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Featured books


Newham Bookshop logo (2015)
45 years: 1978-2023

Open Tuesday to Saturday from
10 am to 5 pm.

We can send books by post, usually £3 in the UK.
Michael Rosen signing on 2 December flyer

Saturday 2 December from 1 to 3 pm
at The Wanstead Tap

Book signing
with Michael Rosen
On sale: all his latest books and many favourites for children and adults

Click here to see the flyer.

Christmas tree with decorations

Saturday 9 December from 10 am to 5 pm
at Newham Bookshop

Christmas Discount Day
15% off
all books in stock*
For all your
Christmas gifts

*Except workbooks and revision books




Newham Bookshop by Pete Fallan
Newham Bookshop, Pete Fallan, March 2021.


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Past event held on Wednesday 27 September

Women in intelligence stories with Helen Fry and Kate Vigurs
Newham Bookshop logo (2015)
Book a free place

Click here to book seats.






Mission France by Kate Vigurs
Mission France is published by Yale University Press in paperback at £10.99.

Kate Vigurs

Mission France

The True History of the Women of SOE

The full story of the thirty-nine female SOE agents who went undercover in France.

Formed in 1940, Special Operations Executive was to coordinate Resistance work overseas. The organization’s F section sent more than four hundred agents into France, thirty-nine of whom were women. But while some are widely known-Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, Noor Inayat Khan-others have had their stories largely overlooked.

Kate Vigurs interweaves for the first time the stories of all thirty-nine female agents. Tracing their journeys from early recruitment to work undertaken in the field, to evasion from, or capture by, the Gestapo, Vigurs shows just how greatly missions varied. Some agents were more adept at parachuting.

Some agents’ missions lasted for years, others’ less than a few hours. Some survived, others were murdered. By placing the women in the context of their work with the SOE and the wider war, this history reveals the true extent of the differences in their abilities and attitudes while underlining how they nonetheless shared a common mission and, ultimately, deserve recognition.

“The freshness and honesty of Mission France make it an ideal book for taking a new look at the secret war, at a time when knowledge of these brave women’s exploits is fading from living memory.” — Vin Arthey, The Scotsman.

Kate Vigurs will be in conversation with Helen Fry and Michael Newman.





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