Alex Kingston

Alex Kingston is TV royalty, celebrating 45 years in the business, from her debut in Grange Hill in 1980 to the title role (and BAFTA nomination) in The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, starring in over 150 ER episodes and becoming part of Doctor Who folklore as River Song. Her appearance in Doctor Who was meant to be a one-off but she became a regular and remains a fan favourite.

Alex Kirk grew up in the seaside town of Cleethorpes, which has brilliant beaches and the best fish and chips in the entire world. 
 
He has worked in a fish finger factory, as a plumber, a gardener, an English teacher, and for the last twenty-five years as a screenwriter, actor and comedian. Alex has written comedy shows for both radio and television, as well as being part of the writing team behind the wonderful Paddington 2 and Wonka. As an actor he has appeared in many TV productions such as My Family, Fresh Meat, The Detectorists and Coronation Street. 
 
He now lives in London with his family and a cat called Jonesey. This is his very first book.

Alex Kirk

Alex Laird is a medical herbalist with more than 20 years' experience. Trained in biomedicine and plant pharmacology, she treats patients in the only NHS herbal clinic based in a UK hospital at Whipps Cross. Alex is a visiting lecturer, and has published clinical research, and is the co-founder of the charity Living Medicine.

Alex Laird

Alex Latimer is an author and illustrator living in Cape Town, which is why he regularly has to shoo baboons out of his lounge. 
 
Alex's book Lion VS Rabbit won the Hampshire Picture Book Award 2014

Alex Latimer

Alex Livingston

Alex Manson-Smith is a journalist and copywriter. She has written lifestyle features for The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Evening Standard and Observer, as well as award-winning commercials for Google, YouTube and Nike.

Alex Manson-Smith

Alex Marshall grew up in the area where London sinks into Essex. He's an award-winning journalist who has been writing about music and politics for over a decade, and who has been published in the Guardian and by the BBC, amongst others. He started investigating national anthems back in 2008. This is his first book.

Alex Marshall

Alex Maunder

Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. He is the author of the 'Common Law' column in Prospect magazine and has contributed to the New Statesman and various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.

Alex McBride

Alex McCarthy was born in Cardiff and grew up in South Wales. An alumna of London Contemporary Dance School, she worked as a dancer and choreographer for a number of years on stage, TV and film. In 2017, following a career change and several years of writing, Alex began to write this novel. She has a daughter and stepdaughter, and lives in Wales.

Alex McCarthy

Alex Michaelides was born in Cyprus to an English mother and a Greek-Cypriot father. He has an M.A. in English from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and an M.A. in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. 
 
The Silent Patient, his first novel, was a Sunday Times bestseller, and debuted at no. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and has sold more than 7.5 million copies worldwide. The rights have been sold in a record-breaking 50 countries and it has been optioned for film by Plan B. His second novel, The Maidens, was an instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for television by Miramax Television and Stone Village. His third thriller, The Fury, was an instant New York Times bestseller, a Sunday Times bestseller, and a Waterstones Thriller of the Month pick.

Alex Michaelides

Alex Montgomery

Alex Morris

Alex North was born in Leeds, where he now lives with his wife and son. He studied Philosophy at Leeds University, and prior to becoming a writer he worked there in their sociology department. The Whisper Man was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, and is being published in more than 30 languages.

Alex North

Alex O. Imas is Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago School’s Booth School of Business. He is the recipient of the 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Review of Financial Studies Rising Scholar Award, the New Investigator Award from the Behavioral Science and Policy Association, the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award from the Society of Judgment and Decision Making, the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Behavioral Economics at Carnegie Mellon University.

Alex O. Imas

Alex Owen

Alex Patrick was born in the Kentish town of Dartford in the South-East of England and has been drawing for as long as he can remember. His lifelong love for cartoons, picture books and comics has shaped him into the passionate children’s illustrator he is today. Alex loves creating original characters - he brings an element of fun and humour to each of his illustrations and is often found laughing to himself as he draws.

Alex Patrick

Alex Pavesi lives in Surrey, where he writes full time. He previously worked as a software engineer and before that obtained a PhD in Mathematics. He enjoys puzzles, long walks and recreational lock picking. His debut novel Eight Detectives has been published in more than twenty languages, and was picked by the Sunday Times and the New York Times as one of their books of the year.

Alex Pavesi

Alex Pellew

Alex Pole

Alex Renton is an award-winning writer and reporter whose career has ranged from theatre criticism, food writing and the investigation of child abuse to work as a political correspondent and war reporter in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He is also the author of Planet Carnivore and Blood Legacy.

Alex Renton

Alex Richie

Alex Riley is an award-winning science writer and the author of A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It, his first book. He received a best feature award at the 2019 Association of British Science Writers Awards for his reporting on The Friendship Bench, a project that began in Zimbabwe in 2006 and has since provided mental health care to thousands of people in New York. Since leaving academia in 2015, he began writing popular science articles for magazines such as New Scientist, PBS's NOVA Next, BBC Future, Mosaic Science, Aeon, and Nautilus Magazine. He lives in Bristol.

Alex Riley

Alex Scarrow used to be a rock guitarist, then he became a graphic artist, then he decided to be a computer games designer. Finally, he grew up and became an author. He has written a number of successful thrillers and several screenplays, but it's YA fiction that has allowed him to really have fun with the ideas and concepts he was playing around with designing games. Alex lives in Norwich.

Alex Scarrow

Alex Scott MBE is an award-winning broadcaster and former professional footballer. She helped Arsenal in their historic 'quadruple' season, in which they won all of their trophy competitions, and was later appointed as the team's captain. She represented England in 140 appearances with the Lionesses, retiring as the second most-capped England player across the men's and women's game. 
 
Alex is one of the UK's most in-demand presenters, appearing on The One Show, Children in Need, Sport Relief and ITV's The Games. In 2021, she made history as the first permanent female host of BBC's Football Focus. She is an ambassador for the BBC's mental health platform, Headspace, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of East London and University of Hertfordshire.

Alex Scott

Alex Sharp

Alex Shearer

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, PhD, has spent two decades studying people, technology, and the worlds they make. A Silicon Valley-based futurist and consultant, he has worked with governments and Fortune 500 companies; spoken at venues ranging from CIA headquarters to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to the Googleplex; and held academic positions at Stanford and Oxford universities. His is the author of the bestselling Rest and Shorter, a guide for companies on how to work less and get more done. Follow @askpang on Twitter and Instagram, or visit strategy.rest.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

Alex Stone

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Anne Nolan

The Nolan Sisters swung with Sinatra, sang at the Royal Variety Performance and toured the world to crowds of adoring fans. 
 
They were one of the first superstar girl groups. 
 
But darkness lurked behind their glamorous, spotless public image. 
 
As the eldest Nolan sister, Anne Nolan's life appeared exciting and glamorous - a dream come true for any young singer. Surrounded by a bevy of loving sisters, two protective brothers and parents who wanted to see their children succeed, how could Anne Nolan's childhood have been anything but idyllic? 
 
And yet behind the fairytale script, behind the fame and glitz, lay hidden dark family secrets that have, until now, never been told. What drove a wedge between the sisters? 
 
Anne's story begins in Dublin and moves to the club scene of Blackpool, the scenes of a secret life - one that had to remain hidden, one of fear and pain that has cast a terrible shadow over her entire life. Finally, after decades of silence, Anne Nolan reveals the brutal truth behind the Nolans' carefully cultivated image in this startling and gripping autobiography.

Anne's Song

John Gimlette

By the end of World War II much of Western Europe was in chaos. The future of our world had been contested here, in the hinterlands of France and across the German plains. But what's become of the battlefields now? Or the people that lived on them? And is there any trace of the 2.7 million Americans who smashed their way into the Reich (or the 12 million that followed)? With questions like these, the award-winning travel writer John Gimlette, guided by WWII veteran Putnam Flint, sets off on an astonishing journey into the past.

Panther Soup

A European Journey in War and Peace

Antonio Melechi

Born of the so-called Victorian 'pseudo science' of mesmerism, the séance enjoyed a late 19th century golden age that ministered to the Victorian obsession with science, religious doubt, and entertainment. 
 
Mediums, psychics and somnambulists were investigated by amateur sleuths and by scientists like Faraday and Darwin; their performances imitated and exposed by magicians, denounced by clerics, satirised in the press. Yet the popularity of spiritualism and the séance endured - and does so to this day.

Servants of the Supernatural

The Night Side of the Victorian Mind

Stella Rimington

Stella Rimington brings all her experience as the first woman Director General of MI5 to bear in a heart-stopping thriller series that takes us deep into a wilderness of mirrors where nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted.

___________________________________________ 
 
'Readers can expect authenticity - and that is what she delivers.' The Times 
 
ILLEGAL ACTION is the third thriller from the former head of MI5 and bestselling author Stella Rimington, featuring MI5 officer Liz Carlyle. 
 
When MI5 intelligence officer Liz Carlyle learns of a Russian government plot to kill super-rich Nikita Brunovsky – a man who openly criticises the Putin regime from his London base – it’s a race against time to track down the killer. How the man is to be silenced is unclear, but the Foreign Office dreads any kind of incident and Liz must work fast to protect him. 
 
As she goes undercover, desperately trying to find out who in Brunovsky’s retinue might betray him, Liz discovers that an ‘illegal’ Russian agent has arrived in London. Is this the assassin she is seeking? Under an assumed name, caught up in the high-octane world of the oligarchs, Liz soon finds herself in terrible danger...

Illegal Action

(Liz Carlyle 3)

Tony Ring

The Wit and Wisdom of the Master - all compacted into 128 pithy pages! Tony Ring, the president of the Wodehouse Association and author of the 600,000-word Millennium Wodehouse Concordance, has drawn on his extensive knowledge and even more wonderful enthusiasm to compile an absolutely cracking anthology, which answers all our Christmas present problems in one volume. Here are not only witty epigrams we all know and love (and perhaps lots we don't!) but also longer humorous extracts which are full of wisdom. 
 
Evelyn Waugh has written that Wodehouse produced three wholly original similes on every page he wrote - which, even allowing for exaggeration, must make this one of the most original gift books ever! It will certainly be one of the funniest...

The Wit & Wisdom of P.G. Wodehouse

Alan Alda

'The message is consistent: it's not what you do in life, but how you do it. Notice everything. Always be open to new ideas, new experiences. Alda is chatty, easygoing and humble ... His words of inspiration would be a perfect gift.' 
Publishers Weekly 
 
Acclaimed actor and internationally bestselling author Alan Alda has written a shrewd and funny account of some impossible questions he's asked himself over the years: what do I value? What, exactly, is the good life? (And what does that even mean?) 
 
Here, Alda listens in on things he's heard himself saying at critical points in his life - from the turbulence of the 60s, to his first Broadway show, to the birth of his children, and to the ache of September 11. He notices that 'doorways are where the truth is told', and wonders what one thing - art, activism, family, money, fame - could lead to a 'life of meaning'. 
 
In a book that is candid, wise and as questioning as it is incisive, Alda amuses and moves us with his uniquely witty meditations on questions great and small.

Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself

Sam Holden

In theory, life for Sam as a stay-at-home dad is idyllic and stress-free. Months of honing his childcare programme have enabled him to run a ship-shape home with productive days spent creating finger-print masterpieces, cooking up organic cuisine and polishing the family silver. 
 
In practice, the Holden Childcare Programme has fallen out of favour. Sam's days are filled with tantrums, food fights and undisclosed amounts of telly watching, and he can't help but feel the aching tedium and financial pinch. Even the flattering advances of Jodhpur Mum aren't enough to lift his spirits. But things are about to change dramatically. 
 
While Sam's status as a stay-at-home dad goes national via his own hit TV show, WonderHubby, life on the home front quickly spirals out of control ...

Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband

Stephen Venables

High and wild places have dominated Stephen Venables' life and now he has written a full autobiography which explores how and - more importantly - why he became a mountaineer, and reveals a series of never-recorded adventures on four continents. At its climax he revisits his dramatic success without oxygen on the Kangshung Face of Everest, described by Reinhold Messner as the most adventurous in Everest's history and by Lord Hunt as 'one of the most remarkable ordeals from which men or women have returned alive'. As Venables writes: 'Although we didn't go seeking deliberately an epic near-death experience, it did turn out that way - the ultimate endurance test for which all the previous adventures seemed, retrospectively, to be a preparation.'

Higher Than The Eagle Soars

A Path to Everest

Tony Benn

When Tony Benn left Parliament after 51 years he quoted his wife Caroline's remark that now he would have 'more time for politics'. And so this has proved: in the first seven years of this century he has helped reinvigorate national debate through public meetings, mass campaigns and appearances in the media, passionately bringing moral and political issues to wide audiences. And throughout, as ever, he has been keeping his diaries. 
 
Commenting on the demise of the New Labour project from the re-election of Tony Blair in 2001 to the ultimate foreign policy disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq, he gives other prescient accounts of the government's by-passing of Cabinet, parliament and the party, of the 'war on terror', the debate about Islam, globalisation and the changes in British society. Although he is no longer in power or in parliament, Tony Benn remains a figure of enormous respect whose direct views, honestly expressed, have often awakened the national conscience. His latest Diaries, human and challenging in turn, are an enthralling read.

More Time for Politics

Diaries 2001-2007

Sean Hogan

Michael Cameron

I don't feel sorry for myself. Today everything is all right. I look at it is this way, it can't ever be as bad as it was then...' 
 
Sean Hogan was just eight years old when he was confined in the notorious Artane Industrial School under the brutal regime of the Christian Brothers. In and out of care throughout his childhood, Sean was so badly neglected by his alcoholic parents that he never even knew what day his birthday fell on, or how old he was - things he only learned as an adult. But when he arrived at Artane, instead of receiving the care he so desperately needed, he entered into months of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of some of the brothers 
 
Now, for the first time, he feels able to tell his story - and reveal the devastating truth of what really happened in Ireland's industrial schools. In Harm's Way is a powerful and moving story of astonishing hardship and near despair, but also of triumph over terrible adversity.

In Harm's Way

Beth Harbison

Four very different women...all addicted to shoes. 
 
Lorna is up to her eyeballs in debt but can't help bidding for the newest Jimmy Choos on eBay. Helene is unhappily married to a politician who keeps threatening to cancel her credit cards. Sandra pays her shoe bills by working as a phone sex operator. And Joss is a nanny who has found herself in a family from hell and will do just about anything to get out of the house on her night off. 
 
When they come upon a classified advert, inviting shoe lovers to a weekly shoe-swap, each one jumps at the chance to meet fellow addicts. But none of them realise that they will come away with much, much more than just a new pair of kitten heels...

Shoe Addicts Anonymous

President Bill Clinton

Here, from Bill Clinton, is a call to action. Giving is an inspiring look at how each of us can change the world. First, it reveals the extraordinary and innovative efforts now being made by companies and organizations-and by individuals-to solve problems and save lives both 'down the street and around the world'. Then it urges us to seek out what each of us, 'regardless of income, available time, age, and skills', can do to help, to give people a chance to live out their dreams. 
 
Bill Clinton shares his own experiences and those of other givers, representing a global flood tide of nongovernmental, nonprofit activity. These remarkable stories demonstrate that gifts of time, skills, things, and ideas are as important and effective as contributions of money. From Bill and Melinda Gates to a six-year-old California girl named McKenzie Steiner, who organized and supervised drives to clean up the beach in her community, Clinton introduces us to both well-known and unknown heroes of giving. 
 
Clinton writes about men and women who traded in their corporate careers, and the fulfillment they now experience through giving. He writes about energy-efficient practices, about progressive companies going green, about promoting fair wages and decent working conditions around the world. He shows us how one of the most important ways of giving can be an effort to change, improve, or protect a government policy. He outlines what we as individuals can do, the steps we can take, how much we should consider giving, and why our giving is so important. 
 
Bill Clinton's own actions in his post-presidential years have had an enormous impact on the lives of millions. Through his foundation and his work in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, he has become an international spokesperson and model for the power of giving.

Giving

How Each Of Us Can Change The World

P.G. Wodehouse

Meet the hilarious British dilettante Bertram 'Bertie' Wooster who can't seem to help finding himself in the middle of awkward social situations, calling upon his valet Jeeves to escape embarrassment.

A Jeeves and Wooster novel 
 
The beefy 'Stilton' Cheesewright has drawn Bertie Wooster as red-hot favourite in the Drones club annual darts tournament - which is lucky for Bertie because otherwise Stilton would have beaten him to a pulp and buttered the lawn with him. Stilton does not, after all like men who he thinks are trifling with his fiancée's affections. 
 
Meanwhile Bertie has committed a more heinous offence by growing a moustache, and Jeeves strongly disapproves - which is unfortunate, because Jeeves's feudal spirit is desperately needed. Bertie's Aunt Dahlia is trying to sell her magazine Milady's Boudoir to the Trotter Empire and still keep her amazing chef Anatole out of Lady Trotter's clutches. And Bertie? Bertie simply has to try to hold onto his moustache and hope he gets to the end in one piece.

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

(Jeeves & Wooster)

Peter Falk

Peter Falk came to prominence as an actor in 1956 in the highly successful off-Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards. Although he worked continuously for the next three years, bouncing from one off-Broadway theatre to the next, a theatrical agent advised him not to expect much work in motion pictures because of his glass eye. Later, a talent scout for Columbia Pictures described Falk as a second John Garfield, but Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, unfortunately disagreed: 'For the same price, I can get an actor with two eyes.' 
 
But in 1958, Twentieth Century Fox came to New York to make a movie - Murder Inc - and Falk landed a juicy role for which he received rave reviews and, incredibly, was nominated for an Academy Award. He was then nominated again for his second film, Pocketful of Miracles starring Bette Davis. 
Falk went on to become a favourite among filmgoers, yet it was through television that he reached his widest audience as Lt. Columbo, winning four Emmys for the role. Interestingly, Columbo's raincoat came out of Falk's bedroom closet. He bought it years before he became an actor. He's been quoted as saying, 'I wanted to wear something people would remember. Bottom line, it's the world's most famous raincoat.' 
 
Just One More Thing is pure Peter Falk, and reads as if he were sitting next to you, chuckling as he recalls his remarkable past.

