Veloce Publishing continues expanding its line “Those were the days…” this time with a book devoted to the American Woodies. While the book title says “1928-1953”, it does provide some history prior to those years, going all the way back to 1886.

The first chapter describes the origin of the woodies or “station wagon”, a sort of railway station shuttle to your vacation hotel. The second chapter describes how Ford led the way on making the Woodies popular and the last two chapters covers the immediate pre-WWII years and the immediate post-WWII years.

The book is not meant to be a detailed recount of every “Woodie” out there, nor a source of detailed information for a restorer. It is more of a gallery of pictures, some details and stories leading to how the Woodies became an icon of the ’40 and’50s. You will find Fords, Hudson, Chryslers, Studebaker, Crosley and more.

OKB Grigorov is a small model company based in Bulgaria that you may not be too familiar with. The company focuses primarily on AFVs, tanks, and naval ships in 1/72, 1/350 and 1/700 scales, and they have an extensive list of products available. They produce full resin kits with photo-etch enhancements, as well as resin, photo-etch, and white metal conversion pieces for other models. More recently, they began producing some plastic AFV kits.

This publication is available in three formats, all of which are available on the Osprey Publishing website. The paperback version, 9781472831286, is listed at $24.00. The eBook (ePub), # 9781472831279 is listed at $19.20, as is the eBook (PDF), # 9781472831262. An offer of a substantial savings exists for the reader who wishes to buy both the print version and either of the electronic versions. The discount is 25% off!

This publication identifies the causes of the battle at Campaldino, the economic, social, political and religious issues that defined the conditions in northern Italy in the late 1280’s. In addition, the book addresses the impact that the battle had on a well-known poet of the time, that being Dante. The authors indicate that Dante’s "Devine Comedy" can be viewed as framing Dante’s description of pain and suffering in "Devine Comedy".