Neil MacGregor was Director of the National Gallery, London from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015, and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin from 2015 to 2018. His previous books include A History of the World in 100 Objects, Shakespeare's Restless World and Germany: Memories of a Nation, all available in Penguin and now between them translated into more than a dozen languages. In 2010, he was made a member of the Order of Merit, the UK's highest civil honour. In 2015 he was awarded the Goethe Medal and the German National Prize. In 2018 the radio series Living with the Gods received the Sandford Saint Martin Award for Religious Broadcasting.

Neil MacGregor

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Felix Yusupov

In this extraordinary memoir Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov recounts the early, heady days of the 20th century and his plot to kill the 'mad monk' Rasputin in gruesome, thrilling prose. 
 
After a glamorous life in England, partying with the rich and famous at Oxford and London he eventually returned to Russia where he married Princess Irina of Russia, the Tsar's only niece, only to realise that his beloved Russia was on the verge of catastrophe, blaming Rasputin for his disastrous influence on the Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina. 
 
On the night of 30th December 1916, Yusupov murdered Rasputin, an event relayed in chilling detail in these memoirs.

Lost Splendour and the Death of Rasputin

Adrian Sykes

From the end of the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago) to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965,Adrian Sykes narrates the history and achievements of these islands,their inhabitants and their origins,through the stories of some 3000+ men &amp; women who have shaped not just our history but the modern world. The story is interspersed with countless inventions,deeds of daring do and wickednesses,as well as the origins of innumerable words and phrases,often surprisingly early, 
from Nosey Parker - Elizabeth I of her Archbishop of Canterbury,to mayonnaise - the battle of Mahon,which the victorious French admiral celebrated by inventing mayonnaise and after which we hanged Admiral Byng who lost it "to encourage the others",as Voltaire put it. Sykes astonishes on every page, whether with the origin of everyday phrases or nursery rhymes or the countless inventions of the British, from the lead pencil (1568), the tin can, the bicycle, screw propeller and jet engine to DNA, LCD crystals, cement, the electric kettle, the vacuum cleaner and Marmite. 
Beautifully illustrated and with maps of exceptional clarity,this is a book hard to put down in which you learn something very surprising on every page.

Made in Britain

The Men and Women Who Shaped the Modern World

Stanley Weiss

A skinny Jewish kid from Philadelphia training to fight and likely die in the U.S. invasion of Japan in 1945, Stanley Weiss came home to the death of his loving but weak father, who left his mother penniless. Vowing on the spot not to let his insecurities limit him as they had his father, Weiss pledged that his mother would never have to worry. Later, a humiliation suffered at the hands of his wealthy girlfriend’s famous father ignited in him a determination to better himself in every way and live life to the fullest. 
Inspired by a Humphrey Bogart movie, Weiss moved to a foreign country to hunt for treasure—where Rule Number One was ‘’Don’t Die.’’ Along the way, his zest for living has taken him from the company of legendary artists and poets in Mexico, to writers and beatniks in 1960s San Francisco and Hollywood; from drunken nights with a notorious spy to friendships with three of the men who played James Bond; from glamorous parties in Gstaad and Phuket to power politics in London and Washington, DC. A story of growth, tenacious focus, and good humor, it stretches from the days of ‘’Don’t Die’’ to Weiss’s response when asked why business executives were interested in preventing nuclear war: ‘’Being dead is bad for business.’’ 
For those who believe the world is shaped by ordinary people who push themselves to do extraordinary things, Stanley Weiss’s story will inspire and surprise while reminding us all that being dead is bad for business—and being boring is bad for life. 
Stanley

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