War fiction and non-fiction 1
Talking Books
The titles in this booklist are just a selection of the titles available for loan from the RNIB National Library Talking Book Service.
Don’t forget you are allowed to have up to 6 books on loan. When you return a title, you will then receive another one.
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Fiction
Allbeury, Ted
As time goes by. 1994. Read by Robert Gladwell, 12 hours 52 minutes. TB 10713.
The story of three remarkable women in wartime France. Paulette, Vi and Jenny, all volunteers, are parachuted into the Dordogne in 1942, working for the Special Operations Executive network. They all have different reasons for joining up and each hopes to return in a year or two to her ordinary life, but the danger and violence they all have to face will change them all. TB 10713.
Ballard, J G
Empire of the Sun. 1984. Read by Ian Craig, 11 hours 3 minutes. TB 5358.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 shatters the fragile security enjoyed by the European inhabitants of Shanghai's International Settlement. Eleven-year-old Jim becomes separated from his parents in the ensuing confusion and is interned in a Japanese camp for four years. But it is after the dropping of atomic bombs in 1945, when the surrender of the Japanese armies is imminent, that he is in most fear of his life. TB 5358.
Bannister, Don
Long day at Shiloh. 1981. Read by David Sinclair, 7 hours 34 minutes. TB 4077.
Based on the first day of one of the most crucial battles of the American Civil War, this novel concentrates on the feelings and thoughts of those caught up in the battle, and of their commander, Ulysses S. Grant. Unsuitable for family reading. TB 4077.
Barker, Pat
Regeneration. 1997. Read by Michael Tudor Barnes, 10 hours 15 minutes. TB 11448.
Regeneration trilogy; book 1. This novel is not only a vivid evocation of the agony of the First World War, it is a multi-layered exploration of all wars, challenging assumptions about the relationship between doctors and patients, between men and women, and between men and men. It centres on a real-life encounter that occurred at Craiglockhart in 1917 between W H R Rivers, an army psychiatrist and Siegfried Sassoon. The third book in this trilogy was the 1995 Booker Prize winner. TB 11448.
Bates, H E
Fair stood the wind for France. 1944. Read by Tom Crowe, 9 hours 15 minutes. TB 4667.
A bomber crashes in occupied France returning from a raid in 1943. The crew escape and return eventually to England. Their story is that of France and of the men who flew with the RAF, a story of love, compassion and the triumph of the human spirit. TB 4667.
Bernieres, Louis de
Captain Corelli's mandolin. 1994. Read by Nigel Graham, 21 hours 24 minutes. TB 11174.
War has not yet reached the village on the island of Cephallonia where the doctor's daughter is engaged to a fisherman. When the Italians arrive, though, the fisherman joins the resistance and a young captain is billeted in the doctor's house. At first Corelli is ostracised, but he proves to be civilised, humorous and musical, and the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. With vicious speed, the war becomes brutal. Can love survive? Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 11174.
Blake, Ian
The Burma offensive. 1997. Read by Nigel Graham, 8 hours. TB 11012.
This book is based on real operations during World War II. Explosives expert Sergeant Colin 'Tiger' Tiller was selected to undergo training in a highly secret one-man submarine fitted with a lethal explosive device. Posted to the Far East, he joined the Special Operations group, destroying Japanese supply ships and raiding Japanese-held islands. Then he received his special orders to use the midget submarine. TB 11012.
Boston, Anne (editor)
Wave me goodbye: stories of the Second World War. 1988. Read by Carol Marsh. 12 hours 43 minutes. TB 7599.
This collection of 28 short stories of the 2nd World War, by leading authors, is a moving evocation of every aspect of life on the home front during wartime. Full of courage and compassionate observation, this compilation focuses on the heroism of the women who "did their Bit" for the war effort at home. TB 7599.
Bucheim, Lothar-Gunther
The boat: one of the best novels ever written about war. 1999. Read by Gordon Dulieu, 20 hours 53 minutes. TB 12385.
This is the story of a German U-boat, her commander and crew, as they embark upon yet another hazardous patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic. Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 12385.
Cooper, James Fenimore
The last of the Mohicans. 1990. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 16 hours 53 minutes. TB 8856.
This is a fictional novel with a factual core, namely, the massacre of the British by the Indians at Fort William Henry in 1757. This fictional aspect involves romance, sexuality and heroism, but within the placid character of the novel there lurks a dramatic and violent inner part, which reflects the hatred felt between the two warring factions. TB 8856.
Cornwell, Bernard
Rebel. 1993. Read by Eric Meyers, 15 hours 46 minutes. TB 10694.
Nathaniel Starbuck series; book 1. In the summer of 1861, as America stands on the brink of civil war, northerner Nathaniel Starbuck arrives in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. He is rescued from a mob by the rich and eccentric Washington Faulconer, who is raising his own elite regiment to combat the Yankees. Starbuck chooses to enlist in the Faulconer Legion, even though it could mean fighting against his own people. TB 10694.
Crane, Stephen
The red badge of courage. Read by Walter Lewis, 5 hours 16 minutes. TB 13461.
This great classic of the American Civil War is one of the most important accounts of the reality of war and its aftermath. It deals with the effects of war on one man, and speaks for a generation. TB 13461.
Deighton, Len
Bomber: events relating to the last flight of an R.A.F. bomber over Germany on the night of June 31st, 1943. 1970. Read by Raymond Sawyer, 19 hours 31 minutes. TB 5353.
On a warm night in June 1943 a force of 700 RAF bombers sets off for a routine heavy raid on the Ruhr. But the next twenty-four hours become a chain of grotesque ironies as the meticulously planned raid goes disastrously wrong ... TB 5353
.
Dobbs, Michael
Last man to die. 1992. Read by Peter Barker, 11 hours 13 minutes. TB 9796.
Refusing to wait for peace and the freedom it will bring, Peter Hencke is a German POW on the run in spring 1945. Fired by a personal mission that drives him to risk everything in his lonely, treacherous journey back to Berlin. Pursued by mighty armies, and the most powerful and ruthless men in Europe, and helped and loved by two most extraordinary women, Hencke's secret will be hidden until the very last moments of the war. Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 9796.
Dunmore, Helen
The Siege. Read by Jilly Bond, 10 hours 30 minutes. TB 13428.
Leningrad, September 1941. German forces surround the city, imprisoning those who live there. The besieged people of Leningrad face shells, starvation and the Russian winter. Interweaving two love affairs in two generations, the siege draws us deep into the Levin family's struggle to stay alive during this terrible winter. TB 13428.
Faulks, Sebastian
Birdsong. 1993. Read by Peter Firth, 15 hours 41 minutes. TB 10988.
Amiens, 1910, and young Stephen Wraysford has been sent by his employer to study the textile trade. His host, Azaire, is a prosperous manufacturer. Stephen and Isabelle, Azaire's second wife, are immediately aware of a bond between them which oversteps any considerations of propriety. The Somme, 1916, and Stephen is now a lieutenant in the British Army, lonely and brooding and France has become a bloody battlefield. In 1978 a woman finds a diary and begins to relive the horrors of trench warfare with the writer. TB 10988.
Fesperman, Dan
The warlord's son. 2004. Read by Jeff Harding, 13 hours 46 minutes. TB 14718.
Skelly, a burned-out American foreign correspondent, has been dropped into the smoky chaos of post 9/11 Peshawar. To survive, he needs a "fixer" – a nimble, well-connected jack-of-all-trades who can save his skin yet take him where the action is. And for every journalist in Peshawar, the real action is across the border in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda lurk and armed Taliban fighters cling to power in mountain strongholds. Soon Skelly and Najeeb, the banished son of a tribal warlord, are driving dusty roads west in the wake of a man who hopes to stake his claim as the leader of the next regime. Contains violence. TB 14718.
Follett, Ken
Hornet flight. 2002. Read by Nigel Carrington, 13 hours. TB 13273.
It is June 1941 and Denmark is under German occupation. On the rocky coast of Denmark, two brothers, Harald and Arne Olufsen are straining against the rigid confines imposed by their elderly parents. Meanwhile, a network of MI6 spies is attempting to decipher an encrypted Luftwaffe radio signal which mentions the new Freya-Gerat - a rudimentary form of German radar equipment. Arne's relationship with Hermia Mount, an MI6 analyst draws him into underground politics, putting him under surveillance by the Danish security forces - and by one man in particular who has a personal motive to see Arne fall. Contains strong language. TB 13273.
Forester, C S
The man in the yellow raft. 1969. Read by Marvin Kane, 5 hours 30 minutes. TB 891.
A collection of sea stories about the Pacific war on the eve of, or just after, Pearl Harbour. TB 891.
Frazier, Charles
Cold mountain. 1997. Read by Hayward Morse, 17 hours 21 minutes. TB 11506.
A soldier wounded in the Civil War, Inman turns his back on the carnage of the battlefield and begins the treacherous journey home to Cold Mountain, and to Ada, the woman he loved. As he attempts to make his way across the mountains, through a devastated landscape, Ada struggles to make a living from the land her father left her. Neither knows if the other is still alive. Contains strong language. TB 11506.
Furst, Alan
The Polish officer. 2004. Read by Stephen Thorne, 12 hours 1 minute. TB 14077.
September 1939. As Warsaw falls to Hitler, Captain Alexander de Milja is recruited by the intelligence service of the Polish underground. His mission: to transport the national gold reserve to safety, hidden on a refugee train to Bucharest. In the back alleys and black-market bistros of Paris, in the tenements of Warsaw, with "partizan" guerrillas in the frozen forests of the Ukraine, and at Calais Harbour, de Milja fights in the war of shadows in a world without rules. TB 14077.
Harris, Robert
Enigma. 1995. Read by Stephen Thorne, 11 hours 34 minutes. TB 10585.
Based around an actual event, this book is set in 1943 inside Britain's code-breaking centre. Nazi Germany's U-boats have unexpectedly changed their Enigma cipher and the battle of the Atlantic hangs in the balance. In desperation the authorities turn to brilliant young mathematician and codebreaker, Tom Jericho. What follows is a frantic race to crack the U-boat code. Jericho faces an equally baffling enigma: the woman he loves has disappeared and he suspects there might be a spy in the codebreaking centre ... TB 10585.
Harry, Lilian
Three little ships. 2005. Read by Patrick Romer, 15 hours 10 minutes. TB 14504.
During just nine days in the early summer of 1940 nearly eight hundred 'Little ships' set off across the English channel to rescue almost half a million men of the British and French Armies trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. Among them were three very different crafts. On a London fireboat is Ollie Mears; a small pleasure steamer is commanded by Robby Endacott; and a motor yacht owned by Hubert Rowley. As each one ferries exhausted men from the beaches to the waiting ships, the men are unknowingly united by a powerful driving force - the desperate need to find one man who matters more to them than anyone else. Contains strong language. TB 14504.
Heller, Joseph
Catch 22. 1962. Read by Steve Hodson, 21 hours 10 minutes. TB 15433.
A rational coward in World War II makes the craziest and puzzling dilemma suddenly understandable: if a man was crazy he could be grounded, all he had to do was ask; if he asked then he was showing concern for his own safety in the face of danger, which is the process of a rational mind; if he does not ask he cannot be grounded, but if he does he has proved he is not crazy: Catch-22. Unsuitable for family reading. TB 15433.
Hemingway, Ernest
For whom the bell tolls. 1994. Read by John Chancer, 21 hours 56 minutes. TB 10384.
A passionate evocation of the civil war that tore Spain apart. High in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a guerilla band prepares to blow up a vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There, in the mountains, he finds the dangers and the intense comradeship of war and there he discovers Maria, a young woman who has escaped from Franco's rebels. TB 10384.
Higgins, Jack
Exocet. 1983. Read by Simon Coady, 6 hours. TB 5198.
At the height of the Falklands War, Argentina desperately needs more Exocet missiles to attack the British fleet. Colonel Montera, a gallant war hero, is sent to Europe to get them. The British assign Tony Villiers, a ruthless SAS major, to stop him. Meanwhile, the KGB are casting a net of death and destruction for all...TB 5198.