Almudena Solana

Alon Hilu

Alon Ziv has a degree in neuroscience and was awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching in Biology from UCLA.

Alon Ziv

Alonso Cueto

Alphonse Daudet was born in Nimes in 1840. He made his name with gentle stories and novels portraying life in the French provinces, notably Lettres de mon Moulin (1869). He died in 1897. His extraordinary notebooks detailing the effects of syphilis on his life were first published under the title In the Land of Pain by Daudet's widow in 1931. The first English translation by Julian Barnes was published by Cape in 2002.

Alphonse Daudet

Alua Arthur is a death doula, a recovering attorney and the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organisation. She travels the world as a keynote speaker, addressing audiences at medical and end-of-life conferences, universities, seminaries, senior citizens’ communities, and more. She can be found @going_with_grace and @alualoveslife on Instagram. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Alua Arthur

Alun Anderson

Alun Carter

Alun Cochrane

Alun Richards

Alvar Ellegard

Alyce Faye Cleese

Alyissa Johnson is a graphic designer and lettering artist who focuses on positivity and feminism. You can find Alyissa playing with her dog Luna or selling prints at a local pop-up shop in Kansas City, Missouri.

Alyissa Johnson

Alys Cummings is a writer and journalist based on the north-east coast. She is an Emerging Creative Associate with New Writing North and a member of their North East Novelists group. As a producer and director, Alys has made documentaries for BBC Panorama on subjects including domestic abuse, the world of the UK’s conspiracy theorists, and avoidable deaths in maternity care. Her most recent film was shortlisted for Scoop of the Year at the British Journalist awards. 
 
Murder Most Cryptic is her first novel, and won Pitch Perfect at the 2024 Bloody Scotland festival.

Alys Cummings

Alys Fowler

Born in Silchester, Hampshire, Alys Fowler had a rural childhood, growing up surrounded by animals in the countryside. She was influenced by her mother's gardening talents and, after leaving school in 1996 she studied at the Royal Horticultural Society, the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, and later the New York Botanical Gardens, returning to the UK to complete a masters at UCL in 2002. 
 
Alys spent some years presenting the long-running BBC series Gardeners' World and has since become a prominent horticultural journalist, writing a popular weekly column in the Guardian.

Alyson Walsh

ALYSSA DAY is an award-winning and New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of romantasy, mystery, and romance whose books have sold more than a million copies and been translated into many languages. She is also a mental health advocate who has lived with depression since she was a teenager. 
 
 
She’s an Ohio State grad and graduated summa cum laude from Capital University Law School and practiced as a trial lawyer for a decade, when she also served as an advocate for at-risk children. She lives in Florida with her Navy Guy husband, has two amazing kids, and rescues dogs. Especially pugs. So Many Pugs.

Alyssa Day

Alyssa Villaire is a writer of young adult fantasy. While she's based in Los Angeles, most of her stories harken back to the places where she grew up—from the woods of rural Indiana to the lakeshores of Wisconsin and Michigan. She has published short stories in Luna Station Quarterly and in an anthology titled Journeys to Uncharted Lands. When she’s not writing, Alyssa is probably eating spicy food, watching horror movies, or waiting in a virtual Ticketmaster line.

Alyssa Villaire

Alyssa Wees grew up writing stories starring her Beanie Babies, in between training in ballet and watching lots of Disney movies. She earned a BA in English from Creighton University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. She lives outside of Chicago with her family.

Alyssa Wees

Alzheimer's Society

Aman Sethi

Amanda Archer

Amanda Barry

Amanda Berriman was born in Germany and grew up in Edinburgh, reading books, playing music, writing stories and climbing hills. She works as a primary school teacher and lives on the edge of the Peak District with her husband, two children and dogs.

Amanda Berriman

Amanda Berry

Amanda Brunker

Amanda Doyle is a Founder of Treat Media, an award-winning media company that makes art for humans who want to stay human. With Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach, she authored We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life’s 20 Questions, the book being hailed as ‘the guidebook for being alive.’ Named one of the ‘50 Most Powerful People in Podcasting,’ Amanda is co-host of the chart-topping podcast We Can Do Hard Things, which has received over a half billion plays. She is an executive producer of the Sundance award-winning film Come See Me in the Good Light. Amanda was Vice President and General Counsel of Together Rising, a non-profit organisation which distributed more than $55 million to women, families and children in crisis. Amanda practised law at a global corporate firm and as a Legal Fellow with International Justice Mission in Rwanda, securing land rights for women and accountability for child victims of sexual violence. Her academic and political work sits at the intersection of social, institutional and interpersonal systems of violence, oppression and liberation – laser-focused on practical justice in everyday lived experience.