Just One More Thing

Tim Lovejoy

Tim Lovejoy loves football. Along with Helen Chamberlain he presented Soccer AM for more than a decade to become as much a part of a football fan's weekend as phone-ins, back-page EXCLUSIVES and the vidiprinter. But why does Tim love football? Is it actually the most important subject in the world? And did he really once support Watford as a kid? 
 
Lovejoy on Football gets down to the nitty gritty of the really important stuff in football, such as: 
 
Why he, Tim, is technically a rubbish football fan; 
 
Women's true place in football; 
 
How 'Save Chip' became the biggest football cause in the country; 
 
Why it's a bad idea to hammer Razor Ruddock; 
 
And why footballers are in fact underpaid. 
 
Packed with amusing anecdotes, bustling with great football stories and full of strong opinions, Lovejoy on Football is the must-have football book of 2007.

Lovejoy on Football

One Man's Passion for The Most Important Subject in the World

A Jeeves and Wooster novel 
 
Just as Bertie Wooster is a member of the Drones Club, Jeeves has a club of his own, the Junior Ganymede, exclusively for butlers and gentlemen's gentlemen. In its inner sanctum is kept the Book of Revelations, where the less than perfect habits of their employers are lovingly recorded. The book is, of course, pure dynamite. So what happens when it disappears into potentially hostile hands? 
 
Tossed about in the resulting whirlwind you'll find lots of Wodehouse's favourite characters - and a welcome return to Market Snodsbury, in the middle of one of the most chaotic elections of modern times.

Much Obliged, Jeeves

A Blandings novel 
 
Can the Empress of Blandings win the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Show for the third year running? Galahad Threepwood, Beach the butler and others have put their shirt on this, and for Lord Emsworth it will be paradise on earth. But a substantial obstacle lurks in the way: Queen of Matchingham, the new sow of Sir Gregory Parsloe Bart. Galahad knows this pretender to the crown must be pignapped. But can the Empress in turn avoid a similar fate? 
 
In this classic Blandings novel, pigs rise above their bulk to vanish and reappear in the most unlikely places, while young lovers are crossed and recrossed in every room in Blandings Castle.

Pigs Have Wings

(Blandings Castle)

A Jeeves novel 
 
Captain Biggar, big-game hunter and all round tough guy, should make short work of the two bookies who have absconded with his winnings after a freak double made him a fortune. But on this occasion Honest Patch Perkins and his clerk are not as they seem. In fact they're not bookies at all, but the impoverished Bill Belfry, Ninth Earl of Rowcester and his temporary butler, Jeeves. 
 
Bertie Wooster has gone away to a special school teaching the aristocracy to fend for itself 'in case the social revolution sets in with even greater severity'. But Jeeves will prove just as resourceful without his young master, and brilliant brainwork may yet square the impossible circle for all concerned.

Ring for Jeeves

A Blandings novel 
 
As a peer of the realm, Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, has an occasional duty to leave the Empress of Blandings, surely the most considerable pig in the whole world, and travel to London for the opening of parliament. It comes hard to him, for he has a proper sense of the priorities in life, which rate pigs and flowerbeds higher than politicians. 
 
But no sooner has he returned to Blandings than his real problems begin: the dastardly Duke of Dunstable is out to steal the Empress. His sister Lady Constance has inflicted on him a particularly nasty new secretary. And the Church Lads' Brigade are camped all over his lawns. 
 
Thank God for the Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred, whose own particularly devious brand of sweetness and light aims to banish blackmailers and pig-stealers and restore true love all over the castle grounds.

Service with a Smile

Simon Elmes

And Now on Radio 4 offers an enthusiast's guide to the shows that have made Radio 4 what it is, and also explores some of the wonderful corners of the network's history that are long forgotten by all but a few. Who, for instance, now recalls Ronnie Barker's starring role on Radio 4 in a sophisticated cabaret-cum-sketch-show called Lines from My Grandfather's Forehead? What about Spike Milligan's intimate, soul-bearing account of his upbringing in colonial India, Plain Tales from the Raj? And who now remembers that Start the Week was once hosted by Russell Harty, a bit of programming compared by one insider to letting Graham Norton run Newsnight. 
 
In order to reflect the way devotees listen to Radio 4, the book is organised not on simple chronological lines but in the form of a typical day. Chapter by chapter, the day evolves, from Farming Today, through the daily feast that is Today, through the morning menu of conversation, Woman's Hour, documentary and comedy. Lunchtime brings The World at One. The early evening, of course, yields The Archers. And finally there's Book at Bedtime and Sailing By. 
 
An addictive mix of history, biography, anecdote and occasional useless fact, this is the perfect book for Radio 4 aficionados.

And Now on Radio 4

A Celebration of the World's Best Radio Station

Nigel Hamilton

Nigel Hamilton's account of Bill Clinton's early life and career - Bill Clinton: An American Journey - drew widespread praise. Now, in Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency, Nigel Hamilton charts the experience of the 42nd President as he took presidential oath of office- and how he fared therafter in the piranha pool of Washington D.C. 
 
Hamilton charts what was possibly the greatest disaster and re-reinvention of a president in office in modern times. How Bill Clinton faced up to his failures, and refashioned himself in the White House is an epic story. With a thriving U.S. economy and hard-won wisdom in international affairs and in combating the rise of terrorism, Clinton would begin his second term as the undisputed, immensely popular leader of the Western world - aware, however, that terrors ant treason within America loomed as large as dangers abroad. 
 
Insightful, balanced, prodigiously researched and a joy to read, Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency is set to become, alongside its prequel, the classic story of Clinton's extraordinary effort to be a modern president, in a modern world-and a chronicle one of the most extraordinary reversals of fortune in modern American politics.

Bill Clinton

Mastering the Presidency

Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton is far more than a rock star. 
 
Like Dylan and McCartney, he is an icon and a living legend. He has sold tens of millions of records, played sell-out concerts all over the world and been central to the significant musical developments of his era. His guitar playing has seen him hailed as 'God'. Now for the first time, Eric tells the story of his personal and professional journeys in this pungent, witty and painfully honest autobiography. 
 
These are the memoirs of a survivor, someone who has reached the pinnacle of success, who has had it all, but whose demons have never left him. Eric tells his story as it is, hiding nothing, with a directness and searing honesty that will make this book one of the most compelling memoirs of our time.

Eric Clapton: The Autobiography

Donald Spoto

In 1956, at the age of 22, Alan Bates was cast in John Osborne's controversial play, Look Back in Anger. The play changed the course of British theatre - and of Alan's life. 
 
With a sudden rush of fame, he became a member of a new circle of actors at the Royal Court: the English Stage Company. From then on, he also worked steadily in television and won international acclaim for his roles in a number of major films, from A Kind of Loving and Zorba the Greek to Women in Love. 
 
But his personal life was not always as seemingly straightforward as his career - his relationships, including that with his wife, Victoria Ward, were often turbulent. Drawing on dozens of interviews with his family, lovers, colleagues and friends - and mining a rich store of primary research - Donald Spoto chronicles Alan's achievements as a performer against the backdrop of a complicated personal life.

Otherwise Engaged

The Life of Alan Bates

Charlie Croker

Have you ever arrived in a hotel room and been baffled by the information provided? 
Beware of your luggage. 
In your room you will find a minibar which is filled with alcoholics. 
Do not throw urine around. 
 
Have you ever been to a restaurant and wondered what on earth to order? 
Bored Meat Stew 
Lorry Driver Soup 
Kiss Lorraine 
 
Have you ever arrived in an airport and found that the supposedly helpful signs just make you feel more lost? 
You are required to declare all sorts of private things. 
Departure. Bus stop. Car rectal. 
Please buy your ticket consciously. 
 
Charlie Croker has, and in 2006 he gathered together what he thought was the definitive collection of English language howlers for his bestselling book Lost in Translation. But he reckoned without the great British public. Not only was the book a smash hit, it also opened the floodgates to a deluge of emails and letters stuffed full of further mistranslations and mutilated phrases. From a leaflet from the Museum of Rasputin in Russia (which is apparently situated in a house that belonged a pilot fish Zubov) to a song title on a pirated Pink Floyd CD (Come Fartably Numb), the scrambled sentences just kept flooding in. At the same time Charlie has continued his travels and picked up gems of his own. With such a wealth of material, a sequel wasn't just a necessity, it was a public service, and Still Lost in Translation is even more addictive, whimsical and side-splittingly hilarious than the first book.

Still Lost in Translation

More misadventures in English abroad

Jenny Tomlin

It is the summer of 1976, the hottest summer on record. 
 
In the heart of London's bustling East End lies a tight-knit community of families. They lead a very traditional way of life, the men are down the pub, the women are gossiping at the toddler group in the working men's club and the children stay out late in the long summer evenings, playing in the park and roaming the streets carefree. 
 
In the sweltering heat, Grace Ballantyne leaves her son Adam playing in his toy car in the garden. When she returns, she finds the door to the car open and her four-year-old son is nowhere in sight. As Grace frantically searches, panic creeps in and so the nightmare begins. 
 
A series of horrific assaults on young children spreads through the neighbourhood, each one more brutal; there is only so much this close community can take. As they cling to one another for hope and survival, the men beat up the school caretaker who they believe to be the perpetrator of this twisted abuse. But have they got the right man? 
 
Finally, it is the women who take control. In a battle to protect their families - and seek revenge - they make sure the attacker gets his just desserts.

Sweetie

Favell Lee Mortimer

Todd Pruzan

In the middle of the 1800s, Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer set out to write an ambitious guide to all the nations on Earth. There were just three problems: 
 
She had never set foot outside Shropshire. 
She was horribly misinformed about virtually every topic she turned her attention to. 
And she was prejudiced against foreigners. 
 
The result was an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece: 
'The French like being smart but are not very clean.' 
'The Japanese are very polite people - much politer than the Chinese - but very proud.' 
'The Scotch will not take much trouble to please strangers.' 
 
In The Clumsiest People in Europe, Todd Pruzan has gathered together a selection of Mrs Mortimer's finest moments, celebrating the woman who turned ignorance into an art form.

The Clumsiest People in Europe

A Bad-Tempered Guide To The World

Carl Bernstein

A Woman in Charge reveals the true trajectory of Hillary's astonishing life and career. From a staunchly Republican household and apparently idyllic Midwestern girlhood - her disciplinarian father here revealed as harsher than she has acknowledged - we see the shaping of a brilliant girl whose curiosity was fuelled by the ferment of the 1960s and a desire to change the world. During her student years, she was already perceived as a spokeswoman for her generation. Then, at Yale Law School, she met and fell in love with Bill Clinton, cancelling her own dreams to tie her fortunes to his. 
 
Bernstein clarifies the often amazing dynamic of their marriage, charting both her political acumen and her blind spots, and untangling her relationship to the great controversies of Whitewater, Troopergate and Travelgate. And then, in the emotional and political chaos of the Lewinsky affair we see Hillary standing by her husband - evoking a rising wave of sympathy from a public previously cool to her and in effect, Bernstein argues, saving his presidency. It helps carry her into the Senate: her time has come. As she decides to run for President, this self-described 'mind-conservative and heart liberal' has one more chance to fulfill her long-deferred ambitions. 
 
Bernstein has interviewed some 200 of her colleagues, friends and enemies and was given unique access to the candid record of the 1992 presidential campaign kept by Hillary's best friend, Diane Blair. Marshalling all the skills and energy that propelled his history-making Pulitzer prize-winning coverage of Watergate, he gives us a detailed, sophisticated, comprehensive and revealing account of the complex human being and political meteor who has already helped define one presidency and may well become the woman in charge of another.

A Woman In Charge

The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Chris Terrill

Chris Terrill is a man in search of his limit. He's 55 years old. He is not a soldier. He is being trained by the Royal Marines and he is going to Afghanistan. The only difference is that instead of a gun, Chris will be holding a camera and filming the whole ordeal for a major TV series. 
 
The Royal Marines Commando training base in Lympstone Devon, has a famous motto: '99.9% need not apply'. Of those who start training, after a very tough selection process, nearly 50% fail to make it through the most gruelling physical tests of any armed forces in the world in an eight month training regime. The elite who do eventually pass out are generally eighteen years old and at the peak of physical condition. But Chris Terrill is the exception: this book will tell of his heroic struggle to become the oldest man to win the coveted Royal Marines Commando Green Beret and enter the record books. 
 
And after six months of hell, what next? Chris will follow the raw recruits on a tour to Southern Afghanistan. He will tell the story in book and film of the fears and hopes of the youngsters as they are plunged into one of the planet's most dangerous wars in the outlaw mountain terrain of Helmand Province. He will tell of ferocious battles against the Taliban, of firefights, of jaw-dropping heroism, British sang froid and humour and tragedy as causalities are suffered -- all from the unique perspective of a civilian who has achieved the ultimate accolade: to be accepted as an honorary Royal Marines Commando. Commando is a brilliant account of modern war on the front line.

Commando

Joe Calzaghe

IT WAS past three o'clock in the morning when Joe Calzaghe experienced the sweetest validation of his professional life. Victory over Jeff Lacy, a 28-year-old American compared to a young Mike Tyson because of his power and "take-no-prisoners attitude", left no one in doubt about the world super middleweight champion's talent. 
 
For years, Calzaghe's virtuosity remained a legend of the Welsh valleys. His defeat in 1997 of Chris Eubank brought him to prominence, winning for him the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) super middleweight title. But despite a record number of defences of the belt, his career lacked a defining contest. A long line of challengers and ex-titleholders were disposed of but the biggest names in American boxing avoided the ultimate showdown he craved. Hand injuries further obscured the true level of his aptitude for an art he began to learn from his father, Enzo, at the age of eight when - inspired by Sugar Ray Leonard - a rolled-up carpet in the family home in Newbridge became a makeshift heavy bag. 
 
This is the story of Calzaghe's extraordinary life, from his humble beginnings in his hometown of Newbridge, to his ascent to personal greatness, becoming the first super middleweight boxer to win the prized belt awarded by The Ring, the bible of boxing, in the division's near 20-year history. 
 
One of Britain's foremost sporting champions, a warrior and working-class hero, this is the story of the triumphs and trials that made Calzaghe a legend.

No Ordinary Joe

Paul Sculthorpe

PAUL SCULTHORPE is the man who was born to be a superstar. Touted as a future Great Britain skipper before he even played his first game as a professional, he has more than lived up to the billing over the ensuing years. 
 
The only player to ever be named Man of Steel in successive years, the St Helens captain is arguably the most talented man to grace a rugby league field in modern times. Yet Sculthorpe did not always have his sights set on Challenge Cup and Grand Final glory. As a youngster he spent his time booting a football around with brother Lee - and actually had to be forced into playing his first game of rugby. 
From that moment a star was born, as he went on to captain every side he represented, even though he was often playing a year above his age group. 
 
Warrington were the first to spot that potential, snapping him up on schoolboy terms, and helping shape the greatest player in Super League history. When he went hunting a bigger stage, St Helens had no hesitation paying a world record £370,000 - a transfer fee that quickly looked a bargain. 
Since then various rugby union clubs have sounded out the chances of tempting him into a code switch, while the biggest names in Australia would love to take the prize Pom Down Under. 
Throughout it all Scully has stayed true to his roots, even though that loyalty was sorely tested when knee injuries led to a whispering campaign that he was finished. 
 
Now Sculthorpe lifts the lid on a remarkable career. The highs and the lows; the friendships and the fall-outs; and where he feels his future REALLY lies. It's a no-holds barred account of one man's incredible rise to the top - and the steely determination which keeps him there.

Sculthorpe

Man of Steel

In The Night Garden

In Their Own Words

Ink and Iron

Inspector Iwata

Inspector Maigret

DI Tony McLean of the Lothian and Borders Police knows Edinburgh like the back of his hand - an invaluable advantage when simultaneously pursuing depraved and dangerous criminals, and dodging overbearing superiors. Alongside a few trusted colleagues like DS 'Grumpy Bob' Laird and DS Kirsty Ritchie, McLean is an unorthodox force to be reckoned with . . .

Inspector McLean

Inspector Sejer

Inspector Taleb Series

Inspector Webb

Instinct Series

Intercrime

Invisible Series

Irish Classics

Iron Seas

Charismatic, handsome, and fiercely loyal, Isaac Bell is a no-nonsense private detective at the Von Dorn Detective Agency. Travelling all over early 20th century America in pursuit of justice for his clients, chasing down a steam train in a sports automobile is all in a day's work for Bell. And while he's on the trail of thieves, killers, and sometimes much worse, he'll have to use his every last wit to stay ahead of those he seeks, and to stay alive. . .

Isaac Bell

Witness the political struggles and tragedies of Queen Isabella, King Ferdinand and their children as ambitions take over in a time of civil war.

Isabella & Ferdinand Trilogy

It's Time to...

Izzy Dobson

I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again

Mo Hayder's Jack Caffery series is not for the faint-hearted. 
DI Jack Caffery specialises in the most gruesome, twisted and terrifying crimes. Against the clock to find the killer before the next murder is committed, Caffery is young, unshockable and driven.

Jack Caffery

Jack Reacher is a former major in the US Military Police who, since leaving the army, has drifted round the wide open spaces of America, hitchhiking or on buses, wherever the whim takes him. He has no permanent address, no job, no family ties, no car, no luggage, no mobile phone, no credit card - all he carries with him is a folding toothbrush. 
Reacher is never looking for trouble, but somehow trouble always find him. He is the ultimate hero for our troubled times, with a keen moral compass and sense of justice, even if he is often prepared to take the law into his own hands: he says he doesn't want to put the world to rights, he just doesn't like people who put it to wrongs.

Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher Short Stories

Jack Ryan

Jack Ryan Jr

Jack Slater

Jack Stalwart

Jack Tanner

Jack and Millie

Jackson Brodie is a private investigator, originally from Yorkshire. A former soldier and policeman he now makes his money working from investigating infidelity and finding missing cats. Jackson's tough-guy exterior belies a deeply empathetic heart. He's unable to resist coming to the rescue and increasingly he becomes a magnet for the bereaved, the lost and the dysfunctional. His ability to connect comes from his own tragic childhood that still haunts him. 
 
Jackson Brodie has appeared in four of Kate Atkinson's novels. Each can be read in isolation but are best enjoyed in order of publication: Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog.

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