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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William Queen

When veteran law-enforcement officer and lifelong motorcycle lover William Queen penetrated the San Fernando chapter of the notorious Mongols, he was at the mercy of psychopaths who sought to have him prove his fealty by any means necessary, from selling and doing drugs to arms trafficking, driving getaway cars and, in one shocking instance, stitching up the face of a Mongol 'ol' lady' after a brutal beating at the hands of her boyfriend. 
 
Yet despite the constant criminality of the gang, Queen came to see the genuine camaraderie they shared. When his lengthy undercover work totally isolated Queen from his relatives and friends, the Mongols felt like the only family he had left. Under and Alone is a breathless, adrenalin-charged read that puts you on the street with some of the most dangerous men in America.

Under and Alone

Infiltrating the World's Most Violent Motorcycle Gang

Martin Knight

A couple of years ago, Martin Knight began a quest to delve into his family history. He had a head start on many amateur genealogists, as 30 years earlier he had produced a school project on the very subject. The project was based on the papers and oral history of his then elderly grandmother, Ellen Tregent. Martin dusted this off and began to assemble the chain of events that shaped his grandmother's life. He even made contact with several living relatives who had known Ellen or some of the people and events she described. 
 
Ellen Tregent was born in 1888 and died in 1988 - her lifetime encompassing an unprecedented century of social change and world upheaval. She was born into a poor working-class family in Battersea, London. Her grandfather had arrived from Ireland 40 years earlier to escape almost certain death as potato famine ravaged his country. 
 
In Battersea Girl, Martin Knight charts Ellen's long and eventful life and the lives of her siblings. They encounter abject poverty, disease, suicide, murder, war and inevitably death, but, equally, the spirit of stoical people who were determined to make the most of their lives shines through in this enchanting book.

Battersea Girl

Tracing a London Life

Eugenie Fraser

The House by the Dvina is the riveting story of two families separated in culture and geography but bound together by a Russian-Scottish marriage. It includes episodes as romantic and dramatic as any in fiction: the purchase by the author's great-grandfather of a peasant girl with whom he had fallen in love; the desperate sledge journey in the depths of winter made by her grandmother to intercede with Tsar Aleksandr II for her husband; the extraordinary courtship of her parents; and her Scottish granny being caught up in the abortive revolution of 1905. 
 
 Eugenie Fraser herself was brought up in Russia but was taken on visits to Scotland. She marvellously evokes a child's reactions to two totally different environments, sets of customs and family backgrounds, while the characters are beautifully drawn and splendidly memorable. 
 
 With the events of 1914 to 1920 - the war with Germany, the Revolution, the murder of the Tsar and the withdrawal of the Allied Intervention in the north - came the disintegration of Russia and of family life. The stark realities of hunger, deprivation and fear are sharply contrasted with the adventures of childhood. The reader shares the family's suspense and concern about the fates of its members and relives with Eugenie her final escape to Scotland. 
 
 In The House by the Dvina, Eugenie Fraser has vividly and poignantly portrayed a way of life that finally disappeared in violence and tragedy.

The House by the Dvina

A Russian Childhood

Andrew Jeffrey

This is an examination of the part played by Edinburgh and South-East Scotland in World War II. In October 1939 the River Forth was the target of the first air raid on Britain. As well as looking at this battle, this book examines the German military effort against Edinburgh and surrounding communities. As the Forth was a vital port in the war effort, it was heavily garrisoned and fortified. Jeffrey describes plans which were made to counter the threat of invasion. Captain Archibald Ramsay (MP for Peebles and South Midlothian) spent more than four years of the war in Brixton prison, regarded as a pro-fascist. Research reveals that in the years up to 1940, support among influential Scots for Hitler was more widespread than has previously been thought. Documents describe the efforts made by MI5 to ensnare Nazi sympathisers. Edinburgh was also the scene of a secret war, which included the career of Robert Petter, a German spy arrested in Waverley station. The text also covers the strategic deception operations, undertaken to convince the Germans that the allied invasion of Norway was imminent, military training in the area and the social changes brought about by the war.

This Present Emergency

Edinburgh, the River Forth, South East Scotland and the Second World War

Neil Bradford

‘A fool couldn’t ride the Vincent Black Shadow more than once, but a fool can ride a Ducati 900 many times, and it will always be a bloodcurdling kind of fun. That is the Curse of Speed which has plagued me all my life. I am a slave to it. On my tombstone they will carve, IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME.’ – Hunter S. Thompson 
 
Sons of Thunder, Neil Bradford’s exhilaratingly high-octane collection of motorcycle writing, makes a persuasive case for the unique excitement and emotional experience offered by one of mankind’s greatest inventions. 
 
Featuring full-throttle tales by T.E. Lawrence, Roald Dahl, Melissa Holbrook Pierson, Robert Hughes and many others, and ranging from Hunter S. Thompson’s rip-roaring prose to lyrical contributions from Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn and Robert Pirsig, the groundbreaking Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance author, Sons of Thunder is a thrilling tribute to the pleasures and perils of riding this awesome machine.

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