Amanda Doyle

Amanda Eyre Ward is the critically acclaimed author of seven novels, including How to Be Lost, Close Your Eyes, The Same Sky, and The Nearness of You. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her family.

Amanda Eyre Ward

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Read stories inspired by the four Underground lines that run North and South through city - part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin. 
 
Comedy and capitalism join in four tales: 
 
The Northern Line: William Leith, author of The Hungry Years and Bits of Me Are Falling Apart, tells, in A Northern Line Minute, the darkly humorous tales of his escapades on the Tube. 
 
The Bakerloo Line: Paul Morley, author, journalist and cultural commentator, tells the story in Earthbound of post-punk, music and changing times. 
 
The Victoria Line: Kids Company, a leading London charity supported by Prince Charles, Helen Mirren and Stephen Fry, presents the voices of some of London's children, in partnership with the charity's founder Camila Batmanghelidjh. 
 
The Jubilee Line: John O'Farrell, author of The Man Who Forgot His Wife and An Utterly Impartial History of Britain turns his comedic genius to the problem of capitalism, encapsulated in a Tube train full of passengers stuck underground.

North-South: Penguin Underground Lines

Northern, Bakerloo, Victoria and Jubilee

Tim Blanning

<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>

Once musicians such as Mozart were little more than court servants; now they are multimillionaire superstars wielding more power than politicians. How did this extraordinary change come about? 
 
Tim Blanning's brilliantly enjoyable book examines how everything from the cult of the romantic to technology and travel all fed the inexorable rise of music in the West, making it the most dominant and ubiquitous of the art forms. Encompassing balladeers, the great composers, jazz legends and rock gods, this is an enthralling story of power, patronage, creativity and genius.

The Triumph of Music

Composers, Musicians and Their Audiences, 1700 to the Present

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Tube, the Penguin Underground Lines brings together 12 books by writers ranging from John O'Farrell to John Lanchester, Lucy Wadham to the Kids' Company 
 
Name: Penguin Underground Lines 
 
Date of Birth: will be born 7th March 2013 
 
Vital statistics: Twelve books, one for each Underground line, to celebrate the Tube's 150th anniversary 
 
Idea for series: Penguin asked twelve people to tell their tale of the city in 15,000 words (or in one case, no words at all), each inspired by a different tube line. 
 
Defining characteristics: While the responses range from the polemical to the fantastical, the personal to the societal, they offer something for every taste. Read individually they're delightful small reads, pulled together they offer a particular portrait of a global city. 
 
The 12 authors: Fantastic Man; Kids Company; Danny Dorling; John Lanchester; William Leith; Richard Mabey; Paul Morley; John O'Farrell; Philippe Parreno; Leanne Shapton; Lucy Wadham; Peter York

Twelve Stories from Twelve Authors: Penguin Underground Lines

The full set of twelve Penguin Lines

Tim Weiner

The epic, disturbing story of how the FBI is America's real secret service 
 
'Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. The hand of our power should close over them at once' President Woodrow Wilson, 1919 
 
The United States is a country founded on the ideals of democracy and freedom, yet throughout the last century it has used secret and lawless methods to destroy its enemies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the most powerful of these forces. 
 
Following his award-winning history of the C.I.A., Legacy of Ashes, Tim Weiner has now written the first full history of the F.B.I. as a secret intellligence service. Drawn entirely from firsthand materials in the F.B.I.'s own files, Enemies brilliantly brings to life the entire story, from the cracking of anarchist cells to the prosecution of the 'war on terror'. It is the story of America's war against spies, subversives and saboteurs - and the self-inflicted wounds American democracy suffered in battle. 
 
Throughout the book lies the long shadow of J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the F.B.I. with an iron fist for forty-eight years. He was not a monster, but a brilliant confidence man who ruled by fear, force, and fraud. His power shaped America; his legacy haunts it. 
 
