Brenda Maddox
The Survivors’ Tale
Children of War: The Second World War through the Eyes of a Generation
By Susan Goodman
John Murray 330pp £20 order from our bookshop
Eyewitnesses to World War II are a vanishing breed. Their value rises as the fascination with the war increases. It is noteworthy that three of the outstanding television documentaries of 2004 were devoted to retelling the fabled events of Dunkirk and D-Day. A new generation appears unable to get enough of Hitler's War and the eyewitness accounts of those who lived through it. Old soldiers never die, it seems. They simply learn to deliver a piece to camera.
Awe attaches too to those who had their youth during the war years. In the age of McDonald's-induced obesity, it is sobering and inspirational to be reminded that there were children who lived on a diet of Woolton Pie and dried egg, and did not know how to eat a
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'He is persuaded by the idea that coffee, the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world, changed 18th-century European minds, catalysing a new material rationalism.'
@ajlees on Michael Pollan's new book, 'This is Your Mind on Plants'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/never-mind-the-neurobollocks
'A publicist interviewed by Fairrie praises Collins and her heroines ... because these were "women who behaved like men". Is that supposed to be good, given how men behaved towards Collins?'
Peter Conrad reviews a new documentary about Jackie Collins.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/easy-writer
'Walk down your supermarket pet food aisle and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single brand that claims to be made with high-welfare meat. More expensive pet food should not be about spoiling our cats but about sparing the farmed beasts we feed them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/meattoo