The Black-Out Book: One-hundred-and-one black-out nights' entertainment (General Military) - Tapa dura

"The Black-Out Book...really is something that still fulfils its purpose of helping to while away a spare moment. We may not have any air raids going on at the moment, thank goodness, but the world still has plenty of troubles and we need to be distracted from time to time to keep our heads." --Bill Purdue, Bill Purdue's Book Blog (November 2009) "The Black-out Book collects some of August's wartime-effort work. There are brainteasers, riddles, cartoons, poems, astronomy lessons, limericks, trivia, quotes, word games and other miscellany, all as presented originally, with vintage illustrations and fonts. August's style is buttoned-up British as ever, which makes the book radiate with a slight time-capsule charm." --Rod Lott, Bookgasm.com (January 2010) "As I flipped through The Black-Out Book with amusement, I still could not help it but ask myself how many war time children kept themselves occupied with the very same puzzles and games that I had just read? How many parents, while reading the limericks from this book to their children, used this book to get away from missing their loved ones on the front lines or to take their minds off of the possibility that German bombers might arrive over their cities that night?" --C. Peter Chen, World War II Database, ww2db.com (March 2010)

As the haunting air raid sirens of World War II echoed around blacked out streets, the people of London and other British cities would gather together in tube stations, tunnels, railway arches, basements and makeshift shelters at the bottom of gardens, fearful of what the night might bring from the dark skies. Here, in these cramped refuges, families and strangers would find comfort and distraction in the form of games, stories and jokes. Evelyn August brings together over five hundred games, pensées, puzzles, jokes and literary snippets which provided some amusement during the long nights of the blitz. From 'A thought for the petrol-rationed motorist' and 'Prayers of the Great' (Henry VIII, Raleigh, Plato), to 'What happened to the shilling?' and 'What to do when sleep won't come', The Black-out Book provides an insight into the pastimes and distractions sought during the blitz. Entertaining to all, nostalgic for many, what emerges in this fascinating book is the spirit and humour of the British people during the terrifying black-out nights of World War II.