Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences

A vivid scrapbook of a wartime mind, this memoir gathers the author’s scattered notes from the trenches of Greece and Serbia to the bustling ports of Alexandria and Marseilles. Written far from libraries and without reference books, the prose carries the immediacy of a soldier‑writer eager to revive a dulled intellect. The voice is conversational, peppered with self‑aware humor and the occasional self‑contradiction, offering a candid window into life on the edge of conflict.

The collection flows through encounters with the era’s most colourful figures—Bernard Shaw, a host of playwrights, composers, and artists—each portrait sketched with affectionate wit and a hint of reverence. Chapter after chapter reads like a lively salon, where literary debates, musical critiques, and theatrical anecdotes intermingle with the author's own restless observations. Listeners will feel the pulse of early‑twentieth‑century cultural life, filtered through the unique perspective of a man writing to keep his mind sharp amid the chaos of war.