Golden age of aviation and friendships forged in the trenches: cracking author evenings coming up from Hungerford Bookshop

Our brilliant indie, Hungerford Bookshop, knows how to host great author events and the first of this year have landed, so make sure you mark up your diary.

Last year they introduced us to new authors and brought in some big names - and sometimes, over time, one becomes the other.

”Author events are a great way to bring people together to learn more about a book - its genesis, its themes, its spotlight/exploration of an event in time - and of course to meet the author too: to ask your questions and take away a signed copy.,” says the bookshop’s co-owner Emma Milne-White.

Wine or a soft drink is nearly always included as well as a discount off the book.

The first two cracking events, at Hungerford Town Hall, will be:

On February 12 (7pm), Alexander Norman talking about his history book Captain de Havilland’s Moth - Tales of High Adventure from the Golden Age of Aviation.

It is, says the bestselling author of Mosquito Rowland White, “full of extraordinary people, evocative places and jaw-dropping adventures.”

The first flight of the DH60 Moth marked the beginning of a flying craze that gripped a war-weary world. Many early Moth enthusiasts were uber-privileged - the Prince of Wales had one, as did his brother, while Beryl Markham who had affairs with them both, learned to fly in one.

But Laura Ingalls, who did 980 successive loops in hers, Aspy Engineer, the Indian schoolboy who won the Aga Khan Trophy and Amy Johnson, the typist from Hull, who flew to Australia showed that, to be a pilot, you didn’t need to be a superhero or super wealthy.

In Captain de Havilland’s Moth, Alex Norman brings to life an astonishing cast of characters whose courage, determination and epic eccentricity capture the drama of flight in its formative years.

Alexander Norman is a bestselling author whose recent biography of the Dalai Lama was translated into 13 languages. A keen pilot himself, his family is steeped in aviation history.

As someone who has flown hundreds of hours as pilot in command in Moths, there is no-one better qualified to write about the world’s most iconic light aircraft.

After the talk, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and get a copy of the book signed (£3 off RRP).

Then, on March 1 (7pm) Barney Campbell discusses his new novel with Hampshire freelance writer and experienced literary events interviewer Rebecca Fletcher.

The Fires of Gallipoli is a heartbreaking portrayal of friendship forged in the trenches of the First World War.

Edward Salter is a shy, reserved lawyer whose life is transformed by the outbreak of war in 1914. On his way to fight in the Gallipoli campaign, he befriends the charming and quietly courageous Theodore Thorne.

Together they face the carnage and slaughter, stripped bare to their souls by the hellscape and only sustained by each other and the moments of quiet they catch together. Thorne becomes the crutch whom Edward relies on throughout the war. When their precious leave from the frontline coincides, Theo invites Edward to his late parents’ idyllic estate in Northamptonshire.

Here Edward meets Thorne’s sister Miranda and becomes entranced by her. Edward escapes the broiling, fetid charnel-house of Gallipoli to work on the staff of Lord Kitchener, then on to the Western Front and post-war espionage in Constantinople. An odd coolness has descended between Edward and Theo.

Can their connection and friendship survive the overwhelming sense of loss at the end of the war when everything around them is corrupted and destroyed?

Go to the bookshop’s website https://hungerfordbookshop.co.uk/ to book your tickets.