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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Alex Montgomery

Martin O'Neill is one of the most brilliant, successful and intriguing of the new manager/coaches to emerge from British football. 
 
Alex Montgomery's acclaimed biography brings O'Neill's story right up to date with an account of his first few months in charge at Aston Villa and deals with every aspect of his life and remarkable career from the early days as a player in Northern Ireland to his joining the tyrannical Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest. 
 
From non-league Grantham Town via Shepshed Dynamo and Wycombe Wanderers, to Norwich City, Leicester City and Celtic, where he broke the Rangers monopoly of Scottish football, to respected BBC pundit and a new role at Aston Villa, the book chronicles O'Neill's managerial triumphs. Montgomery offers a rare insight into the beliefs, lifestyle and ambitions of this private and complex football man.

Martin O'Neill

The Biography

Tim Albone

Cool Runnings meets Joseph O'Neill's Netherland in an inspiring and feel-good story of bravery and sporting success from a country so widely known for war and extremism. This is the true story of the Afghanistan cricket team and their extraordinary attempt to join the world's elite cricketing nations. That this devastated nation should be able to field a cricket team at all, let alone one as successful as this, is an unbelievable achievement. Seven years ago, in a country which does not have a real cricket pitch even today, there was no national team. But a group of young Afghan men, exiled by war, learnt to play in the smashed concrete of refugee camps, and have risen from obscurity to the groomed grass pitches of international cricket. 
 
With unlimited access, Tim Albone travelled alongside the team for the two years, charting the players' progress from refugees in Pakistan to the brink of international sporting stardom. Far from being bogged down in cricket jargon, this tale of a gang of dedicated, charismatic, occasionally exasperating young men seeking triumph out of disaster is one that will move and inspire everyone. 
 
Foreword by Mike Atherton.

Out of the Ashes

The Remarkable Rise and Rise of the Afghanistan cricket team

David Buckley

The Sunday Times bestseller. 
 
David Bowie was arguably the most influential artist of his time, reinventing himself again and again, transforming music, style and art for over five decades. 
 
David Buckley's unique approach to unravelling the Bowie enigma, via interviews with many of the singer's closest associates, biography and academic analysis, makes this unrivalled biography a classic for Bowie fans old and new. This revised edition of Strange Fascination captures exclusive details about the tours, the making of the albums, the arguments, the split-ups, the music and, most importantly, the man himself. Also including exclusive photographic material, Strange Fascination is the most complete account of David Bowie and his impact on pop culture ever written.

Strange Fascination

David Bowie: The Definitive Story

James Toseland

Ted Macauley

James Toseland, youngest ever World Superbike Champion at just 23 years old, has rocketed into a league of biking legends, following in the footsteps of Carl Fogarty, Troy Bayliss and Neil Hodgson. 
 
Toseland's success has been driven by a lifetime of tragedy. Using racing as a release, he became a fearless daredevil and had moved his way up through the ranks of British Superbikes by the time he was sixteen. 
 
But there was even more turmoil to come - a career of dramatic crashes and a collision in Monza, Italy, which left James seriously injured and his Honda team-mate dead. 
 
Winning his second Superbike championship in 2007, and about to make the move to MotoGP for 2008, James' story is one of genius, tragedy and an overwhelming will to succeed.

The Autobiography

J Pyle

The Krays, the Richardsons and men like Buster Edwards or Freddie Foreman may be better known, but by the end of the sixties they were either in prison or living in enforced exile. Joey Pyle was every bit as notorious, feared and respected. 
 
His broad range of criminal contacts and associates ensured he was either involved in or very much aware of every major criminal escapade that took place. From the murder of Jack the hat by the Kray twins to the Great Train Robbery, from the fatal shooting at the Pen Club to the American Mafia's attempts to penetrate London's casino scene, Pyle has seen it all.

Joey Pyle: Notorious - The Changing Face of Organised Crime

Mick Foster

Tony Allen

This is the combined life story of Mick Foster and Tony Allen, revealing how these most unlikely of stars toured the world and entered the record books. A charming narrative told with heaps of Celtic charm, it is filled with nostalgic reminiscences about growing up in rural Ireland in the 1950s and 60s, and spans the breadth of their long career, including appearing on Top of the Pops alongside Bob Geldof and being feted by Terry Wogan, and the extraordinary moment when they found themselves at the very top of the charts, beating Take That to the number-one slot.

After All These Years

Our Story

Tommy Gemmell

Graham McColl

In Tommy Gemmell: Lion Heart he sheds light on his career - from his earliest days of growing up in Lanarkshire, to his award-winning decade at Celtic, and through his work as a player and manager at Dundee and Albion Rovers. Always honest, Tommy Gemmell is not afraid to look back at Celtic's dominance in the 60s and offers his trademark forthright views on Celtic's progress and the game today.

Tommy Gemmell: Lion Heart

Jessie Hartland

Enter the world of Steve Jobs -- disrupter, icon, hero -- and be inspired by his fascinating life presented here as a graphic novel. 
 
This fast-paced and entertaining biography is a perfect complement to text-heavy books on Steve Jobs like Walter Isaacson’s biography. Steve Jobs is the subject of a major movie project this Autumn, and this graphic telling of his life-story presents him as the ultimate American entrepreneur, who brought us Apple Computer, Pixar, Macs, iPods, iPhones and more. It's a unique and stylish book, sure to appeal to the legions of readers who live and breathe the perfect blend of technology and design that Jobs created. 
 
Jobs’s remarkable life reads like a history of the personal technology industry. He started Apple Computer in his parents’ garage and eventually became the tastemaker of a generation, creating products we can’t live without. Through it all, he was an overbearing and demanding perfectionist, both impossible and inspiring. 
 
Capturing his unparalleled brilliance, as well as his many demons, Jessie Hartland’s engaging biography illuminates the meteoric successes, devastating setbacks, and myriad contradictions that make up the extraordinary life and legacy of the insanely great Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs: Insanely Great

Spike Milligan

Murphy is Irish and poor. Even by the standards of the poorest of the poor in Ireland, Murphy is poor. 
Set sometime between the first and second World Wars, somewhere in Ireland and sometimes everywhere else besides - at one point Murphy is kidnapped by Irish aliens who take him in a spaceship to see St Patrick choose his National Lottery numbers - Murphy's story serves only to prove that the luck of the Irish is not bestowed upon all the sons of the nation. 
Unable to hold down his job on a building site he turns to robbery but is discovered trapped inside a suit of armour, almost drowns when he falls down a wishing well and catches a particularly revolting form of bronchitis whilst on religious retreat in a particularly revolting form of monastery.As you would expect, The Murphy is rude, irreverent and hugely funny. Classic, timeless Milligan.

The Murphy

Robin Baker

Presumed dead, a group of undergraduate students who go missing on a deserted Pacific island emerge one year later in two groups of ragged (and naked) survivors. All but one of the surviving women have conceived, and two students, plus their professor, are said to have died. 
 
In the glare of the world's media, every survivor sticks to the same unconvincing version of events. Piece-by-piece the narrator examines the evidence and conducts interviews with the survivors, to work out exactly what happened on the island during that year. Slowly, a disturbing picture emerges of feral humans driven by rivalry and sexual tension ...a 'Lord of the Flies' scenario for adults that suspiciously seems to test the dead professor's theory that by nature people are no different from apes in the wild.

Primal

Neil Brandwood

'One of the great British comedians and all-round entertainers of her generation' Guardian 
 
'Bittersweet but scalpel sharp' Radio Times 
 
'One of Britain’s finest ever performers ... a sublime and unparalleled crafter of words' Independent 
 
Victoria Wood's wit and humour endeared her to millions of TV viewers for over four decades. Writer, producer and actress of television shows such as As Seen on TV and Dinnerladies, Victoria was often voted the funniest woman in Britain. 
 
Her rise to stardom, from her early years in Lancashire to the successes of the sell-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall, is sympathetically and honestly portrayed by Neil Brandwood. This meticulously researched and written biography provides an insightful account of the life and career of one of Britain's best-loved comediennes.

Victoria Wood

Andy Dougan

40 years ago a group of eleven young men stood in the Estadio Nacional in Lisbon and faced a crowd of 77,000 and the mighty Inter Milan. They were the first British team ever to reach the final of the European Cup. Indeed it was the first time their club had even played in the European Cup. And yet they faced one of the richest teams, with a fearsome reputation and an unbeaten defensive strategy. But these men would go on to make football history... 
 
Told by a life-long fan, The Lisbon Lions follows the fortunes of eleven men born within 20 miles of Glasgow who had come to play for a football team struggling in the League. Reinventing the team with his positive playing strategies, manager Jock Stein guided Celtic to victory in the Scottish championships and eventually to the European Cup itself. Andy Dougan takes us on the thrilling journey with Celtic as, round by round, the team's passion, inventiveness, and above all style brings them to the biggest game in their club's history. The story remains as romantic, inspiring and stirring as ever.

Celtic: The Lisbon Lions

A Celebration of the European Cup Campaign 1967

Dawn Porter

Dawn Porter needed to take action to meet some new, exciting and hopefully sexy people. A quick advert on a dating site was the start of an erotic journey which saw her dine with adult babies, get swept off to New York, fall madly in love with a Wall Street hunk, discover her appreciation for rubber uniforms, involve herself in a superbly sexual liaison with a couple, receive oral sex on a train platform and spend the evening with an Irish Leprechaun with a fixation for anal love eggs . . . 
In her explicit and candid Internet diaries, Porter takes us on a highlycharged sexual adventure through the minefield of dating in the big city. 
Witty, perceptive and very rude, Diaries of an Internet Lover is the best one night stand you'll ever have.

Diaries Of An Internet Lover

Dave Courtney

Dave Courtney - the original behind Vinnie Jones's character in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - tells all in his no-holds-barred bestselling autobiography. 
 
From the streets of southeast London to bare-knuckle fights; from the funeral of Ronnie Kray to drug-deals turned sour in Holland - Dave Courtney's story is like no one else's.

Stop The Ride, I Want To Get Off

The Autobiography of Dave Courtney

Don Camsell

Don Camsell joined the men in black of the SBS in 1974. From the deserts of Oman to the hills of Port Stanley, from the bottom of Gibraltar harbour to the deep, cold, black waters of Loch Long and from the QE2 to the back alleys of Belfast, his new role demanded that Don fought in just about every theatre of war - overt or covert.

Black Water: By Strength and By Guile

Mike Barson

Mark Bedford

Chris Foreman

Graham McPherson

Cathal Smyth

Lee Thompson

Dan Woodgate

New Foreword by Irvine Welsh. 
 
In Before We Was We Madness tell us how they became them. A story of seven originals, whose collective graft, energy and talent took them from the sweaty depths of the Hope and Anchor's basement to the Top of the Pops studio. 
 
In their own words they each look back on shared adventures. Playing music together, riding freight trains, spraying graffiti and stealing records. Walking in one another's footsteps by day and rising up through the city's exploding pub music scene by night. Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.

Before We Was We

The Making of Madness by Madness

Madness by Madness

Joe Layden

Sean Astin

When Sean Astin, veteran Hollywood actor of over 30 movies including The Goonies, and Rudy, landed the part of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings, he knew it was going to be different to anything he'd ever worked on before. Here he shares his heartfelt opinions on his early movies, how he got the part of Sam at that point in his career, and what it was like to be on set for nearly two years of his life. How did he and the other cast members get along? What were the excitements and the dangers they faced during filming? What happened the evening that Elijah Wood lost the keys to his room? How did Sir Ian McKellen cope when he didn't like the music the hobbits listened to during make-up and what happened when the crew considered striking? 
Revealing and immensely readable, There and Back Again is the behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to be involved in the making of one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.

There And Back Again: An Actor's Tale

Oscar Pistorius

Blade Runner is the inspirational memoir of Oscar Pistorius. Discover his incredible, emotional journey from disabled toddler to international sports phenomenon. 
 
At eleven months old, Oscar Pistorius had both his legs amputated below the knee. His mother wrote a letter to be read by Oscar when he was grown up: 'A loser is not one who runs last in the race. It is the one who sits and watches, and has never tried to run.' 
 
On discovering that their son had been born with no fibulae, Oscar's parents made the difficult decision to have both his legs amputated, giving him the best possible chance of a normal life. Oscar received his first pair of prosthetic legs at just seventeen months, made specifically for him. From then on he became invincible: running, climbing and, with the encouragement of his older brother, getting into any mischief he could. 
 
