Slightly Better Books
Author Focus:John Winton
Humorous novels about the navy!
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| John Winton | ||
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****Hyperlinked titles will take you to our copy on sale or prebuilt searches of copies on sale****
Useful Links: Titles to Look Out For: About the Author: |
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 1988, Maritime Books, hbk In stock, click image above to buy for £12.00, not including post and packing Alternative online retailers to try: Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Alibris Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Biblio |
Storyline: "An intelligent man," the President of the Admiralty Interview Board tells the other members, "never makes a good naval officer. He embarrasses everyone." They nod and eighty cadets in brand new uniform are plunged into a strange and uncomfortable world inhabited by such characters as the destroyer captain Poggles, who anchors his ship with the aid of brewers' signs, and dislikes cadets; Captain Sir Douglas Mainwaring Gregson, Bart., who breeds red-setters and ignores cadets; and Able Seaman Froggins, who lives a malevolent, hermit-like life in the darkness of his locker and thinks all cadets are as wet as scrubbers. Their training is more comprehensive than they expect. They scrub decks in the early morning and repel the advances of amorous Spanish barmaids by night. They paint the ship's side and play cricket against a West Indian team, the ground, the crowd and a calypso steel band. They sail boats and quell a revolution in Central America. All who love the sea and who enjoy adventure will love this, John Winton's first book! |
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 2004, Maritime Books, hbk In stock, click image above to buy for £15.00, not including post and packing Alternative online retailers to try: Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Alibris Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Biblio |
Storyline: 'To succeed in the Navy, you've got to humour madmen,' Paul Vincent explains to Michael Hobbes when they meet again for the first time since they left H.M.S. Barsetshire, the Cadet Training Cruiser. Both have long since finished their training and are now Lieutenants just appointed to H.M.S. Carousel, a cruiser on the Far Eastern Station, an unusual ship whose shape has been changed so often that even Jane's Fighting Ships has despaired of her. In the trooper Michael and Paul come to close quarters with those strange but allied species - the Army and the R.A.F. They also meet a very old acquaintance, Carousel's new First Lieutenant, none other than Lieutenant Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C.,R.N., known throughout the Navy as The Artful Bodger. The Bodger is still a man of resource. He demonstrates how to deal with impertinent Army officers who ask him to play deck games under a broiling afternoon sun and how to run a children's fancy dress party in circumstances which would have made a full admiral blench. H.M.S. Carousel has a varied commission. Her officers entertain everyone from the Borneo chief who offers to shrink the Chief Steward's head free of charge to the boffins who designed Miranda (the super-intelligent secret weapon who takes charge of her own trials). Michael and Paul meet again Freddie Spink, by now the uncrowned King of Hong Kong's night life, and George Dewberry, living the life of a Shogun of Old Japan on suki yaki and explosive rice wine, surrounded by geisha girls. Meanwhile, the Bodger is on top form. He settles accounts with the American destroyer, Hiram K. Salt, arranges a Damage control exercise which leaves its mark on the ship, and rides an elephant back to the oddest tea party he has ever attended |
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 2004, Maritime Books, hbk In stock, click image above to buy for £25.00, not including post and packing Alternative online retailers to try: Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Alibris Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Biblio |
Storyline: "We Joined the Navy" and "We Saw The Sea" have firmly established John Winton as one of the UK's leading humorists. His new novel plunges readers into the mysterious and often hilarious life of submariners. When H.M.S. Seahorse, the Navy's newest, fastest and most expensive submarine left the builder's yard, there were naturally some fierce arguments inside the Submarine Service about who was to be her first captain and consternation when a newcomer was appointed. Described by Admiral Submarines as 'some passed-over bum whom nobody's ever heard of,' he was Lieutenant Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C., R. N., otherwise known as The Artful Bodger. But the Bodger is undismayed. With the most variegated ship's company that ever put to sea, he sets to work to give Seahorse a worthy reputation - all the way from the famous merchant city of Oozemouth, where they show the flag until they drop, to the Equator, where they carry out an original series of geophysical experiments. During the international fleet exercise "Lucky Alphonse", they grapple with the frigate captain Black Sebastian, the renegade submariner who has become the arch-fiend of anti-submarine tactics, and visit the South American republic of SanGuana d'Annuncion where The Bodger and Gotobed make motor-racing history. "This country," said the Commander-in-Chief, Rockall and Malin Approaches, after exercise "Lucky Alphonse," "is no better equipped to defeat a determined submarine attack than a swarm of locusts." When one of the submarines is H.M.S. Seahorse, the Admiral has a point |
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 2004, Maritime Books, hbk In stock, click image above to buy for £12.00, not including post and packing Alternative online retailers to try: Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Alibris Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Biblio |
Storyline: Since the days of Admiral Rous, the liaison between the Senior Service and the Sport of Kings has been a long and an honourable one. Slow horses have contributed just as much as fast women to the downfall of many a good naval man, and officers and men together have probably paid as much money into the Ring as most other classes of society. It is therefore surprising that one very distinguished naval officer, none other than Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C., R.N., known throughout the Navy as The Artful Bodger, should reach a ripe age knowing less than a Hottentot about flat-racing. The Bodger's startling debut on the Turf coincides with his appointment as Assistant Director of Naval Public Relations at the Ministry of Political Warfare. His immediate junior officer, George Dewberry, is left a racehorse (Battlewagon, a 2-year-old-grey grandson of Airborne out of a Hyperion mare) and The Bodger soon finds himself struggling to keep his feet in two strange worlds: the world of high-powered public relations, and the colourful world of the Turf. Somehow (The Bodger never manages to discover how), the two worlds merge, and one morning, he has to face the appalling fact that his future naval career depends upon Battlewagon's performance on the racecourse. Gambling everything on one chance, The Bodger attempts the most spectacular publicity coup of the century - an assault upon the highest pinnacle of the Turf, the Blue Riband of the Epsom Derby |
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 2004, Maritime Books, hbk In stock, click image above to buy for £15.00, not including post and packing Alternative online retailers to try: Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Alibris Click here to access our prebuilt search for this title on Biblio |
Storyline: 'There comes a time in every bachelor naval officer's life when he starts to lean a bit towards the champagne and the confetti. This is a hard fact of life learnt by Lieutenant Dagwood Jones, R. N. when H.M.S. Seahorse, the Navy's latest submarine arrives at a shipyard in the fine old mercantile city of Oozemouth for a long refit. Dagwood is determined not to take a wife, but the ladies of Oozemouth have other ideas; and they are not alone. Moving behind the personalities, the tensions, (and the strikes) of the great shipyard of Harvey, McNichol & Drummond, controlling events with a fine Greek hand, is the genial but Machiavellian figure of the Admiralty Liaison Officer in Oozemouth, Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C., R.N., otherwise known as The Artful Bodger. Once The Artful Bodger begins to take an interest in his affairs, Dagwood is damned - to matrimony... |
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