When war was declared in September 1939, everyday life for British citizens changed almost overnight. At the time, Winifred Graville of Sheffield, a gardener, writer and speaker well known in her local area, wrote a series of letters to her American cousin in Penn Yan, New York, describing the hardships and typical daily struggles her city experienced during the Blitz. At a time when American public opinion was strictly isolationist, Winifred's cousin convinced the editor of a local newspaper to publish excerpts from 150 letters in the hope of influencing public opinion in a small way. In Letters from the Blitz, Richard MacAlpine has gathered the published letters into a fascinating collection. At times poignant, often humorous, and always beautifully written and full of detail, Winifred's letters clearly illustrate the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' attitude of the British people during that difficult time and provide an insight into wartime life.

On July 17th 1939, Eileen Alexander, a bright young woman recently graduated from Girton College, Cambridge, begins a brilliant correspondence with fellow Cambridge student Gershon Ellenbogen that lasts five years and spans many hundreds of letters. But as Eileen and Gershon’s relationship flourishes from friendship and admiration into passion and love, the tensions between Germany, Russia, and the rest of Europe reach a crescendo. When war is declared, Gershon heads for Cairo and Eileen forgoes her studies to work in the Air Ministry. As cinematic as Atonement, written with the intimacy of the Neapolitan quartet, Love in the Blitz is an extraordinary glimpse of life in London during World War II and an illuminating portrait of an ordinary young woman trying to carve a place for herself in a time of uncertainty. As the Luftwaffe begins its bombardment of England, Eileen, like her fellow Britons, carries on while her loved ones are called up to fight, some never to return home. Written over the course of the conflict, Eileen’s letters provide a vivid and personal glimpse of this historic era. Yet throughout the turmoil and bloodshed, one thing remains constant: her beloved Gershon, who remains a source of strength and support, even after he, too, joins the fighting. Though his letters have been lost to time, the bolstering force of his love for Eileen is illuminated in her responses to him. Equal parts heartrending and heartwarming, Love in the Blitz is a timeless romance and a deeply personal story of life and resilience amid the violence and terror of war.

This is the story of a dog named Blitz who changed the Rainbow Bridge forever.

Carol Harris and Mike Brown collaborate on a revised and updated edition of Blitz Diary

The historian Carol Harris has collected together a remarkable series of accounts from the war's darkest days, with heart-warming stories of survival, perseverance, solidarity and bravery, the preservation of which becomes increasingly important as the Blitz fades from living memory. War with Germany seemed increasingly likely throughout the 1930s. The British Government and the general population believed that bombs and poison gas would be dropped on civilians in major towns and cities with the aim of terrifying them into surrendering. Today the Blitz, far from breaking civilian morale, is seen as achieving the opposite; it helped galvanise public opinion to carry on fighting the war. But in 1937, preparations to protect the population were hopelessly inadequate, and the British government was far from confident that people would respond in this way.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis “One of [Erik Larson’s] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.”—Time • “A bravura performance by one of America’s greatest storytellers.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • The Globe & Mail • Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMatters On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.