Books: In the lists

Memoirs and autobiographies usually purport to contain at least a semblance of truth, even if the facts are massaged and mis-remembered to flatter their subjects. But Percy's War, at No 7 in the list, is entirely fictitious. Bill Waddington plays Percy Sugden in Coronation Street, and this is Percy's memoir, not Bill's. In it Percy, the old buffer who is always harping on about the war, reminisces about D-Day. This is no accident: tomorrow, as everyone must surely know, is the 50th anniversary of the start of the Normandy Landings, and books with 'D-Day' in their title are piled high in bookshops now. There are D-Day, D-Day and D-Day (these three are different books), D-Day 1944: Voices from Normandy, Nothing Less Than Victory: An Oral History of D-Day, We Remember D-Day, Accidental Warrior: In the Front Line from Normandy till Victory, as well as The Penguin Atlas of the D-Day Landings and The D-Day Photobook. When you've learnt enough about 'the greatest amphibian operation ever attempted' (the frogs' Olympics?), you can try The D-Day Quiz Book. Poor old Percy - original only in his fiction.