Book Reviews by Gill Robins

Anyone who is familiar with Manning and Granstrom’s work will welcome this book as yet another stunning example of their meticulous research, detailed art work and highly informative text.  Each opening describes part of the story of Charles Dickens’ life, from his birth in Portsmouth via his father’s incarceration in Marshalsea debtor’s prison to the development of his career from reporter to world-famous author.
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To borrow the parlance of the texting generation, this is an lol book – every page will make you laugh out loud.  It recounts just one eventful week in the life of Archie, a week in which he leaves home to run simple errands and finds himself embroiled in one adventure after another.  He unwittingly saves his local library from closure, but only after being super glued to the door handles.

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This book is every bit as absorbing as its companion volume Tail-End Charlie.  Written in the first person, it tells the story of Mick Manning’s mother, who decided to leave her greengrocer’s job in Wales to join the WAAF, eventually becoming a listener in the Bletchley Park code-breaking team. After sixty years of silence, she now tells her compelling and very personal story. Read Full Review

Unspoken menace stalks almost every chapter of this book. A modern day version of Oliver Twist, it tells the story of brothers Emmanuel and Prince Anatole and deals with the very contemporary issues of child immigration, gun crime and street survival. The brothers find their secure lives suddenly dislocated when violence threatens their African homeland.

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Prepare for an information explosion with every turn of the page when you read Titanic, A Very Peculiar History. If you like facts, lots of facts, then this is definitely a book for you. The story of the Titanic from planning to building to sinking is told in narrative form. Interspersed text boxes provide information about everything from the design and construction of the ship to the vast quantities of food which were taken on board, the animals who travelled and those few lucky people who missed the boat and so lived to tell the tale.
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