aurelie colour

Aurelie Noirbent is the Senior Production and Design Controller for Osprey Publishing, and is responsible for a number of our regular series titles, including Command, Field of Glory, Modelling, Modelling Masterclass, Essential Histories, as well as many of our non-series large format books. Aurelie is responsible for making sure that these books not only look great from a visual point of view, but that they are printed to the highest possible standard, and that they arrive in our warehouse on time. When Auerlie is not wowing us with her culinary skills or acting as a translator whenever a customer from her native France gets in touch - Aurelie can often be spotted doing a spot of salsa in the staff room. She even kindly volunteered to give a quick cameo dance in our zombie video!

When I asked Aurelie to pick out her favourite Osprey book she responded with:

9781846030765

My favourite Osprey book has to be Warrior 117 French Resistance Fighter.

I eagerly anticipated this title from themoment it was first commissioned: I'm French and wrote my BA dissertation on the topic. What's more, I had worked on Terry Crowdy's previous book, Military Misdemeanours, and had fallen in love with his writing, which I find both informative and witty.

At the time the manuscript was delivered for WAR 117, I was the Production and Design Controller in charge of the Warrior series, so I got an early peek at it - I actually took the manuscript home as I couldn't wait for the few months it would take to have a printed copy!

I found it a very compelling read: as the author rightly states, it deals with a rather controversial aspect of French history, which is interesting in itself. And seeing this familiar topic through the eyes of a British writer was fascinating for me.

Added to that the well-chosen pictures, many of which I had not seen before, and Steve Noon's wonderful artwork, and this book really must hold a special place in my heart as well as on my shelves!  

(To finish with a confession: it probably received a little extra care and attention from me when getting designed and corrected!)