Dave Gibbons

John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentator who has been speaking about climate change in Ireland for over a decade. The Lie of the Land is his first book.

John Gibbons

Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was an immediate success and won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Nightingale Wood (1938), The Bachelor (1944), Westwood (1946), and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Stella Gibbons

Edward Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Steve Bell

In his daily cartoon for the Guardian and his long-running strip, IF, in the same paper, Steve Bell has proved that he is without equal in Britain as political cartoonist. Savage, funny, rude, constantly transgressing the rules of good taste, and of course beautifully drawn his cartoons are hated by those they lampoon and loved by everyone who likes to see authority subverted. In his new collection he covers the years of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, 2010-2015, fertile ground for Bell’s genius. From George Osborne in his bondage gear, the ‘Quiet Man’ zombie Ian Duncan Smith, Cable the elephant, Cameron the talking condom and Clegg the butler to Kipling and the IF penguins, every awful moment of the coalition years is re-run before your eyes … but Steve Bell style: ‘outrageous, anarchic, brilliant, sometimes inexplicable and a bit mad (not really)’ to quote John Pilger.

The Graphic Novel

Tim Benson

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2024 offers a superbly sharp and wickedly witty record of a year of landmark landslides, Trumpian trials, Post Office revelations, and one soggy Sunak. This collection features the work of Peter Brookes, Steve Bell, Morten Morland, Nicola Jennings, Christian Adams, Dave Brown, Ella Baron and many more of the nation’s finest cartoonists, alongside captions from Britain's leading cartoon expert. It’s a magnificent record of twelve months of political pandemonium and savage satire, and the perfect gift for friends, family, or just for yourself.

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2024

Scott Shapiro

Fancy Bear was hungry. Looking for embarrassing information about Hillary Clinton, the elite hacking unit within Russian military intelligence broke into the Democratic National Committee network, grabbed what it could, and may have contributed to the election of Donald Trump. 
 
Robert Morris was curious. Experimenting one night, the graduate student from Cornell University released "the Great Worm" and became the first person to crash the internet. 
 
Dark Avenger was in love. To impress his crush, the Bulgarian hacker invented the first mutating computer virus-engine and nearly destroyed the anti-virus industry. 
 
Why is the internet so insecure? How do hackers exploit its vulnerabilities? Fancy Bear Goes Phishing tells the stories of five great hacks, their origins, motivations and consequences. As well as Fancy Bear, Robert Morris and Dark Avenger, we meet Cameron Lacroix, a sixteen-year-old from South Boston, who hacked Paris Hilton's cell phone because he wanted to be famous and Paras Jha, a Rutgers undergraduate, who built a giant botnet designed to get him out of his calculus exam and disrupt the online game Minecraft, but which almost destroyed the internet in the process. Scott Shapiro's five stories demonstrate that computer hacking is not just a tale of technology, but of human beings. 
 
Yet as Shapiro shows, hackers do not just abuse computer code - they exploit the philosophical principles of computation: the very features that make computers possible also make hacking possible. He explains how our information society works, the ways our data is stored and manipulated, and why it is so subject to exploitation. Both intellectual romp and dramatic true-crime narrative, Fancy Bear Goes Phishing exposes the secrets of the digital age.

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing

The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2026 offers a superbly sharp and wickedly witty visual record of a year of Labour tribulations, Trumpian endeavours, economic tremors, and almost ubiquitous political gaffes and missteps. This collection features the work of Peter Brookes, Morten Morland, Nicola Jennings, Christian Adams, Dave Brown, Ella Baron and many more of the nation’s finest cartoonists, alongside captions from Britain's leading cartoon expert. It’s a magnificent record of twelve months of political pandemonium and savage satire, and the perfect gift for friends, family, or just for yourself.

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2026

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2025 offers a superbly sharp and wickedly witty visual record of a year of Labour tribulations, Trumpian endeavours, economic tremors, and almost ubiquitous political gaffes and missteps. This collection features the work of Peter Brookes, Morten Morland, Nicola Jennings, Christian Adams, Dave Brown, Ella Baron and many more of the nation’s finest cartoonists, alongside captions from Britain's leading cartoon expert. It’s a magnificent record of twelve months of political pandemonium and savage satire, and the perfect gift for friends, family, or just for yourself.

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2025

Lucien Young

Leavis Carroll

Lying on a riverbank on a lazy summer’s afternoon – 23rd June 2016, to be precise – Alice spots a flustered-looking white rabbit called Dave calling for a referendum. Following him down a rabbit-hole, she emerges into a strange new land, where up is down, black is white, experts are fools and fools are experts... 
 
She meets such characters as the Corbynpillar, who sits on a toadstool smoking his hookah and being no help to anyone; Humpty Trumpty, perched on a wall he wants the Mexicans to pay for; the Cheshire Twat, who likes to disappear leaving only his grin, a pint, and the smell of scotch eggs remaining; and the terrifying Queen of Heartlessness, who’ll take off your head if you dare question her plan for Brexit. Will Alice ever be able to find anyone who speaks sense?

Alice in Brexitland

Arundhati Roy

'At magic hour; when the sun has gone but the light has not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke . . .' 
 
Anjum lives in a graveyard, gathering around her the misfits and outcasts of Delhi's bustling streets. Tilo is a Kashmiri woman, brilliant and beautiful, fated to be loved by three rival men. 
 
When Anjum takes in an abandoned baby, it is Tilo who claims the child as her own - and so begins a tale that will sweep across twenty years, crossing the cities and forests of a teeming continent . . .

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017

Bella Lack

Across the planet, the futures of young people hang in the balance as they face the harsh realities of the environmental crisis. 
 
This urgent book chronicles the lives of the diverse young people on the frontlines of the environmental crisis around the world, amplifying the stories of those living at the heart of the crisis. 
 
Advocating for the protection of both people and the planet, Bella restores the beating heart to global environmental issues, from air pollution, to deforestation and overconsumption by telling the stories of those most directly affected. Transporting us from the humming bounty of Ecuador's Choco Rainforest and the graceful arcs of the Himalayan Mountains, to the windswept plains and vibrant vistas of life in Altiplano, Bella speaks to young activists from around the world including Dara McAnulty, Afroz Shah and Artemisa Xakriabá and vividly brings the crisis to life. 
 
Bella's manifestos for change will inspire you to rediscover the wonders and wilds of nature, listen to different perspectives and, ultimately, change the way you think about our planet in crisis. This is your chance to hear the urgent stories of an endangered species too often overlooked: the children of the Anthropocene.

The Children of the Anthropocene

Stories from the Young People at the Heart of the Climate Crisis

Keith Lowe

The end of the Second World War saw a terrible explosion of violence across Europe. Prisoners murdered jailers. Soldiers visited atrocities on civilians. Resistance fighters killed and pilloried collaborators. Ethnic cleansing, civil war, rape and murder were rife in the days, months and years after hostilities ended. Exploring a Europe consumed by vengeance, Savage Continent is a shocking portrait of an until-now unacknowledged time of lawlessness and terror.

Savage Continent

Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

John Wyndham

David Strorm's father doesn't approve of Angus Morton's unusually large horses, calling them blasphemies against nature. Little does he realize that his own son, his niece Rosalind and their friends, have their own secret aberration which would label them as mutants. But as David and Rosalind grow older it becomes more difficult to conceal their differences from the village elders. Soon they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands ... 
 
The Chrysalids is a post-nuclear story of genetic mutation in a devastated world, which tells of the lengths the intolerant will go to to keep themselves pure.

The Chrysalids

Orlando Figes

From Orlando Figes, international bestselling author of A People's Tragedy, Just Send Me Word is the moving true story of two young Russians whose love survived Stalin's Gulag. 
 
Lev and Svetlana, kept apart for fourteen years by the Second World War and the Gulag, stayed true to each other and exchanged thousands of secret letters as Lev battled to survive in Stalin's camps. Using this remarkable cache of smuggled correspondence, Orlando Figes tells the tale of two incredible people who, swept along in the very worst of times, kept their devotion alive. 
 
Orlando Figes was granted exclusive access to the thousands of letters between Lev and Sveta that form the foundation of Just Send Me Word, and he was able to interview the couple in person, then in their nineties. These real-time and largely uncensored letters form the largest cache of Gulag letters ever found. 
 
Reviews: 
 
'One is overcome with admiration for the kindness, bravery and generosity of people in terrible peril ... It is impossible to read without shedding tears' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Financial Times 
 
'This powerful narrative by a distinguished historian will take its place not just in history but in literature' Robert Massie 
 
'Electrifying, passionate, devoted, despairing, exhilarating ... a tale of hope, resilience, grit and love' The Times 
 
 
 
'Moving ... a remarkable discovery' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 
 
'The gulag story lacks individuals for us to sympathise with: a Primo Levi, an Anne Frank or even an Oskar Schindler. Just Send Me Word may well be the book to change that' Oliver Bullough, Independent 
 
'Immensely touching ... [a] heartening gem of a book' Anna Reid, Literary Review 
 
'The remarkable true story of a love affair between two Soviet citizens ... as much a literary challenge as a historical one: the book can be read as a non-fiction novel' Telegraph 
 
'Remarkable ... Figes, selecting and then interpreting this mass of letters, makes them tell two kinds of story. The first is a uniquely detailed narrative of the gulag, of the callous, slatternly universe which consumed millions of lives ... The second is about two people determined not to lose each other' Neal Ascherson, Guardian 
 
'A quiet, moving and memorable account of life in a totalitarian state ... The book often reads like a novel ... captivating' Evening Standard 
 
'Orlando Figes has wrought something beautiful from dark times' Ian Thomson, Observer 
 
'A heart-rending record of extraordinary human endurance' Kirkus Reviews 
 
'[A] remarkable tale of love and devotion during the worst years of the USSR ... [Figes's] fine narrative pacing enhances this moving, memorable story' Publishers Weekly 
 
About the author: 
 
Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Peasant Russia, Civil War, A People's Tragedy, Natasha's Dance, The Whisperers and Crimea. He lives in Cambridge and London. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.

Just Send Me Word

A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag

Sally Phillips

Kate Brooke

A hilarious 90&rsquo;s BBC Radio 4 sitcom performed by an all-star cast Starring comedian John Fortune, best known for the satirical TV show Bremner, Bird and Fortune, and screen legend Eleanor Bron, Protesting Too Much is written by Sally Phillips and Kate Brooke. A classic comic caper that will have you in stitches.Set on the eve of the 1997 general election, bumbling Conservative MP George Dank climbs a tree in protest at the building of a new bypass through his constituency. The protest soon draws all the wrong kind of attention as smears hit the newspaper, orchestrated by the villainous Robbins. To make matters worse, university job cuts are looming, which means George could be soon joined by his scholarly wife, Hermione. Hermione&rsquo;s hero is Dante and she can&rsquo;t help finding parallels between the poet and her husband. As she falls in love all over again with her formally inept, but now seemingly dashing husband, things get complicated when their daughter Anne comes to join them too&hellip; Will the disaster-prone MP ever be able to climb down from his bypass protest? Is Hermione&rsquo;s instruction of fellow protestors in medieval siege tactics really the best idea? And what on earth will they do with that stuffed owl? The battle rages and George is up a tree - can he save his family, the constituency and moreover, the day?Protesting Too Much writer Sally Phillips is an actor, comedian, and television presenter. Phillips is known for her roles in Jam &amp; Jerusalem, I&rsquo;m Alan Partridge and Miranda as well as playing the title role in the BBC Radio 4 comedy show Clare in the Community. Kate Brooke is a film and TV writer whose credits include Mr Selfridge and A Discovery of Witches. This hilarious sitcom also features cameos from broadcasting legends Brian Perkins and John Humphrys.Cast and creditsWritten by Sally Phillips and Kate BrookeProduced by Jane BerthoudGeorge Dank - John Fortune 
Hermione Dank - Eleanor Bron 
Anne Dank - Louisa Milwood-Haigh 
Robbins - Brian Bowles 
Dan Richard/ Ernie 2- Chris Pavlo 
Skip/Gladys/Irma/WPC Pierce - Elliott Nicholls 
Jennifer/Aurora - Sally Phillips 
Taxi Driver/Nigel/Peter/Ernie 1/Ken/Sarge/Security Guard - Alan FrancisBrian Perkins - as himselfJohn Humphrys - as himselfFirst Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 30 Jul &ndash; 3 Sep 1997&copy;2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Protesting Too Much

A BBC Radio 4 Sitcom

Tim Parks

'Elegantly written, full of wit and charm, this is travel writing at its very best' Orlando Figes 
 
In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy's legendary revolutionary hero, fled Rome and led 4,000 of his men hundreds of miles through Umbria and Tuscany, then across the Apennines, Italy's mountainous spine, toward the refuge of the Venetian Republic. After thirty-two exhausting days of skirmishes and adventures, only 250 survivors reached the Adriatic coast. 
 
This hair-raising journey is brought vividly to life by bestselling author Tim Parks, who in the blazing summer of 2019, followed in Garibaldi's footsteps. A fascinating portrait of Italy past and present, The Hero's Way is a celebration of determination, creativity and desperate courage.

The Hero's Way

Walking with Garibaldi from Rome to Ravenna

Nichola Raihani

'A phenomenally important book' Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins 
 
Why do we live in families? 
Why do we help complete strangers? 
Why do we compare ourselves to others? 
Why do we cooperate? 
 
The science of cooperation tells us not only how we got here, but also where we might end up. In The Social Instinct Nichola Raihani introduces us to other species who, like us, live and work together. From the pied babblers of the Kalahari to the cleaner fish of the Great Barrier Reef, they happen to be some of the most fascinating and extraordinarily successful species on this planet. What do we have in common with these animals, and what can we learn from them? The Social Instinct is an exhilarating, far-reaching and thought-provoking journey through all life on Earth, with profound insights into what makes us human and how our societies work. 
 
'A pleasing juxtaposition of insightful scientific theory with illuminating anecdotes' Richard Dawkins 
 
'Surprising, thoughtful and, best of all, endlessly entertaining' Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling 
 
'A superb book about how important cooperation is' Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors

The Social Instinct

What Nature Can Teach Us About Working Together

How Cooperation Shaped the World

Graham Harvey

Over then past fifty years the British countryside has changed out of all recognition. A wide range of wildlife species are disappearing - victims of modern intensive farming, of pesticides and fertilisers and the sheer relentless pressure to maximise output from every hedge bank and field corner. It need not have happened. The loss of our wildlife and countryside has come about through a deliberate and sustained national policy, one that costs the British people 8 billion a year. 
 
The Killing of the Countryside is a devastating attack on modern British agricultural policy and practice and a plea for a return to natural cycles, an end to subsidies and the domination of agribusiness, and for a safe, sustainable farming system. 
 
Winner of the 1997 BP Natural World Book Award.

The Killing Of The Countryside

Peter Kropotkin

'Don't compete! - competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it!' 
 
Welcome to the anarchist history of the world. In this lively, provocative work, Peter Kropotkin argues that 'mutual aid' is a natural instinct in all of us, animal and human. Cooperation, reciprocity, support: these, for Kropotkin, are the overlooked foundations of our history. 
 
From the earliest days of evolution through to artisanal guilds, indigenous nomads and even the Royal National Lifeboat Association, it is a pragmatic, mutually beneficial bond to our fellow humans that has allowed us to survive. In this, Kropotkin challenges all the major orthodoxies of his age, from individualism and social Darwinism to Marxist theories of the saviour state. Instead, these essays insist that a better life for all of us - and our planet - begins when we reject competition, and embrace the local, the mutual and the collective.

Mutual Aid

A Factor of Evolution

Mala Kacenberg

Growing up in a Polish village on the fringes of a deep forest, Mala has a wonderful childhood. But when the German invasion reduces her loved ones to starvation, Mala takes matters into her own hands and sneaks out to find food. On her way back, she is handed a smuggled letter that reveals her family and friends have been rounded up for deportation. With only her cat, Malach for company, she must flee. 
 
Malach becomes her family, her only respite from loneliness, and a guide through unfathomable darkness. Together, they navigate forests, outwit soldiers, and, against all odds, survive.

Mala's Cat

The moving and unforgettable true story of one girl's survival during the Holocaust

Timothy Snyder

Under Hitler and Stalin the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered fourteen million people in the bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow. 
 
The killing fields extended from central Polads to western Russia. For twelve savage years, on this bloodsoaked soil an average of one million individuals - mostly women, children and the aged - were murdered every year. Though in 1939 these lands became battlefields, not one of these fourteen million was killed in combat. They were victims of a murderous policy, not casualties of war. 
 
Int his deeply unsettling and revelatory book, Timothy Snyder gives voice to the testimony of the victims through the letters home, the notes flung from trains, the diaries on corpses. It is a brilliantly researched, profoundly humane and authoritative bok that demands we pay attention to those that history is in danger of forgetting.

Bloodlands

THE book to help you understand today’s Eastern Europe

Richard Lloyd Parry

** Richard Lloyd Parry is the winner of the 2018 Rathbones Folio Prize ** 
 
In the last years of the twentieth century, Richard Lloyd Parry found himself in the vast island nation of Indonesia, one of the most alluring, mysterious and violent countries in the world. For thirty-two years it had been paralysed by the grip of the dictator and mystic General Suharto. But now the age of Suharto was reaching its end, giving way to a new era of chaos and superstition - the 'time of madness' predicted centuries before by poets and seers. 
 
On the island of Borneo, tribesmen embarked on a savage war of head-hunting and cannibalism. Vast jungles burned uncontrollably; money lost its value; there were plane crashes and volcanic eruptions. After the tumultuous fall of Suharto came the vote of independence from Indonesia for the tiny occupied country of East Timor. And it was here, trapped in the besieged compound of the United Nations, that Lloyd Parry reached his own painful, personal crisis.

In The Time Of Madness

Ernesto Che Guevara

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-modern-classics/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Linked_text&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_Modern_Classics_Series_26_06">Choose 3 timeless classics for only £21 over on the Penguin Shop</a>

In 1967 Che Guevara left Cuba to lead the Bolivian Liberation Army. In the jungles of Bolivia they attempted to initiate a revolution like that in Cuba, in which Che had played such a central role. The opposing Bolivian Army was backed by the CIA, and Che and his men fought bravely in the jungle of Bolivia, with Che keeping the spirits of his men up and contending with logistical and supply difficulties, keeping the revolutionary fervour in his heart even as he notes the days of his childrens' birthdays passing. 
 
Che Guevara was executed by the Bolivian Army on 8th October 1967. The notes smuggled out of his backpack back to Cuba make up this notebook, the last record of a man who truly changed the world.

The Bolivian Diary

BBC Radio Comedy

Three more series of the flagship comedy show presented by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis 
 
The Now Show returns to put a smile on your face from a safe distance, with more topical sketches, stand-up, songs and chat. 
 
In these 19 episodes, recorded from their home studios and broadcast to a remote audience, presenters Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis are joined by a plethora of special guests including Lucy Porter, Huge Davies, Gemma Arrowsmith, Zoe Lyons, George Fouracres, Jena Friedman, Darren Harriott, Lost Voice Guy, Eshaan Akbar, Jessica Fostekew, Chris McCausland, Daliso Chaponda, Janine Harouni and Laura Lexx. 
 
With their characteristic wit and satirical flair, they crack wise at all things news, from the COVID-19 disruption and the vaccine rollout to Dominic Cummings' resignation, the US presidential election, Harry and Meghan's explosive Oprah Winfrey interview, Boris Johnson's new briefing room and the upcoming 2022 'Festival of Brexit'. 
 
NB: Contains humour and language that some listeners may find offensive 
 
Cast and credits 
Presented by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis 
Written by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis with the cast 
Additional material by Jeffrey Aidoo, Simon Alcock, Donald Alexander, Rebecca Bain, Liam Beirne, Alex Bertulis-Fernandes, Catherine Brinkworth,Suchandrika Chakrabarti, Laura Claxton, Tasha Dhanraj, Charlie Dinkin, Toussaint Douglas, Tania Edwards, Hannah Fairweather, Aidan Fitzmaurice, Georgie Flinn, Charlie George, Gareth Gwynn, Jon Hunter, Rajiv Karia, Alex Kealy, Athena Kugblenu, Ola Labib, Helena Langdon, Jenny Laville,Laura Major,Ambika Mod, Robin Morgan, Mo Omar, Mary O'Connell, Alfie Packham, Mike Shepherd,Katie Storey, Josh Weller 
 
Produced by Adnan Ahmed, Julia McKenzie, Victoria Lloyd and Pete Strauss 
Production Co-ordinators: Caroline Barlow and Carina Andrews 
Editor/Engineer: David Thomas 
A BBC Studios Production 
 
Series 56 featuring: Eshaan Akbar, Gemma Arrowsmith, Joe Barnes, Sara Barron, Scott Bennett, Huge Davies, George Fouracres, Dominic Frisby, Darren Harriott, Luke Kempner, Sooz Kempner, Rosie Jones, Zoe Lyons, Chris McCausland, Robin Morgan, Geoff Norcott, Rachel Parris, Lucy Porter, Jess Robinson, Kai Samra, Tim Sutton, Ellie Taylor, Andy Zaltzman 
 
Series 57 featuring: Eshaan Akbar, Gemma Arrowsmith, Karen Bartke, Beardyman, Josh Berry, Catherine Bohart, Huge Davies, Sophie Duker, Flo and Joan, Jena Friedman, George Fouracres, Ivo Graham, Darren Harriott, Harry and Chris, Luke Kempner, Sooz Kempner, Sarah Keyworth, Matt Kirshen, Lost Voice Guy, Zoe Lyons, Patrick Maguire, Geoff Norcott, Katie Norris, Jess Robinson, Emma Sidi, Tim Sutton, Ellie Taylor, Felicity Ward 
 
Series 58 featuring: Eshaan Akbar, Gemma Arrowsmith, Dane Baptiste, Karen Bartke, Beardyman, Ken Cheng, Daliso Chaponda, Alun Cochrane, Huge Davies, Jessica Fostekew, Jason Forbes, George Fouracres, Chiara Goldsmith, Felix Hagen, Janine Harouni, Kieran Hodgson, Luke Kempner, Sooz Kempner, Laura Lexx, Ria Lina, Emily Lloyd-Saini, Zoe Lyons, Chris McCausland, Geoff Norcott, Katie Norris, Rachel Parris, Lucy Porter, Jess Robinson, Tim Sutton, Ellie Taylor 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 6 March-10 April 2020 (Series 56), 30 October-4 December 2020 (Series 57), 26 February-9 April 2021 (Series 58) 
 
© 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Now Show: Series 56-58

The BBC Radio 4 topical comedy

Wes Davis

In the bleakest years of the Second World War when it appeared that nothing could slow the advance of the German army, Hitler set his sights on the Mediterranean island of Crete, the ideal staging ground for domination of the Middle East. But German command had not counted on the strength of the Cretan resistance or the eccentric band of British intelligence officers who would stand in their way, conducting audacious sabotage operations in the very shadow of the Nazi occupation force. 
 
The Ariadne Objective tells the remarkable story of the secret war on Crete from the perspective of these amateur soldiers who found themselves serving because, as one of them put it, they had made 'the obsolete choice of Greek at school'. John Pendlebury, a swashbuckling archaeologist with a glass eye and a swordstick; Xan Fielding, a writer who would later produce the English translations of books like Bridge on the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes; Sandy Rendel, a future Times reporter, who prided himself on a disguise that left him looking more ragged and fierce than the Cretans he fought alongside; and Patrick Leigh Fermor, the future travel-writing luminary who, as a teenager in the early 1930s, walked across Europe, a continent already beginning to feel the effects of Hitler's rise to power. 
 
Having infiltrated occupied Crete, these British gentleman spies teamed with Cretan partisans to carry out a cunning plan to disrupt Nazi manoeuvres, culminating in a daring, high-risk plot to abduct the island’s German commander. In this thrilling and little known episode of Second World War history, Wes Davis paints a brilliant portrait of some extraordinary characters and tells a story of triumph against all the odds.

The Ariadne Objective

Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis

Anne Applebaum

All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country can arm, equip, and train the police in another. The propagandists share resources—the troll farms that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another—and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. 
 
Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, this group doesn’t operate like a bloc, but rather like an agglomeration of companies: Autocracy, Inc. Their relations are not based on values, but are rather transactional, which is why they operate so easily across ideological, geographical, and cultural lines. In truth, they are in full agreement about only one thing: Their dislike of us, the inhabitants of the democratic world, and their desire to see both our political systems and our values undermine. 
 
That shared understanding of the world—where it comes from, why it lasts, how it works, how the democratic world has unwittingly helped to consolidate it, and how we can help bring it down—is the subject of this book.

Autocracy, Inc

The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

Henry Hemming

*** The Sunday Times bestseller *** 
 
'Vividly imagined and prodigiously researched' Helen Davies, Sunday Times, Books of the Year 
 
 'Such a rewarding read' John Preston, Daily Mail, Books of the Year 
 
'This odd, secretive man is brought to life', Robbie Millen, The Times, Books of the Year 
 
Maxwell Knight was a paradox. A jazz obsessive and nature enthusiast (he is the author of the definitive work on how to look after a gorilla), he is seen today as one of MI5's greatest spymasters, a man who did more than any other to break up British fascism during the Second World War – in spite of having once belonged to the British Fascisti himself. He was known to his agents and colleagues simply as M, and was rumoured to be part of the inspiration for the character M in the James Bond series. 
 
Knight became a legendary spymaster despite an almost total lack of qualifications. What set him apart from his peers was a mercurial ability to transform almost anyone into a fearless secret agent. He was the first in MI5 to grasp the potential of training female agents. 
 
M is about more than just one man however. In its pages, Hemming reveals for the first time in print the names and stories of seven men and women recruited by Knight, on behalf of MI5, and then asked to infiltrate the most dangerous political organizations in Britain at that time. Until now, their identities have been kept secret outside MI5. Drawn from every walk of life, they led double lives—often at great personal cost—in order to protect the country they loved. With the publication of this book, it will be possible at last to celebrate the lives of these courageous, selfless individuals. 
 
Drawing on declassified documents, private family archives and interviews with retired MI5 officers as well as the families of MI5 agents, M reveals not just the shadowy world of espionage but a brilliant, enigmatic man at its centre.

Maxwell Knight, MI5's Greatest Spymaster

Robert Macfarlane

At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings – who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Is a River Alive? takes the reader on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present and futures of this ancient, urgent concept. 
 
The book flows first to northern Ecuador, where a miraculous cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened by goldmining. 
 
Then, to the wounded rivers, creeks and lagoons of southern India, where a desperate battle to save the lives of these waterbodies is under way. 
 
And finally, to north-eastern Quebec, where a spectacular wild river – the Mutehekau or Magpie – is being defended from death by damming in a river-rights campaign. 
 
At once Macfarlane’s most personal and most political book to date, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, spark debates and lead us to the revelation that our fate flows with that of rivers – and always has

Is a River Alive?

____________ 
A blockbuster collection of the year’s funniest political cartoons, featuring the work of Mac, Steve Bell, Peter Brookes and many more . . . 
 
2018 was the year that Brexit got serious, royals got married, football got (briefly) feverish, and Trump got transformed into a giant baby blimp. In Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2018, our very finest satirists turn their eyes and their pens to all these events and more, offering an incisive and often hilarious tour through a tumultuous twelve months.

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2018

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

Ian Mortimer

We are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, woman’s rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition. 
 
Sweeping through the last thousand years of human development, Human Race is a treasure chest of the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, for better or worse, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no one could ever have predicted. 
 
But which of the last ten centuries saw the greatest changes in human history? 
 
History’s greatest tour guide, Ian Mortimer, knows what answer he would give. But what’s yours?

Human Race

10 Centuries of Change on Earth

Yang Jisheng

Yang Jisheng's Tombstone is the book that broke the silence on of one of history's most terrible crimes 
 
More people died in Mao's Great Famine than in the entire First World War, yet this story has remained largely untold, until now. Still banned in China, Tombstone draws on the author's privileged access to official and unofficial sources to uncover the full human cost of the tragedy, and create an unprecedented work of historical reckoning. 
 
'A book of great importance' Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans 
 
'The first proper history of China's great famine ... So thorough is his documentation that some are already calling Yang "China's Solzhenitsyn"' Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag: A History

Tombstone

The Untold Story of Mao's Great Famine

Alberto Granado

In 1952 Alberto Granado, a young doctor, and his friend Ernesto Guevara, a 23-year-old medical student from a distinguished Buenos Aires family decided to explore their continent. They set off from Cordoba in Argentina on a 1949 Norton 500cc motorbike and travelled through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. They worked as casual labourers along the way, as football coaches, medical assistants, and haulage hands. The poverty and exploitation of the native population changed them for ever. Each man later wrote an account of the journey. 
 
Alberto Granado realised later in his life that what they saw and encountered on their journey represented a crucial turning point. It strengthened Alberto's determination to forge his career as a scientist. And it started the process that was to turn Ernesto - the debonair, fun-loving student - into Che, the man who fought for the liberation of Cuba and became the heroic and glamorous warrior fighting for freedom and social justice, who remains to this day in people's minds Latin America's foremost hero and one of the world's great revolutionaries. A companion to Che's Motorcycle Diaries, Alberto Granado's book is a moving and at times hilarious account of how two carefree young men found their true purpose in life.

Travelling With Che Guevara

The Making of a Revolutionary

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

Fifty Shades of Grey

Wuthering Heights

Reading lists

Classic reads for the Christmas season

7 extremely funny books written by women

VINTAGE designers pick their favourite books covers of 2019

Features

Lucy Mangan’s best Christmas scenes in literature

A text collage citing quotes about winter

The best literary quotes about winter

The best literary quotes about Christmas

Books to get you in the mood for Christmas

A festive green and red image featuring the quote "Christmas! 'Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart”, by Washington Irving.

Showing results for: ‘gibbons’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter