The Home Front 1939–1945 in 100 Objects. Austin J Ruddy. The Home Front 1939–1945 in 100 Objects Frontline Books Pages: 212 Illustrations: 150 ISBN: 9781526740861 Nov. 2019 The '100 Objects' theme is now apparently so popular I'm surprised there isn't a 'Books about 100 objects in 100 objects' title out, but having seen some rather good ones (Peter Doyle's WW1 in particular. First of the breed? First I read anyway.), I thought I'd have a shufti. Sort of tricky to review, as I wouldn't normally read such a book from cover to cover. One to leave lying about & hit a couple of entries when the urge strikes. Even trickier to review, as the other half grabbed it when it arrived & spent a good amount of time flicking through, showing me things & asking questions... definitely not normal behaviour with my usual reading material. Which I think partly explains the success of the genre. There's a widespread appeal about well-presented 'things' that crosses usual subject divides. If she had one on '100 Tudor or Viking Objects' (her areas), then I'd probably do the same. The author's apparently spent a lifetime collecting bits & pieces, so is able to draw almost everything from his own collection, and the enthusiasm for even the most ephemeral shows through. I think the ability to spin up a couple of pages on an engraved lump of 'Victory Coal' is pretty impressive. A lot of it's small documents, but there's nothing wrong with that as they're all relevant & (I thought} interesting. I particularly liked that he used the last couple of entries to bring up things that are a bit of a mystery to him, inviting 'answers on a postcard' - reinforced that this is somebody actively engaged with the subject. Such a thing is never going to change the world of academia, but it certainly triggered a fair few further web searches. He can write, knows his stuff, and the reproduction/photography is top notch. The sort of book that I know (post-Corona) will lead to other visitors that wouldn't usually touch a WW2 book being caught flicking through, and that can only be a good thing. (Thoroughly indexed, too. Hooray!) Cheers to P&S for the review copy. ~A