Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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T.J. English

Even among the Mob, the Westies were feared. Out of a partnership between two sadistic thugs - James Coonan and Mickey Featherstone - the gang dominated the decaying slice of New York City's West Side known as Hell's Kitchen in the 1970s and '80s. Excelling in extortion, numbers running, loansharking and drug-peddling, they became the most notorious gang in the history of organized crime. The then prosecutor Rudolf Giuliani called them 'the most savage organisation in the long history of New York street gangs'. Upping the ante on brutality and depravity, their speciality when it came to punishment and killings was dismemberment. Their reign lasted almost twenty - their end would come as their own violent natures got the best of them and precipitated a downfall as infamous as their rise. This revised and updated edition, brings the story of the Westies up to date with 'where are they now' snapshots of the men - and women - of the Westies.

The Westies

Inside New York's Irish Mob

Souad

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

Burned Alive

Ian Denys Peek

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

One Fourteenth Of An Elephant

Michael Calvin

Naftali Schiff

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'A dramatic, poignant and astonishing untold story of the Holocaust.' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 
 
‘Extraordinary. One of the most haunting episodes of the war.’ DAILY MAIL 
 
'The remarkable story of a unique event - the reprieve of 51 Hungarian Jewish teenagers already naked and trapped inside the gas chambers.' PROFESSOR ROBERT JAN VAN PELT 
 
An unforgettable testament to hope and the bonds of brotherhood, Miracle reveals the untold story of the boys who escaped the gas chamber in Auschwitz, the only known group of Holocaust survivors to walk away from the jaws of the Nazi killing machine. 
 
Early on the morning of October 10, 1944, eight-hundred boys, aged between 13 and 17, were taken out of Block 11 at Auschwitz. The night before, during a visit by Dr Josef Mengele, their identification cards had been stamped with a solitary German word – gestorben – 'died' in English. They were then marched by 25 bayonet-wielding SS men to Crematorium 5, stripped, and herded into a gas chamber. 
 
This book is the story of a true-life miracle of the fifty-one boys who were pulled from that gas chamber – the only Holocaust survivors known to have escaped such a close brush with the Nazi killing machine – and given a second chance at life. A life, of course, that would be so horrifically snatched from those around them. 
 
Based on the first-hand testimonies of six of the boys, six survivors whose stories are shared in this book for the very first time, Miracle interweaves the lives of the boys and the grander sweep of history in which they were held. The result is an unforgettable tale of hope, faith and fortitude in the face of one of the worst crimes against humanity. 
 
‘Astonishing. A powerful book.’ JEWISH NEWS 
 
'A truly extraordinary story.' JAMES O'BRIEN 
 
‘The remarkable but harrowing true story. Extraordinary.’ TIMES RADIO

Miracle

The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber in Auschwitz

Alicia Appleman-Jurman

'This memoir is heartbreaking.' Elie Wiesel, author of Night 
 
Alicia Jurman is five-years-old when her story begins. It is 1935 and she is living in the East Polish town of Buczacz. Although brought up in an atmosphere of anti-Semitism, nothing could have prepared her for the Russian invasion of Poland and the full horror of the Nazi Occupation. 
 
At thirteen, while fleeing the Nazis through war-ravaged Poland, Alicia began saving the lives of strangers. Her family cruelly wrenched from her, Alicia rescued other Jews from the Gestapo, led them to safe hideouts, and lent them her courage and hope. Even the sight of her mother's brutal murder could not quash this remarkable child's faith in human goodness - or her determination to prevail against overwhelming odds. 
 
After the war, Alicia continued to risk her life, leading Polish Jews on an underground route to freedom in Palestine. She swore on her brother's grave that if she survived, she would speak for her silenced family. This book is the eloquent fulfilment of that oath.

