It has been a while since I have had a chance to sit down and write a blog post. I have been very busy with work and other projects. However I have had the chance to read a couple of novels set in and inspired by the Battle for Normandy in 1944.
The first of these was From the City, From the Plough by Alexander Baron.
This was a fantastic read and I could barely manage to put it down. I found the authors descriptions to be so vivid and full of detail. Having read a lot of historical works on the battle for Normandy I found this book to be very realistic and portrayed the fighting very well. Little surprise then that the author is a veteran of the Second World War and the battle for Normandy.
The next book is one that I have very nearly finished. Flesh Wounds by David Holbrook.
This was a lot harder to get into as it starts with a slower pace and a love story. Once you are past that the book again is a difficult one to put down. Again although a novel it is in part based on the author's own experiences during the fighting in Normandy. However where From the City, From the Plough was concerned with an infantry battalion, Flesh Wounds is centered around an armoured yeomanry regiment mounted in the well known Sherman Tank. This gives a very different view to that of From the City, but the author is still able to convey all the detail about the fighting and landscape that made Normandy such a nightmare to fight through.
Aside from reading these two novels I have also been reading up on the German air raids of the First World War. Very interesting as a subject to read about as I have never really known much or had much interest in this as a topic of research.
It has lead to some very interesting information regarding my home town of Eastbourne during the First World War and will no doubt lead to further research.
