Achtung Schweinehund: A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat

(Paperback)

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Description

A brilliantly funny and nostalgic look at 1960s and 70s childhood as well as a more serious examination of boy's (and some men's) obsession with war.

ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND is about men and war. Not real war but war as it has filtered down to us through toys, comics, games and movies. It is about blokes who spend their leisure time dressing as Vikings, applying transfers to 1/32nd scale plastic models of armoured personnel carriers or re-fighting El Alamein with stacks of cardboard counters. Take a journey into a darkened backroom where HG Wells, a secret service assassin and the Bronte sisters rub shoulders with men called Dave who can identify 376 different WW2 camouflage patterns; a world where the apparent polar extremes of masculinity - brutal violence and the obsessive desire to memorise code numbers and create acronyms - co-exist peacefully in an atmosphere rich with the hallucinogenic fumes of polystyrene cement, cellulose thinners and bright orange corn-based snack foods. ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND is a book for any man who can't smell enamel paint without thinking of the Airfix 8th Army set, watching Rat Patrol, reading Battler Briton and playing Escape From Colditz.

Reviews

His war-obsessed childhood is so warm and funny and true you might be tempted to hug yourself with delight - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

'Funny, perceptive ... Pearson has you laughing throughout with guilty recognition. You learn a lot of quirky facts and a fair bit of military history from this endearing memoir - SUNDAY TIMES

He has a very good line in comedy - DAILY MAIL

A funny, perceptive book about men and their ineradicable love of war ... Harry Pearson has you laughing throughout with guilty recognition - Christopher Hart, SUNDAY TIMES

Author Bio

Harry Pearson is a journalist and writer who contributes regularly to the GUARDIAN, GQ and WHEN SATURDAY COMES

Author Location: Hexham, UK.

THE FAR CORNER / RACING PIGS AND GIANT MARROWS / A TALL MAN IN A LOW LAND/ AROUND THE WORLD BY MOUSE (0 316 85733 5)