Episodes:
Ep 420: 12 Days of Christmas – Warriors for the Working Day
Al reads a chapter from Warriors for the Working Day. The novel is based on events from June 1944, during the Battle of Normandy, to the invasion of Germany in the Spring of 1945. The book describes fighting by the men of a small unit of British tanks during this period, with the focus on one tank crew.
Ep 419: 12 Days of Christmas – The Narrow Road to the Deep North
James Holland reads from Richard Flannagan’s “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”, a novel that tells the story of a far east prisoner of war during the construction of the Burma Railway.
Ep 418: 12 Days of Christmas – Life and Fate
Al Murray reads chapters 1 through 6 from Life and Fate written by Vasily Grossman, an epic tale of a country told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs
Ep 418: 12 Days of Christmas – Life and Fate
Al Murray reads chapters 1 through 6 from Life and Fate written by Vasily Grossman, an epic tale of a country told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs
Ep 417: 12 Days of Christmas – Suite Francaise
James Holland reads a chapter from Suite Francaise, the title of a planned sequence of five novels by Irène Némirovsky, a French writer of Ukrainian-Jewish origin, who was tragically murdered before she could complete all five volumes.
Ep 416: 12 Days of Christmas – Sword of Honour
Al Murray reads a chapter from Sword of Honour written by Evelyn Waugh.
Ep 415: 12 Days of Christmas – The World at Night
James Holland reads a chapter from Alan Furst’s The World at Night. The novel follows the upper-class life of film producer Jean Casson during the German occupation of Paris.
Ep 414: 12 Days of Christmas – The Cruel Sea
Al Murray read a chapter from The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat. This book tells the story of the lives of a group of Royal Navy sailors fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Ep 413: 12 Days of Christmas – The Burning Blue
James Holland reads a chapter from one of his own books, The Burning Blue. This book tells the story of a small group of RAF fighter pilots who first fight in the Battle of Britain and then amid the sand and heat of North Africa’s deserts.
Ep 412: 12 Days of Christmas – Bomber
Al Murray reads a chapter from Bomber written by Len Deighton. Bomber is a fictionalised account of “the events relating to the last flight of an RAF Bomber over Germany on the night of June 31st, 1943”