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Jonathan Phillips

'Superbly researched and enormously entertaining... One of the outstanding books of the year' The Times 
 
An epic story of empire-building and bloody conflict, this ground-breaking biography of one of history’s most venerated military and religious heroes opens a window on the Islamic and Christian worlds’ complex relationship. 
 
WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 
 
When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, returning the Holy City to Islamic rule, he sent shockwaves throughout Christian Europe and the Muslim Near East that reverberate today. 
 
It was the culmination of a supremely exciting life. Born into a significant Kurdish family in northern Iraq, this warrior and diplomat fought under the banner of jihad, but at the same time worked tirelessly to build an empire that stretched from North Africa to Western Iraq. Gathering together a turbulent coalition, he was able to capture Jerusalem, only to trigger the Third Crusade and face his greatest adversary, King Richard the Lionheart. 
 
Drawing on a rich blend of Arabic and European sources, this is a comprehensive account of both the man and the legend to which he gave birth, describing vividly the relentless action of his life and tracing its aftermath through culture and politics all the way to the present day. 
 
'An authoritative and brilliantly told account of the life of one of the world's greatest – and most famous – military leaders' Peter Frankopan

The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin

Xinran

'Fast-paced and punchy ... accomplished' Independent 
 
With journalistic acumen and a novelist's flair, Xinran tells the remarkable stories of men and women born in China after 1979 - the recent generations raised under China's single-child policy. At a time when the country continues to transform at the speed of light, these generations of precious 'one and onlies' are burdened with expectation, yet have often been brought up without any sense of responsibility. Within their families, they are revered as 'little emperors' and 'suns', although such cosseting can come at a high price: isolation, confusion and an inability to deal with life's challenges. 
 
From the businessman's son unable to pack his own suitcase, to the PhD student who pulled herself out of extreme rural poverty, Xinran shows how these generations embody the hopes and fears of a great nation at a time of unprecedented change. It is a time of fragmentation, heart-breaking and inspiring in equal measure, in which capitalism vies with communism, the city with the countryside and Western opportunity with Eastern tradition. Through the fascinating stories of these only children, we catch a startling glimpse of the emerging face of China.

Buy Me the Sky

The remarkable truth of China’s one-child generations

Nathan Thrall

Milad is five years old and excited for his school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but tragedy awaits: his bus is involved in a horrific accident. His father, Abed, rushes to the chaotic site, only to find Milad has already been taken away. Abed sets off on a journey to learn Milad's fate, navigating a maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must face as a Palestinian. 
 
Interwoven with Abed's odyssey are the stories of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and pasts unexpectedly converge: a kindergarten teacher and a mechanic who rescue children from the burning bus; an Israeli army commander and a Palestinian official who confront the aftermath at the scene of the crash; a settler paramedic; ultra-Orthodox emergency service workers; and two mothers who each hope to claim one severely injured boy. 
 
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is a deeply immersive, stunningly detailed portrait of life in Israel and Palestine, and an illumination of the reality of one of the most contested places on earth.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

A Palestine Story

Marjane Satrapi

The brilliant graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution. 
 
Marjane Satrapi lived through the Iranian Revolution as a little girl. This is her classic memoir-in-comic-strips, the story of a child entangled in the history and politics of her country. It paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up in revolutionary and war-torn Iran, in a family that was both outrageous and ordinary, beset by tragedy and yet buffered by love. Funny, wise, ultimately heartbreaking and told with unforgettable pictures. 
 
&lsquo;A revelation...you will remember it for a very long time&rsquo; Mark Haddon 
 
&lsquo;The magic of Marjane Satrapi&rsquo;s work is that it can condense a whole country&rsquo;s tragedy into one poignant, funny scene after another&rsquo; Independent on Sunday 
 
THE COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS VOLUMES I &amp; II: Includes The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return 
 
TRANSLATED BY ANJALI SINGH 
 
**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

Persepolis I & II

Rich Cohen

There are many books about Israel, but none like this. From Rich Cohen, the author of the acclaimed Tough Jews, The Avengers, and Sweet and Low, comes a new approach to a story we thought we knew. Breaking through the heated polemics and intractable politics, Israel Is Real is a fresh voice, a tale of people and ideas, of the background of present-day Israel. 
 
Cohen relates Israel's story as that of a place long ago destroyed and transformed into an idea . . . and which, sixty years ago, was retransformed into a place, and therefore into something that can once again be destroyed. From the medieval false prophets, to the nineteenth-century Zionists, and on to present-day figures like Ariel Sharon, Cohen tells the stories of the people obsessed with this fine line between place and idea, creation and destruction. He reclaims from obscurity a multitude of figures marginalised by history, but whose lives are key to any real understanding of Israel.

Israel is Real

R F Foster

From 1970, things were changing in Ireland &ndash; the Celtic Tiger had finally woken, and the rules for everything from gender roles and religion to international relations were being entirely rewritten. 
 
Luck and the Irish examines how the country has weathered these last thirty years of change, and what these changes may mean in the long run. R. F. Foster also looks at how characters as diverse as Gerry Adams, Mary Robinson, Charles Haughey and Bob Geldof have contributed to Ireland&rsquo;s altered psyche, and uncovers some of the scandals, corruption and marketing masterminds that have transformed Ireland &ndash; and its luck.

Luck and the Irish

A Brief History of Change, 1970-2000

Joe Sacco

A powerful graphic novel, capturing the heart of day-to-day life in occupied Palestine. 
 
In late 1991 and early 1992, at the time of the first Intifada, Joe Sacco spent two months with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, travelling and taking notes. 
 
Upon returning to the United States he started writing and drawing Palestine, which combines the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling to explore this complex, emotionally weighty situation. He captures the heart of the Palestinian experience in image after unforgettable image, with great insight and remarkable humour. 
 
The nine-issue comics series won a l996 American Book Award. It is now published for the first time in one volume, befitting its status as one of the great classics of graphic non-fiction. 
 
&lsquo;The bar is set extremely high when it comes to graphic books and the Middle East: one thinks of Joe Sacco's Palestine' Guy Delise 
 
&lsquo;Palestine is utterly compelling, and as affecting as the work of any war photographer or poet&rsquo; Varsity

Palestine

Conn Iggulden

ENTER THE BATTLEFIELDS OF ANCIENT GREECE WITH THE EPIC BESTSELLER FROM MASTER STORYTELLER CONN IGGULDEN 
 
'Pacy and propulsive . . . Crackling with energy, violence and stirring speeches' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Iggulden draws the Greek world convincingly and he is strongest writing battle scenes' THE TIMES 
 
'The master historical storyteller. This swords-and-sandals epic brings the ancient world to life' DAILY EXPRESS 
 
THE FIRST BOOK IN CONN IGGULDEN'S EPIC NEW SERIES THE GOLDEN AGE 
_______ 
 
Pericles stands in the shadow of his father: a man who once saved Athens. 
 
To make his own name he must prove himself in the liar's den of Athenian politics: pitting wits against friends, sceptics, enemies. 
 
But words alone do not make a leader. 
 
A force of Persians threatens the city and Pericles must find courage on the battlefield. 
 
In its time of need, Athens' warriors must be lions . . . 
_______ 
 
PRAISE FOR CONN IGGULDEN: 
 
'Brings war in the ancient world to vivid, gritty and bloody life' ANTHONY RICHES 
 
'Another masterpiece from Iggulden' 5***** Reader Review 
 
'It's like being on the battlefield' 5***** Reader Review 
 
 'An epic piece of historical fiction, full of political intrigue and vivid action' ROBERT FABBRI

Lion

Saghïmbay Orozbaq uulu

'I am a steel-fanged lion, a dragon ready to pounce, a mighty poplar with golden branches rising up to the sky' 
 
The bard Saghïmbay Orozbaq uulu composed his oral telling of the great Central Asian Manas epic in the early twentieth century, although it draws on far older sources. This vivid episode from his narrative tells the bravura story of an uncertain new khan, Boqmurun, who holds a great feast to commemorate his predecessor, Kökötöy. From east and west, warriors and their turbulent retinues come to compete in horse races, jousting and wrestling, and soon insults are hurled and scores settled violently. Yet none can beat the supreme hero, the mighty, truculent Manas. By turns earthy, stirring, bombastic and funny, Saghïmbay's work stands as a monument to the oral culture of a nomadic people. 
 
Daniel Prior's landmark translation includes a 'How to Read the Epic' section, commentary, maps and illustrations.

The Memorial Feast for Kökötöy Khan

A Kirghiz Epic Poem in the Manas Tradition

Peter Bergen

Al Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multi-dimensional picture of the hunt for bin Laden over the past decade, as well as the recent campaign that gradually tightened the noose around him. Other key elements of the book include: 
 
* A careful account of Obama's decision-making process throughout the final weeks and days during which the raid was planned, as well as what NSC cabinet members were advising him. The fascinating story of a group of (mostly female) analysts at the CIA in the HVT (High Value Target) section, who never gave up assembling the tiniest clues about OBL's whereabouts. 
 
* The untold and action-packed history of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the SEALs, which accounts for the confidence Obama had in tasking them with the mission. 
 
* An analysis of what the death of OBL means for al Qaeda, for the wider jihadist movement that looked to him for inspiration and strategic guidance, and for Obama's legacy.

Manhunt

From 9/11 to Abbottabad - the Ten-Year Search for Osama bin Laden

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

'Exquisite . . . A genuine, melancholy masterpiece' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE 
'A journalistic marvel' JAMES MEEK 
'A powerful, unforgettable book' NADIFA MOHAMMED 
 
This is the story of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniac leader who shaped the state in his own image. Then one day, after yet another war, a foreign army invaded, toppled the leader, destroyed the state, and proceeded to invent a new country. This is the story of a people who watched with horror as their world fragmented into a hundred different cities, as walls rose between them and bodies piled in the streets. 
 
From the American invasion to the Arab Spring, ISIS and beyond, A Stranger in Your Own City offers a remarkable de-centring of the West in the history and contemporary situation of the region. What comes to the fore is the effect on the ground: the human cost, the shifting allegiances, the generational change. 
 
'Shatters western assumptions . . . and offers cautious hope' The Observer 
'Haunting' Financial Times

A Stranger in Your Own City

Travels in the Middle East’s Long War

Geoffrey C. Ward

Ken Burns

**The New York Times Bestseller** 
**The book of the landmark documentary, The Vietnam War, by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick** 
 
The definitive work on the Vietnam War, the conflict that came to define a generation, told from all sides by those who were there. 
 
More than forty years after the Vietnam War ended, its legacy continues to fascinate, horrify and inform us. As the first war to be fought in front of TV cameras and beamed around the world, it has been immortalised on film and on the page, and forever changed the way we think about war. 
 
Drawing on hundreds of brand new interviews, Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward have created the definitive work on Vietnam. It is the first book to show us the war from every perspective: from idealistic US Marines and the families they left behind to the Vietnamese civilians, both North and South, whose homeland was changed for ever; politicians, POWs and anti-war protesters; and the photographers and journalists who risked their lives to tell the truth. The book sends us into the grit and chaos of combat, while also expertly outlining the complex chain of political events that led America to Vietnam. 
 
Beautifully written, this essential work tells the full story without taking sides and reminds us that there is no single truth in war. It is set to redefine our understanding of a brutal conflict, to launch provocative new debates and to shed fresh light on the price paid in ‘blood and bone’ by Vietnamese and Americans alike.

The Vietnam War

An Intimate History

Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester's brilliant chronicle of the destruction of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883 charts the birth of our modern world. He tells the story of the unrecognized genius who beat Darwin to the discovery of evolution; of Samuel Morse, his code and how rubber allowed the world to talk; of Alfred Wegener, the crack-pot German explorer and father of geology. In breathtaking detail he describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm whose echoes are still felt to this day.

Krakatoa

The Day the World Exploded

Eric Lomax

During the Second World War Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio. 
 
Left emotionally scarred and unable to form normal relationships, Lomax suffered for years until, with the help of his wife, Patti Lomax, and of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he came terms with what happened. Fifty years after the terrible events, he was able to meet one of his tormentors. 
 
The Railway Man is a story of innocence betrayed, and of survival and courage in the face of horror.

The Railway Man

Da Chen

In this second volume of memoir, following his acclaimed Colours of the Mountain, Chen arrives in Beijing, armed with a dogged determination to learn English and familiarise himself with 'all things Western', he must compete with every other student to win a chance to study in the US - a chance that rests in the shrewd and corrupt hands of the all-powerful professors. In this remarkable book - by turns poetic, ribald, hilarious, and heartbreaking - Chen retains his indomitable spirit, but will he be any closer to attaining his goal?

Sounds Of The River

Wang Xiaobo

Razor-sharp, pugnacious and blackly funny, Wang Xiaobo’s essays established him as one of China’s most popular – and subversive – writers. From the political power of silence to the irrepressible spirit of a pig he met while working in a commune, these reflections on life and literature in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution provide a rare glimpse of a fearless satirical genius.

The Maverick Pig

Colin Thubron

'A magnificent achievement' Nikolai Tolstoy, The Times 
 
Among the Russians is a marvellous account of a solitary journey by car from St. Petersburg and the Baltic States south to Georgia and Armenia. A gifted writer and intrepid traveller, Thubron grapples with the complexities of Russian identity and relays his extraordinary journey in characteristically lyrical style. This is an enthralling and revealing account of the habits and idiosyncrasies of a fascinating nation along with a sharp and insightful social commentary of Russian life. 
 
'Superb... one of the best books on Russia to appear in years' New York Times

Among the Russians

From the Baltic to the Caucasus

From the ground-breaking graphics journalist and author of Palestine, a revelatory investigation of the deadly sectarian riots in 2013 Uttar Pradesh, India, and their urgent global significance today 
 
Compared to other episodes of lethal Indian communal violence, the clashes in Uttar Pradesh in 2013, the Muzaffarnagar Riot, were a relatively small-scale affair. It had happened before and will probably happen again: Hindus and Muslims, armed with guns and swords, riled up by vitriolic rhetoric and a tangle of accusations, turn on one another. The truth fragments along religious lines, both in the lead-up to the rampage and in its bloody aftermath. 
 
Joe Sacco immerses himself in Uttar Pradesh, speaking to government officials, political leaders, village chiefs, and especially the victims, who were mostly landless peasants, in a quest to understand this riot as an archetype of political violence. In the process, he probes the role of savagery in a democracy; the power of crowds, rather than leaders, to influence the course of events; the collision of competing narratives; and the accounts that perpetrators construct to explain away their participation in bloodshed. 
 
Sacco has chronicled the urgent histories that define the world around us, from the Great War to Gaza. Here, the award winning cartoonist turns his masterful visual reportage to a story that is specific to India but with implications and resonance for us all. 
 
* 
 
PRAISE FOR JOE SACCO: 
 
'One of the masters of his craft' New Statesman 
 
'A pioneer of the genre' TLS 
 
'Formidably talented.' Independent 
 
'The hands-down boss of his particular corner of contemporary literature' Dazed & Confused 
 
'Sacco's brilliant, excruciating books of war reportage are potent territory... He shows how much that is crucial to our lives a book can hold' New York Times Book Review

The Once and Future Riot

Xiaolu Guo

*Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award* 
*Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award* 
*Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize* 
*Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018* 
*A Sunday Times Book of the Year* 
 
Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her. 
 
When she is born in 1973, her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains. Aged two, and suffering from malnutrition on a diet of yam leaves, they leave Xiaolu with her illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea. 
 
Once Upon a Time in the East takes Xiaolu from a run-down shack to film school in a rapidly changing Beijing, navigating the everyday peculiarity of modern China: censorship, underground art, Western boyfriends. In 2002 she leaves Beijing on a scholarship to study in Britain. Now, after a decade in Europe, her tale of East to West resonates with the insight that can only come from someone who is both an outsider and at home. 
 
'This generation's Wild Swans' Daily Telegraph

Once Upon A Time in the East

A Story of Growing up

Loung Ung

A major film, co-written and directed by Angelina Jolie 
 
Until the age of five, Loung Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. She was a precocious child who loved the open city markets, fried crickets, chicken fights and being cheeky to her parents. 
 
When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Loung's family fled their home and were eventually forced to disperse to survive. Loung was trained as a child soldier while her brothers and sisters were sent to labour camps. The surviving siblings were only finally reunited after the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia and started to destroy the Khmer Rouge. 
 
Bolstered by the bravery of one brother, the vision of the others and the gentle kindness of her sister, Loung forged on to create for herself a courageous new life. 
 
First They Killed My Father is an unforgettable book told through the voice of the young and fearless Loung. It is a shocking and tragic tale of a girl who was determined to survive despite the odds.

First They Killed My Father

Film tie-in

A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

Jung Chang

Discover the extraordinary story of the woman who brought China into the modern age, from the bestselling author of Wild Swans 
 
 In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Empress Dowager Cixi – the most important woman in Chinese history – brought a medieval empire into the modern age. Under her, the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state and it was she who abolished gruesome punishments like ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and put an end to foot-binding. Jung Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot and also takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing’s Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs – with one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. 
 
 Packed with drama, fast-paced and gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world’s population, and as a unique stateswoman. 
 
 ‘Powerful’ Simon Sebag Montefiore 
 
 ‘Truly authoritative’ New York Times 
 
 ‘Wonderful’ Sunday Times 
 
 **Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography Prize**

Empress Dowager Cixi

The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

Livia Manera Sambuy

A lost princess and a vanished world: a remarkable true story that moves from the Punjab of the Raj to 1930s Paris and the Second World War 
 
‘Remarkable and compelling’ Edmund de Waal 
 
‘Thoroughly engaging’ Kamila Shamsie 
 
In a Mumbai museum in 2007, Livia Manera Sambuy encounters a photograph that will change her life forever. 
The caption claims that the Punjabi princess Amrit Kaur sold her jewels in occupied Paris to save Jewish lives, only to be arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp where she died within a year. 
 
For Livia, this marks the beginning of a compulsive search for the truth as she delves into the history of the British Raj, the diamonds and sapphires of the twentieth-century aristocracy, and the lives of extraordinary figures: bankers, jewellers, explorers and spies. 
 
‘An ambitious, absorbing work that peels back the layers of its enigmatic subject and digs deeply into the author's own emotional vicissitudes’ Jhumpa Lahiri 
 
‘A tantalizing true story . . . In Search of Amrit Kaur plunges into the glittery world of Indian royalty’ New York Times Book Review

In Search of Amrit Kaur

An Indian Princess in Wartime Paris

Patrick Hennessey

KANDAK, from Patrick Hennessey, author of the TV Book Club pick, The Junior Officers' Reading Club, is 'a rich depiction of life and death, love and sorrow ... read this brilliant book' Evening Standard 
 
When Patrick Hennessey returned home from Afghanistan, he left behind him the surreal intensity and exhilaration of battle. He also left behind lasting bonds of friendship formed with his Afghan comrades Qiam, Syed and Majhib. Kandak is the story of how, in the heat of the moment between living and dying, unlikely alliances can be forged. Patrick Hennessey tells of their awkward first meetings, mutual suspicion and incomprehension, and how this eventually turned into brotherhood. 
 
'A passionate tribute to the Afghan soldiers he fought alongside in Helmand ... excellent' Sunday Times 
 
'This beautifully-written sequel to his first book tells us much about the bonds forged by combat in the dust and heat and danger, when there was no "them and us"' Mail on Sunday 
 
'His prose is lean and muscular, characterised by dry wit and acute intelligence. He also has a novelist's eye for the vivid image and the telling detail' Daily Mail 
 
'An erudite account ... this topical book, beautifully written, gives important insights at a crucial time in Afghanistan's transition' Daily Telegraph 
 
Patrick Hennessey was born in 1982 and educated at Berkhamsted School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read English. He joined the Army and served from 2004 to 2009 as an officer in The Grenadier Guards. In between guarding towers, castles and palaces he worked in the Balkans, Africa, South East Asia, the Falkland Islands and deployed on operational tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. On leaving the Army he wrote his first book The Junior Officers' Reading Club. He is now a barrister.

KANDAK

Fighting with Afghans

Alice Mah

'Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations.' 
 
Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their home villages in China to sweep the tombs of their ancestors, making offerings of food and incense to prevent them from becoming hungry ghosts that could cause misfortune. Yet for the past century, a time ruptured by war and revolution, many tombs have been left unattended. Following a record year of wildfires, Alice Mah returns to her family’s rice village in South China, and discovers that her ancestors are almost forgotten, and there are no tombs left to sweep. Instead, there are incalculable clan debts to be paid. 
 
Here Mah chronicles her journey from the rice villages of South China to her home in post-industrial England, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she grew up, to the isles and industry of Scotland where she now lives. As years pass and fires rage on, she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors’ neglected graves. Her research on pollution gives way to growing eco-anxiety, culminating in a crisis of spiritual belief. 
 
A haunting blend of memoir, cultural history and environmental exploration, Red Pockets confronts the hungry ghosts of our neglected ancestors, while searching for an acceptable offering. What do we owe to past and future generations? What do we owe to the places that we inhabit?

Red Pockets

An Offering

Rawi Hage

Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown up on the Christian side of war-torn Beirut. Now on the verge of adulthood, they must choose their futures: to remain in the exhausted, corrupt city of their birth, or to go into exile abroad, cut off from the only existence they have known. 
 
Bassam chooses one path - obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to fund his escape to the West. Meanwhile, George amasses power in the underworld of the city, embracing a life of military service, organised crime, killing, and drugs. But their two paths inevitably 
collide, with explosive consequences. De Niro's Game is a devastating, timely portrait of two young men and an entire city formed and deformed by war.

De Niro's Game

Damien Lewis

"A must read for all Damien Lewis fans" Compass 
 
--------------------------------------------------------- 
 
The most explosive true war story of the 21st Century 
 
 It is the winter of 2001. A terror ship is bound for Britain carrying a horrifying weapon. The British military sends a crack unit of SAS and SBS to assault the vessel before she reaches London. 
 
So begins a true story of explosive action as this band of elite warriors pursues the merchants of death from the high seas to the harsh wildlands of Afghanistan. The hunt culminates in the single greatest battle of the Afghan war, the brutal and bloody siege of an ancient mud-walled fortress crammed full of hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. 
 
Fighting against impossible odds and bitter betrayal, our handful of crack fighters battle to rescue their fellow soldiers trapped by a murderous, fanatical enemy. 
 
--------------------------------------------------------- 
 
"The most dramatic story of a secret wartime mission you will ever read" News of the World 
 
 "The author has been given unprecedented access" Zoo 
 
 "Gripping" Eye Spy

Bloody Heroes

Carla Montemayor

Meet the matriarchs of Filipino myth – defiant goddesses, powerful witches, terrifying shapeshifters – and their real-life counterparts, as Carla Montemayor journeys to discover her own ancestry and the stories of her people. 
 
When Carla Montemayor discovers that her great-great grandmother was a binukot – a girl sequestered from her family and community, trained to memorise and sing the myths of her people – this sets her on her own epic journey to uncover her ancestry. Why was she raised on European fairytales and Greek myths when the stories of her own people are so rich? And why did no one in her family speak of their illustrious binukot foremother anymore? 
 
Travelling to the Philippines to trace the lives of her female relatives, Carla discovers that, officially, her people have no history. Like many indigenous groups, their stories have been erased by colonists. It becomes her work to reconstruct and reimagine them. 
 
Weaving together the tales of her family members, who survived war, oppression, violence, displacement and more, with the myths of her people, Carla finds similarities: women with courage, resourcefulness and ambition, who fight and love with equal ferocity. 
 
Islands of Forgotten Daughters celebrates these women and tells their tales, offering a fresh perspective on Filipino history and culture. It is a rallying cry for the power of storytelling: to resist erasure, preserve identity and resonate for generations to come.

Islands of Forgotten Daughters

Meeting the Matriarchs of Filipino Myth

Noam Chomsky

In this urgent new book, Noam Chomsky surveys the threats and prospects of our early twenty-first century. Exploring challenges such as the growing gap between North and South, American exceptionalism (even under Obama), the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli assault on Gaza and the recent financial bailouts, he also sees hope for the future and a way to move forward - in the so-called democratic wave in Latin America and in the global solidarity movements which suggest 'real progress towards freedom and justice'. 
 
Hopes and Prospects is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the primary challenges still facing the human race and is wondering where to find a ray of hope.

Hopes and Prospects

John Nichol

John Peters

RAF Flight lieutenants John Peters and John Nichol were shot down over enemy territory on their first airbourne mission of the Gulf War. Their capture in the desert, half a mile from their blazing Tornado bomber, began a nightmare seven-week ordeal of torture and interrogation which brought both men close to death. 
 
In Tornado Down, John Peters and John Nichol tell the incredible story of their part in the war against Saddam Hussien's regime. It is a brave and shocking and totally honest story: a story about war and its effects on the hearts and minds of men.

Tornado Down

The Unputdownable No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller

Steve Coll

Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction 
 
'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard 
'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times 
'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial Times 
 
From the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars, this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions, old contacts, favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient, but Bin Laden's successful escape, together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire which lasted many years. 
 
At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S', a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving. 
 
Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.

Directorate S

The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001–2016

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Quizzes

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The UK's best literary days out for bookworms and readers

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16 of the best Scottish children’s books and authors

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A literary tour of the United Kingdom

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