Aiden Aslin is a British-born resident of Ukraine. Living in Mykolaiv with his fiancé, he joined the Ukrainian marines in 2018 and was called to the frontline ahead of the Russian invasion in February 2022. He was one of over a thousand soldiers who surrendered after the month-long siege at the Mariupol steelworks, whereupon he was singled out for his British passport. His surrender, captivity, treatment and subsequent release received global media attention.

Aiden Aslin

Aiko Bethea is the founder of RARE Coaching &amp; Consulting, a leadership development company that helps aspiring leaders successfully navigate the workplace with more impactful approaches to leadership. She has worked with Fortune 100 companies, research &amp; academic institutes, and global non-profit organisations. Bethea is also Senior Leadership Consultant for the Brené Brown Education &amp; Research Group and was named by Forbes as a leading anti-racism educator. Bethea was a contributing writer in the New York Times bestselling anthology You Are Your Best Thing (2021). Anchored, Aligned, Accountable is her first book.

Aiko Bethea

Ailie Busby

Ailsa McFarlane was born in 1997 in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Snowdonia in the United Kingdom. After leaving school, she studied veterinary science before dropping out to travel the United States and Europe by road. Highway Blue is her first novel.

Ailsa McFarlane

Aimee Bender is the author of the novels The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a New York Times bestseller, and An Invisible Sign of My Own; and of the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Willful Creatures and The Color Master. Her work has been widely anthologised and has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

Aimee Bender

Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was a Martinican poet and politician who played a leading role in the struggle to liberate the French colonies of Africa and the Caribbean. Renowned for co-founding the Négritude movement, Césaire was a pioneer in surrealist poetry. His achievements as a writer were recognised worldwide with awards including the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the Laporte Prize, the Viareggio-Versilia Prize for Literature, and the Grand Prix National de Poésie; in 2002, he was made Commander of the Order of Merit of Cote d'Ivoire. His works include the plays A Tempest (1969) and A Season in the Congo (1966), the searing political essay Discourse on Colonialism (1956), and the long poem Return to My Native Land (1950), dubbed "nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of this time" (Andre Breton).

Aimé Césaire

Aingeala Flannery

Aingelda Ardizzone

Ainsley Harriott is nothing short of a cookery legend; a pioneer in quick and easy home cooking, he has hosted some of the UK's most popular culinary series. His love of food and people, together with his natural curiosity and accessible recipes, make him a much-loved British TV personality. Recent popular ITV shows include Ainsley's Caribbean Kitchen, Ainsley Mediterranean Cookbook, Ainsley's Food We Love and now Ainsley's Good Mood Food.

Ainsley Harriott

Air Fryer UK

Aishling Morgan

Aisling Bea

Aisling Fitzsimons

Aislinn Hunter is the author of a novel, Stay; a collection of stories, What's Left Us; and two collections of poetry, Into the Early Hours and The Possible Past. The World Before Us is her first book of fiction in twelve years. After travelling to London and Edinburgh over the past few years to study for a PhD, Aislinn Hunter now lives and teaches in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Aislinn Hunter

Aiste Gazdar

Ajahn Sumedho

Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

Ajaz Ahmed is the CEO of AKQA, the ideas and innovation company he founded aged 21. AKQA today employs over 1,500 people in 15 offices around the world. In 2014 AKQA won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation. Ajaz co-authored Velocity: The Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital. For essays and thoughts visit http://www.akqa.com/ajaz.

Ajaz Ahmed

Akasha Moon is a professional Tarot reader, medium and vocational healer. Under her other pen name Kala Trobe, she has published Invoke the Goddess and Invoke the Gods with Llewellyn. She's passionate about her subject and believes that, although it can bring about some serious benefits, magic can be a lot of fun.

Akasha Moon

Akiyuki Nosaka (1930-2015) was a novelist, singer, lyricist and former member of the House of Councillors in Japan. Born in Kamakura, Kanagawa, his memories of living through the Second World War – including the loss of his adoptive father in the 1945 Kobe bombings – served as the inspiration for his most famous short stories. In 1967, he won the Naoki Prize for Grave of the Fireflies and American Hijiki, both based on the Japanese experience of the War. Nosaka also wrote erotic fiction, including The Pornographers (1963), and in later life he continued his career as a newspaper and TV journalist, as well as a politician and chanson singer.

Akiyuki Nosaka

Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche was an experienced meditation master of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He was co-founder of the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre and supervised many other centres in Europe, Africa and Asia. He formed several humanitarian organisations for the aid of refugees, the distressed and the poor and was advisor to a large number of people, including therapists in the UK and Europe. He died in 2013.

