Friday 9 April 2010

Great book and a great bargain.

I have just finished reading 'With the German Guns - Four Years on the Western Front' by Herbert Sulzbach.  (Pen & Sword reprint 2003 - ISBN 1 84415 019 4) 

I picked this up last year and finally started to read it last weekend.  The fact that I have finished it already says much about it's readability.

The book is essentially the author's diaries written for the folks back home and thus does not burden the reader with an excess of military technology.  Sulzbach, a 19 year old volunteer at the outbreak of war comes across as a thoroughly decent chap and seems to retain a remarkable positive outlook until the very end of the war.

To add further spice to the story it is worth bearing in mind that although the test does not cover his post WW1 career (but there is a useful biographical note), Sulzbach was forced to flee his homeland in the 1930s (he was Jewish) and was eventually to serve in the British Army in WW2.

And now to my bargain of the week.  While looking for something else entirely on Amazon the other day (actually an electric shaver for my still hospitalised father) I cam across the DVD boxed set of the splendid 'The World at War' series.  I recall this being screened in the early to mid 1970s on Wednesday nights and clearly, 35 years of wargaming later, I must acknowlege that it made a deep and lasting impression.  Anyway, you want to know how much it was!  35 hours on 11 DVDs (the original 26 episodes, 8 specials and a 3 hour 30th anniversary DVD) cost me only £17.99.  Oh yes.  I'll let you all know how well it holds up when I've had a chance to watch a few episodes.

No comments: