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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

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

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Anika Scott

Brought to you by Penguin. 
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'FINDING CLARA is the kind of novel we need now more than ever, [and] achieves what the best historical fiction can . . . pushing us to see ourselves in that past, demanding: Who would you have been then? What would you have done? Unflinching and absorbing, [it] does not let you look away.' Sarah Blake, New York Times bestselling author of THE POSTMISTRESS 
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1946. The ruins of Essen, Germany. A place that can't quite believe the Second World War has been lost. 
 
There's Clara. Once a wartime icon and heiress to the Falkenberg iron works, she now finds herself on the run from the Allied authorities, accused by the zealous Allied occupiers of complicity in her father's war crimes. 
 
There's Jakob. A charming black marketeer, badly wounded in the war but determined to help what's left of his family survive the peace. 
 
There's Willy. A teenage boy diligently guarding a mine full of Wehrmacht supplies, his only friend a canary named Gertrud. Convinced the war isn't over, he refuses to surrender his post. 
 
When Clara returns to her hometown expecting to find her best friend, she finds everything she once knew in ruins. But in war-ravaged Germany, it's not just the buildings that are scarred: everyone is changed, everyone lives in the wreckage of their own past. 
 
To survive, Clara must hide who she is. But to live, she must face up to the truth of what she's done. 
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'What a great debut! It still haunts me, days after finishing it.' Liz Trenow, author of The Poppy Factory and The Silk Weaver 
 
'Anika Scott's finely drawn characters in FINDING CLARA bring to life not only the struggle to rise from the ashes of war, but also the depth of resolve often required to gain redemption. Illuminating and beautifully rendered.' Susan Meissner, author of The Last Year of the War 
 
'Meticulously researched and plotted like a noir thriller, Finding Clara tells a different story of WWII - of characters grappling with their own guilt and driven by the question of what they could have done to change the past.' Jessica Shattuck, author of The Women in the Castle 
 
'A moving story of courage and everyday heroism rising to meet unbearable challenges.' Alex Marwood, author of The Wicked Girls 
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© Anika Scott 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Finding Clara

a page-turning epic set in the aftermath of World War II

Rabia Chaudry

AFTER 23 YEARS IN PRISON, ADNAN'S CONVICTION HAS FINALLY BEEN OVERTURNED - BUT HAE MIN LEE'S REAL KILLER IS STILL OUT THERE. 
 
'This book provides a far stronger argument . . . than Syed's defence lawyer did in 1999' INDEPENDENT 
 
'The first letter I received after being arrested in 1999 was from Rabia. Since that time until now, she has believed in my innocence and been committed to my exoneration . . . There is no one better to help tell my story, and no one that I trust more to tell it, than Rabia.' ADNAN SYED 
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THE CASE THAT INSPIRED THE PODCAST PHENOMENON SERIAL, AND THE HBO DOCUSERIES THE CASE AGAINST ADNAN SYED 
 
On February 28, 2000, Adnan Syed was convicted and sentenced to life plus thirty years for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland. From the moment of his arrest, Syed has consistently maintained his innocence. Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, always believed him and has never given up the hope that he might someday be released. By 2013, however, after almost all appeals had been exhausted, things looked bleak. That's when Rabia contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life, in the hopes of finding a journalist who would bring greater attention to Adnan's story and might shed new light on the case. Koenig's investigation turned into Serial, an international phenomenon and Peabody Award-winning podcast. 
 
In 2022, after 23 years in prison, Adnan's conviction was overturned, and he was finally freed. But Hae Min Lee's real killer is still out there. 
 
Adnan's Story re-examines the investigation that led to Adnan Syed's arrest, shares his life in prison, covers new evidence and possibilities that have since come to light, and reviews the recent court successes - including a ruling by a Maryland judge to reopen Syed's case. Woven with personal reflections from Adnan himself, including new never-before-seen letters he penned from prison, the story of his family, community, and public advocate Chaudry, the book gives brilliant insight into the story that captivated the attention of millions as his legal team and investigatory team, along with countless others who have crowd-sourced an investigation like never before, seek to exonerate him and find out the truth of what really happened on that day in 1999. 
 
But this is not only a personal story, but a testament to a thoroughly broken system that convicts tens of thousands of innocent people, and how the power of the media and public can move rigid institutions to bring about justice.

Adnan's Story

The Case That Inspired the Podcast Phenomenon Serial

The New Yorker Magazine

The 1950s are enshrined in the popular imagination as the decade of poodle skirts and “I Like Ike.” But this was also a complex time, in which the afterglow of Total Victory firmly gave way to Cold War paranoia. A sense of trepidation grew with the Suez Crisis and the H-bomb tests. At the same time, the fifties marked the cultural emergence of extraordinary new energies, like those of Thelonious Monk, Sylvia Plath and Tennessee Williams. 
 
The New Yorker was there in real time, chronicling the tensions and innovations that lay beneath the era’s placid surface. In this thrilling volume, classic works of reportage, criticism, and fiction are complemented by new contributions from the magazine’s present all-star line-up of writers, including Jonathan Franzen, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jill Lepore. 
 
Here are indelible accounts of the decade’s most exciting players: Truman Capote on Marlon Brando as a pampered young star; Berton Roueché on Jackson Pollock in his first flush of fame. Ernest Hemingway, Emily Post, Bobby Fischer, and Leonard Bernstein are also brought to vivid life in these pages. 
 
Among the audacious young writers who began publishing in the fifties was one who would become a stalwart for the magazine for fifty-five years: John Updike. Also featured here are great early works from Philip Roth and Nadine Gordimer, as well as startling poems by Theodore Roethke and Anne Sexton. 
 
Completing the panoply are insightful and entertaining new pieces by present day New Yorker contributors examining the 1950s through contemporary eyes.

The New Yorker Book of the 50s

Story of a Decade

Sue Elliott

Steve Humphries

In association with the flagship BBC2 series. 
 
This is the story of the men and women of a truly remarkable generation. Born into a world still reeling from the earth-shattering events of the Great War, they grew up during the appalling economic depression of the 1930s, witnessed the globe tear itself apart again during the Second World War, and emerged from post-war austerity determined to create a new society for their children. 
 
It is the story of people who raised their families during the immense social upheaval of the Fifties and Sixties, as the world in which they had grown up changed inexorably. It is the story of the people who shaped the way we live now. 
 
Britain's Greatest Generation tells this multi-faceted story through the eye-witness accounts of those who were there, from Japanese prisoner of war Fergus Anckorn to Dame Vera Lynn, from Bletchley Park veteran Jean Valentine to Dad's Army creator Jimmy Perry, and from fighter pilot Tom Neil to the Queen's cousin Margaret Rhodes. Together their testimony creates a vivid, often deeply moving picture of an extraordinary epoch – and the extraordinary people who lived through it.

Britain's Greatest Generation

Vincent Bugliosi

Part Eight: 'I am what you have made of me.' 
 
Mr. and Mrs. America - you are wrong. 
I am not the King of the Jews nor am I a hippie cult leader. 
I am what you have made of me and the mad dog devil killer fiend leper is a reflection of your society... 
Whatever the outcome of this madness...you can know this: In my mind's eye my thoughts light fires in your cities. 
 Statement issued by Charles Manson 
 
During sentencing, Manson’s 'family' lie about their past lives and Manson’s influence on them, still hoping to clear his name. Despite a variety of defence witnesses being called to the stand, Manson is given the death penalty, which he follows up by making death threats to all those who prosecute him. 
 
The concluding final chapter in the Manson murders trial.

Helter Skelter: Part Eight of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Seven: Murder in the Wind 
 
Three female members of the Manson family attempt to testify that they committed the murder without the aid of Charles Manson, prompting Manson himself to speak, martyring himself as the leader of what he calls 'wayward men'. 
 
Manson’s attorney, Ronald Hughes, fails to appear at court. Had he been killed by the Family?

Helter Skelter: Part Seven of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Five: "Now is the time for Helter Skelter" - Charles Manson 
 
Manson family member Linda Kasabian becomes a key witness for the case, recalling the night the murders were committed in detail. Charles Manson’s positioning as a Christ like figure for his followers is revealed in its full extent, as his followers treat the violence as a game. 
 
This terrifying new part will delve into the case built around Charles Manson and the kind of man he truly was.

Helter Skelter: Part Five of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Six: The Official Trial Begins 
 
The prosecution decides to pursue ‘vicarious liability’ via conspiracy, meaning that all who were involved in the conspiracy to commit murder can be charged. On trial, Manson proves to be surprisingly honest, though his ego and tendency to play word games with his own testimony is called into question. 
 
Prosecution hints they will reveal a 'surprise motive'. 
 
Key witness Linda Kasabian is called to testify.

Helter Skelter: Part Six of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Four: The Search for the Motive 
 
Why did the Manson family commit the murders? 
 
How did Charles Manson convince his 'family' to kill for him? What was their connection to ‘Helter-Skelter’, a popular hit song by The Beatles? What was the end-of-the- world race war Manson believed would happen? 
 
The gripping account of the Manson murders continues with this next instalment of the eight-part true story. Find out how as Manson’s influence as a counter-culture figure grows, the cultural influence and fascination with the Beatles are discovered.

Helter Skelter: Part Four of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Three: The Investigation - November 18 - December 31, 1969 
 
Investigations into the 'Family' begin in earnest. Follow the detailed forensic account of the investigation; from witness statements to the questioning of the suspects and the examination of the compounds in Chatsworth and the surrounding Death Valley, California. 
 
The quasi-religious devotion of the 'Family' to leader Charles Manson is revealed in the suspects' chilling statements, while a substantial amount of stolen vehicles and fire arms are discovered on the Manson property - a remote ranch in the Death Valley.

Helter Skelter: Part Three of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Two: Meet the Killers. 
 
Twenty-four members of a hippie cult known as the Manson family, led by ex-con Charles Manson, are arrested in connection with the murder of a music teacher Gary Hinman, killed on the same night in Hollywood. 
 
Susan Atkins aka Crazy Sadie, is one of the imprisoned. Seemingly high and excited, she tells everyone in gruesome detail how they did it, and how they were going to unleash hell. 
 
She reveals that the Manson family were also involved in the Cielo Drive murders, the horrifying place Sharon Tate Polanski and her friends were bludgeoned to death.

Helter Skelter: Part Two of the Shocking Manson Murders

Raymond Williams

A collection of the writings of Raymond Williams, who many considered to be the most significant post-war intellectual in Britain. He wrote on diverse subjects, and his books included "Culture and Society", "The Long Revolution", "The Country and the City", "Towards 2000" and "The Black Mountain".

What I Came To Say

William L Shirer

Before Britain and Germany went to war in 1939, Ed Murrow of CBS sent his star reporter William Shirer to report from Berlin on what was really happening in Hitler's Germany.  And there Shirer stayed until December 1940, reporting on the war from within the Reich, battling against the censors and revealing to American and British audiences how Hitler, the SS, and his armed forces were conducting the war, and what it meant to live in a Nazi state.  All through the campaigns leading to the fall of France, Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, Shirer provided a unique and dramatic by-line on history as it happened, and now his writings have been gathered together for the first time into a vivid, compelling and urgent narrative, one of the great first-hand documents of the Second World War.

