Army life under a totalitarian regime.Black humour in abundance.This is history from an insider.The author has street cred.Sentenced to death in absentia by a Soviet army military tribunal.You can see a nexus here betweeen extreme beliefs,be they political or religious.No difference.

Massive tome following the rise to power of Hitler from Vienna vagrant to leader of the original Axis of Evil.Narrated by the author who was present in Germany for most of those years while working as an American newspaper correspondent.This dwells more on the political side than the military.You don't know what really happened until you read this brilliant account.

Chronicles Stalin's rise from street urchin of Gori to Lenin's financier[bank robber],hatchet man,protection racketeer,Central Comittee member and rival to Trotsky.Here's a self made man par excellence.Pity so many millions had to die in the process.

WARNING:VERY un P.C. Outrageous,hilarious,insightful view of current and past conflicts around the world that will have you falling about with laughter.His analysis often has a crazy logic about it.Actually a compilation of articles from the Exile website which mercilessly lampooned Russian society until sadly closed down last year by Vlad Putin.Author's real name is John Dolan.

A biography of the famous 17th century London diarist.Fascinating insight into life there at the time.Cromwell and the king,the plague,the great fire,and the diarist's sexual philandering raise a chuckle at times.

Hilarious novel combining time travel with a not so funny autiobiographical account of the destruction of Dresden,the Florence of the North,by allied bombers in an act of cultural vandalism worthy of the Nazis;not to say the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civillians in a city of no military or strategic value.

Written in the dark days of Stalin's Terror;burned and rewritten after being committed to memory [phew!]this novel escaped the censor's attention in 1967 and was published long after the author's death.Satan comes to Moscow and plays havoc with the intelligencia by various cunning yet hilarious tricks.This was actually a crypto criticism of the Stalinist system.

Three volumes in all.These are adventures as gripping as those of J R R Tolkein,the difference being they were real and not imagined.A great read by the greatest authority on the subject.

Luck played a greater role in the defeat of the Armada than most people care to admit.Fickle winds and tides,not to mention the rigid orders given by the King of Spain to his admirals,played a large part in their defeat.Drake's navy had run out of gunpowder and munitions.

About a self taught geologist,a farmer's son,who spent his life compiling a geological map of Britain:a sort of Charles Darwin of Geology.He had to fight the prejudice of not having a university degree and not being "one of us".

A crash course in vulcanology,plate tectonics,Dutch colonial history,tsunamis and what have you.

Sequel to Wars of the Roses.A murder mystery unravelled.Of course Richard 111 did it!

This was one very smart lady in a male dominated society.The nobility seemed to spend all their time either preparing for,fighting,or provoking war.I guess that's what you do when there's no television or any good books to read.

Entertaining and informative novel about the Roman aqueducts and the volcano just about to blow it's stack.Great historical novel and easy reading too.

Sequel to I Claudius."Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out",as Claudius was wont to say.

Coastal Europe lived in dread of the Barbary pirates who abducted entire towns and then ransomed or sold into slavery their unfortunate victims.Even the famous Spanish author Cervantes met this fate:the Pope himself avoided it by a hairsbreadth.

Excellent blow by blow account of the Crimean War

All you need to know about the politics of the French Revolution which devoured the aristocracy and then turned on it's own children.