STEAM TRAINS TODAY: JOURNEYS ALONG BRITAIN’S HERITAGE RAILWAYS

This book attempts to chronicle what seems to me the biggest, and strangest, exercise in turning back the clock in modern British history: the preserved railway movement. And if anyone doesn’t know what the term ‘preserved railways’ means, I’d invite them to look up North York Moors Railway, the Epping-Ongar Railway, the Bluebell Railway. But there are about 120 others, running over 500 miles of track (more than the London Underground), benefiting from the work of 22,000 volunteeers and carrying 13 million people a year. The typical line is about ten miles long. Some hard-won steam engines pull old carriages up and down on summer weekends and Bank Holidays - usually along a bit of line Dr Beeching thought he had closed. Why does this kind of thing occur, and why only in Britain? I seek to answer the question.

NIGHT TRAINS: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLEEPER

In which Andrew Martin samples some of the relatvely few remaining sleeper trainsin western Europe, trying wherever possible to shadow the servces of the old Wagons-Lits company, whose luxurious blue sleeper and dining cars traversed the continent from the 1880's to the 1970's. The most famous of the company's trains was the Orient Express. There is no longer any such train, but it is possible (sort of) to travel over its route from Paris to Istanbul using sleeper trains, and this Martin attempts. He also rides the heir of the particularly glamorous 'Blue Train' from Paris to the Riviera, among a total of nine sleeper trips. The book is full of railway history, literary and film references, and the stories of Martin's misadventures, which include being robbed, spending a night on a sleeper train that didn't move, and encountering many strange nocturnal characters while traversing a continent in crisis. 

BELLES & WHISTLES: FIVE JOURNEYS THROUGH TIME ON BRITAIN'S TRAINS

As the son of a railwayman, Andrew Martin practically 'grew up on a train'. That was in the 1970's, when you could still drink tea from a china cup in the buffet car, but when the days of railway romance and such truly glamorous trains as the Golden Arrow and the Brighton Belle were fading fast. 

In Belles and Whistles, he goes in search of the 'named trains' that symbolise this Golden Age, recreating five of these famous train journeys by travelling aboard their nearest modern day equivalents. Sometimes their names have survived, even if only as a footnote on a pocket timetable, but what has usually disappeared is the extravagance and luxury. As Martin explains how we got from there to here, evocations of pre-war opulence contrast with the starker modern reality: from monogrammed cutlery to stirring sticks, from platforms to 'platform surfaces', from country station masters to CCTV cameras. For those who wonder what happened to dimmer switches, antimacassars, timetables, luggage in advance and trunk murders, the answers are all here. LINK

UNDERGROUND, OVERGROUND: A PASSENGER'S HISTORY OF THE TUBE

A history of the London Underground for the non-trainspotter. It is a comprehensive history, but also crammed with anecdote, humour and human interest. The book reflects Martin's lifelong fascination with the Underground, about which he wrote a column in the Evening Standard for five years. The Independent described the book as 'a very engaging journey'. LINK 

FLIGHT BY ELEPHANT: THE UNTOLD STORY OF WORLD WAR TWO'S MOST DARING JUNGLE RESCUE

The setting for this true-life adventure is Upper Burma and Assam, India, in the monsoon season of 1942. Thousands of Britons and Indians are attempting to flee Burma after the Japanese invasion. In most cases they are required to walk over mountainous, disease-ridden jungle. One party finds itself in the uncharted Chaukan Pass, where they face starvation, malaria and a series of un-crossable torrential rivers. There is only one means of crossing those rivers: by elephant. No tame elephants have ever been taken as far 'into the blue' as the Chaukan Pass, but one man, elephant expert, tea planter, former fighter pilot, Gyles Mackrell, undertakes to try... Drawing on sources unused by any other writer, Martin tells the story of Mackrell's mission. LINK 

GHOUL BRITANNIA

Ghoul Britannia is a summary of British ghostliness, as observed by ghost hunters, and as depicted by writers of fiction. Martin shows how fiction and fact have interacted. The book concludes with Martin's own ghost story, Little Jack's (or The Secret Trust), set in a solicitor's office in York in the 1970's. LINK 

HOW TO GET THINGS REALLY FLAT

This book is addressed to the undomesticated half of any partnership: the person who, when the gas man calls, shouts to the other person, 'It's for you!'; the person who thinks that Cif is still called Jif, and that limescale is some method of measuring the acidity of citrus fruits. For shorthand, the author calls these people 'men'. The book, which has been given the 'Good Housekeeping' seal of approval, tells them how and why they should do housework. LINK

 FUNNY YOU SHOULD SAY THAT

A survey of the funniest remarks, quips and observations from Ancient Rome to The Simpsons. The quotations are arranged both thematically and chronologically, and full provenance is given in every case. In other words, here is that rare thing: a dictionary of humorous quotations that was not simply slung together in a week for the Christmas market. LINK