Len Deighton was born in 1929 in London. He did his national service in the RAF, went to the Royal College of Art and designed many book jackets, including the original UK edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The enormous success of his first spy novel, The IPCRESS File (1962), was repeated in a remarkable sequence of books over the following decades. These varied from historical fiction (Bomber, perhaps his greatest novel) to dystopian alternative fiction (SS-GB) and a number of brilliant non-fiction books on the Second World War (Fighter, Blitzkrieg and Blood, Tears and Folly). 
 
His spy novels chart the twists and turns of Britain and the Cold War in ways which now give them a unique flavour. They preserve a world in which Europe contains many dictatorships, in which the personal can be ruined by the ideological and where the horrors of the Second World War are buried under only a very thin layer of soil. Deighton's fascination with technology, his sense of humour and his brilliant evocation of time and place make him one of the key British espionage writers, alongside John Buchan, Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré.

Len Deighton

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Rupert Isaacson

One family's epic journey to rescue their son . . . 
 
Rupert and Kirstin Isaacson were heartbroken when they learned that their two-year-old son Rowan was autistic. And with each passing day, Rowan's growing isolation, his uncontrollable fits, each failed treatment, filled them with despair. 
 
Then one day Rowan escaped and ran into a field of horses. Rupert watched in horror - but saw a miracle occur. The horses responded lovingly to Rowan - and he to them. Could Rowan's affinity with these animals save their son from his condition? 
 
The Isaacsons left their home in Texas and travelled to the plains and mountains of Mongolia - the spiritual home of the horse - risking everything - their happiness, future and sanity - on an arduous epic horseback journey in search of a cure for Rowan . . .

The Horse Boy

A Father's Miraculous Journey to Heal His Son

Gerald Durrell

In the concluding volume of the Corfu trilogy, telling of the Durrell family's five-year sojourn on the idyllic Greek island before the Second World War, young Gerry is turning into the passionate zoologist he has long threatened to become - much to his family's horror. 
 
Whether it's rams attacking their guests or eleven puppies seeking a new home or invasions of scorpions, spiders and geckoes, young Gerry is in heaven. His family, on the other hand, wonder if this is hell . . .

The Garden of the Gods

Simon Wroe

Two months behind on his rent, young graduate Monocle swallows his dreams and takes the only job he can find: the lowest-rung chef in a gastropub in Camden. Here he finds himself surrounded by a group of deranged, criminal hoodlums (his co-workers) and at the mercy of an ingenious sadist (the head chef, Bob). What follows is a furiously-paced, ribald, raucous and deeply touching tale of loyalty and revenge, dark appetites and fading dreams, and a young man finding his way in the world as he is plunged into the fat and the frying pan and everything else besides.

Chop Chop

Iain Sinclair

On the trail of the American Beats, Iain Sinclair makes a delirious and perhaps ill-fated expedition in the footsteps of Malcolm Lowry, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Charles Olson and Gary Snyder. It is a journey in search of literary ghosts behind mirages of volcanoes and the Old West. In which rumours vie with false memories and unreliable reports to steer our guide from one strange adventure into another. It is an odyssey in which the beginning offers no clues as to where it may end.

American Smoke

Journeys to the End of the Light

Michael Palin

Discover Michael's new travel adventure, Michael Palin in Venezuela, available now. 
 
'I cannot remember the last time I read a book so immediately absorbing and affecting. Michael Palin has never been better – which is, of course, saying a great deal.' BILL BRYSON 
___________________________________ 
 
From the time, many years ago, when Michael Palin first heard that his grandfather had a brother, Harry, he was determined to find out more about him. 
 
The quest that followed involved hundreds of hours of painstaking detective work. Michael dug out every bit of family gossip and correspondence he could. He studied every relevant official document. He tracked down what remained of his great-uncle Harry's diaries and letters, and pored over photographs of First World War battle scenes to see whether Harry appeared in any of them. He walked the route Harry took on that fatal, final day of his life amid the mud of northern France. And as he did so, a life that had previously existed in the shadows was revealed to him. 
 
Great-Uncle Harry is an utterly compelling account of an ordinary man who led an extraordinary life. A blend of biography, history, travelogue and personal memoir this is Michael Palin at his very finest. 
___________________________________________ 
 
PRAISE FOR EREBUS: 
 
'Beyond terrific. I didn't want it to end.' BILL BRYSON 
 
'Magisterial . . . Palin brings energy, wit and humanity to a story that has never ceased to tantalise people.' THE TIMES 
 
'Everybody's talking about it . . . A brilliant book.' CHRIS EVANS 
 
'I absolutely loved it: I had to read it at one sitting.' LORRAINE KELLY

Great-Uncle Harry

A Tale of War and Empire

Isabelle Broom

Holly Wright has had a difficult few years. After her mother's death, she's become expert at keeping people at a distance - including her boyfriend, Rupert. 
 
But when Holly receives an unexpected letter explaining that an aunt she never met has left her a house on the Greek island of Zakynthos, the walls she has built begin to crumble. Arriving on the island, Holly meets the handsome Aidan and slowly begins to uncover the truth about the secret which tore her family apart. 
 
But is the island where Holly really belongs? Or will her real life catch up with her first?

My Map of You

Annie Hawes

A small stone house deep among the olive groves of Liguria, going for the price of a dodgy second-hand car. Annie Hawes and her sister, on the spot by chance, have no plans whatsoever to move to the Italian Riviera but find naturally that it's an offer they can't refuse. The laugh is on the Foreign Females who discover that here amongst the hardcore olive farming folk their incompetence is positively alarming. Not to worry: the thrifty villagers of Diano San Pietro are on the case, and soon plying the Pallid Sisters with advice, ridicule, tall tales and copious hillside refreshments ...

Extra Virgin

Neil Oliver

'Oliver is an evocative storyteller, vividly bringing his tales to life' BBC History 
 
From Genghis Khan's domination on earth to Armstrong's first steps on the moon, discover the 100 moments that defined humanity and shaped our world forever. 
 
Neil Oliver takes us on a whistle-stop tour around the world and through a million years to give us this unique and invaluable grasp of how human history pieces together. 
 
From the east to the west, north to south, these 100 moments act like stepping stones allowing us to make sense of how these pivotal events have shaped the world we know today. 
 
Including many moments readers will expect - from the advent of the printing press to the birth of the internet - there are also surprises, and with them, some remarkable, unforgettable stories that give a whole new insight on our past. 
 
From the bestselling author of The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places, this is outstanding new history of how our world was made from 5000 BC to the present. 
 
********************* 
Praise for Neil Oliver 
 
'Neil Oliver writes beautifully - bringing the past to life and letting us see ourselves in a new light.' - Professor Alice Roberts 
'Brilliantly demonstrates Neil's mastery of the broad sweep of British history and landscape.' - Dan Snow 
'Highly-crafted...a vivid, pungent history.' - TLS 
'Compelling' - Daily Mail

The Story of the World in 100 Moments

Discover the stories that defined humanity and shaped our world

Jeremy Clarkson

Everyone knows that Jeremy Clarkson finds the world a perplexing place - after all, he wrote a bestselling book about it. Yet despite the appearance of The World According To Clarkson, things don't seem to have improved much. However, Jeremy is not someone to give up easily and he's decided to have another go. 
 
In And Another Thing, our exasperated hero discovers that: 
 
 He inadvertently dropped a bomb on North Carolina 
 
 We're all going to explode at the age of 62 
 
Russians look bad in Speedos. But not as bad as we do. 
 
 No one should have to worry about being Bill Oddie's long lost sister 
 
He should probably be nicer about David Beckham 
 
Thigh-slappingly funny and - as ever - in your face, Jeremy Clarkson bursts the pointless little bubbles of the idiots while celebrating the special, the unique and the sheer bloody brilliant ...

And Another Thing

The World According to Clarkson Volume 2

Ever since Annie got together with Ciccio, his Calabrian family have spoken of their homeland as an earthly paradise, of wild nights dancing the tarantella, of almond milk sold fresh from roadside stalls, of honey cakes and amaro made from wild liquorice roots... Now, at last, Annie and Ciccio are travelling down to see the ancestral home and extended family for themselves, along with a bunch of vocal and lively de Gilios who don't want to miss out on the fun. 
 
Will everything Annie has learnt in her years among the Ligurians stand her in good stead among the Calabresi? Or is she in for another steep learning curve in the intricacies of Italian rural life?

Journey to the South

A Calabrian Homecoming

Tim Robinson

In its landscape, history and folklore, Connemara is a singular region: ill-defined geographically, and yet unmistakably a place apart from the rest of Ireland. Tim Robinson, who established himself as Ireland's most brilliant living non-fiction writer with the two-volume Stones of Aran, moved from Aran to Connemara nearly twenty years ago. This book is the result of his extraordinary engagement with the mountains, bogs and shorelines of the region, and with its folklore and its often terrible history: a work as beautiful and surprising as the place it attempts to describe.

Connemara

Listening to the Wind

John Lewis-Stempel

The Charente: roofs of red terracotta tiles, bleached-white walls, windows shuttered against the blaring sun. The baker does his rounds in his battered little white van with a hundred warm baguettes in the back, while a cat picks its way past a Romanesque church, the sound of bells skipping across miles of rolling, glorious countryside. 
 
For many years a farmer in England, John Lewis-Stempel yearned once again to live in a landscape where turtle doves purr and nightingales sing, as they did almost everywhere in his childhood. He wanted to be self-sufficient, to make his own wine and learn the secrets of truffle farming. And so, buying an old honey-coloured limestone house with bright blue shutters, the Lewis-Stempels began their new life as peasant farmers. 
 
Over that first year, Lewis-Stempel fell in love with the French countryside, from the wild boar that trot past the kitchen window to the glow-worms and citronella candles that flicker in the evening garden. Although it began as a practical enterprise, it quickly became an affair of the heart: of learning to bite the end off the morning baguette; taking two hours for lunch; in short, living the good life - or as the French say, La Vie.

La Vie

A year in rural France

Rowan came back from the shamans in Mongolia a changed boy. The three most debilitating effects of his autism - his incontinence, his endless tantruming, and his inability to make friends - were gone. 
 
But a year almost to the day since Rowan's improvement he started regressing: the accidents and tantrums reappeared, terrifying his father Rupert. Something had to be done. 
 
Father and son embarked on a new quest, journeying from the bushmen of Namibia to the coastal rainforests of Queensland, Australia and finally to the Navajo reservations of the American southwest, where Rowan was transformed - they had begun the Long Ride Home.

The Long Ride Home

The Extraordinary Journey of Healing that Changed a Child's Life

Long recognized as perhaps the greatest non-fiction writer at work in Ireland, for his vast, polymathic accounts of nature and culture in the Aran Islands and Connemara, Tim Robinson is also an essayist of genius whose fascinations range across the globe. In Experiments on Reality, he shines the light of his intelligence on his own life, and on some of the most fascinating questions in science and culture. 
 
Robinson brings us to his boyhood in Yorkshire, National Service in Malaya in the 1950s, and his years as a visual artist in Istanbul, Vienna and London. He revisits some of the scenes of his researches for the maps he made of Aran and Connemara, places that continue to throw up remarkable stories and puzzles. And he performs astonishing literary thought-experiments, playing with the boundaries of the essay form, scientific inquiry, and storytelling. Experiments on Reality is a masterpiece from one of the great minds of our time.

Experiments on Reality

The Last Essays

Tom Michell

When schoolteacher Tom Michell pulls a penguin from an oil slick off the coast of Uruguay he has no idea what to do. 
 
Back at his apartment, Tom cleans him, but upon returning to the beach the penguin refuses to return to the ocean. Tom has one option: to smuggle the penguin over the Argentinian border to the prestigious boarding school Tom calls home. 
 
There follows a heart-warming story of one remarkable penguin, who adapts to boarding school life. Whether it's as team mascot or swimming coach extraordinaire - Juan Salvador the penguin transforms the lives of all he meets.

The Penguin Lessons

George Orwell

To be poor and destitute in 1920s Paris and London was to experience life at its lowest ebb. George Orwell, penniless and with nowhere to go, found himself experiencing just this as he wandered the streets of both capitals in search of a job. By day, he tramped the streets, often passing time with 'screevers' or street artists, drunks and other hobos. At night, he stood in line for a bed in a 'spike' or doss house, where a cup of sugary tea, a hunk of stale bread and a blanket were the only sustenance and comfort on offer. Down and Out in Paris and London is George Orwell's haunting account of the streets and those who have no choice but to live on them.

Down and Out in Paris and London

The classic reimagined with cover art by Shepard Fairey

Peter Mayle

Enjoy an irresistible feast of humour and discover the joys of French rural living with Peter Mayle's bestselling, much-loved account of 'A Year In Provence'. 
 
Peter Mayle and his wife did what most of us only imagine doing when they made their long-cherished dream of a life abroad a reality: throwing caution to the wind, they bought a glorious two hundred year-old farmhouse in the Lubéron Valley and began a new life. 
 
In a year that begins with a marathon lunch and continues with a host of gastronomic delights, they also survive the unexpected and often hilarious curiosities of rural life. From mastering the local accent and enduring invasion by bumbling builders, to discovering the finer points of boules and goat-racing, all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life are conjured up in this enchanting portrait.

A Year in Provence

Micheal O Muircheartaigh

Miche&aacute;l &Oacute; Muircheartaigh is best known as the voice of the GAA. But his interests and enthusiasms &ndash; sporting and non-sporting &ndash; go far beyond the fields of Gaelic games. In his new book, the follow-up to his bestselling memoir From D&uacute;n S&iacute;on to Croke Park, Miche&aacute;l brings us along on his travels around the world, and to the villages, townlands and sporting fields of the four provinces of Ireland. He recalls great days at the races and in sporting stadiums big and small, and great nights in the dance halls. Above all, he tells the stories of these places and the people he has encountered there &ndash; stories told as only Miche&aacute;l can tell them.

From Borroloola to Mangerton Mountain

Travels and Stories from Ireland's Most Beloved Broadcaster

Griff Rhys Jones

Griff Rhys Jones was a mountain virgin. So when it was suggested that he might like to go up a few of Britain&rsquo;s peaks, he rightly asked: isn&rsquo;t there someone better qualified? 
 
Apparently not. So Griff was duly dispatched across the rooftops of England, Scotland and Wales to explore some of the roughest, most arduous &ndash; not to mention most beautiful &ndash; terrain, and to meet those who live daily in such thin-aired wilds. 
 
Climbing the big mountains like Snowdon, Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike and many others besides gave Griff an insight into the passion and devotion our high places inspire &ndash; and turned a mountain virgin into a mountaineer. Well almost &hellip;

Mountain

Exploring Britain's High Places

Catherine Alliott

Flora's been in love with her husband for twenty years. 
The trouble is, he's been married to someone else for the past fifteen. 
 
Now she's been invited to spend the summer in the shady lanes and sandy coves of Cornwall. It should be blissful. 
There's just one small snag: she'll be staying with her former mother-in-law, Belinda. 
And Flora discovers she's not the only one invited when her ex-husband shows up out of the blue, complete with his new wife. So now there are two small snags. 
Can Flora spend the summer playing happy families with the woman who stole her husband's heart, and the mother-in-law who might have had a hand in it? 
Or will stumbling on the family secret change her mind about them all?

A Cornish Summer

Connemara: A Little Gaelic Kingdom is the triumphant conclusion to Tim Robinson's extraordinary Connemara trilogy, which Robert Macfarlane has called 'one of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. 
 
 Robinson writes about the people, places and history of south Connemara - one of Ireland's last Gaelic-speaking enclaves - with the encyclopaedic knowledge of a cartographer and the grace of a born writer. From the man who has been praised in the highest terms by Joseph O'Connor ('One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists''), John Burnside ('one of the finest of contemporary prose stylists'), Fintan O'Toole ('Simply one of the best non-fiction prose writers currently at work') and Giles Foden ('an indubitable classic'), among many others, this is one of the publishing events of 2011 and the conclusion of one of the great literary projects of our time.

A Little Gaelic Kingdom

Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire is Iain Sinclair's personal record of the area of north-east London where he has lived for forty years. It is a documentary fiction, seeking to capture the spirit of place, before Hackney succumbs to mendacious green papers, eco boasts, sponsored public art and the Olympic Park gnawing at its edges. It is a message in a bottle, chucked into the flood of the future.

Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire

A Confidential Report

Giles Goodhead

Travelling football fanatic Giles Goodhead drags a series of unsuspecting friends and relatives to eight of the world's greatest derby games. From the noisiest (Barcelona) to the scariest (a toss-up between Istanbul and Glasgow) Us vs Them desribes the thrills of gate-crashing grudge matches in cities split by football. Eight unique trips add up to a highly entertaining commentary on football - and tribalism - around the world.

Us v Them

Journeys to the World's Greatest Football Derbies

In the summer of 2002, two profoundly amateur sailors, Griff and Bob, set off in an elderly yacht for Russia, because, on the map, it looked easier than sailing to Cornwall. They took Baines with them, as he knew how to mend the engine. And this is their story. 
 
Over four long months of applied bickering in a vessel no bigger than a London taxi, they visited most of the geographically interesting restaurants on the Baltic seaboard. They sailed, over, and, even at one point, onto the mysterious heart of the Nordic world. They pushed themselves to the very limits of human endurance, before finally agreeing to wash their sleeping bags on a cool cycle at number six. 
 
To the Baltic with Bob is the full account of their stirring journey through the longest heat wave the frozen north has ever suffered; of three men in search of the answer to a troubling question: can you really outmanoeuvre a mid-life crisis by running away to sea?

To the Baltic with Bob

An Epic Misadventure

In 1841 the poet John Clare fled an asylum in Epping Forest and walked eighty miles to his home in Northborough. He was searching for his lost love, Mary Joyce &ndash; a woman three years dead &hellip; 
 
In 2000 Iain Sinclair set out to recreate Clare&rsquo;s walk away from madness. He wanted to understand his bond with the poet and escape the gravity of his London obsessions. Accompanied on this journey by his wife Anna (who shares a connection with Clare), the artist Brian Catling and magus Alan Moore &ndash; as well as a host of literary ghosts, both visionary and romantic &ndash; Sinclair&rsquo;s quest for Clare becomes an investigation into madness, sanity and the nature of the poet&rsquo;s muse.

Edge of the Orison

In the Traces of John Clare's 'Journey Out of Essex'

Ekow Eshun

'Where are you from?'  'No, where are you really from?'  These questions, which he has been asked since boyhood, drive Ekow Eshun to travel through Ghana in search of his roots, and lead him on an exploration of history and belonging, from slavery in Africa and the West to the present day and what it means to be black.  In search of answers, Ekow unearths yet more questions, some shocking contradictions and some long-forgotten truths about his family past...

Black Gold of the Sun

Searching for Home in England and Africa

Kate Riordan

Laura's marriage is at a crossroads. 
When she discovers Villa Luna Rossa, a crumbling villa in the Italian countryside, she convinces her husband Nick to embark on a new life there. 
But as the intense summer heat rises, Laura quickly realises that her issues with Nick haven't been left behind. 
So it's a relief when their first guests arrive - a glamorous American couple. 
Laura can't help but be drawn to these strangers. 
As she gets closer to the couple, though, she realises that everyone at Villa Luna Rossa is hiding something. And as the summer draws to a close, no secret will be safe...

Summer Fever

Well, someone's got to do it: in a world which simply will not see reason, Jeremy sets off on another quest to beat a path of sense through all the silliness and idiocy. 
 
And there's no knowing what might catch Jeremy's eye along the way. It could be: 
-The merits of Stonehenge as a business model 
-Why all meetings are a waste of time 
-The theft of the Queen's cows 
-One Norwegian man's unique approach to showing his gratitude 
-Fitting a burglar alarm to a tortoise 
-Or how Lou Reed was completely wrong about what makes a perfect day 
 
Pithy and provocative, this is Clarkson at his best, taking issue with whatever nonsense gets in the way of his search for all that's worth celebrating. Why should we be forced to accept stuff that's a bit rubbish? Shouldn't things work? Why doesn't someone care? I mean, is it really too much to ask? 
 
It's a good thing we've still got Jeremy out there, still looking, without fear or favour, for the answers.

Is It Really Too Much To Ask?

The World According to Clarkson Volume 5

These days, you might know him better as a tractor-driving Gentleman Farmer, but Jeremy Clarkson wasn't always a horny-handed son of the soil. 
 
Not at all . . . 
 
Back in the day Jeremy was far more likely to be found gunning around the world in a haze of burnt rubber and petrol fumes. But life as a globe-trotting petrol-head also meant he was forced endure more than his fair share of foolishness, frustration and downright bafflement. And, while Jeremy may not a patient man, you have to ask why anyone should have to consider issues as diverse and perplexing as: 
 
- The downsides of relaxing in a bath of crude oil 
- Why fishing is for people who hate their kids 
- Whether there are noise-cancelling headphones with the power to silence James May 
- Why saving the planet means soggy paper straws and no more children 
- What to do about the rambler who stole his marrow 
 
But as puzzling and exasperating as life on the road often seemed to be, you could always count on Jeremy to set the world to rights with a rare wit and unique understanding. And at full throttle. Just don't expect it to all go smoothly . . .

Can You Make This Thing Go Faster?

Anne Applebaum

A vivid and human glimpse into Europe's borderlands as they emerged from Soviet rule - back in print after nearly 20 years 
 
'In this superb book, in which one senses the spirit of Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz, the dramatic world of the Eastern borderlands comes to life' Ryszard Kapuscinski 
 
As Europe's borderlands emerged from Soviet rule, Anne Applebaum travelled from the Baltic to the Black Sea, through Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and the Carpathian mountains. Rich in vivid characters and stories of tragedy and survival, Between East and West illuminates the soul of a place, and the secret history of its people. 
 
'A beautifully written and thought-provoking account of a journey along Europe's forgotten edge' Timothy Garton Ash 
 
'A vivid and penetrating assessment of the lands between the Baltic and the Black Sea in all their drama and desolation . . . a wise and useful book' Robert Conquest 
 
'Combines the excitement of a well-written and adventurous travelogue with sophisticated reportage' Norman Davies 
 
'You will be totally absorbed' Norman Stone 
 
Anne Applebaum is a historian and journalist, a regular columnist for the Washington Post and Slate, and the author of several books, including Gulag: A History, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and Iron Curtain, which in 2013 won the Duke of Westminster Medal for Military Literature and the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature. She is the Director of Political Studies at the Legatum Institute in London, and she divides her time between Britain and Poland, where her husband, Radek Sikorski, serves as Foreign Minister.

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