Most Popular Books by ADRIAN SMITH

Adrian Smith rediscovers Britain''s most successful fighter pilot of the First World War. He traces the myth of "an ace with one eye," examining how Mannock has been represented in both biography and in fiction, and asks why he is still commemorated today. The author suggests Mannock''s tactics drew on his socialist beliefs, and argues that older, more experienced pilots were comfortable with the new technology and thus best equipped to fight the war in the air.

Hong Kong Tom: In the Beginning'' is the first in a, soon to be released, series of books called ''The Adventures of Hong Kong Tom''. It is 1968 and Tom Smith, a family man from Ipswich in England with a love of boxing, attracts the attention of Britain''s elite Security Service, also known as MI5. It is not, however, through any criminal actions he may have committed, but with a view to them recruiting him into the service. Tom is persuaded, and it is not long before he gets assigned to his first mission: trying to foil a planned assassination of Britain''s Prime Minister, no less. Whilst this joint operation with MI6, Britain''s overseas Secret Intelligence Service, does not go entirely to plan, Tom, nevertheless, makes a great impression. This is not, however, just with MI5 but with MI6 too. Within weeks he has been headhunted by them and asked to join their unit over in Hong Kong. With a salary considerably better than what he is receiving at MI5, how can Tom refuse? Tom begins his new life and career on the other side of the world and, with it, the legend known as ''Hong Kong Tom'' is born. But what adventures await him?

I take up hook''s critique in my analysis of the post independence Afro-Caribbean productions of Black masculinity as they reiterate similar problematic performances of Black masculinity. I am especially interested in how Afro-Caribbean performance of masculinity is affected when Black men from the Caribbean migrate to the metropole, specifically the United States and Britain. To this end, I juxtapose contemporary representations of Afro-Caribbean masculinities, produced in the new millennium, with earlier presentations, developed during the Black Power movement in the 1970s when Black filmmakers and authors produced images of Black masculinity built on soul murder. I am interested in whether contemporary productions engage new and progressive forms of Black masculinity or simply rearticulate conventional representations of Black masculinity that draw on dominant patriarchal and homophobic modes of gender performance. I suggest that many of the contemporary Black filmmakers and writers whose work I examine here remain ambivalent to challenging the phallocentric patriarchal masculinist practices of traumatic rites of passage for Black boys into manhood; however, there are others who offer glimpses into what a challenge to that model might look like.

Extinction New Zealand returns in the much-anticipated 4th novel of the bestselling series. Welcome to New Zealand: golden beaches, forest-covered mountains, pristine water, and exotic bird life. A safe, friendly place to raise your family. Not anymore. All that was before the Hemorrhage Virus decimated the population. Before the survivors fled to the islands to escape the new and terrifying apex predators - the Variants. That was before Operation Utu launched to reclaim their land. Ten years have passed since they took back their country. Ten years of hope, rebuilding, and surviving. But while Jack, Dee, and The Renegades focused on creating a new, better civilization, evil was busy too. And evil doesn''t forget. While away on a mission, Jack learns Dee and their son Marco have been kidnapped by unknown foes. As he races to locate them, the home they sacrificed so much for comes under attack by one of their own. Now the clock is ticking to keep their sanctuary from collapsing forever.

Richard Thompson''s vision, originality and technical prowess marks him out as a songwriter and guitarist of remarkable endurance, as inventive and relevant today as at the outset of his solo career half a century ago. In Flying Solo: Richard Thompson and the Making of Henry The Human Fly Adrian Smith explains why a debut album dismissed at the time as eccentric and disappointing came to be seen as strikingly original, its preoccupation with the strange and subversive anticipating contemporary songwriters and naturalists like Jonny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane. Flying Solo traces Henry The Human Fly''s impressive afterlife back to Richard Thompson''s formative years with Fairport Convention and his determination to echo The Band by making music that transcended time, fusing native myths and folk traditions with modern day arrangements, instrumentation and production. Henry The Human Fly is seen as a bridge between folk rock''s finest hour - Fairport''s Liege & Lief - and the much acclaimed I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, the first and the best of Richard and Linda Thompson''s six albums. The couple''s break up saw Thompson relocate to America and establish himself as an artist in his own right on both sides of the Atlantic. A succession of outstanding albums meant that for too long Henry The Human Fly was overlooked; rediscovery thanks to streaming means we can now locate it as an important milestone in the long career of a truly great talent.