In June 1943, James Eric Swift, a pilot with 83 Squadron of the RAF, boarded his Lancaster bomber for a night raid on Munster and disappeared. This is a narrative of the author's search for his lost grandfather through military and civilian archives and interviews. The book also examines the connections between air war and poetry."

Societies and entire nations draw their identities from certain founding documents, whether charters, declarations, or manifestos. The Book of Common Prayer figures as one of the most crucial in the history of the English-speaking peoples. First published in 1549 to make accessible the devotional language of the late Henry the VIII's new church, the prayer book was a work of monumental religious, political, and cultural importance. Within its rituals, prescriptions, proscriptions, and expressions were fought the religious wars of the age of Shakespeare. This diminutive...