Akong Tulku Rinpoche

Akshi Singh is an associate editor at Parapraxis and deputy editor at Critical Quarterly, and is the editor of a special collection of Critical Quarterly presenting new writing on Marion Milner. She collaborates regularly with the Derek Jarman lab, and writes for the London Review of Books. Singh moved to the UK from India to study for a PhD in psychoanalysis and literature with Jacqueline Rose. She is currently training to be a psychoanalyst at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.

Akshi Singh

Al Ewing

Al Franken

Al Gore

Al Holloway

Al Murray's alter ego, The Pub Landlord, is one of the most recognizable and successful comic creations of the past twenty years, and Murray, who has won numerous awards and accolades, continues to fill arenas and theatres around the world. 
 
He is also the author of many successful books including Watching War Films with My Dad and Command, a sharply entertaining analysis of the key allied military leaders in the Second World War. He is well known for co-hosting the hugely popular Second World War history podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk with fellow bestselling military author James Holland. 
 
Arnhem: Black Tuesday is his first history book about a single campaign.

Al Murray

Al Murray is a Perrier Award-winning comic, TV personality and, as 'The Pub Landlord', the author of the bestselling The Pub Landlord's Book of British Common Sense and Think Yourself British. Most recently, he has taken on the leadership of the Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP).

Actor and director Al Pacino is a unique and enduring figure in the world of American stage and film. He grew up in New York City’s South Bronx, attended the School of Performing Art, and studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio with Charles Laughton and the Actors Studio with mentor Lee Strasberg. 
 
 
He has been nominated for the Academy Award nine times, for movies including The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather Part II, and The Irishman, and won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1992 for Scent of a Woman. He has been nominated for the Golden Globe Award nineteen times, and won four, and has been nominated for three Tonys and won two. 
 
 
Pacino has been awarded the Kennedy Center Honor, the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, the National Merit of Arts from President Obama, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures.

Al Pacino

Al Pittampalli

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Rowland White

It was to be one of the most ambitious operations since 617 Squadron bounced their revolutionary bombs into the dams of the Ruhr Valley in 1943 . . . 
 
April 1982. Argentine forces had invaded the Falkland Islands. Britain needed an answer. And fast. 
 
The idea was simple: to destroy the vital landing strip at Port Stanley. The reality was more complicated. The only aircraft that could possibly do the job was three months from being scrapped, and the distance it had to travel was four thousand miles beyond its maximum range. It would take fifteen Victor tankers and seventeen separate in-flight refuellings to get one Avro Vulcan B2 over the target, and give its crew any chance of coming back alive. 
 
Yet less than a month later, a formation of elderly British jets launched from a remote island airbase to carry out the longest-range air attack in history. At its head was a single aircraft, six men, and twenty-one thousand-pound bombs, facing the hornet’s nest of modern weaponry defending the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands. There would be no second chances . . .

Vulcan 607

Sarah Ban Breathnach

With the grace of her groundbreaking bestseller Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach returns, offering a fresh start for women who have lost their financial and spiritual way in the world. 
 
'When money is plentiful, this is a man's world. When money is scarce, it is a woman's world.' This quote from Ladies' Home Journal, 1932, is the call to arms that begins...PEACE AND PLENTY 
 
This book is Sarah Ban Breathnach's answer to the world's - and her own personal fiscal crisis. Here, as she weaves together this compendium of advice, stories from her life, and excerpts from magazines, books and newspapers, particularly from the Great Depression, she inspires readers who are mired in economic problems. 
 
Focusing on her own journey, Sarah relates never-before-revealed details about how she fell from the financial top to the bottom. Readers will immediately feel how deeply she understands the plight of those trying to maintain a happy and comfortable home, while not even knowing if they will be able to make the mortgage payments to keep that home. 
 
For years, Sarah has been a reassuring guide, illuminating the beauty and meaning in the everyday. Now, in this enlightening book, she reaches out to those who are financially strapped, showing them how to pull themselves out of their psychological and monetary difficulties, as she provides support and cheer along the way.

Peace and Plenty

Finding your path to financial security

Rob Lowe

A wryly funny and moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye. 
 
Teen idol at fifteen, international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood. 
 
The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety. 
 
Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends

Cleveland Amory

Cleveland Amory first met the bedraggled Polar Bear in a New York alley one snowy Christmas Eve. From the moment Cleveland rescued the starving and injured cat a special bond began to form between the damaged animal and the bachelor journalist who preferred dogs. This is the story of their first year together, the story of a stray cat with a mind of his own, and the curmudgeonly man who grew to love him. 
 
If you have ever owned a cat, or been owned by one, you will recognize the delight in the journey that followed this Christmas Eve encounter. From Polar Bear's fitness programme to their trip to Hollywood and the funny and touching conversations Cleveland and his stubborn little friend share, this is a heart-warming tale of feline and human nature that any animal lover can enjoy all year round.

