{"product_id":"2026100011327-secondhand-laughing-gunner-and-selected-war-stories","title":"Laughing Gunner: And Selected War Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket\u003cbr\u003ePages: Yellowed\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Previous owner\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Condition as shown in image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWar has always had its storytellers, and Geoffrey C. Bingham stands among the most vivid and compelling voices to emerge from the Australian military tradition. Laughing Gunner and Selected War Stories is a collection of short fiction rooted in the raw, lived experience of combat, presenting soldiers not as icons of glory but as fully human figures navigating fear, camaraderie, dark humour, and survival against the backdrop of World War II. The title story introduces a gunner whose laughter in the face of mortal danger becomes an emblem of the strange psychological armour men construct in wartime, while the surrounding stories broaden the canvas to chronicle a range of battlefield encounters and the quiet devastations that follow.\n\nBingham, a decorated Australian veteran and later a celebrated theologian and novelist, brings a moral and literary seriousness to his war fiction that elevates it beyond the genre's conventional boundaries. His prose is economical yet charged with emotional precision, capturing both the absurdity and the tragedy of armed conflict with equal authority. The collection stands as a significant document of mid-twentieth-century Australian war literature, offering readers a portrait of men tested to their limits — and asking, quietly but insistently, what remains of a man when the guns finally fall silent.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50573218939099,"sku":"2026100011327-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/688ff901-05e9-4c38-9749-e30af379dc3d.png?v=1791167854","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100011327-secondhand-laughing-gunner-and-selected-war-stories","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}