Alan McDonald

Alan Melville

Alan Moore

Alan Moorehead was born in Melbourne, Australia. He travelled to England in 1937 and became a renowned foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express. Writer, world traveller, biographer, essayist, journalist, Moorehead was one of the most successful writers in English of his day. During World War II he won an international reputation for his coverage of campaigns in the Middle East and Asia, the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe. He died in 1983.

Alan Moorehead

Alan Paton

Alan Pattullo

Alan Pauls

Alan Pollock is a playwright, translator and screenwriter. His numerous plays include One Night in November, Pigs and All Tomorrow's Parties.

Alan Pollock

Alan Root was born in London in 1937 but moved to Kenya as a young boy. He dropped out of school at sixteen but soon found himself behind the camera. He married Joan Thorpe in 1961 and together they produced an array of award-winning wildlife films including Baobab: Portrait of a Tree, commissioned by David Attenborough, Safari by Balloon, The Year of the Wildebeest and Castles of Clay, which was nominated for an Oscar. Alan won over sixty awards during his career, including an Emmy, three Lifetime Achievement Awards an OBE. Alan Root died in August 2017.

Alan Root

Alan Rosenthal

Alan Ruddock

Alan Rugman

Alan Rusbridger

Alan Ryan

Alan S. Blinder

Alan Shearer CBE  grew up in Newcastle, leaving home as a  teenager to pursue a career in professional football with his first  team, Southampton. He went on to  reach football stardom, winning the Premier League with Blackburn in  1995, breaking the world transfer record by signing to Newcastle United  in 1996 and achieving international success as the Captain of England.  Alan also holds the record for most goals scored in Premier League history.

Alan Shearer

Alan Siegel

Alan Simpson

Alan Spence

Alan Stewart

Alan Taylor

Alan Tennant

Alan Thompson

Alan Titchmarsh MBE is known to millions through his career as a television presenter of shows including Love Your Weekend, Love Your Garden, Ground Force, Gardeners' World, The Alan Titchmarsh Show and Spring Into Summer. He has written more than forty gardening books, as well as twelve novels and three volumes of memoirs. He was made MBE in the millennium New Year Honours list and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour, the Royal Horticultural Society's highest award.

Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Unterman

Alan Watts was a British philosopher, writer and speaker who was best known for his expertise in Eastern philosophies including Zen Buddhism and Taoism. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, the meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness.

Alan W Watts

Alan Warner is the author of eight novels: Morvern Callar, These Demented Lands, The Sopranos, The Man Who Walks, The Worms Can Carry Me to Heaven, The Stars in the Bright Sky, which was longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, The Deadman's Pedal and Their Lips Talk of Mischief. He is Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University.

Alan Warner

Alan Watts

Alan Weisman is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including the global bestseller The World Without Us, which has been translated into 34 international languages and was nominated for numerous awards. His writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and many other places. Alan has worked on all seven continent and reported from 58 countries, and lives in western Massachusetts.

Alan Weisman

Alanna Mitchell

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David Quantick

So your husband/boyfriend/partner (delete as necessary) has just tipped over 35/40/45/50 (delete as necessary) and you can see that he's not quite as keen on Emmerdale as he once was. He's started to dress with his jeans hoiked too high like his hero Jeremy Clarkson and he's bought a home gym - the one recommended by George Clooney. Then there are those Harley Davison brochures delivered in brown envelopes. You've noticed he's started pulling in his beer gut when he's talks to his teenage secretary. And why have his grey sideburns turned that browny black? That's a sure sign of hair dye. And then you stumble into the bathroom in the morning and he's got his hands in a jar of your face cream. 
 
LADIES BEWARE! 
 
That dangerous age has arrived. It's the male menopause. The mid-life crisis. The time when suddenly you find your partner has put a whole Scalextrix track in your attic without you noticing. He's bought an electric guitar and insists on playing 'Smoke On The Water 'to the cat at all hours. It that time when no matter what you say they suddenly don't mind making a fools of themselves. They come home almost every week with a new enthusiasm. Dangerous Men don't just cook - they COOK. With truffles, that cost £210 for one the size of a wrinkled scrotum, and have to be from the right region of France. And they must be served with a side order of blowfish, because you saw that in a James Bond DVD that came free with the Mail on Sunday.

The Dangerous Book for Middle-Aged Men

A Manual for Managing Mid-Life Crisis

Reza Aslan

*Why do they hate us? An entire cottage industry has arisen to answer this question. But what no one has really figured out is, who exactly are they? Is it al-Qaeda? Islamic nationalists? The whole Muslim world? 
 
*HOW TO WIN A COSMIC WAR lays out, for the first time, a comprehensive definition of the movement behind and surrounding al-Qaeda and the like, a global ideology properly termed Jihadism. 
 
*Contrasting twenty-first-century religious extremism across Christianity, Judaism and Islam with its historical antecedents, Aslan demonstrates that while modern Jihadis may have legitimate social grievances - the suffering of the Palestinians, American support for Arab dictators, the presence of foreign troops in Muslim lands, to name a few - they have no real goals or actual agenda. 
 
*So, what do the Jihadists want? Aslan's answer is: Nothing. The Jihadists have no earthly agenda; they are fighting a metaphysical conflict, a theological war. And ever since 9/11, we have unfortunately been fighting the same cosmic war, the war they want: the so-called 'War on Terror'. 
 
*How do we win a Cosmic War? By refusing to fight in one. And in this stunning new work, Aslan reveals surprising conclusions about how we can deal with this predicament.

How to Win a Cosmic War

Confronting Radical Religion

Aled Jones

Here is Aled Jones' selection of his favourite hymns, ranked from number one through to forty. From Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer to Dear Lord and Father of Mankind and Shine Jesus Shine, each is accompanied by the history of its words and music. 
 
Aled brings the hymns vividly to life with his own reminiscences of performing them and thoughts on why each is such a winner, and he garners the experiences of today's great singers and composers. 
 
Written with grace, humour and real personal insight, this is a collection that will be enjoyed across the land.

Aled Jones' Forty Favourite Hymns

Sarah Rose

Robert Fortune was a Scottish gardener, botanist, plant hunter - and industrial spy. In 1848, the East India Company engaged him to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China - territory forbidden to foreigners - to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea. 
 
For centuries, China had been the world's sole tea manufacturer. Britain purchased this fuel for its Empire by trading opium to the Chinese - a poisonous relationship Britain fought two destructive wars to sustain. The East India Company had profited lavishly as the middleman, but now it was sinking, having lost its monopoly to trade tea. Its salvation, it thought, was to establish its own plantations in the Himalayas of British India. 
 
There were just two problems: India had no tea plants worth growing, and the company wouldn't have known what to do with them if it had. 
 
Hence Robert Fortune's daring trip. The Chinese interior was off-limits and virtually unknown to the West, but that's where the finest tea was grown - the richest oolongs, soochongs and pekoes. And the Emperor aimed to keep it that way.

For All the Tea in China

Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink

Donald Spoto

This biography draws on a series of unpublished interviews and offers a startling and intitmate portrait of one of the most glamourous icons of the 20th century. 
 
In just seven years (from 1950 through 1956), Grace Kelly made eleven feature films. They established her as one of the screen's iconic beauties, and as a performer of rare intelligence and wit. 
 
Donald Spoto, a personal friend of Kelly's in whom she confided, is in a unique position to tell the story of her transformation from convent girl from Philadelphia to last star of Hollywood's Golden Age to European princess. In this revelatory biography, Spoto draws on interviews with those who knew her - from James Stewart and Cary Grant to Fred Zimmerman - as well as a series of taped interviews with Kelly which have never before been published. 
 
A film of Grace Kelly's life, Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman and Tim Roth will be released in 2014.

High Society

Grace Kelly and Hollywood

Steve Roud

In which part of North London were wild beasts once thought to roam the sewers? 
Why did 1920s working-class Londoners wear necklaces of blue beads? 
Who was the original inspiration for the 'pearly king' costume? 
And did Spring-heeled Jack, scourge of Victorian London, ever really exist? 
 
Exploring everything from local superstitions and ghost stories to annual customs, this is an enchanting guide to the ancient legends and deep-rooted beliefs that can be found the length and breadth of the city.

London Lore

The legends and traditions of the world's most vibrant city

Wangari Maathai

In this urgent yet optimistic new work, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai provides a unique perspective on the fate of Africa. Informed by her three decades as an environmental activist and campaigner for democracy, The Challenge for Africa celebrates the enduring potential of the human spirit, and reminds us that change is always possible.

