Other Times
By (Author) Leslie Thomas
Cornerstone
Arrow Books Ltd
15th August 2000
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Second World War fiction
823.914
Paperback
512
Width 110mm, Height 178mm, Spine 31mm
270g
There are those who will think of this story as a tale from history; to others it will seem that it happened only yesterday At the start of the war in 1939 James Bevan is a junior officer approaching middle-age, attached to a small anti-aircraft unit on the south coast. Abandoned by his wife, the soldiers he command are his family- Bairnsfather, whose sexual encounters with his girl friend Muriel take place in an air-raid shelter; Cartwright, trying to keep two women on his gunner's pay of a shilling a day; Hignet, cosily educating himself in the orderly room. It is a rude awakening when they are called upon for the real war. Hugely absorbing, rich and rewarding, Other Times brims with history and experience, love, sorrow and humour.
A tour de force of imagination and storytelling... I cannot recommend it highly enough * Daily Mail *
Thomas has the rare ability to recreate the very sounds and smells and atmosphere of a long-lost world... One of the most satisfying reads in years * Daily Mail *
When it comes to telling a thoroughly good tale, dew do it better than former Barnardo boy Leslie Thomas... a surefire winner * Yorkshire Post *
Thomas, as ever, tells a cracking yarn * Mail on Sunday *
Born in Newport, Monmouthshire in 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is evoked in This Time Next Week published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a reporter, before going on to do his national service. He won worldwide acclaim with his bestselling novel The Virgin Soldiers, which has achieved international sales of over two million copies.