In February 1945 the Allies obliterated Dresden, the 'Florence of the Elbe'. Explosive bombs weighing over 1,000 lbs fell every seven and a half seconds and an estimated 25,000 people were killed. Was Dresden a legitimate military target or was the bombing a last act of atavistic mass murder in a war already won?\nFrom the history of the city to the attack itself, conveyed in a minute-by-minute account from the first of the flares to the flames reaching almost a mile high - the wind so searingly hot that the lungs of those in its path were instantly scorched - through the eerie period of reconstruction, bestselling author Sinclair McKay creates a vast canvas and brings it alive with touching human detail.\nAlong the way we encounter, for example, a Jewish woman who thought the English bombs had been sent from heaven, novelist Kurt Vonnegut who wrote that the smouldering landscape was like walking on the surface of the moon, and 15-year-old Winfried Bielss, who, having spent the evening ushering refugees, wanted to get home to his stamp collection. He was not to know that there was not enough time.\nImpeccably researched and deeply moving, McKay uses never-before-seen sources to relate the untold stories of civilians and vividly conveys the texture of life in a decimated city. Dresden is invoked as a byword for the illimitable cruelties of war, but with the ever-lengthening distance of time, it is now possible to approach this subject with a much clearer gaze, less occluded with the weight of prejudice in either direction, and with a keener interest in the sorts of lives that ordinary people lived and lost, or tried to rebuild.\nFrom general and individual morality in war to the raw, primal instinct for survival, through the seemingly unstoppable gravity of mass destruction and the manipulation of memory, this is a master historian at work.\n'Extraordinary . . . a remarkably faithful account' Guardian on The Secret Life of Bletchley Park\n'Painstakingly researched and fascinating' John Harding, Daily Mail on The Secret Listeners\n'Lucid, well-researched and rich in detail' John Preston, Daily Mail on The Spies of Winter\n'Fascinating, riveting, unsettling, and wonderfully rich in period detail' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday on Mile End Murder

Dresden

McKay, Sinclair

VIKIN

Meeting Churchill: A Life in 90 Encounters

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

VIKING

A Times/Sunday Times Book of the Year\n'Powerful . . . there is rage in his ink. McKay's book grips by its passion and originality. Some 25,000 people perished in the firestorm that raged through the city. I have never seen it better described' Max Hastings, Sunday Times\nIn February 1945 the Allies obliterated Dresden, the 'Florence of the Elbe'. Explosive bombs weighing over 1,000 lbs fell every seven and a half seconds and an estimated 25,000 people were killed. Was Dresden a legitimate military target or was the bombing a last act of atavistic in a war already won?\nFrom the history of the city to the attack itself, conveyed in a minute-by-minute account from the first of the flares to the flames reaching almost a mile high - the wind so searingly hot that the lungs of those in its path were instantly scorched - through the eerie period of reconstruction, bestselling author Sinclair McKay creates a vast canvas and brings it alive with touching human detail.\nAlong the way we encounter, among many others across the city, a Jewish woman who thought the English bombs had been sent from heaven, novelist Kurt Vonnegut who wrote that the smouldering landscape was like walking on the surface of the moon, and 15-year-old Winfried Bielss, who, having spent the evening ushering refugees, wanted to get home to his stamp collection. He was not to know that there was not enough time.\nImpeccably researched and deeply moving, McKay uses never-before-seen sources to relate the untold stories of civilians and vividly conveys the texture of contemporary life. Dresden is invoked as a byword for the illimitable cruelties of war, but with the distance of time, it is now possible to approach this subject with a much clearer gaze, and with a keener interest in the sorts of lives that ordinary people lived and lost, or tried to rebuild.\nWriting with warmth and colour about morality in war, the instinct for survival, the gravity of mass destruction and the manipulation of memory, this is a master historian at work.\n'Churchill said that if bombing cities was justified, it was always repugnant. Sinclair McKay has written a shrewd, humane and balanced account of this most controversial target of the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign, the ferocious consequence of the scourge of sm' Allan Mallinson, author of Fight to the Finish\n'Beautifully-crafted, elegiac, compelling - Dresden delivers with a dark intensity and incisive compassion rarely equalled. Authentic and authoritative, a masterpiece of its genre' Damien Lewis, author of Zero Six Bravo\n'Compelling . . . Sinclair McKay brings a dark subject vividly to life' Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent\n'This is a brilliantly clear, and fair, account of one of the most notorious and destructive raids in the history aerial warfare. From planning to execution, the story is told by crucial participants - and the victims who suffered so cruelly on the ground from the attack itself and its aftermath' Robert Fox, author of We Were There

Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness

History

Europe

Penguin Books, Ltd.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Go behind the scenes of Bletchley Park, where everyday men and women risked everything for Queen and Country. A remarkable look at day-to-day life of the codebreakers whose clandestine efforts helped win World War II Bletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School—and the site where Germany’s legendary Enigma code was finally cracked. There, the nation’s most brilliant mathematical minds—including Alan Turing, whose discoveries at Bletchley would fuel the birth of modern computing—toiled alongside debutantes, factory workers, and students on projects of international importance. Until now, little has been revealed about ordinary life at this extraordinary facility. Drawing on remarkable first-hand interviews, The Secret Lives of Codebreakers reveals the entertainments, pastimes, and furtive romances that helped ease the incredible pressures faced by these covert operatives as they worked to turn the tide of World War II.

The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park

Penguin Publishing Group

Someone must have known what happened to Matilda Hacker. For someone in that house had killed her. So how could the murderer prove so elusive?&nbsp; Standing four storeys tall in an elegant Bloomsbury terrace, No. 4, Euston Square was a well-kept, respectable boarding house. But beneath this genteel Victorian London veneer lay murderous intrigue. On 9 May 1879, the body of a former resident, Matilda Hacker, was discovered by chance in the coal cellar. The ensuing investigation - led by Inspector Charles Hagen, rising star of the recently formed CID - stripped bare the dark side of Victorian domesticity. In this true-crime story, Sinclair McKay meticulously&nbsp;evaluates the evidence in first-hand sources. His gripping account sheds new light on a mystery&nbsp;that eluded Scotland Yard. 'With the gusto of a penny dreadful, Murder at No. 4 Euston Road dodges any stodgy courtroom testimony that can weigh down true crime stories and sticks to the juicy details. It is hard to avoid the comparison with Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher&nbsp;and it has similar historical richness and plot twisting...' The Spectator &nbsp; 'Sinclair McKay is an accomplished and talented author with a rare skill...&nbsp;True crime fans and history buffs will enjoy this book, coming away with an enthralling true crime story and a new knowledge and understanding of Victorian London.' Crime Traveller &nbsp; 'Gripping, gothic and deeply poignant'&nbsp;Mail on Sunday &nbsp; 'A meticulously researched book'&nbsp; - Brian Viner, Daily Mail &nbsp; &nbsp;

Murder at No. 4 Euston Square: The Mystery of the Lady in the Cellar

Aurum Press

<div>Pit your wits against the brilliant minds of Scotland Yard and see if you have what it takes to solve dozens of the world's toughest crimes.</div> <div> </div> <div>"Scotland Yard" conjures up so much more than just London's Metropolitan Police. Since it opened its doors in 1829, Scotland Yard has been synonymous the world over with the highest level of detective work and famous for its ability to solve the most macabre of murders and catch the most audacious of thieves.</div> <div> </div> <div>The Scotland Yard Puzzle Book mines the history of this famous institution to recreate some of the most complex conundrums its detectives have ever faced. Armchair detectives can now try their hand and keen powers of observation and deduction to solve for themselves dozens of the most difficult and challenging cases.</div> <div> </div> <div>Activities include:</div> <div> <ul> <li>Anagrams and cryptograms</li> <li>Logic, linguistic, and mathematical puzzles</li> <li>Map puzzles</li> <li>Coded and visual puzzles</li> <li>Brainteasers</li> <li>Hidden messages</li> <li>And more (answers are provided in the back of the book)!</li> </ul> </div>

Scotland Yard Puzzle Book

Humor & Entertainment

Puzzles & Games

Black Dog Leventhal

A gripping work of narrative nonfiction recounting the history of the Dresden Bombing, one of the most devastating attacks of World War II.
On February 13th, 1945 at 10:03 PM, British bombers began one of the most devastating attacks of WWII: the bombing of Dresden. The first contingent killed people and destroyed buildings, roads, and other structures. The second rained down fire, turning the streets into a blast furnace, the shelters into ovens, and whipping up a molten hurricane in which the citizens of Dresden were burned, baked, or suffocated to death. 
Early the next day, American bombers finished off what was left. Sinclair McKay’s The Fire and the Darkness is a pulse-pounding work of history that looks at the life of the city in the days before the attack, tracks each moment of the bombing, and considers the long period of reconstruction and recovery. The Fire and the Darkness is powered by McKay’s reconstruction of this unthinkable terror from the points of view of the ordinary civilians: Margot Hille, an apprentice brewery worker; Gisela Reichelt, a ten-year-old schoolgirl; boys conscripted into the Hitler Youth; choristers of the Kreuzkirche choir; artists, shop assistants, and classical musicians, as well as the Nazi officials stationed there. 
What happened that night in Dresden was calculated annihilation in a war that was almost over. Sinclair McKay’s brilliant work takes a complex, human, view of this terrible night and its aftermath in a gripping book that will be remembered long after the last page is turned.

The Fire and the Darkness: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945

St.Martin's Press

Sinclair McKay's portrait of Berlin from 1919 forward explores the city's broad human history, from the end of the Great War to the Blockade, rise of the Wall, and beyond. Sinclair McKay's Berlin begins by taking readers back to 1919 when the city emerged from the shadows of the Great War to become an extraordinary by-word for modernity--in art, cinema, architecture, industry, science, and politics. He traces the city's history through the rise of Hitler and the Battle for Berlin which ended in the final conquest of the city in 1945. It was a key moment in modern world history, but beyond the global repercussions lay thousands of individual stories of agony. From the countless women who endured nightmare ordeals at the hands of the Soviet soldiers to the teenage boys fitted with steel helmets too big for their heads and guns too big for their hands, McKay thrusts readers into the human cataclysm that tore down the modernity of the streets and reduced what was once the most sophisticated city on earth to ruins. Amid the destruction, a collective instinct was also at work--a determination to restore not just the rhythms of urban life, but also its fierce creativity. In Berlin today, there is a growing and urgent recognition that the testimonies of the ordinary citizens from 1919 forward should be given more prominence. That the housewives, office clerks, factory workers, and exuberant teenagers who witnessed these years of terrifying--and for some, initially exhilarating--transformation should be heard. Today, the exciting, youthful Berlin we see is patterned with echoes that lean back into that terrible vortex. In this new history of Berlin, Sinclair McKay erases the lines between the generations of Berliners, making their voices heard again to create a compelling, living portrait of life in this city that lay at the center of the world.

Berlin: Life and Death in the City at the Center of the World

This insightful portrait of Winston Churchill delves beyond well-known political moments, incorporating perspectives from various individuals who encountered him throughout his life. From Bletchley Park codebreakers and Hollywood stars such as Charlie Chaplin, through writers as varied as H. G. Wells and P. G. Wodehouse, to the likes of Harold Wilson, Mahatma Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth II, these lesser-known interactions reveal glimpses of the man behind the legend. We meet Churchill the exuberant schoolboy thug with an early mania for bull-dogs, and Churchill the elder statesman shedding a tear in the House of Commons smoking room. Other incidents include a young journalist rudely dismissing a call from Churchill as a prank, and a visiting Dwight D. Eisenhower dreaming of being strangled, only to awake entangled in Churchill's borrowed nightshirt. The book showcases the profound transformations during Churchill's lifetime, which ran from Benjamin Disraeli's premiership to the release of the Rolling Stones' 'Route 66', and the shift from steam to atomic power. Examining controversial aspects of his legacy, this multifaceted portrait challenges preconceived notions, inviting readers to reconsider the complexities of Churchill.

Penguin

Behind the celebrated code - breaking at Bletchley Park lies another secret...The men and women of the 'Y' (for Wireless') Service were sent out across the world to run listening stations from Gibraltar to Cairo, intercepting the German military's encrypted messages for decoding back at the now - famous Bletchley Park mansion. Such wartime postings were life - changing adventures - travel out by flying boat or Indian railways, snakes in filing cabinets and heat so intense the perspiration ran into your shoes - but many of the secret listeners found lifelong romance in their far - flung corner of the world. Now, drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving veterans, Sinclair McKay tells their remarkable story at last.

The Secret Listeners: The Men And Women Posted Across The World To Intercept The German Codes For Bletchley Park

Leaders & Notable People

ReadHowYouWant

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McKay, Sinclair. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McKay, Sinclair

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McKay, Sinclair. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Dresden

Meeting Churchill: A Life in 90 Encounters

Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness

The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park

Murder at No. 4 Euston Square: The Mystery of the Lady in the Cellar

Scotland Yard Puzzle Book

The Fire and the Darkness: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945

Berlin: Life and Death in the City at the Center of the World

Meeting Churchill: A Life in 90 Encounters

The Secret Listeners: The Men And Women Posted Across The World To Intercept The German Codes For Bletchley Park