Aidan Potts

Aidan Smith

Aidan Storey

Aidan Trimble is the Chief Instructor to the Federation of Shotokan Karate and a former British, European and World Karate Champion, winning the world title in Tokyo - the home of Karate. Aidan has trained with some of the world's leading teachers of 'traditional' and 'sport' karate and is now an award-winning instructor and teacher who is in demand throughout the world. He can be contacted via www.fsk-karate.com.

Aidan Trimble

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

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Dynamo

'I immersed myself in magic. I read every book I could get my hands on and practised and practised, day after day and night after night. Magic became my world...some might say an obsession.' 
 
When you’re a kid life can seem tough; tougher for some than others. But the darkest of times can also be the most enlightening. 
 
When his late granddad showed him magic for the first time, Steven Frayne knew there was more to life than hiding from bullies. He had a destiny. A calling. In that moment Dynamo was born: the most exciting magician of the 21st century. 
 
Since then, Dynamo has shocked, thrilled and amazed men, women and children, from all walks of life, all over the world. With his mind-blowing illusions, he has catalysed a whole new era of magic. 
 
Now, in his very first book, Dynamo invites you to join him on a breathtaking journey across the globe. Be prepared to levitate Lindsay Lohan in Singapore, transform snow into diamonds in the Austrian mountains, and walk on water across the River Thames. Along the way, he reveals how to make the impossible possible, what it takes to pull off the greatest stunts man has seen, and why everyone needs magic in their lives. 
 
This is no illusion. This is Dynamo revealed.

Nothing Is Impossible

My Story

The Real-Life Adventures of a Street Magician

Robert Dineen

Reg Harris, whose statue overlooks the Manchester Velodrome, is the legend who all track cyclists want to emulate. He was a poor, working-class boy born in the Depression who escaped the Lancashire mills to utterly dominate his sport. He triumphed as world champion an incredible 
five times between 1947 and 1954 and performed medal-winning heroics at the London Olympics. 
 
At his peak he was the most adored sportsman in the country attracting huge crowds, sponsorship, and the company of the rich and famous. But, fiercely driven and ruthlessly single-minded, Harris had a dark side. His was a sensational life fuelled by an insatiable need for money, celebrity, fast cars and beautiful women that constantly threatened to destroy him. 
 
Following an exhaustive investigation, Robert Dineen has uncovered an epic sporting rise and fall – a story more astounding than anyone had known.

Reg Harris

The rise and fall of Britain's greatest cyclist

Miles Jupp

** Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award ** 
 
Fanatical about cricket since he was a boy, Miles Jupp would do anything to see his heroes play. But perhaps deciding to bluff his way into the press corps during England's Test series in India wasn't his best idea. 
 
By claiming to be the cricket correspondent for BBC Scotland and getting a job with the (Welsh) Western Mail, Miles lands the press pass that will surely be the ticket to his dreams. Soon, he finds himself in cricket heaven - drinking with David Gower and Beefy, sharing bar room banter with Nasser Hussain and swapping diarrhoea stories with the Test Match Special team. 
 
But struggling in the heat under the burden of his own fibs, reality soon catches up with Miles as he bumbles from one disaster to the next. A joyous, charming, yet cautionary tale, Fibber in the Heat is for anyone who's ever dreamt about doing nothing but watching cricket all day long.

Fibber in the Heat

Abby Lee

The bestselling book that changed the way we talk about sex... 
 
'They say men think about sex every eight seconds - I want to know what they think about for the other seven...' 
 
Abby Lee is smart, sassy, and perpetually single. Frustrated with her mediocre love-life, she's now looking for the kind of sex she's always wanted. This is the intimate diary of her extraordinary journey. 
 
Never one to turn down an opportunity - even if it does include the use of a whip, the thrill of the outdoors, or the involvement of a third party - Abby enthusiastically romps her way through a series of one-night stands, casual flings, and same-sex shags. 
 
But as she revels in her sexual quest, Abby meets Blog Boy and begins to wonder: will she ever be able to give up the bed-hopping and finally settle down?

Girl with a One-Track Mind

Confessions of the Seductress Next Door

Georgie Edwards

‘I am one of the old school and believe that a woman’s place is within the home … However, I cannot, I will not, condone unfairness amongst females. I suggest that in due course you send your Matron a letter of thanks. You had after all a most unusual reference.’ 
 
In 1949, Staff Nurse Georgie Edwards is asked to chaperone medical students undertaking their practical exams when suddenly the penny drops. Georgie wants to learn to diagnose and treat too. 
 
Against the odds, she wins herself a place to study medicine at London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital and she sets about becoming not a consultant ‘who sweeps by’ but a doctor who listens and cares. Yet Georgie wants to fall in love and start a family as well as have a career – is this one dream too many for a woman in the 1950s? 
 
Warm and full of humour, The Best Medicine is Georgie’s fascinating memoir of her early years as a nurse and doctor.

The Best Medicine

The True Story of a Nurse who became a Doctor in the 1950s

Danny Wallace

Danny is back with more hilarious true-life stories of hopeless modern manhood 
 
A husband and now a new father, Danny Wallace is a man who struggles to understand the unspoken rules of society... 
 
For example, when do you hug? And when do you NOT hug? 
 
How do you react when you realise that yesterday's underpants might still be in your trousers? 
 
What do you do if you think you might have a man-crush? 
 
And what happens when you think you may have accidentally ordered your wife a prostitute for her birthday? 
 
Following the bestselling Awkward Situations for Man and based on his incredibly popular columns, Danny Wallace entertains us with more stories from his often embarrassing and bewildering life. 
 
No one said it was easy being a man. And Danny is finding it harder than ever. 
 
(Previously published as More Awkward Situations for Men) 
 
Danny's first solo book, Join Me, was described as a 'word-of-mouth phenomenon' by The Bookseller and 'one of the funniest stories you will ever read' by the Daily Mail. His second book, Yes Man - in which he decided to say 'Yes' to everything - was described as 'hilarious' by several national newspapers. The Warner Bros. film adaptation of Wallace's book Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey in the lead role, was released in December 2008 and grossed $230,000,000worldwide. Danny's third book Friends Like These, described by The Bookseller as 'another comedy masterpiece' is currently in development as a major project by Miramax. In 2011, Danny Wallace was named PPA's Columnist of the Year for his weekly column in Short List Magazine, 'Danny Wallace is a Man', which formed the starting point for his book Awkward Situations for Men. 
 
Danny lives in North London with his wife and baby. Find out more about Danny at www.dannywallace.com.

What Not to Do (And How to Do It)

Esther W.

‘The satanic sex ring takes place around a quarry, near your friend’s house. As well as your family there are four others, so far that we know of, involved.’ 
When her dad was arrested and imprisoned for violently abusing his 15 children, Esther thought her life could begin at last. 
She couldn't have been more wrong. Another man was ready to take advantage of this vulnerable girl. Social services stepped in again, but this time they made things much, much worse . . . 
If Only I Had Told is Esther’s personal and very brave memoir that tells the truth about Orkney’s 1991 satanic sex scandal. It is a shocking account of how two evil men and a flawed system let down not just a young girl but a whole community.

If Only I Had Told

Mindy Kaling

‘Where have you been all our lives, Mindy?’ Glamour 
 
Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: comedienne, actress, obedient child of immigrant professionals and, now, writer. With a blend of witty confessions and unscientific observations, Mindy writes about everything from being a timid young chubster afraid of her own bike to living the Hollywood life, dating, friendships and planning her own funeral – all executed with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. 
 
‘Hilarious’ Elle

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

(And other concerns)

Jerry Capeci

Gene Mustain

John Gotti: Gangster, killer, celebrity. 
 
From the tough streets of Queens to the heights of the American Mafia, John Gotti thought he was invincible. Ruthless, brutal and always immaculately dressed, he was known as the Teflon Don, because no charge the Feds brought against him would stick. 
 
Told by organised crime reporters and bestselling authors Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain using inside sources on both sides of the law, this is the definitive account of how New York's last great Godfather was finally brought to justice.

Gotti

The Rise and Fall

Caitlin Moran

Moranthology

Bobby Teale

'The Krays were out of control. They had the East End buttoned up too tight and someone had to undo it. Slowly, I realised that someone had to be me...' 
 
Bobby Teale and his brothers, David and Alfie, were the three men the Kray twins trusted most. They weren't in the Firm, they were closer than that. They were old family friends, confidants, companions... 
 
But then things changed. Witnessing Ronnie and Reggie become increasingly psychotic - taking murder, torture and rape to sickening new levels - Bobby knew he had to take action. Unknown to his brothers, he became a police informer; risking not just his own life but those of the people dearest to him too. 
 
Using the codename 'Phillips', he was forced to live on his wits, feeding back information to Scotland Yard. With bent cops on their side the Krays knew they had a grass in their midst, but before they could flush him out, Bobby's evidence saw the London gangsters get locked up for life. 
 
Bobby fled the country, but now 40 years on he's back. And he wants to set the record straight. With the help of his brothers, the man brave enough to stand up to the Krays has rewritten history as we know it; dispelling the myths and tearing apart the gangsters' glamorous veneer to reveal the true, sadistic nature of Ronnie and Reggie. 
 
Crammed full of explosive, new revelations, Bringing Down The Krays is the last great untold story of Britain's most infamous crime family.

Bringing Down The Krays

Finally the truth about Ronnie and Reggie by the man who took them down

Shane Spall

'Tim and I both understood we had done something really stupid. We had underestimated the danger involved in going out to sea. We had no radio, compass, life raft or flares. In other words, we were a couple of idiots.' 
 
This is the story of Shane and Timothy Spall and their Dutch barge The Princess Matilda. After a summer on the Thames they head out to sea with only a road atlas and a vast amount of ignorance - and it is absolutely terrifying! 
 
On their travels, memories are triggered of childhood trips to the seaside, but also of more recent times. A decade before, Tim had been diagnosed with acute leukaemia and was given only days to live. Shocked at how life can pass you by they decided that when, and if, Tim got better, they would buy a boat. 
 
As Tim and Shane explore the coast from the Medway to Cornwall, eventually they start to wonder, could they make it out of England altogether? Could Matilda make it to ... Wales?! 
 
Taking over five years, The Voyages of The Princess Matilda is a minor epic, charting a very personal, moving and uplifting story of an everyday couple's adventure around their much loved homeland. 
 
** Winner of the British Travel Press's Narrative Travel Book of the Year Award **

The Voyages of the Princess Matilda

Sugar Ray Leonard

'To be legendary you got to have heart... Ray's heart was bigger than all the rest' Muhammad Ali 
 
SUGAR RAY LEONARD was one of the greatest boxers ever. An artist and a showman he was always willing to take the difficult fight: his gruelling encounters with Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler have become legendary. 
 
Ray's autobiography takes you into the ring - with the mind games, brutality and euphroia. But, outside of the ring, Ray's biggest opponent was himself. From early domestic violence and sexual abuse to a blur of fame, sex, greed, drink and drug addiction at the height of his career that cost him so much, The Big Fight is a remarkable portrait of the rise, fall and final redeption of a true fighter in every sense.

The Big Fight

Paddy Doherty

'I fight hard and love strong. I'm a traveller.' 
 
Paddy Doherty loves his life as an Irish traveller, but as a child he felt like an outsider. He was different to his siblings. On the rare occasions he went to school, he was bullied for being a gypsy boy. And beyond the gates of the camp he found nothing but hostility. 
 
Slowly, Paddy's hurt turned into anger and by the age of 11 he had started out on an illustrious career in bare-knuckle fighting. This earned him a position as one of the most well-respected (and feared) men in the travelling community. Yet while he won countless contests in the ring, the real battles he faced were very much outside. 
 
In this deeply honest autobiography, he tells of how he has loved and lost five children; plummeted to seven stone while battling depression, drink and drugs. He describes how it feels to be shot point-blank in the head and the lengths he'll go to to protect his people, as well as life since My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Big Brother. 
 
Told with all the warmth and humour he is famed for, Paddy's rich and colourful story is one that will stay with you for a long time to come.

Hard Knocks & Soft Spots

Meet the DeMeo gang - the most deadly killers the Mafia has ever known. 
 
They were a small-time Brooklyn corner crew who, headed by the notorious Roy DeMeo, became the hitmen of choice for the Gambino family. Killing for profit and pleasure, they were ultimately feared by everyone – even the Mafia bosses they worked for.

Murder Machine

Katie Collins

'He planted his big arms on the bed on either side of me, and I wanted him to take control – I wanted him to be the boss…' 
 
Katie Collins went from being a shy, excluded teenager to the youngest, naughtiest and most popular woman on the Dublin sex scene. Her journey began before she was even 16, stripping on a webcam for an audience of strangers. By her late teens she was exploring the thrill of being a submissive, finding herself centre stage in 50-strong orgies, having sex with ten men in one night; being chained, whipped and spanked; and living a day to day life unimaginable to most women. 
 
But as her uncontrollable sexual desires begin to consume her, Katie has to question whether her extreme behaviour is really an expression of sexual liberation, or something more troubling. 
 
Brutally honest, Can You Keep a Secret? is a page-turning true story of one woman’s journey from innocence to experience.

Can You Keep a Secret?

Evelyn Prentis

'She should never have kept the business going after her husband died. Running a betting shop is no job for a woman. Especially when she's got bad legs.' 
 
After a short stay at hospital herself, Evelyn Prentis wondered what was in store for her when she returned to work. From the door-slamming Miss Cromwell to Mrs Silver's shoplifting and Mrs May coming over all queer, being Matron in charge of the Lodge was rarely straightforward. 
 
So when her ladies became unusually united in their grumbling about newest resident Ivy, the woman who'd kept the betting shop on the High Street, Evelyn was ready for all hell to break loose. 
 
But instead, with openness and kindness, Ivy won people over and even started bringing them together. Suddenly, being in charge of the Lodge was no trouble at all ...

Matron in Charge

Nikkia Roberson

'Why did you leave me? Why did you get messed up with all of those drugs? Why did you kill my brother and sister? Didn’t you love us enough?' 
 
Nikkia Roberson has been asking these questions for most of her life. But how else do you cope when your mentally ill mother has killed your little brother and sister by scalding them with boiling water? 
 
This is a harrowing true story of how one little girl endured the most tragic of childhoods. But it’s also the ultimate tale of forgiveness. 
 
Follow Nikkia on her heartbreaking journey, as she attempts to find answers and rekindle a relationship with her mother behind the gates of a secure psychiatric hospital. 
 
Deeply moving, Mummy is a Killer proves that love really is the strongest emotion of all.

Mummy is a Killer

Emma Jackson

'If you read the papers, you'd think that the only girls to get hooked are from dysfunctional families. But what happened to me could happen to anyone. Your child, your sister, your friend – even yourself if you are young and naive enough, like I was' 
 
Emma was just 13 when her happy childhood came crashing down. A nice girl from a good home, she had no idea the young lads she and her friends met every Saturday in the shopping mall weren’t all they seemed. 
 
The boys were part of an organised child sexual exploitation gang targeting innocent young girls, grooming them for prostitution. Captivated by the ring leader, and the alcohol and drugs he freely handed round, Emma didn't see the first brutal rape coming. From that moment, her life was never her own. 
 
Emma found herself drawn into a trap of degradation and violence, frightened for her life and not knowing where to turn. But Exploited is also the story of how she found the courage and inner strength to risk everything, and escape. 
 
Exploited is an updated edition of Emma's book The End of My World - brought bang up to date with a brand new chapter.

Exploited

Glenn Puit

Matvay looked inside and saw something so horrible, so gruesome...it startled even the veteran crime investigator. "There's a body in here," he said. "Another homicide!" 
 
From the first whiff of the pungent smell coming from the garbage can, the Las Vegas cops knew what they were dealing with. Someone was dead and the witchcraft books at the scene suggested they had died in a deeply sinister way. 
 
Witch is the disturbing true story of how and why a sweet-natured girl called Brookey Lee West become one of America's most notorious female killers.

Witch

The Bone Chilling True Story of US Murderer Brookey Lee West

Winston S. Churchill

Churchill (1874-1965) was one of the 20th century's most charismatic and controversial characters. He escaped from capture as a prisoner of war in the Boer War, was a Nobel Prize-winning author and was twice prime minister. He is best remembered as the astute and powerful orator who inspired a battered Britain to victory against Nazi Germany during World War 2 and led the post-war, shattered nation to recovery. 
 
Richard Langworth, co-chairman and editor of The Churchill Centre, has spent over 20 years researching Churchill's written and spoken words. In Churchill in His Own Words, which is fully authorised by the Churchill Estate, Langworth has edited and annotated this library to make the definitive collection of Churchill's words, thematically arranged. He also highlights the myriad quotations commonly mis-attributed to Churchill. 
 
From his meetings with world leaders such as Roosevelt, de Gaulle and Stalin, his verbal engagements with Hitler and the Third Reich, to his wit and oratory on the floor of the Commons, every facet of Churchill's life and times is explored with his own pragmatic intelligence, sharp humour and legendary wisdom. 
 
Previously published in hardback as Churchill in His Own Words. This edition fully revised and updated.

Churchill in His Own Words

Simon Goddard

Steven Patrick Morrissey is one of the most original and controversial voices in the history of popular music. With The Smiths, he led the most influential British guitar group of the 1980s, his enigmatic wit and style defining a generation. As a solo artist, he has continued to broach subjects no other singer would dare. 
 
Worshipped by some, vilified by others, Morrissey is a unique rock and roll creation. The 300,000 words of Mozipedia make this the most intimate and in-depth biographical portrait of the man and his music yet. Bringing together every song, album, collaborator, key location, every hero, book, film and record to have influenced his art, it is the summation of years of meticulous research. Morrissey authority Simon Goddard has interviewed almost everybody of any importance, making Mozipedia the last word on Morrissey and The Smiths.

Mozipedia

The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths

Pam Ayres

'Next, I applied to work in the accounts department, a sealed room where women operated clattering machines like enormous typewriters. After I had catastrophically and erroneously applied all the wrong information to several trolley loads of documents and lumbered the staff with weeks of corrective work, I was shown the door by a tight-lipped manageress. I knew what was coming. Over the relentless, furious din of machinery, I lip-read the familiar words: "Lacks the necessary aptitude."' 
 
Pam Ayres' early childhood in Stanford in the Vale was idyllic in many ways, and typical of that experienced by a great swathe of children born in rural areas in the immediate post-war years. Though her parents' generation was harrowed by war, better times were coming. Everything the family needed was within walking distance in the village, and life with four older brothers and a sister in their crowded council house was exceedingly lively. 
 
In her late teens, Pam grew dissatisfied with her life as a Civil Service clerk with only the local 'hop' for scintillating excitement. Having seen three of her brothers called up for National Service and sent off to exciting destinations, Pam felt desperate for travel and adventure. She joined the WRAF and soon found herself in the Far East. There she began to write in earnest, and develop the unique talent that would make her one of Britain's favourite comics... 
 
Written with Pam's much-loved combination of humour and poignancy, The Necessary Aptitude is a beautifully written memoir of her early years.

The Necessary Aptitude

A Memoir

Daniel Friebe

'The whole point of a race is to find a winner... I chose to race, so I chose to win.' 
 
For 14 years between 1965 and 1978, cyclist Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx simply devoured his rivals, their hopes and their careers. His legacy resides as much in the careers he ruined as the 445 victories - including five Tour de France wins and all the monument races - he amassed in his own right. So dominant had Merckx become by 1973 that he was ordered to stay away from the Tour for the good of the event. 
 
Stage 17 of the 1969 Tour de France perfectly illustrates his untouchable brilliance. Already wearing the yellow jersey on the col du Tourmalet, the Tour's most famous peak, Merckx powered clear and rode the last 140 kilometres to the finish-line in jaw-dropping solitude, eight minutes ahead of his nearest competitor. 
 
Merckx's era has been called cycling's Golden Age.It was full of memorable characters who, at any other time, would all have gone on to become legends. Yet Merckx's phenomenal career overshadowed them all. How did he achieve such incredible success? And how did his rivals really feel about him? Merckx failed drug tests three times in his career - were they really stitch ups as he claimed? And what of the crash at a track meet in Blois, France that killed Merckx's pacer Fernand Wambst, which Merckx claimed deeply affected him psychologically and physically? Or the attack by a spectator in 1975? 
 
Despite his unique achievements, we know little about the Cannibal beyond his victories. This will be the first comprehensive biography of Merckx in English, and will finally expose the truth behind this legendary man.

Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal

'When do you have a bath?' I asked Mrs Turgoose. 
'I hope you're not suggesting that I don't look after meself properly,' she said crossly. 'There was a woman who used to use it, but that was because she was a bit stuck up. She soon went off the idea when it started to get cold.' 
 
After working as a nurse for thirty years, Evelyn left the hospital to become a full-time Matron at The Lodge - a home for elderly ladies of reduced circumstances. 
 
Evelyn was nothing like the matrons she had known and feared in the past. In spite of broken nights and hot dinners left to get cold, Mrs Peters with her temper and Mrs Harrison with her 24-hour piano playing, her new role offered a chance to make a difference to her ladies' lives. 
 
Even though it did mean she was on call twenty-four hours a day, this is Evelyn's funny and affectionate memoir of her years - at last! - as a Matron.

Matron at Last

Corey Taylor

'I was 22 years old, a hard-on with a pulse: wretched, vice-ridden, too much to burn and not enough minutes in a hour to do so' 
 
The action begins in West Des Moines, Iowa, where Corey Taylor, frontman of heavy metal bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, systematically set about committing each of the Seven Deadly Sins. He has picked fights with douche bags openly brandishing guns. He has set himself on fire at parties and woken up in dumpsters after cocaine binges. He lost his virginity at eleven. He got rich and famous and immersed himself in booze, women, and chaos until one day he realised, suddenly, that he didn't need any of that at all. 
 
Now updated with a brand new chapter, Seven Deadly Sins is a brutally honest look at 'a life that could have gone horribly wrong at any turn', and the soul-searching and self-discovery it took to set it right.

Seven Deadly Sins

DANNY WALLACE IS A MAN. 
 
But what does it actually mean to be a man in the 21st century? A toe-curling moment, an embarrassing faux-pas or a bewildering social situation is always just round the corner. 
 
Danny, for example, always says the wrong thing about a friend's baby; has his party gate-crashed by a minor celebrity; and even discovers the pleasures of wearing pyjamas (exciting isn't it!). He breaks all the rules; hides a pastry; accidentally spits on someone; tricks Su Pollard; and (we've all been there) avoids his old hairdresser. And then there are the times when he has an argument with a bishop; experiences stage fright in the men's room; gets his wife a treat; and (eventually) helps a lady who has accidentally got her skirt all hitched up. 
 
As we follow a year in his life - and it becomes obvious to the attentive reader that here is a man who finds it a challenge to even look after himself properly - an even greater responsibility looms on the horizon... 
 
Once you have read this book you will see Awkward Situations everywhere you go and life will never be the same again. And, it's very, very funny.

Awkward Situations for Men

Danny Wallace is about to turn thirty and his life has become a cliché. Recently married and living in a smart new area of town, he's swapped pints down the pub for lattes and brunch. For the first time in his life, he's feeling, well ... grown-up. 
 
But something's not right. Something's missing. Until he finds an old address book containing just twelve names. His best mates as a kid. Where are they now? Who are they now? And how are they coping with being grown-up too? 
 
And so begins a journey from A-Z, tracking down and meeting his old gang. He travels from Berlin to Tokyo, from Sydney to LA. He even goes to Loughborough. He meets Fijian chiefs. German rappers. Some ninjas. And a carvery manager who's managed to solve time travel. But how will they respond to a man they haven't seen in twenty years, turning up and asking if they're coming out to play? 
 
Part-comedy, part-travelogue, part-memoir, Friends Like These is the story of what can happen when you track down your past, and of where the friendships you thought you'd outgrown can take you today...

Friends Like These

Zara Gill

'If you say anything to your mother, I'll tell her it was your brother. And then he'll be locked away in prison forever because of you.' 
 
Zara's stepfather, Hassan, mercilessly bullied her brother and sister. But at just seven years old Zara knew she could never tell anyone about what Hassan was doing to her. 
 
For the next nine years, she kept the terrible secret, until eventually she found the courage to fight back. But was she too late to save the people she loved? 
 
Secret Evil is the moving and inspirational true story of a little girl who tried to protect her family against the evil that pervaded their lives.

Secret Evil

Tony Bleetman

Note to customers: This book is also available under the title Confessions of an Air Ambulance Doctor. 
 
'People get into this work for "the juice", meaning the adrenaline rush, but they don't tell you about the other juices - the mud, blood, snot and grot.' 
 
You Can’t Park There! is the first ever real life account from an air ambulance doctor. Drug addicts, lorry crashes, open-heart surgery, stab wounds, headless chickens, mating llamas, and strip routines – it’s all in a day’s work for emergency doctor Tony Bleetman and his air ambulance team. 
 
Whether they are landing their helicopter in the middle of the M1 or at a maximum security jail, Tony and his crew Helimed 999 are the first on the scene in the most critical of emergencies. 
 
This gripping read will make you laugh, cry and marvel at the wonders of life (and death) in equal measure.

You Can’t Park There!

The Highs and Lows of an Air Ambulance Doctor

Department Q

Detective D.D. Warren

Detective Elin Warner Series

Detective Harriet Blue Series

Detective Inspector Antonia Hawkins

Detective Inspector Helen Grace

Detective Kamil Rahman

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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