ADAM HAMDY is a bestselling author and screenwriter. His most recent novel, The Other Side of Night, was an NPR best book of 2022 and a New York Times best thriller of the year, and has been described as ingenious and deeply moving. He is the author of the Scott Pearce series of modern spy thrillers, Black 13, Red Wolves and White Fire, and the Pendulum trilogy. Keep up to date with his latest books and news at www.adamhamdy.com.

Adam Hamdy

Adam Hart-Davis

Adam Haslett is the author of the story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here and the novels Imagine Me Gone and Union Atlantic. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and his books have been translated into over thirty languages. His journalism on culture and politics has appeared in The Financial Times, Esquire, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The Nation, and The Atlantic, among others. He lives in New York City.

Adam Haslett

Adam Henson presents Countryfile, often from his 650-hectare farm in the Cotswolds. Having studied Agriculture at college, Adam took over Bemborough Farm from his father, Joe. The farm now grows wheat, spring barley and oilseed rape, runs a flock of 400 commercial ewes and has the UK's leading collection of rare breeds, many of which are in demand for film sets and advertisements. Cotswold Farm Park (www.cotswoldfarmpark.co.uk) offers a total countryside experience for all the family, welcoming more than 100,000 visitors each year. 
 
Adam presented Lambing Live with Kate Humble, writes for Countryfile magazine and has appeared on Radio 4's On Your Farm and Farming Today. He is the author of three previous books, Adam’s Farm: My Life on the Land, the Sunday Times bestseller, Like Farmer, Like Son and A Farmer and His Dog.

Adam Henson

Adam Henson is perhaps the best-known farmer in the UK, presenting on BBC's Countryfile to millions of viewers each Sunday evening. He's also appeared on Lambing Live, Secret Britain, Coast and Inside Out. Adam also runs the award-winning Cotswold Farm Park in Gloucestershire, which welcomes family visitors all year round and is home to many rare breeds. He has a monthly column in Countryfile magazine, as well as the Cotswold Life magazine. He has written several books including the Sunday Times bestseller Like Farmer, Like Son. This is his first children's book and it is the perfect introduction to the farm.

Adam Higginbotham has written for magazines including The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Wired and Smithsonian. He is also the author of Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, which was awarded the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. He lives in New York City.

Adam Higginbotham

Adam Hills is an internationally recognised comedian and host of award-winning Channel 4 show The Last Leg. His collection of stories from a life in comedy, Best Foot Forward, was a Times bestseller.

Adam Hills

Adam Howling

Adam J. Kurtz

Adam Jacot de Boinod

ADAM JOHNSON won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for his second novel, the New York Times bestseller The Orphan Master’s Son (‘Excavates the very meaning of life’ New York Times). His short story 'Nirvana' won the prestigious Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award. He is the author of acclaimed story collections, Fortune Smiles and Emporium and the novel Parasites Like Us. He teaches creative writing at Stanford University and lives with his family in San Francisco.

Adam Johnson

Adam Kay is a former doctor who has written five million books and sold seven copies. No, hang on – he’s written seven books and sold five million copies. His debut book, This is Going to Hurt, is a literary sensation: a Sunday Times number one bestseller for over a year, winning a record-breaking four National Book Awards and selling over 3 million copies. Kay adapted This is Going to Hurt as a BAFTA-winning comedy-drama series for the BBC. Adam Kay’s children’s books have been translated into 32 languages and sold over 1 million copies, making him one of the UK’s bestselling children’s authors. Kay’s Anatomy became the fastest-selling children’s general non-fiction hardback of the decade. His first picture book, Amy Gets Eaten, was published in 2023, and his first children’s novel, Dexter Procter the Ten-Year-Old Doctor, was published in September 2024.

Adam Kay

Adam studied illustration and animation, and received a BA followed by an MA from the Edinburgh College of Art. As a student he won a competition to create a short film for MOMI and Channel 4, and once his career producing animated commercials was under way, he became an illustrator as well. He has regular columns in the UK and the US.

Adam Larkum

Adam Lashinsky

Adam Macqueen

Adam Mars-Jones

Adam O'Riordan was born in Manchester in 1982, where he currently lives. In 2008 he became the youngest Poet-in-Residence at The Wordsworth Trust, the Centre for British Romanticism. His first collection In the Flesh (2010) win a Somerset Maugham Award. He is the Academic Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Adam O'Riordan

Adam Phillips, formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practising psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of numerous works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently On Giving Up, On Wanting to Change, Attention Seeking, In Writing, Unforbidden Pleasures and Missing Out. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Adam Phillips

Adam Rackley

Adam Richardson is the UK's top trending health and fitness coach with a rapidly growing audience across both TikTok and Instagram. Adam is passionate about removing barriers to exercise and movement, a philosophy that is key to his work as a Personal Trainer in which he strives to help his clients feel more confident, as well as more fit and healthy.