This Is Berlin

Michael Pitts

Mark Roberts

The discovery of the remains of 'Boxgrove Man', a 'Missing Link' hominid half a million years old in chalk pits in Sussex made world headlines in May 1994. This was the most sensational archeological find in the UK since Piltdown Man - only this time it was not a hoax. Continuing excavation by site archeologist Mark Roberts has enabled him and his team to build up a picture of this, the first Englishman, and to open up a unique window on life in Britain before the Ice Age. Because these human remains, the artefacts surrounding them and the remains of the local flora and fauna - including elephants and rhinoceroses of an extinct species - are preserved in an unprecedented way, we now discover how our ancestors hunted, ate, manufactured the implements they needed to survive and interacted; these were neither the opportunist scavengers nor the mindless killers that they have previously been supposed to be. Boxgrove, therefore, represents a revolutionary view of the origins of mankind, and changes our understanding of what it means to be human.

A Fairweather Eden

Andrew Hood

Tony Benn

Do we need a Monarchy? Or does it represent everything that is hidebound and stifling about Britain? The headlines tell the story: every British Institution is in crisis As a nation we have lost our way, What we have always been smugly told, is false. Our constitution is NOT the best in the world, nor is our legal system the fairest, nor is our society more open, nor are we freer than other nations. Things taken for granted are now being seriously questioned, as people realize how much of our political and economic life is outside our control. Ever since Tony Benn changed our constitution by renouncing his peerage, he has been developing the case he now outlines. His Commonwealth of Britain Bill (reproduced in the Text) is 'the first attempt to overthrow the monarchy since Cromwell' GUARDIAN. He argues for a radical overhaul of our political system, sweeping away privilege and unaccounted power and substituting for it a written constitution and democratic citizenship. Only by freeing ourselves from our historical shackles - including, but by no means only, the monarchy - can we be truly free.

Common Sense

Hugo Vickers

Harold Nicolson called her 'the greatest Queen since Cleopatra', while Cecil Beaton called her 'a marshmallow made on a welding machine'. Stephen Tennant said: 'She looked everything that she was not: gentle, gullible, tenderness mingled with dispassionate serenity, cool, well-bred, remote. Behind this veil she schemed and vacillated, hard as nails.' Who was she? 
The Queen Mother's story has not yet been properly told. This was partly due to her long life, and the difficulty that always exists when a biography of a living person is attempted, partly because she was a queen - and the real person gets hidden behind the perceived image - and partly because she is hard to pin down. 
From her privileged aristocratic childhood, to the abdication and the problems with Diana - this book questions how she faced her challenges and crises, assess her role, how powerful she was, and how she coped. This is a candid, personal portrait of one of Britain's most loved national treasures. 
Hugo Vickers, an acknowledged expert on the House of Windsor, has spent seventeen years researching this book, and observed the Queen Mother in public and private over a period of forty years.

Elizabeth, The Queen Mother

Paul Donovan

All Our Todays is the first book about the BBC's most influential news and current affairs programme, published to celebrate Today's 40th anniversary in October 1997. Paul Donovan tells the programme's story from the early days of Jack de Manio, through the great partnership of Brian Redhead and John Timpson, to the current triumvirate of Jamies Naughtie, John Humphrys and Sue MacGregor. He analyses the reasons for the programme's success, examines its ofter fiery relationship with prominent politicians, and takes the reader behind the scenes in the Today studio. Full of funny and touching anecdotes, this book will be essential reading for Today's five million listeners.

All Our Todays

In this, the fourth volume of Tony Benn’s diaries, the Labour Government continues its fight for survival. Important developments are occurring both at home and internationally. In Britain, Benn as Secretary of State for Energy is directly involved with Windscale and decisions about nuclear power and oil policy. Abroad, the Government is concerned with Carter’s reappraisal of American foreign policy, the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and problems of EEC membership. 
In the Labour party itself, new forces of radicalism and reform are emerging, resulting in changes in Labour’s policies and the ultimate formation of the SDP. 
Labour’s unsuccessful economic policy and the widening rift with the labour movement lead to the Winter of Discontent and a near state of emergency. With Labour voters defecting, the scene is set for the Thatcher years.

Conflicts Of Interest

Diaries 1977-80

Nick Barratt

London's suburbs may stretch for well over 600 square miles, but in historical accounts of the capital they tend to take something of a back seat. In Greater London, historian Nick Barratt places them firmly centre stage, tracing their journey from hamlets and villages far out in the open countryside to fully fledged urban enclaves, simultaneously demonstrating the crucial role they have played in the creation of today's metropolis. 
 
Starting in the first century AD, he shows how the tiny settlements that grew up in the Thames Valley gradually developed, and how they were shaped by their proximity to the city. He describes the spread of the first suburbs beyond the city walls, and traces the ebb and flow of population as people moved in to find jobs or away to escape London's noise and bustle. He charts the transformation wrought by the coming of the railways, the fight to preserve Hampstead Heath, Epping Forest and other green spaces and the struggle to create a London-wide form of government. He gives an account of wartime destruction and peacetime reconstruction, and then brings the story to the present with a description of the very varied nature of today's suburbs and their inhabitants. In the process, he evokes Tudor Hackney and Georgian Hampton, explains why Victorian Battersea and Finchley were so different from one another, and follows Islington's fall from grace and subsequent recovery. 
 
Magnificently illustrated throughout with contemporary engravings and photographs, this is the essential history for anyone who has ever lived in London.

Greater London

The Story of the Suburbs

Charlie Croker

Has your doctor ever prescribed you some bug-juice? Or sent you to the rheumaholiday department? 
 
Have you ever read an article full of anecdata or reviewphemisms? 
 
Do you think you work in an adhocracy, for a seagull manager? 
 
Every workplace has its own words and phrases, from the Smurf juice used to clean plane toilets to the Peckham Rolexes, worn by criminals on release from prison. For Terms of Employment, Charlie Croker has patrolled hospital corridors, hung out by office water-coolers and lingered in shops to listen in on the conversations that only take place at work, gathering together the jargon we all use, often without thinking. 
 
Whether you're a white wig (new barrister), a heatseeker (ambitious employee) or an entreprenerd (geeky IT pioneer) Terms of Employment is an invaluable - and entertaining - guide.

Terms of Employment

The secret lingo of the workplace

Andrew Webb

British food has not traditionally been regarded as one of the world's great cuisines, and yet Stilton cheese, Scottish raspberries, Goosnargh duck and Welsh lamb are internationally renowned and celebrated. And then there are all those dishes and recipes that inspire passionate loyalty among the initiated: Whitby lemon buns and banoffi pie, for example; pan haggerty and Henderson's relish. All are as integral a part of the country's landscape as green fields, rolling hills and rocky coastline. 
 
In Food Britannia, Andrew Webb travels the country to bring together a treasury of regional dishes, traditional recipes, outstanding ingredients and heroic local producers. He investigates the history of saffron farming in the UK, tastes the first whisky to be produced in Wales for one hundred years, and tracks down the New Forest's foremost expert on wild mushrooms. And along the way, he uncovers some historical surprises about our national cuisine. Did you know, for example, that the method for making clotted cream, that stalwart of the cream tea, was probably introduced from the Middle East? Or that our very own fish and chips may have started life as a Jewish-Portuguese dish? Or that Alfred Bird invented his famous custard powder because his wife couldn't eat eggs? 
 
The result is a rich and kaleidoscopic survey of a remarkably vibrant food scene, steeped in history but full of fresh ideas for the future: proof, if proof were needed, that British food has come of age.

Food Britannia

Iain Stewart

Man with hammer, rucksack and GSOH offers gritty adventure holidays. Looking for sun, sea, sand and - science. 
 
Scheduled to tie in with a major new BBC series, Hot Rocks explores the Mediterranean - the cradle of western civilisation - and discovers alongside its tranquil, sun-lapped shores, one of the most volatile places on an ever-changing earth. The Mediterranean we know today has been forged in a violent crucible of clashing continents, rising mountains, restless seas and a turbulent climate. Millions of Britons are drawn to the Mediterranean every year and whether they go for the beautiful scenery and relaxing beaches or the culture and architecture or food, none of it would be there were it not for geology. Forward-thinking geologist and television presenter Dr Iain Stewart, uncovers the hidden Mediterranean and brings a fresh and dramatic eye to geology to show just why it is that geology should be restored to its rightful place as the grandfather of sciences. From earthquakes and volcanoes to Roman architecture and cuisine, Iain discovers just how geology has shaped our lives and how we can expect it to affect us in years to come.

Journeys From The Centre Of The Earth

Stephen Clarke

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR 
 
Bonjour cher reader, 
 
Ever since European history began, we Brits have been happily engaged in our national pastime - annoying the French. And the past couple of years have shown that this annoying never stops. To give just three examples: 
 
After a mid-Atlantic collision between French and British nuclear submarines, France's Minister of Defence seemed to blame the accident on ... shrimps. 
 
When French political superstar Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York, France's establishment was outraged. It soon emerged that sexual harassment was regarded as a basic human right by the country's male élite. (This theme provided so much excellent material that I decided to include it in the plot of my soon-to-be published novel, The Merde Factor.) 
 
And when David Cameron walked out of a Eurosummit, a French politician accused him of being 'like a man at a wife-swapping party who refuses to bring his own wife.' Yes, a very French image, and it just one of the many anti-Anglais insults that came flying across the Channel. 
 
You will find all this, and much more, in Annoying the French Encore! Because, for the French, the merde never ends. 
 
Yours historically, 
 
Stephen Clarke, Paris, August 2012 
 
 
‘Tremendously entertaining’ Sunday Times 
‘Relentlessly and energetically rude’ Mail on Sunday

Annoying The French Encore!

Chris Terrill

This is the tie-in book to a two part BBC 1 documentary series to be screened at 9.00pm in October and which will end on the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar on 21st October. Chris Terrill is famous for his fly on the wall documentaries which have been watched by millions and received wide critical acclaim. We have had HMS Brilliant and The Cruise (audience reached 11 million). Chris has based himself for the last few months in the very heart of the modern day naval experience. We will see: a Royal Naval Chaplain exorcising a haunted barracks in Portsmouth, a vodka-fuelled Trafalgar Day celebration in the British Embassy in the Moscow in 2004, a Polaris submarine crossing the Atlantic on an exercise in which it will 'pretend' to nuke America, the patrol of the frigate HMS Chatham in the Gulf, suddenly diverted to Sri Lanka after the Tsunami and the Fleet Review, where HMS Chatham in honour of her humanitarian role in Asia, will lead the entire assembly of a hundred warships, British and foreign, down the Solent. Chris is the only film maker to be granted exclusive, behind the scenes access by the Navy this year. During the filming Chris will capture the heart and soul of the sailors aboard, and on shore: there will be plenty of irreverence, practical jokes and laughs, and the human reality of the families left behind for months on end as warships and submarines go on extended tours of duty. This will be the fullest ever account of the Modern Navy in a year when the Trafalgar Day celebrations and the Fleet review will attract an avalanche of publicity.

Shipmates

Petronella Wyatt

Petronella Wyatt writes: 'The eccentricities of my father, Lord (Woodrow) Wyatt (1918-1997), are a legend.  I, his only daughter, was required to participate in his astonishing behaviour with all the enthusiasm I could muster.  This resulted in a childhood of a kind unknown to the late 20th-century - a mixture of Edwardian extravagance, Victorian whimsicality and a vivid 18th-century haute sophistication.                 'Father was the last of the old school.  Described by his friend and former political rival Roy Jenkins as 'the ultimate original', he was a politician, writer, race-horse owner, womaniser and bon vivant - a unique product of pre-war English civilisation.  His career ensured him a varied circle of friends.  I grew up with such companions as Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch, Robin Day, Sir James Goldsmith, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, the Duke of Devonshire and much of Debrett's Peerage.                                                              'Each chapter of the book will contain personal and historically important anecdotes about the famous that have never before appeared in print and which will generate considerable news coverage.  What I am writing is a waspish social document - irreverent, satirical, dramatic and scandalous, disclosing how the privileged enjoy their privileges

Father Dear Father

David Ovason

Walker argues that previous translations have got it wrong, because they have failed to realise that Nostradamus was writing in an esoteric language called the 'green language'. Where previous translations have seemed to stretch a point to make a quotation fit an historical event, Walker reveals the prophet's true prophecies regarding the American and French revolutions, the Franco-Prussian, First, Second, and Third world wars, earthquakes, floods, the Anitchrist and the end of the world. Properly seen, Walker argues, Nostradamus is the greatest Western prophet to commit his prophecies to writing since the Old Testament.

The Secrets Of Nostradamus

The Medieval Code of the Master Revealed in the Age of Computer Science

Aeneas Gunn

Newly married, Jeannie Gunn accompanies her husband to 'The Elsey', the huge cattle station in the Northern Territory, several hundred miles from the nearest town. 
 
She is one of the few white women in the area and her presence is at first resented by the stockmen until her warmth and spirit win their affection and respect. This is one of the few autobiographies written by a woman to chronicle the life of the pioneers of the outback. In the style of the bush storyteller, Mrs Gunn conveys with moving simplicity the beauty and cruelty of the land, and the isolation and loneliness, comradeship and kindness of the early settlers.

We Of The Never Never

Andy Marino

The incredible story of the American who saved more lives than Schindler - great literary, scientific and artistic figures such as André Breton, Heinrich Mann, Marc Chagall and Max Ernst who represented the political and cultural elite of Europe. This is one of the last great untold stories of World War II. 
 
Varian Fry was an outsider, a flawed man who was transformed by the advent of war in Europe, finding his purpose as the saviour of hundreds of people facing death under the Nazis. Marino traces the progress of a seemingly impossible rescue operation, revealing the charismatic personality of Fry, and tells the story of those who helped him. It is a tale full of surreal and heart-stopping episodes: a novelist smuggled out of a concentration camp right under the noses of the guards; and the 'secret' escape route up a mountainside in full view of the entire population of Cerbère. 
 
This is the first time his full, true story has been told, with the benefit of the author's access to archives and the cooperation of those who best knew Varian Fry.

American Pimpernel

The Man Who Saved the Artists on Hitler's Death-List

John Keegan

John Keegan's new book applies to maritime warfare the technique he put to such dazzling effect in his classic of war on land, The Face of Battle. His analysis concentrates on four key battles - Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway and the Battle of the Atlantic. 
 
The result not only illustrates the development of naval warfare through the sailing warship, the battleship, the aircraft carrier and the submarine, thereby giving a panoramic view, but takes the reader into the heart of the fighting, reminding us that the price of battle, whether on sea or land, is measuring in men's lives.

The Price Of Admiralty

War at Sea from Man of War to Submarine

David Sinclair

Following his bestselling biography of the Pound Sterling, David Sinclair's next book is a fascinating insight into the single event which shaped the face of the modern world. If the Great War of 1914-1918 was a tragedy, then the Treaty of Versailles was a complete travesty. Rather than sealing a guarantee for peace, stability and prosperity for a new and better world, the treaty ensured that the remainder of the twentieth century would see horror, brutality and suffering unparalleled in human history. The treaty was engineered and manipulated by self-interested politicians with individual motivations and contrasting agendas. Hall of Mirrors reflects on how the representatives of America, Britain and France - Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau - deliberately ignored the possibility of finding a progressive international solution. Instead, driven by ego and personal vendetta, these statesmen stimulated a European future of faction, dispute and conflict. Hall of Mirrors is a fascinating story of destruction, delusion and greed, illuminating the personalities and politics involved in making the treaty. It is also a valuable and topical discussion on the political structures which enable individual character and will to dictate the course of history and culture.

Hall Of Mirrors

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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