ALEXEI NAVALNY was a Russian opposition leader, an anti-corruption campaigner, and political prisoner who won international recognition and respect. His many international honours included the Sakharov Prize, the European Parliament’s annual human rights prize. He died in 2024.

Alexei Navalny

Alexei Sayle

Alexi Zentner

Alexia Casale is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, as well as a script consultant and specialist human rights editor. Her young adult novel, The Bone Dragon, was shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize and her first adult novel, The Best Way to Bury Your Husband, set the darkly comic stage for her adult fiction. This is her second adult novel.

Alexia Casale

Alexina Anatole is a chef, presenter, and writer based in London. After reaching the final of MasterChef in 2021, she made a brave career change from the trading floor to the food world. Her debut cookbook – Bitter – was published by Square Peg, Vintage in September 2023 to critical acclaim from the likes of Nigella Lawson, Rukmini Iyer, and Waterstones. Anatole also writes Small Wins, a Substack newsletter that enhances your cooking and your life in small, manageable ways. She has been featured on BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen, Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, and BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme as well as social media platforms including MOB and TopJaw. She also runs sell-out events, including Sel, London’s most intimate supper club, and Cocoa POP, a chocolate-themed pop-up with chocolatier Octavia Lamb. Alexina is of mixed heritage: the granddaughter of chicken farmers from Cambridgeshire and Saint Lucian grandparents who arrived in London during the Windrush.

Alexina Anatole

Alexis Deacon graduated from the University of Brighton, where he studied Illustration, gaining a first class honours degree. Alexis Deacon was one of Booktrust's ten Best New Illustrators in 2008, and Beegu was a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Alexis lives in London.

Alexis Deacon

Alexis G Aïnouz

Alexis Henderson is a speculative fiction writer with a penchant for dark fantasy, witchcraft and cosmic horror. Growing up in one of America’s most haunted cities, Savannah, Georgia, instilled in her a life-long love of ghost stories. When she doesn’t have her nose buried in a book, you can find her painting or watching horror movies with her feline familiar. Her acclaimed adult books include The Year of the Witching, House of Hunger and An Academy for Liars. Her debut YA novel, When I Was Death, publishes in March 2026.

Alexis Henderson

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Born and raised in Yorkshire, Alexis moved to Cardiff where she completed a degree in print-making. She went on to exhibit in and around Wales and Leeds and has had two art residencies. After a stint working as a cook, Alexis moved to London with her small, second-hand printing press and began print-making again. Alexis works in lino which she cuts by hand. For inspiration, she looks to old matchbox covers, record sleeves, tea boxes, postcards, explorers, the circus and films. She has since moved back to Yorkshire, where she works from her studio. Alexis has designed many book covers and illustrated Dr Who: Twelve Angels Weeping but The Bear in the Stars is her first book as an author-illustrator.

Alexis Snell

Alexis Soyer

Alexis Stickland is a midwife, antenatal teacher and mother of three children who has been supporting new mums and their families for over 12 years. She was motivated by her own personal experience to team up with her friend and colleague Beccy Hands to launch The Motherbox – a company that delivers beautiful boxes of nourishing treats and self-care advice to new mums.

Alexis Stickland

Alexis Tocqueville

Alexis Zegerman

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alf Proysen

Alfie Boe

Alfie Moore

Alfie Small is a keen explorer, just like his older cousin, Charlie. And just like Charlie, Alfie is fearless! He loves adventures, speedboats, dragons and sword-fighting. He does NOT like wrinkly old pirates and interfering puffins. Unlike Charlie, Alfie always makes sure he gets back home in time for tea!

Alfie Small

Alfie Teale

Alfred Assollant was born in 1827. He was a teacher, journalist, writer and outspoken opponent of Napoleon III. He wrote more than thirty books over thirty years, including historical fiction, collected essays and a treatise on the rights of women, but only The Marvellous (But Authentic) Adventures of Captain Corcoran, published in 1867, was a success. In the 1870s, his wife, son and daughter died in quick succession and Assollant found himself poverty-stricken. In 1886 he also died, all but forgotten despite the continuing success of Corcoran, in a paupers’ hospital in Paris. 
 
