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

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Neil Hegarty

Sir David Frost was the only person to have met and interviewed every British Prime Minister since Harold Wilson as well as seven Presidents of the United States. With unparalleled, authorised access to David’s family and friends, in this book Neil Hegarty documents how he became the most successful TV host in the world, his work defining the mood of the moment. 
 
Frost didn’t just report the news, he made the news.

Frost: That Was The Life That Was

The Authorised Biography

Neil deGrasse Tyson

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! 
 
Join the galactic conversation on the biggest issues in the universe, from the 'most popular scientist in the world' 
 
‘Don't fear change. Don't fear failure. The only thing to fear is loss of ambition. But if you've got plenty of that, then you have nothing to fear at all’ – Neil deGrasse Tyson 
 
Neil deGrasse Tyson is arguably the most influential, acclaimed scientist on the planet. As director of the Hayden Planetarium, and host of Cosmos and StarTalk, he has dedicated his life to exploring and explaining the mysteries of the universe. 
 
Every year, he receives thousands of letters – from students to prisoners, scientists to priests. Some seek advice, others yearn for inspiration; some are full of despair, others burst with wonder. But they are all searching for understanding, meaning and truth. 
 
His replies are by turns wise, funny, and mind-blowing. In this, his most personal book by far, he covers everything from God to the history of science, from aliens to death. He bares his soul – his passions, his doubts, his hopes. The big theme is everywhere in these pages: what is our place in the universe? 
 
The result is an awe-inspiring read and an intimate portal into an incredible mind, which reveals the power of the universe to start conversations and inspire curiosity in all of us.

Letters from an Astrophysicist

Sheelah Kolhatkar

Nominated for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year 
Nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction 
Amazon Top 5 Business Books of 2017 
 
 
'A prodigious feat of reporting' - Malcolm Gladwell 
 
‘Black Edge has the grip of a thriller … Everyone should read this book’ - David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of THE LOST CITY OF Z 
 
 
 
How do super-rich bankers get away with it? 
 
There is a powerful new class of billionaire financiers in the world, who use their phenomenal wealth to write their own rules and laws. Chief among them is Steven Cohen, a Wall Street legend, and the basis for Damian Lewis's character in BILLIONS, who built his hedge fund into a $15 billion empire on the basis of wizard-like stock trading, and who flies to work by helicopter and owns one of the largest private art collections in the world. But his iconic status was shattered when his fund became the target of a sprawling FBI investigation into insider trading, charged with using illegal inside information – or ‘black edge’ – to beat the market. His firm, SAC Capital, was ultimately indicted and pled guilty to charges of securities and wire fraud, and paid record criminal and civil fines of nearly $2 billion. But even as the company bearing his name pled guilty, Cohen himself was never charged, and is free to start trading publicly again from January 2018. 
 
Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the grey zone in which so much of Wall Street functions, and a window into the transformation of the worldwide economy. With meticulous reporting and powerful storytelling, this is a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the US government’s pursuit of Cohen and his employees, and raises urgent questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of the financial world.

Black Edge

Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street

Adam Grant

WINNER of the Chartered Management Institute's (CMI's) Mangement Book of the Year Awards 2017, JP Morgan's Best Summer Read 2018, and a #1 New York Times Bestseller! 
 
‘Extraordinary’ JJ Abrams 
‘Fascinating’ Arianna Huffington 
‘Inspire creativity and change’ Richard Branson 
‘One of my favourite thinkers’ Malcolm Gladwell 
‘Masterful’ Peter Thiel 
‘One of the great social scientists of our time’ Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet 
‘Fresh research, counter-intuitive insights, lively writing, practical calls to action’ The Financial Times 
 
 
The New York Times bestselling author examines how people can drive creative, moral, and organisational progress—and how leaders can encourage originality in their organisations. 
 
How can we originate new ideas, policies and practices without risking it all? Adam Grant shows how to improve the world by championing novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battling conformity, and bucking outdated traditions. 
 
Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt. Parents will learn how to nurture originality in children, and leaders will discover how to fight groupthink to build cultures that welcome dissent. 
 
Told through dazzling case studies of people going against the grain, you’ll encounter an entrepreneur who pitches the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who challenged secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees who don’t criticize him, and the TV executive who saved Seinfeld from the cutting room floor. Originals will give you groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and how to change the world.

