Simon Parkin

The triumphant story of a small group of female volunteers who, alongside a retired British naval captain, devised a winning strategy to defeat the Nazi U-boats and deliver a decisive victory in the Battle of the Atlantic By 1941, Winston Churchill had come to believe that the outcome of World War II rested on the battle for the Atlantic. Operation Raspberry, or "The Game," was devised by Captain Gilbert Roberts and a group of eight WRENS (Women's Royal Naval Service) assigned to his team in an attempt to stop the devastating success of the German U-boats and turn the tide of World War II. Played on a linoleum floor divided into painted squares, model ships were moved across this make-believe ocean in a manner reminiscent of the childhood game, Battleship. Combining rich novelistic accounts with extensive research and interviews, Simon Parkin describes for the first time the role that women played in developing the Allied strategy which won World War II. Told with unforgettable cinematic detail and larger-than-life characters, A GAME OF BIRDS AND WOLVES is a heart-wrenching story of ingenuity, dedication and perseverance, bringing to life the incredible sacrifice required to defeat the Nazis at sea.

The Young Women Who Played to Win World War II

A Game of Birds and Wolves

What makes video games so compelling, comforting and irresistible to the human mind?

Tales of Obsession from the Virtual Frontline

Death by Video Game

""The finest book on video games yet. Simon Parkin thinks like a critic, conjures like a novelist, and writes like an artist at the height of his powers--which, in fact, he is."--Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. On January 31, 2012, in an internet cafe on the outskirts of New Taipei City, Taiwan, 23-year-old student Chen Rong-yu was found dead at his keyboard while the video game he had been playing for three days straight continued to flash on the screen in front of his corpse. As Simon Parkin reconstructs what happened that night, he begins a journey that takes him around the world in search of answers: What is it about video games that inspires such tremendous acts of endurance and obsession? Why do we lose our sense of time and reality within this medium, arguably more than any other? And what is it about video games that often proves compelling, comforting and irresistible to the human mind? In Death by Video Game, Simon Parkin meets the players and game developers at the frontline of virtual extremism, including the New York surgeon attempting to break the Donkey Kong world record; the Minecraft player three years into an epic journey toward the edge of the game's vast virtual world, and the German hacker who risked prison to discover the secrets behind Half-Life 2. A riveting and wildly entertaining look at the impact of video games on our lives, Death by Video Game will change the way we think about our virtual playgrounds"--

danger, pleasure, and obsession on the virtual frontline

Death by video game

Phaidon Editors

India Block

The Video Game Revolution

Game Changers

A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp

Island of Extraordinary Captives

*An OBSERVER, TABLET, NEW STATESMAN and GUARDIAN SATURDAY MAGAZINE "Books of 2022" pick * The police came for Peter Fleischmann in the early hours. It reminded the teenager of the Gestapo's moonlit roundups he had narrowly avoided at home in Berlin. Now, having endured a perilous journey to reach England - hiding from the rampaging Nazi thugs at his orphanage, boarding a Kindertransport to safety - here the aspiring artist was, on a ship bound for the Isle of Man, suspected of being a Nazi spy. What had gone wrong? In May 1940, faced with a country gripped by paranoia, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the internment of all German and Austrian citizens living in Britain. Most, like Peter, were refugees who had come to the country to escape Nazi oppression. They were now imprisoned by the very country in which they had staked their trust. Painstakingly researched from dozens of unpublished first-hand accounts and previously classified documents, The Island of Extraordinary Captives tells, for the first time, the story of history's most astonishing internment camp and of how a group of world-renown artists, musicians and academics came to be seen as 'enemy aliens'. The Island of Extraordinary Captives is the story of a battle between fear and compassion at a time of national crisis. It reveals how Britain's treatment of refugees during the Second World War led to one of the nation's most shameful missteps, and how hope and creativity can flourish in even the most challenging circumstances.

A True Story of an Artist, a Spy and a Wartime Scandal

The Island of Extraordinary Captives

Examines the evolution of video games, chronicles the history of gaming, and profiles key titles across all platforms.

Simon Parkin

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