The Cat Who Came For Christmas

Douglas Jackson

The Roman grip on Britain is growing weaker and Druids are on the rise. Emperor Nero has turned away. Boudicca is preparing to lead tribes to war. 
 
Standing in her way is Gaius Valerius Verrens, commander of the veterans legion. In this battle he earns the accolade of Hero of Rome - but where will that title lead him next?

Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow and Ben Kane, this heart-stopping historical thriller from bestselling author Douglas Jackson will have you on the edge of your seat! 
 
"Rightly hailed as one of the best historical novelists writing today" -- DAILY EXPRESS 
 
Readers are loving Gaius Valerius Verrens! 
"This was probably the best book that I have read of this genre." - 5 STARS. 
"As good as Scarrow, Riches or Scott." - 5 STARS. 
"Valerius is quite addictive..." - 5 STARS . 
 
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AD 59: Rome's grip on Britain is weakening. Roman cruelty and exploitation has angered their British subjects; the Druids are on the rise; the warrior queen Boudicca will lead the tribes to war. 
 
The Roman Tribune, Gaius Valerius Verrens must lead the veteran legions at Colonia in a last stand against the rising tide of rebellion and the unstoppable horde of Boudicca's rebel army. 
 
Can he defend his honour and the Empire he represents? 
 
Hero of Rome is the first in Douglas Jackson's Gaius Valerius Verrens series. His story continues in Defender of Rome.

Hero of Rome (Gaius Valerius Verrens 1)

An action-packed and riveting novel of Roman adventure…

Diana Preston

Michael Preston

In 1631, the heartbroken Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, ordered the construction of a monument of unsurpassed splendour and majesty in memory of his beloved wife. Theirs was an extraordinary story of passionate love: although almost constantly pregnant - she bore him fourteen children - Mumtaz Mahal followed her husband on every military campaign.But then Mumtaz died in childbirth. Blinded by grief, Shah Jahan created an exquisite and extravagant memorial for her on the banks of the river Jumna. The Taj Mahal took twenty years to build and depleted the Moghul treasuries.But Shah Jahan was to pay a greater price for his obsession. He ended his days imprisoned by his own son in Agra Fort, gazing across the river at the monument to his love. The building of the Taj Mahal had set brother against brother and son against father in a savage conflict that pushed the seventeenth century's most powerful empire into irreversible decline.

A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time

The Story of the Taj Mahal

Christabel Bielenberg

Brought together for the first time in one edition, both of Christabel Bielenberg's bestselling memoirs give an incredibly moving, emotionally charged and compelling insight into life in Nazi Germany during The Third Reich and during the aftermath of World War Two. Offering a new perspective, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the wartime era. 
 
'This is one of the best WWII books I have ever read' -- ***** Reader review 
'An excellent book and a must-read for anyone interested in this era' -- ***** Reader review 
'Absorbing' -- ***** Reader review 
'Intensely moving' -- ***** Reader review 
'A wonderful book. I couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review 
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The Past is Myself 
 Christabel Bielenberg, a niece of newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe, married a German lawyer in 1934. She lived through the war in Germany, as a German citizen under the horrors of Nazi rule and Allied bombings. The Past is Myself is her story of that experience - and an unforgettable portrait of an evil time. 
 
 The Road Ahead 
 Following the extraordinary success of her wartime memoir, The Past is Myself, Christabel Bielenberg received thousands of letters from readers begging her to describe what happened next. In The Road Ahead she continues her story with the outbreak of peace - a time of struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. She also tells of life in her newly adopted country, Ireland, her involvement with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland, and with characteristic modesty and gratitude, looks back on a rich, full life. 
 
Anyone interested in the Second World War and life in the 1930s and 1940s will devour these unflinchingly honest and enthralling memoirs, published together in one edition for the first time.

The Past is Myself & The Road Ahead Omnibus

When I Was a German, 1934-1945:  omnibus edition of two bestselling wartime memoirs that depict life in Nazi Germany with alarming honesty

Ruth Hamilton

A gripping and heart-warming saga set in Lancashire from The Sunday Times bestseller Ruth Hamilton, perfect for fans of Catherine Cookson. Guaranteed to keep you turning the page... 
 
"Very much the successor to Catherine Cookson. Her books are plot driven, they just rip along; laughs, weeps, love, they've got the lot, and they're quality writing as well" - Sarah Broadhurst on Radio Four. 
"Brilliant! I have read this book so many times I've had to buy 2 paperback copies before finally getting it on KINDLE. This has it all, pathos, humour, tragedy and emotion. I recommend this book and hope you enjoy it as much as I have." - ***** Reader review 
"One of Ruth Hamilton's finest." - ***** Reader review 
"Really good read and twist at the end..." - *****Reader review 
 
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AS THE WAR SIRENS SOUND, SO THEY BEGIN THEIR OWN BATTLE FOR NEW FULFILLING LIVES... 
 
Billy London is a mean, dark, secretive man who is interested only in lining his pockets at the expense of those around him - most especially his wife and daughters. 
 
When Ellen, his wife, who has put up with him for years, finds her children threatened, she prepares to fight like a tigress to protect the four girls, to give them a chance of a new and better life and a chance to escape from the evil and oppressive legacy of their father. 
 
There is Abigail, clever, ambitious, and with an outer shell of steel that is necessary if she is to survive; Tishy, overwhelmingly lovely, who lives in a world all her own; Marie, brisk, capable, and nearly strong enough to defy her father on her own; Theresa, more wounded, more vulnerable, more damaged by Billy than any of them. 
 
As the sirens of 1939 herald the advent of war, so Billy London's girls begin their own battle for new, triumphant, and fulfilling lives.

Billy London's Girls

A captivating and uplifting saga set in Bolton during WW2 from bestselling author Ruth Hamilton

Frank Muir

For more than twenty-five years Frank Muir, in partnership with Denis Norden, produced some of the most sparkling and original comedy ever written for radio and television. On programmes such as My Word! and My Music his distinctive voice became familiar to millions as he displayed an astonishingly well-stocked mind and a genius for ad libbing and outrageous puns. Later, working at the BBC and then at London Weekend Television, he produced some of the best television comedy of the 1960s and 70s. He has written highly successful books for children, and two bestselling anthologies of humour. 
 
Frank Muir recalls, in glorious detail, a happy 1920s childhood in the seaside town of Ramsgate, where he was born in his grandmother's pub in Broadstairs, and in London, where he attended an inexpensive but excellent school of a kind no longer to be found. He remembers his very first joke at the age of six, when he knew that his destiny was to make people laugh. He also knew from an early age that he wanted to write, but it took a childhood illness for him to discover that humour and writing could be combined. The death of his father forced him to leave school at the age of fourteen and work in a factory making carbon paper. Then, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the RAF as an air photographer and his memories of the war years, as might be imagined, are engagingly different from the usual kind. It was during those years, with their rich fund of comic material, that he began his career as scriptwriter and performer. At his demob in 1945 he moved naturally to London and the Windmill Theatre, that remarkable breeding ground of talent where new comedians like Jimmy Edwards and Alfred Marks vied with nude girls for the attention of the audience. In story after story he recalls the lost world of London in the 1940s and early 50s, when the laughter and creative ideas seemed to explode out of post-war shabbiness and austerity. Then came the BBC, the legendary partnership with Denis Norden, and half a century of fulfilling the boyhood ambition of that Kentish lad. 'All I ever wanted to do was to write and amuse people.'

Kentish Lad, A

James Douglas

From bestselling author James Douglas, a gripping and enthralling historical conspiracy thriller - a must read for fans of Dan Brown, James Becker and Chris Kuzneski. 
 
READERS ARE LOVING THE DOOMSDAY TESTAMENT! 
"This is the best book I have read in a long while..." - 5 STARS. 
"Kept me up very late because I couldn't put it down." - 5 STARS. 
"Kept me gripped until the end, with twist and turns everywhere..." - 5 STARS. 
 
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THERE ARE SOME WHO WILL KILL TO FIND THAT WHICH IS LOST... 
 
1937: Hitler sent an expedition to Tibet in search of the lost land of Thule. 
1941: Himmler spent a huge fortune, and sacrificed the lives of hundreds to turn Wewelsburg Castle in Germany into a shrine to the SS. 
2008: Art recovery expert Jamie Saintclair is astonished to discover that the gentle grandfather he thought he knew was a decorated war hero, serving in the Special Air Service in World War Two. And his grandfather has one more surprise. Sewn into the endpaper of his journal is a strange piece of Nazi symbolism. 
 
With this discovery, Jamie is launched on a breathless chase across Europe and deep into Germany's dark past... 
 
Jamie Saintclair's adventures continue in The Isis Covenant, The Excalibur Codex and The Samurai Inheritance.

The Doomsday Testament

An adrenalin-fuelled historical conspiracy thriller you won’t be able to put down…

Les Pringle

This is a re-issue of Blue Nights and Long Nights ISBN 9780552158527. 
 
Card-playing corpses, unfaithful husbands and 'flying' ladies - life as an ambulance driver in the 1970s was certainly varied ... 
 
At the age of twenty-three, Les Pringle decided to escape from office life, broaden his horizons and become an ambulance driver. Little did he realize how broad those horizons would turn out to be. 
 
Filled with warmth and humour, Dial 999! takes us back to a time when lonely old ladies could call 999 and have a cup of tea waiting when the drivers turned up for a chat; when learning to drive the ambulance meant going out for one test drive and managing not to hit a pedestrian; and every day brought a glimpse into other people's lives. 
 
Gripping, poignant and darkly funny, Dial 999!is an affectionate, warm-hearted look at a world gone by.

Dial 999!

Betty Shine

The Sun acclaimed her as 'the world's number one healer'. The Independent admitted, 'Those who encounter Betty Shine's supernatural powers find it hard to remain sceptical.' Celebrated for her warmth and generosity of spirit, Betty Shine has for years helped and inspired people with her healing powers. Her study of the phenomenon of mind energy, as recounted in her two bestselling books, Mind to Mind and Mind Magic, has brought her a tremendous response. 
 
In Mind Waves, the third and final Mind book, Betty Shine explores the waves which we all project and which invade everything around us. By providing simple practical exercises, and by sharing with us personal anecdotes, experiences and feelings, she helps us gain the awareness needed to utilize mind waves in a positive manner. From that point, with a truer understanding of our fears and emotions, we can enhance our own lives and the lives of those about us. 
 
Mind Waves completes the psychic course started in Mind to Mind, providing simple answers to many aspects of the paranormal and once more setting the reader on a personal voyage of discovery.

Mind Waves

Tom Hart Dyke

Paul Winder

The Darién Gap is a place of legend. The only break in the Pan-American highway, which runs from Alaska to the tip of South America, it is an almost impregnable strip of swamp, jungle and cloud forest between the vast landmasses of North and South America. Stories of abduction and murder there are rife and in recent years more people have successfully climbed Everest or trekked to the South Pole than have crossed the Darién Gap. 
 
In 2000, Tom Hart Dyke, a young botanist, set off to Central America with one thing on his mind: orchids. He knew that in order to find the rare and beautiful species he so fervently admired, he would have to visit some of the most inhospitable places on earth. Unbeknown to Tom, another young explorer, Paul Winder, was backpacking through the area at the same time. Though he sometimes worked freelance in the City of London, Paul was a fearless and intrepid traveller, happier scaling volcanoes than lounging on beaches. In every bar and café along his route, rumours abounded of the Darién Gap - and the more he heard, the greater became his desire to make the journey. Pure chance brought Paul and Tom together in northern Mexico; they formed an instant bond and their fate was sealed. 
 
Ignoring a final, succinct warning from the Lonely Planet guide - 'Don't even think about it!' - Tom and Paul set off into the Darién: Tom in search of orchids, Paul in search of adventure. They would find plenty of each. For six days they made good progress. Then, just hours away from Colombia, the dream ended and the horror began. Paul and Tom were ambushed by FARC guerrillas who were to hold them hostage for the next nine months. From that day on, their survival was a matter of extraordinary endurance, incredible ingenuity and not a little good luck ...

The Cloud Garden

Tracey Cox

Are you madly in love or driven mad by it? Happily single or looking for a partner? Living together, married with kids or dumped and desperate? Whatever the state of your love life, Hot Relationships has the answers to all your dating and relating dilemmas. 
 
Funny, practical and refreshingly realistic, it's packed with advice on everything from flirting and flings to monogamy and marriage. There are hot tips on getting over an ex, where to meet a partner, how to spot the losers and how to breeze through that first date, as well as hints on fixing the flights, surviving jealousy and infidelity and breaking bad love habits. 
 
A must-have manual for singles, couples, men and women, Hot Relationships shows you how to have one - and how to keep it that way.

Hot Relationships

Malcolm McPherson

Their mission was straightforward - to set up an Al Qaeda observation post in the south-eastern mountains of Afghanistan. No-one was expecting any difficulties. 
 
Instead three men - a Navy SEAL, an Air Force Combat Air Controller and an Army Ranger platoon commander - were pinned down by hostile fire on top of Takur Ghat mountain. Only one of them survived to recall the horrors of what became a truly terrible day . . . The resulting rescue mission turned into a seventeen hour battle that left seven soldiers dead. 
 
Roberts Ridge is the visceral story of those seventeen hours. With access to Pentagon generals, the SEALS and the survivors, Malcolm MacPherson takes the reader deep into the heart of the battle of Takur Ghat and brings us face to face with the reality of the new war against terrorism.

Roberts Ridge

Lucilla Andrews

Lucilla Andrews was only eighteen when, as a volunteer nurse at the beginning of the second world war, she experienced the grim realities of wartime . Young, inexperienced and coming from a comfortable and sheltered background, she found herself dealing with survivors from Dunkirk and the victims of the blitz. Seeing these horrors at first hand had a profound and lasting effect upon her, and made her determined to train as a Nurse at St Thomas's Hospital. 
 
No Time For Romance is her story, the powerful and moving account of a young girl in wartime London, learning the hard way about medicine, injuries and death, as well as love and hope. It is a story both of personal courage and of the courage of the British people at war.

No Time For Romance

James Holland

‘A notable account of an epic human experience' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 
 
‘Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war’ Sir Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, 18 June 1940 
 
The Nazi Blitzkrieg was unlike any invasion the world had ever seen. It hit Europe with a force and aggression that no-one could counter. Within weeks the German armies were at the French coast and looking across at Britain. It seemed impossible that she would be able to resist invasion. 
 
Between the Nazis and glory stood an apparently fragile defence, but the men and women of Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands and the Royal Navy would not be cowed. Their heroics that summer would go down in history. 
 
In The Battle of Britain for the first time, James Holland tells this most epic of stories from a 360° perspective – when the fate of the world truly hung by a thread.

The Battle of Britain

Richard Dannatt

General Sir Richard Dannatt's distinguished career in the army has spanned thirty-eight years and seen him serve in many different theatres of conflict, from Northern Ireland (where he was awarded the Military Cross) to Bosnia and Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. His experiences have forged an unwavering loyalty to the fighting British soldier. 
 
As Chief of the General Staff, he was given overall command of the British army at a time when the fighting was fiercest in Afghanistan. But from his very first day in the job, General Dannatt proved himself a courageous leader and a forceful advocate for his men, never shying from controversy to tell the truth as he found it. 
 
More than any leader in recent times, Dannatt has used his position of command to get a better deal for the British soldier - the right equipment, the right conditions, the right reward - to do the job we ask of them. His leadership and example have shaped the debate about the role of the professional army in modern warfare. 
 
Leading from the Front is General Sir Richard Dannatt's reflections on a life of military service which offers a characteristically frank analysis of whether Britain's defence strategy is fit to deal with the numerous threats we will face in the 21st century.

Leading from the Front

An autobiography

Andy McNab

Tough, resourceful, ruthless - as an SAS trooper Nick Stone was one of the best. Now he's back on the streets, working for British Intelligence as a deniable operator. It's the dirtiest job in a very, very dirty world. 
 
Andy McNab's blistering Nick Stone thrillers are bestsellers whose landscape is so compellingly close to the truth that they had to be vetted by the Ministry of Defence, and could only be published as fiction. . .

Tough, resourceful and ruthless, ex-SAS trooper Nick Stone is now working for British Intelligence on deniable operations. And is desperately in need of cash. 
 
When he is offered a lucrative freelance job, Stone thinks his problems are over. All he needs to do is kidnap a Russian mafia warlord. 
 
And so Stone is thrust into the grim underworld of Estonia, with unknown aggressors stalking the Arctic landscape. Russia has launched a cyber-espionage attack, hacking into the West's most sensitive military secrets. Stone must stop them. But the mafia are waiting in the wings with their own chillingly brutal solution...

Firewall

(Nick Stone Thriller 3)

Tom Hart Dyke has a bit of a thing about plants. You might call it an obsession. You might call him certifiable, in fact. But it's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ramshackle country estate and an obsession with plant collecting could want for only one thing - in Tom's case it's a walled garden containing examples of plants collected from every corner of the globe. 
 
Tom's infectious enthusiasm for anything with chlorophyll in it and the hugely ambitious World Garden project he has undertaken at his family home, Lullingstone Castle, in Kent have been documented in a 12-part television series for BBC 2. The first six parts (Save Lullingstone Castle) were shown in spring 2006, and the second six episodes (Return to Lullingstone Castle) in spring 2007. 
 
Tom's attempts to set up the World Garden aren't exactly straightforward. You might imagine, for example, that the easiest way to start preparing the ground inside the walled Elizabethan garden which he transforms into the main part of the world garden would be to enlist the help of a few people and a lot of hard digging. Well not for Tom, who enlists instead two large pigs, who do indeed do a great job of turning over the earth and fertilising it with great organic manure. But the problem is that they keep escaping into the Hart Dyke family burial plot next door where they start digging up Tom's ancestors... 
 
The World Garden is created to bring together a truly amazing collection of plants from every continent and so to show the global origins of the plants we all grow in our gardens. It's already establishing itself as a tourist attraction of some note as well as an educational resource. 
 
This is a book for all those who bought Tim Smit's Lost Gardens of Heligan. It's stuffed full of fascinating botanical information as well as the story of Tom's hapless struggle to overcome huge logistical nightmares. It's a riveting, hilarious story of English eccentricity in full bloom.

An Englishman's Home

The Adventures of an Eccentric Gardener

James Fergusson

Southern Afghanistan in the early 1990s was in even greater chaos than it is now. The Russians, who had occupied the country throughout the 1980s, were long gone. The disparate ethnic and religious leaders who had united to eject the invaders - the famous mujaheddin - were at each others' throats. For the rural poor of Kandahar province, life was almost impossible. 
 
