David Owen: My six best books
DAVID Owen, 70, was Labour Foreign Secretary and founded the SDP which he led from 1983-87. His book In Sickness And In Power: Illness In Heads Of Government During the Last 100 Years (Methuen, £25) is out now.
The Snow Goose
by Paul Gallico
Hutchinson,£12.99
This is just the most enchanting story for children and adults. It’s the tale of a girl who takes an injured snow goose to a hunchback in a lighthouse who nurses it back to health.
Birdsong
by Sebstian Faulks
Vintage, £7.99
I think Sebastian Faulks is easily the best of our modern writers and if anyone wants to get a flavour of the First World War this is the novel to read. It’s the most beautiful love story set against the backdrop of the conflict and is very evocative of those terrible times.
Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man
by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Penguin, £7.99
The best book that has been written about Dunkirk, an episode in our history that has been endlessly mythologised – and was of course portrayed at the time, at least on this side of the Channel, as a virtual victory. The truth was considerably more complex, as the author points out.
Suite Française
by Irene Nemirovsky
Vintage, £7.99
The most marvellous story about France in the Second World War. It was written in minute handwriting during the war by the author who later died in a concentration camp. But it was not published until her family rediscovered the manuscript several decades later.
A Tale of Love and Darkness
by Amos Oz
Vintage, £7.99
A childhood memory of Forties Jerusalem and the suicide of his mother by an Israeli novelist who happens to be a friend of ours. Part novel, part family memoir wrapped up in one, it’s an incredibly rich story set against a fascinating historical backdrop and is just the most fascinating and lovely book.
Five Days in London, May 1940
by John Lukacs
Yale UP £7.99
A fascinating book which reveals how Churchill persuaded the War Cabinet at a crucial moment in our history not to open negotiations with Mussolini. A move that would have left Nazi Germany in control of mainland Europe. In those five days Churchill demonstrated all his best qualities.