Sam Miller was born and brought up in London. He studied History at Cambridge University and Politics at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, before joining the BBC in 1986, for which he has worked, on and off, ever since. In the early 1990s he was the BBC World Service TV and radio correspondent in Delhi, and on his return to the UK in 1993 was the presenter of the BBC’s current affairs programme, South Asia Report. Later he became the head of the Urdu service and subsequently Managing Editor, South Asia. He was posted back to Delhi in 2002 and has remained there ever since. He is the author of Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity (2009), Blue Guide: India (2012) and most recently A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes, which was published by Jonathan Cape in 2014.

Alfred Assollant

Alfred Döblin

Alfred Hayes

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Tennyson

Alfred Tong

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Marina Abramovic

This memoir spans Marina Abramovic's five-decade career, and tells a life story that is almost as exhilarating and extraordinary as her groundbreaking performance art. Taking us from her early life in communist ex-Yugoslavia, to her time as a young art student in Belgrade in the 1970s, the book also describes her relationship with the West German performance artist named Ulay who was her lover and sole collaborator for twelve years. Best known for her recent pieces 'The Artist is Present' and '512 Hours', this book is a fascinating insight into the life of one of the most important artists working today.

Walk Through Walls

A Memoir

Roald Dahl

What makes us innocent and how do we come to lose it? Featuring the autobiographical stories telling of Roald Dahl's boyhood and youth as well as four further tales of innocence betrayed, Dahl touches on the joys and horrors of growing up. 
 
Among other stories, you'll read about the wager that destroys a girl's faith in her father, the landlady who has plans for her unsuspecting young guest and the commuter who is horrified to discover that a fellow commuter once bullied him at school 
 
Roald Dahl reveals even more about the darker side of human nature in seven other centenary editions: Lust, Madness, Cruelty, Deception, Trickery, War and Fear.

Innocence

In war are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot in the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our darkest days. 
 
Among other stories, you'll read about the pilot shot down in the Libyan desert, the fighter plane lost in mysterious thick cloud and the soldier who returns from war but has been mysteriously changed by it. 
 
Roald Dahl reveals even more about the darker side of human nature in seven other centenary editions: Lust, Madness, Cruelty, Deception, Trickery, Innocence and Fear.

Danny MacAskill

Danny MacAskill lives on the edge. 
 
The cyclist is legendary for his YouTube viral videos like The Ridge, Cascadia, Imaginate and Wee Day Out: nerve-racking montages of stunts which scale everything from mountain peaks, rooftops, ghost towns and movie sets. His life is one of thrills, bloody spills and millions of online hits. 
 
It hasn't been an easy ride. Doubt, stress and the 'what if?' factor circle every trailblazing trick, which require imagination, fearlessness, groundbreaking techniques and an eye for a good camera angle. He has spent his life pushing the extremes; somehow, he's still around to tell the tale. 
 
In this unflinching memoir of mayhem, Danny shares his anarchic childhood on the Isle of Skye and early days as a street trials rider, takes us behind the scenes of his training and videos, and reveals what it takes to go the next level - both mentally and physically. 
 
Join Danny for a nerve-shredding ride. Just be sure to bring a crash helmet.

At the Edge

Riding for My Life

Sarah Bradford

Glamour. Duty. Tragedy: The Woman Behind the Princess. 
 
Sarah Bradford delivers an authoritative and explosive study of the greatest icon of the twentieth century: Diana. 
 
After more than a decade interviewing those closest to the Princess and her select circle, Sarah Bradford exposes the real Diana: the blighted childhood, the old-fashioned courtship which saw her capture the Prince of Wales, the damage caused by the spectre of Camilla Parker Bowles, through to the collapse of the royal marriage and Diana's final and complicated year as a single woman. 
 
Diana paints an honest portrait of a woman riddled with contradictions and whose vulnerability and unique empathy with the suffering made her one of the most extraordinary figures of the modern age.

Diana

20th Anniversary Edition

John Kavanagh

Growing up in Dublin, John Kavanagh was a skinny kid who was frequently bullied. After suffering a bad beating when he intervened to help a man who was being attacked, he decided he had to learn to defend himself. Before long, he was training fighters in a tiny shed, and promoting the earliest mixed-martial arts events in Ireland. And then, a cocky young lad called Conor McGregor walked into his gym ... 
 
In Win or Learn, John Kavanagh tells his own remarkable life story - which is at the heart of the story of the extraordinary explosion of MMA in Ireland and globally. Kavanagh has become a guru to young men and women seeking to master the arts of combat. And as the trainer of the world's most charismatic male MMA star, he has become a magnet for talented fighters from all over the world. Kavanagh's portrait of Conor McGregor - who he has seen in his lowest moments, as well as in his greatest triumphs - is a revelation. 
 
What emerges from Win or Learn is a remarkable portrait of ambition, discipline, and persistence in the face of years and years of disappointment. It is a must read for every MMA fan - but also for anyone who wants to understand how to follow a dream and realize a vision.

Win or Learn

MMA, Conor McGregor and Me: A Trainer's Journey

Candice Millard

At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill believed that to achieve his ambition of becoming Prime Minister he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Although he had put himself in extreme danger in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba, glory and fame had eluded him. Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899 to cover the brutal colonial war against the Boers. Just two weeks after his arrival, he was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape - but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory alone. The story of his escape is extraordinary enough, but then Churchill enlisted, returned to South Africa, fought in several battles and ultimately liberated the men with whom he had been imprisoned. Millard tells a magnificent story of bravery, savagery and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters - including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener and Gandhi - with whom he would later share the world stage, and gives us an unexpected perspective on one of the iconic figures in our history.

Hero of the Empire

The Making of Winston Churchill

Minoo Dinshaw

In his enormously long life (he was born in 1903 and died in 2000), Steven Runciman managed not just to be a great historian of the Crusades and Byzantium, but Grand Orator of the Orthodox Church, a member of the Order of Whirling Dervishes, Greek Astronomer Royal and Laird of Eigg. His friendships, curiosities and plottings entangled him in a huge array of different artistic movements, civil wars, Cold War betrayals and, above all, the rediscovery of the history of the Eastern Mediterranean. He was as happy living in a remote part of the Inner Hebrides as in the heart of Istanbul. He was obsessed with historical truth, but also with tarot, second sight, ghosts and the uncanny. 
 
Outlandish Knight is a dazzling debut by a writer who has prodigious gifts, but who also has had the ability to spot one of the great biographical subjects. This is an extremely funny book about a man who attracted the strangest experiences, but also a very serious one: about the rigours of a life spent both in the distant past and in the harsh world of the twentieth century in which so much of what he studied and cherished across the Balkans and Asia Minor was subjected to rapid and often catastrophic change.

Outlandish Knight

The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman

Marian Keyes

Places like the Irish air-guitar championships, a shopping trip to Bloomingdales with a difference and Cannes with a chronic case of Villa-itis. Along the way you'll encounter knicker-politics, fake tans, sticky-out ears and passionate love affairs both with make-up and Toblerones. And of course, agony aunt, Mammy Walsh is on hand to solve all your problems. 
 
Hilarious and poignant, down-to-earth and moving, Marian's two collections of journalism - Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet - are now available in one volume for the first time. So put the kettle on and grab that Kit Kat Chunky - everything else will wait.

Under the Duvet

Deluxe Edition - British Book Awards Author of the Year 2022

Alan Carr

It must seem strange to you that I've called a book Alanatomy. 
For anyone who has taken the time to see my stand-up performances or watched my chat show, Chattyman, knows that my body has hardly been kind to me - in fact there've been times when we've actually stopped talking to each other. Balding, myopic, often flaky with psoriasis, back fat that hangs suspended like a cape, a voice that could strip varnish, an increasingly dodgy hip and even dodgier teeth. Why would you draw attention to it? you must ask. Couldn't you just call the book something else? Do you think the Great British Public is ready to pore over your body? 
 
Well, as I turn 40 and take stock of my showbiz life over the last 10 years or so, I have learnt to embrace my flaws and face my shortcomings. In fact, strange as it might seem, the things I hate about myself have become my trademark and I am slowly, begrudgingly learning to, if not love them, to at least live with them. I am ready now to take a long hard look at myself and that's what Alanatomy is. It's the story of my rise to fame: the joys, the traumas, the parties, the disappointments. Hopefully you will find it witty, fun and heart-warming, but more importantly honest, and that it will keep you entertained every time you pick it up. 
 
Alanatomy is the chance for you to get beneath my skin and see the real me because, and to continue the anatomical theme if I may, this showbiz existence can sometimes feel like an autopsy - picked at, probed and scrutinized, with every inch of your body held up for analysis, but unlike an actual autopsy, you are very much alive. 
 
So I give you Alanatomy: The Inside Story. I am laying myself out on the slab for your entertainment; naked, stripped bare. Grab your scalpel, peel back the skin and go deep, have a good old probe around at my life so far. Yes, you are going to find guts, a fair bit of cheek, maybe even a little bit of gristle, but hopefully, you'll find a whole lot of heart.

Alanatomy

The Inside Story

Alexandra Shulman

Coinciding with its 100th anniversary, Inside Vogue is Alexandra Shulman's record of her life at the magazine during its centenary year. These diaries are a fascinating glimpse into the realities of her day to day as the longest serving Editor-in-chief in Vogue's history: the emotional and personal strains and successes; highs, lows and fashion shows; and her relationships with famous personalities and creative talents from Kate Moss to Victoria Beckham, Karl Lagerfeld to Sir Philip Green, Alexa Chung to Rihanna, David Bailey to Mario Testino and many more. Entertaining and informative in equal measure, this book is a must-read for women and fashion fans everywhere.

Inside Vogue

My Diary Of Vogue's 100th Year

Nick Tosches

"[Night Train] is as much about Liston and boxing as it is about the darkest side of the American Dream. Liston's story comes alive though clean, evocative prose, hard facts and lyrical, occasionally breathtaking writing"  Time Out

Night Train

A Biography of Sonny Liston

Fredrik Sjöberg

Stories just begin. We rarely know where and almost never why. It doesn't matter. Nothing is certain any longer. I just want to shut my eyes, point at random and say, as a sort of experiment, that once, when I was sixteen years old, I spent a whole night singing romantic songs in the top of a pine tree. That's where it may have started. 
 
In this follow-up to The Fly Trap, Sjöberg continues to explore the pleasures and trials of those who spend their time tracing the smallest details of the natural world. In these two tales, he calls on his childhood memories and experience as a hoverfly collector, and follows the trail of long forgotten entomologists before him who left their native Sweden for the United States. From Stockholm to the Grand Canyon, Sjöberg contemplates the richness of life and the strange paths it leads us on.

The Art of Flight

Franny Moyle

J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life. 
 
A near-mythical figure in his own lifetime, Franny Moyle tells the story of the man who was considered visionary at best and ludicrous at worst. A resolute adventurer, he found new ways of revealing Britain to the British, astounding his audience with his invention and intelligence. Set against the backdrop of the finest homes in Britain, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in Western art and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.

Turner

The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J. M. W. Turner

Adam Lashinsky

Uber is one of the most fascinating and controversial businesses in the world, both beloved for its elegant ride-hailing concept and heady growth, and condemned for CEO Travis Kalanick's ruthless pursuit of success at all cost. 
 
In Wild Ride, Adam Lashinsky, veteran Fortune writer and author of Inside Apple, traces the story of Uber's meteoric rise: from its murky origins to its plans for expansion into radically different industries. The company has already poached entire departments from top research universities in a push to build the first self-driving car and possibly replace the very drivers it's worked so hard to recruit. 
 
With access to current and former employees, as well as CEO Travis Kalanick, this book will be the first to unlock Uber's vault. It's a story that start-up founders, business executives, tech-savvy readers, and drivers and riders will find riveting.

Wild Ride

Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination

First issued to airmen in 1952, this reprint of The Air Ministry's Arctic Survival pamphlet includes emergency advice to crew operating over arctic regions. 
With original illustrations and text, these survival guides provide an insight to military survival techniques from a by-gone era. 
 
