Goodby Cobber, God Bless You - The fatal charge of the light horse, Gallipoli, August 7th, 1915 by John Hamilton

$18.00 NZD

Category: Australia | Reading Level: very good

Voices of Gallipoli by Maurice Shadbolt

$35.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

Based on diary entries of New Zealand soldiers sent to fight the long and futile battle of Gallipoli in 1915 - during which nearly 3,000 of them died - this is an account of that tragic campaign, charting the suffering and disillusionment of those who arrived as innocent and loyal sons of the Empire. ...Show more

Home Before The Leaves Fall by Ian Senior

$25.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good

The German invasion of France and Belgium in August 1914 came close to defeating the French armies, capturing Paris and ending the First World War before the autumn leaves had fallen. But the German armies failed to score the knock-out blow they had planned. The war would drag on for four years of unpre cedented slaughter. There are many accounts of 1914 from the British point of view, and the achievements of the British Expeditionary Force are the stuff of legend. But in reality, there were only four British divisions in the field, while the French and Germans had more than 60 each. The real story of the battle can only be told by an author with the skill to mine the extensive German and French archives. Ian Senior does this with consummate skill, weaving together strategic analysis with diary entries and interview transcripts from the soldiers on the ground to create a remarkable new history. ...Show more

The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell

$30.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good

Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story by Christopher Pugsley

$35.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

Shots from The Front: The British Soldier 1914-1918 by Richard Holmes

$20.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good

A handsomely illustrated photographic account, by the bestselling author of 'Tommy' (2003), of the human experience of war as directly witnessed by British soldiers in the First World War. Richard Holmes, one of Britain's best-known military historians (and President of the British Commission of Milita ry History), has selected over 200 photographs taken for the most part by officers and men rather than by official photographers -- mostly unfamiliar ones located in archive collections, regimental museums and private sources. There will also be specially taken photographs by Mike Sheil, one of the best battlefield photographers working today. The book will deal with the whole of the British Army's experience of the First World War -- Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and so on -- and not just on the Western Front. The photographs will be grouped thematically as extended picture essays; topics include the pre-war army and mobilisation of 1914; the contribution made by nurses; medical treatment and the wounded; infantrymen and their weapons; the campaign in Mesopotamia, etc!Like 'Tommy', the book is about people rather than things, about the human experience of war rather than its strategy or tactics, and at least as much about the everyday or commonplace -- a latrine here or a plate of bully beef there -- as about the lofty or portentous. ...Show more

The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer

$8.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good

'Head bowed, rifle on his back, a soldier is silhouetted against the going down of the sun, looking at the grave of a dead comrade, remembering him. A photograph from the war, is also a photograph of the way the war will be remembered. It is a photograph of the future, of the future's view of the past. We will remember them' Relying more on personal impressions than systematic analysis, Geoff Dyer weaves a network of myth and memory that illuminates our own relation to the past. ...Show more

On My Way to the Somme: New Zealanders and the bloody offensive of 1916 by Andrew Macdonald

$14.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: good

On My Way to the Somme examines New Zealand’s role in the Somme battles of 1916. In telling the story of New Zealand soldiers who took part in the bloody offensive Andrew Macdonald has used a wide range of primary and secondary resources, most of them hitherto unpublished. The book is written through the eyes of those who were there, but it is more than a narrative. At every turn Macdonald has endeavoured to explain how and why certain events unfolded, both at a micro and macro level. He has been careful to assess the strengths and weakness of the Division’s performance on the Somme and the military lessons it drew from fighting there. His book includes studies of command, training, discipline, morale, environment, and tactics of the day. It also looks at the role of Maori in the Somme offensive, and finishes with a chapter looking at the legacy of the 1916 offensive. It is a story of human endurance, growth and suffering in the context of a WW1 battle and afterwards. Yet, it is also a military history written within a conventional framework. On My Way to the Somme is very much part of the New Zealand story and is a key to understanding who we are as a people today. "This is a very worthy addition to war books, it's well done... It's dense and detailed and written in an accessible way, plenty here for the specialised reader and plenty in detail and colour and the material that's used will pull you in. Extraordinary piece of archival research." - Speaking Volumes, National Programme "On my way to the Somme is a vividly descriptive book. It is a 'blood, sweat, and endure' book. As such it is a hard one to read but only because of the realism that Andrew Macdonald manages to capture with some quite masterly prose. It is even harder to put the book down." - The Press "He (Andrew Macdonald) evokes the emotional and material immensity of the Somme and the war splendidly, and his narrative is steadily respectful and compassionate towards the men who fill it. Bring on his second book." - Canvas, NZ Herald ...Show more

Passchendale: The Sacrificial Ground by Nigel Steel and Peter Hart

$12.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good

The Proud Tower and The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

$55.00 NZD

Category: History | Reading Level: very good

Make Her Praises Heard Afar: The Untold story of New Zealand Women in WW1 by Jane Tolerton

$25.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

The history books tell us that about 550 New Zealand nurses went to World War One while other women stayed home, knitting, fundraising and looking after families and farms while the men were away. But many women went too, as doctors and ambulance drivers, munitions workers and mathematicians, civil serv ants and servicewomen in British units, and in many other roles. They mainly paid their own fares and worked for very little. Some provided amenities for soldiers and others, and these have often been attributed to the military or men’s groups. Make her Praises Heard Afar introduces women whose contribution to the war effort has been overlooked, telling an astonishing story with extraordinary range and depth of research. The title’s use of a phrase from the national anthem invites New Zealand women to recognise that they were us, 100 years ago. New Zealand women who have read World War One books by men and about men are ready to appreciate that women were there too. This book will appeal to a wide range of women particularly those interested in women’s history, feminism and World War One. There is much interest from family members of these women and from young women. The book is written for a wide readership in simple, accessible prose. Jane is the author of a New Zealand Book Award winning biography of Ettie Rout, the New Zealand woman most associated in the public mind with World War One. She wrote a second book on Ettie in 2014, focussing on her wartime safe sex campaign, Ettie Rout: New Zealand’s safer sex pioneer. She was co-director of the World War One Oral History Archive, and interviewed 85 veterans. She produced In the Shadow of War, with Nicholas Boyack, and in 2013 listened to the whole archive to produce An Awfully Big Adventure, telling the story of the war in the men’s words, chronologically. She uses the chronological format for Make Her Praises Heard Afar, telling stories of individuals and groups through the war, using extended quotes when appropriate. There is expected to be wide interest in the book from the media as it upsets the generally accepted story and shows that New Zealand women have been left out of the national narrative of the war.  ...Show more

The Siege: The forgotten siege of Kut El Amarah, Mesopotamia 1916 - A saga of Heroism and Military Blunder, the greatest humiliation suffered by British arms between Balaklava and Singapore by Russell Braddon

$30.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good