The Challenge for Africa

Jeffrey Meyers

The Genius and the Goddess, based on Jeffrey Meyers' long friendship with Arthur Miller and extensive archival research from Washington to Los Angeles, is a portrait of a marriage. The greatest American playwright of the twentieth century and the most popular American actress both complemented and wounded one another. 
 
Marilyn Monroe was a doomed personality whose tragic end was inevitable. Miller experienced creative agony with her. Their five-year marriage, from 1956 to 1961, coincided with the creative peak of her career, yet private and public conflict caused both of them great anguish. 
 
This book explains why they married, what sustained them for five years and what destroyed them; the effect of the anti-Communist witch-hunts on their marriage; and the impact of Marilyn on Miller's life and art. The fascinating cast of characters includes Marilyn's co-stars: Sir Laurence Olivier, Yves Montand and Clark Gable; her leading directors: John Huston, Billy Wilder and George Cukor; and her literary friends: Dame Edith Sitwell, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov. 
 
Meyers offers an incisive account of the making and meaning of The Misfits, which destroyed their marriage. But Marilyn remained Miller's tragic muse and her character, exalted and tormented, lived on, for the next forty years, in his work.

The Genius and the Goddess

Eddie O'Sullivan

Hear the story of the rise of one of Irish rugby's great outsiders and, ultimately, his crushing fall. 
 
As the longest-serving national coach in Irish rugby history, Eddie O'Sullivan produced a team that rose to third in the world rankings and laid down the standards for the team to fulfil its Grand Slam potential. Added to the three Triple Crowns he won in his six-year reign and the Corkman ought to enjoy legendary status in his homeland. 
 
Yet, few figures in Irish sport divide opinion quite like O'Sullivan. Ireland's abject performance at the '07 World Cup in France prompted extraordinary levels of criticism and precipitated O'Sullivan's fall. 
 
Here O'Sullivan talks candidly of the spectacular unravelling of confidence within probably the best Irish team in history; of the bizarre rumour mill that followed the Irish team through that World Cup; and takes us behind the scenes of a story that tossed an entire nation into mourning. 
 
From his relationships with his successor as Irish coach, Declan Kidney, and indeed his predecessor, Warren Gatland, to his early struggle for recognition in the Irish game when the absence of a traditional rugby background militated against him, O'Sullivan pulls no punches in this revelatory story about far more than rugby.

Eddie O'Sullivan: Never Die Wondering

The Autobiography

Harry Ferguson

Operation Kronstadt not only reveals the early days of Britain's intelligence services but uncovers a truly dramatic story from the Russian Revolution involving a daring rescue attempt and a 'mission impossible' against the best defended naval target in Russia. 
 
By May 1919, when the power struggle between former Tsarists and Bolsheviks hangs in the balance, the only British agent in Russia is trapped and in mortal danger. Mansfield Cumming, the first 'C', dreams up an audacious - probably suicidal - plan to rescue him, and a young naval officer is sent with a specially selected team into the jaws of the Soviet fleet. This is the remarkable story of the spy, Paul Dukes, (the only MI6 officer to be knighted for work in the field), and of Gus Agar, whose extraordinary escapade won him the Victoria Cross.

Operation Kronstadt

Daniel Metcalfe

Daniel Metcalfe journeys through the five 'stans, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and brings to life the brilliant human tapestry they comprise - uniquely shaped by the immigrants, deportees and conquerors that have settled there. Revealing a Central Asia that is far removed from the home of Borat or the land of international terrorism, Metcalfe unlocks the secrets of this troubled region, glorying in its diversity and also lamenting the economic and cultural changes that threaten to eradicate some of its peoples...

Out of Steppe

H G Cocks

'Lonely Young Officer, up to his neck in Flanders mud, would like to correspond with young lady (age 18-20), cheery and good looking.' 1916 
 
'Discreet, attractive couple 21 and 25 wish to meet couples and singles 21-35 for exciting and fun-loving adult relationships. Open-minded but not way out. No prejudices. Full length photo, address, and detailed letter assures same.' 1969 
 
From the 'sporty' girls and 'artistic' boys of the Edwardian era to the 'lonely' soldiers of the Great War, the marriage bureaux of the fifties, and on to the internet dating sites of today, Classified tells the story of those who used personal ads to search for love, friendship, marriage and adventure.

Classified

The Secret History of the Personal Column

Diane Atkinson

When they met at a motorcycle club in 1912, Elsie Knocker was a thirty year-old motorcycling divorcee dressed in bottle-green Dunhill leathers, and Mairi Chisholm was a brilliant eighteen-year old mechanic, living at home and borrowing tools from her brother. Little did they know, theirs was to become one of the most extraordinary stories of the First World War. 
 
In 1914, they roared off to London 'to do their bit', and within a month they were in the thick of things in Belgium driving ambulances to distant military hospitals. Frustrated by the number of men dying of shock in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first-aid post on the front line in the village of Pervyse, near Ypres, risking their lives working under sniper fire and heavy bombardment for months at a time. 
 
As news of their courage and expertise spread, the 'Angels of Pervyse' became celebrities, visited by journalists and photographers as well as royals and VIPs. Glamorous and influential, they were having the time of their lives, and for four years, Elsie and Mairi and stayed in Pervyse until they were nearly killed by arsenic gas in the spring of 1918. But returning home and adjusting to peacetime life was to prove even more challenging than the war itself.

Elsie and Mairi Go to War

Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front

Grace Saunders

Mum of three, Grace Saunders, has done all the research so you don't have to. Drawing on the advice and experiences of friends, families, professionals and fellow mums, Grace covers everything from nutrition and competitive parenting to nifty eco-friendly short-cuts and ideas for cutting back on the household's expenses. Family Life Made Easy is like a best-friend, ready to help you navigate your way through the wonderful mayhem that is family life.

Family Life Made Easy

A Fabulous Mum's Guide

Cherry Chappell

To treat a cold sore: 
As soon as the first symptoms are detected, put honey on the affected part of the lip. 
 
To cure toothache: 
Make a plug of cotton wool, soak it in whisky and apply it to the troublesome tooth. 
 
For fainting: 
Chop an onion and persuade the patient to inhale the fumes until tears come. 
 
Grandma's Remedies is an endlessly fascinating collection of traditional cures and treatments for everything from acne to wasp stings. Many are surprisingly effective, and all of them paint a vivid picture of the world of our grandparents and great-grandparents, where resourceful and inventive women were the guardians of family health. 
 
If you're intrigued by the traditional and natural approach to healthcare, if you've ever wondered how to make a poultice or a tincture, or even if you just want to find out about the more domestic side of history, Grandma's Remedies is interesting - and enlightening - reading.

Grandma's Remedies

Traditional treatments from mustard poultices to rosehip syrup

Jean Hannah Edelstein

As we tumble headlong into the second decade of the third millennium, we are in an era of unprecedented freedom to be whatever we want to be, in defiance of fusty old gender stereotypes. But while the women revel in ruling the boardroom, the men make magic in the kitchen, and everyone does rather unusual things in the bedroom, all of this freedom does have its downside: without understanding the fundamental differences between the genders, we're in for an era of dire confusion when it comes to living with the other half of humanity. 
 
But don't furrow your brow. Jean Hannah Edelstein is here to lead you through the perplexing questions of what it means to be a man or a woman in the twenty-first century. 
 
With a spectacular talent for unpicking social trends, Edelstein draws equally on experiential and anecdotal evidence, as well as the latest scientific studies, delivering a witty, edgy and definitive manual to understanding your partner/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend. Welcome a fresh new expert on men and women and the contradictory languages they speak.

Himglish and Femalese

Why women don't get why men don't get them

Robert Sellers

'I don't know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that I'm going to piss in the potted palm and slap them on the ass.' Marlon Brando 
'I should have been dead ten times over. I believe in miracles. It's an absolute miracle that I'm still around.' Dennis Hopper 
'The best time to get married is noon. That way, if things don't work out, you haven't blown the whole day.' Warren Beatty 
'You only lie to two people in your life: your girlfriend and the police.' Jack Nicholson 
 
They're the baddest bad asses Hollywood has ever seen: Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. These are men for whom rules did not apply, men for whom normal standards of behaviour were simply too wearisome to worry about. These are men who brawled, boozed, snorted and shagged their way into legend-hood - but along the way they changed acting and the way movies were made forever. 
 
Hollywood Hellraisers is a whistle-stop tour of jaw-dropping sexual activity, misbehaviour of an Olympic standard, all-out excess and genuine madness. It's a wonder Hollywood survived.

