Blitz Daughters By Dr. Hildegard Edge & Ms. Hildegard Gartman Our connection to the outside world is ensured by a direct line to the Main Airraid Warning Headquarters in Posnan. Like the other watchtowers scattered across the new German Gau on both sides of the Warta Rivera, our mission is to observe the skies, report airplanes and airplane sounds. For half a year we have carried these orders out faithfully. That's over. Alert and fearful, we now stand at our post on the last day of the year nineteen hundred forty-four. Gazing at the heavens has become incidental. A disaster from the air? Absurd. We know very well that the danger is approaching across the wide plain which stretches eastward at our feet, that it threatens to overrun us. Anxiously, we stare at the unite landscape, day after day, night after night, until our eyes are swimming, until we are snowblind.

From the author of Learning to Lose, David Trueba's new novel about a young Spanish architect's affair with an older German woman. Blitz is a romantic tragicomedy that recounts the exploits of Beto, a young architect who heads to Munich with his girlfriend to take part in a landscape-planning competition. In an instant, a text message Beto wasn't meant to receive shatters him, leaving him bewildered and heading nowhere. But unintentionally he falls into the arms of Helga, an older woman, in a cross-generational encounter that is the heart of the tale. With sensitivity and biting wit, Trueba crafts a story of errant souls and lost loves, humorously critiquing male narcissism, all the while showing us that in this modern age it is more important than ever to appreciate every moment and embrace intimacy when luck allows it, no matter from where.

The mass evacuation of children and new and expectant mothers during the Second World War is well documented. But over fifty per cent of children were not evacuated during the War, and it is these young people who offer an unrivalled view of what life was like during the bombing raids in Britain’s cities. In Blitz Families Penny Starns takes a new look at the children whose parents refused to bow to official pressure and kept their beloved children with them throughout the War. As she documents family after family which made this difficult decision, she uncovers tales of the deprivation, criminality and disease of life in the city and, conversely, the surprising relative emotional and physical wellbeing of those who lived through the Blitz compared to their evacuee counterparts. Because of their unique position at the heart of the action, these forgotten children offer us a priceless insight into the true grit and reality of the Blitz.