Tag: WW2

#BlogTour #BookReview Mr Bunting at War by Robert Greenwood @RandomTTours @I_W_M

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Mr Bunting at War BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Mr Bunting at War by Robert Greenwood.  My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to the Imperial War Museum for my review copy.

Mr_Bunting_At_War_CoverAbout the Book

George Bunting, businessman, husband and father, lives a quiet life at home in Laburnam Villa in Essex, reading about the progress of the war in his trusty newspaper and heading to work every day at the same warehouse where he has been employed for his entire adult life. Viewed with an air of amusement by his children, Mr Bunting’s war efforts subsist mainly of ‘digging for victory” and erecting a dugout in the garden.

But as the Second World War continues into the summer of 1940, the Battle of Britain rages in the skies and the bombs begin to rain down on London, this bumbling ‘everyman’ is forced to confront the true realities of the conflict. He does so with a remarkable stoicism, imbuing him with a quiet dignity.

Format: Paperback (256 pages) Publisher: Imperial War Museum
Publication date: 21 April 2022 Genre: Modern Classics

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My Review

I have enjoyed every book I’ve read in the Imperial War Museum’s Wartime Classics series but Mr Bunting At War is my new favourite and I am offically in love with Mr Bunting. As with all the books in the series, it has a fascinating introduction examining the historical context of the book but it does contain a spoiler so I would recommend reading it after finishing the book.

Mr Bunting has a quiet stoicism and a detemination to put on a brave face for the sake of his family. ‘However disheartened he felt, he always remembered to pull himself together as he reached home. He looked upon it as a duty.’

I loved all the little details of domestic life in the Bunting household – Mr Bunting’s perpetual war on waste, his love of a good sausage roll, his incomprehension at his daughter Julie’s vegetarianism, Mrs Bunting’s meticulous approach to laundry. Although the book has plenty of humour, especially in the Bunting children’s gentle teasing of their father, it doesn’t shy away from depicting the terrible impact of German bombing raids on London and surrounding areas.  The destroyed houses and businesses, the streets littered with debris, the loved ones wounded, missing or dead. There are moments of hope, such as the wartime wedding of Mr Bunting’s son, Ernest, but also moments of great sadness.  I was moved by the way Mr and Mrs Bunting face up to things when adversity strikes, each drawing on the strength and support of the other. ‘We’ve got to go through the dark days together. It helps when you’ve got somebody.’ Oh dear, I think I have something in my eye.  In a way, their determination to carry on, even in the face of personal tragedy, exemplifies the courage of a nation whose freedom and very existence is threatened.

Yes, the book could be viewed as a propaganda piece intended to maintain public morale – there were plenty of films made during the Second World War designed to do just that – but who doesn’t need something uplifting during a time of crisis, something to raise the spirits and keep hope alive? And now that Europe faces a new aggressor, there’s something prophetic about the observation, ‘All the warnings of past years, all the unheeded prophecies, were now the facts of the moment, a nightmare made true and visible’. And I found myself agreeing with Mr Bunting’s observation, ‘It was a pity there weren’t more people like himself, particularly on the Continent. The more Buntings, the fewer Hitlers he considered’. I have a feeling there are quite a few Mr Buntings in Ukraine at the moment.

It will be pretty clear by now that I loved this book. It made me laugh, it made me cry and above all it made me marvel once again at the courage of those who lived through the Second World War and found the strength to carry on.

‘He was not brilliant, nor heroic, but there was one thing he could do – endure.’ This for me summed up the charm of Mr Bunting, the earnest, dogged and steadfast hero of this wonderful book.

In three words: Eloquent, tender, moving

Try something similar: Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther

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About the Author

Robert Greenwood (1897 – 1981) was a novelist and writer. His first novel depicted the family and working life of the eponymous Mr Bunting (1940). His next novel, Mr Bunting at War (1941), continued this story in the first two years of the Second World War. Mr Bunting at War was made into a film the following year entitled Salute John Citizen (1942), which proved tremendously popular at the box office. Greenwood’s other novel about the war was The Squad Goes Out (1943), which depicted the work of a voluntary ambulance squad during the London Blitz. Greenwood wrote eleven novels in total as well as a number of short stories, including Mr Bunting in the Promised Land (1949) which tells the story of the Bunting family in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. He died in 1981.

#BookReview A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear @AllisonandBusby

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A Sunlit WeaponAbout the Book

October 1942. Jo Hardy, an Air Transport Auxilliary ferry pilot, is delivering a Spitfire to Biggin Hill Aerodrome, when she has the terrifying experience of coming under fire from the ground. In a bid to find out who was trying to take down her aircraft, she returns on foot to the area, and discovers an African American soldier bound and gagged in an old barn. A few days later another ferry pilot crashes and is killed in the same area of Kent.

Although the death has been attributed to ‘pilot error’ Jo believes there is a connection between all three events – and she wants desperately to help the soldier, who is now in the custody of American military police. Jo is advised to take her suspicions to Maisie Dobbs.

As the psychologist-investigator delves into the case, she discovers the attempt to take down ferry pilots and the plight of the black American soldier are inextricably linked with the visit to Britain by the First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. Maisie must work with speed to uncover the depth of connection, to save the life of the President’s wife and a soldier caught in the crosshairs of those who would see them both dead.

Format: Hardback (320 pages)         Publisher: Allison & Busby
Publication date: 22nd March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime, Mystery

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My Review

A Sunlit Weapon is the seventeenth book in Jacqueline Winspear’s historical crime series featuring psychologist/private investigator Maisie Dobbs. I only discovered the series with the publication of The American Agent (book fifteen) but reading that, and the book that followed it, The Consequences of Fear, was enough to make me a firm fan.

For those new to the series, I believe A Sunlit Weapon can easily be enjoyed as a standalone. And,  although there are references to events in previous books, I don’t think that would preclude going back to read earlier books in the series (as I hope to do one day) in order to learn more about Maisie’s past. However, at this point we find her married to former US Department of Justice agent, Mark Scott, and dividing her time between her London office and the family home in Kent where she lives with her adopted daughter, Anna, her father and stepmother.

Fans of the series will be familiar with Maisie’s methodical approach to investigating the cases that come her way, often recalling the advice of her former mentor, Maurice Blanche, and carefully constructing her elaborate case maps. She possesses a keen eye for detail, has perfected the art of getting information through seemingly casual conversations, is not averse to telling a few white lies to elicit facts and is no stranger to intrepid exploration. Her background as a psychologist gives her an instinct for whether someone is telling the truth and often points her in the direction of a motive that might not be obvious to others.

Her current case sees Maisie searching for a connection between a series of rather disparate events. As she delves further, the picture becomes increasingly complex with new avenues of enquiry opening up all the time. Whenever faced with an obstacle, what motivates Maisie is a sense of responsibility towards her client and her innate sense of justice.

The war is a constant backdrop to events in which few families have been left unaffected whether that’s because of loved ones injured or killed, forced relocation or just the sheer mental strain of not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Will today be the day that dreaded telephone call or telegram arrives? As Maisie observes, ‘We’re all told we can take it, but I’m not sure we can’, wondering if in fact people have become used to death, used to absorbing the shock of loss.

One particularly interesting element of the book for me was the focus on women’s contribution to the war effort, whether as Air Transport Auxilliary ferry pilots or members of the Land Army.  As Maisie discovers not everyone approves of women taking up these roles, believing that it is not ‘women’s work’. Prejudice of another kind also runs through the book, some very close to home for Maisie, and other more institutional in nature.

As you’d expect, Maisie – with the help of her trusty assistant Billy and some string-pulling by her husband – is eventually able to put together the pieces of what turns out to be a very complicated picture. What she discovers is a chain of events which is the product of ‘manipulated minds’. Throw in some dramatic scenes, a portion of woolton pie and lashings of tea and you have another very entertaining addition to the series.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Allison & Busby via NetGalley.

In three words: Entertaining, clever, fast-moving

Try something similar: Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire by M.R.C. Kasasian

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Jacqueline WinspearAbout the Author

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Consequences of Fear, The American Agent and To Die But Once, as well as thirteen other bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels and The Care and Management of Lies, a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has also published two nonfiction books, What Would Maisie Do?, and a memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing. Originally from the United States, she divides her time between California and the Pacific Northwest.

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