Adam Richardson

Adam Roberts is the author of The Amateur Gourmet and Secrets of the Best Chefs, and coauthor of Give My Swiss Chards to Broadway. He started his food blog, The Amateur Gourmet, in 2004 and currently writes The Amateur Gourmet Newsletter on Substack. Roberts has also written for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and for film and television. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and their dog, Winston. Food Person is his first novel.

Adam Roberts

Adam Roberts is acknowledged as the senior scholar of international relations in the UK. He was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University 1986-2007, and President of the British Academy 2009-13 - the head of humanities in Britain. He was on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London (2002-08), a member of the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board (2003-15) and is now on the Board of Advisers of the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare at the United States Military Academy, West Point.

Adam Robinson is based in the Middle East and is a regular contributor to newspapers in the Arab world and also to the British media. He is the author of numerous books on the region, including Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of the Terrorist.

Adam Robinson

Adam Ross

Adam Rutherford is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and geneticist at University College London. His books include A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Book of Humans, and the Sunday Times bestseller How to Argue with a Racist. He has written and presented numerous documentaries for BBC radio and television, including Inside Science and The Cell. Adam has also worked as a science advisor on many films, including the Oscar-winning Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).

Adam Rutherford

Adam Smith

Adam Smyth runs the 39 Step Press, an experiment in printing, from a cold barn in Oxfordshire. He is also Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Adam Smyth

Adam Sweeting

Adam Tandy

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Paul O'Grady

Birkenhead, 1973. The eighteen-year-old Paul O'Grady gets ready for a big Saturday night out on the town. New white T-shirt, freshly ironed jeans, looking good. As he bids farewell to his mum, who's on the phone to his auntie, and wanders off down the street in a cloud of aftershave, he hears her familiar cry: 'Oh, the devil rides out tonight, Annie. The devil rides out!' 
 
The further adventures of Paul O'Grady - following on from the million-copy-selling At My Mother's Knee - are, if anything, even more hilarious and outrageous than what has come before.To say that The Devil Rides Out is action-packed is an understatement. Its extraordinary cast of characters includes lords and ladies, the legendary Vera, a serial killer, more prostitutes than you can shake a stick at and drag queens of every shape and size. Wickedly funny, often moving, and searingly honest, Paul's tales of the unexpected will make your jaw drop and your hair stand on end. And you'll laugh like a drain. The Devil Rides Out is one hell of a read!

The Devil Rides Out

Wickedly funny and painfully honest stories from Paul O’Grady

Michael Wright

How do you find the woman of your dreams when you're nearly forty, living in the middle of nowhere and spectacularly ungifted in the art of seduction? 
 
Three years into his solo adventure in rural France, Michael Wright has everything he ever wanted: a ramshackle house, several manly power tools, a cat, a grand piano and a vintage aircraft. Yet the lovelier his life becomes, the lonelier he feels. Three unfulfilled wishes return to haunt him: to grow a perfect potato, to fly a Spitfire and, most of all, to meet his soulmate. 
 
Written with honesty, self-deprecating wit and life-affirming passion, Michael Wright's new memoir reveals how, while his livestock seem bent on reproduction, a solitary man can learn to accept being single . . .Or so he thinks until a bumptious American Labrador and a perilous landing in a light aircraft conspire to offer a glimpse of romance that could turn his whole world upside down.

Je t'aime à la Folie

Allan Mallinson

Edgehill, 1642: Surveying the disastrous scene in the aftermath of the first battle of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell realizes that war can no longer be made in the old, feudal way: there has to be system and discipline, and therefore - eventually - a standing professional army. 
 
From the 'New Model Army' of Cromwell's distant vision, former soldier Allan Mallinson shows us the people and events that have shaped the army we know today. How Marlborough's momentous victory at Blenheim is linked to Wellington's at Waterloo; how the desperate fight at Rorke's Drift in 1879 underpinned the heroism of the airborne forces at Arnhem in 1944; and why Montgomery's momentous victory at El Alamein mattered long after the Second World War was over. 
 
From the Army's origins at the battle of Edgehill to our current conflict in Afghanistan, this is history at its most relevant - and most dramatic.

The Making Of The British Army

Mark Chapman

Alice bands, orange bladed boots and socks worn over the knee. Mansions in Cheshire, WAGs and written-off Ferraris. Referees with headsets, fourth officials, and an incomprehensible amount of stoppage time. 
 
There is only so much a true football fan can take, and in Heroes, Hairbands and Hissy Fits, Mark Chapman (aka Chappers) gives full vent to his feelings, as only the host of a football phone-in can. Football phone-ins are on the hitlist too, by the way. It is football as we know it, told from the heart. 
 
