'Human Smoke', the new work on World War Two by novelist Nicholson Baker, has now been reviewed by historians and commentators in the press; at best, it has been found greatly wanting. Britain’s Telegraph newspaper alone published two reviews, one which concludes “Whatever its merits as a work of literature, as a work of history it is virtually worthless”, and another which, in response to the author snipping little quotes out of all context to give a counter impression: “Incompetence or malice on Baker's part? So far as the reliability of this strangely childish book is concerned, it hardly matters which.” This page summarises a few reviews. While I rarely recommend not reading a book – after all, how can you criticise writing if you haven’t read it – it does sound like you’d really need to have some spare time before giving any over to Human Smoke.

Between 2000 and 2005 somebody planted 29 fake documents in the British National Archives, in 12 files relating to the Second World War. They claimed, amongst other things, that British secret agents killed Heinrich Himmler, a senior Nazi. As of today, we don’t know who or why, but the fraud has been called one of the greatest of its kind in the world. This article from the Guardian newspaper has more.