Further reading

There have been scores of books published about the London Blitz and the experiences of the people who lived through it. This is a selection of some of the most recent ones.

Forgotten voices of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain: a new history in the words of the men and women on both sides by Joshua Levine (Ebury Press, 2006) hardback £19.99.
Drawing material from the Imperial War Museum's extensive aural archive, Joshua Levine brings together voices from both sides of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain to give us a unique, complete and compelling picture of this turbulent time. With first-hand testimonies from those involved, from 'Black Saturday' on 7 September 1940, when the Luftwaffe began the Blitz, to its climax on 10 May 1941, this is the definitive oral history of a period when Britain came closer to being overwhelmed by the enemy than at any other time.
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World's End: a memoir of a Blitz childhood by Donald James Wheal (Century, 2005) hardback £12.99.
Best-selling author Donald James grew up in World's End, Chelsea, during the Blitz years. Just on the edge of a fashionable middle class world, his childhood experience was in stark contrast to the privileged, bourgeois lifestyle glimpsed a few hundred yards away. Yet though it was hard, Donald's was a happy childhood until the war came. Soon his world would be torn apart, however, by school drills with gas masks and evacuation plans, evacuation itself then an uneasy return to London just as the Blitz itself began and the nights were spent in terror as bombs rained down.
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The longest night: voices from the London Blitz by Gavin Mortimer (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) hardback £18.99.
Gavin Mortimer's account of the bloodiest night of the London Blitz, as it reached its violent conclusion on 10-11 May 1941, assembles a mountain of material and interviews with scores of survivors in a gripping and exhaustive account.
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Blitz: the story of 29th December 1940 by M J Gaskin (Faber and Faber, 2005) hardback £16.99.
The image of St Paul's on the night of 29 December amid clouds of black smoke immediately became the ultimate symbol of Britain's Blitz defiance. But the reality of this 'Second Great Fire of London', in all its unprecedented destruction and indomitable humanity, is almost lost amid myth and counter-myth. In this vivid and immediate work of historical storytelling, Margaret Gaskin tells the true story of London's desperate hours.
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