With his trademark down-to-earth wit, he takes aim at everyone from Sepp Blatter to MOTD, kit designers and replica shirt wearers (don't put your age on the back of the shirt, lads), trophy presentations and tournament draws. From his first footballing memory to watching his son grow up idolising Premier League millionaires, Chappers' book is a timely tirade as well as a love song to the beautiful game.

Heroes, Hairbands and Hissy Fits

Chappers' modern history of football

Jonathan Miles

'Spies should be glamorous - James Bond in a Savile Row suit rather than Harry Palmer in a grubby mac . . . In those terms, Otto Katz was perfect. He was a Hollywood playboy who hobnobbed with Fritz Lang, he inspired the character of Victor Laszlo in Casablanca, he was a drinking buddy of Bertolt Brecht and among his lovers he claimed Marlene Dietrich. He was even known to Nöel Coward' The Times 
 
If you were to imagine the perfect spy, you may well be picturing Otto Katz. He was charming, suave, and utterly ruthless. In the golden years of the spy game, from Hitler's rise to power, through the Second World War, and on into the Cold War, Otto Katz was at the centre of Russia's web of international intrigue. His fingerprints can be found on one world changing event after another. 
 
Using recently released FBI, MI5 and Czech files, Jonathan Miles has created an action-packed story of the life (or lives) of one of the world's most successful spies . At the same time he paints a vivid portrait of the shadow world that exists behind the headlines where the actions of a man like Katz can, and do, change the course of history.

The Nine Lives of Otto Katz

Robert Winston

We are born with the instinct to create and invent. Indeed, our ability to do so is what separates us from the rest of the animal world. But have our creative ideas always produced desirable results? Have they always served us well? 
 
Bad Ideas? traces the fascinating history of our attempts at self-improvement but also questions their value. The dubious consequences of the development of weaponry, for example, is self-evident. But what of apparently more innocuous advances such as farming, writing and medicine? Science has produced huge good but has also had unforeseen consequences. Can science and scientists find solutions to the perils that now menace us? 
 
We join Robert Winston on a thrilling journey from our earliest days to the present. We meet some key individuals along the way and share quirky anecdotes about their lives and brainwaves. Inspiring, unusual and at times controversial, Bad Ideas? assesses the past and looks forward to the opportunities of the future. In so doing it celebrates man's extraordinary capacity for achievement and offers a hopeful way forward to protect humanity against what sometimes seem like bad ideas.

Bad Ideas?

An arresting history of our inventions

Charles Seife

Since A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME scientists have been in the midst of a revolution in cosmology. Gradually, astronomers and physicists are answering questions that have plagued mankind since prehistory: how was the universe born, how will it end? They are even now peering into the cradle of the universe - and into its grave. By the beginning of next year, scientists will have a clue to some of the answers. These will be among the greatest triumphs of science. 
 
This book tells that story and will reveal results of the most advanced experiments in cosmology ever conducted. It's a tale of men solving the insoluble, of the controversy and anger of rivals after the same goal. Even more thrillingly - it is a lucid explanation of new scientific ideas that stretch man's powers of understanding to their highest levels.

Alpha And Omega

The Search For The Beginning And The End Of The Universe

Sarah Gristwood

Few women's lives have described such an arc as that of Mary Robinson. She began her career as an actress, became a royal mistress and possible blackmailer, and ended it just two decades later as a Romantic poet and early feminist thinker of note. She was painted by Gainsborough and Reynolds, and satirized by political cartoonists. 
 
Born in Bristol in 1758, she married at 15. But Mary had barely made her curtsey to society before discovering that Robinson was little better than a conman. She went with him to debtors' prison, where she wrote her first book of verse. Encouraged by Sheridan and Garrick, who admired her beauty, she went on the stage, where she was seen by the 17-year-old Prince of Wales, and they embarked on a widely satirized liaison. Mary had made her mark in fashionable Georgian society and this, over the next two momentous decades, was where she contrived to stay. 
 
This vivid and accessible biography explores Georgian England during a period of extreme political, social and cultural upheaval through the life of this remarkable woman.

Bird Of Paradise

The Colourful Career of the First Mrs Robinson

Ian Denys Peek

In February 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese. Denys Peek and his brother were just two of tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers and citizens taken prisoner. 
Eight months later, he and his comrades were packed into steel goods wagons and transported by rail to Siam. They were to become part of the slave labour force destined for the massive construction project that would later become infamous as the Burma Thailand Railway. He would spend the next three years in over fifteen different work and 'hospital' camps on the railway, stubbornly refusing to give in and die in a place where over 20,000 prisoners of war and uncounted slave labourers met their deaths. 
Narrated in the present tense and written with clarity, passion and a remarkable eye for detail, Denys Peek has vividly recreated not just the hardships and horrors of the railway and the daily struggle for survival but also the comradeship, spirit and humour of the men who worked on it. It stands as a haunting, evocative and deeply moving testimony to the suffering of those who lived and died there - a salutary reminder of man's potential for inhumanity to his fellow man.

One Fourteenth Of An Elephant

Audrey Eyton

Audrey Eyton took the world by storm with her international superseller The F-Plan Diet. Now, harnessing unrivalled experience and twenty-first century cutting-edge science, she returns with an equally revolutionary new diet, which can: 
 
·Remove surplus fat faster than any other diets of the same calorie totals 
 
·Multiply your good bacteria AND maximise their rejuvenating impact 
 
·Speed away 'toxics', lower cholesterol, retune your whole system to high energy health 
 
·Bin blood-sugar and hunger problems with new' no fuss' tactics 
 
The sensational F2 Diet does the lot for weight, looks and health, backed by science and based on surprisingly simple easy-to-make meals and recipes. You can plan your own or follow ready-planned F2 menus as you fast track into a slim, fit future.

The F2 Diet

Boris Becker

Boris Becker shot to fame in 1985 when at seventeen years old, he became the youngest player ever to win the men's final at Wimbledon. He went on to win two more Wimbledon titles, and a total of forty-nine singles and fifteen doubles crowns, making him one of the greatest players of the twentieth century. But his life off the court has always attracted as much attention as his triumphs on it. 
 
Now, in this remarkably candid and thought-provoking autobiography, Boris Becker tells the real story behind the headlines. He speaks of the seconds before the serve that made him the youngest Wimbledon winner of all time, and of the minutes after being sentenced as a tax evader. He talks about his marriage, his illegitimate daughter, and his painful divorce. He reveals his emotions at the end of his tennis career, and his battles with pills and alcohol. He also shares his memories of the good times, the championship wins, the make-or-break matches, and the highs and lows of life on the international circuit. 
 
Boris Becker has written this autobiography not just for his fans but also for his children, that they may one day read the true account of their father's remarkable, and often controversial, life.

The Player

Celia Lyttelton

When Celia Lyttelton visited a bespoke perfumers, she realized a long-held ambition: to have a scent created solely for her. Entering this heady, exotic world of oils and essences, she was transported from a leafy London square to a place of long-forgotten memories and sensory experiences. And once drawn into this world, she felt compelled to trace the origins, history and culture of the many ingredients that made up her unique perfume... 
 
And so began a magical journey of the senses that took Celia from Grasse, the cradle of perfume, to Morocco; from the rose-growing region of Isparta in Turkey, to the Tuscan hills where the iris grows wild. And after journeying to Sri Lanka, the home of the heavenly scented jasmine, Celia ventured to India, the Yemen and finally to the 'Island of Bliss', Socotra. Here she traced the rarest and most mysterious agent in perfumery, ambergris, which is found in the bellies of whales and is said to have powerful aphrodisiac qualities. 
 
From the peasants and farmers growing their own crops, and the traders who sell to the great perfume houses, to the 'noses' who create the scents and the marketing kings who rule this powerful billion-dollar industry, Celia Lyttelton paints a mystical, sensual landscape of sights, sounds and aromas as she recalls the extraordinary people and places she encountered on her unique Scent Trail.

The Scent Trail

A Journey of the Senses

Jean Sasson

From the time she was a little girl, Maryam rebelled against the terrible second-class existence that was her destiny as an Afghan woman. 
 
She had witnessed the miserable fate of her grandmother and three aunts, and wished she had been born a boy. As a feisty teenager in Kabul, she was outraged when the Russians invaded her country. After she made a public show of defiance, she had to flee the country for her life. 
 
A new life of freedom seemed within her grasp,but her father arranged a traditional marriage to a fellow Afghan, who turned out to be a violent man. Beaten, raped and abused, Maryam found joy in the birth of a baby son. But then her brutal husband stole him away far beyond his mother's reach. For many long years she searched for her lost son, while civil war and Taliban oppression raged back home in Afghanistan. 
 
Set against a landscape littered with tragic tales of horrific suffering, Jean Sasson, author of Princess, chronicles the story of one resolute but tormented woman determined to achieve freedom and equality with men.

For the Love of a Son

One Afghan Woman's Quest for her Stolen Child

Ian Wilson

Two decades after radiocarbon dating declared the Turin Shroud a mediaeval fake, brand-new historical discoveries strongly suggest that this famous cloth, with its extraordinary photographic imprint, is genuinely Christ's shroud after all. 
 
In 1978 in his international bestseller The Turin Shroud Ian Wilson ignited worldwide public debate with his compelling case endorsing the shroud's authenticity. Now, 30 years later, he has completely rewritten and updated his earlier book to provide fresh evidence to support his original argument. Shroud boldly challenges the current post-radiocarbon dating view - that it is a fake. By arguing his case brilliantly and provocatively, Ian Wilson once more throws the matter into the public arena for further debate and controversy.

The Shroud

Fresh Light on the 2000 Year Old Mystery

Louann Brizendine

From the author of the groundbreaking, international bestseller The Female Brain comes this eagerly awaited follow-up. 
 
Did you know that the male brain... 
 
·is a lean, mean problem-solving machine that uses analytical brain structures, not emotional ones, to find solutions 
 
·thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough, and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy 
 
·has an area for sexual pursuit that is 2.5 times larger than that of the female brain, consuming him with sexual fantasies about female body parts 
 
As Dr Louann Brizendine's impeccably researched, irresistible guide follows the male brain from infancy to adulthood, it unlocks many secrets and offers fascinating insights into a range of subjects, including emotional intimacy, anger, agression, and winning. It also answers many baffling questions and exposes the often shocking gulf that exists between the sexes.

The Male Brain

Layli Miller Bashir

Fauziya Kassindja

Like the bestsellers Princess and Not Without My Daughter, Do They Hear You When You Cry? tells the dramatic, compulsively readable story of a woman fighting to free herself from the injustices of her culture. Fauziya Kassindja's harrowing story begins in Togo, Africa, where she enjoyed a sheltered childhood, shielded by her progressive father from the tribal practice of polygamy and genital mutilation. But when her father died in 1993, Fauziya's life changed dramatically. At the age of seventeen, she was forced to marry a man she barely knew who already had three wives, and prepare for the tribal ritual practice of genital mutilation - a practice that is performed without painkillers or antibiotics. But hours before the ritual was to take place, Fauziya's sister helped her escape to Germany, and from there she travelled to the United States seeking asylum - and freedom. Instead she was stripped, shackled and imprisoned for sixteen months by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. 
Enter Layli Miller Bashir, a twenty-three-year-old law student who took on Fauziya's case. When the two women met, Layli found a broken, emaciated girl with whom she forged an extraordinary friendship. Putting her heart into Fauziya's case, Layli enlisted help from the American University International Human Rights Clinic. The clinic's acting director Karen Musalo, an expert in refugee law, assembled a team to fight on Fauziya's behalf. Ultimately, in a landmark decision that has given hope to many seeking asylum on the grounds of gender-based persecution, Fauziya was granted asylum on 13 June 1996. 
Here, for the first time, is Fauziya's dramatic personal story, told in her own words, vividly detailing her life as a young woman in Togo and her nightmarish day-to-day existence in American prisons. It is a story of faith and freedom, courage and inspiration - one that you will not easily forget.

Do They Hear You When You Cry

Anthony Destefano

An inspiring and comforting twenty-first-century 'virtual tour' of heaven 
 
Heaven is a place we are all interested in going to, but few of us know much about. Now, in this illuminating guide, Anthony DeStefano has developed a wonderfully original travel-motif to introduce readers to the after-life. Here, acting as our 'tour guide', he takes us on a vivid and realistic 'sight-seeing' trip through paradise - and he makes heaven come alive in a way that no other book ever has. 
 
Unlike many other spiritual works, A Travel Guide to Heaven does not preach, nor is it heavy-handed or judgmental. On the contrary, it is a fun, upbeat and remarkably reassuring portrait of heaven - a place that has intrigued and puzzled humanity throughout history. 
 
As you embark upon this imaginative journey of discovery, you will gain courage and strength from its inspiring message of hope - and your fears for the future will fall away. For those suffering the loss of a loved one, there is comfort in the knowledge that heaven is a place of abiding joy and love.

A Travel Guide To Heaven

Alan Hansen

Football is a game of opinions. Alan Hansen knows this only too well. In his long, distinguished career with Liverpool he faced some fierce public criticism from the media. Now the boot is on the other foot and Hansen himself earns a living as one of football's most outspoken and popular pundits. 
 
Hansen's autobiography is as uncompromising as the man himself. Looking back at fourteen victorious years at Anfield, he focuses on the highlights and the inspirational characters - Paisley, Fagan, Dalglish, Rush - who were so instrumental in building the club's international success. Then there were the disappointments, and the darker days at Heysel and Hillsborough. Hansen reflects on the impact both incidents had on his life, and on the future for spectators of British football. 
 
In 1991 Hansen retired from football. He explains his reasons for not wanting to stay in the game, revealing a surprising lack of self-confidence. If he were starting his playing career now, who are the teams he would want to play for - and those he wouldn't? Which managers and players does he respect? Why does he admire Wimbledon above all other home teams? Hansen addresses these questions and, now that clubs are becoming multi-faceted business empires, looks at the future for the game in the UK. 
 
Until a knee injury ended his playing career, Hansen was one of the most successful British soccer players of all time. He captained Liverpool to an historic double in 1986, and is the only person to have won all of the honours available at club level at least twice. A keen tactical understanding of the game has made him a favourite on BBC TV Match of the Day, Grandstand and Sportsnight. Before embarking on his professional playing career, Hansen was awarded a place at Aberdeen University to read history. He lives with his family in Merseyside.

A Matter Of Opinion

Ian Robertson

Listen. Can you hear an aircraft passing overhead? A dog barking? The twittering of birds? In straining to listen, you have just sent a surge of electrical activity through millions of brain cells. In choosing to do this with your mind, you have changed your brain - you have made brain cells fire, at the side of your head, above the right eye. By the time you've read this far, you will have changed your brain permanently. These words will leave a faint trace in the woven electricity of you. For 'you' exists in the trembling web of connected brain cells. This web is in flux, continually remoulded, sculpted by the restless energy of the world. That energy is transformed at your senses into the utterly unique weave of brain connections that is YOU. 
 
New research has demonstrated the way in which the brain is shaped by experience and sculpted by our interactions with the world around us. As one of the world's leading authorities on brain rehabilitation, Ian Robertson is uniquely placed to explore these ground-breaking discoveries, that free us from the currently fashionable genetically determinist view. Mind Sculpture is a singularly accessible and imaginative book which communicates the excitement and challenge of the most recent research, its consequences for how we understand the brain and how we perceive ourselves.

Mind Sculpture

Your Brain's Untapped Potential

Will Davies

'Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one - fire! Down goes the firing switch. At first, nothing. Then from deep down there comes a low rumble, and it as if the world is spliting apart...' 
 
On 7th June 1917, nineteen massive mines exploded beneath Messines Ridge near Ypres. The largest man-made explosion in history up until that point shattered the landscape and smashed open the German lines. Ten thousand German soldiers died. 
Two of the mines - at Hill 60 and the Caterpillar - were fired by men of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, comprising miners and engineers rather than parade-ground soldiers. Drawing on the diaries of one of the key combatants, Benealth Hill 60 tells the little-known, devastatingly brutal true story of this subterranean war waged beneath the Western Front - a stygian battle-ground where men drowned in viscous chalk, suffocated in the blue gray clay, choked on poisonous air or died in the darkness, caught up up in vicious hand-to-hand fighting...

Beneath Hill 60

John Man

**A SOURCE FOR MARCO POLO, A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES** 
 
 
Marco Polo's journey from Venice, through Europe and most of Asia, to the court of Kublai Khan in China is one of the most audacious in history. His account of his experiences, known simply as The Travels, uncovered an entirely new world of emperors and concubines, great buildings - 'stately pleasure domes' in Coleridge's dreaming - huge armies and imperial riches. His book shaped the West's understanding of China for hundreds of years. 
 
John Man travelled in Marco's footsteps to Xanadu, in search of the truth behind Marco's stories; to separate legend from fact. Drawing on his own journey, archaeology and archival study, John Man paints a vivid picture of the man behind the myth and the true story of the great court of Kublai Khan.

Xanadu

Genghis Khan is history's greatest conqueror. As a teenager he was an outcast fleeing enemies on a mountain in northern Mongolia, an exile, a nobody. Yet it took only twenty years for Genghis to build the largest land empire in history - four times the size of Alexander's, twice the size of Rome's. 
 
How did he do it? What lessons does his life reveal about the nature of leadership? What is 'greatness' in leadership? What traits did Genghis possess exactly? Were they unique, or might some apply in other times and other places - even here and today? 
 
In Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan, John Man re-examines the life of Genghis Khan to discover the qualities, characteristics and strategies that made him the great leader that he was. The answers are sometimes surprising. Genghis was far from just the tyrant that history records, but rather a leader of exceptional vision and modernity. And many of the secrets of his success are as valuable and applicable in today's competitive business world as they were in rallying the Mongol hordes.

The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan

Frank Gardner

Lost on a remote Sumatran volcano...pursued through a Tokyo backstreet by a Japanese gangster...picnicking with the French Foreign Legion in the Horn of Africa: Frank Gardner's idea of a holiday is not everyone's. But ever since his student days, the BBC security correspondent has done some epicly hard travelling in a remarkable number of countries. Drawing on the diaries, sketches and photos he kept during his travels, his immaculately observed accounts of these often strange, sometimes daring, adventures form the backbone of his new book. 
 
In June 2004, while on what should have been a routine assignment in Riyadh, his life - never mind his ability to travel the world - was nearly brought to a violent end by Islamist gunmen. Frank survived against all the odds and through force of will, has found himself looking towards far horizons once more. He's not only been skiing in the Alps, scuba diving in the Red Sea and explored the jungles of Cambodia, he is also reporting once more from far-flung destinations like Afghanistan and Colombia - and this is a man who no longer has the use of his legs... 
 
This is Frank Gardner's compelling, personal account of the myriad adventures that made him the man he was on that fateful day - and of the journeys he's made since, and how they've helped him to become the remarkable and inspiring individual he is today.

Far Horizons

Rick Broadbent

MotoGP is enjoying a period of unprecedented popularity and Ring of Fire details the acclaim, the heroism and the pressures of riding motorbikes at speeds of more than 200mph. This is a world where manufacturers invest millions and the world champion celebrates by staging mock jail breaks and giving pillion rides to a blow-up doll. One rider warms up for major races by singing Hank Marvin songs on his karaoke machine and a rising Italian star sees the world in terms of black and white energy tubes. Another sees nothing strange in racing with two broken ankles. 
 
Ring of Fire covers the recent history of MotoGP, from American Nicky Hayden spectacularly overturning established champion Valentino Rossi in 2006, through the emergence of wild young Australian Casey Stoner as the new champion in 2007, to the fierce rivalry between them and Spaniards Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo in what would prove to be one of the most closely-contested years of racing in 2008. It gives a behind the scenes look at World Superbike Champion James Toseland's attempts to break into this elite, and looks back at the tradition of reprobates, romance and debauchery in the paddock dating back to the 60s and stars like Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostino. 
 
Rick Broadbent introduces us not just to the stars and the multi-million pound contracts, but also to the officals, mechanics, doctors, team owners and fans who make up this white-knuckle ride of a sport. By turns funny, sad, shocking and uplifting, Ring of Fire brings us face to face with those who battle to emerge unscathed, or who just ignore the pain and ride to win against all odds.

Ring of Fire

Robert Wallace

H. Keith Melton

Henry Robert Schlesinger

Secret instructons written in invisible ink. 
Cigarettes that fire bullets. 
Covert communications slipped inside dead rats. 
Subminature cameras hidden in ballpoint pens. 
 
If these sound like the stuff of James Bond's gadget-master Q's trade, think again. They are all real-life devices created by the CIA's Office of Technical Services. Now, in the first book ever written about this ultrasecretive department, the former director of the OTS gives us an unprecedented look at the devices and operations from the history of the CIA - including many deemed 'inappropriate for public disclosure' by the CIA just two years ago. 
 
Spycraft tells amazing life and death stories about this little-known group, much of which has never before been revealed. Against the backdrop of some of the most critical international events of recent years - including the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the war on terror - the authors show the real techinical and human story of how the CIA carried out its most secret missions.

Spycraft

Guy Walters

At the end of the Second World War some of the highest ranking members of the Nazi party escaped from justice. Some of them are names that have resonated deeply in twentieth-century history - Eichmann, Mengele, Martin Bormann and Klaus Barbie - not just for the monstrosity of their crimes, but also because of the shadowy nature of their post-war existence, holed up in the depths of Latin America, always one step ahead of their pursuers. 
 
The nature of their escape was as gripping as any good thriller. They were aided and abetted by corrupt Catholic priests in the Vatican, they travelled down secret 'rat lines', hid in foreboding castles high in the Austrian alps, and were taken in by shady Argentine secret agents. The attempts to bring them to justice are no less dramatic, with vengeful Holocaust survivors, inept politicians, and daring plots to kidnap or assassinate the fugitives. 
 
Guy Walters has travelled the world in pursuit of the real account of how the Nazis escaped at the end of the war, the attempts, sometimes successful, to bring them to justice, and what really happened to those that got away. He has interviewed Nazi hunters, former members of Mossad, and poured through archives across the globe to bring this remarkable period of our recent history to dramatic and vivid life.

Hunting Evil

Marianne Williamson

In this comforting,inspirational companion to the No.1 New York Times bestseller, A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson returns to her spiritual roots, writing on the art of nurturing a thriving soul in a harsh world. 
 
What do your spiritual convictions have to do with traffic jams, job anxiety, reading the newspaper, or arguing with your spouse? Everything, according to Marianne Williamson. It is the way we live in our everyday world that determines the shape of who we are. So Buddhist or Muslim, Christian or Jew, it is the moment when your child fails an exam, when your best friend lands your dream job, or your business instinct tells you to watch your back, that tests and builds our living faith. 
 
With an attitude of hope, a call to forgive, a celebration of miracles, and the promise of strength and grace, Williamson helps us find our sacred footing on ordinary ground. No matter where we are or what we're doing, no matter what difficulties we face, there is always an opportunity to be happy, to connect with the spiritual - and to open our hearts and our minds. In the book of hours, Marianne Williamson teaches us to ride the currents of life and to seek out the sacred that will bring forth a sea change of the soul.

Everyday Grace

Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness And Making Miracles

Claire Bertschinger

One of the most enduring images of the Ethiopian famine that shocked the world in 1984 was that of the young International Red Cross nurse who, surrounded by thousands of starving people and with limited supplies, had the terrible task of choosing which children to feed, knowing that those she turned away might not last the night. That nurse was Claire Bertschinger, and those pictures inspired Live Aid, the biggest relief programme the world had ever seen. 'In her was vested the power of life and death,' Bob Geldof said. 'She had become God-like, and that is unbearable for anyone.' Michael Buerk, whose BBC documentary first showed those pictures, persuaded Claire to return to Ethiopia almost twenty years later. For all those years she had been haunted by the terrible choices she had been forced to make. But when she met them again, the survivors welcomed her back with open arms. 
 
Born in Essex, Claire Bertschinger had to overcome dyslexia to qualify as a nurse. When she joined the International Red Cross, she fulfilled a zest for adventure and a passionate vocation for relief work. She has worked with the war-wounded and hostages in Lebanon, with the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, and with victims of civil war and displaced persons in Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Sudan. Working in war zones she often came under fire herself while trying to save the lives of others.

Moving Mountains

Gabriele Marcotti

Fabio Capello is a born winner. As a midfielder with Roma, Juventus and Milan, he won four Italian league championships and two cups, and played for his country 32 times, scoring a goal at Wembley in 1973 in Italy's first ever win in England. As a manager, Capello's fierce determination has seen him win championships - nine of them in 16 years - with every club he has taken charge of, from the great Milan team he helped create in the early 1990s to Real Madrid with David Beckham in 2007. 
 
Now he faces his greatest challenge yet, the challenge that he has said is his long-cherished dream, and the last of his glittering coaching career. To restore England to the top of the world football tree, to take his adopted country to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, and to win it. For Capello, nothing less than the best will do. For England, it is win or bust. And you don't want to lose under Capello. 
 
In this, the first ever biography of the new England manager, award-winning writer Gabriele Marcotti travels from Capello's early days in Italy to his first months in his new job at Soho Square to tell the story of the man behind the steely glare, the method behind the sometimes manic behaviour. Capello's drive for success at any cost has seen him make more than a few enemies over the years, and Marcotti has talked to them all, as well as his closest associates. No-one has ever got this close to Capello before, and this is the story not just of a remarkable career, but of the life of a truly extraordinary man.

Capello

The Man Behind England's World Cup Dream

Ann Vanderhoof

Who hasn't fantasized about leaving their job, saying goodbye to the rat race and escaping to some exotic destination in search of sun, sand, and a different way of life? Ann Vanderhoof and her husband did just that. 
 
In the mid 1990s, the author and her husband were driven, forty-something professionals who were desperate for a break from their harried, deadline-dominated lives. So they left their jobs, rented out their house, moved onto a 42-foot yacht called Receta ('recipe' in Spanish) and set sail from their home in Canada for the Caribbean. AN EMBARRASSMENT OF MANGOES is Ann Vanderhoof's intimate account of this two-year midlife interlude during which she and her husband travelled more than 7,000 nautical miles, dropped anchor in 16 countries (and 47 individual islands), and adapted to a new life on 'island time'. 
 
Exchanging suits for bare feet, they leave the stresses of their old life behind and become caught up in a world that is simultaneously simpler and more exuberant. They sip rum with their neighbours and dance through the streets during Carnival, explore secluded beaches, learn to pull their dinner from the sea and create delectable dishes in their tiny galley kitchen. 
 
Interspersed with irresistible recipes, from cracked conch in the Bahamas, curried lobster in Grenada, spicy island gingerbread to West Indian rum punch, AN EMBARRASSMENT OF MANGOES is the enticing story of discovering not just vibrant new cultures and cuisines, but what really matters.

An Embarrassment Of Mangoes

Black Heart Blue

Black Lace Book Of Women Sexual Fantasies

Black Star Series

Blacklist

Set inside Blandings Castle, this comedy series follows Lord Emsworth and his pig Empress as they meet with his dysfunctional family and friends, and the havoc that follows.

Blandings

Blandings Castle

Blood City Rollers

Bloodlines

Blossom Street

Blue Ant

Bluey

Bodyguard

Bodyguard Series

Bollocks to Alton Towers

Book of Dust Series

Borderlands

Born Wicked

Boudica: the last defender of the Celtic culture; the only woman openly to have led her warriors into battle; the only British warrior to have stood against the might of Imperial Rome - and triumphed. 
 
This is her story.

Boudica

Boy Soldier

Brain Chemicals

Brave Bunnies

Bridge

Bridget Jones's Diary

Brief Encounters

Bright Young Things

Brotherband

Arthur Bryant and John May are Golden Age detectives living in the modern world. Together they head up the Peculiar Crimes Unit, ready to solve any of the weird and wonderful crimes that fall across their desks.

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter