Michael Symmons Roberts’s fourth book of poetry, Corpus, was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize, and the Griffin International Prize. His sixth collection, Drysalter, was the winner of both the Forward Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize in 2013. He collaborated with Paul Farley on Edgelands (Cape/Vintage) and will do so again in The Deaths of the Poets (Cape, 2017). He has also worked many times with the composer James MacMillan. He has published two novels, and is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Michael Symmons Roberts

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Martin Townsend

Father and son: arguably the most complex of all family relationships. But what happens when your dad is a manic-depressive who paints the front door in the middle of the night and sends good-wishes to Michael Crawford scrawled on a pair of underpants? 
 
Martin Townsend grew up with a father, Ron, who had suffered recurring mental illness since the early 1950s. At the slightest emotional trigger he could turn from a loving and compassionate dad to a restless, dead-eyed depressive or a spiteful, bullying monster. 
 
In The Father I Had, Martin Townsend, editor of the Sunday Express, paints a powerful, often painful portrait of life with his dad. From the soaring, often hilarious 'highs' to the horrific 'lows' of his father's three suicide attempts, he tells a story of pain, courage and resilience and produces a moving and account of a close family nearly torn apart by mental illness.

The Father I Had

Malcolm McPherson

Their mission was straightforward - to set up an Al Qaeda observation post in the south-eastern mountains of Afghanistan. No-one was expecting any difficulties. 
 
Instead three men - a Navy SEAL, an Air Force Combat Air Controller and an Army Ranger platoon commander - were pinned down by hostile fire on top of Takur Ghat mountain. Only one of them survived to recall the horrors of what became a truly terrible day . . . The resulting rescue mission turned into a seventeen hour battle that left seven soldiers dead. 
 
Roberts Ridge is the visceral story of those seventeen hours. With access to Pentagon generals, the SEALS and the survivors, Malcolm MacPherson takes the reader deep into the heart of the battle of Takur Ghat and brings us face to face with the reality of the new war against terrorism.

Roberts Ridge

John Twelve Hawks

In a world that exists in the shadow of our own, the conflict between the Brethren and the Travellers reaches its devastating climax... 
 
Struggling to protect the legacy of his Traveller father, Gabriel faces troubling questions and relentless threats from enemies old and new. 
 
His brother Michael, now firmly allied with the sinister Brethren, pursues his ambition to wrest power from their leader, whatever it takes. 
 
And Maya, the Harlequin warrior pledged to protect Gabriel at all costs, is forced to make a choice that will change her life forever...

The Golden City

the cult sci-fi trilogy that has come true

Fans of Scott Mariani, Ken Follett and Michael Connolly will love this riveting, fast-paced, high-tech thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author John Twelve Hawks. 
 
"A cyber 1984...Page-turningly swift, with a cliffhanger ending" - NEW YORK TIMES 
"Compelling...Picture The Matrix crossed with William Gibson and you'll have a sense of The Traveller" - NEWSDAY 
"The pace is fast, the characters intriguing and memorable, the evil dark and palpable, and the genre-bending between fantasty and thriller seamless..." - KIRKUS REVIEWS 
"So good I couldn't put it down" -- ***** Reader review 
"Both thought-provoking and entertaining. I was totally gripped" -- ***** Reader review 
"Expertly crafted" -- ***** Reader review 
 
********************************************************************** 
 
WHAT LIES AHEAD IS ALREADY HERE... 
 
 America is a difficult place to live below the surface. But Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are trying to do just that. Since childhood, the brothers have been shaped by the stories that their father has told them about the world in which they live. Since his mysterious disappearance, they have been living 'off the grid' - that is, invisible to the intrusive surveillance networks that monitor our modern lives. 
 
 But no-one is as invisible as they would like to believe. Nathan Boone, a mercenary, has been tasked to hunt down the brothers. The only person who stands between them and certain death is Maya, a tough young woman playing at leading a normal life. But her background is anything but normal. She has been trained to fight and survive at whatever cost. 
 
When she is summoned to protect the brothers, she must leave everything behind if she is to succeed.

The Traveller

a thriller so different and powerful it will change the way you look at the world

Michael Cordy

Fans of Dan Brown and Michael Crichton will love this tense and heart-stopping thriller from bestselling author Michael Cordy. 
 