Packed with original line drawings and instruction in: 
 
- The best faces to pull to prevent frostbite and when you can expect bits of you to 'fall off', should you fail 
- How to build a structurally sound igloo 
- How to fashion a mask to prevent snowblindness 
 
 
Focussing on the harshest of situations one can find oneself in, Arctic Survival is one of four reprints of The Air Ministry's emergency survival pamphlets. Others include: 
Jungle Survival 
Desert Survival 
Arctic Survival

Arctic Survival

First issued to airmen in 1952, this reprint of The Air Ministry's Desert Survival pamphlet includes emergency advice to crew operating over desert regions. 
 
With original illustrations and text, these survival guides provide an insight to military survival techniques from a by-gone era. 
 
Packed with original line drawings and instruction in: 
 
- How to find water in a dry stream course 
- How to make a hat out of seat cushions 
- What to do in the event of meeting 'hostile parties' 
 
Focussing on one of the harshest climates on Earth, Desert Survival is one of four reprints of The Air Ministry's emergency survival pamphlets. 
 
Others include: 
Jungle Survival 
Sea Survival 
Arctic Survival

Desert Survival

First issued to airmen in 1952, this reprint of The Air Ministry's Desert Survival pamphlet includes emergency advice to crew operating over desert regions. 
With original illustrations and text, these survival guides provide an insight to military survival techniques from a by-gone era. 
 
Packed with original line drawings and instruction in: 
 
- What to do if 'jungle hiking becomes boring' 
- How to stay safe from poisonous reptiles and insects 
- The benefits of using a 'fire thong' 
 
Focussing on the harshest of situations one can find oneself in, Jungle Survival is one of four reprints of The Air Ministry's emergency survival pamphlets. Others include: 
Jungle Survival 
Desert Survival 
Arctic Survival

Jungle Survival

First issued to airmen in 1952, this reprint of The Air Ministry's Sea Survival pamphlet includes emergency advice to crew operating over sea regions. 
With original illustrations and text, these survival guides provide an insight to military survival techniques from a by-gone era. 
 
Packed with original line drawings and instruction in: 
 
- How to punch man-eating sharks. Which are 'cowards' 
- The pros and cons of drinking 'fish juice' 
- When to smoke 
 
Focussing on the harshest of situations one can find oneself in, Sea Survival is one of four reprints of The Air Ministry's emergency survival pamphlets. Others include: 
Jungle Survival 
Desert Survival 
Arctic Survival

Sea Survival

Gareth Stedman Jones

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY 2017 
 
'A deeply original and illuminating account of Marx's journey through the intellectual history of the nineteenth century... a profound reappraisal and a gripping read' Christopher Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers 
 
As the nineteenth century unfolded, its inhabitants had to come to terms with an unparalleled range of political, economic, religious and intellectual challenges. Distances shrank, new towns sprang up, and ingenious inventions transformed the industrial landscape. It was an era dominated by new ideas about God, human capacities, industry, revolution, empires and political systems - and above all, the shape of the future. 
 
One of the most distinctive and arresting contributions to this debate was made by Karl Marx, the son of a Jewish convert in the Rhineland and a man whose entire life was devoted to making sense of the hopes and fears of the nineteenth century world. Gareth Stedman Jones's impressive biography explores how Marx came to his revolutionary ideas in an age of intellectual ferment, and the impact they had on his times. In a world where so many things were changing so fast, would the coming age belong to those enthralled by the events which had brought this world into being, or to those who feared and loathed it? 
 
This remarkable book allows the reader to understand as never before the world of ideas which shaped Marx's world - and in turn made Marx shape our own.

Karl Marx

Greatness and Illusion

Paul O'Connell

There has never been a rugby player quite like Paul O'Connell. His name is synonymous with passion, heart and determination. But he is also the thinking man's rugby player, a legendary student of the game. 
 
As the heartbeat of Munster, British and Irish Lions captain in 2009, and captain of the first Ireland team to retain the Six Nations championship, O'Connell became the most beloved and respected of the golden generation of Irish rugby players - and was widely regarded as one of the very best players in the world. There was nothing inevitable - or even likely - about any of this, and in an autobiography as intense and thoughtful as its author, O'Connell explores the forces and struggles that turned him into the player and leader that he became. The Battle is a book for everyone who wants to understand the roots of achievement and the inner world of an elite sportsman. It will take its place alongside the very finest sports books of recent years.

The Battle

John le Carré

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING MEMOIR OF SPY-WRITING LEGEND JOHN LE CARRÉ 
 
*NOW A MAJOR APPLE TV MOTION PICTURE* 
 
'As recognizable a writer as Dickens or Austen' Financial Times 
 
From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War to a career as a writer, John le Carré has lived a unique life. 
 
In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive - reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels. Whether he's interviewing a German terrorist in her desert prison or watching Alec Guinness preparing for his role as George Smiley, this book invites us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood. 
 
Best of all, le Carré gives us a glimpse of a writer's journey over more than six decades, and his own hunt for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters. 
 
'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times' Guardian 
 
'When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carré . . . These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind' Aung San Suu Kyi

The Pigeon Tunnel

Stories from My Life: NOW A MAJOR APPLE TV MOTION PICTURE

Sunil Khilnani

'Incarnations makes the mind fly across time, place and history. You may smile as, mentally, you walk alongside Khilnani up some flinty slope. You will keep thinking about what he said long after' Daily Telegraph 
 
For all of India's myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. Sunil Khilnani's Incarnations fills that space: recapturing the human dimension of how the world's largest democracy came to be. In this stunningly illustrated and deeply researched book, accompanying his major BBC Radio 4 series, Khilnani explores the lives of 50 Indians, from the spiritualist Buddha to the capitalist Dhirubhai Ambani - lives that light up India's rich, varied past and its continuous ferment of ideas. Khilnani's trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, poets, stars, and corporate titans - some famous, some unjustly forgotten - bring feeling, wry humour, and uncommon insight to social dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own. 
 
As he journeys across the country, and through its past, Khilnani uncovers more than just history. In rocket launches and ayurvedic call centres, in slum temples and Bollywood studios, in California communes and grimy ports, he examines the continued, and often surprising, relevance of the men and women who have made India - and the world - what it is. Their stories will inform, move and entertain this book's many readers.

Incarnations

A History of India in 50 Lives

John Preston

The bestselling book that inspired the Bafta-winning BBC drama, starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw 
 
Corruption. Blackmail. Conspiracy to murder. A Very English Scandal has all the hallmarks of a classic thriller with one difference. It's all true. 
 
In the late 1960s Jeremy Thorp, the charismatic leader of the Liberal Party, was at the height of his political career. But homosexuality had only just been legalized, and a former relationship with a younger man named Norman Scott threatened to destroy Thorp's carefully curated facade. Helped by fellow politicians, Thorpe schemed, deceived and embezzled until he saw only one way to silence his ex-lover for good. 
 
Meticulously researched and endlessly extraordinary, Thorp's trial captured the moment that British society discovered the truth about its political class - and learned just how far the Establishment will go to protect its own. 
 
'Gripping. A story of cack-handed assassins, buffoonish policemen, dodgy Home Secretaries' Daily Telegraph 
 
'I loved it; eccentric, dark, humane and English in the very best sense' Alain de Botton 
 
'Retold with masterful skill . . . It grips like a detective story' Daily Mail, Book of the Week

A Very English Scandal

Now a Major BBC Series Starring Hugh Grant

Gerald Durrell

In this second collection of tales concerning the Durrell family on the island of Corfu, young Gerry continues to be captivated by the fascinating flora and fauna of their adopted home - much to the bemusement and upset of his long suffering siblings and mother. 
 
Whether it's lamp fishing by night or roving the countryside with his mentor Theodore, Gerry encounters intoxicated hedgehogs, tarantulas, dung beetles, water spiders and other animals, some of which become the family's very unwanted pets.

Birds, Beasts and Relatives

Nina Stibbe

Being a nanny is great. Not like a job really, just like living in someone else's life. Today before breakfast Sam had to empty the dishwasher and Will had to feed the cat. 
 
Sam: I hate emptying the dishwasher. 
MK: We all do, that's why we take turns. 
Will: I hate the cat. 
MK: We all do, that's why we take turns. 
 
In the 1980s Nina Stibbe wrote letters home to her sister in Leicester describing her trials and triumphs as a nanny to a London family. There's a cat nobody likes, a visiting dog called Ted Hughes (Ted for short) and suppertime visits from a local playwright. Not to mention the two boys, their favourite football teams, and rude words, a very broad-minded mother and assorted nice chairs. 
 
From the mystery of the unpaid milk bill and the avoidance of nuclear war to mealtime discussions on pie filler, the greats of English literature, swearing in German and sexually transmitted diseases, Love, Nina is a wonderful celebration of bad food, good company and the relative merits of Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton.

Love, Nina

Despatches from Family Life

Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family - acne-ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog - take off for the island of Corfu. 
 
But the Durrells find that, reluctantly, they must share their various villas with a menagerie of local fauna - among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies. 
 
Recounted with immense humour and charm My Family and Other Animals is a wonderful account of a rare, magical childhood.

My Family and Other Animals

Carlo Ancelotti

Carlo Ancelotti is one of the greatest managers of all time, with five Champions League titles to his name. Yet his approach could not be further from the aggressive theatricals favoured by many of his rivals. His understated style has earned him the fierce loyalty of players like David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo. 
 
In Quiet Leadership, Ancelotti reveals the full, riveting story of his managerial career - his methods, mentors, mistakes and triumphs - and takes us inside the dressing room to trace the characters, challenges and decisions that have shaped him. The result is both a scintillating memoir and a rare insight into the business of leadership.

Quiet Leadership

Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches

In the concluding volume of the Corfu trilogy, telling of the Durrell family's five-year sojourn on the idyllic Greek island before the Second World War, young Gerry is turning into the passionate zoologist he has long threatened to become - much to his family's horror. 
 
Whether it's rams attacking their guests or eleven puppies seeking a new home or invasions of scorpions, spiders and geckoes, young Gerry is in heaven. His family, on the other hand, wonder if this is hell . . .

The Garden of the Gods

Tom Watkins

"'Okay listen up everyone,' I said, zipping up my high visibility jacket. 'It will be most effective to comb the local area by taking a village each.' I told my team as I traced my finger across the map. My experience as a former copper was invaluable for our search. We weren't looking for a missing person though - we had a dog to find." 
 
Any pet owner knows the agonising panic when their beloved furry family member goes missing, but Tom Watkins, former policeman turned pet detective, is on hand to reunite our animal companions with their owners. 
 
From recording the owner's voice to lure cats from their hiding place, to organising a fly-over to raise the profile of missing Toby the terrier, from emptying the contents of the owner's vacuum to tempt in the missing animal with the scent, to organising a Crimewatch-style reconstruction of a dog-snatching on national TV, Tom will do whatever it takes to get the nation's pets home, safe and sound. The Real Pet Detective is the story of 20 years of missing pets, their owners and Tom's team of expert pet investigators.

The Real Pet Detective

True Tales of Pets Lost and Found

Little Pop-Ups

Little Princesses

Little Puffin Clothbound Classics

Little Red Train

Little Swan Ballet

Little Town of Marrowville

Little World

Lives of the Artists

Living Autobiography

Living World

Stella Rimington brings all her experience as the first woman Director General of MI5 to bear in a heart-stopping thriller series that takes us deep into a wilderness of mirrors where nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted.

Liz Carlyle

Lizzie and Lucky

Lockwood & Co.

Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter join forces in this seminal sci-fi series. 
Long Earth is series of parallel worlds that are similar to Earth, which can be reached by using an inexpensive device called a "Stepper". The closer worlds are almost identical to our Earth but the further you get the more they differ. They all share one similarity: humans have never existed there, at least not as we know them . . .

Long Earth

Set in the turbulent eighteenth century, Lord John is the lonely, tormented and courageous English officer first seen in the Outlander novels. He is a man who fights for the crown, his honour and his own secrets.

Lord John Grey

Lore Olympus

Lorien Legacies Reborn

Lost Boys

Lottie

Lottie Brooks

Love & Hockey

Meet Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI and member of 15th century Rome's most notorious family. Scandal and tragedy follow her everywhere as she struggles to choose between love and loyalty.

Lucrezia Borgia

Lucy and Tom

MOOMIN

Mabel Jones

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know Trilogy

Maeve Kerrigan Series

Magic Bunny

Magic Ex Libris

Irresistibly cute stories of animal magic, perfect for children who are ready to enjoy chapters books on their own.

Filters

Category

Age

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter