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The story of the sexual revolution that brought Freud’s couch to the explosion of the 60s, and the left-field pioneer Wilhelm Reich who made it all happen.Adventures in the Orgasmatron is the untold story of the dawn of the sexual revolution in America – an illuminating, startling, at times bizarre story of sex and science, ecstasy and repression.In the middle of the 20th century, the United States became an adoptive home for dozens of expatriated European thinkers, who saw this rich, young country ripe for sexual liberation. One of the most left-field of them was the Viennese psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a disciple of Freud’s who had broken with the master. Reich’s own approach was based on his theories of the orgasm and sexual energy, which he dubbed ‘orgone energy’. Instead of the couch, he made use of a tall, slender construction of wood, metal, and steel wool, which he called the orgone box. A highly sexed man himself, Reich thought that a person who sat in the box could elevate their ‘orgastic potential’ ridding the body of repressive forces, improving sexual potency, and enhancing overall health.After World War Two, Reich’s theories caught on among writers and artists, the early adopters of the counter-culture. Norman Mailer and Saul Bellow were amongst those for whom the orgone box represented a yearned-for synthesis of sexual and political liberation, and of physical science and psychology.Meanwhile, Reich himself faced one debacle after another. Albert Einstein heard him out before rebuffing him. The FBI investigated him as a Communist sympathizer: it turned out that they were hunting the wrong man. The federal government banned the orgone box and tagged Reich as a fraud. There were claims of sexual misdeeds, and bouts of Reich’s own mental instability.This is the story of the blossoming of the 20th century’s sexual revolution, and the unshackling of a repressed society, and sex before science.

Never before have the diaries and letters of young people from all sides of World War Two been woven together to provide an account of what it was like to grow up amidst the daily struggles and horrors of this devastating war.We Were Young And At War follows the stories of sixteen teenage boys and girls who write with a disarming directness about their reactions to and experiences of a very adult war. They are British, French, American, Japanese, Polish, German and Russian, each with a unique and heart-rending tale to tell.Only two of them are alive today. Some of them fought and died in the war, others starved to death; many were separated from their families. All were forced to grow up quickly, their lives changed beyond all recognition by their experiences.This is their story.

The Guns of Navarone and its three sequels, in which the same characters are sent on other wartime missions, together in one volume for the first time to mark the 50th anniversary of the original book .THE GUNS OF NAVARONEMallory, Miller and Andrea are united into a lethally effective team. Their mission: to silence the impregnable guns set in the tall cliffs of Navarone. On their success or failure rests one of the most critical offensives of the Second World War.FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONEAlmost before the last echoes of the famous guns have died away, the three Navarone heroes are parachuted into war-torn Yugoslavia to rescue a division of partisans and fulfil a secret mission, so deadly that it must be hidden even from their own allies.STORM FORCE FROM NAVARONEThe surviving commandos are sent on a perilous journey through the Pyrenees to disable the greatest threat to the impending D-Day landings: the 'Werwolf' U-boats. But their Basque guides declare it mission impossible – D-Day is less than six days away.THUNDERBOLT FROM NAVARONESummoned back to Naval HQ, Mallory, Miller and Andrea are given a final assignment: to reconnoitre the Greek island of Kynthos and destroy the German facilities developing the lethal V3 weapon. A rocket expert is to accompany them – but can he be trusted not to turn the operation into a suicide mission?

Did Hitler’s use of unproven exotic weapons cost him the war? Were they worth the price? What effect did the V weapons have on Allied plans, morale and supplies? Roy Irons also investigates Hitler’s thirst for revenge following 1918 and his dread when Russian victories and Allied bombing began to shadow the Third Reich.Roy Irons' fascinating book investigates whether Hitler's campaign would have been a greater success if he had put fewer resources into experimental weapons of revenge such as the V-2 rocket and the V-1 Doodle-bug. Enormous resources were poured into these experimental projects, often inspired by Hitler's thirst for revenge after the collapse of Germany in 1918 and his dread of a recurrence when Russian victories and allied bombing began to cast grim and ever-growing shadows over the Third Reich. He considers such questions as what effect the bombardment really had on London's morale and on Allied supplies through the port of Antwerp? Were these weapons really worth the price? With a foreword by Professor Richard Overy and fascinating images from the Imperial War Museum and Public Record Office, this is a unique account of this key element of the Second World War.

On Platform One of Paddington Station in London, there is a statue of an unknown soldier; he’s reading a letter. On the hundredth anniversary of the declaration of war everyone in the country was invited to take a moment and write that letter. A selection of those letters are published here, in a new kind of war memorial – one made only of words.In a year of public commemoration ‘Letter to an Unknown Soldier’ invited everyone to step back from the public ceremonies and take a few private moments to think. Providing a space for people to reconsider the familiar imagery we associate with the war memorials – cenotaphs, poppies, and silence – it asked the following questions: if you could say what you want to say about that war, with all we’ve learned since 1914, with all your own experience of life and death to hand, what would you say? If you were able to send a personal message to this soldier, a man who served and was killed during World War One, what would you write?The response was extraordinary. The invitation was to everyone and, indeed, all sorts of people responded: schoolchildren, pensioners, students, artists, nurses, serving members of the forces and even the Prime Minister. Letters arrived from all over the United Kingdom and beyond, and many well-known writers and personalities contributed.Opening on 28th June 2014, the centenary of the Sarajevo assassinations, and closing at 11 pm on the night of 4 August 2014, the centenary of the moment when Prime Minister Asquith announced to the House of Commons that Britain had joined the First World War, this book offers a snapshot of what people in this country and across the world were thinking and feeling about the centenary of World War One.

What if Isaac Newton had never lived? Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley, whose place in history has been overshadowed by the giant figure of Newton, were pioneering scientists within their own right, and instrumental in establishing the Royal Society.Whilst Newton is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time, and the father of the English scientific revolution, John and Mary Gribbin uncover the fascinating story of Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley, whose scientific achievements neatly embrace the hundred years or so during which science as we know it became established in Britain. They argue persuasively that even without Newton science in Britain would have made a great leap forward in the second half of the seventeenth century, headed by two extraordinary men, Hooke and Halley.

‘I hope this letter gets to you quickly. We are always waiting, aren’t we? Perhaps the greatest gift this war has given us is the anticipation…’ It's January 1943 when Rita Vincenzo receives her first letter from Glory Whitehall. Glory is an effervescent young mother, impulsive and free as a bird. Rita is a sensible professor's wife with a love of gardening and a generous old soul. Glory comes from New England society; Rita spends her life trying to make ends meet.They have nothing in common except one powerful bond: the men they love are fighting in a war a world away from home. And they have only each other for support, hope and courage.Praise for I’ll Be Seeing You ‘Vivid and well-crafted, I’ll Be Seeing You poignantly illustrates the hopes and struggles of life on the home front. Readers will laugh, cry and be inspired by this timeless story of friendship and courage’-Pam Jenoff, bestselling author of Kommandant’s Girl’A delight! I’ll Be Seeing You made me want to get out a pen and paper and write a friend a good old-fashioned letter’ – Sarah Jio, author of The Violets of March’Original and heartfelt… Set in Word War II, yet somehow timeless, this novel is as beautifully written as it is captivating. An absolutely terrific debut. – Sarah Pekkanen, author of The Opposite of Me

Comparing and contrasting the World Wars.This will be a landmark in military history: a collaborative venture between historians from 20 different countries addressing every aspect of the two world wars. The scope of the book is enormous. From frontline combat to civilian experience, women and children in wartime, genocide etc.1. The Face of Battle2. Leadership in the wars3. Civilians in the wars4. National experiences5. Cultural impact6. Moral experience7. Reflections

The stories and secrets behind BBC television’s most-loved show. The official companion to series 1 and 2, as well as the forthcoming Christmas special.The Life and Times of Call the Midwife takes you behind the scenes of the small-screen sensation that has brought to life Jennifer Worth’s experiences as a midwife among the slums and buzzing dockyards of London’s East End in the Fifties.Find out how Fifties fashions, make-up and homes were flawlessly recreated. Discover the hidden secrets of the nurses and nuns of Nonnatus House and what flavour cake ruled in the kitchen when war-time rationing finally came to an end. Immerse yourself in a world that’s been fondly revived to celebrate a glimpse of history that, like today, has childbirth at its heart.

An epic, ambitious and page-turning mystery that will appeal to fans of The Shadow of the Wind, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and The Time Traveller’s WifeLondon, 1896. Andrew Harrington is young, wealthy and heartbroken. His lover Marie Kelly was murdered by Jack the Ripper and he longs to turn back the clock and save her.Meanwhile, Claire Haggerty rails against the position of women in Victorian society. Forever being matched with men her family consider suitable, she yearns for a time when she can be free to love whom she choses.But hidden in the attic of popular author – and noted scientific speculator – H.G. Wells is a machine that will change everything.As their quests converge, it becomes clear that time is the problem – to escape it, to change it, might offer them the hope they need…

An amazing collection of eyewitness accounts of the British experience in World War II. First-hand narratives are drawn from every rank of the army and every corner of the conflict to create a moving and illuminating story of the greatest war of this century.Fascinating, moving, frightening, sometimes comic, this selection of eyewitness accounts has been edited into chronological order to form a magnificent oral history of the British and Commonwealth forces at war.We follow some 60 interviewees from the Army, RAF and Navy from 1939 to the Battle of Britain, the Desert War, the fall of Singapore, the Italian campaign, D-Day, to the occupation of Germany and the war in Burma. We hear from fighter pilots, nurses, gunners, commandos, Chindits and paratroopers. Their experiences on land, sea, in the air…and in some cases as prisoners of the Germans or Japanese are unique testimony from some remarkable men and women.

The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrún, and the Fall of the Nibelungs.“Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published for the first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closely related poems to which he gave the titles The New Lay of the Völsungs and The New Lay of Gudrún.“In the Lay of the Völsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness.“In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. In the Lay of Gudrún her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers the Niflung lords, and her hideous revenge.“Deriving his version primarily from his close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as the Poetic Edda (and where no old poetry exists, from the later prose work the Völsunga Saga), J.R.R. Tolkien employed a verse-form of short stanzas whose lines embody in English the exacting alliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.”– Christopher Tolkien