"An all singing, all dancing, cover-to-cover thrills and spills action adventure" - DAILY MIRROR 
 
"Delivers right down the line from initial conceit, through fast action to explosive finale...sheer entertainment" -- OBSERVER 
 
"Loved it. I was hooked from page one and could not put this book down." -- ***** Reader review 
 
"DaVinci meets Indiana Jones.....brilliant...just brilliant." -- ***** Reader review 
 
"A great read and such a page-turner that I read it in two installments with bedtime as the cause for the only break." -- ***** Reader review 
 
***************************************************************** 
 
IT'S NOT A MYTH. IT EXISTS. FIND IT. 
 
Ambitious geologist Ross Kelly has it all: a lucrative career searching for oil across the world and a beautiful, brilliant wife, Lauren, pregnant with their first child. But when Lauren, a Yale academic, deciphers the university's mysterious Voynich manuscript, which has confounded experts for centuries, everything changes. 
 
An attempt to steal her translation of the Voynich leaves Lauren hovering on the brink of death, and Ross in the depths of despair. He seeks salvation in the ancient manuscript, which chronicles the discovery of a mythic, fabulous garden: an Eden so terrible and miraculous it rewrites the book of Genesis. 
 
The possibility of the garden's existence offers Ross the only hope of saving Lauren and their unborn child and so he decides to seek the garden out before it is too late. 
 
But he is not alone. 
 
Racing against time, a lethal assassin and a fanatical priest desperate to claim the miraculous garden for his church, Ross's quest will lead him to a place that will challenge everything he ever thought about the source of life on earth.

The Source

A breathtaking and gripping thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat

Michael J Durant

In the autumn of 1993, American special forces were dispatched to the famine-stricken land of Somalia. Their intervention in this war-torn country was the most dramatic US military action since Vietnam. A routine mission went horribly wrong when Michael Durant's Black Hawk helicopter was shot down over Mogadishu and he was quickly surrounded by Somali troops and taken captive. The brutal torture he underwent was made all too clear to the world when his coerced statements were broadcast on live television and his battered face appeared on the cover of magazines around the globe. 
 
Michael Durant's ordeal was first described in Mark Bowden's international bestseller Black Hawk Down and the critically acclaimed film of the same name. This, his first-person gripping account tells of bravery under fire, torture, imprisonment, and the terrifying day by day reality for a soldier, unarmed and helpless in enemy hands, fighting to survive.

In The Company Of Heroes

Margaret Humphreys

THE BOOK THAT EXPOSED THE HEARTBREAKING SCANDAL OF BRITAIN'S FORGOTTEN AND ABUSED CHILD MIGRANTS - now a film, Oranges and Sunshine, starring Emily Watson. 
In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. 
 
Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents were told that their children had been adopted. In fact, for many children it was to be a life of horrendous physical and sexual abuse far away from everything they knew. Margaret and her team reunited thousands of families before it was too late, brought authorities to account, and worldwide attention to an outrageous miscarriage of justice.

Empty Cradles (Oranges and Sunshine)

General Sir Mike Jackson

General Sir Mike Jackson's illustrious career in the British Army has spanned almost 45 years and all that time he has shown loyalty, courage and commitment to the British army whilst also being an undeniable media attraction. 
 
A man of substance where foreign policy is concerned, he has served in theatres from the Artic to the jungle but is perhaps best known for his role in charge of the British troops to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, for assembling the British ground component of the coalition that toppled the Taliban, for equipping and organising the army we dispatched to defeat in Iraq and for re-organising the British army with aplomb. His drive, enthusiasm and dominating personality were always popular with his soldiers and drove him right to the top of his profession. He may have been a general but he never stopped caring about the men and women in his charge, despite the politics. 
 
Soldier: The Autobiography exhibits all the qualities for which Jackson is admired; his professionalism, his honesty, his directness, his exuberance and his sense of humour. Most of all it gives a vivid sense of what modern soldiering entails.

Soldier: The Autobiography

Rob Lowe

A wryly funny and moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye. 
 
Teen idol at fifteen, international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood. 
 
The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety. 
 
Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends

Anne McCaffrey

In the beginning, before Thread, before the Dragons, before the Holds and the Weyrs and the elite Dragonriders of Pern, was just the great ships gliding through space with nearly six thousand colonists prepared to tackle the mighty task of beginning a new world on a strange planet. 
 
It was a jewel of a planet, with rivers and seas and mountains, and breathable air and growing things. Then came the terror. The strange, unidentifiable circles in the grass suddenly revealed a meaning, and every living thing was at risk. Many died - a horrible and consuming death. All resources, every man, woman and child had to fight the terrible nightmare of Thread. 
 
But a new creature was about to save the planet. From the delicate fire lizards a new life was born - a new symbiosis between man and beast.

Dragonsdawn

(Dragonriders of Pern: 9): discover Pern in this masterful display of storytelling and worldbuilding from one of the most influential SFF writers of all time…

Jack Sheffield

As the 1982 school year begins, Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley village school for his sixth year as headteacher. Nora Pratt celebrates twenty-five years in her coffee shop, Ronnie Smith finally tries to get a job, and little Krystal Entwhistle causes concern in the school Nativity play. It's the time of ET and Greenham Common,. Price William's birth, Fame legwarmers and the puzzling introduction of the 20p piece. Meanwhile, for Jack, the biggest surprise of his life is in store...

Educating Jack

Mike Silverman

Tony Thompson

As one of the UK’s leading forensic scientists, Mike Silverman has helped to identify and convict dozens of murderers, rapists, armed robbers, burglars and muggers, thanks to the evidence they – or their victims – unwittingly left behind at the scenes of their crimes. 
 
Mike Silverman started his career in the days when fingerprints were still kept on card files and DNA profiling was just a pipe dream, so Written in Blood is more than just a casebook – it is also a definitive history of the development of forensic science over the course of the past thirty-five years. 
 
From collecting blood samples at gangland executions to investigating forensic science failings, including in the murders of Rachel Nickell and Damilola Taylor, Mike Silverman’s unique career provides a fascinating insight into the ways forensic science is used to help solve real-life crimes. 
 
Packed with genuine crime scene photographs and original sketches, Written in Blood is the ultimate insider’s account of the fascinating world of forensic science.

Written in Blood

Hana Yasmeen Ali

From the daughter of Muhammad Ali comes an intimate portrait of the heavyweight boxing champion and a final love letter from a daughter to her father. 
 
Through audio journals, love letters and cherished memories, Ali's daughter Hana tells the story of a very typical and yet fully-unique family, the rise and fall of her parent’s marriage and the struggles they faced as a family surrounding Ali’s loss to Larry Holmes in 1981. 
 
With the decline of Ali’s voice, his recordings are important to history as they are to his personal legacy. At Home with Muhammad Ali offers a candid look at a man who was trying to find his purpose in the world as he realized he was coming to the end of his lucrative sporting career, all the while trying to balance fatherhood and his worldly and political obligations. Additionally, Hana tells of the everyday adventures that the family experienced around the house—with visitors like Michael Jackson and Clint Eastwood dropping by. And for the first time, Hana’s mother Veronica will share her memories of the 12-year relationship with Muhammad. 
 
At Home with Muhammad Ali is a candid and revealing portrait of a legend, a man admired and respected as the greatest sporting icon of our age.

At Home with Muhammad Ali

A Memoir of Love, Loss and Forgiveness

Jilly Cooper

Brooding hero Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands even the most difficult horse or woman is charmed, is driven by his loathing of the dashing darling of the show ring, Rupert Campbell-Black. Having pinched each other’s horses and drunk their way around the capitals of Europe, the feud between the two men finally erupts with devastating consequences at the Los Angeles Olympics . . . 
 
A classic bestseller, Riders takes the lid off international show jumping, a sport where the brave horses are almost human, but the humans behave like animals. 
 
‘Sex and horses: who could ask for more?’ Sunday Telegraph

Riders

The classic book from the Sunday Times bestselling author

CLASS IS DEAD! 
Or so everyone claims. Who better to refute this than Jilly Cooper! 
 
Describing herself as 'upper middle class', Jilly claims that snobbery is very much alive and thriving! Meet her hilarious characters! People like Harry Stow-Crat, Mr and Mrs Nouveau-Richards, Samantha and Gideon Upward, and Jen Teale and her husband Brian. Roar with laughter at her horribly unfair observations on their everyday pretensions - their sexual courtships, choice of furnishings, clothes, education, food, careers and ambitions... 
 
For they will all remind you of people that you know!

Class

Winston Groom

With an Introduction by 
P.J. O'Rourke 
 
 
 
THE WORLD WILL NEVER 
BE THE SAME ONCE 
YOU'VE SEEN IT THROUGH 
THE EYES OF FORREST GUMP 
 
America's most lovable new hero is winning smiles and hearts everywhere these days - in the Paramount motion picture, Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks, and in the novel by Winston Groom 
(available in Black Swan paperback), hailed by critics as one of the funniest books they've ever read.Now the fun continues in this delightful confection of wit and wisdom from the world according to Gump... 
 
'ALWAYS BE ABLE TO LOOK BACK AND SAY "AT LEAST I DIDN'TLEAD NO HUMDRUM LIFE"'

Gumpisms: The Wit & Wisdom Of Forrest Gump

Paul O'Grady

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'With typical razor-sharp wit and candour, Paul tells of his rise to fame as Lily Savage . . . Riveting.' Daily Mirror 
 
From Britain's most beloved TV star, Open the Cage, Murphy is an action-packed roller-coaster ride through a decade of Paul O'Grady's life, stuffed full to the gunwales with hilarious stories, extreme situations and outrageous one-liners. 
A must read for any Paul O'Grady fan, Open the Cage, Murphy follows his brilliant comic creation Lily Savage as she embraces success and world domination beckons. 
From being involved in a plane crash, to getting caught up in the LA riots and a close encounter with Madonna, the stories come thick and fast. Paul takes us with him to a gay-themed weekend in Butlin's in Skegness, on a rowdy tour with Prisoner Cell Block H - the Musical and into the depths of the Australian rainforest, where he befriends a rare bird that can disembowel a man with a single kick. The dramatis personae include a family of dolphins, Charlton Heston and the ghost of Joan of Arc - and there's a starring role for a certain remarkable dog, Buster Elvis Savage. 
But whether he's writing about star-studded Hollywood parties, the devastating loss of close friends to AIDS, or late night shenanigans at the end of Blackpool Pier, Paul's wit and humanity never desert him. 
 
Open the Cage, Murphy is a genuine delight - all the more so for being delightfully genuine. 
 
Readers love Open the Cage, Murphy! 
 
' I couldn't put it down . . . Paul comes across as a very intelligent man . . . with a heart of gold under that naughty exterior.' ***** 
'This is such a great read, Paul is excellent when describing things makes you feel as though you are there with him. His humour warmth and caring comes out in abundance.' ***** 
'An excellent read. He takes you through the highs and lows of his life, you laugh and cry with him.' *****

Open the Cage, Murphy!

Hilarious tales of the rise of Lily Savage

Ossie Ardiles

Ossie Ardiles is one of the most iconic footballers ever to have graced the game. After winning the World Cup with Argentina in 1978, Ossie became the first foreign player to make an impact in England, paving the way for the modern era of multinational teams. and was immortalised in Chas &amp; Dave's hit record "Ossie's Dream (Spurs Are On Their Way to Wembley)". 
 
In that unforgettable 1981 FA Cup Final, the silky skills of Ossie and fellow Argentine midfielder Ricky Villa inspired Spurs to their famous victory over Man City. He also helped Spurs to retain the trophy the following year, and to win the UEFA Cup in 1984, and even found time to star in the classic football film Escape to Victory with Bobby Moore, Pelé, Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone. 
 
Thirty years on from those glory days, Ossie has a unique perspective on the football world, through his long career both playing and in management, with the emphasis always on style and entertainment. He also talks about growing up under a military dictatorship, how he was torn between two countries owing to the outbreak of the Falklands War, which claimed the life of one of his cousins, and how that football world has changed over the decades.

Ossie's Dream

My Autobiography

Les Pringle

Exploding pressure cookers, a thwarted wife's deadly revenge and transvestites in distress - manning an ambulance in the seventies kept you on your toes. 
 
Having survived the rites of passage as a probationer, Les Pringle now has to face up to the reality of life as an ambulance man in Thatcher's Britain. He does this with humour and fortitude - two qualities which are essential if he is to cope with cases ranging from the absurd to the heart rending. 
 
From attending murder scenes to delivering babies ... it's quite a life for Les, and one that he and his shift mates tread with warmth and humour in equal measure.

Call the Ambulance!

Andy McNab

Tough, resourceful, ruthless - as an SAS trooper Nick Stone was one of the best. Now he's back on the streets, working for British Intelligence as a deniable operator. It's the dirtiest job in a very, very dirty world. 
 
Andy McNab's blistering Nick Stone thrillers are bestsellers whose landscape is so compellingly close to the truth that they had to be vetted by the Ministry of Defence, and could only be published as fiction. . .

Tough, resourceful and ruthless, ex-SAS trooper Nick Stone is now working for British Intelligence on deniable operations. And is desperately in need of cash. 
 
When he is offered a lucrative freelance job, Stone thinks his problems are over. All he needs to do is kidnap a Russian mafia warlord. 
 
And so Stone is thrust into the grim underworld of Estonia, with unknown aggressors stalking the Arctic landscape. Russia has launched a cyber-espionage attack, hacking into the West's most sensitive military secrets. Stone must stop them. But the mafia are waiting in the wings with their own chillingly brutal solution...

Firewall

(Nick Stone Thriller 3)

It's 1979: Dallas is enthralling the nation on TV, Mrs Thatcher has just become prime minister, Abba is top of the pops, and in the small Yorkshire village of Ragley-on-the-Forest, Jack Sheffield returns for his third year as headmaster of the village school. 
 
Jack and his staff struggle to keep a semblance of normality throughout the turbulence of the school terms, as once again the official School Log fails to record what is really going on beneath the seemingly quiet routine. Ruby the caretaker discovers her Prince Charming; Vera the school secretary gets to meet her hero, Nicholas Parsons; and Jack, to his astonishment, finds himself having to stand in as a curiously skinny Father Christmas. 
 
Jack also finds himself, at last, having to choose between the vivacious sisters Beth and Laura Henderson ... 
 
Praise for Jack Sheffield 
'Wry observation and heartwarming humour in equal measure' Alan Titchmarsh 
'Overflowing with amusing anecdotes' Daily Express 
'Amusing adventures at the North Yorkshire village school' Choice 
'Jack Sheffield's in a class of his own' York Press

Dear Teacher

It’s 1985, and as Jack returns for another year as headteacher at Ragley village school, some changes are in store. 
 
It’s the year of Halley’s Comet, Band Aid, Trivial Pursuit, Dynasty shoulder pads, Roland Rat and Microsoft Windows. And at Ragley-on-the-Forest, Heathcliffe Earnshaw decides to enter the village scarecrow competition, Ruby the caretaker finds romance, and retirement looms for Vera the secretary. 
 
Meanwhile, Jack has to battle with some rising stars of the teaching profession to save his job and his school . . . 
 
Readers love Jack Sheffield: 
'Wry observation and heartwarming humour in equal measure' Alan Titchmarsh 
'Overflowing with amusing anecdotes' Daily Express 
'Amusing adventures at the North Yorkshire village school' Choice 
'Jack Sheffield's in a class of his own' York Press

Star Teacher

Clifford Irving

'I was down to my last chip, but it never occurred to me not to put it on the line, bet it, and roll the dice one more time . . .' 
 
In 1972 Clifford Irving pulled a sensational hoax involving Howard Hughes, a prestigious New York publishing house and over a million dollars. It made global newspaper headlines and was heralded as the biggest media scam of all time. Its dramatic events have now been made into an international blockbuster film starring Richard Gere. 
 
In his bestselling book The Hoax Clifford Irving recreates his own audacious literary sting when he and fellow conspirator, Dick Suskind, convinced US publisher McGraw-Hill that Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire, had commissioned Irving to write his authorised autobiography. A frantic year ensued while Irving forged letters and passports, faked interviews, set up a Swiss bank account and travelled thousands of miles to maintain his story, all the while desperately trying to juggle a wife, a mistress and an editor. Gradually the cracks in the plot started to appear and the nightmare began as Irving and Suskind realised they were set on a crash course towards indictment, conviction and jail.

The Hoax

Tom Hart Dyke

Tom Hart Dyke has a bit of a thing about plants. You might call it an obsession. You might call him certifiable, in fact. But it's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ramshackle country estate and an obsession with plant collecting could want for only one thing - in Tom's case it's a walled garden containing examples of plants collected from every corner of the globe. 
 
Tom's infectious enthusiasm for anything with chlorophyll in it and the hugely ambitious World Garden project he has undertaken at his family home, Lullingstone Castle, in Kent have been documented in a 12-part television series for BBC 2. The first six parts (Save Lullingstone Castle) were shown in spring 2006, and the second six episodes (Return to Lullingstone Castle) in spring 2007. 
 
Tom's attempts to set up the World Garden aren't exactly straightforward. You might imagine, for example, that the easiest way to start preparing the ground inside the walled Elizabethan garden which he transforms into the main part of the world garden would be to enlist the help of a few people and a lot of hard digging. Well not for Tom, who enlists instead two large pigs, who do indeed do a great job of turning over the earth and fertilising it with great organic manure. But the problem is that they keep escaping into the Hart Dyke family burial plot next door where they start digging up Tom's ancestors... 
 
The World Garden is created to bring together a truly amazing collection of plants from every continent and so to show the global origins of the plants we all grow in our gardens. It's already establishing itself as a tourist attraction of some note as well as an educational resource. 
 
This is a book for all those who bought Tim Smit's Lost Gardens of Heligan. It's stuffed full of fascinating botanical information as well as the story of Tom's hapless struggle to overcome huge logistical nightmares. It's a riveting, hilarious story of English eccentricity in full bloom.

An Englishman's Home

The Adventures of an Eccentric Gardener

Mike Curtis

Even by SAS standards Mike Curtis has had a remarkable career. A former coal miner and likely Welsh international, he served with 2 Para in the Falklands before going on to join the SAS. 
 
In C.Q.B. he describes his gruelling experience in the Falklands and also focus on two more of his major SAS operations; the first in Iraq where he spent several weeks behind enemy lines; the second in Bosnia where he worked closely with all factions and latterly led a close protection team guarding visiting heads of State. 
 
Goose Green, the first land battle of the Falklands conflict, was the longest, hardest-fought, and most controversial. The outcome there was to set the tone for the remainder of the war, affect international opinion and the morale and determination of both armies. 
 
The SAS infiltrated Iraq in two guises - as road-watch patrols and mobile fighting columns. Constituting the biggest SAS overland fighting force since the Second World War, Mike Curtis's troop constituted a coherent, mobile weapon able to operate round the clock and defend itself against surprise attack. 
 
C.Q.B. is also the first published account of the SAS's activities in former Yugoslavia by a Close Quarter Battle Specialist and John Major's personal bodyguard.

C.Q.B. (Close Quarter Battle)

Romesh Ranganathan

Confronted by the realities of adulthood, Romesh Ranganathan must face an uncomfortable truth: this is not quite how he imagined it. 
 
Watching his friends descend into middle age, his waist thicken with every meal and his finances dwindle to fund his family’s middle class aspirations, Romesh reflects on the demands of daily life and the challenges of adulting in the modern world. 
 
As he reluctantly concludes that he is indeed a grown man, Rom wrestles with the greater questions that threaten his being: Could I save my family in a crisis? Do I possess the skills to assemble flatpack furniture? Am I too old for streetwear? Is it alright to parent my kids through the medium of Fortnite? Is celibacy the secret to a passionate marriage? 
 
From one of the countries most beloved comedians and author of the Sunday Times bestseller STRAIGHT OUTTA CRAWLEY comes the hilarious and painfully accurate dissection of what it really means to grow up.

As Good As It Gets

Life Lessons from a Reluctant Adult

Pauline Quirke

Pauline Quirke was a skinny child, a slim teenager, a curvy woman, then &shy;- according to her bathroom scales (curse them) - just plain fat. Yes, the 'F' word. Tipping the scales at nearly 20 stone, with creaking knees and a dodgy ankle to boot, at the beginning of 2011 Pauline had reached a crisis point. Something had to change, and fast. 
 
It was never going to be an easy ride, but with her trademark warmth and sense of humour, Pauline recounts the highs and lows of the rollercoaster year in which she whips herself, and her life, into shape - with a fair few tales from her celebrated forty-year acting career thrown into the bargain. She reveals all: from the strain of working long hours away from home on one of Britain's most popular soaps to renewing her wedding vows and reuniting with her Birds of a Feather co-stars; from battling the bulge and facing the naysayers to rediscovering the joys of airline travel . . . without a seatbelt extension. 
 
Honest and revealing, Where Have I Gone? is brimming with brilliantly funny anecdotes and truly moving moments. So put your feet up and join Pauline as she embarks on the most incredible year of her life.

Where Have I Gone?

EMPTY CRADLES is a powerful testament to an ordinary woman's astonishing dedication, compassion and stubborn courage. 
 
In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker and mother of two, investigated the case of a woman who claimed that, at the age of four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret Humphreys soon discovered that this woman's story was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. As many as an estimated 150,000 children had in fact been deported from children's homes in Britian and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire - the last as recently as 1967. 
 
Many of the children were told that their parents were dead. Their parents, too, were often deceived; many believed that their children had been adopted in Britain. The reality was very different: for numerous children it was to be a life of horrendous physical and sexual abuse in institutions in Western Australia and elsewhere. 
 
Margaret Humphreys reveals how she gradually unravelled this shocking secret; how she became drawn into the lives of some of these innocent and unwilling exiles, how it became her mission to reunite them with their families in Britain, and how her lonely crusade led to the founding of the Child Migrants Trust. 
 
EMPTY CRADLES is a strong indictment of government, as well as charitable and religious organisations. It is a sad, harrowing story that will move the reader to anger and tears. Yet it offers a message of hope to all the victims of a shameful scandal that has been ignored for too long.

Empty Cradles

Robert Mazur

Robert Mazur spent five years undercover infiltrating the criminal hierarchy of Colombia’s drug cartels. The dirty bankers and businessmen he befriended knew him as Bob Musella, a wealthy, mob-connected big shot living the good life. Together they partied in expensive hotels, drank the world’s finest champagnes, drove Rolls-Royce convertibles and flew in private jets. But under Mazur’s designer suits and hidden away in his quality briefcase, recorders whirred quietly, capturing the damning evidence of their crimes. Then, at his own staged wedding, he led a dramatic takedown that shook the underworld. In the end, more than eighty men and women were charged worldwide. Operation C-Chase became one of the most successful undercover operations in the history of US law enforcement, and evidence gathered during the bust proved critical to the conviction of General Manuel Noriega. 
 
The Infiltrator is the true story of how Mazur's undercover work helped bring down the unscrupulous bankers who manipulated complex international finance systems to serve drug lords - including Pablo Escobar and the infamous Medillin cartel - corrupt politicians, tax cheats and terrorists. It is a shocking chronicle of the rise and fall of perhaps the biggest and most intricate money-laundering operation of all time. And, at its heart, it’s a vivid portrait of an undercover life and the sacrifices it requires. 
 
Filled with dangerous lies, near misses and harrowing escapes, The Infiltrator is as bracing and explosive as the greatest fiction thrillers - only it's all true.

The Infiltrator

Undercover in the World of Drug Barons and Dirty Banks

Ronald L Mallett

Bruce Henderson

Ron Mallett was just 10 when his father died suddenly. Devastated, he found solace in the science fiction of H.G. Wells, believing that if he could build a time machine, he could go back into the past, warn his father and perhaps save his life. 
Ronald Mallett is now a professor of theoretical physics. Remarkably, this working-class African American boy from the Bronx stuck with his vision, overcoming poverty and prejudice in the pursuit of his obsession. This is the story of his extraordinary journey of self- and scientific discovery. With simple language and elegant metaphor he lays out his theories and presents the reader with what is an actual blue print for a time machine.A dramatic and compelling memoir, it is also a brilliant introduction to a riveting but generally baffling subject, and a truly inspirational account of astonishing achievement.

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