Al Murray is a Perrier Award-winning comic, TV personality and, as 'The Pub Landlord', the author of the bestselling The Pub Landlord's Book of British Common Sense and Think Yourself British. Most recently, he has taken on the leadership of the Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP).

Al Murray

Al Murray's alter ego, The Pub Landlord, is one of the most recognizable and successful comic creations of the past twenty years, and Murray, who has won numerous awards and accolades, continues to fill arenas and theatres around the world. 
 
He is also the author of many successful books including Watching War Films with My Dad and Command, a sharply entertaining analysis of the key allied military leaders in the Second World War. He is well known for co-hosting the hugely popular Second World War history podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk with fellow bestselling military author James Holland. 
 
Arnhem: Black Tuesday is his first history book about a single campaign.

Actor and director Al Pacino is a unique and enduring figure in the world of American stage and film. He grew up in New York City’s South Bronx, attended the School of Performing Art, and studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio with Charles Laughton and the Actors Studio with mentor Lee Strasberg. 
 
 
He has been nominated for the Academy Award nine times, for movies including The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather Part II, and The Irishman, and won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1992 for Scent of a Woman. He has been nominated for the Golden Globe Award nineteen times, and won four, and has been nominated for three Tonys and won two. 
 
 
Pacino has been awarded the Kennedy Center Honor, the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, the National Merit of Arts from President Obama, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures.

Al Pacino

Al Pittampalli

Al Rodin is a writer and illustrator from London. He studied children's book illustration at Cambridge School of Art and received the 2019 Sebastian Walker Prize. Al enjoys working with a wide variety of materials including acrylic, watercolour and collage. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries around Europe and Asia, and he was selected for lllustrators' Exhibition at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in 2019. Little Echo is his first book.

Al Rodin

Al Smith

Alain Gheerbrant

Alain de Botton is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including The School of Life: An Emotional Education, How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel and The Course of Love. He is the founder of The School of Life (theschooloflife.com).

Alain de Botton

Alaina Urquhart is the science-loving co-host of the chart-topping show Morbid: A True Crime Podcast. As an autopsy technician by trade, she offers a unique perspective from deep inside the morgue. Alaina hails from Boston, where she lives with her wonderful husband, John, their three amazing daughters, and a ghost Puggle named Bailey. She is about 75 percent coffee, and truly believes she and Agent Clarice Starling could be friends. 
 
Before writing her first psychological horror novel, she received degrees in criminal justice, psychology, and biology. When she isn't hosting Morbid, she hosts the Parcast original show Crime Countdown, and a horror movie podcast called Scream!. Her days are usually spent either recording or eviscerating. The way she sees it, when she hangs up her microphone for the day, it's time to let the dead speak.

Alaina Urquhart

Alaine Hood

Alan Alda

Alan Ayckbourn

Born in London in 1939, Alan Ayckbourn is one of  the world's most popular and prolific playwrights. He has written 74  full length plays and more than 20 other revues and plays for children.  He is also an acclaimed director. Alan Ayckbourn was awarded a CBE in  1987. Ten years later to the day, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II  'for services to the theatre.'

Alan Baker

Alan Barker

Alan Beattie

Alan Bennett's television series Talking Heads has become a modern-day classic, as have many of his works for the stage, including Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, The Madness of George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George) and an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. The History Boys won the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, The Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the South Bank Award.

Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is one of Britain's best-loved and most highly acclaimed writers. He has written widely for radio, television and theatre. His latest play, The History Boys, won several awards, including Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Best Play and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. It also won six Tony Awards, including Best Play, following an extremely successful transfer to Broadway. In 2006 Bennett was named Author of the Year at the British Book Awards for Untold Stories, his collection of memoirs and diaries.

Alan Bishop

ALAN BOOTH was born in London in 1946 and travelled to Japan in 1970 to study Noh theatre. He stayed, working as a writer and film critic, until his untimely death in 1993.

Alan Booth

Alan Brazil is a Scottish broadcasting legend and former football player, most notably for Ipswich Town, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and internationally for Scotland. He played as a forward before being forced to retire due to a recurring back injury. 
 
After retirement, Alan moved into media presentation, initially on television, before a career in radio where for many years he has presented the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast show on TalkSPORT.

Alan Brazil

Alan Bullock

Alan Carr is one of Britain's most successful and treasured comedians. His unique humour and effortless stage presence have earned him a catalogue of awards including Best Chat Show host at the publicly voted for 2015 National Television Awards, winner of the 2013 BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance and 2013 British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Entertainment Personality. In previous years he has garnered a clutch of awards, from the 2012 National Television Award for Best Talk Show and the 2012 Loaded LAFTA Award for Best Stand-up to the 2010 TV Choice Awards for Best Entertainment Show. There were also nominations for Best New British Comedy &amp; Best Comedy Entertainment Personality at the 2009 British Comedy Awards. 
 
The success of the first series of his own chat show, 'Alan Carr: Chatty Man', in the summer of 2009, led to Channel 4 commissioning 16 further series' as well as numerous Christmas Specials and New Year Specstaculars. In September 2013, the 100th episode aired with A-list guests Justin Timberlake and Rihanna. Guests from past series include: Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Cameron Diaz, Vin Diesel, Adele, Grace Jones, Naomi Campbell, Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, Robin Williams, David Walliams, Mariah Carey, Russell Brand, Samuel L Jackson, Miley Cyrus, Robbie Williams, Bette Midler, Sharon Osbourne, One Direction, Gok Wan and Miranda Hart. 
 
The DVD of Alan's 2007 debut stand-up show, 'Tooth Fairy Live' topped the HMV charts and was a Christmas 2007 top seller. 
 
His best-selling debut autobiography 'Look Who It Is' was published in September 2008 by HarperCollins. 
 
In 2011, Alan travelled the country with his second live tour. 'Spexy Beast Live' was a 33-date arena tour and culminated in the successful DVD of the same name. 
 
Throughout 2015, Alan hit the road once again and performed at over 150 sold-out theatre's across the UK and Ireland with his 'Yap, Yap, Yap!' live show. His third stand up DVD 'Alan Carr - Yap Yap Yap! Live' was released by Universal Pictures (UK) in November 2016. 
 
2016 has also seen Alan go global with international performances of his Yap Yap Yap! live show throughout Scandinavia, Montreal (at the prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival) and can currently be seen on tour this summer in New Zealand and Australia this summer, with two shows at the iconic Sydney Opera House. 
 
Alan also hosts Channel 4's flagship fundraising show 'Stand Up To Cancer' which in 2014 went on to raise an amazing £14 million for Cancer Research. Alan returns once again to host 'Stand Up To Cancer' on Channel 4 this October. 
 
Alanatomy: The Inside Story is Alan's second memoir, and will be published by Penguin in October 2016.

Alan Carr

Alan Clark

Alan Clements

Alan Connor has been the question editor for BBC2's Only Connect and Richard Osman's House of Games. He is the author of books for Pointless and The Traitors and is the puzzle consultant for the BBC1 drama Ludwig. He writes puzzles for various newspapers and has written for Charlie Brooker series and Have I Got News for You. His favourite quiz question is: What word was intentionally omitted from the screenplay of The Godfather?

Alan Connor

Alan Connor is the author of Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword ("witty, charming, encyclopaedic and highly readable" - Spectator) and The Joy of Quiz ("An absolute delight" - Mail on Sunday). He has made quizzes for various TV shows and newspapers and written comedy including BBC Film's The Rack Pack, A Young Doctor's Notebook (Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe) and Have I Got News For You.

Alan Cowell

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Diarmaid MacCulloch

Edward VI died a teenager in 1553, yet his brief reign would shape the future of the nation, unleashing a Protestant revolution that propelled England into the heart of the Reformation. This dramatic account takes a fresh look at one of the most significant and turbulent periods in English history. 
 
