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Daunt Books Children's Short Story Competition 2013

Western Europe

• France
• Benelux
• Germany
• Austria
• Switzerland

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  The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  A book of monumental importance that should need no introduction. This edition contains an excellent foreword by Elie Wiesel, author of the equally seminal 'Night'.

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  Love & Louis XIV by Antonia Fraser

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  A thorough, enjoyable account of the romantic conquests of the Sun King.

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  Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser

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  An acclaimed exploration of her life, this impeccably researched biography takes great sympathy with its subject without submitting to bias. Less stylish than Zweig's but perhaps more informative.

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  Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder

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  Simultaneously grim and uplifting, Funder's spirited attempt to come to terms with the GDR is exquisitely rendered. Blending the stories of those who suffered under the regime with both historical context and personal reflection, this is an excellent piece of work.

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  The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gaugin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles by Martin Gayford

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  An engaging account of the historic meeting between France's greatest artistic duo, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin, in the late 19th century.

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  Mozart by Peter Gay

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  In this excellent addition to the Penguin Lives series Peter Gay provides a cogent account of the maestro's life and a fresh assessment of his legacy. Readable yet scholarly, this is not to be missed by anyone with a passing interest in Mozart.

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  Americans in Paris by Charles Glass

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  A lively and detailed account of the lives of the American writers, artists, intellectuals and black jazz musicians living in Paris under Nazi occupation.

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  The Arcanum by Janet Gleeson

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  Surprisingly compelling, Gleeson's account of the 18th Century alchemist Johann Frederick Bottger and his startling discovery of the recipe for porcelain is both impeccably researched and wildly readable. Bottger's formula for 'white gold' was so coveted that he became embroiled in a world of treachery, thievery and murder, making for a story that is truly stranger than fiction.

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  The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh by Vincent Van Gogh

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  Although less beautiful than the 6 volume edition from Thames and Hudson, this Penguin publication of Van Gogh's letters is easier to travel with and certainly more affordable. His letters offer a wonderful insight into the troubled mind of one of the greatest artists of any age.

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  Tulipmania by Anne Goldgar

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  Goldgar dismantles the popular myth of the speculative fever that gripped Dutch merchants and nobles in the 1630s, when bulbs (often non-existent) changed hands at extortionate prices on an hourly basis. With impeccable research she shows that 'Tulipmania' was far less dramatic than has been suggested, and far more interesting, reflecting as it did the deep anxieties of Dutch society in the Golden Age.

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  Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik

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  "A conscientious, scrupulously savvy American husband and father meets contemporary France, and fireworks result". So said John Updike, who was smitten by this excellent collection of essays, as were we.

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  Two Vagabonds in Languedoc by Jan Gordon & Cora J. Gordon

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  The Gordons were a travel-writing sensation in the 1920s, their numerous books filled with charming, evocative descriptions and illustrated with delightful line drawings. This wonderful account of their time in the tiny village of Najac rings with wit and affection and remains highly entertaining nearly 100 years on.

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  Mourjou: The Life and Food of an Auvergne Village by Peter Graham

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  Each chapter of this marvellous book is dedicated to typical food from the Auvergne with recipes, descriptions of the countryside and Peter Graham's travels through it.

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  Peeling The Onion by Gunter Grass

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  As intoxicating as his finest fiction, Grass's memoir leads us through his modest Danzig youth, his soldiering days, and the feverish writing of 'The Tin Drum' in Paris. Though its publication was overshadowed by controversy surrounding the author's confessions of Nazi affiliation, this is an important and exquisitely constructed work of recollection.

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  Templars by Michael Haaq

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  A well-written and well-researched history of the Knights Templar from their formation in 1095 to protect pilgrims on the journey to Jerusalem, until their dissolution in 1314 and the myths that have remained.

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  The White Spider: The Ascent of the Eiger by Heinrich Harrer

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  One of the great mountaineering accounts, this extraordinary tale recounts the first successful climb of the Eiger's North Face. An essential classic.

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  Lourdes by Ruth Harris

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  A balanced and well-researched exploration of the history of Lourdes and its religious and secular significance in French society.

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  All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings

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  A vast canvas of a book that incorporates thirty-five years of research on the Second World War. Hastings describes the course of events during the war, but focuses chiefly upon human experience, which varied immensely from campaign to campaign, continent to continent.

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  Overlord by Max Hastings

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  Based on eyewitness accounts and contemporary documents, Hastings has rewritten the accepted history of Operation Overlord - the plan to free Europe from German occupation. From both Allied and German perspectives, it comes the nearest to a comprehensive account of the D-day landings and the following campaign.

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  The Invention of Paris by Eric Hazan

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  A riveting history of the city's hidden corners, its triumphs, decay and political posturing; with vivid descriptions of his favourite arrondissement, cafes and beggars.

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  A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

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  Papa's memoir of 1920s Paris, when he was one of many impoverished ex-pat writers wringing the city for inspiration, is sensuous and vivid despite his famously restrained prose style. Joyce, Pound, Stein and the Fitzgeralds all feature in what is one of Hemingway's most enjoyable books.

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  The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert

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  This brilliant account of the spectacular events that brought Napoleon to power blends lucid storytelling with rigorous detail. Concise and accessible, it will suit a newcomer to the subject perhaps daunted by the scale of Simon Schama's 'Citizens'.

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  How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism by Eric Hobsbawm

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  A brilliant, and timely, reassessment of capitalism's most vigorous and eloquent enemy.

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  Millennium by Tom Holland

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  A rollicking, compelling and informative history of the 1,000 years after the Romans left Western Europe up until the Norman Conquest.

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  Footsteps by Richard Holmes

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  A truly marvellous book which recounts Richard Holmes' journey through France and Italy following in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson, Shelley, Mary Wolstonecraft and Wordsworth. Holmes combines travel writing, biography and memoir with astonishing success.