The Secret Annexe : An Anthology of War Diarists

War infects everything it touches. For everyone, whether combatant or not, it is the most testing of times, when the old certainties and moral imperatives cannot be guaranteed. Life hangs by a gossamer thread and many people who would otherwise not keep diaries feel the need to record what they see, feel and do.

The Secret Annexe takes its title from the hiding place Anne Frank and her family found refuge in during the Second World War, and which the young Frank envisioned she might in the future entitle a novel based on the diary she kept.

Frank's diary, and all of those included in this fascinating new collection edited by Irene and Alan Taylor, is an account of the many ways in which war impacts people's lives, from the ordinary to the famous and powerful. Where else can you find out what Josef Goebbels thought of Disney's classic animation, Snow White, or how Che Guevara viewed the world on his 37th—and last—birthday, whilst fighting a guerrilla war in Bolivia?

The range of contributors selected gives the book a timeless relevance. From Samuel Pepys, in the mid-seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch Wars, to the 'Baghdad blogger' Salam Pax giving his unique account of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, The Secret Annexe tells many individual stories—some horrific, some hilarious—from many wars down the ages, with several compelling entries for each day of the year.

Praise for The Secret Annexe:

'The writers are mere flotsam on the tides of war. Their words are subjective, partial, personal, sometimes prejudiced, and occasionally mundane. But taken together and spanning centuries of warfare, they are the very stuff and substance of human experience.'

The Times

'This is a wonderful anthology. Imaginatively compiled and thoroughly edited...The Taylors have a sharp eye for revealing detail and a sense of humour, so that the awesome and tragic are balanced by the humdrum and quirky.'

Herald

'A triumph in which the full range of human emotions associated with war is laid bare before us.'

Alexander McCall Smith

'Hugely enjoyable.'

Scotsman

'Will stay with readers long after they have turned the last page.'

Sunday Times

'The Assassin's Cloak was a treasury to return to at random. The same can be said of The Secret Annexe. Smuggled in to this selection is the telling suggestion that, even in wartime, life goes on. War may be an inferno, but the human comedy prevails.'

Observer