Hollywood Hellraisers

The Wild Lives and Fast Times of Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson

Robert Wagner

In this moving memoir, Robert J. Wagner opens his heart to share the romances, the drama and the humor of an incredible life. Under the mentorship of stars like Spencer Tracy, he became a salaried actor in Hollywood's studio system among other hot actors of the moment such as his friends Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. Wagner began to appear in a number of films alongside the most beautiful starlets. As his career blossomed he met the woman who would change his life forever, Natalie Wood. They fell instantly and deeply in love and stayed together until the stress of their careers drove them to divorce. 
 
Trying to forget the pain, he made more movies and spent his time in Europe with the likes of Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Liz Taylor and Joan Collins. He would meet and marry the beautiful former model and actress Marion Marshall. Together they had a daughter, and made their way back to America, where he found himself at the beginning of a new era in Hollywood - the blossoming of television. 
 
Despite his new found success, his marriage to Marion fell apart. He looked no further than Natalie Wood, for whom he still pined. To the world's surprise, they fell in love all over again. Their life together was cut tragically short, though, when Wood died after falling from their yacht. For the first time, Wagner writes about that tremendously painful time. After a serious bout with depression, he finally resurfaced and eventually married Jill St. John, who helped keep his family and his fractured heart together.

Pieces of My Heart

Dana Fowley

At just five years old, Dana learned that there was no one she could trust. Most devastating of all, even her own mother betrayed her and in the most unimaginable way. For years, Dana and her younger sister suffered at the hands of one of Britain's largest ever-known paedophile rings. And their mother did nothing to protect them. 
 
Only now is Dana's nightmare coming to an end as she crusades to put her abusers behind bars. In June 2007 the truth was finally exposed. Dana bravely testified against her own mother. The woman who had subjected Dana and her sister to a lifetime of horror was sentenced to twelve years in prison. It was one of the most traumatic ordeals Dana has ever experienced. But a shocked world was finally forced to open its eyes to what happened to Dana. This is her story of survival.

How Could She?

Nick Hawton

For more than a decade Europe's most wanted man, Radovan Karadzic, evaded the combined efforts of western intelligence agencies, NATO peacekeepers and Hague investigators and maverick bounty hunters to track him down. 
 
When everybody else seemed to have given the hunt, one journalist doggedly followed his trail, travelling from the snow-capped mountains of Montenegro to the killing the fields of eastern Bosnia to the corridors of power in Belgrade, in search of the man accused of some of the most horrific crimes committed in Europe since the Second World War.

Europe's Most Wanted Man

The Quest for Radovan Karadzic

Simon Carr

When Simon Carr's wife, Susie, tragically loses her battle with cancer, Simon is left to raise his five-year-old son, Alexander, on his own. Soon after, his eleven-year-old son from a previous marriage, Hugo, comes to live with them too. All too quickly, plumped-up cushions, crisp beds and a drifting scent of rosemary from the kitchen are replaced with a floor piled high with video-games, Lego® and comics. While visiting mothers deem his parenting 'semi-feral', Simon dryly retorts that his methods are simply 'free-range'.In this new all-male partnership, Simon faces the challenges of parenthood unaided, as father and sons alike learn to become a family again. 
 
Carr's emotionally honest, compellingly anarchic and sharply comic story of a single parent's struggle is at once heartbreaking and wonderfully life-affirming.

The Boys Are Back

James Patterson

Thrust onto Egypt's throne when just nine years old, King Tut's reign was fiercely debated from the outset. After nine years in power, Tut suddenly perished and his name was purged from Egyptian history. To this day, his death remains shrouded in controversy. 
 
Now, in The Murder of King Tut, James Patterson and Martin Dugard dig through the evidence to arrive at their own account of Tut's life and untimely death. The result is an exhilarating true crime tale of intrigue, passion, and betrayal that casts fresh light on one of the oldest mysteries of all.

The Murder of King Tut

Eric Bristow

Eric Bristow MBE (1957-2018) might just have been the greatest darts player of all time. 
 
An unmistakable figure on the oche during his 1980s heyday, 'the Cheeky Cockney' became renowned not just for the number of world titles he won but for his arrogance on stage and off it. 
 
In this candid account, Bristow reveals how darts saved him from his early life as a cat burglar, shoplifter and thug - and introduced him to a new world of beer, babes and success beyond his wildest dreams. In his rapid rise to the top, he gives fascinating insights into the characters that pioneered darts in those early days and how, when his own career began to slide at the end of the decade, he trained his protégé Phil 'The Power' Taylor, turning him into the most successful player darts has ever known. 
 
