Achtung Schweinehund!: A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat

Description

Now in B format. A brilliantly funny and nostalgic look at 1960s and 70s childhood as well as a more serious examination of boys' (and some men's) obsession with war This is a book about men and war. Not real conflict but war as it has filtered down to generations of boys and men through toys, comics, games and movies. Harry Pearson belongs to the great battalion of British men who grew up playing with toy soldiers - refighting World War II - and then stopped growing up. Inspired by the photos of the gallant pilot uncles that decorated the wall above his father's model-making table, by Sergeant Hurricane, Action Man and Escape from Colditz, dressed in Clarks' commando shoes and with the Airfix Army in support, he battled in the fields and on the beaches, in his head and on the sitting-room floor and across his bedroom ceiling. And thirty years later he still is. ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND! is a celebration of those glory days, a boy's own story of the urge to play, to conquer - and to adopt very bad German accents, shouting 'Donner und Blitzen' at every opportunity. A tale of obsession, glue and plastic kits, this is the story of one boy's imaginary war and where it led him.

Harry Pearson is a journalist and writer who contributes regularly to the GUARDIAN, GQ and WHEN SATURDAY COMES. Author Location: Hexham, Northumberland THE FAR CORNER / RACING PIGS AND GIANT MARROWS / A TALL MAN IN A LOW LAND (978 0 316 85733 8)/ AROUND THE WORLD BY MOUSE (+ 349 11206 0)

'His war-obsessed childhood is so warm and funny and true you might be tempted to hug yourself with delight' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Funny, perceptive ... Pearson has you laughing throughout with guilty recognition. You learn a lot of quirky facts and a fair bit of military history from this endearing memoir' SUNDAY TIMES 'He has a very good line in comedy' DAILY MAIL 'A funny, perceptive book about men and their ineradicable love of war ... Harry Pearson has you laughing throughout with guilty recognition' Christopher Hart, SUNDAY TIMES 'Funny, scourgingly honest and sometimes affecting ... even more fun than Escape from Colditz' Mark Simpson, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'A gloriously hilarious account of how much fun it can be to play war games' Michael Gove, THE TIMES 'A fascinating document of an unusual life' OBSERVER 'A witty and engaging book' Nicholas Tucker, INDEPENDENT 'Will set the blood coursing through the veins of countless fans of comics celebrating fictional wartime heroes' Christopher Matthew, DAILY MAIL 'So warm and funny and true you might be tempted to hug yourself with delight' Marcus Berkmann, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Offers keen historical interest, cracking trivia and a vital sense of self-awareness as he discusses his peers on the gaming scene' Peter Watts, TIME OUT 'An intimate, vivid and hilarious biography' Andy Milne, HERALD 'This spiffing, biffing book will reload the memory banks for generations of kids who formed the make-believe cadet section of the Home Guard and were still flushing out Germans from behind the bikeshed more than 20 years after the Second World War ended' Aidan Smith, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY