Stuart Nimmo Perilous Moon Occupied France
Author,
​Television Producer & documentary maker
Nazi Occupied Paris,
WWII Occupied France
NEWS & EVENTS
(THIS PAGE IS REGULARLY UPDATED)​
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Publication Oxford and Pennsylvania:
November 19 2012.
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Casemate Publications and Casemate UK publish Perilous Moon around the world. ​
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​​Open Letters Monthly an Arts and Literature Review
December 29th 2012
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Managing Editor Steve Donoghue publishes a gratifying review - he likes it!
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WH SMITH Paris. "Meet The Author Event"
January 10 2012 19:00 248 Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris
​​(Metro lines 1, 8 and 12)
​WH Smith Paris: "Meet The Authors evening" shared between Stuart Nimmo, author of Perilous Moon Occupied France 1944 - The End Game and Fred Coleman, Author of The Marcel Network​ . ​​​​​
The books shared a full window display on the corner of rue Cambon/ rue de Rivoli, next to ​the place de la Concorde.
There was a moment on the 10th Janurary when I thought my luck had run out...
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Two gentlemen from the French CRS riot police were spotted having a good look at Smithy's window display.
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OUTCOME ​Avoided arrest, extradition and waterboarding... A good day
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The evening seemed to go very well, at a guess roughly 100 people attended and showed real interest. There were plenty of excellent questions and journalists making contact.
According to WH Smith Perilous Moon sold well, there was certainly plenty of signing to do - so a good start.​
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​A big thank you to Hannah Robin and her coleagues at WH Smith Paris, they clearly make a special effort for anglophone authors based in France and that is seriously appreciated.
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​January 15th 2013
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Another gratifying review, this time from Rob Hardy of The Columbus Dispatch.
I quite like his idea of a subtitle "A Tale of Two Airmen" I should have thought of that!
February 16th 2013
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An interesting review by David Chenery at Militariaman uk​
February 16th 2013
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A fine review and author's interview by Laurel Zuckerman in Paris Writer's News. It was a great pleasure to meet Laurel, she went to great lengths to conduct this interview and write the review.
​February 18th 2013
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A great review​ by Arnie Wilson offers an interesting new angle. Very good to be in the Huffington Post (USA edition).
​February 26th 2013
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Hugely flattered... A RED LETTER DAY!
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I was asked to sign a copy of Perilous Moon "To Fred Sutherland on his 90th birthday" (this by Sutherland's friend Anthony Murray, a Paris based Canadian Pianist. Who is Fred E. Sutherland or 'Doc​' as he was then known? Fred was a Lancaster front gunner on Guy Gibson's 1943 Dambusters Raid and now one of only three surviving aircrew. Murray had chosen Perilous Moon as Fed Sutherland's 90th birthday present. And Fred wasn't just any Dambuster... so what an honour.
Happy Birthday Fred! I'll start writing you a better book for your 100th birthday!
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March 6th 2013
The web site builder 'Wix' are still having unsolved problems with a page layer latency bug. Ah the joys of HTML5. It should look good on computers but while it will work on iPads and tablets the background image can move briefly leaving an odd grey background. Wix are "working on it"... as ever.​
April 22nd 2013
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A big welcome to this new book site everyone, it's such a pleasure to see growing numbers of visitors from such diverse places, really it is very encouraging indeed. I have enjoyed the contacts and comments too, thank you.
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​"Perilous Moon" has been very well received here in France even though The Occupation years have been a taboo subject for so long. Attitudes are clearly changing, I'm being asked by the right French people where the French edition is, that "it is definitely a book for the French" and "when it is expected to be published?" That's all very flattering, we'll have to see...
June 4th 2013
A long silence... much going on... could write a book about it.
More excellent reviews from journalists kind enough to write them, all very positive and much appreciated.
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What pleases me is that it seems that the even-handed tone that I'd strived for has worked, and that they like it. I’d feared that some might see it as in some way disloyal to Bomber Command and to my father, but nobody has said that.
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The Original Photograph Exhibition now on at WH Smith Paris
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​Great news from the French home front. The ever faithful Hannah Robin at WH Smith Paris liked the idea of mounting an exhibition of newly discovered photographs of Occupied France. She kindly offered to host it at WH Smith throughout the summer Months - taking in both the D-Day and Liberation of Paris anniversaries. So I had the enlargements made and we hung the exhibition yesterday. It's looking good!
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It immediately drew gratifying interest. So if you are in Paris this summer do pop in and take a look, WH Smith is in the rue de Rivoli just at la place de la Concorde Metro entrance, (248 Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, ​(Metro lines 1, 8 and 12).
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June 15th 2013
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A slight site re-jig (a bit overdue I'm afraid). I've moved the reviews​ and given them their own page with further site links at the bottom of various pages, this should make for easier navigation.
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In the meantime I've enjoyed the messages that came via the Contact Page, really appreciate them! Some have been from long lost friends who've found the book, which is particularly pleasing. ​​
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July 10th 2013
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The photographic exhibition here in Paris is proving to be a great success, and so its scope slightly extended ​​(and looking all the better for it). Further recent additions to the collection have been included, none of which have been published or exhibited before.
July 12th 2013
This year the Marie de Paris is holding a "British Week" in the 16th Arrondissement (between Thursday 19th and Sunday 22 September 2013 inclusive). An annual event dedicated each year to a different foreign culture, this year it's British Culture that is being celebrated. Mayor Claude Goasguen has been good enough to invite me to give an An author’s Event on the 19th September and, for those who wish, to sign copies of Perilous Moon. There will be yet further newly discovered photographs on display.
I'm pleased at the way "PM" is being warmly received by the French, in fact many are now asking for a French language edition.
I find is encouraging that after so many years of silence and censorship, there is a new readiness, a real desire to examine those mighty difficult and painful Occupation/ Vichy years, this can only be for the good. If in a tiny but useful wayway, I can offer my father's and Helmut Bergmann's experiences of that period to this fresh debate, then it will all have been worthwhile!
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August 26th 2013
One of my favorite small, but hugely enthusiastic, independent English bookstores "Ex-Libris" (with the best address going) 1 The Shambles, Bradford-On-Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1JS, stocked Perilous Moon from the start and I'm delighted to report that they held the first UK "PM" picture exhibition.... Brilliant!
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August 27th 2013
The Central Paris Summer photographic exhibition ends today. Thanks to Hannah Robin and W H Smith Paris it proved a considerable success - as has the book in France.
Perilous Moon: Occupied France, 1944 -The End Game won a coveted place on the WHS "Best Non-Fiction" stand along side Salman Rushdie, Antony Beevour and other serious luminaries... I can't quite believe it to be honest, but apparently the book sales this summer were seriously gratifying! Thank you all, I do hope you enjoyed it.
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'The Nimmo Collection' of unique WWII photographs taken during the Occupation of France has continued to grow. Every now and then something especially interesting turns up, usually in a German attic and I try to rescue and repatriate it to Paris.
19th September 2013 - A busy week
A thoroughly satisfying few days. Having completed a neater collection of captioned photographic prints, a fresh exhibition was opened at the Marie de Paris British Cultural Week; a wall of photographs had at least 4 people studdying it in close detail at all times. The visitors were mostly French, and clearly facinated. For various reasons imges like these have rarely been seen in France, and yet this is their recent history .
What had already become clear was amply confirmed by the many visitors, that a French language edition is not just needed, but well overdue.
His Excellency the British Ambassador to France, Sir Peter Ricketts, was there and showed a very real interest in Perilous Moon, I hoped he might, his background being what it is. Anyway, he has a copy which once read will go into the Embassy library.
Another great pleasure were the number of French children hungry to know what it was all about. They too showed a very real interest I explained that this was their history too, a difficult period, but an interesting one that should be understood. I explained why so very few French photographs of that period exist. They seemed excited by the thought of me searching Germany and as far away as Australia, Turkey, Canada, Poland and Russia for original photographs to bring back to France in order to show them what went on..
