Many parts of this book are laugh-out-loud funny, and I was inclined to trust that it was an autobiography for a while, but eventually the disbelief could no longer be kept in supense.

One story in particular had me puzzled: if we're to believe John C Masterman and others, all German agents in Britain during WW2 were detected and in many cases turned by the British authorities. In Kington's book though, his father is lured into spying for the Germans for a while.

Anyway, if you like his other work you'll find this up to his wonderfully inventive standard.

It's not a bad book. It describes in some detail who fought who where and (to some extent) why. But the maps are woeful! It's impossible to study the actions unless you have a good quality atlas at your elbow. Better maps would have earned it another star in my rating.

Update: After I wrote this review, I realised that the maps in Alan Clark's "Barbarossa" are much better, even if the detail in his book is trumped by the release of Russian archival material over the past forty years. So, the answer is to read the Glantz book with "Barbarossa" open beside it.

A noted Civil War historian has infamously suggested that we don’t need any more books on Gettysburg (apologies if I’ve misreported you Gazza, but I haven’t seen any clarification of those comments yet). Well, if the people at Savas Beatie had listened to him, we’d have missed out on two splendid books in the last year – Eric Wittenberg and J D Petruzzi’s “Plenty of Blame to Go Around” and Brad Gottfried’s “The Maps of Gettysburg” – both of which have helped this Civil War enthusiast to better understand this most famous of all battles.

Brad is well known in the Civil War community, having written five books, including “The Brigades of Gettysburg”, and the maps book is a credit to him and his publisher. He has 144 detailed full-page maps, each with an accompanying page of text and they together describe the campaign from its beginning on June 3 1863 to the final escape of Lee’s troops on 14 July. Add to that comprehensive endnotes and a fine bibliography and you have a book that will complement any Gettysburg collection.

I’ll be packing it for my next visit to the Burg.

He's teased a few myths and some research out into a full-sized book, and he's mostly succeeded. It's an interesting read and you'll come across quite a few little bits of useful information along the way. You'll also find some misinformation - relating to Nelson's role and to the War of 1812 - but overall, it's worth reading.

Boy, can that man write! HAS takes a simple issue (just exactly how did the famous Confederate battle cry sound?) and wanders all over the place, talking to experts and to people with just an opinion to offer, trying to get a handle on what those darned Rebels sounded like. My favourite part is the description of his visit to Gettysburg - or was it Nottingham?

Eric Wittenberg and J D Petruzzi have written a summary of Stuart's ride to Gettysburg and the ongoing debate since then about whether he was right or wrong and whether it made any difference to the outcome of the great battle.

While partisans of all sides will still find plenty of room to argue their conclusions (I think they've been much too lenient on General Lee, for instance) they'll be bound to admire the scholarship that Eric and JD have brought to the subject.

At a time when some Civil War luminaries have suggested that there is no more to be written (you know who you are, Gary) a book like this shows that there's always a chance that a fresh look and an intelligent eye can bring forth a worthwhile addition to any Civil War library.

I quite like Michael Green's writing and will often return to his books for a re-read.

Not this one.

The trouble he encounters is enough to put you off moving (or building) for life.

It's well-written, but (to me) bleak.

My Dad wrote this, and one of the big projects he was working on just before he died was an update for the Club's 75th anniversary. The concept of Surf Life Saving is an Australian invention that's been adopted and adapted in other countries, and it's also something that has changed a lot since the time that Maurie became involved in the late 40s.

At that time, boys took the opportunity of getting away from home for the weekend, living in the club houses and doing their patrols. Their experiences created a generation of volunteers, many of whom were happy to give back to the organisation their time and energy as a way of saying "thanks".

This memoir of Palm Beach should be an inspiration for the current batch of life savers. I hope they read it and appreciate the history of the club.

I first became aware of this project a few years ago, when Fred Shapiro started asking questions about quotations on Stumpers-L (now Project Wombat). When the book finally appeared last year, I was pleased to see that he not only acknowledged the help given the by the list and the individuals who'd provided leads and information, he'd also added many annotations (see the entry for John Sedgwick). In its general form, this is similar to the other canonical books of quotations, but he's added a lot more and included many contemporary references.

Gavin Lyall had three phases in his life as a fiction writer. First, he wrote a series of thrillers (usually about aviation) starting with "The Wrong Side of the Sky" in 1961. In 1980 with "The Secret Servant" he introduced the four Harry Maxim novels about an Army security expert attached to 10 Downing Street. His final series began in 1993 with this book, and told the story of the birth of the modern British Secret Service, centred around an unlikely agent called Matthew Ranklin.

Ranklin is a likeable but troubled character, not very confident in his work and unsure about the morality of the way the Service operates but quick in thought and deed. In Corinna Finn, Lyall has given us another of his attractive and smart heroines, and doesn't neglect to describe her outfits in his usual detail.

The plot is perhaps a little too fast-paced but is just believable (thanks to Corinna's connections), and was clearly designed to lead into the others in the series. It's pity that he could only manage four of these books, but then who knows - he may have taken off in yet another direction.