On 12 October 1994 a small group of religious students decided to take matters into their own hands. Led by an illiterate village mullah with one eye, some 200 of them surrounded and took Spin Boldak, a trucking stop on the border with Pakistan. From this short and unremarkable border skirmish, a legend was born. The students' numbers swelled as news of their triumph spread. The Taliban, as they now called themselves - taliban is the plural of talib, literally 'one who seeks knowledge' - had a simple mission statement: the disarmament of the population, and the establishment of a theocracy based on Sharia law. They fought with a religious zeal that the warring mujaheddin could not match. 
 
By February 1995, this people's revolt had become a national movement; 18 months later Kabul fell, and the country was effectively theirs. James Fergusson's fascinating account of this extraordinary story is be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the situation in Afghanistan, now and for the future...

Taliban

the history of the world’s most feared fighting force

Chris Hunter

BOSNIA...NORTHERN IRELAND...IRAQ...AFGHANISTAN... 
 
For the past twenty years, some of the most dangerous places on earth. And for Major Chris Hunter, just some of the places where he has defused bombs in his ceaseless battle against terrorism and the bombmakers. 
 
This is the story of a teenager with no hopes who joined the army at sixteen and went on to become one of the most successful counter-terrorism operators in the world. 
 
This is the story of survival when all the odds are stacked against you, when every second feels like a lifetime, when the sound of your heart beating is as deafening as a ticking bomb. 
 
This is what it's like, day in day out, to take your life and the lives of others in your own hands, and make a difference. 
 
And this is what it costs to live that life...

Extreme Risk

Margaret Humphreys

THE BOOK THAT EXPOSED THE HEARTBREAKING SCANDAL OF BRITAIN'S FORGOTTEN AND ABUSED CHILD MIGRANTS - now a film, Oranges and Sunshine, starring Emily Watson. 
In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. 
 
Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents were told that their children had been adopted. In fact, for many children it was to be a life of horrendous physical and sexual abuse far away from everything they knew. Margaret and her team reunited thousands of families before it was too late, brought authorities to account, and worldwide attention to an outrageous miscarriage of justice.

Empty Cradles (Oranges and Sunshine)

Susan Boyle

In April 2009, a modest middle-aged woman from a village in Scotland was catapulted to global fame when the YouTube video of her audition for Britain's Got Talent touched the hearts of millions all over the world. 
 
From singing karaoke in local pubs to live performance with an eighty-piece orchestra in Japan's legendary Budokan arena and a record-breaking debut album, Susan Boyle has become an international superstar. 
 
This astonishing transformation has not always been easy for Susan, faced with all the trappings of celebrity, but in the whirlwind of attention and expectation, she has always found calm and clarity in music. Susan was born to sing. 
 
Now, for the first time, Susan tells the story of her life and the challenges she has struggled to overcome with faith, fortitude and an unfailing sense of humour. 
 
'When I strutted onto the stage for that audition, I was a scared wee lassie, still grieving for my mother, not caring how I looked. I think I've grown up a lot in the last year, become more of a lady, and I'm not so frightened anymore. I'm telling my story to try and show that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, that you shouldn't just look at the label - you must look at the whole person, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. I hope that it will show that dreams are not impossible, if you've got courage and a willingness to go on no matter what the circumstances.'

The Woman I Was Born To Be

Barbara Thiering

Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests.He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64. 
 
This controversial version of Christ's life is not the product of a mind which wants to debunk Christianity. Barbara Thiering is a theologian and a biblical scholar. But after over twenty years of close study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospels she has developed a revolutionary new theory which, while upholding the fundamental faith of Christianity, challenges many of its most ingrained supernaturalist beliefs. 
 
Jesus the Man will undoubtedly upset and even outrage those for whom Christianity is immutable and unchallengeable. But for many who have found the rituals of the contemporary church too steeped in medieval thinking, it will provide new insights into Christianity in the context of the modern world.

Jesus The Man

Decoding the Real Story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene

Larry J Kolb

This gripping memoir by a former American intelligence operative is a vivid portrait of a spy at every stage of his life and career. 
 
Raised in various countries around the world as the son of an American spymaster, Larry Kolb tells how his father taught him to think, look and listen like a spy, and how a friend and colleague of his father attempted to recruit him to the CIA. Kolb declined, choosing instead to become an international businessman. His early success - in his mid-twenties he became an agent for several professional athletes, including Muhammad Ali - brought him into contact with many of the world's wealthiest and most powerful men, making him irresistible to master spy and CIA co-founder, Miles Copeland. When Copeland later tried to recruit him, Kolb accepted, and soon he was involved in covert intrigues in Beirut, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Pakistan and India. 
 
Peopled by larger than life characters such as Adnan Khashoggi, Imelda Marcos, Rajiv Gandhi and Ronald Reagan, OVERWORLD is a real-life adventure story of the highest order which offers compelling insights into the danger, glamour and psychology of espionage - as well as an extraordinary glimpse into the real corridors of global power.

Overworld

The Life And Times Of A Reluctant Spy

Adam Macqueen

William Hesketh Lever - soap-boiler, social reformer, MP, tribal chieftain, multi-millionaire and Lord of the Western Isles - was one of the most extraordinary men ever to leave his mark on Britain. 
 
Beliefs far ahead of their times - the welfare state, votes for women, workers' rights - jostled in his mind with ideas that were fantastically bonkers - the world's problems could be solved by moving populations from country to country, ballroom dancing could save the soul and the only healthy way to sleep was outdoors in the wind and the rain. 
 
Adam Macqueen traces Lever's footsteps from his humble Bolton boyhood to a business empire that straddled the world, visiting the homes and model towns from the Mersey to the Congo that still bear the mark - and often the name - of William Lever. 
 
It is a hilarious and touching journey that shines a spotlight on a world and a set of beliefs long gone, and asks several vital questions: where does philanthropy stop and social engineering begin? Is it right for an employer to dictate how his workers spend their weekends and hire private detectives to make sure they are doing it properly? Are the length of a lawn and the curve of a bannister of vital importance to the great scheme of things? And why would a multi-millionaire with half a dozen homes and property on four continents chose to sleep on the roof?

The King Of Sunlight

How William Lever Cleaned Up The World

Pat Shipman

Florence Szász was a child in Eastern Europe when her family was slaughtered during the Hungarian revolution. After the war, she was kidnapped from a refugee camp in the Ottoman Empire and sold to be raised for the harem. In 1859, age fourteen, she stood before a room full of men and waited to be auctioned to the highest bidder. But slavery was not to be her destiny. One of the witnesses was moved by an immediate, overpowering empathy for the helpless young woman. His name was Samuel Baker, an eminent English adventurer who braved extraordinary perils to aid her escape. Ultimately they would wed and venture together into some of the most inaccessible regions on Earth. 
At this tender age, Florence Baker had already seen and experienced more than most women of the Victorian era. But the greatest adventures were still before her. By the side of the man who had set her free, she forged ahead into literally uncharted territory. Together, they confronted disease, starvation, and hostile tribesman, surviving the cruel ravages of beasts and nature in a glorious attempt to unravel a mysterious and magnificent enigma called Africa. 
 
To the Heart of the Nile brings to vivid life the times and great achievements of a singular explorer, a woman of unparalleled courage and spirit who helped redefine her world. It is a breathtaking adventure, brimming with hair-raising rescues, impossible quests, danger, discovery, catastrophe, mutiny, and uncompromising love - all the more remarkable because the story is true.

To The Heart Of The Nile

Mike Rossiter

'We believed in ourselves so much, no one ever panicked, even when the situation looked so desperate. We all believed that our best chance of staying alive was to stick together.' 
 
Flying Lancaster bombers was one of the most dangerous missions of the war. Yet night after night Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey King and the crew of C Charlie risked their lives in the skies over Germany. Together they faced incredible dangers, flak damage, close encounters with the fighter planes of the Luftwaffe, and crash landings. 
 
Against this background a friendship was formed that bound the crew of C Charlie together against all odds. 
 
Geoffrey King and the crew of C Charlie are unique in having flown together for fifty missions and living to tell the tale. Bomber Flight Berlin is the story of a group of ordinary men, from different walks of life, thrown together by the forces of war. It is the story of those missions above Berlin, as they flew into what seemed certain death, and aircraft all around them were blasted out of the sky. It is also a testament to a remarkable friendship.

Bomber Flight Berlin

John Twelve Hawks

In a world that exists in the shadow of our own, the conflict between the Brethren and the Travellers reaches its devastating climax... 
 
Struggling to protect the legacy of his Traveller father, Gabriel faces troubling questions and relentless threats from enemies old and new. 
 
His brother Michael, now firmly allied with the sinister Brethren, pursues his ambition to wrest power from their leader, whatever it takes. 
 
And Maya, the Harlequin warrior pledged to protect Gabriel at all costs, is forced to make a choice that will change her life forever...

The Golden City

the cult sci-fi trilogy that has come true

Detective Konrad

Detective Luc Moncrief Series

Dexter Procter

Diary of a Submissive

The adventures of wise-cracking middle school student Greg Heffley who must somehow survive the scariest time of anyone's life: middle school. The hilarious and internationally bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diddly Squat

Dino Dad

Dino Racers

Dinosaur Train

Discworld Graphic Novel Universe

The Discworld is undoubtedly Sir Terry Pratchett's most famous creation. A universe teeming with dwarves, trolls, witches, and social and cultural issues that parallel those in our own world, all wrapped up in Pratchett's inimitable comic delivery. This iconic series will make you laugh, then make you think.

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