Originals

How Non-conformists Change the World

James O'Brien

***THE RUNAWAY BESTSELLER, WITH NEW MATERIAL FOR THE PAPERBACK*** 
 
THE REVEALING, DEFINING ACCOUNT OF THE DARK NETWORK THAT BROKE OUR COUNTRY. 
 
Something has gone really wrong in Britain. 
 
Our economy has tanked, our freedoms are shrinking, and social divisions are growing. Our politicians seem most interested in their own careers, and much of the media only make things worse. We are living in a country almost unrecognisable from the one that existed a decade ago. But whose fault is it really? Who broke Britain and how did they do it? 
 
Bold and incisive as ever, James O'Brien reveals the shady network of influence that has created a broken Britain of strikes, shortages and scandals. He maps the web connecting dark think tanks to Downing Street, the journalists involved in selling it to the public and the media bosses pushing their own agendas. Over ten chapters, each focusing on a particular person complicit in the downfall, James O'Brien reveals how a select few have conspired - sometimes by incompetence, sometimes by design - to bring Britain to its knees.

How They Broke Britain

Keren Blankfeld

'Haunting and powerfully resonant... this is a story not just of remarkable individuals, but also a tribute to the wider indomitability of the human spirit at the darkest moment in European history' - Sinclair McKay, bestselling author of Berlin and Dresden 
 
Zippi Spitzer and David Wisnia&rsquo;s story began when they first locked eyes across the work floor. It was the start of a romance that could have unfolded anywhere if it weren&rsquo;t for one key difference: Zippi and David were prisoners in history&rsquo;s most infamous death camp. 
 
David and Zippi defied the odds by surviving for years beneath the ash-choked skies of Auschwitz. Shielded by the protection of their fellow inmates, saved on occasion by their own ingenuity and twists of fate, their love affair reminded them that their old world still existed &ndash; a world of possibilities, of freedom and desire. As the war&rsquo;s end drew near, little did they know just how far their lives would diverge, and how many years would pass before they would meet again. 
 
An unbelievable true story of romance, sacrifice, loss, and resilience, Lovers in Auschwitz chronicles the lives of two young people ensnared in the Nazis&rsquo; horrific creation, who discovered hope and humanity in history&rsquo;s darkest hour.

Lovers in Auschwitz

A True Story

Ulrik Skotte

Discover the page-turning true story of the most iconic Cold War spy killing of all time, perfect for fans of Ben Macintyre, Henry Hemming and the novels of John Le Carre. 
 
London, 1978: exiled Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is murdered on Waterloo Bridge with what appears to be a poison-tipped umbrella. It would become the most infamous unsolved killing of the Cold War. 
 
Many years later, young journalist Ulrik Skotte is approached with explosive new information about a man alleged to be responsible for Markov’s death – a spy code-named Piccadilly who worked for the Bulgarian secret service. This meeting launched Skotte into a hunt for the killer lasting more than a quarter of a century, bringing him face to face with eccentric conspiracy theorists, a washed-up former dictator, ageing Danish spooks – and, ultimately, with Agent Piccadilly himself. 
 
Drawing on an incredible cache of original documents, interviews and archive material, The Umbrella Murder provides jaw-dropping answers to questions that have persisted for nearly five decades: who killed Georgi Markov? And who has been protecting the assassin ever since?

The Umbrella Murder

The Hunt for the Notorious Cold War Killer

The Hunt for the Cold War's Most Notorious Killer

Jacob Rees-Mogg

They built a nation. Now it’s our turn. 
 
Many associate the Victorian era with austere social attitudes and filthy factories. But in this bold and provocative book, Jacob Rees-Mogg -- leading Tory MP and prominent Brexit advocate -- takes up the story of twelve landmark figures to paint a very different picture of the age: one of bright ambition, bold self-belief and determined industriousness. 
 
Whether through Peel’s commitment to building free trade, Palmerston’s deft diplomacy in international affairs, or Pugin’s uplifting architectural feats, the Victorians transformed the nation and established Britain as a preeminent global force. 
 
Now 200 years since the birth of Queen Victoria, it is essential that we remember the spirit, drive and values of the Victorians who forged modern Britain, as we consider our future as a nation.

The Victorians

Twelve Titans who Forged Britain

Maajid Nawaz

Born and raised in Essex, Maajid Nawaz was recruited into politicised Islam as a teenager. Abandoning his love of hip hop music, graffiti and girls, he was recruited into Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Liberation Party) where he played a leading and international role in the shaping and dissemination of an aggressive anti-West narrative. While studying for his Arabic and law degree, he travelled around the UK and to Denmark and Pakistan, setting up new cells. 
 
Arriving in Egypt the day before 9/11 his views soon led to his arrest, imprisonment and mental torture, before being thrown into solitary confinement in a Cairo jail reserved for political prisoners. There, while mixing with everyone from the assassins of Egypt's president to Liberal reformists, he underwent an intellectual transformation and on his release after four years, he publically renounced the Islamist ideology that had defined his life. This move would cost him his marriage, his family and his friends as well as his own personal security. 
 
Six years after his release, Maajid now works all over the world to counter Islamism and to promote democratic ideals through his organisation, The Quilliam Foundation, which he co-founded with former Islamist and bestselling author Ed Husain. 
 
Following in the wake of the extraordinary democratic change in the Arab world, that few would have foretold, Radical is Maajid's intensely personal account of life inside and out of Islamic extremism. It also highlights one man's quest to inspire change and challenge extremism in all its forms. 
 
This is a hard-hitting memoir of one man's journey into and out of Islamic extremism.

Radical

My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening

Julian Sancton

**A Times Best Book of 2021** 
The harrowing, survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly wrong, with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter 
 
August 1897: The Belgica set sail, eager to become the first scientific expedition to reach the white wilderness of the South Pole. But the ship soon became stuck fast in the ice of the Bellinghausen sea, condemning the ship's crew to overwintering in Antarctica and months of endless polar night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness, their minds ravaged by the sound of dozens of rats teeming in the hold, they descended into madness. 
 
In this epic tale, Julian Sancton unfolds a story of adventure gone horribly awry. As the crew teetered on the brink, the Captain increasingly relied on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in captivity - Dr. Frederick Cook, the wild American whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship's first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, who later raced Captain Scott to the South Pole. Together, Cook and Amundsen would plan a last-ditch, desperate escape from the ice-one that would either etch their names into history or doom them to a terrible fate in the frozen ocean. 
 
Drawing on first-hand crew diaries and journals, and exclusive access to the ship's logbook, the result is equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror. This is an unforgettable journey into the deep.

Madhouse at the End of the Earth

The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night

Terry Stiastny

The true story of the the misfits and mavericks who waged psychological warfare against the Nazis 
 
September, 1939. While Britain hovered on the brink of the Second World War, a team of unlikely and ill-assorted characters assembled in their secret headquarters. They had left their civilian roles as politicians, journalists, novelists and spies, advertisers, artists and even forgers, to work for a covert government organisation. Their goals: to weaken enemy morale, sow confusion and encourage resistance. In the ‘hush-hush’ village of Aspley Guise near Woburn Abbey (8 miles from the codebreakers at Bletchley Park), they set to work. 
 
The once top-secret wartime efforts of the Political Warfare Executive were remarkable in their variety and inventiveness – from pornographic leaflet drops to rumour campaigns, underground publications and fake French and German radio shows. But to break Nazi morale, these men and women found themselves skirting the edges of their own morality. What do you lose when you deploy lies – even brilliant, believable lies – to achieve your ends?

Believable Lies

The Misfits Who Fought Churchill's Secret Propaganda War

Tom Bower

Guardian 'literary highlights of 2020' 
Sunday Times 'books to watch out for in 2020' 
New Statesman 'books to read in 2020' 
Evening Standard 'thirteen titles to look for in 2020' 
 
As divisive as he is beguiling, as misunderstood as he is scrutinised, Boris Johnson is a singular figure. 
 
Many of us think we know his story well. His ruthless ambition was evident from his insistence, as a three-year-old, that he would one day be 'world king'. Eton and Oxford prepared him well for a frantic career straddling the dog-eat-dog worlds of journalism and politics. His transformation from bumbling stooge on Have I Got New for You to a triumphant Mayor of London was overshadowed only by his colourful personal life, brimming with affairs, scandals and transgressions. His ascent to Number 10 in the wake of the acrimonious, era-defining Brexit referendum would prove to be only the first act in an epic drama that saw him play both hero and villain - from proroguing parliament to his controversial leadership of the Covid-19 Crisis, all against the backdrop of divorce, marriage, the birth of his sixth child, revolts among Tory MPs and the countdown to Brexit. 
 
Yet despite his celebrity, decades of media scrutiny, the endless vitriol of his critics and the enduring adoration of his supporters, there is so much we've never understood about Boris - until now. Previous biographies have either dismissed him as a lazy, deceitful opportunist or been transfixed by his charm, wit and drive. Both approaches fall short, and so many questions about Boris remain unanswered. 
 
What seismic events of his childhood have evaded scrutiny? How has he so consistently defied the odds, proved his critics wrong, and got away with increasingly reckless gambles? What were his real achievements and failures as Mayor of London, what was really going on during his time as Foreign Secretary, and why did he write two articles for the Telegraph, one in favour of Leave and the other for Remain? How have the women in his life exerted more influence than any of us realise, and why is his story ultimately one overshadowed by family secrets? 
 
Based on a wealth of new interviews and research, this is the deepest, most rounded and most comprehensive portrait to date of the man, the mind, the politics, the affairs, the family - of a loner, a lover, a leader. 
 
Revelatory, unsettling and compulsively readable, it is the most timely and indispensable book yet from Britain's leading investigative biographer.

Boris Johnson

The Gambler

David Halpern

With a foreword by Richard Thaler, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics! 
 
New Updated Edition, 2019. 
 
Dr David Halpern, behavioural scientist and head of the government's Behavioural Insights Team, or Nudge Unit, invites you inside the unconventional, multi-million pound saving initiative that makes a big difference through influencing small, simple changes in our behaviour. Using the application of psychology to the challenges we face in the world today, the Nudge Unit is pushing us in the right direction. This is their story.

Inside the Nudge Unit

How small changes can make a big difference

Naoíse Mac Sweeney

*A BBC RADIO 4 Book of the Week* 
'A fantastic achievement' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads 
'Bright, expansive, and iconoclastic, this deliciously witty book has the potential to upset the applecart of "Western Civilisation" itself... Magnificent' Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb 
_________________ 
 
A radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating lives. 
 
We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread stretching from classical antiquity to the countries of the modern Western world. But what if this is wrong? 
 
Told through the lives of fourteen fascinating historical figures - including a formidable Roman matriarch, an unconventional Islamic scholar, an enslaved African American poetess and a British prime minister with Homeric aspirations – archaeologist and historian Naoíse Mac Sweeney charts how the idea of the West was invented, how it has been used to justify imperialism and racism, and why it is no longer ideologically fit for purpose today. 
 
The result is a bold and empowering new story of the people and ideas who made us who we are today.

The West

A New History of an Old Idea

The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk with over $1 billion in gold and silver—and one man’s obsessive quest to find it—from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth 
 
Roger Dooley wasn’t looking for the San Jose. But an accidental discovery in the dusty stacks of a Spanish archive in the 1980s led him to the story of a lifetime—the journey of a ship that had gathered a mountain of riches from the New World for a long-awaited delivery to the King of Spain nearly three centuries earlier. But that ship, the galleon San Jose, never reached its destination. Instead, the Spanish treasure fleet was drawn into a pitched battle with British ships of war off the coast of Cartagena. When the smoke cleared, the San Jose had disappeared into the ocean. 
 
Though a diver at heart, Dooley was an unlikely candidate to find the San Jose. Half Cuban by birth, he lived a life that stretched from the ballfields of Brooklyn to the shores of Castro’s Havana at the dawn of revolution, where he would help birth a fledgling nation’s diving program and make films with Jacques Cousteau, before finding himself placed on an international watch list and barred from the United States. Dooley had little in the way of serious credentials, yet his tenacity and single-minded devotion to finding the San Jose led him to breakthroughs once thought impossible. As he jousted with famous treasure hunters and well-funded competitors, Dooley ultimately homed in on a patch of sea that might contain a three-hundred-year-old shipwreck—or nothing at all. 
 
Neptune's Fortune plunges into a rarified world through the eyes of an idiosyncratic protagonist, one whose work would spark the hopes of presidents and make real the dreams of a nation. This tale of temerity and treasure is a one-of-a-kind story of a lost fortune and the decades-long quest to shine a light on the bounty at the bottom of the sea.

Neptune’s Fortune

The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire

Tom Petch

'Awesome!' ANDY McNAB | 'You must read this book' Colonel TIM COLLINS OBE | 'Extraordinary' Sir RANULPH FIENNES 
 
Forget what you thought you knew. Discover the REAL story of how the SAS was created. 
 
From ex-SAS Commander Tom Petch, this is the never-before-told story of how the world's preeminent Special Forces came into existence. Flashing between dramatic accounts from the frontlines and power negotiations in Westminster, it's an adventure that reaches from the trenches of the Western Front to piracy in the deserts of North Africa, to the final assault on Germany. 
 
Drawing on hidden archives and told with captivating drama, it focuses on two characters largely overlooked in the traditional narrative - Dudley Clarke the mastermind, and William Fraser the frontline operator. Without them there would never have been an SAS. 
 
'Gripping and fascinating... Packed with unforgettable characters and thrilling adventures' WILL IREDALE, bestselling author of The Pathfinders

Speed, Aggression, Surprise

The Secret Origins of the Special Air Service

The Untold Secret Origins of the SAS

James Aldred

'A book of heart-stopping bravery and endurance' -- Helen Macdonald 
'A great read – incredible adventures and a dramatic new perspective' -- Chris Packham 
'[A] delightful, endlessly fascinating book' -- Daily Mail BOOK OF THE WEEK 
 
This is the story of a professional British tree climber, cameraman and adventurer, who has made a career out of travelling the world, filming wildlife for the BBC and climbing trees with people like David Attenborough, Chris Packham and Helen Macdonald. 
 
James's climbs take him to breathtaking locations as he scales the most incredible and majestic trees on the planet. On the way he meets native tribes, gets attacked by African bees, climbs alongside gorillas, chased by elephants, and spends his nights in a hammock pitched high in the branches with only the stars above him. 
 
This book blends incredible stories of scrapes and bruises in the branches with a new way of looking at life high above the daily grind, up into the canopy of the forest.

The Man Who Climbs Trees

Eliza Filby

The Sunday Times Bestseller! 
 
Many of us grew up believing in a meritocracy, where hard work and a good education brings rewards. Go to university, get a job, put in the hours and things will be OK. That’s what we were told – but the reality is that life chances and opportunities are no longer shaped by what we learn or earn but by whether we have access to the Bank of Mum and Dad. We’re living in an inheritocracy, where parental support is what matters most – whether that’s covering the cost of university, stumping up for a house deposit or helping with childcare. And let’s be honest, this isn’t something we like to talk about with our friends, families or as a society. It’s a modern taboo. 
 
In this timely and revealing book, generational expert Eliza Filby explores the emergence of this inheritocracy through her own life story, revealing how her family’s financial circumstances shaped everything from her education to her dating life, from her career to her class identity. Inheritocracy is a thought-provoking and candid blend of memoir and cultural commentary, told through Eliza’s humorous and insightful voice. 
 
With trillions of pounds set to be passed down the generations over the next two decades, a significant divide is emerging between those who can rely on family wealth and those who can’t. Inheritocracy offers a fresh, captivating and honest look at our recent past and a future that will be shaped – for better or worse – by family fortunes.

Inheritocracy

It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad

Johannes Krause

Thomas Trappe

Humanity has often found itself on the precipice. We've survived and thrived because we've never stopped moving... 
 
In this eye-opening book, Johannes Krause, Chair of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Humanity, offers a new way of understanding our past, present and future. 
 
Marshalling unique insights from archaeogenetics, an emerging new discipline that allows us to read our ancestors' DNA like journals chronicling personal stories of migration, Krause charts two millennia of adaption, movement and survival, culminating in the triumph of Homo Sapiens as we swept through Europe and beyond in successive waves of migration - developing everything from language, the patriarchy, disease, art and a love of pets as we did so. 
 
We also meet our ancestors, from those many of us have heard of - such as Homo Erectus and the Neanderthals - to the wildly unfamiliar but no less real: the recently discovered Denisovans, who ranged across Asia and, like humans, interbred with Neanderthals; the Aurignacians, skilled artists who, 40,000 years ago, brought about an extraordinary transformation in what our species could invent and create; the Varna, who buried their loved ones with gold long before the Pharaohs of Egypt did; and the Gravettians, big game hunters who were Europe's most successful early settlers until they perished in the face of the toughest opponent humanity had ever faced: the ice age. 
 
As well as being a radical new telling of our shared story, this book is a reminder that the global problems that keep us awake at night - climate catastrophe; the sudden emergence of deadly epidemics; refugee crises; ethnic conflict; over-population - are all things we've faced, and overcome, before.

A Short History of Humanity

How Migration Made Us Who We Are

John Duncan

The big questions of our lives bring fierce debates. Right and wrong. Freedom and responsibility. Women and men. Democracy and justice. Ambition and fulfilment. Where do answers lie in a mind that produces the many sides and needs of humanity? 
 
In The Animal and the Thinker, pioneering neuroscientist John Duncan lays out the principles, strengths and weaknesses of two sides of ourselves. One side follows the principles of instinctive animal behaviour. It is elaborate, sophisticated, conflicted yet essential - without it, our life would have no meaning. On the other side is our rational brain. It generates an infinite world of new ideas, but often, its need for focus generates sterile social beliefs and destructive culture wars. Our rational side is brilliant, but often, it is wrong. 
 
For thousands of years, writers, thinkers and philosophers have seen human life as a war between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Duncan shows that there is no war. To bring humanity and reality to the great, conflicted questions of our lives, we need the dance between these two essential sides of ourselves.

The Animal and the Thinker

Instinct, Reason and the Dance of Our Divided Selves

Harald Jähner

THE TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION*** 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE*** 
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE*** 
 
A Book of the Year 
The Times * Sunday Times * Telegraph * New Statesman * Financial Times * Irish Independent * Daily Mail 
 
'A masterpiece' SPECTATOR 
 
'Exemplary [and] important... This is the kind of book few writers possess the clarity of vision to write' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Magnificent... There are great lessons in the nature of humanity to be learnt here' TELEGRAPH 
 
 
Germany, 1945: a country in ruins. Cities have been reduced to rubble and more than half of the population are where they do not belong or do not want to be. How can a functioning society ever emerge from this chaos? 
 
In bombed-out Berlin, Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, journalist and member of the Nazi resistance, warms herself by a makeshift stove and records in her diary how a frenzy of expectation and industriousness grips the city. The Americans send Hans Habe, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and US army soldier, to the frontline of psychological warfare - tasked with establishing a newspaper empire capable of remoulding the minds of the Germans. The philosopher Hannah Arendt returns to the country she fled to find a population gripped by a manic loquaciousness, but faces a deafening wall of silence at the mention of the Holocaust. 
 
Aftermath is a nuanced panorama of a nation undergoing monumental change. 1945 to 1955 was a raw, wild decade poised between two eras that proved decisive for Germany's future - and one starkly different to how most of us imagine it today. Featuring black and white photographs and posters from post-war Germany - some beautiful, some revelatory, some shocking - Aftermath evokes an immersive portrait of a society corrupted, demoralised and freed - all at the same time.

Aftermath

Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich

Will Iredale

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER! 
 
Military History Matters Book of the Year Bronze Award Winner 
'Compelling... sensitive, colourful and moving' -- Saul David, Telegraph 
'Fascinating and utterly gripping' -- James Holland 
'Absorbing' -- Daily Mail Book of the Week 
 
The incredible story of the crack team of men and women who transformed RAF Bomber Command and helped the Allies deliver decisive victory over Nazi Germany. 
 
 The Pathfinders were ordinary men and women from a range of nations who revolutionised the efficiency of the Allies' air campaign over mainland Europe. They elevated Bomber Command - initially the only part of the Allied war effort capable of attacking the heart of Nazi Germany - from an impotent force on the cusp of disintegration in 1942 to one capable of razing whole German cities to the ground in a single night, striking with devastating accuracy, inspiring fear and loathing in Hitler's senior command. 
 
 With exclusive interviews with remaining survivors, personal diaries, previously classified records and never-before seen photographs, The Pathfinders brings to life the characters of the airmen and women - many barely out of their teens - who took to the skies in legendary British aircraft such as the Lancaster and the Mosquito, facing almost unimaginable levels of violence from enemy fighter planes to strike at the heart of the Nazi war machine.

The Pathfinders

The Elite RAF Force that Turned the Tide of WWII

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Martin Sixsmith

'I'm a fairly calm fellow; I don't usually get het up about things. But I was, let's say, concerned when I tuned into the Moscow Echo radio station and heard that the Kremlin had put a price on my head. The announcement didn't quite say 'dead or alive'. But it came close...' Mikhail Khodorkovsky, March 2021 
 
 Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime - and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. 
 
 Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey, from Soviet youth to international oil executive, powerful insider to political dissident, and now a high-profile voice seeking to reconcile East and West. 
 
 With unparalleled insight, written with Sunday Times bestselling author Martin Sixsmith, The Russia Conundrum exposes the desires and damning truths of Putin's Russia, and provides an answer to the West on how it must challenge the Kremlin - in order to pave the way for a better future.

The Russia Conundrum

One man’s fight to save his country’s soul

How the West Fell For Putin’s Power Gambit – and How to Fix It

Ziauddin Yousafzai

Louise Carpenter

In this intimate and extraordinary memoir, Ziauddin Yousafzai, the father of Malala, gives a moving account of fatherhood and his lifelong fight for equality – proving there are many faces of feminism. 
 
“Whenever anybody has asked me how Malala became who she is, I have often used the phrase. ‘Ask me not what I did but what I did not do. I did not clip her wings’” 
 
For over twenty years, Ziauddin Yousafzai has been fighting for equality – first for Malala, his daughter – and then for all girls throughout the world living in patriarchal societies. Taught as a young boy in Pakistan to believe that he was inherently better than his sisters, Ziauddin rebelled against inequality at a young age. And when he had a daughter himself he vowed that Malala would have an education, something usually only given to boys, and he founded a school that Malala could attend. 
 
Then in 2012, Malala was shot for standing up to the Taliban by continuing to go to her father's school, and Ziauddin almost lost the very person for whom his fight for equality began. 
 
Let Her Fly is Ziauddin’s journey from a stammering boy growing up in a tiny village high in the mountains of Pakistan, through to being an activist for equality and the father of the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and now one of the most influential and inspiring young women on the planet. 
 
Told through intimate portraits of each of Ziauddin’s closest relationships – as a son to a traditional father; as a father to Malala and her brothers, educated and growing up in the West; as a husband to a wife finally learning to read and write; as a brother to five sisters still living in the patriarchy – Let Her Fly looks at what it means to love, to have courage and fight for what is inherently right. Personal in its detail and universal in its themes, this landmark book shows why we must all keep fighting for the rights of girls and women everywhere.

Let Her Fly

A Father’s Journey and the Fight for Equality

Sheryl Sandberg

In 2015 Sheryl Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly at the age of forty-eight. Sandberg and her two young children were devastated, and she was certain that their lives would never have real joy or meaning again. 
 
Just weeks later, Sandberg was talking with a friend about the first father-child activity without a father. They came up with a plan for someone to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend put his arm around her and said, “Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.” 
 
Everyone experiences some form of Option B. We all deal with loss: jobs lost, loves lost, lives lost. The question is not whether these things will happen but how we face them when they do. 
 
Thoughtful, honest, revealing and warm, OPTION B weaves Sandberg’s experiences coping with adversity with new findings from Adam Grant and other social scientists. The book features stories of people who recovered from personal and professional hardship, including illness, injury, divorce, job loss, sexual assault and imprisonment. These people did more than recover—many of them became stronger. 
 
OPTION B offers compelling insights for dealing with hardships in our own lives and helping others in crisis. It turns out that post-traumatic growth is common—even after the most devastating experiences many people don’t just bounce back but actually bounce forward. And pre-traumatic growth is also possible: people can build resilience even if they have not experienced tragedy. Sandberg and Grant explore how we can raise strong children, create resilient communities and workplaces, and find meaning, love and joy in our lives. 
 
“Dave’s death changed me in very profound ways,” Sandberg writes. “I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface and breathe again.”

Option B

Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

Jack Fairweather

One of the Sunday Times paperbacks of the Year 2020 
One of the Financial Times best books of 2020 
 
 'Totally gripping'-- Simon Sebag Montefiore 
 
'Pilecki is perhaps one of the greatest unsung heroes of the second world war ... this insightful book is likely to be the definitive version of this extraordinary life' -- Economist 
 
 
Would you sacrifice yourself to save thousands of others? 
 
 
In the Summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative called Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interned at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. 
 
His mission was to report on Nazi crimes and raise a secret army to stage an uprising. The name of the detention centre -- Auschwitz. 
 
It was only after arriving at the camp that he started to discover the Nazi's terrifying plans. Over the next two and half years, Witold forged an underground army that smuggled evidence of Nazi atrocities out of Auschwitz. His reports from the camp were to shape the Allies response to the Holocaust - yet his story was all but forgotten for decades. 
 
This is the first major account to draw on unpublished family papers, newly released archival documents and exclusive interviews with surviving resistance fighters to show how he brought the fight to the Nazis at the heart of their evil designs. 
 
The result is an enthralling story of resistance and heroism against the most horrific circumstances, and one man's attempt to change the course of history.

The Volunteer

The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz – Costa Book of the Year 2019

Janina Ramirez

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Femina 
'Ramirez blasts a powerful spotlight into the so-called Dark Ages' - Dan Snow 
 
Skulduggery, power struggles and politics, The Private Lives of the Saints offers an original and fascinating re-examination of life in Anglo-Saxon England. Taking them down from the clouds of their heavenly status, Sunday Times bestselling author and renowned Oxford historian Dr Janina Ramirez explores the real lives of the legendary, seminal saints. 
 
This landmark book provides a unique and captivating new lens through which to explore the rich history of the Dark Ages.

The Private Lives of the Saints

Power, Passion and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England

Sue Klebold

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives. 
 
For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently? 
 
These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts. 
 
Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion, A Mother’s Reckoning is a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the recent Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent. 
 
All author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable organizations focusing on mental health issues.

A Mother's Reckoning

Living in the aftermath of the Columbine tragedy

Michael Ovitz

If you're going to read one book about Hollywood, this is the one. 
 
As co-founder of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Michael Ovitz earned a reputation for ruthless negotiation, brilliant strategy and fierce loyalty to his clients. He reinvented the role of the agent and helped shape the careers of hundreds of A-list stars and directors, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Sean Connery, Steven Seagal, Bill Murray, Robin Williams and David Letterman. 
 
But this personal history is much more than celebrity friendships and bare-knuckled deal-making. It's an underdog's story: How did a kid with no connections work his way into the William Morris mailroom, and become the most powerful person in Hollywood? How did a superagent also become a power in producing, advertising, mergers &amp; acquisitions and modern art? And what were the personal consequences of all those deals? 
 
After decades of near-silence in the face of intense controversy, Michael Ovitz is finally telling his whole story in this blistering, unforgettable memoir.

Who Is Michael Ovitz?

The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Most Powerful Man in Hollywood

Monty Halls

In the summer of 1940, Britain was under siege. Poland, Belgium, Holland, Norway and France had already fallen, and the British army had been routed on the continent, leading to the chaotic evacuation at Dunkirk.In the rubble of the Allies' crumbled defence, Inverailort House was established as a new symbol of defiance. Signed off by Churchill himself, this austere building became an academy for the brightest and best of all Allied volunteers, where they were transformed from ordinary foot soldiers into a new breed of warrior – the commando. 
 
The list of instructors, advisors, and trainees that passed through Inverailort included some of the greatest fighting men of World War II: Lord Lovat, “Mad Mike” Calvert, Freddy Spencer Chapman, Tommy Macpherson, Fairbairn and Sykes, and both David and Bill Stirling, who would go on to form the SAS.Churchill’s Killing House tells, for the first time, the remarkable human story of those who created a new type of soldier, forged new techniques in battle, and ultimately led the way to Allied victory over fascism.

Showing results for: ‘Neil MacGregor’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter