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

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Erin Goeres

The definitive character-led history of the most famous year in history, written in authoritative and dynamic prose by Dr Erin Goeres. 
 
On 5 January 1066, Edward the Confessor’s death plunged England into a succession crisis that would change the kingdom forever. Mere hours after Edward’s remains had been laid to rest, his brother-in-law Harold II seized power, inciting the wrath of two formidable challengers: King Haraldr Sigurðarson of Norway and Edward’s ambitious cousin, William, Duke of Normandy. 
 
In this startling new history, Dr Erin Goeres unveils the intense drama that unfolded, culminating in the tumultuous nineteen days between the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings in the autumn of 1066, and which led to the deaths of two monarchs and the end of Anglo-Scandinavian rule in England. 
 
Drawing together sources from the three regions at the heart of the fray – England, Normandy and Scandinavia – Goeres uncovers the complex histories, characters and motivations that drove these conflicts. We discover the stories of Tostig Godwinson, Harold II’s estranged brother; of William the Conqueror’s enigmatic wife, Matilda of Flanders, alleged lover of Harold of England; and we meet the regular people swept up in events beyond their control, such as an English farmer beheaded for his unwillingness to give up his fur-lined coat to a Norwegian invader. 
 
Nineteen Days in Autumn is a gripping tale of three nations entwined and the enthralling yet devastating consequences of their unravelling.

Nineteen Days in Autumn

A New History of 1066

Sinclair McKay

With the threat of invasion from Hitler's forces looming large in 1940, men of all ages and backgrounds assembled under the banner of the Home Guard. A voluntary force much later nicknamed ‘Dad’s Army’, at its height there were almost two million volunteers prepared to defend every corner of the kingdom, including notable figures like George Orwell, A.A. Milne, and C.S. Lewis. Many women took part too, including in the Women's Home Defence Force which formed in 1941. 
 
Far from the stereotype of charming incompetence, the Home Guard were in fact entirely serious in their approach. Many volunteers had fought in World War One, and radical veterans from the Spanish Civil War taught these men and boys new techniques in lethal guerilla fighting. Chocolate-box village greens were re-imagined as bloody battlefields, with duties including rifle and mortar training, night-time patrols and manning anti-aircraft guns – all on top of volunteers’ everyday jobs. Yet all of this was underpinned by an essential good humour, with moments of levity and comradery vital in keeping up a much-needed spirit of defiance. 
 
Sunday Times bestselling author Sinclair McKay tells the remarkable story of these courageous, highly-trained and often pioneering men and women through original archival research, vivid storytelling and insights into the beloved television comedy which has shaped the national memory of the Home Guard. With its vibrant personalities and high nostalgia factor, 'Dad's Army' tells this extraordinary story in full colour.

Dad’s Army

The Glorious True Story of the Home Guard

Simon Schama

Churchill and his painter locked in a struggle of stares and glares; Gainsborough watching his daughters run after a butterfly; a naked John Lennon five hours before his death. 
 
Simon Schama has written a tour de force about British portraits over the centuries in which the image-maker, the subject and everyone else looking on are brought unforgettably to life. Mesmerising in its extraordinary storytelling, and beautifully illustrated, The Face of Britain will change the way we see our past - and ourselves.

The Face of Britain

The Stories Behind the Nation’s Portraits

The Nation through Its Portraits

Roderick Bailey

A remarkable true story about saving life in wartime, not taking it 
 
 'A story destined to be told. A fascinating history of blood for the front line. Humbling, awe inspiring and life affirming.' Sue Black, author of All That Remains 
 
The Lifesavers were a little-known band of men and women at the forefront of groundbreaking battlefield care in the Second World War. 
 
As part of a new and pioneering service, unconventional and iconoclastic, they pushed and pulled blood from hundreds of thousands of donors into the veins of battle casualties all over the world. Deploying expert teams – officially the smallest units in the British Army – who risked their own lives to reach the wounded and sick, they transformed survival rates with an impact comparable to that of penicillin. 
 
Among them were pre-war GPs, conscientious objectors and a communist doctor who had transfused his first casualty in the Spanish Civil War. Prominent was Gladwin Buttle, a larger-than-life dynamo, who, in North Africa, defied shortages by sending blood into the desert in cleaned-out whisky bottles and sterilizing kit with a broken-down steamroller. Directing was Lionel Whitby – ‘the greatest vampire the world has known’ he was called in 1945 – whose own life was saved in 1918 by blood transfused on the Somme. 
 
Their skills and innovations saw action in some of the most important battles in recent history, forging lifelines that allies sought to replicate but enemies – to their cost – did not. Some continue to inspire life-saving methods of emergency care today. 
 
Bestselling historian Roderick Bailey follows their trailblazing work from the start of the conflict to its end, from Dunkirk and El Alamein to Normandy and the Burmese jungle. Unearthed from rigorous research among diaries, letters and other first-hand accounts, The Lifesavers – a gripping narrative of the Second World War presented from an entirely new angle – tells the full tale for the first time.

The Lifesavers

The Trailblazers of the Second World War Who Took Blood into Battle

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