Reviews: 
 
'Truly impressive ... [Enemies] could have been put together only by a journalist of Weiner's stature' Keith Lowe, Sunday Telegraph 
 
'A history that moves at the pace of a James Ellroy novel. But Weiner's truth is wilder even than Ellroy's fiction. Weiner sets the record straight on the FBI's first 100 years using only the Bureau's documents and oral testimony, most of which has never been seen' David Blackburn, Spectator 
 
'An outstanding piece of work, even-handed, exhaustively researched, smoothly written and thematically timely ... This is certainly the most complete book we are likely to see about the F.B.I.'s intelligence-gathering operations, from Emma Goldman to Osama bin Laden' Bryan Burrough, New York Times 
 
'Extensively researched, admirably understated, yet terrifically entertaining' Boston Globe 
 
'Important and disturbing ... Weiner lays bare a record of embarrassing, even stunning failure, in which the bureau's lawlessness was matched only by its incompetence ... [he] has done prodigious research, yet tells this depressing story with all the verve and coherence of a good spy thriller' New York Times Book Review 
 
About the author: 
 
Tim Weiner is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the New York Times, where he has reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and fifteen other nations. He was based for a decade in Washington, DC, where he covered the C.I.A. and the Military - the latter topic being the subject of his Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget. He is the author of the bestselling Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, which won the 2007 National Book Award for Non-Fiction.

Enemies

A History of the FBI

Alain de Botton

All of us, whether religious, agnostic or atheist, are searching for meaning. And in this wise and life-affirming book, non-believer Alain de Botton suggests that religions, far from being nonsensical as atheists maintain, are instead full of good ideas on how to live. 
 
And that we should steal from them. 
 
Picking and choosing from the thousands of years of advice assembled by the world's great religions to get practical insights on art, community, love, friendship, work, life and death, Alain de Botton will show how each of us may find our place in the world.

Religion for Atheists

A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion

Richard Sennett

Living with people who differ - racially, ethnically, religiously or economically - is one of the most urgent challenges facing civil society today. Together argues that co-operation needs more than good will: it is a craft that requires skill. In modern society traditional bonds are waning, and we must develop new forms of secular, civic ritual that make us more skilful in living with others. From Medieval guilds to today's social networks, Richard Sennett's visionary book explores the nature of co-operation, why it has become weak and how it can be strengthened.

Together

The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation

Jesse J Prinz

We are constantly told that human traits - from aggression to gender differences - are 'hardwired'. In Beyond Human Nature Jesse J. Prinz reveals that it is the societies we live in, not our genes, that determine how we think and feel. From why mental illness differs so widely between cultures to how geography influences morals, from our sexual preferences to how we learn languages, he proves that the vast diversity of behaviour is not ingrained. 
 
This is a book about humanity's power to transcend nature; and one that, ultimately, celebrates our differences.

Beyond Human Nature

How Culture and Experience Shape Our Lives

Timothy Wilson

Redirect by Timothy D. Wilson, author of Strangers to Ourselves, whose work has been acclaimed by writers such as Malcolm Gladwell, is a groundbreaking book of psychology that shows how changing the stories we tell about ourselves can help solve our problems. 
 
Why will most self help books leave you worse off? How do youth rehabilitation programmes backfire? And how can one volunteer help the whole of society? Redirecting the stories you tell about yourself - and changing the stories others are telling about themselves - can help everyone, whether improving education and parenting skills or reducing crime, teen pregnancies, and drug and alcohol abuse. 
 
This timely book offers practical advice that has been proven to give real results. Redirect will show you exactly how you can be happier and more successful, using only the power of your own stories. 
 
Timothy D. Wilson is the Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Strangers to Ourselves, which was named by New York Times Magazine as one of the Best 100 Ideas of 2002, and is co-author of the bestselling Social Psychology textbook, now in its seventh edition. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and two children. 
 
'A masterpiece' Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink 
 
'This may well be the single most important psychology book ever written' Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness 
 
'A stimulating, valuable read' New Scientist 
 
'With a deft narrative touch . . . and a ferocious commitment to scientific evidence, Timothy Wilson has made a remarkable contribution to knowledge' Robert Cialdini, author of Influence

Redirect

Changing the Stories We Live By

Fara Dabhoiwala

For most of western history, all sex outside marriage was illegal, with the church and state punishing any dissent. Between 1600 and 1800, this entire world-view was shattered by revolutionary new ideas - that consenting adults have the freedom to do what they like with their own bodies, and morality cannot be imposed by force.  This groundbreaking book shows that the creation of this modern culture of sex - broadcasted and debated in a rapidly expanding universe of public media - was a central part of the Enlightenment, and helped create a new model of western civilization whose principles of equality, privacy and individual freedom last to this day.

The Origins of Sex

A History of the First Sexual Revolution

Alex McBride

Nineteen year-old Madeleine Smith may have been charged in 1857 with poisoning her lover, Emile L'Angelier, but her real sin was having sex - a lot of sex - out of wedlock. Her mistake was to write him frank and passionate letters, described by the trial judge as 'without any sense of decency', which L'Angelier threatened to send to her father when she cooled on the idea of marriage, having secretly engaged herself to someone else. 
 
Some fifty years later, the trial of Robert Wood, a respectable, hard-working illustrator by day, who frolicked with prostitutes by night, including the unfortunate Emily Dimmock, also hinged on a dangerous correspondence. Dimmock's murderer had evidently ransacked her rooms for a postcard written by Wood. Was there something he was desperate to hide? The author of his trial is certain he was guilty. 
 
But both escaped conviction - in Wood's case, thanks to the defence of the best defence barrister in the land. In Madeleine Smith's, the three judges ruled two-to-one to exclude from evidence L'Angelier's pocket book, which recorded her meetings with him on the day of the murder. These two salacious and controversial trials demonstrate how the dramatic difference between 'guilty' and 'not guilty' can sometimes be decided by a mere scrap of paper.

Famous Trials: Lucky Escapes

Thomas Cream, erstwhile Sunday school teacher and serial poisoner, has an unsettling air and wonky eye. He also happens to be a doctor, which provides him with ample means and an ideal cover for his murderous activities. His victims are vulnerable young women, whose trust he gains with drinks and trips to the music hall, before offering them pills or swigs from a medicine bottle. A few hours later, they are dying in agony. 
 
The Honourable Thomas Ley, meanwhile, has an even better disguise: he's the former Justice Minister for New South Wales and a successful businessman, albeit with a shady past. Rumours abound when a political opponent disappears without trace and a business partner winds up at the bottom of a cliff. 
 
Neither killer can help themselves - and this, in the end, leads to their downfall - and both defy our comprehension. Brilliantly reconstructed here, their trials, in 1892 and 1947, reveal a deeply sinister conundrum: by the time you've discovered the secrets in their heart, it's inevitably much too late.

Famous Trials: Thrill-Killers

A respectable solicitor in the town of Hay-on-Wye, harried by his troubled wife, slowly and carefully poisons her to death. Pleased with the results, he sees an opportunity for another quick-fix solution and turns his murderous attentions to his business rival... 
 
Trapped in a marriage of convenience to an aging man almost thirty years her senior, thirty-eight year-old Alma falls in love with seventeen year-old George, when he answers her advertisement for a 'willing lad' to do the housework. It's the perfect set up - a well-disposed husband and a passionate lover - until George destroys it all by trying to get the husband out of the way... 
 
These two classic cases of spousal murder - one chillingly domestic, the other bizarre and touching - took place in 1922 and 1935. In these brilliant reconstructions, they continue to confound our expectations of how murderers are meant to proceed.

Famous Trials: Unwanted Spouses

Steven Johnson

What connects the "miracle on the Hudson" to the planning of the French railway system, or the mysterious outbreak of strange smells in downtown Manhattan to the invention of the Internet? With his characteristic flair for multidisciplinary storytelling, Steven Johnson shows in Future Perfect that what lies behind these and many other fascinating human stories is the concept of networked thinking. 
 
Exploring a new vision of progress, Johnson argues that networked thinking holds the key to an incredible range of human achievements, and can transform everything from local government to drug research to arts funding and education. Future Perfect paints a compelling portrait of a new model of political change that is already on the rise, and shows that despite Western political systems hopelessly gridlocked by old ideas, change for the better can happen, and that new solutions are on the horizon.

Future Perfect

The Case For Progress In A Networked Age

Steven Pinker

'The most inspiring book I've ever read' Bill Gates, 2017 
 
'A brilliant, mind-altering book ... Everyone should read this astonishing book' Guardian 
 
'Will change the way you see the world' Daily Mail 
 
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2012 
 
Wasn't the twentieth century the most violent in history? In his extraordinary, epic book Steven Pinker shows us that this is wrong, telling the story of humanity in a completely new and unfamiliar way. From why cities make us safer to how books bring about peace, Pinker weaves together history, philosophy and science to examine why we are less likely to die at another's hand than ever before, how it happened and what it tells us about our very natures. 
 
 'May prove to be one of the great books of our time ... he writes like an angel' Economist 
 
'Masterly, a supremely important book ... For anyone interested in human nature, it is engrossing' The New York Times 
 
 'Marvellous ... riveting and myth-destroying' New Statesman 
 
'A marvellous synthesis of science, history and storytelling, written in Pinker's distinctively entertaining and clear personal style ... I was astonished by the extent to which violence has declined in every shape, form and scale' Financial Times 
 
'An outstandingly fruitful read, with fascinating nuggets on almost every page' Sunday Times, Books of the Year

The Better Angels of Our Nature

A History of Violence and Humanity

The Decline of Violence In History And Its Causes

Noam Chomsky

'The fate of democracy is at stake in Madison, Wisconsin, no less than it is in Tahrir Square' 
 
Making the Future is the latest collection of essays from Noam Chomsky, one of our most vital and provocative voices of political dissent. 
 
Taking up the thread from 2007's Interventions, these penetrating and compelling articles examine numerous topics, including the financial crisis, Obama's presidency, WikiLeaks and the on-going conflicts in the Middle East. 
 
Restating and refining his commitment to democracy and finding inspiration in the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, Making the Future is Chomsky's fiercely-argued and timely comment on a fast-changing world.

Making the Future

Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance

Geoffrey Hosking

Geoffrey Hosking has been one of the foremost historians of Russia and her Empire for more than twenty years. He traces Russia's history from the settlement of Kiev through to the present day. He argues that two nation-building movements, one based on a messianic vision of Russia's destiny as God's people, the other a modernising and expansive imperial project of administration and assimilation, have clashed since the rise of Tsarism. These two nascent national identities offer a chance to compare &amp; trace continuities in Tsarist and Soviet Russia &amp; allow us to appreciate more fully the recurrent themes that have at times, and not least this century, appeared wholly without precedent in the history of the world.

Russia and the Russians

From Earliest Times to the Present

Scott Schuman

Scott Schuman is back with a completely new collection of beautiful images of the men and women who have caught his attention. From its origins on the streets of New York, his much-loved blog, thesartorialist.com remains a vivid and growing source of inspiration for readers everywhere. 
 
In The Sartorialist: Closer, Scott Schuman looks more deeply and with greater breadth at human style, telling diverse and compelling stories of its expression around the world. These images encompass the varied taste and visual attitude of people as far afield as Seoul, London, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and beyond. Presenting a rich tapestry of global style and always capturing an inspirational moment, the images in this new book continue to reflect Scott's unique sensibility and vision.

The Sartorialist: Closer (The Sartorialist Volume 2)

Miss S

The real-life story of a modern Working Girl. 
 
Miss S is smart, sassy, sexually frustrated and broke. With the rent money due, she spots an ad for a student job with a difference &ndash; in the massage parlour at the bottom of her road. Suddenly she can earn money doing something she is good at and get all the sex she needs. 
 
Offered a job on the spot by Mrs B, an ex-working girl herself, Miss S quickly gets to grips with the rest of the girls. They include: Bella the house &lsquo;Domme&rsquo;, Carrie the resident shrink, Tina the house snitch, and Suzie the amateur porn star. That&rsquo;s not to mention the cast of clients: Mr Suck it Bitch, Mr Gay, Mr Pacemaker, Mr Councillor and Mr Willy Whacker... 
 
Confessions of a Working Girl is the true and intimate diary of Miss S&rsquo;s extraordinary first year in a brothel and reveals exactly what a Gemini half hour really involves...

Confessions of a Working Girl

Having left behind the sauna where she was top girl, Miss S moves to London to start work as a stripper. But after one of the other dancers burns her in the back with a cigarette, she decides to try her hand at something new. It's in an escort agency that Miss S finds her true vocation, and where she encounters a colourful cavalcade of clients, including Mr Fingers and Mr Slimeball, to name just two. 
 
Packed with yet more eye-opening and true stories of what really goes on behind the scenes in the sex industry, including fetish clubs and swinging parties, Extra Confessions of a Working Girl is another addictive read written by one honest, feisty and fiercely independent lady.

Extra Confessions of a Working Girl

Iain Sinclair

'A book full of richness, unexpected enticements, short sharp shocks and breathtaking writing' Guardian 
 
Welcome to the real, unauthorised London: the disappeared, the unapproved, the unvoiced, the mythical and the all-but forgotten. The perfect companion to the city. 
 
'Exhilarating, truly wonderful, a cavalcade of eloquent writing. London demands an anthology like this to remind us of the irascible quirkiness of its residents, and we have Sinclair to thank for marshalling such a perverse and ultimately pleasurable exercise' Independent on Sunday

London

City of Disappearances

Robert Graves

Including many of the greatest stories ever told - the labours of Hercules, the voyage of the Argonauts, Theseus and the minotaur, Midas and his golden touch, the Trojan War and Odysseus's journey home - Robert Graves's superb and comprehensive retelling of the Greek myths for a modern audience has been regarded for over fifty years as the definitive version. 
 
With a novelist's skill and a poet's eye, Graves draws on the entire canon of ancient literature, bringing together all the elements of every myth into one epic and unforgettable story. Ideal for the first time reader, it can be read as a single, continuous narrative, while full commentaries, with cross-references, interpretations, variants and explanations, as well as a comprehensive index of names, make it equally valuable as a work of scholarly reference for anyone seeking an authoritative and detailed account of the gods, heroes and extraordinary events that provide the bedrock of Western literature. 
 
The result is a classic among classics, a treasure trove of extraordinary tales and a masterful work of literature in its own right.

The Greek Myths (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Arundhati Roy

The Shape of the Beast is our world laid bare by a mind that has consistently and unhesitatingly engaged with its changing realities and often anticipated the way things have moved in the last decade. 
 
In the fourteen interviews collected here, conducted between January 2001 and March 2008, Arundhati Roy examines the nature of state and corporate power as it has emerged during this period, and the shape that resistance movements are taking. As she speaks about people displaced by dams and industry, the genocide in Gujurat, Maoist rebels, the war in Kashmir and the global War on Terror, she raises fundamental questions about democracy, justice and non-violent protest. 
 
Unabashedly political, this is also a deeply personal collection that talks about the necessity of taking a stand and about the dilemma of guarding the private space necessary for writing in a world that demands urgent, unequivocal intervention.

The Shape of the Beast

Albert Jack

Did you know that the Cornish pasty was invented to protect tin miners from arsenic poisoning, or that the word 'salary' comes from Roman soldiers being paid their wages in salt? 
 
Why do we eat goose (or turkey) at Christmas? Is the Scotch egg actually from Scotland and what did some retired crusaders have to do with French toast? Who was the original Earl Grey and what sauce was inspired by Parliament? What dish was invented by Greek bandits on the run? Why were hot cross buns seen as magical and what's so rebellious about a haggis or medicinal about a gin and tonic? Did you know what the romantic history is behind the Bakewell Pudding? 
 
Albert Jack tells the strange tales behind our favourite dishes and drinks and where they come from (not to mention their unusual creators). What Caesar Did For My Salad is bursting with fascinating insights, characters and enough stories to entertain a hundred dinner parties.

What Caesar Did For My Salad

The Secret Meanings of our Favourite Dishes

Gerald Durrell

'For many years I had wanted to start a zoo . . . any reasonable person smitten with an ambition of this sort would have secured the zoo first and obtained the animals afterwards. but throughout my life I have rarely if ever achieved what I wanted by tackling it in a logical fashion.' 
 
A Zoo in My Luggage is Gerald Durrell's account of his attempt to set up his own zoo, after years spent gathering animals for other zoos. Journeying to Cameroon, he and his wife collected numerous mammals, birds and reptiles, including Cholmondely the chimpanzee and Bug-eye the bush-baby. 
 
But their problems really began when they attempted to return with their exotic menagerie. Not only had they to get them safely home to Britain but they also had to find somewhere able and - most of all - willing to house them. 
 
Told with wit and a zest for all things furry and feathered, Gerald Durrell's A Zoo in My Luggage is a brilliant account of how a pioneer of wildlife preservation came to found a new type of zoo.

A Zoo in My Luggage

T. M. Devine

In Scotland's Empire, T.M Devine tells the compelling story of Scotland's role in forging and expanding the British Empire, from the Americas to Australia, India to the Caribbean. 
 
 By 1820 Britain controlled a fifth of the world's population, and no people had made a more essential contribution than the Scots - working across the globe as soldiers and merchants, administrators and clerics, doctors and teachers. 
 
 In this widely praised book, T. M. Devine - acclaimed author of The Scottish Nation and To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora - traces the vital part Scotland played in creating an empire - and the fundamental effect this had in moulding the modern Scottish nation. 
 
 'A tour de force ... Tom Devine is the pre-eminent historian of modern Scotland' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Niall Ferguson, author of Empire 
 
 'Captivating ... tells the story of the Scots who put their marching boots on, or were forced into them, to start a new life abroad' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Barclay McBain, Herald 
 
 'A fascinating work, replete with telling detail' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Allan Massie, Literary Review 
 
 'Nobody has done more over the past thirty years to bring Scottish historiography into rigorous and unsentimental alignment with developments elsewhere than Tom Devine' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Colin Kidd, The Times Literary Supplement 
 
 'Captivating ... tells the story of the Scots who put their marching boots on, or were forced into them, to start a new life abroad' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Economist 
 
 T.M. Devine, OBE is University Research Professor and Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His other books include The Scottish Nation and To the Ends of the Earth.

Scotland's Empire

The Origins of the Global Diaspora

Part of his trilogy on Scottish history, T. M. Devine's To the Ends of the Earth is a compelling account of the Scots as a 'global people', charting their forgotten role in the building of the modern world. 
 
The Scots are one of the world's greatest nations of emigrants. For centuries, untold numbers of men, women and children sought their fortunes in every part of the globe, from the British Empire to the United States, in cities and on prairie farms, as traders, bankers, missionaries, soldiers, politicians and engineers. 
 
With To the Ends of the Earth T.M. Devine - acclaimed author of The Scottish Nation and Scotland's Empire - puts this extraordinary epic centre stage in Scottish history, cutting through myth and sentiment surrounding stories such as the Highland Clearances and the Enlightenment to show the true impact of Scottish emigration on the world, and on the nation it left behind. 
 
 'A seminal work' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Harry McGrath, Herald 
 'Devine's final book in a remarkable trilogy ... fascinating and far-reaching ... His conclusions are ... thoughtful and incisive' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Scottish Field 
 '[This] rigorous and unsentimental history of Scotland's global diaspora ... explodes myths and foregrounds the prosaic realities of emigration ... it has the fascinating charm of a detective story' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Guardian 
 'Presents a grand overview of Scottish emigration ... very revealing' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Tom Nairn, Scottish Review of Books 
 'Devine has brought a greater understanding to this fascinating subject and offers an intriguing perspective on a key component of our history and national identity' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Alex Salmond, First Minister Of Scotland, Herald 
 
 T.M. Devine, OBE is University Research Professor and Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His other books include The Scottish Nation and To the Ends of the Earth.

To the Ends of the Earth

Scotland's Global Diaspora, 1750-2010

Neil MacGregor

This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. The book's range is enormous. It begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today. 
 
Neil MacGregor's aim is not simply to describe these remarkable things, but to show us their significance - how a stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency or how an early Victorian tea-set tells us about the impact of empire. Each chapter immerses the reader in a past civilisation accompanied by an exceptionally well-informed guide. Seen through this lens, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. An intellectual and visual feast, it is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years.

A History of the World in 100 Objects

Claire Tomalin

Acclaimed as the greatest comic actress of her generation, Dora Jordan played a quite different role offstage as the mistress of one of the sons of George lll. Dora bore him ten children, and they lived in quiet happiness in Bushy Park on the Thames until the unexpected news arrived of his ascendancy to the throne as William lV - at which point he was forced to abandon her. 
Claire Tomalin vividly recreates the political, theatrical and royal worlds of the late eighteenth century. The story of how Dora moved between stage and home, of how she battled for career and family, makes for a classic tale of royal perfidy and womanly courage.

Mrs Jordan's Profession

The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King

Witty, courageous and unconventional, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most controversial figures of her day. She published A Vindication of the Rights of Women, lived through the Terror in France, had an illegitimate daughter and married the philosopher William Godwin before dying in childbirth at the age of 38. 
Claire Tomalin's first book inaugurated a glittering career, and brought to life one of the great figures in the history of women.

The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft

Jeremy Paxman

The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. 
 
In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves.

Filters

Category

Age

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter