Hidden Gems: The Blackout Book

September 25, 2009 12:00 AM

For the last couple of weeks I have been toying with the idea of setting up a few regular blog threads... and this is one of them, my pick of a hidden gem of a book that some of you might have missed. The idea is to pick out a book, give you a bit of background info on it, a sneak preview into it, and a bit of inside knowledge about how the book came into existance, and any interesting anecdotes that cropped up while we were putting the book together.

I know that a lot of Osprey readers tend to stick to their favourite two or three series (I'm the same, Fortress, New Vanguard and the Elite Tactics books are always my favoured series), so I am going to try and pick out a book that I think might tempt you out of your usual comfort zone - whilst at the same time giving you a bit of an insight into how things work behind the scenes in the bustling Osprey HQ here in Oxford.

So here we go!

The first hidden gem that I am going to reveal to you is a book due to come out next month - The Black-out Book

Now, this is a bit of an odd choice for this new feature - partly because it is focussed more on social history than our regular fare. The Black-out Book is a book of fun, games, puzzles and stories that was originally published in Britain during the Second World War. It was put together to provide families with a distraction during the hours spent in bunkers, shelters and tube stations during the Blitz.

It is a bit like a 1940s version of the Dangerous Book for Boys - except that it is designed for the whole family - and it is quite astounding how some of the games and puzzles included in its pages are still such great fun. In a world dominated by TV and videogames, this is taking family entertainment right back to basics.

My favourite bits of the book are the 50 or so "You can't black-out the stars" features, which I think are so indicative of the spirit of the British public at the time. The whole of London plunged into darkness? No problem, look on the bright side - now you can see all of the stars. The other night I took an early advance copy of the book home - went out into the field behind my house and did a spot of star gazing - and was able to pick out a dozen or so of the constellations shown in the book before I got too cold and had to nip back inside for a warming cuppa!

Here is a glimpse of the kind of stuff that you can expect from the Black-Out Book!

And last, but not least...a bit of inside gossip about this book.

Every now and then when we a trying to design a cover for a book we run into a small problem. All the people in the UK will like a cover - but our crack US team will hate it. Or vice-versa. It is no secret that book covers that work in one country just don't press the same buttons in another country - and The Black-out Book was one of these where we simply couldn't come up with a middle ground. So we decided to have two covers for this book - one for the North American market...and one for the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.

We have done this a couple of times before with some of our books. We did it for our espionage book The Enemy Within, and for our book Military Misdemeanours.

North American Cover

UK Cover

North American Cover

UK Cover

We went a step further with a more recent book - giving it both a different cover and a different title in the US, giving us a book called Fighting Talk in the UK and Sticklers Sideburns and Bikinis in the US!

UK Cover and title

US Cover and title

Normally when we have a book with two covers I always end up with a favourite...wishing that we had used the same cover in all of our territories, but with the two covers that we have put together for Black-out Book I really can't decide. The UK version is clean and punchy, but the US version has that sort of Dangerous Book for Boys sense of nostalgia and fun about it. Either way though, a few of these are going to find their way into some Christmas stockings this year!

UK Cover

North American Cover

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