Alan Curtis

Alan Cutler

Alan Davies

Alan Dean Foster

Alan Duff

Alan Durant is the author of books for a wide age-range, from picture books such as Burger Boy, Angus Rides the Goods Train and Always and Forever to top-end teenage thrillers (Blood, Flesh and Bones). Having worked as a copywriter at Walker Books, he is now a full-time author. 
 
He's married, with three children and lives in Brighton. He does a lot of school visits throughout the UK and abroad and also runs writing workshops.

Alan Durant

Alan Edge

Alan Ereira

Alan Garner

Alan Gilbey

Alan Gordon is the founder and director of the Pain Psychology Center in California, a leading treatment facility for chronic pain sufferers that sees over 1,500 patients from around the world every year. Debilitated by chronic pain throughout his body for several years and frustrated by the lack of effective treatment, Gordon developed the ground-breaking Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) – a highly effective system of psychological techniques that rewire the brain’s neural circuits to turn off “stuck” pain signals. He is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Southern California.

Alan Gordon

Alan Grant

Born in 1926 in New York City, Alan Greenspan worked as a Juilliard-trained professional musician before studying Economics at New York University, where he earned his PhD. From 1974 to 1977, he served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Gerald Ford. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed him Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, a position he held until his retirement in 2006. He is the author of the bestselling The Age of Turbulence and The Map and the Territory 2.0.

Alan Greenspan

Alan H Guth

Alan Hansen was one of Britain's most respected football players and is now one of the most outspoken and popular football pundits.

Alan Hansen

Alan Harris is a Welsh playwright who has written several plays for BBC radio including The Lighthouse and The Gold Farmer. His play A Good Night Out in the Valleys launched the new National Theatre Wales in 2010 and he has also been awarded a prestigious Creative Wales Award.

Alan Harris

Alan Hill

Alan Hollinghurst was born in 1954. He is the author of one of the most highly praised first novels to appear in the 1980s, The Swimming-Pool Library, and was selected as one of the Best of Young British Novelists 1993. His second novel, The Folding Star, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize. His novel The Line of Beauty won the Booker Prize in 2004. His most recent novel, The Sparsholt Affair, was published in 2017.

Alan Hollinghurst

Alan Hooper is a founder and Honorary Fellow of the Centre for Leadership Studies, 
University of Exeter, and is also a visiting Professor at Bristol Business 
School. He has been a CEO in the public sector and now consults widely on 
senior management development and the management of change.

Alan Hooper

Alan Isler was born in England in 1934, emigrating to the US at the age of 18. After serving in the US army he went on to study literature at Columbia University, and taught for much of his adult life. Isler was the author of several novels including Kraven Images, The Bacon Fancier, Clerical Errors, The Living Proof and The Prince of West End Avenue, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 1994. Isler died in 2010. 
 .

Alan Isler

Alan J Wilson

Alan Jenkins

Alan Johnson was born in May 1950. He is a British Labour Party politician who served as Home Secretary from June 2009 to May 2010. Before that he filled a wide variety of cabinet positions in both the Blair and Brown governments, including Health Secretary and Education Secretary. Until 20 January 2011 he was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Johnson was the Member of Parliament for Hull West and Hessle until his retirement from politics in 2017. 
 His first book, This Boy, won the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Orwell Prize in 2013. His second, Please Mister Postman, won the National Book Award for Autobiography of the Year in 2014. His third, The Long and Winding Road, was published in 2016 and won the Parliamentary Book Award for Best Memoir.

Alan Johnson

Alan Jones

Belfast-born twins Alan and Gary Keery love cereal. As creators of The Cereal Killer Café, the trendiest new eatery on Brick Lane, they have turned that love of the nation’s favourite comfort food into a thriving business. The opening of their first café saw extraordinary interest with press and broadcast coverage from all over the world. The café was voted best new restaurant by Hot Dinners in 2014. A second café is opening in summer 2015.

Alan Keery

Alan Langford

Alan Lerner

Alan MacDonald

Alan Macdonald

Alan Macfarlane

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Jack Miles

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning God: A Biography, Jack Miles offered a highly original approach to the character of the God of the Old Testament, addressing him as a character in a book, a literary charter. In Christ, reading the New Testament but hearing the Old echoing in its every verse, Miles tells the story of the agonising conflict that overtook God when he failed to keep his promise to his people, and the radical change in his character that this failure brought about. Coming after a large number of books pursuing the elusive 'historical Jesus', Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God offers a frankly mythological Christ, delivering a profound and dramatic companion to the story begun in God: A Biography.

Christ

A Crisis In The Life Of God

Susie Dent

'Susie Dent is a national treasure' RICHARD OSMAN 
 
'Susie Dent is a one-off. She breathes life and fun into words and language' PAM AYRES 
__________________________________________ 
 
Would you be bewildered if someone described you as radgy? 
Do you know how to recognise a tittamatorter? 
And would you understand if someone called you a culchie? 
 
How to Talk Like a Local gathers together hundreds of words from all over the country and digs down to uncover their origins. From dardledumdue, which means daydreamer in East Anglia, through forkin robbins, the Yorkshire term for earwigs, to clemt, a Lancashire word that means hungry, it investigates an astonishingly rich variety of regional expressions, and provides a fascinating insight into the history of the English language. 
 
If you're intrigued by colourful words and phrases, if you're interested in how English is really spoken, or if you simply want to find out a bit more about the development of our language, How to Talk Like a Local is irresistible - and enlightening - reading. 
__________________________________________________ 
 
'Nobody on earth knows more about the English language than Susie Dent and nobody writes about it more entertainingly' GYLES BRANDRETH 
 
'It's an interesting and, at times, hilarious read. One for word-lovers' THE SUN

How to Talk Like a Local

A National Phrasebook from the author of Word Perfect

Trevor Norton

Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth is a hilarious celebration of the great eccentrics who have performed dangerous experiments on themselves for the benefit of humankind, written with all the wit, humour and eye for the beauties of nature - and machinery and scientific equipment - that have gained Trevor Norton a cult following and critical acclaim. 
 
Many have followed the advice of the great Victorian scientist Jack Haldane to 'never experiment on an animal if a man will do' and 'never ask anyone to do anything you wouldn't do yourself.'.He and his father inhaled poisonous gasses to test the efficacy of the prototype gas mask they had invented. When breathing gasses under pressure he suffered the smoking ears and screaming teeth of the title. 
 
The stories are astonishing, disturbing or absurd - the Marquis de Sade meets Monty Python. John Hunter pioneered self-experimentation and deliberately infected himself with venereal diseases by the puss transference method and gave his name to chancre of the penis. The zoologist Frank Buckland made a concentrated effort to widen the nation's diet by personally testing everything that crossed his path, from boiled elephant's trunk to bluebottles. He published recipes for such delicacies as slug soup. Some medics deliberately contracted deadly blood diseases in the hope of finding cures. Then there was the the surgeon who got the sack and won the Nobel prize for thrusting a catheter into his own beating heart. 
 
Trevor Norton writes that self-experimentation is still a component of much scientific research. In our health and safety obsessed society, we need people who are willing to risk themselves to make life safer for us.

Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth

Guy Deutscher

"Guy Deutscher is that rare beast, an academic who talks good sense about linguistics... he argues in a playful and provocative way, that our mother tongue does indeed affect how we think and, just as important, how we perceive the world." Observer 
 
*Does language reflect the culture of a society? 
*Is our mother-tongue a lens through which we perceive the world? 
*Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? 
 
In Through the Language Glass, acclaimed author Guy Deutscher will convince you that, contrary to the fashionable academic consensus of today, the answer to all these questions is - yes. A delightful amalgam of cultural history and popular science, this book explores some of the most fascinating and controversial questions about language, culture and the human mind.

Through the Language Glass

Why The World Looks Different In Other Languages

Tom Fort

'You have to be on your guard when you go back to special places. You may be able to locate them easily enough on the map, but maps tell only one story. Times change and places and people with them. The memory plays curious tricks, and things aren't always as you remember or expect.' 
 
Twenty years ago, Tom Fort drove his little red car onto the ferry at Felixstowe, bound for all points east. Eastern Europe was still a faraway place, just emerging from its half-century of waking nightmare, blinking, injured, full of fears but importantly full of hope too. Things were different then. Czechoslovakia was still Czechoslovakia, Russia was the USSR and the Warsaw Pact had not formally dissolved. But what did exist then, as they do now, were the rivers: the nations' lifeblood. It was along and by these rivers that Fort travelled around Eastern Europe meeting its people and immersing himself in its culture. 
 
Since that trip though, much has changed and in more recent years around one million Poles have settled in Britain. Fort's local paper has a Polish edition, his supermarket has a full range of Polish bread, sausage and beer and an influx of Polish businesses opened in his town centre. And it's not just the Poles, his gym has a Lithuanian trainer and the woman who cuts his hair is from Hungary. 
 
As a tide of people began to leave Eastern Europe and settle in the UK, Tom Fort started to wonder about what they were leaving behind and whether the friends he had made all those years ago remained. And so he decided to make the journey again, travelling against the flow of the steady human stream to explore the once familiar places. As he did so, many began to return as the recession took hold of Western Europe. Tom was keen to find out what had changed and how the places, people and way of life had moved on and of course fit in a spot of fishing along the way.

Against the Flow

Alastair Campbell

As Alastair Campbell said in the introduction to The Blair Years, it was always his intention to publish the full version, covering his time as spokesman and chief strategist to Tony Blair. Prelude to Power is the first of four volumes, and covers the early days of New Labour, culminating in their victory at the polls in 1997. 
 
Volume 1 details the extraordinary tensions between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as they resolved the question as to which one should stand to become Labour leader. It shows that right from the start, relations at the top were prone to enormous strain, suspicions and accusations of betrayal. Yet it also shows the political and personal bonds that tied them together, and which made them one of the most feared and respected electoral machines anywhere in the world. 
 
A story of politics in the raw, Prelude to Power is above all an intimate, detailed portrait of the people who have done so much to shape modern history.

Diaries Volume One

Prelude to Power

Rosemary Conley

Yes! You can lose a stone in a month and my trial dieters proved it. 
 
By following my brand new, simple, step-by-step 28-day plan, you'll see dramatic results like never before. In trials, a team of 50 dieters, aged between 18 and 70, lost an average of 1 stone in just 28 days! Medically approved and the most effective diet I've ever created, the Amazing Inch Loss Plan is incredibly easy to follow and provides a safe long-term way of keeping the weight off. 
 
I've included extensive and varied meal plans and essential motivational tips. Plus, for the first time ever, I've incorporated 'high protein' meal options - perfect for dieters wishing to avoid carbohydrates.

Rosemary Conley's Amazing Inch Loss Plan

Lose a Stone in a Month

Sky Real Lives

For readers of Kyle Gray's Angels Are With You Now. Inspirational stories from ten ordinary people's encounters with angels. 
 
In Greek Angelos, in Latin Angelus, and in Hebrew Malak. Three names, one meaning: Messenger. But we know them simply as Angels. Artists have painted them, choirs have sung about them, poets and authors have written about them. For many they bring messages of love and reassurance. And a promise that we're not alone. 
 
Angels contains inspirational and compelling stories of modern-day Angelic encounters - and includes a unique interview with bestselling author and angel expert Glennyce Eckersley, who tells how angels have changed her own life. 
 
From the truly astonishing story of the man whose angel brought hope as he lay trapped and burned after a horrific accident, to that of the soldier whose angel saved him from a bullet, every encounter is different. But in each, the radiant truth shines through: there are angels everywhere ready to help us, supporting us with gentle love and care when we are at our most vulnerable.

Angels

Mark Kermode

In It's Only a Movie, the incomparable Mark Kermode takes us into the weird world of a life lived in widescreen. Join him as he gets lost in Russia on the trail of a low-budget horror flick, gasp as he's shot at in Hollywood while interviewing Bavarian director Werner Herzog, cheer as he gets thrown out of the Cannes film festival for heckling in very bad French, and cringe as he's handbagged by Helen Mirren at London's glitzy BAFTA Awards. Written with sardonic wit and wry good humour, this compelling cinematic memoir is genuinely 'inspired by real events'.

It's Only a Movie

Reel Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive

Richard Littlejohn

The Daily Mail's most succesful columnist delivers the coup de grace to New Labour, as the nation voted them out of office. He is not only tough on Brown and the causes of Brown, but devastatingly funny about 'Elf and Safety', 'Yuman Rights', the Surveillance Society and all the bureacratic absurdities that make modern life worse than anything George Orwell ever imagined. 
 
But, as the new introductory material reveals, the coalition of Lib Dem and Conservative also means same meat, different gravy. And already we have the first casualty of the cabinet in David Laws, another rich MP exploiting his position to claim expenses paid to his secret lover. 
 
'Littlejohn has been ... a vivid exponent of a great British columnar style that stretches back five centuries or more. He's a distant, bastard cousin of Thomas Nash, Daniel Defoe and Alexander Pope. Cassandra and Bernard Levin might justly buy him a pint in the Chesire Cheese. Like or loathe him, he's the real, talented deal.' Observer

Littlejohn's House of Fun

Thirteen Years of (Labour) Madness

Ben Mezrich

The New York Times bestseller and inspiration for the Oscar-winning movie, The Social Network 
 
Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg - an awkward maths prodigy and a painfully shy computer genius - were never going to fit in at elite, polished Harvard. Yet that all changed when master-hacker Mark crashed the university's entire computer system by creating a rateable database of female students. Narrowly escaping expulsion, the two misfits refocused the site into something less controversial - 'The Facebook' - and watched as it spread like wildfire across campuses around the country, and their popularity exploded in the process. 
 
Yet amidst the dizzying levels of cash and glamour, as Silicon Valley, venture capitalists and reams of girls beckoned, the first cracks in their friendship started to appear. And what began as a simple argument spiralled into an out-and-out war. As Facebook rose to stratospheric heights by bringing people together - its very success tore two best friends apart.

The Accidental Billionaires

Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook

Charlie Croker

How long does the average British male spend in the shower? 
 
What is the worst-paid job? 
 
Where are the keenest DIYers in the UK to be found? 
 
Which profession least favours the wearing of ties? 
 
Why are 63% of us too embarrassed to complain about bad food in a restaurant? 
 
Covering everything from food to travel, via gardening and fashion, 8 out of 10 Brits tells you everything you need to know, and much that you don't, about who we are, where we're going, and why - on statistical grounds - we should all consider living in Southend-on-Sea.

8 out of 10 Brits

Intriguing statistics about the world's 79th largest nation

Paul Weller

REVISED, UPDATED AND WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY PAUL ABBOTT 
 
This edition of Suburban 100 includes new lyrics from the critically acclaimed albums, 22 Dreams and Wake Up the Nation, which has been nominated for the Mercury Music Award. 
 
Paul Weller first burst onto the national music scene with The Jam in 1977 and was quickly marked apart from his contemporaries as a brilliant lyricist. In a writing career that has now spanned three decades, his songs have been acclaimed, imitated and loved by many. 
 
Suburban 100 - the first selection of Paul Weller's lyrics - draws on songs written for The Jam, The Style Council and solo releases that, together, tell stories of life and love, rage and romance. The youthful frustrations of small-town life that fuelled Weller's early writing is palpable, as is the angry but poignant response to Thatcher's Britain. His lyrics, rooted in English suburban culture, explore the hopes, dreams and crashing disappointments of ordinary people. They also revel in the mystical beauty of the English country landscape and repeatedly revisit dreamlike childhood summers. 
 
For the first time Paul Weller shares his reflections on his lyrics, offering candid insights to his writing process and the inspiration behind some of pop music's best loved songs. Suburban 100 reveals aspects of a famously private man.

Suburban 100

Jem Roberts

'It's a great missing piece of the jigsaw - people go on endlessly about Python and Peter Cook, which is all well and good but there's basically this great corpus of work stretching for decades - and consistently good ... A major piece of work, and universally loved.' 
 
So says John Lloyd, brains behind Blackadder, QI, Spitting Image, and so much besides - all shows with a massive debt to I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Together they form a body of work stretching across five decades, from Cambridge in 1960 to today's world-beating Antidote to Panel Games, a laughter-bringer which has inspired unparalleled adoration in millions over fifty series. This book tells the whole story, from Footlights to Broadway to the ferret-filled madness of Radio Prune - comedy's answer to the rock &amp; roll revolution of the sixties. Offering an exhaustive guide to the comedy world that brought us Mornington Crescent, besides episode guides, glossaries and rare facsimiles, Jem Roberts will take the story right up to the present day, celebrating the lives of Willie Rushton, Sir David Hatch and of course, the irreplaceable Humphrey Lyttelton. With exclusive input from the Teams, plus Bill Oddie, Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey, Neil Innes and many more, this is the long-overdue authoritative, entertaining and, above all, very silly lasting celebration of an unsung comic legacy that both shows so richly deserve.

The Fully Authorised History of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

The Clue Bible from Footlights to Mornington Crescent

Michael Caine

From Alfred to Zulu, Michael Caine has been Britain's best-loved actor for half a century. 
 
Now, for the first time, he reveals the truth behind his remarkable life. From his time as an evacuee during the Blitz to his front-line military service in the Korean War, from his early days as an assistant stagehand to becoming Peter O'Toole's understudy, from walk-on parts in local theatres to blowing the bloody doors off with his legendary roles in Zulu and The Italian Job, Caine's life was never simple or easy. 
 
Discussing his little-known childhood and family alongside his hard-fought journey from London to Hollywood, Caine writes with astonishing candour about the good years and the lean years, bringing his unique charm and humour to his anecdotes and memories of a sprawling movie-making career. If you worked in Hollywood in the last few decades, you've probably worked with Michael Caine - and his accounts of his relationships with other superstars, both on and offscreen, make this autobiography essential reading for any fan not just of Michael Caine, but of film in general.

What's It All About?

Timothy Knatchbull

Winner of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Award, and nominated for the PEN/JR Ackerley prize. 
 
The powerful memoir of a Mullaghmore bombing survivor 
___________________________________ 
On the August bank holiday weekend in 1979, 14-year-old Timothy Knatchbull went on a boat trip off the shore of Mullaghmore in County Sligo, Ireland, with many members of his family. 
 
By noon, an IRA bomb had destroyed the boat, leaving four dead. 
 
The author survived, but his grandparents, a family friend, and his 14-year-old twin brother did not. Lord Mountbatten, his grandfather - and uncle to the Duke of Edinburgh - was the target, and became one of the IRA's most high-profile assassinations. 
 
In telling this story for the first time, Knatchbull is not only revisiting the terrible events he and his family lived through, but also writing an intensely personal account of human triumph over tragedy. It is a story of recovery, not just from physical wounds but deep emotional trauma. Knatchbull and his parents were too badly injured to attend the funerals of those killed, a sadness that intensified their profound sense of loss. 
 
Taking place in Ireland at the height of the Troubles, it gives a compelling insight into that period of Irish history. But more importantly it brings home that although tragedy can strike at any moment, the human spirit is able to forgive, to heal and to move on. It will resonate with readers the world over. 
___________________________________ 
'One of the most intensely moving stories I have ever read, and I was gripped from the first page.' Barbara Taylor Bradford, bestselling author 
 
'From a Clear Blue Sky is a minute by minute story of what happened that day, and what happened afterwards. It is a proper four-hanky bawler, and the exactitude of the story is what makes it so moving ... He provides a convincing account of the extent to which he has been able to accept, forgive and move on. His narrative power is such that the reader can't always share his equanimity. It is a book that is as saddening as it is sad - but much more angering than it is angry' Daily Mail 
 
'This is an extremely moving book. Beyond providing a phenomenally detailed evocation of his own family's trauma, Knatchbull has lots of wise things to say about how we survive horrors - of all kinds - in our lives. He writes with great tenderness and an admirable lack of sentimentality' Zoe Heller 
 
'Affecting and intimate' Mail on Sunday 
 
'Testament to a remarkable, benevolent soul ... With this public love letter he has found a way to say goodbye' The Sunday Times

From A Clear Blue Sky

Surviving the Mountbatten bomb

Robert Lacey

Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country's roiling disaffection produced sixteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. It is a modern state, driven by contemporary technology, and yet its powerful religious establishment would have its customs and practices rolled back to match those of the Prophet Muhammed over a thousand years ago. In a world where events in the Middle East continue to have geopolitical consequences far beyond the region's boundaries, an understanding of this complex nation is essential. 
 
With Inside the Kingdom, British journalist and bestselling author Robert Lacey has given us one of the most penetrating and insightful looks at Saudi Arabia ever produced. More than twenty years after he first moved to the country to write about the Saudis at the end of the oil boom, Lacey has returned to find out how the consequences of the boom produced a society at war with itself. 
 
Filled with stories told by a broad range of Saudis, from high princes and ambassadors to men and women on the street, Inside the Kingdom is in many ways the story of the Saudis in their own words.

Inside the Kingdom

Ray Jenkins

One of the last major untold stories of the war, this is the first-hand account of a conscientious objector born into a famous artistic family who, after the death of his brother on active service, decides to fight the Nazis and joins SOE. Barely 28 years of age he ends up as a leader of French resistance, set up by Jean Moulin, whose horrific death features in the story, and heads a massive underground movement of some 20,000 men. 
 
The book has been compiled by Ray Jenkins, a distinguished TV, film and radio dramatist from first-hand interviews, with the drama of raids, torture and sudden death ever present - at one point Francis Cammaerts is captured by the Gestapo. There is also an emotional theme as Francis's relationship with his wife, whom he has been able to tell nothing, suffers and he lives closely with the beautiful and legendary agent, Countess Krystina Skarbeck. 
 
A genuinely original contribution to the history of the resistance, Ray Jenkins's beautifully told story has been praised by the official historian of wartime intelligence, MRD Foot. 
 
Francis Cammaerts died in 2006 at the age of 90 after a distinguished career in education.

A Pacifist At War

The Silence of Francis Cammaerts

Matt Croucher GC

AFGHANISTAN, FEBRUARY 2008: in an out-of-control, dangerous country torn apart by war, littered with Taliban guerrilla forces and thousands of miles from home, Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, a Royal Marine with 40 Commando, accidentally activates a grenade whilst on a covert patrol behind enemy lines. 
 
With only a split second to react, Croucher's instincts kick in and he throws himself beside the grenade, reasoning that saving the lives of his three comrades was worth the likelihood of losing his own. 
 
Miraculously, and against all the odds, Croucher survived, and mere hours later was taking part in a gun battle against local insurgent fighters, demonstrating a raw, unique courage and devotion to military duty that would later see him awarded the George Cross - a distinction bestowed only on those who perform acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger. 
 
Croucher's George Cross would make him famous around the world. But his story is much more than just one heroic act in isolation. His is a life of bullets, blood and loyalty, and of lives saved and lives taken. From a young marine aged 19, when he was one of the first 200 Allied soldiers to invade Iraq back in 2003 as part of an elite force of British Marines and US Special Forces, through to his second tour of duty in 2004, when he suffered a fractured skull following a roadside bomb attack, only to return to action just a week later, and then being thrust into hellish Afghanistan, Croucher has seen vicious fighting, intense gun battles, roadside ambushes, and witnessed the death and injury of close colleagues on an almost daily basis. 
 
This is his incredible story: a searing, vivid, non-stop account of one man's heroism and courage under fire, in the most gruelling combat environment since the Second World War.

Bullet Proof

Michael Jackson

The only book Michael Jackson ever wrote about his life 
 
It chronicles his humble beginnings in the Midwest, his early days with the Jackson 5, and his unprecedented solo success. Giving unrivalled insight into the King of Pop's life, it details his songwriting process for hits like Beat It, Rock With You, Billie Jean, and We Are the World; describes how he developed his signature dance style, including the Moon Walk; and opens the door to his very private personal relationships with his family, including sister Janet, and stars like Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, Marlon Brando, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, and Brooke Shields. 
 
At the time of its original publication in 1988, MOONWALK broke the fiercely guarded barrier of silence that surrounded Michael Jackson. Candidly and courageously, Jackson talks openly about his wholly exceptional career and the crushing isolation of his fame, as well as the unfair rumours that have surrounded it. 
 
MOONWALK is illustrated with rare photographs from Jackson family albums and Michael's personal photographic archives, as well as a drawing done by Michael exclusively for the book. It reveals and celebrates, as no other book can, the life of this exceptional and beloved musician.

Moonwalk

Bertie Ahern

Bertie Ahern, three times Irish Taoiseach, is often described as an enigma. The Old IRA man's son who delivered peace in Northern Ireland. A working class boy responsible for the Celtic Tiger. The man of faith who ushered in progressive, cosmopolitan secular Ireland. An ardent nationalist admired by European leaders. 'I know 25 per cent of Bertie Ahern', said his finance minister, Charlie McCreevy, 'and that's 24 per cent more than anyone else.' 
 
Now in this frank and revealing autobiography, Ahern gives his own account of a remarkable political life and the personal story that accompanies it. He shows the cost to his family of a life played out in the public eye and, for the first time, discloses what really happened in his final weeks in power. 
 
Here for the first time is the truth behind the man who is Bertie. 
 
Ahern has been at the cutting edge of Irish politics for over three decades. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in the Fianna Fáil landslide victory in 1977 that saw Jack Lynch returned as Taoiseach. In 1982, Charles Haughey appointed him Government Chief Whip. In volatile political times, he strongly supported Haughey during three challenges to his leadership of Fianna Fáil. 
 
In 1987, Bertie Ahern received his first cabinet portfolio as Minister for Labour. It was a time when the Irish economy was in crisis. Ireland had a higher debt per head than Ethiopia or Sudan. Unemployment stood at 16%. Ahern negotiated Ireland's first social partnership agreement, which underpinned economic recovery and put in place the foundations for a period of sustained growth. In 1991, he was appointed Minister for Finance. International commentators first began to refer to 'Ireland's Tiger economy' in this period. When Bertie Ahern left the Department of Finance in late 1994, for the first time in almost 30 years, Ireland had a budget surplus. 
 
Bertie Ahern succeeded Albert Reynolds as leader of Fianna Fáil in November 1994. Following the General Election in 1997, he became Ireland's youngest ever Taoiseach. The Ahern Era was a time of unprecedented progress in Irish society. Over the course of his tenure in office, Ireland's economy out-performed that of every other European country. For the first time ever, the number of people in employment in the State reached 2 million. 
 
Working closely with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, Ahern won widespread acclaim for his perseverance and skill in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement, which has provided the political framework for a lasting peace in Northern Ireland. 
 
On the international stage, he was a respected figure who enjoyed an acclaimed Presidency of the European Council in 2004. He presided over the completion of the largest ever expansion of the EU and concluded negotiations on a European constitution. He is one of only five visiting statesmen to have addressed both the United States Congress and the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. 
 
At home, Ahern enjoyed phenomenal electoral support. He was the first Taoiseach since 1944 to win three successive General Elections. 
 
Bertie Ahern resigned on 6th May, 2008. He had served for ten years, ten months and ten days as Taoiseach.

Bertie Ahern Autobiography

Chris Gorringe

Wimbledon is a paradox. While outwardly appearing the quintessential English lawn tennis club, as much a part of being British as strawberries and cream or picnics in the park, it is in fact the largest annual outside broadcast operation in the world and a multi-million pound commercial enterprise. Remarkably, an enterprise that generates its profit in just two weeks of the year. 
 
It is also something we do rather well. Which other tennis tournament in the world can describe itself as simply, "The Championships"? 
 
Chris Gorringe is the man who, for twenty-six years, made it all happen. The former chief executive, fondly referred to as "Clockwork Gorringe," has dealt with everything from the 1973 players' boycott, the McEnroe tantrums, and Middle Sunday, to the demands for equal prize money and the Olympic bid. He has witnessed some of the greatest names in the sport producing some of their most dazzling performances - from Navratilova to the Williams sisters, from Borg to Federer - while assisting with the requirements of and demands on today's high-profile professional tennis players. During his tenure, revenue increased from £58,000 in his first year, to £27m in his last. In Holding Court, he charts the unique journey of one of the country's most venerable establishments, where decisions are still made through a committee system dating back to 1868, into the modern era. 
 
For anyone who has ever been captivated by McEnroe v Borg, soaked up the atmosphere in Aorangi Park, or been intrigued by what goes on behind the scenes at SW19, Holding Court is a must-read. Wimbledon is a national institution. When play starts on the first Monday, millions of followers tune in. This book is for them.

Holding Court

Tony Benn

As a diarist I have chronicled the time through which I have lived in meticulous detail: but all that is history. What matters now is the future for those who will live through it. 
 
The past is the past but there may be lessons to be learned which could help the next generation to avoid mistakes their parents and grandparents made. 
 
Certainly at my age I have learned an enormous amount from the study of history - not so much from the political leaders of the time but from those who struggled for justice and explained the world in a way that shows the continuity of history and has inspired me to do my work. 
 
Normality for any individual is what the world is like on the day they are born. The normality of the young is wholly different from the normality of their grandparents. 
 
It is the disentangling of the real questions from the day to day business of politics that may make sense for those who take up the task as they will do. 
 
Every generation has to fight the same battles as their ancestors had to fight, again and again, for there is no final victory and no final defeat. Two flames have burned from the beginning of time - the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope. If this book serves its purpose it will fan both flames.

Letters To My Grandchildren

Nick Barratt

Starting from its original conception and design by the owners and naval architects at the White Star Line through construction at Harland and Wolff's shipyards in Belfast, Nick Barratt explores the pre-history of the Titanic. He examines the aspirations of the owners, the realities of construction and the anticipation of the first sea-tests, revealing that the seeds of disaster were sown by the failure to implement sealed bulkheads - for which the original plans are now available. Barratt then looks at what it was like to embark on the Titanic's maiden voyage in April 1912. The lives of various passengers are examined in more detail, from the first class aristocrats enjoying all the trappings of privilege, to the families in third-class and steerage who simply sought to leave Britain for a better life in America. Similarly, the stories of representatives from the White Star Line who were present, as well as members of the crew, are told in their own words to give a very different perspective of the voyage. 
 
Finally, the book examines the disaster itself, when Titanic struck the iceberg on 14 April and sunk hours later. Survivors from passengers and crew explain what happened, taking you back in time to the full horror of that freezing Atlantic night when up to 1,520 people perished. The tragedy is also examined from the official boards of enquiry, and its aftermath placed in a historic context - the damage to British prestige and pride, and the changes to maritime law to ensure such an event never took place again. The book concludes by looking at the impact on those who escaped, and what became of them in the ensuing years; and includes the words of the last living survivor, Millvina Dean.

Lost Voices from the Titanic

The Definitive Oral History

A J Jacobs

For his first book, AJ Jacobs read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. For his second, he followed every single rule in the Bible. Now comes a collection of his most outrageous, hilarious and thought-provoking experiments yet. 
 
In My Experimental Life Jacobs puts himself to a series of bizarre and ridiculous tests, from total obedience to his long-suffering wife and 'Radical Honesty', to living as a beautiful woman and outsourcing his personal life to India (whether sending an email, having a weekly chat with his parents or arguing with his wife). 
 
Written by an author who has been compared in the British press to Woody Allen and Bill Bryson, The Guinea Pig Diaries will be one of the funniest, most entertaining and most illuminating books of the year.

My Experimental Life

Sebastian Faulks

pistache (pis-tash): a friendly spoof or parody of another's work. [Deriv uncertain. Possibly a cross between pastiche and p**stake.] 
 
From Thomas Hardy's football report to Dan Brown's visit to the cash dispenser, the work of the great and the not-so-great is here sent up with little hope of coming down. 
 
Most of these pieces began their life on Radio Four's The Write Stuff, but have been retooled for the printed page. Others, such as Martin Amis's first day at Hogwarts, have been written specially for this collection. 
 
Philip Larkin's Lines in Celebration of the Queen Mother's 115th Birthday, first banned, then cut by the BBC, appears in its entirety for the first time. 
 
This is not a book for the faint-hearted or the downstairs lavatory. It is a book for the bedside table of someone you cannot live without.

Pistache

Robert M. Edsel

Now a major film starring GEORGE CLOONEY, MATT DAMON, CATE BLANCHETT, BILL MURRAY, JOHN GOODMAN, HUGH BONNEVILLE, BOB BALABAN, JEAN DUJARDIN and DIMITRI LEONIDAS. 
What if I told you that there was an epic story about World War II that has not been told, involving the most unlikely group of heroes? 
What if I told you there was a group of men on the front lines who didn’t carry machine guns or drive tanks; a new kind of soldier, one charged with saving, not destroying. 
From caves to castles in a thrilling race against time, these men risked their lives daily to save hundreds of thousands of the world’s greatest works of art. 
THEY were the Monuments Men, and THIS is their extraordinary true story. 
‘Remarkable’ Washington Post 
‘Engaging, inspiring’ Publishers Weekly

The Monuments Men

Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History

Rick Wakeman

What do Postman Pat, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and George Best have in common with being abandoned in a Costa Rican jungle after a severe bout of flatulence? Indeed, how are they also connected to trying to buy an Australian brewery just to get a beer, owning twenty-two cars, an American soccer team and a Swiss mail-order pornography company? 
 
The common feature is of course a certain Richard Wakeman. 
 
The Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star takes you, the privileged reader, on a trip of absurd excess, a cultural car crash of side-splitting hilarity and an unforgettable glimpse (again) into the life of one of Britain's most legendary showmen, rock stars and all-time great raconteurs.

Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star

Arthur Smith

'My name is Arthur Smith, unless there's anybody here from the Streatham tax office. In which case, I'm Daphne Fairfax.' This has been Arthur's opening line at hundreds of stand-up comedy performances. In fact, he is neither Daphne nor Arthur. Friends and family know him as Brian. 
 
One of the 'alternative comedians' who shook up light entertainment in the eighties and nineties, Arthur (and Brian) is also a broadcaster, an opening bat for Grumpy Old Men, a West End playwright (his plays include An Evening with Gary Lineker) and a guest on innumerable radio and TV panel shows. 
 
In My Name is Daphne Fairfax he reflects on the nature of comedy and his days as a scruffy kid on the bombsites of Bermondsey, a wild-haired undergraduate, a roadsweeper, an English teacher, a failed rock star, a boozed-up sexual adventurer and an intensive care patient who has been told never to drink again. 
 
Hilarious, scandalous and rude, his memoir incorporates a tender tribute to his parents and a vigorous account of the peculiar business of being alive.

My Name is Daphne Fairfax

A Memoir

Malcolm Folley

The definitive story of F1's most famous - and deadly - rivalries. 
 
In the late eighties and early nineties, Formula One was at its most explosive, with thrilling races, charismatic drivers, nail-biting climaxes - and the most deadly rivalry ever witnessed in sport. Two of Formula One's most honoured champions and iconic figures drove together for McLaren for two seasons, and their acrimonious and hostile relationship extended even after one of them had left the team. 
 
ALAIN PROST: France's only F1 world champion, the intelligent, smooth driver with the epithet 'Le Professeur'. 
 
AYRTON SENNA: the mercurial kid from a privileged background in Sao Paolo who would become the most intense and ruthless racing driver the world has ever seen. 
 
It was a story that would have a tragic ending. 
 
As the great rivals raced to victory, their relationship deteriorated badly, beginning with the breaking of a gentleman's agreement, and public spats followed, culminating in Prost accusing Senna of deliberately trying to ride him off the circuit, and fearful that the Brazilian would get someone killed with his daring overtaking feats. And the final, sad act of this drama happened at the San Marino Grand prix at Imola in May 1994, when Senna was killed. 
 
Featuring a rare interview with Prost, and insight from Martin Brundle, Damon Hill, Sir Frank Williams, Bernie Ecclestone, Derek Warrick, Johnny Herbert, Gerhard Berger, plus McLaren insiders and other F1 figures, Malcolm Folley provides us with a breath-taking account of one of the all-time classic sporting rivalries.

Senna Versus Prost

Erica Martin Thriller

Eternal Ones

Eve of Man Trilogy

Everyman's Library Barbreck

Everyman's Children's Classics has more than 50 titles in print. It offers the finest editions currently available of the world's greatest children's books in handsome, full cloth hardcover bindings. 
 
The library brings back into print major illustrators such as Ivan Bilibin, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Nicolas Bentley, Walter Crane, Aubrey Beardsley, Edward Ardizzone, W.Heath Robinson and Mervyn Peake.

Everyman's Library CHILDREN'S CLASSICS

The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.

Everyman's Library CLASSICS

P G Wodehouse is widely recognized as the greatest English comic writer of the twentieth century. 
 
His characters and settings have entered our language and our mythology. The first ever collected edition (Wodehouse had many publishers in his lifetime), the Everyman Wodehouse, will contain all the novels and stories, newly edited and reset from the first British edition. 
 
Printed on cream-wove, acid-free paper, sewn and bound in cloth, each Everyman volume is already recognized as the finest edition of the master ever published.

Everyman's Library P G WODEHOUSE

Everyman's Pocket Classics complements highly successful Pocket Poets series, offering the best prose writing in a handy pocket-sized format. Like all Everyman Library books, each title is printed on a cream-wove, acid-free paper with full cloth sewn binding, headbands and silk ribbon marker. Eminently collectable and great gifts.

Everyman's Library POCKET CLASSICS

Pocket clothbound volumes from the world's greatest poets, and with a stunning range of anthologies. Each volume has an elegant jacket, full cloth sewn binding, silk ribbon marker and headbands, with gold stamping on front and spine and decorative endpapers. In size, price and presentation they make ideal gifts and are a joy to read and collect. More than eighty titles in print.

Everyman's Library POCKET POETS

Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics

Ex-Heroes

Explore with Peter Rabbit

Extraordinary Lives

Factory Girls

Fairwick Chronicles

Fairytale in Progress

Faith, Hope and Glory

Laid-back Roman detective Marcus Didius Falco investigates crimes in the dangerous world of first century Rome, a place of political intrigue, corruption and murder.

Falco

Fall of the Dragon

Luce doesn’t like the sound of the Sword and Cross reform school, and it lives up to all her expectations. Until she meets Daniel. He’s perfect, but what she doesn’t realise is that they have met before. Many times. He is a fallen angel, and each time they meet they are torn apart, Luce dying and Daniel forced to live on without her. They think that they have found a way to break the curse, but they will have to make great sacrifices along the way. Love never dies in this darkly romantic series which spans centuries in its storytelling.

Fallen

Falling Kingdoms

Far Out Five

Far-Flung Adventures

Sam and Remi Fargo are a husband and wife team on a quest. Treasure hunters, they travel the world looking for ancient artefacts and exotic bounty. They're in it for the history and the mystery, but others are not so honourable, and the Fargo's often find themselves caught up in ancient riddles, desperate to solve the puzzle before the bad guys get there first.

Fargo Adventures

Fate & Flame

Father Brown

Father, I Don’t Want This Marriage

Faust

Feral Love

More than 100 million copies sold worlwide, this is a series that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

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