Because it’s the holidays, I’m reading Bill Fanning’s Death Rays and the Popular Media, which proves that there are far more death ray stories out there than I’d ever dreamed, from many countries and by many more hands. Some of these death rays were purely fictional, but many others were supposedly grounded in fact. It’s
Richard Griffiths. What Did You Do During the War? The Last Throes of the British Pro-Nazi Right, 1940-45. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2017. Billed as a sequel to Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933-9 (1983), which is one of my favourite history books. It is indeed pretty much a
A bit of aerial theatre from Dan Todman’s (excellent) Britain’s War: Into Battle, 1937-1941: Newton Abbot, Devon, February 1941. The town is holding its War Weapons Week to promote the National Savings movement. It has been set the aim of increasing savings by £100,000 during seven days. To publicize the event, local organizers arrange a
Peter J. Beck. The War of the Worlds: From H. G. Wells to Orson Welles, Jeff Wayne, Steven Spielberg and Beyond. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. A history of the novel, its context and its influence, mixing in biography, literary and film (and radio) criticism as well. Takes in everything from the London
