Quiet, dutiful and shy, Princess Mary born at Sandringham on 25th April 1897, and would grow to become one of the most respected senior members of the royal family. Anyone with an interest in the Great War will surely have heard of her, and of the brass box that carries her image and her Christmas Gift Fund of 1914. Aged just 17, Mary was engaged with the London Needlework Guild, a focus of activity with her mother. A combination of her interest and empathy undoubtedly led her to desire to develop her own gift for the Sailors and Soldiers of the Empire. The book is the remarkable story of the Princess's Christmas Gift, a simple appeal to the nation which began on 16th October 1914 in the Daily Mirror the Press Notice Announcement. The appeal was designed to provide a mark of recognition of the sacrifices being made by the armed forces and some way of providing comfort to them under challenging circumstances in that first Christmas in the First World War. The contents of the gifts varied depending on the town or village who had gathered sufficient funds for the 5,481 parcels that were sent out in time for Christmas Day. Subscribers rich and poor made their donations. For example the generous parcels from the people of Nottingham contained much of value to the average man on active service. They included the inevitable Christmas plum pudding, chocolate, woollen mittens, cigarettes, booklets of greetings, plain postcards, pencils, tins of Meloids, tins of peppermints, tablets of soap, caramels, tins of boric ointment, laces, tins of dubbin, tins of Vaseline and all together no fewer than 130,844 articles were packed and despatched 'as a token of appreciation of the services of those undertaking the hardships and risking the dangers of the great conflict.' Each gift was provided with a specially produced Christmas booklet that carried the message 'With most cordial Christmas Greetings from the people of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire' together with portraits of the King and Queen, the Prince of Wales, and Princess Mary. Set against the backdrop of the Christmas Truce of 1914, the book is the first time the full story of the Princess's gift has been told. It is lavishly illustrated with surviving artefacts, archive records, letters and newspaper reports and the full contents of the gift and its many variants, the design and manufacturer of the gift box, as well as the meaning of the gift to many of its recipients. It also covers gifts for the Indian Army, nurses and non-smokers and a look at those in the Colonies and also casualties of 1914. Glamorous first edition, 320 glossy pages packed with colour and archive images.

Turing said 'If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.' Spring 1940, the Battle of the Atlantic rages. Vulnerable merchant convoys are at the mercy of German U-boats controlled by a cunning system of coded messages created by a machine called Enigma. Only one man believes that these codes can be broken - mathematician and Bletchley Park cryptanalyst Alan Turing. Winston Churchill later describe Turing's success in breaking the Enigma code as the single biggest contribution to the victory against Nazi Germany. Unheralded during his lifetime, he is now recognised as the father of modern computer science and as possessing one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Here his ground-breaking work and his private side lifts the veil of secrecy, particularly with regard to his post-war contribution to computing science with the Americans and his work as Manchester Computing Machine Laboratory. Only in 1974 was the official ban on any mention of Ultra lifted. Watched by MI5, Turing died of cyanide poisoning. A vat of cyanide was found in the 'nightmare room' between his bedroom and the bathroom, and the coroner ruled that Turing had committed suicide 'while the balance of his mind was disturbed'. Yet no evidence was given about the state of his mind and the verdict has been questioned ever since. Slim illustrated biography, New full price paperback128pp.

A moving and sombre exploration of reality under Hitler's regime. People's fight against censorship, prejudice, beatings, imprisonment and murder are recounted and celebrated as victories against the violence of the Nazi rule, from the 'free university' in Brussels which saw students and teachers setting up underground classes in the face of Nazi 'guest professors' in 1941, to the Danish underground who were unique in seeking the approval of the workers affected by their sabotage. Read about the Nazi's execution of 60,000 people in Poland who were the country's intellectual élite and political and religious leaders, lament the murder of 1,300 civilians and the decimation of two villages in Czechoslovakia after a small group of Czech rebels assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and understand further the violence of the Nazis against Dutch soldiers and workers who decided to strike against the invaders in 1943. In the end the Germans shot 180 strikers dead, wounded 400 more and arrested a further 900 who were transported to concentration and forced labour camps. This historical companion includes tragic diary extracts from Anne Frank which describe how, at any time of night or day, Jewish people were dragged out of their homes and families were torn apart. Photographs include a portrait of an unnamed French resistance fighter from Life magazine in 1944, a picture of a detachment of German troops crossing the river Vlatava in Prague on 23rd March 1939, and a snapshot of the Duke of Windsor visiting a stock factory on 11th October 1937 and sitting beside Robert Ley, whom Hitler liked to mock for his speech defect. Travel from Germany and France, to Denmark, Holland and Norway as you understand the far-reaching, tragic actions of the Nazis and how people stood up against them. Paperback, photographs, 224pp.

True stories of seduction, subterfuge and state secrets, all's fair in love at war, at least the Nazis thought so. They deployed sex like no other weapon to achieve their goal of world domination, and were prepared to go to amazing lengths to gain Allied secrets. This book contains unforgettable but little-known stories featuring the likes of Princess Stephanie Juliane von Hohenlohe, a close friend of Hitler who used her relationship with Lord Rothermere the press baron to try to encourage the Daily Mail to support the Nazis. Here are the murky secrets of the Russian Tea Room in London's South Kensington, and fashion designer Coco Chanel's plans to persuade Winston Churchill to end the war. There are cases from a time when brothels became hotbeds of bugging and blackmail and pillow talk was used to topple nations. We meet La Jana, a dancer and actress who spearheaded the Nazis' attempts to replicate Hollywood rituals, seen in a saucy shot on page 8; blacklisting, liaisons ending in unwanted children, spies like 'Vera' learning Morse code, radio transmission, microphotography and simple sabotage in Operation Hummer Nord, intelligence provided by 'Ruth' the peach of Pearl Harbor and US Naval intelligence, Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS and Swastika swishery, lesbian vices, a right royal scandal and more. 256pp in illustrated paperback.

In 1939, ever increasing numbers of budding cryptanalysts started reporting for wartime duty at a country house in north Buckinghamshire. Musicians, society debutants and novelists were among the women and tweedy, owlish young men, their heads filled with astounding equations and barely comprehensible calculations. The 10,000 men and women who worked at Bletchley Park had to sign the Official Secrets Act and they kept their vow of silence implacably for decades afterwards. Some died without the satisfaction of even their own families knowing about their crucial work breaking the German and Japanese codes. Belatedly however the secret was lifted, and now Sinclair McKay chooses a hundred of Bletchley Park's alumni to tell the stories of their whole lives, and not just the wartime interlude. Sometimes the distinction as chess players, musicians or linguists was what saw these young people selected. For others the intense intellectual crucible seems to have galvanised their ambition and widened their horizons, and sent them out into the post-war world determined to make a difference with their lives. Here then are the historians and archaeologists, novelists and naturalists, but also classics masters, a Nuremberg prosecutor and an associate of Andy Warhol - everyone from Roy Jenkins to the man who wrote the music for the Dracula films, and from the woman who saved St Pancras Station to Prince Philip's first girlfriend, and even those unfairly judged during their lives not to have amounted to much at all. 250pp, eight pages of photos.

Packaged for WH Smith, the DVD entitled Churchill: A Giant In the Century is a fascinating film using rare footage and recordings from the archives. It has been fully digitally remastered and colourised using the latest techniques available and shows Churchill's life for the first time in colour. He was a figure who bestrode the 20th century who held many political and cabinet positions including Home Secretary from 1910, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for War. However it was on 10th May 1940 when Churchill became Prime Minister and took control of Britain's war effort that he finally sealed his place in history. A soldier, an artist, historian and the only British Prime Minister to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sir Winston Churchill was also an Honorary Citizen of the United States. DVD and large softback fully illustrated booklet. 50 minutes running time.

Sub-titled 'The Great War: A Century of Remembrance' this is the story of World War One told in a pictorial magazine format covering the historic setting from Sarajevo and the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire onwards. Explains how aircraft tanks and other technology were developed for use in war and tells the story of each major battle from Mons through to Verdun and the Somme. The DVD is a silent film shot on The Somme which surrenders its secrets and reveals what happened on that fateful day. Running time approximately 50 minutes. Magazine and DVD box set.

Celebrating and commemorating 100 years of the RAF and with access to rare archives, Mike Lepine uses photographs and documents to bring the story of the people, aeroplanes and missions to life as never before. The box set includes the DVD Air Aces, a groundbreaking series that tells the story of the most heroic airborne combat missions in history. Using real vintage aircraft, the series films the impossible by recreating mid-air combat scenes and features Spitfires and Lancaster Bombers. The magazine looks at the men, women and aircraft at the heart of this great service. Fully illustrated with archive and colour photos and fact boxes for every aviation enthusiast. DVD running time 50 minutes. Magazine and DVD box set.

How did 13 isolated colonies who in 1775 began a war with Britain without a navy or an army win their independence from the greatest naval and military power on earth? The American Revolution was a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no fewer than 21 navies fighting on five oceans to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French and American history. Simultaneous naval campaigns were fought in the English Channel, the North and Mid-Atlantic, the Mediterranean, off South Africa, in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, the Pacific, the North Sea, and of course off the eastern seaboard of America. Not until the Second World War would any nation actively fight in so many different theatres. Sam Willis traces every key military event in the path to American Independence from a naval perspective and also brings this important viewpoint to bear on economic, political and social developments that were fundamental to the success of the Revolution. He offers valuable new insights into American, British, French, Spanish, Dutch and Russian history and the result is a more profound understanding of the influence of sea power upon history, the path to American Independence and the rise and fall of the British Empire. Using original logs, reports, diaries and archaeological discoveries it is the gripping tale of the birth of the New World. Colour plates, 572 page paperback.

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, the British Battle Fleet comprised ships that were only marginally different from those that had won the Battle of Trafalgar a generation earlier. By the end of her reign in 1901 their successors would have been unrecognisable to Nelson's sailors. Gone were the towering sail plans, the 'wooden walls' and large numbers of relatively small muzzle-loading guns, to be replaced by black-painted steel hulls, driven independent of the winds by steam machinery, protected with sophisticated armour, and mounting a very few large breech-loading guns firing explosive shells. The only thing unchanged was the Royal Navy's dominance of the world's oceans, seized at Trafalgar and never relinquished. How the Naval Administration coped with this unprecedented revolution in technology without losing maritime ascendancy is the theme of this latest book by Norman Friedman. He analyses the broader factors of politics, economics and international rivalry that bore down on the decision-making and explains how these influences worked through into the ships that were actually built. The result is a much deeper and more sympathetic understanding of the 19th-century Royal Navy and its warship designs. It is a well-illustrated and comprehensive gallery of photographs with in-depth captions accompanied by specially commissioned plans of the important classes by A. D. Baker, and a colour section featuring the original Admiralty draughts, including a spectacular double gatefold. 400 huge pages, 25 x 29.5cm.
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