{"title":"Jack Swaab","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"field-of-fire-book-jack-swaab-9780750942768","title":"Field of Fire","description":"Jack Swaab joined the veteran 51st (Highland) Infantry Division on 3 January 1943. He kept a series of diaries over the following two and a half years, recording the combination of boredom and fear that characterises active service. In mid-March 1943 he saw battle for the first time as Montgomery attacked the Mareth Line. In July that year Swaab took part in the Allied landings on Sicily, writing of the scorching humidity of the Sicilian summer. In May 1944 he records the restless time as his regiment prepared for the invasion of Normandy. In September 1944 Swaab's role changed dramatically, as he moved from commanding a troop to being a forward observation officer. His new position meant that he was working closely with the infantry in the front line. Swaab's first five months as a forward observation officer came to an abrupt end on 13 February, when he was wounded in the leg by shellfire. He was again selected for FOO duty during Operation 'Varsity', the Rhine crossing, in March 1945, and received the Military Cross.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49530384220433,"sku":"GOR001656232","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51489183006993,"sku":"GOR011209066","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0750942762.jpg?v=1750881451"},{"product_id":"field-of-fire-book-jack-swaab-9780750942751","title":"Field of Fire","description":"Jack Swaab joined the veteran 51st (Highland) Infantry Division on 3 January 1943. He kept a series of diaries over the following two and a half years, recording the combination of boredom and fear that characterises active service. In mid-March 1943 he saw battle for the first time as Montgomery attacked the Mareth Line. In July that year Swaab took part in the Allied landings on Sicily, writing of the scorching humidity of the Sicilian summer. In May 1944 he records the restless time as his regiment prepared for the invasion of Normandy.  In September 1944 Swaab's role changed dramatically, as he moved from commanding a troop to being a forward observation officer. His new position meant that he was working closely with the infantry in the front line. Swaab's first five months as a forward observation officer came to an abrupt end on 13 February, when he was wounded in the leg by shellfire. He was again selected for FOO duty during Operation 'Varsity', the Rhine crossing, in March 1945, and received the Military Cross.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49542096060689,"sku":"GOR003230058","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49635211444497,"sku":"GOR002143636","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0750942754.jpg?v=1750785308"},{"product_id":"always-a-little-further-book-jack-swaab-9781781555835","title":"Always a Little Further","description":"For the past three years, since he finished writing his children's book 'The Nine Lives Of Bella Simkins', Jack Swaab has carried round a battered leather notebook. In it, he has recorded the thoughts, memories, reflections and insights that the world around him bring to this remarkable author. It is a broad canvas that attracts his urbane and witty mind's eye-covering everything from footballers to birdsong, churchyards to ancient cricketers, boy scouts to Brexit. Some of what he writes is funny, other parts are tinged with melancholy. At times, banality, brutality or injustice stir him to the edge of anger.  Everything he writes, though, comes with the warmth, wisdom and generosity of spirit that the past 98 years have bestowed on him. It is a very different world in which he now lives, and seeing that world through the vivid lens of so many years and so rich a life brings it to life for us too in unexpected and rewarding ways.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49542358073617,"sku":"GOR010853408","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49655202644241,"sku":"GOR011073786","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1781555834.jpg?v=1751153796"},{"product_id":"slouching-in-the-undergrowth-book-jack-swaab-9781781550090","title":"Slouching in the Undergrowth","description":"At the age of 94, Jack Swaab decided to place on record his recollections of a long and richly textured life. The result, 'Slouching in the Undergrowth' is a perceptive, engaging and sometimes alarmingly frank record of a life well-lived. The early chapters of the book open a window on a childhood passed in a very different world of trams, boarding schools and seaside holidays in the twenties and thirties. Jack was sent down (rather messily) from Oxford in 1938, and spent the years before the outbreak of the Second World War living the louche life of an 'off Fleet Street' reporter. After a faltering start in the ranks, Jack's war service was distinguished. Now reflecting on those times some sixty years on, he captures in vivid detail not only his own thoughts and feelings, but the life-changing experiences of many. War ended, Jack made a career in the pioneering years of advertising.  As a sharp-suited executive, he travelled much of the world, leading to some bizarre adventures and meetings with the rich, the famous and the simply eccentric. Jack had married someone he describes as his 'unique Canadian' in 1948. At the millennium, his wife developed dementia and he became her principal carer until her death nine years later, having himself survived malaria, TB, angina and cancer. By turns witty, unflinching and fascinating, 'Slouching in the Undergrowth' is a marvellous overview of times both familiar and unknown, seen through the lens of an urbane and accomplished raconteur.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49568011649297,"sku":"GOR004186731","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1781550093.jpg?v=1751184128"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-jack-swaab.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}