Read more…

This extraordinary book, published in 1949, tells the stories of the trials of a number of British subjects who betrayed their country during the Second World War. The bulk of the book is a long…Read more…

This short book was an early history of Vlasov movement, which during the second world war aimed to create a Russian army of “liberation” that would fight side by side with the Germans…Read more…

Alexander Dallin, the son of the well-known Menshevik David Dallin, published this book in 1957. More than sixty years on, it is probably still the definitive text on the subject. The book is a…Read more…

In some parts of Europe, the stunning victories enjoyed by Hitler’s armed forces resulted in docile, subservient populations that were keen to avoid any further trouble. Whole countries…Read more…

Codename Villanelle was one of the most fun books I read in 2017. I was disappointed by the hit BBC series “Killing Eve” which was based on it, and was reluctant to give this book…Read more…

Lieutenant General Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov rose steadily in the ranks of the Red Army until finally put in charge of one of Stalin’s “shock armies” and entrusted with the defence…Read more…