A grand historical melodrama that views the Second World war through the eyes of an American family; the first volume begins in mid-1939 and ends with the US poised on the brink of Pearl Harbor, the second takes them to the war’s end.

A grand historical melodrama that views the Second World war through the eyes of an American family; the first volume begins in mid-1939 and ends with the US poised on the brink of Pearl Harbor, the second takes them to the war’s end.

Based on real historical events and characters, Barker’s books deal with the emotional and mental trauma suffered by those who served in the First World War, an often-overlooked element of the war experience.

Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time—he keeps re-living his experiences in the Second World War, as well as jumping ahead in time to where he is kept by aliens in a zoo.

Deighton weaves a masterly tale of a Lancaster crew’s final raid over Germany during the Second World War.

Cornwell is a prolific historical novelist best known for his Sharpe series, which deals with the exploits of a British soldier in Wellington’s army.

Along with 1984, Brave New World is the masthead of dystopian fiction, worlds created to explore what makes a good social order and how best to achieve it.

Often viewed as a reaction against Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which treated African cultures as if undifferentiated and ‘primitive’, Achebe presents the beauty and complexity of Ibo culture and tradition.

This memoir of the twilight days of the British Empire in India serves as the background to a young subaltern’s transformation into a professional soldier.

Written by a former Marine officer and set in 1969, the novel deals with a Marine company as it builds, abandons and then painfully retakes a hilltop firebase near the Laotian border.