Category: Discussion posts

When We Fall by Carolyn Kirby @noexitpress

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20191125_100338When We Fall by Carolyn Kirby will be published in paperback by No Exit Press on 7th May 2020 to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day. At the heart of the novel is the tragedy of the Katyn Massacre of 1940, in which over 22,000 Polish military officers were murdered on the orders of the Soviet Union. April 2020 marks the 80th anniversary of this horrific WWII crime.

Today is also the 10th anniversary of the Smolensk Air Disaster when an aircraft of the Polish Air Force crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board, including Polish dignitaries on their way to commemorate the massacre.

Carolyn has recorded a video about the true story behind the novel and the only female victim of the massacre – Polish pilot Janina Lewandowska – on whom one of the characters in When We Fall is based.

No Exit Press have also released an early ebook edition of the novel which is available here and from online bookshops for only £1.99. Carolyn will also be speaking about When We Fall at a virtual bookclub on Thursday 7th May at 8pm. If you would like to take part, you can find more information  here.

Look out as well for the blog tour taking place in May including my review of When We Fall.

Buchan of the Month: Introducing A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys by John Buchan #ReadJB2020

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20200408_133244_kindlephoto-201916321My Buchan of the Month for April is A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys. It was published in the UK by Thomas Nelson & Sons in September 1922 and in the US by Houghton Mifflin the following year. My copy (pictured) is a second impression dated December 1922.

John Buchan had initially joined Nelson as chief literary adviser on the invitation of his old friend from Oxford University, Tommy Nelson (sadly later killed in the First World War). Buchan was subsequently appointed a director when Nelson became a limited company in 1915. Although Buchan’s principal UK publisher from 1916 onwards was Hodder & Stoughton, he allowed Nelson to publish cheap editions of his novels. Up until 1929, when he resigned from the board on the grounds of ill health, he also wrote or contributed to thirteen books for Nelson. These included several books aimed at young boys and usually published for the Christmas market. A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys is one of two collections of adventures he wrote for Nelson. (The other is The Last Secrets, next month’s Buchan of the Month.)

A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys is, as the title suggests, a collection of twelve famous escapes or hurried journeys from history including Charles II’s escape after the Battle of Worcester, Marie Antoinette’s flight to Varennes and Winston Churchill’s adventures during the Boer War (memorably dramatized in the film Young Winston). Four years after its publication, A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys became a school set book.

The preface to the book is interesting in that it contains Buchan’s thoughts on the term ‘Romance’. He writes, “I take it that it means in the widest sense that which affects the mind with a sense of wonder – the surprises of life, fights against odds, weak things confounding strong, beauty and courage flowering in unlikely places.”

Look out for my review of the book later this month.

Sources:

Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography (OUP, 1985 [1965])
Kenneth Hillier and Michael Ross, The First Editions of John Buchan: A Collector’s Illustrated Biography (Avonworld, 2008)
Andrew Lownie, John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier (Constable, 1995)

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