BookPick Category
BookPick: A Home on the Rolling Main
Posted on May 31, 2014 Leave a Comment
[To leave a comment or reply go to box at the end of the page] I always enjoy naval memoirs and Tony Ditcham’s has to be among the most engaging I’ve read recently. From first joining the Royal Navy in 1940 until the end of the campaign against Japan, Ditcham was in the front line […]
BookPick: Warship 2014
Posted on May 20, 2014 1 Comment
[To leave a comment or reply go to box at the end of the page] The 36th edition of this annual maintains well-established standards of scholarship, research, news and reviews from the field of warship history. It features in-depth articles on a range of diverse subjects including a detailed technical description of the very large […]
BookPick: The Sloop of War 1650-1763
Posted on May 1, 2014 1 Comment
[To leave a comment or reply go to box at the end of the page] Ian McLaughlan’s splendid book is the first study in depth of the Royal Navy’s vital, but largely ignored small craft – the sloop of war, like Kydd’s beloved Teazer. In the Age of Sail they were built in huge numbers […]
BookPick: The Gathering Storm
Posted on April 16, 2014 4 Comments
[To leave a comment or reply go to box at the end of the page] This year sees the 75th anniversary of the start of the Second World War. Many excellent books are being published on various aspects of this terrible conflict and from time to time I’ll highlight some of these in BookPick, beginning […]
BookPick: A Century of Sea Travel
Posted on March 7, 2014 Leave a Comment
[To leave a comment or reply go to box at the end of the page] Christopher Deakes and Tom Stanley are well qualified as authors of a book such as this. Deakes worked for many years as a shipping agent and over the years amassed a large collection of shipping postcards. Stanley’s background is as […]
BookPick: Britain Against Napoleon
Posted on January 30, 2014 1 Comment
[To leave a comment or reply go to box at the end of the page] I have Roger Knight’s scholarly The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson on my reference shelves and certainly consulted it, along with others, for my book VICTORY. Now he’s come up with a broader work – […]
BookPick: England’s Medieval Navy
Posted on January 17, 2014 Leave a Comment
[To leave a comment or reply go to box at the end of the page] I guess we’re all accustomed to think of England in terms of Shakespeare’s ‘precious stone set in a silver sea,’ safe behind its watery ramparts with its naval strength resisting all invaders. To the English of an earlier period – […]
BookPick: British Naval Power in the East
Posted on January 4, 2014 1 Comment
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] Another in the fine scholarly offerings from Boydell Press on the French and Revolutionary wars period. When war broke out with France in 1793, the threat of a renewed French challenge to British […]
Navies: three books, three centuries
Posted on November 27, 2013 Leave a Comment
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] An enticing selection of review copies of books arrived in my postbag recently, all from Seaforth. Each very different but together spanning three centuries, celebrating people and ships of the world’s navies, predominantly […]
BookPicks for Christmas
Posted on November 12, 2013 3 Comments
[To leave a comment go right to the end of the page and just enter it in the ‘Leave a Reply’ box] Books make great Christmas gifts and I’ve chosen twelve to recommend for Santa’s sack. Some classics, some discoveries – and all have a maritime connection of some kind… Broadsides By James Davey and […]
Julian Stockwin 