5ive Guys FC

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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

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Adam Higginbotham

Midnight in Chernobyl

The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Mark Bowden

Already winning acclaim as one of the best accounts of combat ever written, Black Hawk Down is a minute-by-minute, heart-stopping account of the 1993 raid on Mogadishu, Somalia. Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3 1993, 140 elite US Soldiers abseiled from helicopters into a teeming market neighbourhood in the heart of the city. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them about an hour. 
 
Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. Two of their high-tech helicopters were shot out of the sky. When the unit was rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were dead and more than seventy badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse - more than five hundred killed and over a thousand injured. 
 
Authoritative, gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is destined to become a classic of war reporting. It is already the most accurate, detailed account of modern combat ever written.

Black Hawk Down

James Holland

'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians.' Sebastian Faulks 
'Holland's skill lies in bringing these warriors to life with vivid prose.' The Times 
Shortlisted for the 2021 British Army Military Book of the Year 
_________________________________________________ 
This is the story of the biggest seaborne landing in history. 
 
Codenamed Operation HUSKY, the assault on Sicily on 10 July 1943 remains the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted. That day, over 160,000 Allied troops were dropped from the sky or came ashore to begin the fight for Europe. 
 
The subsequent thirty-eight-day Battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic of the entire war, involving daring raids by special forces, deals with the Mafia, attacks across mosquito-infested plains and perilous assaults up almost sheer faces of rock and scree. 
 
Made worse by virulent disease and extreme heat, the Allies also had to fight their way across an island of unforgiving landscape and limited infrastructure against a German foe who would not give up. 
Victory would signal the beginning of the end of the War in the West. From here on, the noose began to tighten around the neck of Nazi Germany. The coalition between the United States and Britain finally came of age. And it was a crucial dry run for Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy on D-Day a year later.

Sicily '43

A Times Book of the Year

Rowland White

'Utterly brilliant: a fantastically exciting book... This really does read like the best kind of thriller. His best book yet' 
James Holland, author of Normandy '44 
 
April 1982. Argentina invades the Falkland Islands. 
In response, Britain despatches a naval task force. Eight thousand miles from home, its fate hinges on just twenty Sea Harriers against the two hundred-strong might of the Argentine Air Force. 
 
The odds against them are overwhelming. 
The MoD's own estimates suggest that half the Harriers will be lost in the opening days of the conflict. They need backup. Within three weeks 809 Naval Air Squadron is reformed, trained and heading south, ready for war. 
 
Not since World War Two had so much been expected of such a small band of pilots.

Harrier 809

Britain’s Legendary Jump Jet and the Untold Story of the Falklands War

Jason Fox

THE EXTRAORDINARY SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. 
 
Take control of your life, build resilience and learn to thrive in any situation with the powerful and inspiring new book from the number one bestselling author of Battle Scars. 
 
In Life Under Fire, ex-Special Forces Sergeant Jason Fox shows you how to build the strength of mind and the resilience of an elite soldier. 
 
Recounting stories from high-stakes operations and expeditions, Foxy draws on the practices of the British military and the skills he developed during his career to show how to respond positively to life's challenges. Using battle-tested techniques, he explains how to find true grit in life's difficult moments, and how to ensure you have the inner strength to thrive in any environment. 
 
Whether you're under emotional pressure or facing physical challenges, this book will equip you with the tools you need to overcome obstacles and excel in adversity.

Life Under Fire

The Sunday Times Bestseller - Build Inner Strength and Thrive Under Pressure

How to Build Inner Strength and Thrive Under Pressure

Stanley Christopherson

‘An astonishing record...There is no other wartime diary that can match the scope of these diaries’ James Holland 
 
‘An outstanding contribution to the literature of the Second World War’Professor Gary Sheffield 
 
From the outbreak of war in September 1939 to the smouldering ruins of Berlin in 1945, via Tobruk, El Alamein, D-Day and the crossing of the Rhine, An Englishman at War is a unique first-person account of the Second World War. 
Stanley Christopherson’s regiment, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, went to war as amateurs and ended up one of the most experienced, highly trained and most valued armoured units in the British Army. 
 
A junior officer at the beginning of the war, Christopherson became the commanding officer of the regiment soon after the D-Day landings. What he and his regiment witnessed presents a unique overview of one of the most cataclysmic events in world history and gives an extraordinary insight, through tragedy and triumph, into what it felt like to be part of the push for victory.

An Englishman at War: The Wartime Diaries of Stanley Christopherson DSO MC & Bar 1939-1945

'A devastating new account..Holland knows his stuff when it comes to military matters' Daily Mail, Book of the Week 
'A superb account of the invasion that deserves immense praise. To convey the human drama of Normandy requires great knowledge and sensitivity. Holland has both in spades' The Times 
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Renowned World War Two historian James Holland presents an entirely new perspective on one of the most important moments in recent history, unflinchingly examining the brutality and violence that characterised the campaign. 
 
D-Day and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed have come to be seen as a defining episode in the Second World War. Its story has been endlessly retold, and yet it remains a narrative burdened by both myth and assumed knowledge. 
 
In this reexamined history, James Holland presents a broader overview, one that challenges much of what we think we know about D-Day and the Normandy campaign. The sheer size and scale of the Allies' war machine ultimately dominates the strategic, operational and tactical limitations of the German forces. 
 
Drawing on unseen archives and testimonies from around the world and introducing a cast of eye-witnesses including foot soldiers, tank men, fighter pilots and more, James Holland's epic telling profoundly recalibrates our understanding of its true place in the tide of human history. 
 
The new, sweeping World War II book from James Holland, THE SAVAGE STORM, is available now.

Normandy ‘44

D-Day and the Battle for France

The epic Sunday Times bestseller

Andy McNab

Sergeant Andy McNab recounts the story of the top secret mission that would reveal the secrets of the SAS to the world for the first time. 
 
Their location: Iraq 
Their mission: to sever a vital enemy underground communication link, to find and destroy mobile Scud launchers 
Their call sign: Bravo Two Zero 
 
When eight members of the elite SAS regiment embark on a highly covert operation, they are each laden with 15 stones of equipment, needing to tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. They engage in a fierce battle. They escape on foot to the Syrian border. Three men die. One escapes. 
But four men are captured. For them, the worst is yet to come. Delivered to Baghdad, they are tortured with a savagery for which not even their intensive SAS training has prepared them… 
 
This is a story of superhuman courage, strength, endurance and dark humour in the face of overwhelming odds. It shows just how much it takes to be a member of the SAS. 
_____________________________________________ 
‘The best account yet of the SAS in action’ Sunday Times 
‘One of the best books to emerge from the first Gulf War … Magnificent’ Independent on Sunday

Bravo Two Zero

The original SAS story

the classic true story from an SAS hero

Bill Browder

'An unburdening, a witness statement and a thriller all at the same time ... electrifying.' The Times 
 
I have to assume that there is a very real chance that Putin or members of his regime will have me killed some day. If I'm killed, you will know who did it. When my enemies read this book, they will know that you know. 
 
 
A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. A true-life thriller by one of Putin's Most Wanted. 
 
In November 2009, the young lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by eight police officers in a freezing cell in a Moscow prison. His crime? Testifying against Russian officials who were involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million of taxes. 
 
Red Notice is a searing exposé of the whitewash of this imprisonment and murder. The killing hasn't been investigated. It hasn't been punished. Bill Browder is still campaigning for justice for his late lawyer and friend. This is his explosive journey from the heady world of finance in New York and London in the 1990s, through battles with ruthless oligarchs in turbulent post-Soviet Union Moscow, to the shadowy heart of the Kremlin. 
 
With fraud, bribery, corruption and torture exposed at every turn, Red Notice is a shocking political roller-coaster. 
__________________ 
 
Reads like a classic thriller, with an everyman hero alone and in danger in a hostile foreign city ... but it's all true, and it's a story that needs to be told.' Lee Child 
 
'A shocking true-life thriller.' Tom Stoppard 
 
'A riveting account... it is a powerful story and Browder tells it skilfully.' The Washington Post

Red Notice

A True Story of Corruption, Murder and how I became Putin’s no. 1 enemy

A True Story of Corruption, Murder and One Man’s Fight for Justice

From the top ten bestselling author of Normandy 44 and Sicily 43 
 
The Second World War is the most cataclysmic and violent sequence of events in recent times. But for the past seven decades, our understanding of it has relied upon conventional wisdom, propaganda and an interpretation skewed by the information available. James Holland has spent over twelve years conducting new research, interviewing survivors, visiting battlefields and archives that have never before been so accessible and challenging too-long-held assumptions about the war that shaped our world. 
 
In Germany Ascendant, the first part of this ground-breaking new history, James Holland introduces the war, beginning with the lead-up to its outbreak in 1939 and taking us up to mid-1941 as the Nazis prepared to unleash Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. To tell the real story, he weaves together the experiences of dozens of individuals, from civilians and soldiers, to sailors, pilots, leading military strategists, industrialists and heads of state, and uncovers the strategy, tactics and events that informed not only the military aspects of the war but also the economic, political, and social aspects too. 
 
The War in the West is a truly monumental history of the war on land, in the air, and at sea. In it, James Holland has created a captivating and epic narrative which redefines and enhances our understanding of one of the most significant conflicts in history.

The War in the West - A New History

Volume 1: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941

John Man

'Man does for the reader that most difficult of tasks: he conjures up an ancient people in an alien landscape in such a way as to make them live.' - Guardian 
 
The people of the first nomadic empire left no written records, but from 200 BC they dominated the heart of Asia for 400 years. They changed the world. The Mongols, today’s descendants of Genghis Khan, see them as ancestors. Their rise cemented Chinese unity and inspired the first Great Wall. Their heirs under Attila the Hun helped destroy the Roman Empire. 
 
We don’t know what language they spoke, but they became known as Xiongnu, or Hunnu, a term passed down the centuries and across Eurasia, enduring today in shortened form as ‘Hun’. Outside Asia precious little is known of their rich history, but new evidence reframes our understanding of the indelible mark they left on a vast region stretching from Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia deep into China. 
 
Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, Barbarians at the Wall traces their epic story, and shows how the nomadic cultures of the steppes gave birth to a ‘barbarian empire’ with the wealth and power to threaten the civilised order of the ancient world.

Barbarians at the Wall

The First Nomadic Empire and the Making of China

From Hitler's invasion of Russia, America's entry into the conflict and the devastating Thousand Bomber Raids over Germany, to the long grinding struggle in the deserts of North Africa and the crucial Battle of the Atlantic, the middle passage of the Second World War was all about turning back the Nazi tide. 
 
These catalytic moments would come to define the course of the war and its outcome. They encompass the most vicious fighting, the most hair-raising strategy and the most breathtaking bravery. Across the battlefronts on land, sea and air, to the streets, fields and factories of Britain, America, Africa and Europe, Holland shows, in his own dramatic and compelling style, how the fortunes of war were changed and what happened when the Allies were finally able to fight back . . . 
 
'Impeccably researched and superbly written... Holland's fascinating sage offers a mixture of captivating new research and well-considered revisionism' Observer 
 
'Exceptional... Holland's success is built in part on an engaging writing stule and in part on a genuinely fresh approach to events' Wall Street Journal 
 
'The best of the new generation of WW2 historians' Sebastian Faulks

The War in the West: A New History

Volume 2: The Allies Fight Back 1941-43

Thomas Morris

"Delightfully horrifying."--Popular Science 
One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 
One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 
 
 
· A mysterious epidemic of dental explosions… 
· A teenage boy who got his wick stuck in a candlestick... 
· A remarkable woman who, like a human fountain, spurted urine from virtually every orifice... 
 
These are just a few of the anecdotal gems that have until now lain undiscovered in medical journals for centuries. This fascinating collection of historical curiosities explores some of the strangest cases that have perplexed doctors across the world. 
 
From seventeenth-century Holland to Tsarist Russia, from rural Canada to a whaler in the Pacific, many are monuments to human stupidity – such as the sailor who swallowed dozens of penknives to amuse his shipmates, or the chemistry student who in 1850 arrived at a hospital in New York with his penis trapped inside a bottle, having unwisely decided to relieve himself into a vessel containing highly reactive potassium. Others demonstrate exceptional surgical ingenuity long before the advent of anaesthesia – such as a daring nineteenth-century operation to remove a metal fragment from beneath a conscious patient’s heart. We also hear of the weird, often hilarious remedies employed by physicians of yore – from crow’s vomit to port-wine enemas – the hazards of such everyday objects as cucumbers and false teeth, and miraculous recovery from apparently terminal injuries. 
 
Blending fascinating history with lacerating wit, The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth will take you on a tour of some of the funniest, strangest and most wince-inducing corners of medical history.

The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine

THE EXTRAORDINARY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER. A SEARINGLY HONEST ACCOUNT OF A LIFE TORN APART BY WAR. 
 
'The most important book you’ll ever read… Battle Scars will save lives.' TOM MARCUS 
'A vivid, searing account of a life at war.’ BEAR GRYLLS 
‘A must read.’ ANT MIDDLETON 
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What happens when you become your own enemy? How do you keep on fighting when life itself no longer feels worth fighting for? 
 
After more than two decades of active duty in the Special Forces, Jason Fox was diagnosed with complex PTSD, forcing him to leave the military brotherhood and confront the hard reality of what follows. 
 
Battle Scars tells the story of Fox’s career as an elite operator, from the gunfights, hostage rescues, daring escapes and heroic endeavours that defined his service, to the very different kind of battle that awaited him at home. 
 
Unflinchingly honest, Battle Scars is a breathtaking account of Special Forces soldiering: a chronicle of operational bravery, and of superhuman courage on and off the battlefield. 
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What readers are saying: 
 
‘An absolute must-read’ ***** Reader review 
‘This outstanding book and its contents will save lives’ ***** Reader review 
‘Unforgettable, magnificent and utterly inspiring’ ***** Reader review 
‘Amazing and truly humbling…This book is incredible’ ***** Reader review 
‘A remarkable life story from an equally remarkable man’ ***** Reader review 
‘Courageous…I simply could not put this down’ ***** Reader review 
‘A mental health must read’ ***** Reader review

Battle Scars

A Story of War and All That Follows

The Sunday Times bestseller

Alan Johnson

'Warmth, wit and honesty make this such a satisfying read' Daily Mail 
 
Supermarket worker, postman, union official, father of three. 
Dansettes, dancehalls, smoky pubs, rock-n-roll West London. 
There are two sides to Alan Johnson. 
___________________ 
 
From the moment a young Alan Johnson first twanged the strings of his plastic ‘Tommy Steele’ guitar, he was determined to become a rock star. 
 
 Alan’s life has always been lived to a musical soundtrack. His earliest memories of the bleak, post-war, pre-rock ’n’ roll west London landscape into which he was born are suffused with the melodies that wafted from the rented Bakelite wireless in the slum where he lived with his frail mother and dauntless sister. His love affair with pop music blossomed alongside the music itself, which exploded into being in the mid-1950s and came to embody the iconoclastic spirit of a new era. 
 
 In this memoir, Alan looks back at his pursuit of rock stardom through the music that accompanied it – on vinyl, cassette tape or blasting from the stages of the Marquee club in Soho or the Wimbledon Palais; the sounds of Chuck Berry and Lonnie Donegan, of the Yardbirds and Dylan, of Bowie, Elvis Costello and Springsteen . . . not forgetting the Beatles, the band he has worshipped since 1963. 
 
 In My Life recalls with affection a vanished world of Flower Power and platform shoes. Honest, poignant and very funny, it is more than just a nostalgic celebration of music: it offers a new perspective on the singular life of Alan Johnson the man. 
___________________ 
 
PRAISE FOR IN MY LIFE: 
'Radiates the author's easygoing charm' Spectator 
'Loving slice of social history' Daily Express 
'Very readable' New Statesman 
'Charming memoir' Mail on Sunday

In My Life

A Music Memoir

____________________ 
 
‘As vivid and compelling as the best adventure thriller, and a fitting tribute to a small band of men who became heroes’ ANDY MCNAB 
 
‘Gripping, revealing and extraordinarily well-researched, this is a riveting new account of a little known but crucial war’ SIR RANULPH FIENNES 
____________________ 
 
Dawn. 19 July 1972. A force of nearly three hundred heavily armed, well-trained guerrillas launches a surprise attack on the small fishing village of Mirbat. All that stands in their way is a troop of just nine SAS, aided only by an elite band of fighter pilots overhead. 
 
Two years earlier a Communist rebellion had threatened the Arabian Peninsula, in the strategically critical Sultanate of Oman. Following a covert intelligence mission, 22 SAS deployed their largest ever assault force against the rebels. 
 
But this was to be a bitter and hard-fought campaign culminating the Battle of Mirbat which would become a defining moment for the Regiment. Their heroism that day would remain part of the SAS legend for ever.

SAS: Storm Front

The Storming Bestseller from the Author of Harrier 809

Roben Farzad

Miami, December 31, 1979. Lock your doors. Watch your backs. Raise your glasses. Miami is about to blow, in a fiery explosion of cocaine, blood, bullets, torched cars, cash, immigrants, hustlers, dopers, informants, corruption, body bags and inner tubes. 
 
 In the seventies, coke hit Miami with the full force of a hurricane, and no place attracted dealers and dopers like Coconut Grove’s Mutiny at Sailboat Bay. Hollywood royalty, rock stars, and models flocked to the hotel’s club to order bottle after bottle of Dom and to snort lines alongside narcos, hit men, and gunrunners, all while marathon orgies burned upstairs in elaborate fantasy suites. 
 
 Amid the boatloads of powder and cash reigned the new kings of Miami: three waves of Cuban immigrants vying to dominate the trafficking of one of the most lucrative commodities ever known to man. But as the kilos—and bodies—began to pile up, the Mutiny became target number one for law enforcement. 
 
 Based on exclusive interviews and never-before-seen documents, Hotel Scarface is a portrait of a city high on excess and greed, an extraordinary work of investigative journalism offering an unprecedented view of the rise and fall of cocaine—and the Mutiny—in Miami.

Hotel Scarface

Where Cocaine Cowboys Partied and Plotted to Control Miami

'James Holland is a master' BBC History 
 
It was to be the battle to end the air war once and for all. 
 
During the third week of February 1944, the combined Allied air forces launched their first-ever round-the-clock bomber offensive against Germany. 
 
The aim was to smash the main factories and production centres of the Luftwaffe and at the same time draw the German fighter force up into the air and into battle. 
 
Big Week is the knife-edge story of bomber against flak gun and fighter, but also, crucially, fighter against fighter. Following the fortunes of pilots and aircrew from both sides, this is a blistering narrative of one of the most critical periods of the entire war. Big Week was the largest air battle ever witnessed, but it has been largely forgotten – until now.

Big Week

The Biggest Air Battle of World War Two

Reza Aslan

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
In God, Reza Aslan sheds new light on mankind’s relationship with the divine and challenges our perspective on the history of faith and the birth of religion. 
 
From the origins of spiritual thought to the concept of an active, engaged, divine presence that underlies all creation, Aslan examines how the idea of god arose in human evolution, was gradually personalized, endowed with human traits and emotions, and eventually transformed into a single Divine Personality: the God known today by such names as Yahweh, Father, and Allah. 
 
Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, God challenges everything we thought we knew about the origins of religious belief, and with it our relationship with life and death, with the natural and spiritual worlds, and our understanding of the very essence of human existence.

A Human History

Tamer Elnoury

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
The gripping true story of the undercover agent risking his life to fight terrorism 
 
Their aim was to kill as many people as possible. 
His mission was to stop them. 
 
A terrorist plot to kill hundreds of innocent people. 
An undercover agent posing as a wealthy Al-Qaeda sympathiser. 
A race against time to gain the terrorists’ trust and bring them down. Before it’s too late… 
In the aftermath of 9/11, long-time undercover FBI agent Tamer Elnoury joined an elite counterterrorism unit. Its mission: to infiltrate terror cells, gain detailed knowledge of their networks and bring them successfully to justice. Writing under a pseudonym, Tamer Elnoury here tells the hair-raising true story of life undercover, risking his life to keep us safe.

Terrorist Hunter

Since the time of the ancient Greeks we have been fascinated by accounts of the Amazons, an elusive tribe of hard-fighting, horse-riding female warriors. Equal to men in battle, legends claimed they cut off their right breasts to improve their archery skills and routinely killed their male children to purify their ranks. 
 
For centuries people believed in their existence and attempted to trace their origins. Artists and poets celebrated their battles and wrote of Amazonia. Spanish explorers, carrying these tales to South America, thought they lived in the forests of the world’s greatest river, and named it after them. 
 
In the absence of evidence, we eventually reasoned away their existence, concluding that these powerful, sexually liberated female soldiers must have been the fantastical invention of Greek myth and storytelling. Until now. 
 
Following decades of new research and a series of groundbreaking archeological discoveries, we now know these powerful warrior queens did indeed exist. In Amazons, John Man travels to the grasslands of Central Asia, from the edge of the ancient Greek world to the borderlands of China, to discover the truth about the warrior women mythologized as Amazons. 
 
In this deeply researched, sweeping historical epic, Man redefines our understanding of the Amazons and their culture, tracking the ancient legend into the modern world and examining its significance today.

Amazons

The Real Warrior Women of the Ancient World

Greg Mitchell

Read the incredible true story of the daring escapes from East Berlin. 
 
 'A story with so much inherent drama.' The Guardian 
 
 'One of the great untold stories of the Cold War.' Alex Kershaw, author of Avenue of Spies 
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 In the summer of 1962, the year after the construction of the Berlin Wall, a group of young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture and even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. 
 
 As Greg Mitchell's riveting narrative unfolds we meet a host of extraordinary characters who demonstrate astonishing courage in the face of adversity: the legendary cyclist who became East Berlin's most wanted man; the tunneller who had already served four years in the East German gulag; the young East Berliner who escapes with her baby, then marries one of the tunnellers; an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English Channel; and the Stasi informer who betrays them all. 
 
Capturing the spirit of a divided Berlin and celebrating the subversive power of ordinary people in desperate circumstances, The Tunnels is an exhilarating real-life thriller with themes that reverberate today. 
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 'A stark reminder that barriers can never cut people off entirely but only succeed in driving them underground.' New York Times

The Tunnels

The True Story of Tunnel 29 and the Daring Escapes Under the Berlin Wall

The Untold Story of the Escapes Under the Berlin Wall

John Nixon

A riveting, revealing and news-making account of the CIA's interrogation of Saddam, written by the CIA agent who conducted the questioning. 
 
 In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. 
 At the time, John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator. Called upon to make the official ID, Nixon looked for telltale scars and tribal tattoos and asked Hussein a list of questions only he could answer. The man was indeed Saddam Hussein, but as Nixon learned in the ensuing weeks, both he and America had greatly misunderstood just who Saddam Hussein really was. 
 Debriefing the President presents an astounding, candid portrait of one of our era’s most notorious strongmen. Nixon, the first man to conduct a prolonged interrogation of Hussein after his capture, offers expert insight into the history and mind of America’s most enigmatic enemy. After years of parsing Hussein’s leadership from afar, Nixon faithfully recounts his debriefing sessions and subsequently strips away the mythology surrounding an equally brutal and complex man. His account is not an apology, but a sobering examination of how preconceived ideas led Washington policymakers—and Tony Blair's government —astray. Unflinching and unprecedented, Debriefing the President exposes a fundamental misreading of one of the modern world’s most central figures and presents a new narrative that boldly counters the received account.

Debriefing the President

The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein

Mike Rossiter

In June 1941 the Ark Royal won one of Britain's most famous naval victories. The German destroyer, Bismarck, had been ravaging the British fleet in the Atlantic. Sailing through a ferocious storm the Ark Royal tracked the Bismarck. A dozen swordfish bombers took off from her deck and pounded shell after shell into the German battleship, sending her to the ocean floor. It was a signal victory that resonated around the world. Hitler, furious at the loss of the German fleet's flagship, demanded that the Ark Royal be destroyed at whatever cost. 
 
HMS Ark Royal is one of the Royal Navy's most iconic ships. When she was launched in 1938 she was one of the most sophisticated weapons at the disposal of British military command. The aircraft carrier was the latest, and soon to be one of the most feared, developments in naval warfare. In her first two years of operation the Ark Royal survived countless attacks, and was considered one of the luckiest ships in the Navy. 
 
But her air of invincibility was to prove wishful thinking. Within one month of sinking the Bismarck, the Ark Royal too was destroyed while sailing off the coast of Gibraltar. And there she has rested, one kilometre below the surface of the Mediterranean, until her wreck was discovered by Mike Rossiter in 2004. 
 
In gripping detail, and using the testimony of survivors of the sinking and men who lived, flew and fought on the Ark Royal, Mike Rossiter tells the remarkable story of the life and legend of this most iconic of ships. Also, and for the first time, he reveals the story of the quest to discover the wreck of this naval legend.

Ark Royal

Sailing Into Glory

David Hall

Fred Dibnah was a man born out of his time. His era should have been the 'magnificent age of British engineering' - the nineteenth century - and his heroes were the great industrial engineers of the period whose prolific innovations and dedicated work ethic inspired a national mood of optimism and captured the hearts of the British public. 
 
Fred Dibnah's Victorian Heroes tells the stories of some of these men - including George and Robert Stephenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Joseph Whitworth - and what it was that made them such inspirational figures to Fred. What were their backgrounds? Where did their drive and vision come from? What sort of people were they at work and at home? And what was their contribution to the history of industry and engineering? 
 
Most of them - like Fred - were colourful, larger-than-life characters for whom no challenge was too great. Taking these fascinating characters as inspiration, Fred Dibnah's Victorian Heroes gets to the very heart of what allowed nineteenth-century Britannia to rule the waves . . .

Fred Dibnah's Victorian Heroes

SURVIVOR STORIES FROM DUNKIRK, NOW THE SUBJECT OF A MAJOR FILM FROM CHRISTOPHER NOLAN 
 
When Britain declared war against Germany in September 1939, thousands of young men sailed across the English Channel to fight for their country. Among them were the seven soldiers who share their stories in this book. Some joined up out of patriotism, others for adventure or the prospect of a secure wage. They were fit, trained and proud to wear the armband of the British Expeditionary Forces. 
 
 For many, the first months were strangely peaceful, but when the Germans invaded in May 1940 they advanced with shocking speed. The German armoured columns sliced through neutral Holland and Belgium. The French Army collapsed and within a week the soldiers of the BEF were forced to retreat. Fighting tough and bloody rearguard actions, they endured relentless shelling and fearsome dive-bomb attacks. Constantly on the move, and facing a German onslaught on three fronts, they were soon exhausted, hungry and low on ammunition. They headed finally to their one chance of salvation: the beaches of Dunkirk. 
 
 Mike Rossiter tells the stories of seven veterans who went through a hellish baptism of fire in the first battles on the front line, and fought in the last-ditch defence of Dunkirk. They saw their comrades bombed and drowned off the beaches. Their accounts give us a fascinating and privileged insight into the reality of the war and what it was really like to face the German Blitzkrieg in 1940. They take us from the confident, idyllic days of the phoney war in the French countryside to the sudden shock of battle, from the fear and confusion of retreat to the wait for an uncertain rescue. These are the compelling stories of seven men who are proud to say I Fought at Dunkirk.

I Fought at Dunkirk

Seven Veterans Remember Their Fight For Salvation

Martin Pearce

'I cannot think of a better biography of a spy chief' 
Richard Davenport-Hines, The Spectator 
 
Sir Maurice Oldfield was one of the most important British spies of the Cold War era. A farmer’s son from a provincial grammar school who found himself accidentally plunged into the world of espionage, Sir Maurice was the first Chief of MI6 who didn’t come to the role via the traditional public school and Oxbridge route. 
 
Oldfield was the voice of British Intelligence in Washington at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of JFK, and was largely responsible for keeping the UK out of the Vietnam War. Working his way to the top of the secret service, he took on the job of rebuilding confidence in the British Secret Service in the wake of the Philby, Burgess and Maclean spy scandals. 
 
This is the fascinating life story, told in detail for the first time, of a complex, likable character as well as a formidable intelligence chief.

Spymaster

The Life of Britain's Most Decorated Cold War Spy and Head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield

On 12th April 1981 a revolutionary new spacecraft blasted off from Florida on her maiden flight. NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia was the most advanced flying machine ever built – the high watermark of post-war aviation development. A direct descendant of the record-breaking X-planes the likes of which Chuck Yeager had tested in the skies over the Mojave Desert, Columbia was a winged rocket plane, the size of an airliner, capable of flying to space and back before being made ready to fly again. She was the world’s first real spaceship. 
 
On board were men with the Right Stuff. The Shuttle’s Commander, moonwalker John Young, was already a veteran of five spaceflights. Alongside him, Pilot Bob Crippen was making his first, but Crip, taken in by the space agency after the cancellation of a top secret military space station programme in 1969, had worked on the Shuttle’s development for a decade. Never before had a crew been so well prepared for their mission. 
 
Yet less than an hour after Young and Crippen’s spectacular departure from the Cape it was clear that all was not well. Tiles designed to protect Columbia from the blowtorch burn of re-entry were missing from the heatshield. If the damage to their ship was too great the astronauts would be unable to return safely to earth. But neither they nor mission control possessed any way of knowing. 
 
Instead, NASA turned to the National Reconnaissance Office, a spy agency hidden deep inside the Pentagon whose very existence was classified. To help, the NRO would attempt something that had never been done before. Success would require skill, pinpoint timing and luck … 
 
Drawing on brand new interviews with astronauts and engineers, archive material and newly declassified documents, Rowland White, bestselling author of Vulcan 607, has pieced together the dramatic untold story of the mission for the first time. Into the Black is a thrilling race against time; a gripping high stakes cold-war story, and a celebration of a beyond the state-of-the-art machine that, hailed as one of the seven new wonders of the world, rekindled our passion for spaceflight. 
 
*With a foreword by Astronaut Richard Truly* 
 
‘Beautifully researched and written, Into the Black tells the true, complete story of the Space Shuttle better than it’s ever been told before.’ 
Colonel Chris Hadfield, former Astronaut and Space Station Commander 
 
‘Brilliantly revealed, Into the Black is the finely tuned true story of the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Rowland White has magnificently laid bare the unknown dangers and unseen hazards of that first mission … Once read, not forgotten.’ 
Clive Cussler

Into the Black

The electrifying true story of how the first flight of the Space Shuttle nearly ended in disaster

'A thrilling blow-by-blow account' The Times 
'A first-rate popular history of a fascinating and neglected battle... a veritable page-turner' BBC History 
 
In February 1944, a rag-tag collection of clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers, and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews managed to hold out against some of the finest infantry in the Japanese Army, and then defeat them in what was one of the most astonishing battles of the Second World War. 
 
What became know as The Defence of the Admin Box, fought amongst the paddy fields and jungle of Northern Arakan over a fifteen-day period, turned the battle for Burma. Not only was it the first decisive victory for British troops against the Japanese, more significantly, it demonstrated how the Japanese could be defeated. The lessons learned in this tiny and otherwise insignificant corner of the Far East, set up the campaign in Burma that would follow, as General Slim's Fourteenth Army finally turned defeat into victory. 
 
Burma '44 is a tale of incredible drama. As gripping as the story of Rorke's drift, as momentous as the battle for the Ardennes, the Admin Box was a triumph of human grit and heroism and remains one of the most significant yet undervalued conflicts of World War Two. 
 
The new, sweeping World War II book from James Holland, THE SAVAGE STORM, is available now.

Burma '44

The Battle That Turned Britain's War in the East

Simon Hughes

Following the success of Simon Hughes’ Red Machine and Men in White Suits, books which depicted Liverpool FC’s domination during the 1980s and its subsequent fall in the 1990s, Ring of Fire focuses on the 2000s and the primary characters who propelled Liverpool to the forefront of European football once again. With a foreword by Steven Gerrard, this is the third edition in a bestselling series based on revealing interviews with former players, coaches and managers. 
 
For Liverpool FC, entry into the 21st century began with modernisation and trophies under manager Gérard Houllier and development was then underpinned by improbable Champions League glory under Rafael Benítez. Yet that is only half of the story. The decade ended with the club being on the verge of administration after the shambolic reign of American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. 
 
In Ring of Fire, Hughes’ interviewees – including Jamie Carragher, Xabi Alonso and Michael Owen – take you through Melwood’s training ground gates and into the inner sanctum, the Liverpool dressing room. Each person delivers fascinating insights into the minds of the players, coaches and boardroom members as they talk frankly about exhilarating highs and excruciating lows, from winning cups in Cardiff and Istanbul to the political infighting that undermined a succession of managerial reigns. 
 
Ring of Fire tells the real stories: those never told before by the key players who lived through it all.

Ring of Fire

Liverpool into the 21st century: The Players' Stories

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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