VAL HENNESSY

(HarperCollins £20, 496 pp) By the time you finish this rip- roaring naval yarn you’ll be wanting to sling your hammock and start singing sea shanties.

It’s all action aboard Captain Aubrey’s 18th- century sloop: battles, floggings, cannonballs, slaughter, bilge stink, mutinous crew, weevils in the bread, soused hogs’ feet, rats, grog, the unventilated lower deck where seamen eat and sleep and hammocks slung between the guns with just 14 in of space each — not to mention the gruesome first aid performed by the sloop’s surgeon, and Aubrey playing his violin.

It’s definitely a man’s world — until they arrive in port. then it’s hoist away and all hands to the braces. terrific. (Serpent’s Tail £7.99, 96 pp) DeSPIte its short length, at only 96 pages, this stunning classic brilliantly defines what happens when people are swept up in a poisonous ideology.

Germans Max and Martin, who are friends from childhood, have been living in California.

Martin returns to Munich in 1932, leaving Jewish Max waxing nostalgic about the German culture, music and food they once enjoyed.

over two years, the affectionate tone of their correspondence slowly deteriorates as Martin starts raving about his ‘Glorious Leader’ and the birth of a new Germany. When Max demands confirmation of reported Nazi pogroms and torture, Martin forbids him — a beastly Jew — to write again.

the betrayed Max’s epistolary response is lethal. WAVE ME GOODBYE Edited by Anne Boston (Virago £9.99, 384 pp)

thIS wonderful collection of World War II stories written by women reminds us that more civilians than servicemen were killed by enemy action during the first three years of the war.

Don’t expect guns, tanks, Spitfires or front-line heroics — instead, writers describe women keeping the home fires burning ( when coal was available), coping with rationing, food queues, blackouts, frightened children, bombs, disruption, and agonising about the absent men.

they sob into their cocoa as doodlebugs roar past; a mother dons a gas mask while her toddler wails in terror; and sweethearts kiss goodbye, maybe for ever…

every story is a gem.