The Secret Annexe - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841956708 ISBN 13: 9781841956701

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2005

Synopsis

The Secret Annexe brings together (in their own words) the stories of the men and women who have endured wartime life. By turns horrific and comic, the entries retain the candid intimacy that is the particular preserve of the diarist. From the colourful band of contributors - Davy Crockett, Anne Frank, Josef Goebbels, Virginia Woolf, Che Guevara, Anais Nin, Florence Nightingale, Samuel Pepys and Salam Pax to name a few - Irene and Alan Taylor have forged an unprecedented insight into what has been described as 'the most exciting and dramatic thing in life' and 'the universal perversion': war.

About this title

Review:

The Assassin's Cloak was a treasury to return to at random. The same can be said of The Secret Annexe. Smuggled in to this selection is the telling suggestion that, even in wartime, life goes on. War may be an inferno, but the human comedy prevails. * * Observer * * The writers are mere flotsam on the tides of war. Their words are subjective, partial, personal, sometimes prejudiced, and occasionally mundane. But taken together and spanning centuries of warfare, they are the very stuff and substance of human experience. * * The Times * * This is a wonderful anthology. Imaginatively compiled and thoroughly edited. The Taylors have a sharp eye for revealing detail and a sense of humour, so that the awesome and tragic are balanced by the humdrum and quirky. * * The Herald * * A triumph in which the full range of human emotions associated with war is laid bare before us. -- Alexander McCall Smith

Synopsis:

From the team that edited the bestselling The Assassin's Cloak which has sold over 90,000 copies to date The wartime experiences of over 100 diarists from around the world Published to coincide with Remembrance Day Third party promotion in conjunction with the British Legion under discussion The Secret Annexe brings together - in their own words - the stories of the men and women who have endured wartime life. By turns horrific and comic, the entries retain the candid intimacy that is the particular preserve of the diarist. From the colourful band of contributors - Davy Crockett, Anne Frank, Josef Goebbels, Virginia Woolf, Che Guevara, Anais Nin, Florence Nightingale, Samuel Pepys and Salam Pax to name a few - Irene and Alan Taylor have forged an unprecedented insight into what has been described as 'the most exciting and dramatic thing in life' and 'the universal perversion', war.

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1841956708
• ISBN 13: 9781841956701
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 696
• Editor: Taylor Alan, Taylor Irene