Aeham Ahmad, born in Damascus in 1988, grew up in Yarmouk, a suburb of Damascus. From the age of four onwards his father encouraged his musical talent and at seven he received piano lessons at the Arab Institute in Damascus. He later studied music education in Homs and worked as a music teacher. 
 
In 2015 he was forced to flee to Germany because of the war in Syria. Today he lives with his family in Wiesbaden and gives concerts all over Europe. In December 2015, Ahmad was awarded the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights. 
 
This is his first book.

Aeham Ahmad

Aemilia Lanyer

Aeneas Gunn

Aerosmith

Aeschylus

Aesop lived in the early sixth century BC on the island of Samos, which lies off the coast of modern Turkey. He originally came from Thrace which was a separate country in those days, though it now forms part of Greece and Bulgaria. Very little is known about his life except that he worked as a slave on Samos for a master called Iadmon, and that he became a very famous storyteller. He was so famous that almost any fable which could have been told by him became attributed to him.

Aesop

Afsaneh Knight

Afsaneh Moqadam

Afua Hirsch is a writer, filmmaker, and journalist. She is the author of Brit(ish), the Sunday Times bestseller that explores Britishness, identity and belonging, for which she was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction. She co-presented Enslaved, a 6-part series about the transatlantic slave trade with Samuel L Jackson. She is the presenter of the Audible podcast series We Need To Talk About the British Empire, and Africa Rising, an ongoing flagship series about art and culture for the BBC, through her production company Born in Me Productions. She is a longtime columnist for the Guardian and is a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California.

Afua Hirsch

AGAPI STASSINOPOULOS is an author, blogger and international speaker who inspires audiences around the world. She has spoken at many corporations and conferences, such as Nike Women, Starbucks,Time Inc., Virgin, Johnson &amp; Johnson and the American Heart Foundation. She was born in Athens and trained in London at RADA before gaining a Master’s in psychology at the University of Santa Monica. She has collaborated with her sister, Arianna Huffington, to develop talks and seminars, and has worked with the Oprah Winfrey network. She is currently hosting a new podcast series in collaboration with The Huffington Post, entitled ‘Sundays with Agapi’, which includes guided meditations and interviews with prominent guests. She lives in Los Angeles.

Agapi Stassinopoulos

Agatha Christie

Aggie MacKenzie

Aghnia Mardiyah is a London-based Illustrator and Character Designer with a passion for children's books and animation. She is drawn to fun, bright and vibrant colours. When she isn't disappearing under piles of work, she loves to travel! Exploring foreign places, exciting new sights and sensations is what inspires her the most!

Aghnia Mardiyah

Agnes Callard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She has written for The New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’s, Boston Review, and penned a monthly column for the Point. From 2019 to 2020, she held a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for the research that contributes to this book.

Agnes Callard

Agnes Jekyll

Agnes Bertha Marshall (24 August 1855-29 July 1905) was an English culinary entrepreneur who became a leading cookery writer, dubbed the 'Queen of Ices'. Her 1888 cookery book included a recipe for 'cornets with cream', possibly the earliest publication of the edible ice cream cone. Marshall was born in Walthamstow. She wrote four books: Ices Plain and Fancy: The Book of Ices (1885), Mrs A B Marshall's Book of Cookery (1888), Mrs A B Marshall's Larger Cookery Book of Extra Recipes (1891) and Fancy Ices (1894).

Agnes Marshall

Agnes Prus

Agri Ismaïl is a Kurdish author based in Sweden who has worked as a corporate lawyer in London, Dubai, and Iraqi Kurdistan. His work has been published in The White Review, The Rumpus, Litro, 3:AM Magazine, and Asymptote amongst other places. His piece 'Haunted Home' won the 2016 Stack award for best non-fiction for The Outpost, runner-up in the Lifted Brow &amp; RMIT non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Non-Fiction, and he was longlisted for the 2017/2018 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize. Hyper is his first novel.

Agri Ismaïl

Aharon Appelfeld authored more than 45 acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction and received many international awards including the MLA Commonwealth Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction prize, the prix Médicis étranger, the Israel prize, and the Nelly Sachs prize. Born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (now part of Ukraine) in 1932, he survived the Holocaust and passed away in Israel in 2018.

Aharon Appelfeld

Ahmadou Kourouma

Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist and human rights activist based in London. He is the co-founder and director of We Are Not Numbers and a journalist with Palestine Deep Dive. Ahmed holds a degree in English Literature from Al-Azhar university in Gaza, and an MA in International Journalism from Leeds University, where he was a Chevening Scholar. 
 
Pam Bailey is a social-justice activist and journalist based in Washington DC. She lived and worked in the Gaza Strip following the 2008/9 Israeli assault, and co-founded We Are Not Numbers. Today, in addition to her ongoing dedication to the Palestinian cause, she dedicates herself to two nonprofits that advocate for people detained in American prisons -- including one she co-founded in 2020, called More Than Our Crimes.

Ahmed Alnaouq

Ahmed Errachidi

Ahmed Rashid

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

Ahron Bregman is the author of four books about Israel and the Arabs: The Fifty Years War (with Jihan el Tahri), Israel's Wars, A History of Israel and Elusive Peace. He teaches at the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

Ahron Bregman

Ai Qing is regarded as one of the finest modern Chinese poets, whose free verse was influential in the development of new poetry in China.

Ai Qing

Ai Weiwei

Aidan Chambers was born in County Durham in 1934. After national service in the Royal Navy he became a teacher and then, for seven years, a monk. His young adult novels have been widely acclaimed, with POSTCARDS FROM NO-MAN'S LAND winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal and the US Michael L Printz Award. With his wife Nancy he ran Signal magazine and he has served as the president of the School Library Association. His devoted services to children's literature were recognised by his receipt of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.

Aidan Chambers

Aidan Higgins was born in 1927. Langrishe Go Down, his first novel, won the James Tait Black memorial Prize and the Irish Academy of Letters Award, and was later filmed for television with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. His second novel, Balcony of Europe, was shortlisted for the 1972 Booker Prize. The novel Lions of the Grunewald appeared in 1993 and a collection of shorter fiction, Flotsam and jetsam, in 1996. Donkey's Years and Dog Days were the first two volumes of the Higgins Bestiary which concludes with this volume.

Aidan Higgins

Aidan Mathews

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Na'ima B Robert

Covered from head to toe with only her eyes visible, the sight of a Muslim woman on a western city street rarely fails to provoke a strong reaction. Feelings of shock, horror, repulsion, pity or even fear are not uncommon. But have you ever wondered who it is behind the veil and what makes her tick? Ever wondered what her life is really like and whether her dreams, hopes and aspirations differ from yours? From My Sisters' Lips offers a rare glimpse into the lives of a community of women, most of whom are converts to Islam, and invites you to share their joys, sorrows, convictions and faith. 
 
When Na'ima B Robert abandoned her western lifestyle and embraced Islam six years ago, it was not a decision taken lightly. Yet soon after she took her first tentative steps towards covering, she felt empowered; no longer judged on physical appearances alone, no longer seeking the approval to feel beautiful - or using her looks to wield power over men - the experience effected her greatly. Before long she grew in confidence and courage. As she says, 'Something just clicked. I thought, "Good, don't look; don't compare me with your latest squeeze, don't try and guess my measurements - my body is my own business!"' 
From My Sisters' Lips offers a glimpse into the lives of just some of the extraordinary women who, like herself, have chosen to live behind the veil. What emerges is a vivid and intimate portrait of a sisterhood; as they speak candidly and with conviction on a diverse range of subjects ranging from marriage to motherhood, stereotypes, submission and self-image, we hear the strong, proud voices of those who are seldom heard.

From My Sisters' Lips

Terry Darlington

'WE COULD BORE OURSELVES TO DEATH, DRINK OURSELVES TO DEATH, OR HAVE A BIT OF AN ADVENTURE...' 
 
When they retired Terry and Monica Darlington decided to sail their canal narrowboat across the Channel and down to the Mediterranean, together with their whippet Jim. They took advice from experts, who said they would die, together with their whippet Jim. 
 
On the Phyllis May you dive through six-foot waves in the Channel, are swept down the terrible Rhône, and fight for your life in a storm among the flamingos of the Camargue. 
You meet the French nobody meets - poets, captains, historians, drunks, bargees, men with guns, scholars, madmen - they all want to know the people on the painted boat and their narrow dog. 
You visit the France nobody knows - the backwaters of Flanders, the canals beneath Paris, the heavenly Yonne, the lost Burgundy Canal, the islands of the Saône, and the forbidden ways to the Mediterranean. 
 
Aliens, dicks, trolls, vandals, gongoozlers, killer fish and the walking dead all stand between our three innocents and their goal - many-towered Carcassonne.

Narrow Dog To Carcassonne

Stephen Cartmell

Writer and psychologist Stephen Cartmell set off to explore Britain using the cultural melting pot of the UK's 60 racecourses as his staging posts. During his travels the author observed the frequent absurdity of the British, the peculiarities of their institutions and developed a satirical critique of one of the country's favourite pastimes. 
 
With his acute eye for observation, an appreciation of the ridiculous and the ability to find humour even in the face of petty officialdom, this acclaimed book is not simply a travelogue of racing but a key to understanding Britain and its curiously comical inhabitants. Racegoer, traveller or first time visitor, Stephen Cartmell's colourful stories are sure to entertain.

From Aintree to York

Racing Around Britain

Wendy Moore

WINNER OF THE MEDICAL JOURNALISTS' OPEN BOOK AWARD 2005 
 
Revered and feared in equal measure, John Hunter was the most famous surgeon of eighteenth-century London. Rich or poor, aristocrat or human freak, suffering Georgians knew that Hunter's skills might well save their lives &shy;but if he failed, their corpses could end up on his dissecting table, their bones and organs destined for display in his remarkable, macabre museum. 
 
Maverick medical pioneer, adored teacher, brilliant naturalist, Hunter was a key figure of the Enlightenment who transformed surgery, advanced biological understanding and even anticipated the evolutionary theories of Darwin. He provided inspiration both for Dr Jekyll and Dr Dolittle. But the extremes to which he went to pursue his scientific mission raised question marks then as now. 
 
John Hunter's extraordinary world comes to life in this remarkable, award-winning biography written by a wonderful new talent.

The Knife Man

John Man

The name Attila the Hun has become a byword for barbarism, savagery and violence. His is a truly household name, but what do we really know about the man himself, his position in history and the world in which he lived? This riveting biography reveals the man behind the myth. 
 
In the years 434-454AD the fate of Europe hung upon the actions of one man, Attila, king of the Huns. The decaying Roman empire still stood astride the Western World, from its twin capitals of Rome and Constantinople, but it was threatened by a new force, the much-feared Barbarian hordes. It was Attila who united the Barbarian tribes into a single, amazingly-effective army. He launched two violent attacks against the eastern and western halves of the Roman empire, attacks which earned him his reputation for mindless devastation, and brought an end to Rome's pre-eminence in Europe. 
 
Attila was coarse, capricious, arrogant, ruthless and brilliant. An illiterate and predatory tribal chief, he had no interest in administration, but was a wily politician, who, from his base in the grasslands of Hungary, used secretaries and ambassadors to bring him intelligence on his enemies. He was a leader whose unique qualities made him supreme among tribal leaders, but whose weaknesses ensured the collapse of his empire after his death.

Attila The Hun

Paul Reizin

Paul Reizin is living proof that it is possible to find happiness through the lonely hearts column in a newspaper. So is his wife. And their baby. 
Date Expectations tells the hilarious true story of some of the most disastrous dates in the history of courtship, as Paul sets out on an increasingly fraught quest to leave singledom behind ... These include the date with the psycho hippy nutter; the date who didn't turn up; the world's shortest date; and the date with a face like a bag of spanners. 
Learn to interpret the secret language of the lonely hearts columns (e.g. 'bubbly' = fat). Learn how to read between the lines of a recorded message - fine tune your radar for those tell-tale references to cats and anger-management classes. And much, much more ... 
Remember - blind dating is like life. By the time you've learned how to do it properly, you no longer need to . . .

Date Expectations

Raj Persaud

- Do you make New Year resolutions? Almost everyone does, because we want to achieve positive personal change. But did you know that most resolutions are repeated five years in a row, and that the vast majority are broken by June. 
- Have you ever dieted? Yet if diets work, why do we need so many, and new ones all the time? The evidence shows that we persist in buying diet books and following fitness fads because we want to believe the new approach will be the one that works... Today, we seem to be obsessed with advantage and disadvantage, fairness and the level playing field, without realizing that in life, the ability to overcome obstacles is a key part of any success strategy - as is our inner drive and motivation. In The Motivated Mind, award-winning author and psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud investigates the latest research on this fascinating subject - and he comes to some surprising conclusions. Complete with fascinating case studies, The Motivated Mind offers fresh &amp; inspiring insights into understanding the key to success - the key to fulfilling your dream.

The Motivated Mind

How to get what you want from life

Bill McLaren

Just before the start of the 2002 Wales v Scotland match in Cardiff, the stadium announcer asked people to stand and acknowledge Bill McLaren's great contribution to the sport. The whole ground rose, leaving McLaren choking back the tears. Then came a voice in his ear: 'Cue, Bill...' 
 
Coping with his emotions on that day was obviously not straightforward, even for a commentator of Bill McLaren's experience, used to being caught up in some of the most dramatic moments rugby has ever seen. But Bill also talks frankly about the greatest tragedy of his life: the death of his younger daughter from cancer at 46, the three years of agony and the trauma of her final day. Bill wanted to stay at her bedside but she insisted he go and carry out a commentating duty in Edinburgh on the Saturday afternoon. He did so, rushed back to the hospital, but she had died that afternoon while he was on air. 
 
McLaren, himself, had almost died of TB in his youth and he tells of the days and nights when he hid under the sheets in bed at the Scottish hospital where he was kept for 19 months, 'crying myself to sleep each night as they took away my friends who had died that day. I was certain I would be next'. He has excellent memories of his war years and delves deep to recall some harrowing times as a forward observation spotter when he came within inches of being killed by a German sniper. Later, he also remembers leading his men one day into a small northern Italian town where they discovered 1500 corpses piled up in the square. 'That was the day I became a man, rather quickly,' he says. He was 21. 
 
As well reliving the highlights of his illustrious career as a commentator, Bill talks of the game today and his regrets that rugby went professional. He is a fierce critic of what this has led to and fears for the future health and safety of rugby players because he regards the modern game as dangerously physical. His story amounts to a history of the game itself and reaffirms McLaren's status as something of a global treasure.

My Autobiography

Muhammad Ali

Hana Yasmeen Ali

In this poignant, moving book, Muhammad Ali shares the beliefs he has come to live by and which he has passed on to his children. Some of the wisdom is his own; some comes from the teachings of true Islam, from his spiritual studies, and from people he has met in the course of his extraordinary life. Here, as he recalls his early days as a young warrior in Louisville, Kentucky, and his meteoric rise to fame as Heavyweight Champion of the World, a title he won three times, he tells of the many battles he won and lost, both inside and outside the ring and his conversion to Islam in the 1960s. Now, working tirelessly as a worldwide ambassador for peace, he talks of the damage caused when religion is used to tear people apart, the essential need for unity in this troubled world, and how his faith sustains him on this, the most important journey of his life - the journey to forgiveness and peace. Together with his daughter Hana, in this timely spiritual memoir Ali draws upon his rich reserve of notes, tapes and journals, and writes with compassion, warmth and, of course, humour on how we can liberate mind, body and spirit when we pursue and embrace the one essential truth - love.

The Soul Of A Butterfly

Souad

When Souad was seventeen she fell in love. In her village, as in so many others, sex before marriage was considered a grave dishonour to one's family and was punishable by death. This was her crime. Her brother-in-law was given the task of arranging her punishment. One morning while Souad was washing the family's clothes, he crept up on her, poured petrol over her and set her alight. 
 
In the eyes of their community he was a hero. An execution for a 'crime of honour' was a respectable duty unlikely to bring about condemnation from others. It certainly would not have provoked calls for his prosecution. More than five thousand cases of such honour killings are reported around the world each year and many more take place that we hear nothing about. 
 
Miraculously, Souad survived rescued by the women of her village, who put out the flames and took her to a local hospital. Horrifically burned, and abandoned by her family and community, it was only the intervention of a European aid worker that enabled Souad to receive the care and sanctuary she so desperately needed and to start her life again. She has now decided to tell her story and uncover the barbarity of honour killings, a practice which continues to this day. 
 
Burned Alive is a shocking testimony, a true story of almost unbelievable cruelty. It speaks of amazing courage and fortitude and of one woman's determination to survive. It is also a call to break the taboo of silence that surrounds this most brutal of practices and which ignores the plight of so many other women who are also victims of traditional violence.

Burned Alive

Martin Booth

Martin Booth died in February 2004, shortly after finishing the book that would be his epitaph - this wonderfully remembered, beautifully told memoir of a childhood lived to the full in a far-flung outpost of the British Empire... 
 
An inquisitive seven-year-old, Martin Booth found himself with the whole of Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in the early 1950s. Unrestricted by parental control and blessed with bright blond hair that signified good luck to the Chinese, he had free access to hidden corners of the colony normally closed to a Gweilo, a 'pale fellow' like him. Befriending rickshaw coolies and local stallholders, he learnt Cantonese, sampled delicacies such as boiled water beetles and one-hundred-year-old eggs, and participated in colourful festivals. He even entered the forbidden Kowloon Walled City, wandered into the secret lair of the Triads and visited an opium den. Along the way he encountered a colourful array of people, from the plink plonk man with his dancing monkey to Nagasaki Jim, a drunken child molester, and the Queen of Kowloon, the crazed tramp who may have been a member of the Romanov family. 
 
Shadowed by the unhappiness of his warring parents, a broad-minded mother who, like her son, was keen to embrace all things Chinese, and a bigoted father who was enraged by his family's interest in 'going native', Martin Booth's compelling memoir is a journey into Chinese culture and an extinct colonial way of life that glows with infectious curiosity and humour.

Gweilo: Memories Of A Hong Kong Childhood

Shannon Mullen

Valerie Frankel

Shannon Mullen has been demystifying great sex for women in the comfort of their own homes with her popular Safina sex salons. 
 
In The Best You'll Ever Have, she shares intimate confessions from these women-only salons and answers all the questions women really want to ask about their sexuality.This groundbreaking book illuminates subjects from how to find that mysterious G-spot to how to use popular sex toys. With chapters including 'Claiming the Clitoris', 'Tush Talk', 'The Secrets of the P-Spot'and 'Toy Stories', the authors leave no area of sexual curiosity unexplored, revealing what's hot about different positions, accessories, and lots more, including elegant illustrations. 
 
The Best You'll Ever Have features the actual voices of real women who share what they truly think and have genuinely learned about their bodies, turn-ons, turn-offs, and ways to make sex as fabulous as it should be. Straight-talking, hilarious, and deliciously confessional, this is must-have bedtime reading.

The Best You'll Ever Have

Peter Moore

No Shitting In The Toilet is named after a sign Peter Moore saw on the door of the lavatory at Jack's Café in Dali, Yunnan Province, in China. It's a sign that encapsulated his travel philosophy: that things never quite turn out as you expect. You end up in situations that defy logic, rational thought and, quite often, general well-being - and yet you have a brilliant time, not in spite of these situations, but because of them. 
And this is the philosophy behind this book and the reason why&nbsp;it isn't really a normal travel guide. OK, it might look like one in its structure and choice of topics, but in fact it's quite the opposite. Instead of practical hints, it gives you impractical ones (How to avoid jet lag - avoid jets ...) and rather than tell you the best places to stay, it tells you the worst. Instead of celebrating transcendental travel experiences, it revels in the most demeaning ones (On checking the hygiene in restaurants: there are 2 things you don't really want to see in life. The first is your parents having sex. The second is the state of the kitchen in restaurants catering for backpackers.). But in that sense NSITT is more in touch with the way things really are. The world of NSITT is one where you're more likely to find a cockroach on your pillow than a complimentary mint, a world where you take your life in your own hands every time you get on a bus, a world where everything goes wrong, and you still end up loving every minute of it. 
Based on the author's award-winning travel website, NSITT is not only hugely entertaining but also eminently practical, with advice on everything from Backpacking and Souvenirs, to Sex and Romance and Health and Eating (and some words of advice for vegetarians: hope you like rice...).

No Shitting In The Toilet

Kitty Kelley

For the first time, the most secretive and powerful dynasty in American history has all of its secrets revealed. This is the book the Bush family do not want you to read. 
 
Over the past one hundred years, the Bush family have made millions of dollars, dominated the US government, and created a legacy unlike any other American family. Prescott Bush was a two-time Senator from Connecticut who had the ear of Dwight D. Eisenhower and tangled with Joe McCarthy. His son, George H.W. was a congressman, the head of the CIA, Vice-President under Ronald Reagan and then the 41st President of the United States. One of his sons, Jeb, is governor of Florida and almost certainly a future presidential candidate. The eldest son, George W., is the 43rd president - possibly the most polarizing and controversial head of state in American history. How did these men - backed and often controlled by strong and single-minded women - rise to power? How did they manoeuvre their way from Yale and the secretive Skull and Bones through back door politics, the CIA, and the White House to have so much control over international politics? The answers are startling. 
 
Kitty Kelley has written a compelling portrait of a family addicted to wealth and power. From Prescott Bush's lies about his heroism during the First World War, and George Bush senior's relationship with his wife Barbara, his unsuccessful campaign for Texas senator and his actions as the head of the CIA, the Vice-President and President of the United States, to his sons' current positions of power and influence in US politics. George Bush junior's successes and failures have had closer public scrutiny than any other member of the family, but Kitty Kelley leaves no stone unturned in her examination of his childhood, his relationship with his parents, his party days at Andover and Yale, his business dealings, his rise to political power and his performance as the 43rd President of the United States.

The Family: The Real Story Of The Bush Dynasty

Robert Whitaker

In 1735 a team of French scientists set out on a daring expedition into the South American wilderness to resolve one of the great scientific challenges of the time: the precise size and shape of the Earth. Scaling the Andes and journeying along the Amazon, the mapmakers faced all manner of danger, while madness, disease and violent death each took their toll. However one, Jean Godin, fell in love with a local girl called Isabel Grameson. When the time came for the expedition to return to France, Godin travelled ahead to ensure the way was safe for his new family. But on reaching French Guiana, disaster struck: Spain and Portugal closed their borders and he was stranded, unable to return to Isabel. What followed lies at the core of this extraordinary tale - a heartbreaking 20-year separation that ended when Isabel, believing she might never see her husband again, decided to make her own way across the continent: a journey that began in hope but became hell on earth... 
Drawing on his own experience retracing Isabel's epic trek as well as contemporary records, Robert Whitaker recounts a captivating true story of love and survival set against the backdrop of what many still regard as 'the greatest expedition the world has ever known'.

The Mapmaker's Wife

A True Tale Of Love, Murder And Survival In The Amazon

It was the late night Tai Bo fitness commercial warning him that life comes to an end after 40 that prompted Peter Moore to chase a boyhood dream. To go to Italy and seek out its celebrated dolce vita from the back of a Vespa. 
But it couldn't be just any old Vespa. Peter wanted a bike as old as he was and in the same sort of condition: a little rough round the edges, a bit slow in the mornings perhaps, but basically still OK. And it had to have saddle seats. And temperamental electrics. And a little too much chrome. The sort of scooter you'd imagine a sharp-suited, Ray Ban-wearing young Marcello Mastroianni riding. Her name was Sophia. 
From picnicking in the Italian alps and rattling through cobbled hilltop to gate-crashing Frances Mayes's villa and re-enacting 'Roman Holiday', Vroom with a View is as much a romance as a travel adventure. For not only does Peter win the woman of his dreams, he falls for a side of Italy others rarely see. Along with Sophia, of course...

Vroom With A View

In Search Of Italy's Dolce Vita On A '61 Vespa

When Peter Moore announced he was going to travel from London to his home in Sydney without boarding an aeroplane he was met with a resounding Why? The answer was perversity and a severe case of hippie envy - hippies had the best music, they had the best drugs, they had the best sex. But most of all, they had the best trips. Over the eight months (and twenty-five countries) that followed, Moore retraced the steps of many who had made the overland journey from London to the East circa 1967 with the knowledge that his funds were painfully inadequate and the chances of actually making it through places like the Balkans, Iran and China were, in a word, slim. 
THE WRONG WAY HOME is the hilarious account of this life-enhancing Grand Tour by means of bone-rattling bus rides, furnace-like trains and exorbitantly-priced taxis. Along the way, Moore took in the world's most expensive disco in Albania; the bombed out villages and military checkpoints of Croatia; the opium fields of Laos; student riots in Jakarta, and an all-night beach rave on a small island in southern Thailand. He describes the places - and the people he encountered there - with a mixture of awe, irreverence and self-deprecation. Striking a chord with all those travellers, young and old, who have stood where Moore stood, THE WRONG WAY HOME entertains and alarms those of us who love to read about off-the-beaten-track travel adventures but would never be fool enough to pack our rucksacks and go.

The Wrong Way Home

Genghis Khan - creator of the greatest empire the world has ever seen - is one of history's immortals. In Central Asia, they still use his name to frighten children. In China, he is honoured as the founder of a dynasty. In Mongolia he is the father of the nation. In the USA, Time magazine, voted Genghis Khan 'the most important person of the last millennium'. But how much do we really know about this man? How is it that an unlettered, unsophisticated warrior-nomad came to have such a profound effect on world politics that his influence can still be felt some 800 years later? 
How he united the deeply divided Mongol peoples and went on to rule an empire that stretched from China in the east to Poland in the west (one substantially larger than Rome's at its zenith) is an epic tale of martial genius and breathtaking cruelty. John Man's towering achievement in this book, enriched by his experiences in China and Mongolia today, is to bring this little-known story vividly and viscerally to life.

Genghis Khan

David Tremayne

Generations are familiar with the haunting black and white television footage of Donald Campbell somersaulting to his death in his famous Bluebird boat on Coniston Water in January, 1967. It has become an iconic image of the decade. His towering achievements, and the drama of his passing, are thus part of the national psyche. 
 
But what of the man himself? 
 
The son of the legendary Sir Malcolm Campbell who was famous for being the ultimate record-breaker of the inter-war years - he broke the land speed record nine times and the water speed record four times with his Bluebird cars and boats - Donald Campbell was born to speed. He was outgoing and flamboyant, yet carefully orchestrated the image he presented to the world. Some saw him as a playboy adventurer; others, such as the radio producer on the twenty-first anniversary of his death, as a reckless daredevil with a death wish. He was known to take solace in extra-marital dalliances, and was obsessed with spiritualism. And in his final years, battered by a 360-mph accident while attempting the land record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, and his prolonged and anti-climactic subsequent effort on the treacherous Lake Eyre in Australia, Campbell appeared a haggard and often frightened man. He had become trapped on his record-breaker's treadmill as he continually sought to prove himself to his illustrious father, in whose long shadow he felt forever trapped. 
 
DONALD CAMPBELL: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK paints a fascinating portrait of an intense, complex, superstitious yet abnormally brave man who was driven not only by the desire to prove that he was worthy of the mantle of his father, but also by his fervent and unswerving desire to keep Britain at the forefront of international speed endeavour. This book generates a unique insight into how his desperate fear of failure finally lured him into taking one risk too many.

Donald Campbell

The Man Behind The Mask

Earl Swift

The US government has an unspoken pledge with every man and woman it sends into battle: you may be wounded doing your duty, you may even be killed, but you won't be left behind... 
 
On 20 March 1971, during the largest helicopter battle in history, an American chopper on a daring rescue mission exploded in the skies over Laos. Its scorched remains fell onto terrain about which allied forces knew little except that it was hostile - jungle so dense with North Vietnamese that going after the dead crewmen was out of the question. And so two highly decorated pilots and a pair of gunners who had each earned the Silver Star for heroism earlier that day were left where they lay: four among the 2,583 US servicemen whose bodies remained unrecovered at war's end. 
30 years later and a team of soldiers and scientists ventures back into that battlefield to dig among the unexploded bombs and landmines, in ground slick from monsoon rains, in jungle infested with leeches, giant centipedes and poisonous snakes, to find those four crew and to bring them home. Its mission is one of dozens conducted every year, in Asia, Europe and the scattered islands of the Pacific - to locate and bury America's war dead and to put a name - the right name - on each headstone. 
WHERE THEY LAY tells the story of this recovery team and its elusive employer: the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory - the world's largest forensic science lab. Part history, part travelogue, part scientific adventure, it chronicles the years-long effort to find the remains of those heroes, culminating in an expedition into a land that even today is virtually invisible to the world at large. It has all the makings of a classic of modern warfare - and its aftermath.

Where They Lay

Jean Sasson

Readers of Princess Sultana's extraordinary biography Princess were gripped by her powerful indictment of women's lives behind the veil within the royal family of Saudi Arabia. They were every bit as fascinated by the sequel, Daughters of Arabia. 
 
Here, the princess turns the spotlight on her two daughters, Maha and Amani, both teenagers. Surrounded by untold opulence and luxury from the day they were born, but stifled by the unbearably restrictive lifestyle imposed on them, they reacted in equally desperate ways. 
 
Their dramatic and shocking stories, together with many more which concern other members of Princess Sultana's huge family, are set against a rich backdrop of Saudi Arabian culture and social mores which she depicts with equal colour and authenticity. We learn, for example, of the fascinating ritual of the world-famous annual pilgrimage to Makkah as we accompany the princess and her family to this holiest of cities. Throughout, however, she never tires of her quest to expose the injustices which her society levels against women. In her courageous campaign to improve the lot of her own daughters of Arabia, Princess Sultana once more strikes a chord amongst all women who are lucky enough to have the freedom to speak out for themselves.

Daughters Of Arabia

Princess 2

In Princess, readers were shocked by Sultana's revelations about life in Saudi Arabia's royal family. Royal women live as virtual prisoners, surrounded by unimaginable wealth and luxury, privileged beyond belief, and yet subject to every whim of their husbands, fathers, and even their sons. Daughters of Arabia featured Sultana's teenage daughters, determined to rebel but in very different ways. 
 
And now, in Desert Royal, Sultana's fight for women's rights in a repressive, fundamentalist Islamic society, has an extra sense of urgency. The threat of world terrorism, the gathering strength of religious leaders and the discontent of impoverished Saudis are threatening to topple the comfortable world Sultana has known. But an extended family 'camping' trip in the desert brings Sultana and her relatives face to face with their nomadic roots, and nourishes her will to carry on the fight for women's rights in all Muslim countries. 
 
This updated edition contains an all-new chapter as well as a letter from Sultana herself, encouraging all women to take up the struggle for freedom for their abused sisters throughout the world.

Desert Royal

Princess 3

John O'Donohue

In this eagerly awaited follow-up to his international bestsellers Anam Cara and Eternal Echoes, John O'Donohue turns his attention to the subject of beauty - the divine beauty that calls the imagination and awakens all that is noble in the human heart. 
 
In these uncertain times of global conflict and crisis, we are riven with anxiety; our trust in the future has lost its innocence, for we know now that anything can happen from one second to the next. In such an unsheltered world, it may sound naive to suggest that this might be the moment to invoke and awaken beauty, yet this is exactly the claim that this book seeks to explore. 
 
 
DIVINE BEAUTY is a gentle but urgent call to awaken. O'Donohue opens our eyes, hearts and minds to the wonder of our own relationship with beauty. Rather than 'covering' this theme, he uncovers it, exposing the infinity and mystery of its breadth. His words return us home to the dignity of silence, the profundity of stillness, the power of thought and perception, and the eternal grace and generosity of beauty's presence. In this masterful and revelatory work, O'Donohue encourages our greater intimacy with beauty, and celebrates it for what it really is: a homecoming of the human spirit. 
 
As he focuses on the classical, medieval and Celtic traditions, on art, music, literature, nature and language, O'Donohue reveals how beauty's invisible embrace invites us towards new heights of passion and creativity. 
 
DIVINE BEAUTY is an exquisite treasury of Forms of the Beautiful. Its surface employs narrative, image, anecdote and myth, while into the silence of its subtext are sown seeds of reflection that gradually blossom in the heart.

Divine Beauty

The Invisible Embrace

Mayada was born into a powerful Iraqi family. One grandfather fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia. The other is acclaimed as the first true Arab nationalist. Her uncle was Prime Minister for nearly forty years, her mother an important politician. When Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party seized power, and instituted his reign of terror, Mayada found herself alone in Baghdad, a divorced parent of two children, earning a meagre living printing brochures. Until one morning in August 1999 she was summarily arrested and dragged to the notorious Baladiyat Prison, falsely accused of printing anti-government propaganda. 
 
There she was thrown into a cell with 17 'shadow women'. Like latter-day Sherezades, these women passed their days, while waiting for the next interrogation and torture session, telling each other their stories. They were eager to hear Mayada's stories of her privileged former life, of the history of her proud family, of kings and queens, of meetings with Saddam himself. 
 
Not only the story of a woman intimately connected to Iraq's cultured, ancient history, this book is a powerful witness to the terror and horror wrought by Saddam on the lives and souls of its ordinary citizens.

Mayada: Daughter Of Iraq

In a land where Kings still rule, I am a Princess. You must know me only as Sultana, for I cannot reveal my true name for fear that harm will come to me and my family for what I am about to tell you. 
 
Think of a Saudi Arabian princess and what do you see? A woman glittering with jewels, living a life of unbelievable luxury. She has gold, palaces, swimming-pools, servants, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no vote, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons. Hidden behind the veil, she is a prisoner, her jailers her father, her husband, her sons. 
 
'Sultana' is a member of the Saudi royal family, closely related to the King. For the sake of her daughters, she decided that it was time for a woman in her position to speak out about the reality of life for women in her country, whatever their rank. She tells of her own life, from her turbulent childhood to her arranged marriage - a happy one, until her husband decided to take a second wife - and of the lives of her sisters, her friends and her servants. In contrast to the affection and easy camaraderie amongst the women, she relates a history of appalling oppression against them, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations: forced marriages, servants bullied into sex slavery, summary executions. 
 
Princess is a testimony to a woman of indomitable spirit and great courage. By speaking out, 'Sultana' risked bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and upon the heads of her children. For this reason, she told her story anonymously.

Princess

Denis Law

In the 1960s, Denis Law was the king of Old Trafford. A goal-scoring genius, Law attacked the game (and the occasional opponent) with a dedication and enthusiasm which held his legions of loyal subjects in devoted awe. The deadly triumvirate of Law, George Best and Bobby Charlton swept opposition from its path, and led Manchester United to win the FA Cup in 1963 and the League in 1965 and 1967. 
 
Born in Aberdeen in 1940, Law played his first professional game for Huddersfield in 1956. He moved to Manchester City before being among the very first British players to play on the continent of Europe, joining Torino in 1961. It was in August 1962 that Law moved back to Manchester, this time to United, for a record transfer fee of £115,000. He immediately won the hearts of the Old Trafford crowd by scoring twice in his début game. Many more goals were to follow: 160 in 222 matches, many of them spectacular, all of them executed with Law's trademark panache. 
 
Law was European footballer of the year in 1964 and went on to win 55 caps for Scotland. Many of these were titanic clashes with the Auld Enemy, England, including the now legendary 3-2 defeat of the then World Cup-holders at Wembley in 1967. 
 
The King tells the story of an Aberdeen boy who rose to the very pinnacle of footballing excellence from humble beginnings. Packed with hilarious and revelatory behind-the-scenes stories and peopled by Law's fellow football legends like Matt Busby, George Best and Jimmy Greaves, Denis Law's book takes the reader back to the game's glory days. In so doing, we learn why, to his legions of fans, Denis Law was, and will forever remain, the King.

The King

To some it's antisocial anathema, to others it is a harmless way to relax, or provides relief from crippling pain. Some fear it is a dangerous drug that leads to 'reefer madness' and addiction; to others still it is a legal anomaly and should be decriminalized. Whatever the viewpoint, and by whatever name it is known, cannabis - or marijuana, hashish, pot, dope, kif, weed, dagga, grass, ganja - incites debate at every level. 
 
In this definitive study, Martin Booth - author of the acclaimed OPIUM: A HISTORY - charts the history of cannabis from the Neolithic period to the present day. It is a fascinating, colourful tale of medical advance, religious enlightenment, political subterfuge and human rights; of law enforcement and customs officers, smugglers, street pushers, gang warfare, writers, artists, musicians, hippies and pot-heads. 
 
Booth chronicles the remarkable and often mystifying process through which cannabis, a relatively harmless substance, became outlawed throughout the Western world, and the devastating effect such legislation has had on the global economy. Above all, he demonstrates how the case for decriminalization remains one of the twenty-first century's hottest topics.

Cannabis: A History

Tim Richardson

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone loves sweets. However keen we might be on fine cheese, vintage wine or acorn-fed Iberian ham, much of the time we'd be happier with a Curly-Wurly. But why do we like sweets so much? Why is there such an enormous variety of types, a whole uncharted gastronomy in itself? And where do they all come from? 
Many of the sweets we recognize today have a lineage going back hundreds of years. Sugar was first transported around the world with the exotic herbs and spices used by medieval apothecaries. By association, the confectioner's art was at first medical in nature and many sweets (such as aniseed balls, which were a medieval cure for indigestion) were originally consumed for reasons of health. 
Other sweets came in-to being in the worlds of ritual and magic. Chocolate, for example, was mixed with chilli and used as a libation by the Aztecs. It subsequently appeared in other rather more palatable drinks around the world, but not in the solid form we now recognize until about 150 years ago. But the special significance of a gift of chocolate remains . . . 
Whatever their manifold origins, sweets are still a feature of every human society around the world. Tim Richardson's book tells the extraordinary story of comfits and dragées, lozenges and pastilles, sherbets and subtleties. Like a box of chocolates, it's something you can just dip into - or scoff all at once.

Sweets: A History Of Temptation

Erik Larson

'An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction' TIME OUT 
 
One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and its amazing 'White City'; one of the wonders of the world. 
 
The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. 
 
The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. 
 
While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel. 
 
In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. 
 
These two disparate but driven men are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .

The Devil In The White City

Jackie Ellis

How often have you thought you might like to chuck it all in, leave the steaming metropolis and its noise and dirt behind and make for pastures new, to begin your life again? 
 
We often talk about it but people rarely do it. Jackie Moffat is one of those who did. In 1982 she and her family - armed with a bucketload of optimism, stout boots and a highly developed sense of the ridiculous - upped sticks from London (where she'd lived all her life) and went North, to Cumbria. Their destination was the Eden Valley, and a small stock-rearing and dairy farm called Rowfoot, and there they have spent the past twenty years getting to grips with the practice of running a working farm, keeping sheep, cattle, pigs and horses, becoming part of the (often eccentric) community, coping with the ups and downs (Foot and Mouth devastated them) of farming life. 
 
For the past ten years, the author's written a regular column for the Cumbria and Lake District Life magazine, and it was this that inspired her to write about her life in rural England and the trials, tribulations and pleasures of running a farm.

The Funny Farm

DI Helen Grace Novellas

Crumpled, slapdash and foul-mouthed as ever, Detective Inspector Jack Frost struggles to cope with inadequate back-up and never enough time; the unsolved crimes pile up and the vicious killings go on. Frost must cut corners and take risks as he staggers from crisis to crisis, rapists to murderers, missing bodies to discovered body parts; will he be able to keep Denton safe?

DI Jack Frost

Prepare to be gripped by this prequel series to R.D. Wingfield's A Touch of Frost. 
 
Back in Denton, Detective Sergeant Jack Frost returns to investigating murders, finding missing children, and discovering dead bodies in woodland areas. With Detective Inspector Williams missing, and a new policeman, DS Waters, to mentor, DS Jack Frost has to put the stresses and straings of his personal life on hold in order to keep Denton safe.

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