Summer Reads from Aspects of History

The Eights is Joanna Miller’s debut novel that combines fascinating historical research with the creation of four compelling female characters, The Eights is set at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, in 1920, the first year that women were allowed to matriculate from Oxford University. The aftermath of the war looms large, and the women struggle against misogyny and societal pressures, but their determination and friendship helps them to thrive.

A slim and beautifully written historical novella, The Party by Tessa Hadley is about two sisters in post-war Bristol who learn much about themselves and their desires over the course of one night. The novella taps into the spirt of the time: changing attitudes to sex, marriage, and social class.

Set in Croydon in 1964, Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers is a moving novel about an art therapist working in a psychiatric hospital and a reclusive mute who is discovered in a derelict house. Alongside a powerful story, the novel is set at a turbulent time of change for mental health provision in the UK.

Blood and Thunder by Liam O’Callaghan explores the rise of Irish rugby from its colonial roots to modern-day success. Through key figures and pivotal moments, it examines identity, class, politics, and religion across the sport’s evolution—probing the IRFU’s “apolitical” stance during partition and the Troubles. It is a compelling account of how rugby became a unifying force across Ireland’s provinces and the Emerald Isle’s affinity for a ‘foreign’ sport.

Brendan Cooper’s Echoing Greens: How Cricket Shaped the English Imagination explores cricket’s unique role in shaping English culture, identity, and art. Framed by icons like WG Grace and Ian Botham, Cooper examines the sport’s mythology, class dynamics, and enduring symbolism. Far from the title’s Blakean scenes, the book scrutinises cricket’s seedy underbelly, not least gambling, subversion, and psychological strain, all the while tracking its literary and artistic impact from medieval times to today. Through discerning research and fluent prose, Cooper links historical material to modern concerns, revealing how cricket reflects and informs the nation’s values, an engaging study of the quintessential English game as a cultural mirror and creative muse.

Adam LeBor’s The Last Days of Budapest is an extremely powerful book that tells the story of Budapest’s descent into catastrophe during World War II. Budapest was a major centre of espionage and intrigue while Admiral Horthy the Regent of Hungary walked a tightrope of contradictions, caught between the Allies and Nazi Germany. By 1944 his attempts at diplomacy had failed and Hungary was engulfed by the Holocaust and invasion.

Death of an Officer by Mark Ellis is an intriguing murder mystery that does not flinch in its depiction of the seedier side of life. In a wonderfully vivid portrayal of wartime London that takes the reader through a trail of corruption into the heart of the establishment.

SAS Great Escapes 4 by Damien Lewis meticulously chronicles the remarkable endurance and bravery shown by the SAS during World War 2. It is a white-knuckle ride of adventure and daring, made all the more poignant by Lewis’ depiction of the human cost of war for those involved. Lewis’ work consistently highlights the extraordinary endurance of the men of the SAS to survive in the harshest of environments, after multiple failed escape attempts and recapture, to never give up and to prevail.

Andrew Lambert comments that his magisterial account of British National Strategy between 1815 and 1914 is ‘book-ended by existential total wars’. No More Napoleons opens with Wellington’s defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo on the doorstep of Flanders and the Scheldt estuary, ‘the pistol pointed at the heart of England’. It ends with the failure of British generals to deploy for the defence of the Belgian ports. In between it dissects the scares that have dominated many accounts of the nineteenth century and shows how Britain sustained, through a period of rapid technological change, the sea power strategy that prevented the emergence of a dominant continental power. His mastery of the complex narrative of a tumultuous century, matched with insights from Seapower States and The British Way of War, delivers a key text for British statesmen confronting ‘New Napoleons’ today.

Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge by Annie Whitehead is a thrilling but informative romp through several centuries of weird and wonderful cases of murder in pre-Conquest England. A great summer read not only because there’s lots of disgustingly gory detail but also because it is hugely engaging, very well-researched and thought-provoking. It’s murder but set in the context of law-codes and changing societal opinions. Who knew learning stuff could be so much fun?

This year has also seen the release of Crusader, the third part of Adam Staten’s Honour Bound trilogy. Perfect for a beach or back garden, it’s a thrilling, fast-paced conclusion to the series in which Anglo-Saxon warrior Cadman (for many years an exile in Byzantium following the Battle of Hastings) finds himself stuck in the middle between his lord, the Emperor Alexios, and the princes of the First Crusade. An interesting and unusual take on a well-trodden historical path. If you like your heroes strong, your action gruesome and your pace breakneck, then this is the book (and trilogy) for you.

In Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age, rather than dates, Eleanor Barraclough prefers to focus on the available artefacts, ‘the embers’, from the Viking world to delineate its reach and significance. A message on a rune stick, a left-handed mitten, a handful of beads – from these relics she constructs a pathway into the Viking world. Written with passion and knowledge, it is unputdownable.

As compelling is Clare Mulley’s Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Fearless Resistance Fighter Elzbieta Zawacka. A Polish patriot, feminist and teacher whose commitment and cool courage never failed either during or after the war, her story is largely unknown. Having unearthed remarkable archival material, the author establishes Zo in her rightful place as a war heroine.

Yuan Yang’s Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China offers granular insight into the lives of four Chinese women and their battles to achieve individual autonomy during 1980s and 1990s. There are harsh political realities to negotiate, plus the transition from an agrarian to industrial society and the resulting sometimes brutal conditions and family separation. A must.

1945: The Reckoning by Phil Craig is a terrific popular history of a seminal year from a principally Indian and Far Eastern perspective. It is wide-ranging and full of fascinating insights and characters, as well as being superbly written. The end of empire is examined in a vivid and engrossing way. A great read! 

Ben Creed is the pseudonym of two people, Chris Rickaby and Barney Thompson. His Man of Bones is the third in a series set in 1950s Leningrad and featuring a 1950s Russian militia officer called Revol Rossel. The officer becomes embroiled in a compelling murder tale involving dangerously compromising secrets about Stalin’s past. An atmospheric and gripping book. I look forward to catching up with the first two in the series.

I never thought anyone would ever outdo Robert Graves’ I, Claudius in so brilliantly fictionalising the history of Rome in the period following the death of Tiberius, but I have to say Conn Iggulden comes pretty close with Nero. Tiberius himself, Caligula, Claudius, Agrippina, Messalina all come vibrantly to life as the story explores the tumultuous years leading up to the advent of Nero. Brilliant.

Helen Carr’s Sceptred Isle is a romp through the dramatic, to say the least, fourteenth century. Carr focuses her narrative on the reigns and characters of Edward II, Edward III and Richard II – as well as encompassing the epochal events of the Black Death, Peasant’s Revolt and Hundred Years War. Carr’s judgement is sober, but her prose shines and casts light on an often bleak period of British history, delivering a work of narrative punch and sage argument. Readers may not want the century, or book, to end.

Robert Lyman and Richard Dannatt have produced a gripping and pacy account in Korea: War Without End. Although often cited as a minor conflict, this outstanding book teaches us that the war should not be underestimated in its scope and significance. Stalin’s death paved the way for peace (or at least an armistice) – and it should be noted how Stalin did much to instigate the conflict. The authors, military men themselves, are both informed and pithy. Their portrait and judgement of Douglas Macarthur is particularly engaging and insightful. One of the military history books of the year.

Although not wholly a history book, Douglas Murray was certainly informed by history when writing his latest bestseller. Some may find On Democracy and Death Cults a difficult and disturbing read, but it is no less an essential purchase for it. The book should be considered required reading for those with a blind animus towards Israel (or blinkered support for Iran and Hamas), as the arguments will open their eyes to some of the conceits and prejudices they have fallen victim to. As the conflict between Israel and Iran escalates – with both sides exchanging missile fire and propaganda – people will do well to arm themselves with the facts and read this unsettling but enlightening book.

I am a Peter Stothard fan already but in my opinion he has worked a marvel with his new biography of the Roman poet, Horace: Poet on a Volcano. There are two things that make this book remarkable – firstly, Stothard has the story-telling powers of a novelist and secondly, he makes Horace’s poetry the most important character in the story. Stothard shows a man shaping a new world for himself out of the loss of the Roman Republic. It’s a masterly depiction of the political changes through which Augustus dragged Rome, viewed through a man who was low-born, brilliant and far more human than his ruler.

All that is best and worst about the emperors of 1st-century Rome is in Suetonius’ The Lives of the Caesars, and Tom Holland’s new translation is an ideal introduction. I also really enjoyed Holland’s clear and thoughtful essay introducing his translation.

M. Cullen’s protagonist in her new series is the playwright Richard Sheridan. I read Harlequin Is Dead after meeting the author, and agreeing with her that “the writer as detective” is the new trend! It introduces the fascinating Sheridan, MP, playwright, and friend of the Prince Regent. Sheridan moves in many different circles and makes the ideal guide to a world which is often violent and double-dealing.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy Inc is a really important book. It exposes the serious and growing threat to democracies posed by a network of some of the world’s most powerful autocracies, unified not by a common ideology but by a determination to subvert democracy worldwide. It also points to the action urgently required by democracies to counter this threat. The book is thoroughly researched, convincingly argued and well written. An excellent read, if a sobering one.

The Translator by Harriet Crawley is a spy thriller, set in modern-day Russia, about a plan to cripple Britain and the West by cutting the transatlantic communication cables linking the United States and Europe. The author’s intimate, first-hand knowledge of Russia and the Russians is evident from the start. The novel is particularly well-crafted, with a convincing plot, a fast-paced narrative, great character development, and a building momentum of suspense leading to a nerve-jangling climax. I found it unputdownable.

Only three books to recommend? Outrageous. Here are ten. David Eltis brilliantly contextualises the global slave trade in Atlantic Cataclysm: Rethinking the Atlantic Slave Trades, demonstrating convincingly just how economically insignificant for the British Empire was its slaving venture. Richard Duckett sets out to prove that Colonel Edgar Peacock was the most brilliant SOE commander of the Second World War in Jungle Warrior: Britain’s Greatest SOE Commander. Richard McLauchlan gives us the full burl in The Bagpipes, A Cultural History. You don’t have to be a piper to enjoy this.

Sean Scullion demonstrates the importance to Britain of the veterans in its ranks of the Spanish republican army in Churchill’s Spaniards; Continuing the Fight in the British Army, 1939-1946. Katherine Carter’s depiction of Churchill’s wilderness years in Churchill’s Citadel is outstanding. Jack Bowsher’s page-turning Thunder Run; Meiktila 1945 tells for the first time the full story of the battle that smashed the Japanese in Burma in 1945.

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell; A Suspicion of Spies by Tim Spicer; Ghee Bowman’s The Great Spinal Escape and James Scott’s Black Snow are all books I unreservedly recommend for your reading delectation.

Jack Fairweather rightly won the Costa Non Fiction Book of the Year in 2019 for The Volunteer – seems like a lifetime now after Covid. His latest – The Prosecutor – lives up to its predecessor’s ambitious scope, superb characterisation, and page-turning narrative. Through research into his subject’s family archives, Fairweather recounts the forgotten story of the gay German Jewish lawyer, Fritz Bauer. He survived the rule of the Nazis and in the post-war years, as East and West Germany faced off against one another, made it his mission to force all Germans to confront their complicity in the Holocaust. With my publisher’s hat on, the cover is excellent, too. 

A shout out to one of my own – Victoria Taylor’s Eagle Days. The aviation historian has been a passionate advocate of researching the wartime history of Hitler’s Luftwaffe – particularly during the Battle of Britain. This book has been years in the making. Always a proud moment to see a first-time writer-historian achieve their ambitions in having their work accepted and published and I would argue Head of Zeus/ Bloomsbury team did her proud. It has garnered rave reviews since its publication a few months ago.

The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad by Simon Parkin is my standout book of the year thus far. I have a deep connection to the city since my student days and I have researched there, too, but I had no idea of the pivotal work of one of its greatest residents – world-renowned botanist Nikolai Vavilov. A man who would ultimately disappear forever into Stalin’s gulags. But as his home city was besieged by the Germans in early WWII, he faced a critical decision: Protect and save his vast seedbank collection for science, or, bow to official Soviet pressure, and hand it over to feed a starving population. All whilst enemy bombs dropped around them. Gripping stuff.

The last few months have seen a flurry of excellent new history books. Among my favourites is the paperback edition of The Siege by Ben Macintyre. It tells the story of the Iranian Embassy siege in the spring of 1980 – a drama I vividly remember – when armed gunmen stormed the embassy in Knightsbridge and held everyone inside hostage. The siege was finally broken, famously, when the SAS stormed the building live on TV, keeping the nation (and me) gripped for hours. Macintyre’s book uses unpublished material and exclusive interviews to brilliant effect as he recreates, minute-by-minute, the unfolding drama. A total page-turner.

Another must-read is Iain McGregor’s The Hiroshima Men, which charts the colourful and dramatic journey towards the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The book’s strength is the cast of characters, from General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project, to the bomber pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets. Published in time for the 80th anniversary of the bombing, it’s a timely and entertaining summer read.

My favourite historical biography is Sonia Purnell’s Kingmaker, an account of the champagne-filled life of Pamela Churchill, Winston’s daughter-in-law. A glamorous socialite with a voracious appetite for powerful men, she helped to shape some of the 20th century’s most momentous events. Filled with sex, parties and palaces, it’s hugely enjoyable.

My first pick is SAS Great Escapes Four by Damien Lewis, the latest in his outstanding series. This latest volume presents five more gripping true stories of escape and evasion by soldiers from Britain’s elite regiment during World War Two, all told in Lewis’s signature, compelling style. Each story unfolds with the pace and drama of a thriller, yet what truly stands out is the meticulous research behind every page. The story of Lewis ‘Archie’ Gibson is a particular highlight; riveting, heroic, and deeply human. But every tale in this volume deserves recognition. SAS Great Escapes Four is, without question, the strongest in the series so far. A must-read for fans of military history and real-life adventure.

Mark Ellis’s Frank Merlin series also comes highly recommended, and the latest instalment, Death of an Officer, set in the spring of 1943 is no exception. This gripping mystery sees Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin delving into the seemingly unconnected murders of a doctor and an American officer. But in wartime London, nothing is ever quite as it seems. Brimming with intrigue, espionage, and richly drawn characters, Ellis crafts a narrative full of twists and turns. His evocative prose brings the city’s wartime streets to life with remarkable authenticity and flair. If you haven’t yet discovered the Merlin series, now’s the time – you’re in for a treat!

My final pick is Precipice by the consistently brilliant Robert Harris. Harris is one of those rare authors whose books I’ll pre-order without even glancing at the blurb – his storytelling never disappoints. Precipice offers a compelling fictional retelling of the unexpected and complex relationship between British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and the socialite Venetia Stanley, set against the tense backdrop of a nation on the brink of war. Drawing on real historical correspondence between the two, Harris masterfully blends fact and fiction to create a richly layered and thoroughly absorbing narrative. Highly recommended—an excellent read!

It has been a really interesting year so far for history books, with a few pleasingly unusual subjects coming under the microscope.  First up for me is The CIA Book Club by Charlie English, the fascinating account of the CIA’s efforts to stoke and support the democratic opposition in Communist Eastern Europe during the Cold War, by smuggling in reading material; from Cosmopolitan to Animal Farm.  It’s a great story, full of remarkable individuals and ingenious spycraft, and it’s a timely reminder of the power of the written word.

Next in line for praise is Korea: War Without End by Robert Lyman and Richard Dannatt, which is published on the 75th anniversary of the events that it describes. Lyman and Dannatt make the case, rightly I think, that the Korean War has largely been forgotten in English-language historiography, and their book is a gallant attempt to place this brutal and bloody conflict – which accounted for as many as three million military and civilian deaths – back on our collective radar.  Elegantly written and wise in its assessments, the book surely sets a new benchmark for the subject. 

I have read a few other books that are worthy of your time: Mark Urban’s Tank is an enjoyable gallop through the history of everybody’s favourite armoured vehicle, while, in Victory ’45, Al Murray and James Holland gave us a hugely engaging account of the rather tortured circumstances of the end of World War Two. If you thought it was all a rather simple process, think again. Another stand-out was The Last Days of Budapest, by Adam LeBor, which reminds us, once again, both of the murderous realities of life in central Europe in the mid-20th Century, and of how much of value was lost in those convulsions. 

My last pick, however, goes to Richard Overy, whose book Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan appeared in March.  I have long been a fan of Overy, who is absolutely one of Britain’s very best historians, and this latest offering does not disappoint. Overy expertly dissects his subject, and in the process produces an eminently readable and enlightening account.

Barney Coleman’s The Fires of Gallipoli is a splendidly old-fashioned novel about men in war, written by an officer who served with the Blues & Royals served in Afghanistan. Covering the Dardanelles expedition and its aftermath, it demonstrates clear literary talent and a superb ear for dialogue. Coleman also dips his toes into the murky world of the secret service post-war that offers a delightful tease about the fate of Lord Kitchener in 1916.  

John Martin Robinson’s History of the Beefsteak Club is a model of club histories, a notoriously difficult genre. How does once capture a place’s allure and charm, let alone its historical importance, with the documents available? A club’s life emanates from ephemeral moments at lunches and dinners that often go unrecorded, which a mere recitation of members’ names cannot recapture. Yet Robinson overcomes this problem to produce a first class piece of clubland history.

Minoo Dinash’s Friends in Youth examines the way that the friendship between Bulstrode Whitelocke and Edward Hyde, later the Earl of Clarendon, unsurprisingly failed to survive the profound strains and stresses of the English Civil War. An astonishingly assured debut book; I suspect we will be hearing much more of Mr Dinash in the years to come.

Kit Kowol’s Blue Jerusalem, British Conservatism, Winston Churchill and the Second World War gives a very different take on the idea that for Britain, 1939-45 was a People’s War.  Kowol shows that Labour’s alleged domination of the home front has been overrated, and that Conservative ideas played  a much more important role than is usually thought. It is immensely stimulating and highly readable, which modifies Paul Addison’s ‘The Road to 1945 thesis’, of a major swing to the left that benefited Labour, but doesn’t to my mind completely debunk it. But it is a major book which deserves to be read and debated.

Dermot Rooney’s Slog or Swan: British Army Effectiveness in Operation Veritable, February and March 1945 is doubly welcome. Very little has been written on this extremely significant battle carried out by British and Canadian forces on German soil, and it fills a major gap in the market. Also, Rooney has a background in operational research, and he brings this to bear with a masterly use of original documents to lay bare the tactical realities of fighting using the poor bloody infantry, tanks and artillery. Rooney is not afraid to be controversial, and all this makes for a compelling book.

Cadiz by Helen Crisp and Jules Stewart tells the intriguing history of Europe’s oldest city, which featured in the Old Testament and was known to the Phoenicians as Tarshish. The city would later play a major role in the Roman Empire, the exploration of the Americas and much more. Today it remains a fascinating spot, both a modern port and an ancient city, as filled with historic gems as many Italian cities, yet without the suffocating swarms of tourists.

Inside the Stargazer’s Palace by Violet Moller relates the history of the early years of the scientific revolution – including the Prague of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, Tycho Brahe on the island of Hven, and other spots where early experimentalism was transformed into a multidisciplinary culture of precision and measurement.

Einstein’s Tutor by Lee Philips is a new biography of Emmy Noether, a major scientific and mathematical figure who remains scandalously neglected. It was her theorem which guided Einstein towards the completion of his General Theory of Relativity. Perhaps even more importantly, it laid the foundations on which modern mathematics is based. Grothendieck, String Theory, and other such developments, rely upon the work of this often overlooked woman of genius. 

Memoirs, more than anything, are the first draft of history and I’ve always been interested in wives’ memoirs particularly. Where better to get the worm’s eye (wives’ eye) view of the machinations of powerful men in politics? Sarah Vine’s How Not to Be a Political Wife notes all the little vanities – Gove paying to change his dialling code – and the entitled ferocities of Cameron and his court. Class conflicts and the savage cold-shouldering the couple received after Brexit make for an unsparing read, raw with outrage and regret, but full of telling gossip.

In 1946, the world’s press converged on Nuremberg to witness the war trials, among them a diverse group of writers and journalists, including Rebecca West, Erika Mann, John Dos Passos, Martha Gellhorn and Walter Cronkite. This band of luminaries were put up cheek by jowl in a fake gothic castle, and Uwe Neumahr’s The Writers’ Castle: Reporting History at Nuremberg is an entertaining account of the results.

The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry is not strictly a history book, but this stand-out debut oozes with the tense atmosphere of Arab Spring Bahrain. Its hero Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy straight out of Graham Greene, navigates a moral minefield that Berry, a former CIA case officer, must know all too well. Enthralling, absorbing and beautifully written, it sets expectations for her next novel very high.

Gareth Russell never disappoints, and his study of James VI and I’s tangled love life is not only refreshing but necessary, moving, hilarious, and compulsively readable. In Queen James, Russell proves beyond doubt that James’s love life – part soap opera, part psychological case study of an unloved child turned emotionally need adult – is every bit as fascinating as those of his Tudor predecessors. 

Heather Darsie adds to her catalogue of deeply researched studies of the queens of Henry VIII with Katharine of Aragon. Under her pen, Katharine emerges not as a tragic victim but as a significant power player, descended from a line of warriors and thus, in her time, deeply respected not only as a much-put-upon English queen but as a embodiment of the increasing might of an expanding Spanish empire. 

In The Scapegoat, a magnificent, stylish, beautifully-written study of George Villiers, Lucy Hughes-Hallett focuses not on the extravagant James VI/I but on his final favourite. Villiers (or Buckingham) emerges as an extraordinarily charismatic figure in his own right: a male Cinderella who succeeded on his own considerable charms before turning Icarus and bearing on his – apparently broad and athletic – shoulders all the perceived sins of the early Stuarts.

Tim Wigmore’s Test Cricket: A History is my pick for the summer. The appropriate white cover may get discoloured with sun, sea and sand, but there’s a hugely rich and exhaustive history within. The first Test of England vs. Australia throws up the one constant throughout: the England batting collapse, and the golden era is covered well, as is the Bodyline episode. However it’s the imperial element that is most memorable as England, via the Imperial Cricket Conference, demanded membership of the Empire for Test status. But what about South Africa which was blocked from joining the Commonwealth but continued playing Tests? Well, exceptions can be made when one has lucrative business interests. The D’Oliveira affair further exposes the hypocrisy of the establishment, as does the recent Afghan experience now India has assumed England’s ‘first among equals’ mantel. A must-read for any fan of cricket. Just don’t start me on The Hundred…

Lest We Forget is a moving book as Tessa Dunlop diligently visits each country of the United Kingdom to document one hundred well-known, and not so well-known, monuments to the fallen. Each is written with empathy, and she draws out stories or even collars locals as they pass by. Dunlop has found new historical testimony, particularly for the Troubles, as both Bloody Sunday, Warrenpoint and Enniskillen are included, as they should be. This is an enjoyable account of our unique form of commemoration, but is certainly not jingoistic as evidenced by her piece on the Bomber Command Memorial on Hyde Park Corner. Around 400,000 German civilians were killed during the Second World War bombing campaign, but so too 55,000 aircrew, and she skilfully balances the contradiction in her own inimitable style.

The Sorrow and the Loss by Martin Dillon is my final title. Women of the Troubles are a largely ignored group, and so this collection of stories detailing those that actively participated and those impacted through grief, makes an important addition this period of history so ignored in England. Dillon is a veteran journalist, and author of many books, but his most recent makes for difficult reading. There is the wife of a frighteningly psychopathic loyalist paramilitary who, with almost suicidal bravery, took him and the men of her community on and won. There is a steel to each and I cannot help think that had there been more female involvement in leadership positions in Northern Ireland, the conflict would not have lasted as long as it did.

Summer Reads from Aspects of History