If you’ve ever looked inside the first few pages of a book, you’ll almost certainly have seen a bar code and a long number beginning with 978 . Most readers skim past it and plenty of first-time authors barely give it a thought. But that number, the ISBN, matters far more than people realise. So, what is  an ISBN? An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a unique identifier for a specific edition of a book. Like a fingerprint for your book. Every format needs its own I

In September 1916, Harry Farr, a private soldier in the British Army, was executed by firing squad for desertion on the Western Front. His case is one of the most thoroughly documented among those later associated with the term “Shot at Dawn.” It has become central to discussions about how psychological trauma was understood and acted upon during the First World War. Harry Farr: A Soldier's Journey Harry Farr enlisted in 1914 and served on the Western Front during a time mar

My great Grandfather Jack, Ted's Cousin When I first began writing about Ted — my great-grandfather’s cousin who was executed in 1916 and later pardoned — I knew the journey would involve difficult truths, military history, and some painful family discoveries. What I didn’t expect was the practical challenge of working with private letters written by researchers in the 1980s , whose words had become part of our family’s archive. Among the papers handed down through the genera

At the last minute I grabbed my Grandad’s photo album of Second World War pictures to take with me to the Milton Keynes Indie Book Fair. I thought it might make an interesting focal point for my table and would help to showcase his war diaries, Air Raids and RAF Days , which were published this year. John Teague was just sixteen when he began writing those diaries. He first served in Civil Defence in London, helping to re-home those bombed out during the Blitz, and later join