Our favourite books this year, chosen by Orion editors...

Editor's Choice: Keith Lowe chooses Our Friends Benneath the Sands by Martin Windrow

Dear Reader,

When I was asked to recommend a single book out of all those that I have worked on this year, the choice was remarkably easy. Martin Windrow’s Our Friends Beneath the Sands is the sort of book that comes along only once every few years. It is on a gloriously romantic subject – the ‘Beau Geste’ period of the French Foreign Legion. It is unique: to my knowledge there is no other book in any language that covers this subject in such compelling detail. And it is popular: even before it went to press writers and historians, such as Saul David and Professor Richard Holmes, were queuing up to read and comment on it.

But none of these are the real reason I chose it. There are some authors who have such a beautiful turn of phrase, such a gift for picking exactly the right words for every situation, that they immediately command your attention and hold it, effortlessly, right up to the last page. Having worked with books for almost twenty years now, I know how rare that gift is.

If you are even remotely interested in the Foreign Legion, the romance of the Sahara, or the glory and brutality of a lost colonial world, then I urge you to read just the opening pages of this book. And I defy you not to want to read on.

With best wishes


Keith Lowe
Editor
Weidenfeld & Nicolson