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

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Cherry Simmonds

NOBODY IN PARTICULAR is the hand-on-heart, honest, charming and occasionally tear-inducingly tragic, often laugh out loud funny story of what it was like to grow up in Liverpool in the 1950s and '60s as the youngest child in a large and somewhat eccentric Anglo-Irish family: Cherry's father would while away the hours playing his guitar in the outside loo until the pubs opened while her mother seemed to be either menopausal or depressed or both, and devoted most of her energies into saving for a divorce or her own business - whichever came cheapest! Capturing the despondency and deprivations of post-war England as embodied in the back streets of Liverpool and the subsequent vibrancy and liberation of the swinging sixties - the decade of the Beatles, national strikes and Liverpool FC winning the FA cup for the first time - this is an ebullient tale told by a natural storyteller. NOBODY IN PARTICULAR is not only a funny, affecting and nicely self-deprecating personal story (peopled by some splendidly observed larger-than-life characters - her family) but also a rather wonderful slice of social history, evoking a bygone yet still familiar and fondly remembered era.

Nobody In Particular

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

E P F Lynch

'It's the end of the 1916 winter and the conditions are almost unbelievable. We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it, work in it, fight in it, wade in it and many of us die in it. We see it, feel it, eat it and curse it, but we can't escape it, not even by dying...' 
Edward Lynch enlisted when he was just 18 - one of thousands of fresh-faced men who were proudly waved off by the crowds as they embarked for France. It was 1916 and the majority had no idea of the reality of the Somme trenches, of the traumatised soldiers they would encounter there, of the innumerable, awful contradictions of war. Private Lynch was one of those who survived, and on his return home, wrote Somme Mud in pencil in over 20 school exercise books, perhaps in the hope of coming to terms with all that he had witnessed there? 
Written from the perspective of an ordinary 'Tommy' and told with dignity, candour and surprising wit, Somme Mud is a testament to the human spirit: for out of the mud that threatened to suck out a man's soul rises a compelling story of humanity and friendship. 
For all who are marking the centenary of the Great War, it is a rare and precious find.

Somme Mud

A J Baime

'The story of Truman’s accession to the presidency is worthy of a Hollywood melodrama, and A J Baime’s zippy, well-judged and hugely readable book more than does it justice...' - Dominic Sandbrook, SUNDAY TIMES 
 
Heroes are often defined as ordinary characters who find themselves facing extraordinary circumstances and, through courage and a dash of luck, cement their place in history. Chosen as President Roosevelt's fourth term Vice President for his admired work ethic, good judgement and lack of enemies, Harry S. Truman was the prototypical ordinary man from small-town America. That is, until he was thrust in over his head following the sudden death of Roosevelt. 
 
With the world still caught up in the inferno of the Second World War, Truman found himself playing the roles of both judge and jury during the founding of the UN, the Potsdam Conference, the Manhattan Project, the German surrender, the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the decision to drop the Bomb and bring the war to the end. 
 
Tightly focused, meticulously researched and drawing on documentation not available to previous biographers, The Accidental President escorts readers into the situation room with Truman during this tumultuous, history-making four months - when the stakes were high and the challenges even higher . . .

The Accidental President

John Man

The name Attila the Hun has become a byword for barbarism, savagery and violence. His is a truly household name, but what do we really know about the man himself, his position in history and the world in which he lived? This riveting biography reveals the man behind the myth. 
 
In the years 434-454AD the fate of Europe hung upon the actions of one man, Attila, king of the Huns. The decaying Roman empire still stood astride the Western World, from its twin capitals of Rome and Constantinople, but it was threatened by a new force, the much-feared Barbarian hordes. It was Attila who united the Barbarian tribes into a single, amazingly-effective army. He launched two violent attacks against the eastern and western halves of the Roman empire, attacks which earned him his reputation for mindless devastation, and brought an end to Rome's pre-eminence in Europe. 
 
Attila was coarse, capricious, arrogant, ruthless and brilliant. An illiterate and predatory tribal chief, he had no interest in administration, but was a wily politician, who, from his base in the grasslands of Hungary, used secretaries and ambassadors to bring him intelligence on his enemies. He was a leader whose unique qualities made him supreme among tribal leaders, but whose weaknesses ensured the collapse of his empire after his death.

Attila The Hun

Robert Wallace

H. Keith Melton

Henry Robert Schlesinger

Secret instructons written in invisible ink. 
Cigarettes that fire bullets. 
Covert communications slipped inside dead rats. 
Subminature cameras hidden in ballpoint pens. 
 
If these sound like the stuff of James Bond's gadget-master Q's trade, think again. They are all real-life devices created by the CIA's Office of Technical Services. Now, in the first book ever written about this ultrasecretive department, the former director of the OTS gives us an unprecedented look at the devices and operations from the history of the CIA - including many deemed 'inappropriate for public disclosure' by the CIA just two years ago. 
 
Spycraft tells amazing life and death stories about this little-known group, much of which has never before been revealed. Against the backdrop of some of the most critical international events of recent years - including the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the war on terror - the authors show the real techinical and human story of how the CIA carried out its most secret missions.

Spycraft

Doug Stanton

On 30 July 1945 the USS Indianapolis was steaming through the South Pacific, on her way home having delivered the bomb that was to decimate Hiroshima seven days later, when she was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Of a crew of 1196 men an estimated 300 were killed upon impact; the remaining 900 sailors went into the sea. Undetected for five days, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia and madness. By the time rescue arrived, only 317 men were left alive. 
 
Interweaving the stories of some of these survivors (including the ship's Captain Butler McVay, who would be unjustly court-martialled for the loss of his ship and, twenty years later and tormented by the experience, take his own life), Doug Stanton brings this incredible human drama to life in a narrative that is at once immediate and timeless. The definitive account of a near-forgotten chapter in the history of the last war, In Harm's Way has become a classic. 
 
And, some 72 years later, in August 2017, the USS Indianapolis was once again making international headlines - with the news that a marine archaeology team had located the ship's shattered remains: 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/world/asia/uss-indianapolis-paul-allen.html?mcubz=1

In Harm's Way

Will Davies

'Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one - fire! Down goes the firing switch. At first, nothing. Then from deep down there comes a low rumble, and it as if the world is spliting apart...' 
 
On 7th June 1917, nineteen massive mines exploded beneath Messines Ridge near Ypres. The largest man-made explosion in history up until that point shattered the landscape and smashed open the German lines. Ten thousand German soldiers died. 
Two of the mines - at Hill 60 and the Caterpillar - were fired by men of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, comprising miners and engineers rather than parade-ground soldiers. Drawing on the diaries of one of the key combatants, Benealth Hill 60 tells the little-known, devastatingly brutal true story of this subterranean war waged beneath the Western Front - a stygian battle-ground where men drowned in viscous chalk, suffocated in the blue gray clay, choked on poisonous air or died in the darkness, caught up up in vicious hand-to-hand fighting...

Beneath Hill 60

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

The Fall of the West

Hunt the Villain

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Fight or Flight (Book 21)

The Mortons

Watch a trailer for The Spook's Blood

A photograph of Ben Barnes in character for Shadow and Bone Netflix series.

Interviews

Shadow and Bone’s Ben Barnes on tear-jerking books and what he’s reading

An image showing a selection of adventure stories for 9-12 year olds on a bright yellow background with orange doodles that include a hashtag, flag, danger sign and speech bubble

Children's reading lists

16 books for 9 to 12-year-olds that love adventures

An image of a selection of books for 9-12s on a blue background with a large splodge and striped print

24 must-read books for 9-12-year-olds

A picture of several different children's books on a pink to blue ombre background; each book has a bright yellow shadow

Reading lists

The 100 best children's books of all time, as chosen by our readers

stemming

Showing results for: ‘joseph delaney’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter