Matthew haz a new book!

April 23, 2013 • 8:30 am

Matthew Cobb has posted many times on this site, and I wanted to call attention to his new book—the third from his pen—that has just been published in the UK by Simon and Schuster.  Here’s the cover:

Nice cover photo, eh? And there’s lots of great photos inside.

There’s no U.S. deal yet, but interested readers in the U.S can still buy it (see below)! I recommend it, especially for WWII or Liberation buffs, as it’s a colorful story that draws heavily on first-person accounts. I read it in manuscript (and suggested some changes), and was deeply absorbed.

In a review by Max Hastings, The Sunday Times said: “The final days of the German occupation of the French capital are vividly captured in this fine account of death and deliverance” (full review here, but behind a paywall).

You can buy the book from Amazon.com here (Kindle only) and both hardback and e-book from Amazon.co.uk here (other booksellers are available – you might check the details on Amazon and then order it at your local bookstore!). U.S. readers can order from amazon.co.uk.

There’s also a website associated with the book, elevendaysinaugust.com, where you can find pictures of the dozens of diarists who were used to tell the story, as well as film and radio recordings from the time. A short promotional video will be on YouTube soon.

US readers can now pre-order Matthew’s previous book, The Resistance, here. And don’t forget his earlier book, The Egg and Sperm Race, on how 17th-century scientists figured out the way human reproduction works. That’s another good read!

Matthew is a scientist and a dean at Manchester, has a family consisting of spouse, two daughters, and two cats, teaches, does research, and manages to write books completely unrelated to his profession. I don’t know how he does it, but I’ll have what he’s having!

13 thoughts on “Matthew haz a new book!”

  1. I am getting it for little brother, so that is one sale. But I have to somehow get Matthew to sign it!

  2. Bloody hell – a military historian. I read Max Hasting’s review on Sunday in the ST and saw the name but I didn’t – for obvious reasons – associate the author with OUR Matthew Cobb!

  3. Had no idea. This period is right up my street and I have read nothing that covers the liberation of Paris in detail. Good to see the book got off to a fine start on amazon UK with an informative 5* review.

    I think that there is a biological connection too, in that Jaques Monod was very high up in the resistance and Francois Jacob returned to Paris very soon after the liberation, although I’m not sure if he was involved in it.

    1. And Frédéric Joliot-Curie chucking molitov cocktails ….

      Anthony Bevoir’s book on post-war Paris is OK – nice chunk on the Liberation. Read some stuff by MRD Foot (SOE in France).

      Hasting’s makes an astute point in his review that there has – and probably won’t be – an official French history of the war and that the best books are by Anglo-American historians. There was a major rumpus that the seminal film – Le Chagrin et Le Pitie caused in France when it was released. It is forgotten that Petain made a triumphal entry into Paris in April 1944 (2 months before D-Day)

      http://www.wat.tv/video/petain-paris-avril-1944-gcnj_2gesv_.html

    2. François Jacob, who just died this past Sunday aged 92, was actually one of the few who left France for London on June 21, 1940, to fight with the Free French Forces. He later recounted that it was Pétain’s defeatist speech on June 17 that enraged him. Pétain at the time was a hero to most French people.
      He fought the entire war as a medical officer: Dakar; with Leclerc’s troops in Gabon (November 1940); Tchad; the Desert Campaigns of Fezzan, Tripolitania and Tunisia, where he was seriously wounded; again with Leclerc’s newly-formed 2nd Tank Division since August 1943, he was badly wounded (more than 80 shell splinters) on August 8, 1944, at Mortain, after the landing in Normandy. His war wounds were such that he partially lost the use of an arm, which crushed his youth dream of becoming a surgeon. Thus, his war wounds were indirectly responsible for his entering the Pasteur Institute and embarking on a research career. He was awarded the Croix de la Libération and served as the penultimate Chancellor of the Ordre de la Libération, 2007-2011.

      Jacob’s maternal grandfather, Albert Franck, was the first French Jew to rise to the grade of général de corps d’armée, a matter of familial pride with François Jacob.

  6. One of my dad’s biggest regrets. He was in Patton’s 3rd Army and they were outside of Paris hoping to march through in a victory parade. They had fought hard to get there but never allowed to enter the city, at least his unit wasn’t. It was a moment of history (though he was just interested in the ladies, I think) that he was denied participation in.

  10. Congratulations Matthew, I enjoy your guest posts very much; and I will buy your book when it becomes available in the US. (I have a huge stack of books waiting already, so no need for me to rush.)

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