Alfie Small is a keen explorer, just like his older cousin, Charlie. And just like Charlie, Alfie is fearless! He loves adventures, speedboats, dragons and sword-fighting. He does NOT like wrinkly old pirates and interfering puffins. Unlike Charlie, Alfie always makes sure he gets back home in time for tea!

Alfie Small

Alfie Teale

Alfred Assollant was born in 1827. He was a teacher, journalist, writer and outspoken opponent of Napoleon III. He wrote more than thirty books over thirty years, including historical fiction, collected essays and a treatise on the rights of women, but only The Marvellous (But Authentic) Adventures of Captain Corcoran, published in 1867, was a success. In the 1870s, his wife, son and daughter died in quick succession and Assollant found himself poverty-stricken. In 1886 he also died, all but forgotten despite the continuing success of Corcoran, in a paupers’ hospital in Paris. 
 
Sam Miller was born and brought up in London. He studied History at Cambridge University and Politics at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, before joining the BBC in 1986, for which he has worked, on and off, ever since. In the early 1990s he was the BBC World Service TV and radio correspondent in Delhi, and on his return to the UK in 1993 was the presenter of the BBC’s current affairs programme, South Asia Report. Later he became the head of the Urdu service and subsequently Managing Editor, South Asia. He was posted back to Delhi in 2002 and has remained there ever since. He is the author of Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity (2009), Blue Guide: India (2012) and most recently A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes, which was published by Jonathan Cape in 2014.

Alfred Assollant

Alfred Döblin

Alfred Hayes

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Tennyson

Alfred Tong

Alfred de Musset

Alfred de Vigny

Algernon Blackwood (1869 – 1951) was one of the most influential horror writers of the twentieth century. Transcending the boundaries of conventional writing in the genre, his tales are celebrated for their atmospheric descriptions, psychological depth, and their deep interest in phenomena outside of conventional human experience. A lover of nature, his writing is imbued with a mysticism and awe for his surroundings, and much of his work is concerned with the beauty and terror to be found in moutainscapes and dark forests. Blackwood's influence extends beyond horror literature, inspiring authors across various genres and with his evocative storytelling and philosophical insight.

Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Ali Abdaal is a doctor, entrepreneur, amateur magician, and the world's most-followed productivity expert. 
 
Ali became intrigued by the science of productivity while juggling the demands of medical training at Cambridge University with building his business. While working as a doctor in the UK's National Health Service, Ali started to document his journey towards living a healthier, happier, more productive life online. In the years since, Ali's evidence-based videos, podcasts and articles about the human mind have reached hundreds of millions of people all around the world. 
 
In 2021, Ali took a break from his medical practice to focus full-time on his work popularising the science of human flourishing and high performance. Here, he reveals everything he has learnt from a decade studying the secrets of feeling better and achieving more.

Ali Abdaal

His Excellency Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi is the former Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. One of the most powerful economic and political jobs in the world, he held this post from August 1995 to May 2016. 
 
Prior to that he held a wide range of leadership positions in the Kingdom's national oil company, Saudi Aramco. He was the first Saudi national to be named President of the company in 1984 and became the first Saudi CEO in 1988. Al-Naimi joined the company, then called Aramco, as an office boy in 1947. A Bedouin, he was born in the deserts of eastern Arabia in 1935.

Ali Al-Naimi

Ali Campbell

Ali Cronin

After graduating from university with a degree in mental health, Ali Land spent a decade working as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Nurse in hospitals and schools in the UK and Australia. Ali is now a full-time writer and lives in Scotland. Her first novel, Good Me Bad Me, was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into over twenty languages. 
 
Follow Ali on Twitter and Instagram @byAliLand

Ali Land

Ali is a leading expert in spiralizing and launched the world-renowned blog Inspiralized.com.

Ali Maffucci

Ali McDowall is a designer, life coach, and creative mentor with a passion for helping others connect, reflect, and grow. After graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2008 with a degree in Design for Performance, she worked in the arts until becoming a mother in 2013. Her own journey then led her into coaching, where she now supports fellow creatives through mentoring, vision board workshops, and networking events that centre on open, honest conversation and inspiring panel talks. Ali lives in Bath with her husband and two children.

Ali McDowall

Ali Millar was born and raised in the Scottish Borders, and now lives in England with her husband and four children. She has an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Edinburgh Napier University, and has worked as a cultural producer for Summerhall in Edinburgh, for whom she has interviewed dozens of writers including Marina Warner, Rachel Cusk, Emma Jane Unsworth, and Etgar Keret. She has also chaired events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Ali Millar

Ali Pantony is a freelance writer and editor. Her writing has appeared in Glamour, Grazia, BBC Three, Refinery29, Vice, Red and Evening Standard. Almost Adults is her debut novel. 
 
Ali was born in Maidstone, Kent, and lives in North London. You can follow Ali on Twitter and Instagram @alipantony

Ali Pantony

Ali Pye has illustrated more than 30 books, which have been published around the world. She is the author of several picture books, and the 'Harry Stevenson' young fiction series. Ali studied fashion at Central St Martins before taking an MA in illustration at Kingston University. She lives in London with her family, two guinea pigs and the world's greediest spaniel.

Ali Pye

Ali Recanati, the farmer's wife, joined Farmer J with a branding obsession, strong views on pickles and an eye for everything beautiful and bold. Now CMO and co-pilot of the brand, she brings the creative spark and mischief to Farmer J — from breakfast raves to the perfect field tray.

Ali Recanati

Ali Sethi

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of several novels and short story collections including, The Accidental, Hotel World, How to Be Both and the Seasonal Quartet. She has been four times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award and the Women’s Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

Ali Smith

Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent, served on the front lines against Al Qaeda and gained an international reputation as a top counter-terrorism operative and interrogator. He has been profiled in The New Yorker and featured in books, newspaper articles, and documentaries around the globe.

Ali Soufan

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Christopher Hibbert

Concise, convincing and exciting, this is Christopher Hibbert's brilliant account of the events that shook eighteenth-century Europe to its foundation. With a mixture of lucid storytelling and fascinating detail, he charts the French Revolution from its beginnings at an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789, right through to the 'coup d'etat' that brought Napoleon to power ten years later. In the process he explains the drama and complexities of this epoch-making era in the compelling and accessible manner he has made his trademark. 
 
Writing in The Times, Richard Holmes described the book as 'A spectacular replay of epic action ...' while The Good Book Guide called it, 'Unquestionably the best popular history of the French Revolution'.

The French Revolution

Gitta Sereny

Gitta Sereny is one of the world's most respected journalists and historians. This book gathers together the best of her writing on Germany from over sixty years. It amounts to an extraordinary portrait of the country and its people, how they have come to terms with their Nazi past, both collectively and in specific instances - and how the burden of their guilt has altered the national identity. She writes about key individuals - Stangl, Speer - and the questions which their lives raise. Thepenetration and conviction of her writing throughout is startling and she constantly reminds us why it is important to consider the questions she addresses - war guilt, holocaust denial and the temptations of obedience.

The German Trauma

Experiences and Reflections 1938-2001

Peter Hennessy

In this major study, Peter Hennessy explores the formal powers of the Prime Minister and how each incumbent has made the job his or her own. Drawing on unparalleled access to many of the leading figures, as well as the key civil servants and journalists of each period, he has built up a picture of the hidden nexus of influence and patronage surrounding the office. From recently declassified archival material he reconstructs, often for the first time, precise prime ministerial attitudes towards the key issues of peace and war. He concludes with a controversial assessment of the relative performance of each Prime Minister since 1945 and a new specification for the premiership as it enters its fourth century.

The Prime Minister

The Office And Its Holders Since 1945

Rene Weis

In the 13th century, a group of heretics in southwest France, the Cathars, became a serious threat to the Catholic church. In several waves of repression, thousands of Cathars were killed. Yet so ardent was their faith that, early in the next century, the Cathars rose one last time. Using the breathtakingly detailed and uniquely extant documentation from this period, and drawing on his intimate knowledge of the last Cathars' tracks and hiding places, many of which survive to this day, Ren&eacute; Weis tells the full story of this gripping historical episode.

The Yellow Cross

The Story of the Last Cathars 1290-1329

Andrew Rawnsley

'Downing Street is said to be 'furious' at this book - and it is easy to understand why. It is the first meticulous chronicle of all that has happened since that bright May Day three years ago which first brought the Blair government to office'  Anthony Howard, Sunday Times

Servants of the People

The Inside Story of New Labour

Christopher R Browning

Ordinary Men has been admired all over the world and is now published in the UK for the first time. It takes as its basis the detailed records of one squad from the Nazis' extermination groups and explores in detail its composition, its actions, andthe methods by which it was trained to perform acts of genocide on an industrial scale. He introduces us to cheerful, friendly, ordinary men who killed without hesitation or apparent remorse for years on end, in docile obedience to an authority theyhappily accepted as legitimate. It is a valuable corrective to the idea of German uniqueness and offers a much more chilling picture of human beings as avidly suggestible and desperate for an organising purpose in their lives, however disgusting.

Ordinary Men

Reserve Police Battalion 11 and the Final Solution in Poland

Susan Brigden

No period in British history today retains more resonance and mystery than the sixteenth century. The leading figures of the time have become almost mythical, and the terrors and grandeurs of Tudor Britain have resonance with even the least historically minded readers. Above all Brigden sees the key to the Tudor world as religion - the new world of Protestantism and its battle with the the old world of uniform Catholicism. This great religious rent in the fabric of English society underlies the savage violence and turbulence of the period - from Henry VIII's break with Rome to the overwhelming threat of the Spanish Armada. 'NEW WORLDS, LOST WORLDS' is a startlingly atmospheric tour de force.

The Penguin History of Britain

New Worlds, Lost Worlds:The Rule of the Tudors 1485-1630

Jesse Byock

Medieval Iceland was unique amongst Western Europe, with no foreign policy, no defence forces, no king, no lords, no peasants and few battles. It should have been a utopia yet its literature is dominated by brutality and killing. The reasons for this, argues Jesse Byock, lie in the underlying structures and cultural codes of the islands' social order. 'Viking Age Iceland' is an engaging, multi-disciplinary work bringing together findings in anthropology and ethnography interwoven with historical fact and masterful insights into the popular Icelandic sagas, this is a brilliant reconstruction of the inner workings of a unique and intriguing society.

Viking Age Iceland

Michael Baigent

Richard Leigh

After the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of south-west France in 1208, a Spanish monk - later canonized as St Dominic - took up the cudgels by establishing a kind of secret police to ferret out heresy - thus began the infamous Inquisition. Baigent and Leigh tell the whole extraordinary story, taking it on into the nineteenth century and showing how after the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility in 1870 the Vatican attempted to establish new authorities that were an intellectual equivalent of the Inquisition. The Inquisition offers a fascinating narrative account of one of the most influential and horrifying movements in the history of western Europe.

The Inquisition

John Cornwell

Backed by a wealth of new research, John Cornwell tells for the first time the story of the World War II career of Eugenio Pacelli, the man who was Pope Pius XII, arguably the most dangerous churchman in modern history. In the first decade of the century, as a brilliant young Vatican lawyer, Pacelli helped shape a new ideology of unprecedented papal power in Germany. In 1933 Hitler became his negotiating partner, an agreement was arranged that granted religious and financial payments to the Catholic Church in exchange for their withdrawal from social and political privillage, ensuring the rise of Nazism.

Hitler's Pope

The Secret History of Pius XII

Roy Porter

'Roy Porter, a historian of formidable range, turns to urban history in this marvellously lucid, informative and passionate book... Porter's facts are always at the service of the narrative, which has a finely maintained momentum, balancing statistics with the words of historians, diarists and novelists, poets and churchmen: Pepys, Boswell, Fielding, Walpole, Blake, Mayhew, Wells, Woolf, Spark, ... a timely and brilliant book.' CLAIRE TOMALIN, EVENING STANDARD 'A vivid celebration of the city, but also an elegy for its decline, bubbling with statistics and anecdote, from Boadicea to Betjeman.' RICHARD HOLMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR

London

A Social History

Gilda O'Neill

'Every page is a delight. Every chapter made vivid by a writer who has poured heart and soul into her book'. Val Hennessy, Daily Mail 
 
The East End of London - cockneys, criminals, street markets, pub singalongs, dog racing, jellied eels ... it is a place at once appealing and unruly, comforting and incomprehensible. Gilda O'Neill, an East Ender herself shows there is more to this fascinating area than a collection of cliched images. Using oral history and more traditional sources she builds up a powerful image of this community - bringing to us, with wit and honesty, the real story of London's East End

My East End

Memories of Life in Cockney London

Robert Kee

THE GREEN FLAG stands as the most comprehensive and illuminating history of Irish Nationalism yet published. For many years available as three separate volumes (THE MOST DISTRESSFUL COUNTRY, THE BOLD FENIAN MEN and OURSELVES ALONE), this outstanding history is now available as a single volume.

The Green Flag

A History of Irish Nationalism

David J Breeze

Brian Dobson

A penetrating and lucid history of the best-known and most spectacular monument to the Roman Empire in Britain. Taking into account new research findings about the building of the Wall, Breeze and Dobson include fascinating details about the Roman army, its religion and daily bureaucratic life. A selection of photos, maps and diagrams help make this a book for both the expert and the layman, being simultaneously erudite and unusually accessible.

Hadrian's Wall

James Pettifer

Our perception of Greece conjures up many potent images: an ancient civilization brought alive by fable, hillsides dotted with sunbaked villages, lazy beaches lapped by crystal blue waters, the warmth and humour of its people. Yet if we look behind the picture-postcard imagery, the painful contradictions of the country begin to emerge. James Pettifer's classic text on Greece, now revised and updated with extensive new material, argues that it is vital to understand this country's present by looking at the far-reaching effects of its troubled past. He surveys the roots of Greek social, economic and political realities with intelligence and convincing clarity.

The Greeks

The Land and People Since the War

Jan Morris

Jan Morris's magnificent book celebrates Wales and all things Welsh. Written as a deeply personal study, it reflects the rich bilingual literature and folklore of Wales, the buildings and wonderfully varied landscapes, the national character and humour, the historical predicaments and the political condition of this small but extraordinary country. Jan Morris is a distinguished historian as well as being one of the world's leading travel-writers. Her passionate love of Wales makes this a unique evocation.

Wales

Epic Views of a Small Country

Michael Asher

'The best life of Lawrence yet published' - The Express 
 
Lawrence was a brilliant propagandist, rhetorician and manipulator, who deliberately turned his life into a conundrum. But who was the real man behind the masks? Lawrence began the GreatWar as a map-clerk and ended it as one of the greatest military heroes of the 20th century. He altered the face of the Middle East, helped to lead the Arabs to freedom and formulated modern guerilla warfare. Yet he refused any honours and spent therest of his life in near obscurity. Desert explorer and Arabist, Michael Asher, set out to solve this riddle and discovers a hero whose greatness owed as much to his weaknesses as to his strengths.

Lawrence

The Uncrowned King of Arabia

Richard Overy

RUSSIA'S WAR is the epic account of the greatest military encounter in human history. In a vivid, often shocking narrative, Richard Overy describes the astounding events of 1941-45 in which the Soviet Union, after initial catastrophes, destroyed Hitler's Third Reich and shaped European history for the next half Century.

Russia's War

E J Hobsbawm

This outstanding history describes and accounts for Britain's rise as the world's first industrial world power, its decline from the temporary dominance of the pioneer, its rather special relationship with the rest of the world (notably the underdeveloped countries) and the effects of all these on the life of the British people.

Industry and Empire

From 1750 to the Present Day

Peter Demetz

From the Velvet Revolution to the disturbing world of Franz Kafka, from the devestation of the Thirty Years War to the musical elegance of Mozart and Dvorak, Prague is steeped in a wealth of history and culture. PRAGUE IN BLACK AND GOLD is a first class history of this unique city, allowing us to unravel layer upon layer of startlingly symbolic sites and buidings to reveal the real Prague. &quot;PRAGUE IN BLACK AND GOLD is an exceptional work - and exceptionally reliable ... I am sure that thiswill be an important and exciting guide for all who wish to learn more about the famous people and important events in the history of the Czech lands and their capital&quot; Ivan Klima, The Times

Prague in Black and Gold

The History of a City

John Freely

Istanbul's history is a catalogue of change, not least of name, yet it has managed to retain its own unique identity. John Freely captures the flavour of daily life as well as court ceremonial and intrigue. The book also includes a comprehensive gazetteer of all major monuments and museums. An in-depth study of this legendary city through its many different ages from its earliest foundation to the present day - the perfect traveller's companion and guide.

Istanbul

The Imperial City

Eric Christiansen

The 'Northern Crusades', inspired by the Pope's call for a Holy War, are less celebrated than those in the Middle East, but they were also more successful: vast new territories became and remain Christian, such as Finland, Estonia and Prussia.  Newly revised in the light of the recent developments in Baltic and Northern medieval research, this authoritative overview provides a balanced and compelling account of a tumultuous era.

The Northern Crusades

Mark Kishlansky

The sixth of nine volumes in the major Penguin History of Britain series, A Monarchy Transformed narrates the tempestuous political events of the Stuart dynasty.  It charts the reigns of six monarchs, and the course of two revolutions as well as religious upheavals that shook the beliefs of seventeenth-century Britons to the core.

A Monarchy Transformed, Britain 1630-1714

Barry Cunliffe

Nora Chadwick

The Celtic period was one of tremendous expansion, the last phase of European material and intellectual development before the Mediterranean world spread northwards over the Continent and linked it to modern times. Nora Chadwick's classic survey traces the rise and spread of the Celts, from their arrival in the British Isles in about the eighth century BC to the gradual transformation of their culture, initially under the Romans and later the Saxons.

The Celts

Lyn Macdonald

By the end of 1914, the battered British forces were bogged down, yet hopeful that promised reinforcements and spring weather would soon lead to a victorious breakthrough. A year later, after appalling losses at Aubers Ridge, Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres and faraway Gallipoli, fighting seemed set to go on for ever. Drawing on extensive interviews, letters and diaries, this book brilliantly evokes the soldiers' dogged heroism, sardonic humour and terrible loss of innocence through 'a year of cobbling together, of frustration, of indecision'. Over two decades' research puts Lyn Macdonald among the greatest popular chroniclers of the First World War. Here, from the poignant memories of participants, she has once again created an unforgettable slice of military history.

1915

The Death of Innocence

John Julius Norwich

In Byzantium: The Early Centuries John Julius Norwich told the epic tale of the Roman Empire's second capital up to Christmas Day AD 800 &ndash; when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as a rival emperor. This second volume of his magnificent history covers the following three centuries. In it he continues his compelling chronicle up to the coronation of the heroic Alexius Comnenus in 1081. The other two volumes in the trilogy, Byzantium: The Early Centuries and Byzantium: The Decline and Fall, are also published in Penguin.

Byzantium

The Apogee

Misha Glenny

Misha Glenny's acclaimed account of the war in former Yugoslavia contains substantial new material that discusses the end of the five-year conflict and looks ahead to an uneasy future in this turbulent region. 
 
Writing in the Evening Standard, Fitzroy Maclean said &lsquo;Misha Glenny&rsquo;s deeply disturbing book is, to my mind, essential reading for anyone trying to understand, or even just follow, events in what was once Yugoslavia&rsquo;.

The Fall of Yugoslavia

Andrew Wheatcroft

The Habsburgs have been described at one extreme as demons &ndash; responsible for a &lsquo;long history of atrocities&rsquo;; and, at the other, as dodos &ndash; living fossils unable to adapt to the modern world. In reality, the flamboyant royal family appear, in many ways, to have behaved much like most other monarchies. Their story, however, is none the less enthralling for that. It is populated by such unforgettable figures as mad Queen Juana, progressing through Spain with her husband&rsquo;s decaying body; the &lsquo;heroically fertile&rsquo; Maria Theresa, and the quixotic Maximilian, &lsquo;Emperor&rsquo; of Mexico.

The Habsburgs

Embodying Empire

Robert Morkot

The cradle of Western civilisation, Ancient Greece was a land of contradictions and conflict. Intensely quarrelsome and competitive, the Greek city-states consistently proved unwilling and unable to unite. Yet, in spite of or even because of this internal discord, no ancient civilization proved so dynamic or productive. The Greeks not only colonized the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas but set standards of figurative art that endured for nearly 2500 years. Charting topics as diverse as Minoan civilization, The Persian Wars, the Athenian Golden Age and the conquests of Alexander the Great, the book traces the development of this creative and restless people and assesses their impact not only on the ancient world but also on our own attitudes and environment. The authoritative narrative, illustrated with over sixty full colour maps and over seventy plates, makes this an indispensable handbook for history students and enthusiasts alike.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece

Chris Scarre

More than fifteen centuries after its fall, the Roman Empire remains one of the most formative influences on the history of Europe. Its physical remains dot the landscape from Scotland to Syria. Its cities are still the great metropolises of the continent. Its law and institutions have shaped modern practice, and its ideal of a united Europe has haunted politicians ever since. Fully illustrated and featuring more than sixty full- colour maps, this atlas traces the rise and fall of the first great multinational state. It looks at its provinces and cities, its trade and economy, its armies and frontier defences; follows its foreign ward and internecine struggles; and charts its transformation into a Christian theocracy and its fall in 476.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome

Little Pop-Ups

Little Princesses

Little Puffin Clothbound Classics

Little Red Train

Little Swan Ballet

Little Town of Marrowville

Little World

Lives of the Artists

Living Autobiography

Living World

Stella Rimington brings all her experience as the first woman Director General of MI5 to bear in a heart-stopping thriller series that takes us deep into a wilderness of mirrors where nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted.

Liz Carlyle

Lizzie and Lucky

Lockwood & Co.

Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter join forces in this seminal sci-fi series. 
Long Earth is series of parallel worlds that are similar to Earth, which can be reached by using an inexpensive device called a "Stepper". The closer worlds are almost identical to our Earth but the further you get the more they differ. They all share one similarity: humans have never existed there, at least not as we know them . . .

Long Earth

Set in the turbulent eighteenth century, Lord John is the lonely, tormented and courageous English officer first seen in the Outlander novels. He is a man who fights for the crown, his honour and his own secrets.

Lord John Grey

Lore Olympus

Lorien Legacies Reborn

Lost Boys

Lost Soul Series

Lottie

Lottie Brooks

Love & Hockey

Love in the Fast Lane

Love’s Academic

Meet Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI and member of 15th century Rome's most notorious family. Scandal and tragedy follow her everywhere as she struggles to choose between love and loyalty.

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