Bristow holds nothing back as he reveals his battle with dartitis, a psychological condition which left him unable to let go of the dart and almost destroyed his career; his relationship with girlfriend and former women's world darts champion Maureen Flowers; and his occasional all-too-public falls from grace. 
 
Bristow's life story is a thrill-a-minute ride through the raucous world of darts and how it helped to shape and drive his life.

Eric Bristow: The Autobiography

The Crafty Cockney

Anne Rice

'[W]hen I found Rice's work I absolutely loved how she took that genre and (...) made [it] feel so contemporary and relevant' Sarah Pinborough, bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes 
 
'[Rice wrote] in the great tradition of the gothic' Ramsey Campbell, bestselling author of The Hungry Moon 
 
Internationally bestselling author, Anne Rice, has written twenty-eight novels - magnificent tales of other worldly beings that explore the realms of good and evil, love and alienation: each a reflection of her own moral journey. Now, in her powerful memoir, she writes about her own life as a Catholic. 
 
Beginning with her New Orleans childhood, in a vividly experienced world of storytelling and ritual, Rice's faith was formed. As a teenager, struggling to reconcile her faith with her hunger for knowledge and understanding of the modern world, she turned her back to the religion of her childhood and lost her belief in God. Years later, after the tragic passing of her daughter, she wrote Interview with the Vampire,a lament for her lost faith. 
 
Rice describes a turning point in 1998, when, after nearly four decades as an atheist, she returned to the religion of her childhood. Hers is a faith that has survived even her husband's death and the divisive nature of contemporary religious debate. This is her spiritual confession.

Called Out of Darkness

A Spiritual Confession

Andy Murray

'With Andy, the sky's the limit...' John McEnroe 
 
At Wimbledon 2005, Andy Murray announced himself on the tennis world stage by thrashing star pros George Bastl and Radek Stepanek: a legend was born and Britain had a new sporting hero. 
 
From there, Andy's rise to the top has been unstoppable: from winning his first ATP title at San Jose in 2006 and deposing Tim Henman to become British Number 1, to beating a host of former and current World no. 1s - including Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal - Murray has gone from strength to strength. With his triumphant win at Queen's in June 2009, a storming performance at Wimbledon 2009 - which saw Andy reach the semi-finals for the first time - and his crowning as World Number 2, we have seen Murray reach even greater heights. 
 
But Murray is much more than a truly gifted tennis player: he has changed the face of the British game. His grit, passion and success on court, combined with his ranking as one of the world's best players, has reignited Britain's love of tennis and inspired a whole new generation of kids to become tennis fans. 
 
Here, in his updated story, Andy regales us with the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the near misses to show us just how far the boy from Dunblane has come.

Coming of Age

John Sutherland

How much heavier was Thackeray's brain than Walt Whitman's? Which novels do American soldiers read? When did cigarettes start making an appearance in English literature? And, while we're about it, who wrote the first Western, is there any link between asthma and literary genius, and what really happened on Dorothea's wedding night in Middlemarch? 
 
In Curiosities of Literature, John Sutherland contemplates the full import of questions such as these, and attempts a few answers in a series of essays that are both witty and eclectic. His approach is also unashamedly discursive. An account of the fast-working Mickey Spillane, for example, leads to a consideration of the substances, both legal and illegal, that authors have employed to boost their creative energies. An essay on good and bad handwriting points out in passing that Thackeray could write the Lord's Prayer on the back of a stamp. As for Mary Shelley, a brief recital of the circumstances in which she wrote Frankenstein stops off to consider what impact the miserable summer weather of 1816 had on the future path of English literature. 
 
Of course, it is debatable whether knowledge of these arcane topics adds to the wisdom of nations, but it does highlight the random pleasures to be found in reading literature and reading about it. As John Sutherland rightly asks, 'Why else read?'

Curiosities of Literature

A Book-lover's Anthology of Literary Erudition

Barbara Cartland

'For the record, the word "parlour" is not used, nor is the relatively recent insidious "lounge", except about airports, hotels and liners.' 
 
'Boys should be taught at a very early age - six or seven - to say "Sir" to an older man.' 
 
'When there are servants, the plates for the first course are never put on the table until everyone is seated.' 
 
'I cannot stress too often that on every formal occasion, whether it is Luncheon, a Bazaar or a Meeting, a hat should be worn.' 
 
Written nearly 50 years ago, Barbara Cartland's Etiquette Handbook conjures up a period when addressing work colleagues by their first names was frowned upon, wives could expect to receive a weekly allowance of five shillings from their husbands, and hats were ubiquitous. Laced throughout with Barbara Cartland's wit and wisdom, and Francis Marshall's illustrations, this is a wonderfully evocative insight into the manners of an England that has largely disappeared.

Barbara Cartland's Etiquette Handbook

A Guide to Good Behaviour from the Boudoir to the Boardroom

David Ovason

The secrets, the myths and the facts behind Washington, D.C.'s design and its Masonic significance. 
 
In this groundbreaking, original work, David Ovason reveals the intimate connections between the mysterious zodiacal symbols and the stellar lore of Washington, D.C. and the secret plan for the city. 
 
There are over fifty complete zodiacs in Washington, D.C., all witness to an extraordinary stellar mystery. Why did generations of architects and artists put their lives and energies on the line, when designing this City of the Stars? What was their shared secret language? What or who drove them to create a city overflowing with such esoteric symbolism? What is the meaning behind the secret symbolism of Washington, D.C.'s layout? And what does it mean for America's future?

Lost Symbols?

The Secrets of Washington DC

Cory Friedman was an ordinary fun-loving little boy. But one fateful March morning in 1989, the course of Cory's life changed dramatically. It started with an irresistible urge to shake his head; before long, overtaken by physical urges, tics and compulsions, his body became a volatile, explosive and unpredictable force. 
 
Cory had developed a rare combination of Tourette's syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder and other neurological conditions. The life he knew had been torn apart and his family were left watching him suffer. Desperate to help and hopeful of a cure, they embarked on a fifteen-year struggle which took them beyond breaking point.

Torn Apart

The True Story of a Childhood Lost

Arthur Herman

Mohandas Gandhi and Winston Churchill: India's moral leader and Great Britain's greatest Prime Minister. Born five years and seven thousand miles apart, they became embodiments of the nations they led. Both became living icons, idolized and admired around the world. Today, they remain enduring models of leadership in a democratic society. 
 
Yet the truth was Churchill and Gandhi were bitter enemies throughout their lives. This book reveals, for the first time, how that rivalry shaped the twentieth century and beyond. For more than forty years, from 1906 to 1948, Gandhi and Churchill were locked in a tense struggle for the hearts and minds of the British public, and of world opinion. Although they met only once, their titanic contest of wills would decide the fate of nations, continents, peoples, and ultimately an Empire. 
 
Here is a sweeping epic with a fascinating supporting cast, and a brilliant narrative parable of two men whose great successes were always haunted by personal failure - and whose final moments of triumph were overshadowed by the loss of what they held most dear.

Gandhi and Churchill

The Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age

Find Spot

Finn Fitzpatrick Series

First Favourite Tales

The First Festivals series invites children to explore the world's culture from the comfort of their home, encourages the development of hand-eye coordination and is recommended for children aged 2 and over.

First Festivals

First Impressions

First Steps with Spot

Five Minute Mum

Flaptastic

Fluffy

Folk Art

Foolproof

Football Academy

Football Skills

Forbidden Spaces Trilogy

Fortuna Sworn

Foul Play

DICK FRANCIS was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys and author of forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), the biography of Lester Piggott and his own autobiography (The Sport of Queens). He was rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest thriller writers in the world. 
 
 Since his death, his son FELIX FRANCIS has taken over the literary reigns from his father and Dick's legacy lives on through the Dick Francis novels. The Francis flair is clear for all to see in these national treasure thrillers, and readers will appreciate the sporadic reappearance of beloved series characters Sid Halley and Jeff Hinkley.

Francis Thriller

Frank Behr

Once a Detective Inspector in the Nottinghamshire Force, Frank Elder has retired to an isolated cottage in Cornwall, and is trying to live the quiet life. The past, however, is never far behind him.

Frank Elder

Fred

Free Collars Kingdom

Jean Plaidy combines imagination with facts to bring the French Revolution alive in this dynamic historical fiction series. From Louis XV’s debauchery to Marie Antionette’s demise, it is clear there was only one way this was going to end.

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