Recommend Book Shop

I've got to spread a little kudos about this great little bookshop in Tunbridge Wells. It's an eclectic mix, part games, part gifts, part second hand book store and with an old fashioned sweetshop inside as well. There are several aisles of bookshelves covering a wide range of subjects but significantly they also have a rather large section (five large book cases containing perhaps about 75 feet of shelving in total) dedicated to military and historical books, many at very reasonable prices and most in excellent condition. I never come away empty handed when I stop here and if you pass through Tonbridge Wells it is well worth a visit. 

Pantiles Books Crafts & Games has a wide range of low price, second hand, military books.

My latest acquisition from here was a pictorial review of Panzers in the Desert by Bruce Quarrie. This is a slim volume (just 94 pages) but is full of rare Black and White photo`s of German AFV`s in North Africa, collected from the Bundesarchive. Many of the photo's were taken by German war correspondents serving with Rommel's famous Afrika Korps but there are also examples taken by soldiers themselves. Some of the pictures are clearly 'reconstructed' scenes but many appear to be actual scenes and of course the equipment and men featured are genuine.


The book includes a brief history of the units that made up the Afirika Korps and the photo's show troops both 'in action' & at rest and include images of armour, artillery, soft skin vehicles & infantry. The photo's therefore provide a unique insight into this theatre of the war. I bought this book primarily as a visual archive and reference work and now that I have had a good look through it I am sure it will be very useful indeed for my North Africa Project.