Al Pittampalli

Al Rodin is a writer and illustrator from London. He studied children's book illustration at Cambridge School of Art and received the 2019 Sebastian Walker Prize. Al enjoys working with a wide variety of materials including acrylic, watercolour and collage. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries around Europe and Asia, and he was selected for lllustrators' Exhibition at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in 2019. Little Echo is his first book.

Al Rodin

Al Smith

Alain Gheerbrant

Alain de Botton is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including The School of Life: An Emotional Education, How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel and The Course of Love. He is the founder of The School of Life (theschooloflife.com).

Alain de Botton

Alaina Urquhart is the science-loving co-host of the chart-topping show Morbid: A True Crime Podcast. As an autopsy technician by trade, she offers a unique perspective from deep inside the morgue. Alaina hails from Boston, where she lives with her wonderful husband, John, their three amazing daughters, and a ghost Puggle named Bailey. She is about 75 percent coffee, and truly believes she and Agent Clarice Starling could be friends. 
 
Before writing her first psychological horror novel, she received degrees in criminal justice, psychology, and biology. When she isn't hosting Morbid, she hosts the Parcast original show Crime Countdown, and a horror movie podcast called Scream!. Her days are usually spent either recording or eviscerating. The way she sees it, when she hangs up her microphone for the day, it's time to let the dead speak.

Alaina Urquhart

Alaine Hood

Alan Alda

Alan Ayckbourn

Born in London in 1939, Alan Ayckbourn is one of  the world's most popular and prolific playwrights. He has written 74  full length plays and more than 20 other revues and plays for children.  He is also an acclaimed director. Alan Ayckbourn was awarded a CBE in  1987. Ten years later to the day, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II  'for services to the theatre.'

Alan Baker

Alan Barker

Alan Beattie

Alan Bennett's television series Talking Heads has become a modern-day classic, as have many of his works for the stage, including Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, The Madness of George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George) and an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. The History Boys won the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, The Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the South Bank Award.

Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is one of Britain's best-loved and most highly acclaimed writers. He has written widely for radio, television and theatre. His latest play, The History Boys, won several awards, including Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Best Play and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. It also won six Tony Awards, including Best Play, following an extremely successful transfer to Broadway. In 2006 Bennett was named Author of the Year at the British Book Awards for Untold Stories, his collection of memoirs and diaries.

Alan Bishop

ALAN BOOTH was born in London in 1946 and travelled to Japan in 1970 to study Noh theatre. He stayed, working as a writer and film critic, until his untimely death in 1993.

Alan Booth

Alan Brazil is a Scottish broadcasting legend and former football player, most notably for Ipswich Town, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and internationally for Scotland. He played as a forward before being forced to retire due to a recurring back injury. 
 
After retirement, Alan moved into media presentation, initially on television, before a career in radio where for many years he has presented the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast show on TalkSPORT.

Alan Brazil

Alan Bullock

Alan Carr

Alan Carr is one of Britain's most successful and treasured comedians. His unique humour and effortless stage presence have earned him a catalogue of awards including Best Chat Show host at the publicly voted for 2015 National Television Awards, winner of the 2013 BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance and 2013 British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Entertainment Personality. In previous years he has garnered a clutch of awards, from the 2012 National Television Award for Best Talk Show and the 2012 Loaded LAFTA Award for Best Stand-up to the 2010 TV Choice Awards for Best Entertainment Show. There were also nominations for Best New British Comedy &amp; Best Comedy Entertainment Personality at the 2009 British Comedy Awards. 
 
The success of the first series of his own chat show, 'Alan Carr: Chatty Man', in the summer of 2009, led to Channel 4 commissioning 16 further series' as well as numerous Christmas Specials and New Year Specstaculars. In September 2013, the 100th episode aired with A-list guests Justin Timberlake and Rihanna. Guests from past series include: Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Cameron Diaz, Vin Diesel, Adele, Grace Jones, Naomi Campbell, Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, Robin Williams, David Walliams, Mariah Carey, Russell Brand, Samuel L Jackson, Miley Cyrus, Robbie Williams, Bette Midler, Sharon Osbourne, One Direction, Gok Wan and Miranda Hart. 
 
The DVD of Alan's 2007 debut stand-up show, 'Tooth Fairy Live' topped the HMV charts and was a Christmas 2007 top seller. 
 
His best-selling debut autobiography 'Look Who It Is' was published in September 2008 by HarperCollins. 
 
In 2011, Alan travelled the country with his second live tour. 'Spexy Beast Live' was a 33-date arena tour and culminated in the successful DVD of the same name. 
 
Throughout 2015, Alan hit the road once again and performed at over 150 sold-out theatre's across the UK and Ireland with his 'Yap, Yap, Yap!' live show. His third stand up DVD 'Alan Carr - Yap Yap Yap! Live' was released by Universal Pictures (UK) in November 2016. 
 
2016 has also seen Alan go global with international performances of his Yap Yap Yap! live show throughout Scandinavia, Montreal (at the prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival) and can currently be seen on tour this summer in New Zealand and Australia this summer, with two shows at the iconic Sydney Opera House. 
 
Alan also hosts Channel 4's flagship fundraising show 'Stand Up To Cancer' which in 2014 went on to raise an amazing £14 million for Cancer Research. Alan returns once again to host 'Stand Up To Cancer' on Channel 4 this October. 
 
Alanatomy: The Inside Story is Alan's second memoir, and will be published by Penguin in October 2016.

Alan Clark

Alan Clements

Alan Connor is the author of Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword ("witty, charming, encyclopaedic and highly readable" - Spectator) and The Joy of Quiz ("An absolute delight" - Mail on Sunday). He has made quizzes for various TV shows and newspapers and written comedy including BBC Film's The Rack Pack, A Young Doctor's Notebook (Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe) and Have I Got News For You.

Alan Connor

Alan Connor has been the question editor for BBC2's Only Connect and Richard Osman's House of Games. He is the author of books for Pointless and The Traitors and is the puzzle consultant for the BBC1 drama Ludwig. He writes puzzles for various newspapers and has written for Charlie Brooker series and Have I Got News for You. His favourite quiz question is: What word was intentionally omitted from the screenplay of The Godfather?

Alan Cowell

Alan Curtis

Alan Cutler

Alan Davies

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Jon Edwards

Luisa Edwards

Brought up as female for fifteen years, Jon can remember feeling different from other girls since he was only five years old. 
 
But it will take years of depression, incessant bullying, self-harm and isolation before he discovers why. 
 
When Jon eventually confides to his mother that he feels like a boy, Luisa commits herself unconditionally to helping her child. 
 
For Jon, the changes that follow are his path to happiness. But for Luisa, this means coming to terms with the enormous loss of her daughter.

The Boy Who Was Born a Girl

One Mother’s Unconditional Love for Her Child

Barbara Mortimer

On 3 September 1939, the Prime Minister declared that Britain was at war with Nazi Germany. 
 
Thousands of young women, many of them barely out of school, were sent headlong into gruelling training regimes that would see them become wartime nurses. 
 
Sisters features over 150 previously unpublished stories from the archives of the Royal College of Nursing. The vivid, poignant and riveting stories capture these nurses' incredible bravery and touching friendships.

Sisters

Heroic true-life stories from the nurses of World War Two

Richard Aldous

The uneasy alliance that lay at the heart of the relationship of two of the most powerful and controversial leaders of the late 20th century: Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. 
 
For three decades, historians have cited the long-term alliance of Reagan and Thatcher as an example of the special bond between the US and Britain. 
 
But, as Richard Aldous argues, these political titans clashed repeatedly as they confronted the greatest threat of their time: the USSR. 
 
Brilliantly reconstructing some of their most dramatic encounters, Aldous draws on recently declassified documents and extensive oral history to dismantle the popular conception of the Reagan-Thatcher diplomacy.

Reagan and Thatcher

The Difficult Relationship

Adam Wasson

Jessica Stamen

Let's face it, there are thousands of books on the market on how to avoid self-destructive behaviour - but how many tell you to embrace self-destruction, enjoy it and pursue it to its fullest extent? The goal of the book is simple: to help you not to help yourself. To that end, the authors offer advice on everything from how to stalk an ex to how to develop a drinking problem. Wondering which gateway drug is right for you? This book will help you decide. Not sure how much degradation you can take? This book will help you push your limits. No matter what self-destructive behaviour you're interested in pursuing, the chances are that this book will have some valuable advice and encouragement for you. There is nothing more life affirming than total destruction, but it can be a difficult and sometimes lonely road. That is why, if you remember only one thing as you read this book, it should be this: the whole point of self-destruction is that it's fun. If you're not having fun, then you might as well be taking vitamins, 'working' on your relationships and reading self-help books. Your goal here should be to develop and pursue your self-destructive tendencies to their fullest potential, and have a good time doing it.

The Self Destruction Handbook

8 Simple Steps to an Unhealthier You

Alastair Campbell

The Burden of Power is the fourth volume of Alastair Campbell's diaries, and perhaps the most eagerly awaited given the ground it covers. 
 
It begins on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, and it ends on the day Campbell leaves Downing Street. In between there are two wars: first Afghanistan, and then, even more controversially, Iraq. It was the most difficult decision of Tony Blair's premiership, and almost certainly the most unpopular. Campbell describes in detail the discussions with President Bush and other world leaders as the steps to war are taken, and delivers a unique account of Blair as war leader. He records the enormous political difficulties at home, and the sense of crisis that engulfed the government after the suicide of weapons inspector David Kelly. 
 
And all the while, Blair continues to struggle with two issues that ran throughout his time in government - fighting for peace in Northern Ireland, and trying to make peace with Gordon Brown. And Campbell continues to struggle balancing the needs of his family with one of the most pressurised roles in politics. 
 
Riveting and revelatory, The Burden of Power is as raw and intimate a portrayal of political life as you are ever likely to read.

The Burden of Power

Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries

Helen Parry Jones

'Helen Parry Jones' turbulent journey to embracing her gift is sincere and elevating' Daily Express 
 
For readers of Kyle Gray's Angels Are With You Now - the amazing true story of one woman's power to heal and the spirit and angels that guide her 
 
Helen Parry Jones has been a professional spiritual healer and empathic medium for thirty years. She has filled theatres and auditoriums and appeared on radio and TV. But this is the first time she has told her incredible story. 
 
When she was four, Helen realised that she could see things that other people could not - like the animals she played with and the silent man in army uniform who sat in her grandmother's sitting room. But it wasn't until she met her Guardian Guide Sam and had regular tutorials from him did she start to understand the significance of what she had been experiencing. 
 
Because Helen can see and communicate with spirit and angels, through them she has developed naturally the extraordinary gift of healing, and bringing messages of hope and love from people in spirit to their friends and family. 
 
But it is a gift that has also caused her much pain. As a child, Helen's parents did not believe what she told them; instead they chastised her for lying and making up stories. Only Helen's beloved grandmother truly understood, and with her love and Sam's guidance, Helen learned to use her extraordinary gifts to bring hope and healing, both spiritually and physically to those in need. 
 
'... the reaction to her was phenomenal, I do mean phenomenal. We have been at this a very long time now and we know the difference between phenomenal and phenomenal!!' Gay Byrne, The Late Late Show

Hands of an Angel

David Ovason

As David Ovason shows, eclipse have always marked turning points in history and in the lives of individuals: the foundation of Rome, the crucifixion, the saving of the live of Christopher Columbus, the foundation of Washington DC, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and even the future fall from grace of President Clinton are among Ovason's many examples. Ovason also shows how stone circles were linked to eclipses and how these events have always been supposed by initiates to create shadow-tunnels into the spiritual world, allowing special possibilities of communication with the spiritual world.

The Book Of The Eclipse

Debbie Macomber

Shirley, Goodness and Mercy, who we met in Angels at Christmas, are back! And as always they're causing all sorts of trouble. So escape the craziness of Christmas, settle back with a cup of hot tea and a Christmas treat and be prepared to laugh. And if you happen to see a camel wandering down the street all on its own, you can take a guess who might be responsible!

Angels at the Table

A Christmas Novel (Angels)

President Bill Clinton

In Back to Work, Bill Clinton offers a plan to get America out of its economic crisis and "back into the future business." 
 
Clinton details how to lay a foundation for long-term prosperity, offering specific recommendations on how to boost employment rates, increase bank lending and corporate investment, and double exports. 
 
He emphasises that antigovernment sentiments in the public rarely contribute to a prosperous growth. Conflict between the government and the private sector has given the U.S. a weak economy, growing income inequality, and a decline in its competitive position. Cooperation, he stresses, is more conducive to success than conflict. 
 
To Clinton, America “at its core is an idea – the idea that no matter who you are or where you're from, if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your own dreams.” Back to Work is an effort to rejuvenate the idea that is America.

Back to Work

Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy

James Curtis

During his lifetime, Spencer Tracy was known as Hollywood's 'actor's actor'. Critics wrote that what Olivier was to theatre, Tracy was to film. Over his career he was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won two. But there has been no substantial, intimate biography of the man, until now. 
 
From his earliest days in stock theatre, Tracy was a publicist's trial, guarding his private life fiercely. 
Most of the people associated closely with him shunned the limelight - notably his wife, his children and the great actress Katharine Hepburn, with whom he had an affair that lasted over 26 years. 
 
Although his screen roles often depicted a happy, twinkling Irishman, Tracy struggled with alchoholism to the end, a fact which the studios managed to keep out of the papers. 
 
With the help of Tracy's daughter, Susie, and access to previously unseen papers, James Curtis has now produced the definitive biography of a tortured, complex and immensely talented man. 
 
The book contains 124 integrated photos, many published for the first time.

Spencer Tracy

Piers Paul Read

LOST 
1972. A plane has crashed in the Andes mountains. The passengers are hopelessly lost in one of the most isolated places on earth. 
 
ABANDONED 
Almost three months later, two of the survivors, emaciated and frozen, reach the authorities and lead a rescue team to the remaining fourteen passengers. 
 
ALIVE 
The rescue team are shocked when they reach the crash-site. Food supplies have long gone, and the remains of the dead lie scattered among the fuselage. 
 
It is only too clear how these passengers have managed to stay alive ...

Alive

The True Story of the Andes Survivors

Harry Benson

In April 1982 Harry Benson was a 21-year-old Royal Navy commando helicopter pilot, fresh out of training and one of the youngest helicopter pilots to serve in the Falklands War. These pilots, nicknamed 'junglies', flew most of the land-based missions in the Falklands in their Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Much of what happened in the war - the politics, task force ships, Sea Harriers, landings, Paras and Marines - is well-known and documented. But almost nothing is known of the young commando helicopter pilots and aircrewmen who made it all happen on land and sea. This is their 'Boys Own' story, told for the very first time. 
 
Harry Benson has interviewed forty of his former colleagues for the book creating a tale of skill, initiative, resourcefulness, humour, luck, and adventure. This is a fast-paced, meticulously researched and compelling account written by someone who was there, in the cockpit of a Wessex helicopter. 
 
If you liked Apache, Vulcan 607 and Chickenhawk, you'll love Scram! 
 
The word "Scram" was used to warn other junglies to go to ground or risk being shot down by their own side as Argentinean jets blasted through 'bomb alley'.

Scram!

The Gripping First-hand Account of the Helicopter War in the Falklands

Kathy Reichs

Tory Brennan, great-niece of Tempe Brennan, and her three friends, contract a strange virus and discover they have developed canine abilities. Calling themselves the Virals, they find their new powers useful when it comes to solving crimes.

The breathtaking follow-up to Virals, Kathy Reichs' brand new forensic series 
 
 
 
HEART-STOPPING FORENSIC ACTION WITH A LETHAL TWIST 
 
The Virals' home on Loggerhead Island is under threat, and only one thing can save it: a lot of money. 
 
A 300-year-old legend 
 
Rumour has it that notorious pirate Anne Bonny hid her treasure somewhere in Charleston in 1720. No-one knows where, but Tory Brennan - great-niece of famous forensic anthropologist Dr Tempe Brennan - is certain that the Virals can work out Bonny's cryptic clues. 
 
A deadly path 
 
It isn't long before the Virals are on the right track. But they aren't the only ones searching for the treasure.Someone is following them, and will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. 
 
Dead bodies litter the trail. Time is running out before the island will be sold. 
 
Will the Virals' special powers be enough to save them?

Seizure

(Virals 2)

Christina Schmid

A LOVE LOST. 
A LIFE CUT SHORT. 
 
'From the moment I set eyes on him I adored him. The connection between us was so strong it went beyond everything else. His job, my job, his lifestyle, my lifestyle. All that fell away.' 
 
And then one earth-shattering day Christina's worst nightmare came true when Oz was killed on his final day of duty before flying home to his family. 
 
This is Christina and Oz's story: a story about love and loss, hope and despair and of living in constant fear. Christina's extraordinary bravery and composure is an inspiration to anyone who has ever lost someone they love.

Always By My Side

Losing the love of my life and the fight to honour his memory

Clarissa Dickson Wright

In this magnificent guide to England's cuisine, the inimitable Clarissa Dickson Wright takes us from a medieval feast to a modern-day farmers' market, visiting the Tudor working man's table and a Georgian kitchen along the way. 
 
Peppered with surprises and seasoned with wit, A History of England Food is a classic for any food lover.

A History of English Food

A.N. Wilson

England under Elizabeth I. 
 
A time of war and plague, politics and rebellion, personal heroism and religious fanaticism. When if you were born poor you stayed poor, and the thumbscrews and the rack could be the grim prelude to the executioner's block. 
 
But it was also an age that encouraged literary genius, global exploration, and timeless beauty. When the lowly privateer Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe with no reliable navigational instruments and only a drunken, mutinous crew for company. When the Queen's favourite, the wealthy and handsome Robert Dudley, was widely suspected of having killed his wife. And when only the machinations of ruthless intriguers like William Cecil and Francis Walsingham prevented Elizabeth's kingdom from descending into anarchy and political chaos. 
 
The Elizabethans is a panoramic, exhilarating depiction of an intensely colourful period by master-historian, A N Wilson. This is what life under Elizabeth I was really like.

The Elizabethans

Mark Kermode

If blockbusters make money no matter how bad they are, then why not make a good one for a change? 
 
How can 3-D be the future of cinema when it's been giving audiences a headache for over a hundred years? 
 
Why pay to watch films in cinemas that don't have a projectionist but do have a fast-food stand? 
 
And, in a world where Sex and the City 2 was a hit, what are film critics even for? 
 
Outspoken, opinionated and hilariously funny, The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex is a must for anyone who has ever sat in an undermanned, overpriced cinema and wondered: 'How the hell did things get to be this terrible?'

The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex

Neil Root

Murder has transfixed the popular press for centuries. But it was only in the second half of the twentieth century that murder began saturating front pages and making these monsters what we today recognise as modern celebrities. 
 
It was three serial killers, caught and executed in the few years after the end of the Second World War, who precipitated a level of public furore never seen before. Neville Heath, a 'charming' sadist who killed two women; John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Killer who killed between six and nine men and women; and John Christie, the ineffectual necrophile, who killed between six and eight women. The modern news coverage finds its roots with these three men whom the crime historian Donald Thomas called the 'Postwar Psychopaths'. Their crimes were the first to generate a tabloid frenzy the like of which we see all around us today. It was not only the murderers who captured the public's imagination. It was the detectives who hunted them down, the judiciary who tried them, and the man who executed them, the legendary hangman Albert Pierrepoint. 
 
This book tells the stories of these three infamous serial killers against the backdrop of the tabloid frenzy that surrounded them.

Frenzy!

How the tabloid press turned three evil serial killers into celebrities

Bruce Dessau

Beyond a Joke is a celebration of comedy - one of the modern world's most dominant and compelling art forms - but it is also the story of comedy's dark side, homing in on the scandals that have surrounded some of light entertainment's biggest stars, and telling it as it is, featuring insight from one who was there at the time. 
 
While Beyond a Joke explores the extremes of this world it also addresses another question. Are comedians naturally dysfunctional, or does the stress and pressure of the job make them dysfunctional? Ruby Wax once told the author that she had builders in her house who were just as emotionally unstable as most stand-up comedians she had worked with. But they don't want to go on stage and plead with an audience to love them. 
 
Bruce Dessau is the only person who could write this book. From Russell Brand slashing his chest onstage to Jo Brand trashing a friend's car on the motorway, he has heard it all. Bruce Dessau knows where the bodies are buried.

Beyond a Joke

Inside the Dark World of Stand-up Comedy

Paul Lake

Paul Lake was Manchester born, a City fan from birth. His footballing talent was spotted at a young age and, in 1983, he signed coveted schoolboy forms for City. Only a short time later he was handed the team captaincy. 
 
An international career soon beckoned and, after turning out for the England under-21 and B teams, he received a call-up to the England training camp for Italia '90. Earmarked as an England captain in the making, Paul became a target for top clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, but he always stayed loyal to his beloved club, deeming Maine Road the spiritual home at which his destiny lay. 
 
But then, in September 1990, disaster struck. Paul ruptured his cruciate ligament; sustaining the worst possible injury that a footballer can suffer. And so began his nightmare. 
 
Neglected, ignored and misunderstood by his club after a succession of failed operations, Paul's career began to fall apart. Watching from the sidelines as similarly injured players regained their fitness, he spiralled into a prolonged bout of severe depression. With an enforced retirement from the game he adored, the death of his father and the collapse of his marriage, Paul was left a broken man. 
 
Set against a turning point in English football, I'm Not Really Here is the powerful story of love and loss and the cruel, irreparable damage of injury; of determination, spirit and resilience and of unfulfilled potential and broken dreams.

I'm Not Really Here

Donald Spoto

'I've been protected by studio publicity men most of my life, so in some ways I'm a goddam image, not a person. I was a commodity, a piece of property... I felt an overwhelming obligation to my career, and so I was an actress first, a wife second. I worked almost constantly, and even when I wasn't working, there was that image thing of looking like a star, conducting myself like a star. I just went ahead like a bulldozer. I was a very selfish woman.' 
 
Joan Crawford was a complex, contradictory, driven human being, but not the alcoholic, sadistic monster depicted in the notorious book, Mommie Dearest, which appeared a year after her death. 
 
In some ways, Donald Spoto's Possessed is the ultimate Hollywood book - about a young woman, poor, abandoned by her father, but determined at all costs to succeed . Born in Texas, Lucille Fay LeSueur escaped destitution by becoming a popular dancer and then managed to make the decisive leap that transformed her into a luminous, unique star of the screen. She became Joan Crawford. 
 
There were many important men in her life, not least Clark Gable, with whom she appeared in eight pictures and with whom she conducted a thirty-year affair. She was married four times, once to the debonair Douglas Fairbanks Jr, unaware that he had failed to discontinue his relationship with Marlene Dietrich. 
 
Dancer, dramatic actress, businesswoman, corporate executive with Pepsi-Cola, Joan Crawford during her lifetime (1906 - 1977) was rarely out of the news. With the use of only recently opened archives and personal papers, Donald Spoto probes behind the lurid headlines to bring us Joan Crawford, the private person as well as the movie legend.

Possessed

The Life of Joan Crawford

Albert Jack

Did you know that an assassin is a hashish-eater and a yokel a country woodpecker? 
 
That Dr Mesmer mesmerised patients back to health or that Samuel Pepys enjoyed a good game of handicap? 
 
While we're at it, what have spondulics to do with spines or lawyers with avocados? 
 
In It's a Wonderful Word, bestselling author Albert Jack collects over 500 of the strangest, funniest-sounding and most delightful words in the English language, and traces them back to their often puzzling origins. While brushing up on your gibberish or gobbledygook, discover why bastards should resent travelling salesmen, why sheets should remain on tenterhooks and why you should never set down a tumbler before finishing your drink. 
 
From blotto to bamboozle and from claptrap to quango, Albert Jack's addictive anecdotes bring the world's most colourful language to life and are guaranteed to surprise and entertain.

It's a Wonderful Word

The Real Origins of Our Favourite Words

James Corden

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
So... the story of my life. 
 
I've often thought about this moment, about what it would be like to write my memoirs. I always thought it would make me feel important. It doesn't. If anything it makes me feel a little strange. 
 
The truth is, I should never have been this famous guy. I wasn't the cool, clever, good-looking boy at school. But I always dreamt of it, hoped for it, longed for it: throughout school when I was disruptive, in my teens when I tried to form my own boy band and through hundreds of auditions for parts which were met with constant rejection. Until finally I co-wrote Gavin and Stacey. And my whole life changed... 
 
This is that story. The story of how I found myself here, talking to you.

May I Have Your Attention Please?

Frank Skinner

A collection of Frank Skinner's most brilliant, biting, gut-bustingly funny columns for The Times. 
 
For several years, legendary comedian Frank Skinner wrote a weekly column for The Times. Without fail, he sat down and wracked his brain to think of something to write 900 words about, frequently giving up and writing about football instead. Dispatches from the Sofa is the brilliant result. 
 
Pondering such random topics as the potential demise of Margaret Thatcher, the love-hate relationship with your football club, the banking crisis and the evil phenomenon of Jedward, this is wit and wisdom, and a fine sense of the absurd, all rolled into one.

Dispatches From the Sofa

The Collected Wisdom of Frank Skinner

Ben Mezrich

Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA programme had an idea - a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. 
 
Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impenetrable laboratory at NASA's headquarters - past security checkpoints, and electronically locked door with cipher security codes and camera-lined hallways - and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: Apollo moon rocks from every moon landing in history. 
 
Was Thad Roberts - undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable - really what he seemed? 
 
And what does one do with an item so valuable that it's illegal even to own? 
 
Based on meticulous research into thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts and documents, and scores of interviews with the people involved, Mezrich - with his signature high-velocity swagger - has reconstructed the madcap story of genius, love, and duplicity all centred on a heist that reads like a Hollywood thrill ride.

Sex on the Moon

Duff Hart-Davis

For the very first time, The War That Never Was tells the fascinating story of a secret war fought by British mercenaries in the Yemen in the early 1960s. In a covert operation organised over whisky and sodas in the clubs of Chelsea and Mayfair, a group of former SAS officers - led by the irrepressible Colonel Jim Johnson - arranged for a squadron of British mercenaries to travel to the remote mountain regions of the Yemen, to arm, train and lead Yemeni tribesmen in their fight against a 60,000-strong contingent of Egyptian soldiers. 
 
It was one of the most uneven running battles ever waged; the Egyptians fielded a huge, professionally-trained army. The British fought back at the head of a ragtag force of tribal warriors and, ultimately, won. Egypt's President Nasser described the battle in the Yemen as 'my Vietnam'. 
 
It's a fascinating, forgotten, and rip-roaringly entertaining pocket of British military history, much in the spirit of Ben MvIntyre's bestselling Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat.

The War That Never Was

William C. Rempel

AN IMPOSSBLE CHOICE 
 
Jorge Salcedo was trapped. For years, he had climbed the ladder inside the Cali drug cartel, the world's most powerful crime syndicate, and risen to Head of Security. But he'd kept clean, avoided the dirty work, managed to sleep at night. Until now. He'd finally received the order he'd long dreaded, and it meant one thing: kill or be killed. 
 
THE HARD WAY 
 
Salcedo was a family man, a man with a conscience, a father - he was no cold-blooded murderer. He was left with the last resort. It meant risking his life, his family's life, and the lives of everyone he cared for. He would have to take the whole syndicate down. It was the price to pay for salvation. 
 
WOULD YOU RISK YOUR LIFE TO SAVE YOUR SOUL?

At The Devil's Table

The Man Who Took Down the World's Biggest Crime Syndicate

Inside the fall of the Cali cartel. The world's biggest crime syndicate

Peter Caddick-Adams

Two men came to personify British and German generalship in the Second World War: Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel. They fought a series of extraordinary duels across several theatres of war which established them as two of the greatest captains of their age. Our understanding of leadership in battle was altered for ever by their electrifying personal qualities. Ever since, historians have assessed their outstanding leadership, personalities and skill. 
 
The careers of both began on the periphery of the military establishment and represent the first time military commanders proactively and systematically used (and were used by) the media as they came to prominence, first in North Africa, then in Normandy. Dynamic and forward-thinking, their lives also represent a study of pride, propaganda and nostalgia. Caddick-Adams tracks and compares their military talents and personalities in battle. Each brought something special to their commands. Rommel's breathtaking advance in May-June 1940 was nothing less than inspired. Montgomery is a gift for leadership gurus in the way he took over a demoralised Eighth Army in August 1942 and led it to victory just two months later. 
 
This compelling work is both scholarly and entertaining and marks the debut of a major new talent in historical biography.

Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives

Robert Hardman

________ 
 
The bestselling and acclaimed biography of Queen Elizabeth II. With new material exclusive to the paperback edition, Our Queen examines the remarkable reign of Britain's most devoted monarch. 
 
History knew no monarch like her. 
 
She travelled farther than all her predecessors put together, and lived and reigned longer than any of them. She met with more historic figures than anyone who preceded her - from Churchill to Mandela, de Gaulle to Obama. 
 
Here, the distinguished royal writer Robert Hardman has been granted rare and privileged access to the world of Queen Elizabeth II to produce this enthralling portrait of one of history's most popular figures. 
 
'So much has changed around the Queen yet she has remained utterly true to herself,' says Hardman. 'There is this timeless quality about her. The more you talk to Her Majesty's family and to her people, the more you look at her life, the more impressive the scale of her achievement becomes.' 
 
Here is the inside story.

Our Queen

Robert Frump

In 1983, the freighter Marine Electric ran into a violent storm off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Despite Force 10 conditions and fifty feet waves the crew were unconcerned: the ship had survived worse. But something was wrong, the ship was beginning to break up under them; gradually it began to go down by the head, then to capsize. Within two hours the crew were in the water in a desperate struggle for their lives. Their plight sparked one of the most dramatic air-sea rescues in maritime history. 
 
Only three of the 34 crew survived the night. The ship had sunk due to a serious structural defect. The chief mate Bob Cusick discovered that the owners had lost several other ships in similar circumstances to the Marine Electric, but the sinkings had been covered up. He decided to go after the company and they in turn rounded on him, the sole surviving officer. What follows is an epic and epochal court case that left none of the participants unscarred.

Until The Sea Shall Free Them

Dragoneye

Dragonlance Destinies

Dread Pirate Fleur

Dream Master

Drenai Novels

DropZone

Duggee's Little Library

Dungeon Crawler Carl Series

Duty Calls

A gripping three-part series based on real historical events. Three Roman legions massacred. Three Imperial Eagles lost. One man vies for revenge.

Eagles of Rome

For thirty years, the O’Donnels have ruled the East End, but there’s a price to pay for this power, and it’s usually in blood.

Eastend Trilogy

Easterleigh Hall

Eat Around Italy

Eat Around Spain

Eat Right For Blood Type

Ebb and Flo

Ed Reardon's Week

Elemental Emergence

Elfies Spellbook

Eliot Biographies

Emma Trilogy

Emma and James

Empire of Salt

In the Swedish town of Engelsfors, a mysterious forcedraws seven teenagers together. They are the Chosen Ones, and they have been chosen to drive back the demons that threaten to overwhelm the world

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