'A challenging, elegant and persuasive biography of an unjustly neglected king' Jerry Brotton, author of This Orient Isle 
 
'MacCulloch puts the young Edward at the centre of the action ... as this excellent and lively study shows, his ghost continues to haunt the history of Anglicanism' Sunday Times 
 
'This is Reformation history as it should be written, not least because it resembles its subject matter: learned, argumentative, and, even when mistaken, never dull' Eamon Duffy, author of The Stripping of the Altars 
 
'One of the best historians writing in English today' Sunday Telegraph

Tudor Church Militant

Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation

Candice Millard

At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill believed that to achieve his ambition of becoming Prime Minister he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Although he had put himself in extreme danger in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba, glory and fame had eluded him. Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899 to cover the brutal colonial war against the Boers. Just two weeks after his arrival, he was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape - but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory alone. The story of his escape is extraordinary enough, but then Churchill enlisted, returned to South Africa, fought in several battles and ultimately liberated the men with whom he had been imprisoned. Millard tells a magnificent story of bravery, savagery and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters - including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener and Gandhi - with whom he would later share the world stage, and gives us an unexpected perspective on one of the iconic figures in our history.

Hero of the Empire

The Making of Winston Churchill

Artemis Cooper

Antony Beevor

Post liberation Paris - an epoch charged with political and conflicting emotions.  Liberation was greeted with joy but marked by recriminations and the trauma of purges.  The feverish intellectual arguments of the young took place amidst the mundane reality of hunger and fuel shortages.  This is a stunning historical account of one of the most stimulating periods in twentieth century French history.

Paris After the Liberation

1944 - 1949

Isobel Charman

The creation of a zoo in Dickensian London - when only one other existed across the world - is a story of jaw-dropping audacity. It is the story of trailblazing scientists, rival zookeepers and aristocratic naturalists collecting amazing animals from all four corners of the globe. 
 
It is the story of a weird and wonderful oasis in the heart of a swirling city, and of incredible characters, both human and animal - from Stamford Raffles and Charles Darwin to Jenny the orang-utan and Obaysch the celebrity hippo, the first that anyone in Britain had ever seen. 
 
Against a background of global Empire, domestic reform and industrialisation, this is a new history of a new world.

The Zoo

The Wild and Wonderful Tale of the Founding of London Zoo

Robert Gerwarth

In this highly original and gripping book Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War.  In large part it was not the fighting on the Western front which proved so ruinous to Europe's future, but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were wrecked by revolution, pogroms, mass expulsions and further major military clashes. Everywhere there were vengeful people, their lives racked by a murderous sense of injustice, and looking for the opportunity to revenge themselves on enemies real and imaginary.  Only a decade later, the rise of the Third Reich and other totalitarian states provided them with the opportunity they had been looking for.

The Vanquished

Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923

Brendan Simms

Britain has always had a tangled, complex, paradoxical role in Europe's history. It has invaded and been invaded, changed sides, stood aloof, acted with both brazen cynicism and the cloudiest idealism. Every century troops from the British isles have marched across the mainland in pursuit of a great complex of different goals, foremost among them the intertwined defence of parliamentary liberty in Britain and the 'Liberties of Europe'. Dynastically Britain has been closely linked to countries as varied as Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and France. 
 
In this bracing and highly enjoyable book, Brendan Simms describes the highlights and low-points in the Euro-British encounter, from the Dark Ages to the present. The critical importance of understanding this history is shown in the final chapter, which dramatizes the issues around British relations with the European Union and the how, far from being a narrowly legalistic or financial concern, a referendum on continued membership raises all kinds of fascinating questions about both the United Kingdom's own horizons and what it can offer to the Union's vision of itself.

Britain's Europe

A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation

Richard J. Evans

The Pursuit of Power draws on a lifetime of thinking about nineteenth-century Europe to create an extraordinarily rich, surprising and entertaining panorama of a continent undergoing drastic change. The aim of the book is to reignite the sense of wonder that permeated this remarkable era, as rulers and ruled navigated overwhelming cultural, political and technological changes. It was a time where what was seen as modern with amazing speed appeared old-fashioned, where huge cities sprang up in a generation, new European countries were created and where, for the first time, humans could communicate almost instantly over thousands of miles. 
 
Richard Evans gives full coverage to the revolutions, empire-building and wars that marked the nineteenth century, but the book is about so much more, whether it is illness, serfdom, religion or philosophy. The Pursuit of Power is a book by a historian at the height of his powers and an essential book for anyone trying to understand Europe, then or now.

The Pursuit of Power

Europe, 1815-1914

Daniel Todman

The most terrible emergency in Britain's history, the Second World War required an unprecedented national effort. 
 
Britain's War is a narrative of these epic events, an analysis of the myriad factors that shaped military success and failure, and an explanation of what the war tells us about the history of modern Britain. As compelling on the major military events as he is on the experience of ordinary people living through exceptional times, Todman suffuses his extraordinary book with a vivid sense of a struggle which left nobody unchanged - and explores why, despite terror, separation and deprivation, Britons were overwhelmingly willing to pay the price of victory.

Britain's War

Into Battle, 1937-1941

Daniel Beer

WINNER OF THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE 2017 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2017, THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2017 AND THE LONGMAN-HISTORY TODAY BOOK PRIZE 2017 
THE TIMES, SPECTATOR, BBC HISTORY and TLS BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
 
'Masterful, gripping ... filled with astonishing, vivid and heartbreaking stories of crime and punishment, of redemption, love and terrifying violence. It has an amazing cast of despots, murderers, whores and heroes. It's a wonderful read' Simon Sebag Montefiore 
 
It was known as 'the vast prison without a roof'. From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the Russian Revolution, the tsarist regime exiled more than one million prisoners and their families beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia. 
 
The House of the Dead, brings to life both the brutal realities of an inhuman system and the tragic and inspiring fates of those who endured it. This is the vividly told history of common criminals and political radicals, the victims of serfdom and village politics, the wives and children who followed husbands and fathers, and of fugitives and bounty-hunters. 
 
The tsars looked on Siberia as creating the ultimate political quarantine from the contagions of revolution. Generations of rebels - republicans, nationalists and socialists - were condemned to oblivion thousands of kilometres from European Russia. Over the nineteenth century, however, these political exiles transformed Siberia's mines, prisons and remote settlements into an enormous laboratory of revolution. 
 
This masterly work of original research taps a mass of almost unknown primary evidence held in Russian and Siberian archives to tell the epic story both of Russia's struggle to govern its monstrous penal colony and Siberia's ultimate, decisive impact on the political forces of the modern world. 
 
'An absolutely fascinating book, rich in fact and anecdote.' - David Aaronovitch 
 
'A splendid example of academic scholarship for a public audience. Yet even though he is an impressively calm and sober narrator, the injustices and atrocities pile up on every page.' - Dominic Sandbrook 
 
'A superb, colourful history of Siberian exile under the tsars' - The Times

The House of the Dead

Siberian Exile Under the Tsars

Norman Ohler

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 
 
'The most brilliant and fascinating book I have read in my entire life' Dan Snow 
 
'A huge contribution... remarkable' Antony Beevor, BBC RADIO 4 
 
'Extremely interesting ... a serious piece of scholarship, very well researched' Ian Kershaw 
 
The Nazis presented themselves as warriors against moral degeneracy. Yet, as Norman Ohler's gripping bestseller reveals, the entire Third Reich was permeated with drugs: cocaine, heroin, morphine and, most of all, methamphetamines, or crystal meth, used by everyone from factory workers to housewives, and crucial to troops' resilience - even partly explaining German victory in 1940. 
 
The promiscuous use of drugs at the very highest levels also impaired and confused decision-making, with Hitler and his entourage taking refuge in potentially lethal cocktails of stimulants administered by the physician Dr Morell as the war turned against Germany. While drugs cannot on their own explain the events of the Second World War or its outcome, Ohler shows, they change our understanding of it. Blitzed forms a crucial missing piece of the story.

Blitzed

Drugs in Nazi Germany

John Bowman

Over the past hundred years, Ireland has undergone profound political, social and cultural changes. But one thing that has not changed is the Irish genius for observation and storytelling, invective and self-scrutiny. Ireland: The Autobiography draws upon this genius to create a portrait of a century of Irish life through the words of the people who lived it. 
 
Broadcaster and historian John Bowman has mined archives, diaries and memoirs to create a remarkably varied and delightfully readable mosaic of voices and perspectives. Ireland: The Autobiography is a brilliantly selected, wide-ranging and engrossing take on the last century of Irish life. It gives us a portrait of Ireland unlike anything we've read before.

Ireland: The Autobiography

One Hundred Years of Irish Life, Told by Its People

John Preston

The bestselling book that inspired the Bafta-winning BBC drama 
 
Corruption. Blackmail. Conspiracy to murder. A Very English Scandal has all the hallmarks of a classic thriller with one difference. It's all true. 
 
In the late 1960s Jeremy Thorp, the charismatic leader of the Liberal Party, was at the height of his political career. But homosexuality had only just been legalized, and a former relationship with a younger man named Norman Scott threatened to destroy Thorp's carefully curated facade. Helped by fellow politicians, Thorpe schemed, deceived and embezzled until he saw only one way to silence his ex-lover for good. 
 
Meticulously researched and endlessly extraordinary, Thorp's trial captured the moment that British society discovered the truth about its political class - and learned just how far the Establishment will go to protect its own. 
 
'Gripping. A story of cack-handed assassins, buffoonish policemen, dodgy Home Secretaries' Daily Telegraph 
 
'I loved it; eccentric, dark, humane and English in the very best sense' Alain de Botton 
 
'Retold with masterful skill . . . It grips like a detective story' Daily Mail, Book of the Week

A Very English Scandal

Now a Major BBC Series Starring Hugh Grant

Catherine Merridale

By 1917 the European war seemed to be endless. Both sides in the fighting looked to new weapons, tactics and ideas to break a stalemate that was itself destroying Europe. In the German government a small group of men had a brilliant idea: why not sow further confusion in an increasingly chaotic Russia by arranging for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the most notorious of revolutionary extremists, currently safely bottled up in neutral Switzerland, to go home? 
 
Catherine Merridale's Lenin on the Train recreates Lenin's extraordinary journey from harmless exile in Zurich, across a Germany falling to pieces from the war's deprivations, and northwards to the edge of Lapland to his eventual ecstatic reception by the revolutionary crowds at Petrograd's Finland Station. 
 
Many thought Lenin was a mere 'useful idiot', others thought he would rapidly be imprisoned or killed, others that Lenin had in practice few followers and even less influence. They would all prove to be quite wrong.

Lenin on the Train

John Guy

History has pictured Elizabeth I as Gloriana, an icon of strength and power -- and has focused on the early years of her reign. But in 1583, when Elizabeth is fifty, there is relentless plotting among her courtiers -- and still to come is the Spanish Armada and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. We have not, until now, had the full picture. 
 
This gripping and vivid portrait of her life and times -- often told in her own words (and including details such as her love of chess and marzipan) -- reveals a woman who was insecure, human ('You know I am no morning woman'), and unpopular even with the men who fought for her. This is the real Elizabeth, for the first time.

Elizabeth

The Forgotten Years

Jerry Brotton

WINNER OF THE HISTORICAL WRITERS ASSOCIATION NON-FICTION CROWN 
 
AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 
 
'Fabulous, timely, a marvellous achievement' Spectator 
 
'A richly resonant work which recasts our understanding of the Elizabethan era' Daily Telegraph 
 
In 1570, after plots and assassination attempts against her, Elizabeth I was excommunicated by the Pope. It was the beginning of cultural, economic and political exchanges with the Islamic world of a depth not again experienced until the modern age. England signed treaties with the Ottoman Porte, received ambassadors from Morocco and shipped munitions to Marrakech in the hope of establishing an accord which would keep the common enemy of Catholic Spain at bay. This awareness of the Islamic world found its way into many of the great English cultural productions of the day - especially, of course, Shakespeare's Othello and The Merchant of Venice. This Orient Isle shows that England's relations with the Muslim world were far more extensive, and often more amicable, than we have ever appreciated, and that their influence was felt across the political, commercial and domestic landscape of Elizabethan England.

This Orient Isle

Elizabethan England and the Islamic World

David Horspool

Although he styled himself 'His Highness', adopted the court ritual of his royal predecessors, and lived in the former royal palaces of Whitehall and Hampton Court, Oliver Cromwell was not a king - in spite of the best efforts of his supporters to crown him. 
 
Yet, as David Horspool shows in this illuminating new portrait of England's Lord Protector, Cromwell, the Puritan son of Cambridgeshire gentry, wielded such influence that it would be a pretence to say that power really lay with the collective. The years of Cromwell's rise to power, shaped by a decade-long civil war, saw a sustained attempt at the collective government of England; the first attempts at a real Union of Britain; the beginnings of empire; a radically new solution to the idea of a national religion; atrocities in Ireland; and the readmission to England of the Jews, a people officially banned for over three and a half centuries. At the end of it, Oliver Cromwell had emerged as the country's sole ruler: to his enemies, and probably to most of his countrymen, his legacy looked as likely to last as that of the Stuart dynasty he had replaced.

Oliver Cromwell (Penguin Monarchs)

England's Protector

Peter H. Wilson

A great, sprawling, ancient and unique entity, the Holy Roman Empire, from its founding by Charlemagne to its destruction by Napoleon a millennium later, formed the heart of Europe. It was a great engine for inventions and ideas, it was the origin of many modern European states, from Germany to the Czech Republic, its relations with Italy, France and Poland dictated the course of countless wars - indeed, European history as a whole makes no sense without it. 
 
In this strikingly ambitious book, Peter H. Wilson explains how the empire worked. It is not a chronological history, but an attempt to convey to readers the Empire's unique nature, why it was so important and how it changed over its existence. The result is a tour de force - a book that raises countless questions about the nature of political and military power, about diplomacy and the nature of European civilization and about the legacy of the empire, which has continued to haunt its offspring, from imperial and Nazi Germany to the European Union.

The Holy Roman Empire

A Thousand Years of Europe's History

T. M. Devine

There can be no relationship in Europe's history more creative, significant, vexed and uneasy than that between Scotland and England. From the Middle Ages onwards the island of Britain has been shaped by the unique dynamic between Edinburgh and London, exchanging inhabitants, monarchs, money and ideas, sometimes in a spirit of friendship and at others in a spirit of murderous dislike. 
 
Tom Devine's seminal new book explores this extraordinary history in all its ambiguity, from the seventeenth century to the present. When not undermining each other with invading armies, both Scotland and England have broadly benefitted from each other's presence - indeed for long periods of time nobody questioned the union which joined them. But as Devine makes clear, it has for the most part been a relationship based on consent, not force, on mutual advantage, rather than antagonism - and it has always held the possibility of a political parting of the ways. 
 
With the United Kingdom under a level of scrutiny unmatched since the eighteenth century Independence or Union is the essential guide.

Independence or Union

Scotland's Past and Scotland's Present

Olga Chekhova was the niece of Anton Chekhov, a stunning Russian beauty and a famous Nazi-era film actress who Hitler counted among his friends. After fleeing Bolshevik Moscow for Berlin in 1920, she was recruited by her composer brother Lev, to work for Soviet intelligence. In return, her family were allowed to join her. 
 
The extraordinary story of how the whole family survived the Russian Revolution, the civil war, the rise of Hitler, the Stalinist Terror, and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union is a breathtaking tale of compromise and survival in a merciless age. 
 
In Antony Beevor's spellbinding narrative, this single story paints a vivid picture of an extraordinary era.

The Mystery of Olga Chekhova

A Life Torn Apart By Revolution And War

The true story of a family torn apart by revolution and war

Paul Kennedy

Paul Kennedy's now classic book traces Britain's rise and fall as a sea power from the Tudors to the present day. Challenging the traditional view that the British are natural 'sons of the waves', he suggests instead that the country's fortunes as a significant maritime force have always been bound up with its economic growth. In doing so, he contributes significantly to the centuries-long debate between 'continental' and 'maritime' schools of strategy over Britain's policy in times of war. Setting British naval history within a framework of national, international, economic, political and strategic considerations, he offers a fresh approach to one of the central questions in British history.

The Rise And Fall of British Naval Mastery

Sally Bedell Smith

This definitive biography of Queen Elizabeth II is the first all-round, up-close picture of one of the most fascinating, enigmatic and admired women in the world. 
 
With exclusive access to the Queen's personal letters, close friends and associates, this intimate biography is a treasure trove of fresh insights on her public persona and her private life. It also explores her close relationships with her family, her children, and Prince Philip. 
 
This book will transport you back to a moment nine decades ago when a young Princess Elizabeth first discovered her destiny. Here we see how over the years she has navigated through the political challenges and personal sacrifices ahead of her, to put the Crown, the Country and her unswerving sense of duty first. 
 
There is so much more to our Queen than that which is reported, but in these pages we at last get to meet the leader, strategist, and diplomat; the daughter, wife, mother and grandmother - Elizabeth the Queen.

Elizabeth the Queen

The most intimate biography of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

James Ross

Henry VI, son of the all-conquering Henry V, was one of the least able and least successful of English kings. His long reign, which started when he was only nine months old, ended in catastrophe, with the loss of England's territories in France and a bankrupt England's long decline into civil war: the wars of the Roses. Yet, failure though Henry undoubtedly was, he remains an enigma. Was he always, as he became in the last disastrous years of his rule, a holy fool, simple-minded to the point of insanity and prey to the ambitions of others? Or was he more active and, as some have suggested, actively malign? In this groundbreaking new portrait, James Ross shows a king whose priorities diverged sharply from what England expected of its monarchs, and whose fitful engagement with government was directly, though not solely, responsible for the disasters that engulfed the kingdom during his reign.

Henry VI (Penguin Monarchs)

Dominic Lieven

In the summer of 1812 Napoleon, the master of Europe, marched into Russia with the largest army ever assembled, confident that he would sweep everything before him. Yet less than two years later his empire lay in ruins, and Russia had triumphed. This is the first history to explore in depth Russia's crucial role in the Napoleonic Wars, re-creating the epic battle between two empires as never before. 
 
Dominic Lieven writes with great panache and insight to describe from the Russians' viewpoint how they went from retreat, defeat and the burning of Moscow to becoming the new liberators of Europe; the consequences of which could not have been more important. 
 
Ultimately this book shows, memorably and brilliantly, Russia embarking on its strange, central role in Europe's existence, as both threat and protector - a role that continues, in all its complexity, into our own lifetimes.

Russia Against Napoleon

The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814

Serhii Plokhy

Located at the western edge of the Eurasian steppe, Ukraine has long been the meeting place of empires - Roman to Ottoman, Habsburg to Russian - and they all left their imprint on the landscape, the language and the people living within these shifting borders. In this authoritative book, Harvard Professor Serhii Plokhy traces the history of Ukraine from the arrival of the Vikings in the tenth century to the current Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Fascinating and multilayered, The Gates of Europe is the essential guide to understanding not just Ukraine's past but also its future.

The Gates of Europe

A History of Ukraine

Barbara Tuchman

ONE OF THE GREATEST SPY STORIES OF ALL TIME 
 
Nothing can stop an enemy from picking wireless messages out of the free air - and nothing did. In England, Room 40 was born . . . 
 
In January 1917, with the First World War locked in terrible stalemate and America still neutral, German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman gambled the future of the conflict on a single telegram. 
 
But this message was intercepted and decoded in Whitehall's legendary Room 40 - and Zimmerman's audacious scheme for world domination was exposed, bringing America into the war and changing the course of history. 
 
The story of how this happened, and the incalculable consequences are thrillingly told in Barbara Tuchman's brilliant exploration.

The Zimmermann Telegram

The Astounding Espionage Operation That Propelled America into the First World War

Javier Marías

'Venice is a hypercity. Here the narrow becomes wide, the near becomes far, the timeless becomes transient, the limited becomes infinite...' 
 
Venice is a place of fascinating contradictions, equally full of glamour and chaos. It has a unique romantic appeal that lingers in the imagination, attracting millions of travellers each year, and yet truly native Venetians are a secretive, elusive tribe. 
 
As a young man, Javier Marías briefly made his home in Venice. Since then he has left and returned to the city many times, exploring it over the course of more than thirty years. With characteristic thoughtfulness and elegance, he sets out to uncover the heart of this strange and enchanting place.

Venice, An Interior

John Edwards

The elder daughter of Henry VIII, Mary I (1553-58) became England's ruler on the unexpected death of her brother Edward VI. Her short reign is one of the great potential turning points in the country's history. As a convinced Catholic and the wife of Philip II, king of Spain and the most powerful of all European monarchs, Mary could have completely changed her country's orbit, making it a province of the Habsburg Empire and obedient again to Rome. 
 
These extraordinary possibilities are fully dramatized in John Edward's superb short biography. The real Mary I has almost disappeared under the great mass of Protestant propaganda that buried her reputation during her younger sister, Elizabeth I's reign. But what if she had succeeded?

Mary I (Penguin Monarchs)

The Daughter of Time

On 16 December 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes on the Belgian/German border. Although Hitler's generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. The Ardennes offensive, with more than a million men involved, became the greatest battle of the war in western Europe. 
 
In January 1945, when the Red Army launched its onslaught towards Berlin, the once-feared German war machine was revealed to be broken beyond repair. The Ardennes was the battle which finally broke the Wehrmacht.

Ardennes 1944

Hitler's Last Gamble

Tim Blanning

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, dominated the 18th century in the same way that Napoleon dominated the start of the 19th - a force of nature, a caustic, ruthless, brilliant military commander, a monarch of exceptional energy and talent, and a knowledgeable patron of artists, architects and writers, most famously Voltaire. From early in his reign he was already a legendary figure - fascinating even to those who hated him. 
 
Tim Blanning's brilliant biography recreates a remarkable era, a world which would be swept away shortly after Frederick's death by the French Revolution. Equally at home on the battlefield or in the music room at Frederick's extraordinary miniature palace of Sanssouci, Blanning draws on a lifetime's obsession with the 18th century to create a work that is in many ways the summation of all that he has learned in his own rich and various career. Frederick's spectre has hung over Germany ever since: an inspiration, a threat, an impossible ideal - Blanning at last allows us to understand him in his own time.

Frederick the Great

King of Prussia

Christopher Tyerman

In this highly original and enjoyable book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on the massive, all-encompassing and hugely costly business of actually preparing a crusade. The efforts of many thousands of men and women, who left their lands and families in Western Europe, and marched off to a highly uncertain future in the Holy Land and elsewhere have never been sufficiently understood. How to Plan a Crusade is fascinating on diplomacy, communications, propaganda, the use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, credit, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer. It brings to life an extraordinary era in a novel and surprising way.

How to Plan a Crusade

Reason and Religious War in the High Middle Ages

Don’t Disturb the…

Dr Bloom

Dragon Frontier

Dragonborn

Dragoneye

Dragonlance Destinies

Dread Pirate Fleur

Dream Master

Drenai Novels

DropZone

Duggee's Little Library

Dungeon Crawler Carl Series

Duty Calls

A gripping three-part series based on real historical events. Three Roman legions massacred. Three Imperial Eagles lost. One man vies for revenge.

Eagles of Rome

For thirty years, the O’Donnels have ruled the East End, but there’s a price to pay for this power, and it’s usually in blood.

Eastend Trilogy

Easterleigh Hall

Eat Around Italy

Eat Around Spain

Eat Right For Blood Type

Ebb and Flo

Ed Reardon's Week

Elemental Emergence

Elfies Spellbook

Eliot Biographies

Emma Trilogy

Emma and James

Empire of Salt

In the Swedish town of Engelsfors, a mysterious forcedraws seven teenagers together. They are the Chosen Ones, and they have been chosen to drive back the demons that threaten to overwhelm the world

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