Alicia

Memoirs of A Survivor

Frank Gardner

On the June 6, 2004, while on assignment in Riyadh, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner and cameraman Simon Cumbers were ambushed by Islamist gunmen. Simon was killed outright. Frank was hit in the shoulder and leg. As he lay in the dust, a figure stood over him and pumped four more bullets into his body at point-blank range... 
 
Against all the odds, Frank Gardner survived. 
 
Today, although partly paralysed, Frank continues to travel the world, reporting and making documentaries for the BBC. This acclaimed memoir was brought up to date with a new chapter that recounted his return to Saudi Arabia for the first time since he was shot and the story he tells continues to move and inspire, and remains an affirmation of his deep understanding of - and affection for - the Islamic world in these uncertain times. 
___ 
 
 
'Gardner tells his remarkable tale well and bravely, with an astonishing lack of anger and enduring love and respect for the Islamic world' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Brave, unsentimental and genuinely inspiring' EVENING STANDARD 
'What makes Gardner's moving, often humorous, deeply personal story so important is the fact that he has woven into it a brilliantly dispassionate, clear-eyed account of the Islamic world' SCOTSMAN 
'A witty, self-deprecating, inspiring testament' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Blood and Sand

The BBC security correspondent’s own extraordinary and inspiring story

Jean Sasson

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

Mayada: Daughter Of Iraq

Peter Woolf

'For almost all my life, I've been the person you crossed the street to avoid...' 
 
Peter Woolf's life of drinking, drug-taking and thieving had begun before most people leave school. Spending most of his adult life in prison made no difference to him: life itself offered him no hope. Today, amazingly, Peter is clean and has not reoffended since a life-changing meeting in 2002 when he came face to face with some of his victims. 
 
The Damage Done is a searingly honest and gritty portrayal of a man ensconced in an endless cycle of drugs, violence, prison and depravity who, one Tuesday afternoon in a glass room at Pentonville prison, was forced to confront all that he had destroyed.

The Damage Done

Anthony Bourke

John Rendall

In 2008, a YouTube clip became an internet phenomenon. It showed the emotional reunion of two young men and their pet lion, Christian, after they had left him in Africa to be introduced into his rightful home in the wild. 
 
Anthony 'Ace' Bourke and John Rendall visited London from Australia in 1969 and bought a boisterous lion cub in Harrods. But Christian soon grew from cuddly cub to King of the Kings Road in London, and the only way to avoid him being incarcerated in a zoo was to place him under the expert care of George Adamson in Kenya. Ace and John did not return to see their lion for a year. 
 
A Lion Called Christian tells their touching story, accompanied by stunning photographs. It's a unique and extraordinary tale of its time that resonates again today with a worldwide audience, thanks to the internet age, and is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature.

A Lion Called Christian

Cupcake Brown

'Phenomenal woman' The Oprah Magazine 
'Dazzles you with the amazing change that is possible in one lifetime.' Washington Post 
 
- 
 
This is the heart-wrenching true story of a girl named Cupcake Brown. 
 
Orphan, runaway, addict, all before she was twenty. That's when things got really interesting... 
 
Cupcake was just eleven years old when, orphaned, she entered the child welfare system. Moved from one disastrous placement to the next, like so many, she was neglected and sexually abused. 
 
She fed her appetite for drink and drugs by selling the only thing she had. Her body. Before long she had stumbled head first into a world of gangs and extreme violence. After one crack binge she woke up behind a dumpster. Half-dressed and more than half-dead, she knew she had a choice. Change her life or die. 
 
Brutally frank and startlingly funny, A Piece of Cake is the remarkable true story of a resilient spirit who triumphed over the very worst that life could throw at her.

A Piece Of Cake

A Sunday Times Bestselling Memoir

Robert Whitaker

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

The Mapmaker's Wife

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

Estate of Harry Birrell

From the moment he received a cine-camera at age 10, Harry Birrell devoted his life to documenting the world around him, including his enlistment and his adventures serving in the Burma, Nepal and India. Not only did he capture the war as he saw it, but he kept copious diaries from 1939 to 1945 so that his family would know what he had experienced in the event of his death. These unique record of the campaign are compelling, insightful, funny, charming, moving - all in equal measure. 
 
As a soldier posted with the Gurkhas for most of the war, Harry Birrell worked as a surveyor, mapping out the country as the war with the Japanese ebbed and flowed around him. While this might seem like it was away from any action, the job of creating these references for the fighting part of the army was critical and required him to be at the front line in order that the troops and their commanders had the most up to date and accurate maps as the war evolved. As a result, he has an unusual insider overview of that brutal campaign as well as wonderful insight into the Gurkhas under his command.

To War with the Gurkhas: War Diaries

Shell Rowe

This story began because I was dying to live. It ends with having learned how. 
 
Wise beyond her years, Shell Rowe's life took an abrupt turn when, aged 20, instead of being able to follow her dream of film studies, she discovered a lump on her throat that turned out to be Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She was given a slim chance of survival. 
Three diagnoses later, facing extreme challenges and hardship each time, yet always managing to win the battle, Shell shares the life lessons she learned along the way. 
 
From realising that while life doesn't always turn out the way you planned, it may work out even better, to making your own luck, giving yourself time, being brave, embracing the chaos and realising that growing old is a privilege, this is an uplifting and humorous guide to making the most of whatever life throws at you. 
 
This is a book for anyone who has ever felt stuck, paralysed by doubt, judgement or endless what ifs. The lessons aim to help readers reframe adversity, cultivate resilience, find joy and purpose. It is a testament of hope and a confirmation that we all possess the power within us to shape our own reality, despite the hardships we each face.

Dying to Live

How to Thrive, Not Just Survive

Robert Moore

____________________ 
 
NOW OUT IN CINEMAS, STARRING COLIN FIRTH, MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS AND LEA SÉYDOUX 
 
'It takes you through each nail-biting moment . . . heart-breaking, humane and, at times, all too vivid. I've rarely read such a gripping work of non-fiction' COLIN FIRTH 
____________________ 
 
At 11.30 a.m. on Saturday 12 August 2000, two massive explosions roared through the shallow Arctic waters of the Barents Sea. The Kursk, pride of the Northern Fleet and the largest attack submarine in the world, was hurtling towards the ocean floor. 
 
In Kursk (originally published as A Time to Die), award-winning journalist Robert Moore vividly recreates this disaster minute by minute. Venturing into a covert world where the Cold War continues out of sight, Moore investigates the military and political background to the tragedy. But above all, he tells the nail-bitingly poignant human story of the families waiting ashore, of the desperate efforts of British, Norwegian and Russian rescuers, and of the Kursk sailors, trapped in the aft compartnemt, waiting for rescue, as a horrified world followed their battle to stay alive . . .

Kursk

Film tie-in

A Time To Die

Eleni Gage

Eleni Gage, a young journalist living in New York, leaves her Manhattan flat to return to the remote but beautiful Greek village of Lia in northern Greece and rebuild her ruined ancestral home. But this is not just another tale of quaint rustic DIY - the house was the scene of imprisonment and torture, and its ruins are stalked by the ghosts of the Greek Civil War. 
The story is played out in the stunning mountainous landscape of Epiros, one of the least-visited regions of Europe. As Eleni becomes part of the village, her neighbours and the house come vividly to life while her own disasters, triumphs and self-discoveries are alternately poignant and hilarious. The cast of characters includes Eleni's formidable yet miniscule aunts - the thitsas, who fear that she will be eaten by wolves; her immigrant Albanian builders; and the residents of modern-day Lia, whose feelings about the rebuilding of a house where such terrible events took place are ambivalent at best. 
 
Informed by her knowledge of Greece's folklore, literature, language and history, Eleni's story is unfailingly witty and wise. But beneath it all lie the indelible stains of a real-life Greek tragedy.

North Of Ithaka

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

For the Love of a Son

One Afghan Woman's Quest for her Stolen Child

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