Throughout the course of his life, Oscar has battled to overcome extraordinary difficulties to prove that, with the right attitude, anything is possible. Blade Runner charts the extraordinary development of one of the most gifted sportsmen and inspirational figures on the planet - from immobilised child to world-class sprinter.

Blade Runner

Leo Moynihan

Gordon Strachan has probably become best known among football fans for his realistic and often witty assessments of his teams' performances and football matters in general. It is easy to forget that Strachan forged a career as a player where his abilities made him the only player ever to win the Football Writers' Player of the Year Award both north and south of the border. 
Now managing Celtic, this fully updated biography of one of Scotland's most charismatic exports is published 40 years after the club became the first British team to win the European Cup. 
In this comprehensive and fascinating biography, Leo Moynihan looks at the tenacity of Strachan as a player, determined to prove his old mentor wrong when Ferguson sold him to Leeds Utd, on the basis of him being past his best, and the true relationship that exists between them, as well as the honesty of a man who has often left followers of the beautiful game scratching their heads, but always full of admiration.

Gordon Strachan

Piers Paul Read

On Thursday August 8, 1963, fifteen masked men stopped the night train from Glasgow to London and robbed it of £2,500,000 (the equivalent of £41 million today). It was called the crime of the century, and the thieves were relentlessly pursued by Scotland Yard until half the gang were behind bars serving huge prison terms. But the story did not end there. First one, then another escaped in thrilling style and fled abroad, catching the world's imagination and making the Train Robbers into folk heroes. 
 
Thirteen years later, the gang combined to tell their story, and Piers Paul Read, author of the bestselling Alive, agreed to write it. This is the classic, complete and exclusive story of the twentieth-century's most audacious crime and its even more sensational aftermath.

The Train Robbers

Their Story

Graeme Thomson

In this intimate and engaging biography, Graeme Thomson interviews Nelson himself, his band and those who knew him best en route to discovering the real Willie Nelson. 
 
The Outlaw brilliantly describes a complex and compelling man whose life and music reflect something fundamental at the heart of twentieth-century America. Thomson's revealing portrait is a timely reminder of the stature and achievements of a true living legend. 
 
Covering everything from dirt poor beginnings in Texas, global fame in the 70s, four marriages, the death of a son and affairs with Amy Irving and Candice Bergen up to his current position as a 73-year-old pot smoking man of the road, Thomson's account emerges as the first detailed, clear-eyed account of Nelson's fascinating life.

Willie Nelson

The Outlaw

Eric Sykes

Sparks and Miller, two reluctant Desert Rats, were trying desperately to have a quiet war, but despite all of their efforts, they somehow manage to become front-page heroes. No matter what they do they come up smelling of roses.

Smelling Of Roses

Andy Neill

Matt Kent

The most dynamic day-to-day chronicle of the band ever compiled. Organised by year, each chapter of the book gives an overview of the band's fortunes and presents in diary fashion exactly what the boys were doing including detailed information about concert tours, radio and television gigs, recording sessions, record releases and solo activities. 
 
Providing a unique insight into the members' professional and personal relationships, there are also quotes from the band members as well as from individuals who knew them and worked with them throughout the years. 
 
A unique collection of rare photographs and memorabilia puts the reader in the front row of one of the greatest rock acts ever to appear on stage.

Anyway Anyhow Anywhere

The Complete Chronicle of the Who 1958-1978

Robin Hunter

A thoughtful and civilised man shouldn't have to make this choice. 
 
Until the day his wife and children are gunned down by 
terrorists, Simon Quarry knows what kind of man he is. 
 
When the politicians and diplomats look the other way, he 
becomes a hunter, guided by rage as much as by the desire for 
justice. Wanted by the terrorists he's targeting as well as by the 
police he’s evading, Quarry's grief for his murdered family 
becomes the engine of his revenge. 
A revenge that exacts a heavy price.

The Fourth Angel

James Ashcroft

Gun-for-hire James 'Ash' Ashcroft thought he'd left Iraq behind. Last time he only got out alive thanks to the bravery of his interpreter and friend Sammy. But now a call for help means Ash must once again face the chaos of war-torn Baghdad - and this time there's no pay cheque. Abandoned by the occupying Coalition Forces, Sammy and his family face certain death at the hands of the Shia-dominated Iraqi Police and the death squads that roam the streets unless Ash and his team can get in and get them to safety over the border. This is the action-packed story of their audacious escape from Baghdad. It is a gripping account of the chaos of war, where the only thing that can be relied upon is the bond between former brothers-in-arms.

Escape from Baghdad

First Time Was For the Money, This Time It's Personal

Sir Richard Branson

Sam Branson

It's hardly a surprise to discover that Sam Branson has a love of adventure and a real concern about our future in a world where the climate is changing rapidly. Journeying into the heart of the Arctic wilderness with his father and a film crew, Sam explores the changing landscape and the lives of the native Inuit people who have survived in a relentlessly inhospitable environment for 5000 years. 
 
Sleeping on frozen seas and encountering majestic polar bears, Sam and his father embark together on a winter expedition which Sam must ultimately complete on his own, finding new depths of resilience and courage in a formidable and breathtaking landscape.

Arctic Diary

Surviving on thin ice

Charles Higham

Jennie Jerome was a controversial American society girl and mother of Britain's most revered statesman, Winston Churchill. A single-minded and dynamic woman she was an early feminist, advocate of Irish independence, and, above all, was notorious for her promiscuity. 
 
Charles Higham draws from previously overlooked sources to provide much that is startlingly new about the remarkable and tempestuous life of Jennie Jerome. The book charts her luxurious New York upbringing, her eyebrow-raising entry into the British aristocracy through marriage to Lord Randolph Churchill, son of the Duke of Marlborough, her endless line of liaisons with men of vastly inferior years, and a very different sort of affair in the highest of high places - with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII (one of many kings and princes to win her affection). Passionately in love with life, expressive of her sexuality when women were supposed to hide it, beautiful and independent minded, Jennie Jerome was decades ahead of her time.

Dark Lady

Bob Bevan

Firmly established in the world of entertainment, The Cat's route to fame has been through corporate and sporting dinners. He grew up loving sport and perservered despite having only one eye and an almost total absence of natural ability. His reputation as a figure of fun and his readiness to laugh at his own failures have reaped rich rewards. 
How many of us have played football with Bobby Moore and George Best at Wembley, or played at Lord's, or written a poem teasing the Duke of Edinburgh for never recognising us? In Nearly Famous, The Cat writes hilariously of the many famous people he has worked with - everyone from Colin Cowdrey, Bobby Robson and Terry Venables to Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Billy Connolly, Eric Morcambe and Brian Johnston - and the highs and lows of that most serious of businesses: making people laugh.

Nearly Famous: Adventures of an After-Dinner Speaker

Charlotte Moerman

After a decade of climbing the career ladder collecting business cards, box files and an assortment of baffling acronyms, Charlotte Moerman leaps off into the great unknown of motherhood. 
 
She gamely enters into her new life and soon can't imagine a world before Pampers wipes. But without appraisals or targets to guide her along the way, Charlotte also realises there's an awful lot to learn. Scratching her head over egg-and-soldiers etiquette, the appeal of paper pants, and her instinctive new urge to rock shopping trolleys whether or not there's a passenger on board, Charlotte also surrenders any last hope of achieving household minimalism, what with submarines in the bath, marbles underfoot and a villainous nappy bin that would give Doctor Who a run for his money. 
 
Instructions Not Included follows the joy and the pain of becoming mum to three small boys, from juggling multiple demands and accepting going to the loo as a group activity, to finding 300 ways to describe being knackered. Charlotte's days in paid work soon seem distant. So, frequently, does her Dutch husband. Armed with a sharp wit, an encyclopaedic knowledge of children's literature and a nit comb, Charlotte allows women to celebrate their own uncertainty as she guides them through her experiences of the potential minefield that is motherhood.

Instructions Not Included

One Mum, Three Boys and a Very Steep Learning Curve

Louisa Francis

1850s Australia was a harsh place. The manners of courtship left a lot to be desired and gentlemen were few and far between. When farmer Nat Durrant declares Bridie Flannagan unsuitable to be to be his wife, the feisty Irish lass vows to make him regret his words. It was he who taught her how to take pleasure from men and it's him she wants to marry. 
 
However, the dishonest activities of Bridie's father, which brought her to the notice of Nat Durrant, also bring her into contact with powerful outlaw Lucas Martin. Taken hostage to aid Lucas's escape from the law, Bridie finds herself torn between lust and honor.

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