Andrew Blum is the author of Tubes: Behind the Scenes at the Internet, described as 'utterly engrossing ... the year’s most stimulating and original travel book' (Independent) and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. He writes about infrastructure, architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art, and travel. Since 1999, his articles and essays have appeared in Wired, Popular Science, Metropolis, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, New Yorker and many more publications. He has degrees in literature from Amherst College and in human geography from the University of Toronto, and lives in his native New York City.

Andrew Blum

Andrew Blum writes about architecture, infrastructure and technology for many publications, including the New Yorker, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Slate and Popular Science. He is a correspondent for Wired, a contributing editor to Metropolis and lives in his hometown of New York City.

Andrew Borowiec

Andrew Brodsky is a management professor at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and CEO of Ping Group. He is an expert in workplace technology, communication, and productivity. Andrew has received numerous research and teaching awards, including being chosen by Poets&amp;Quants as one of the 'World’s 40 Best Business School Professors Under 40.' He earned a PhD in organizational behavior from Harvard Business School and BS from The Wharton School. He lives with his wife and two rescue dogs in Austin, Texas.

Andrew Brodsky

Andrew Bryson is a radio journalist working in the BBC's Business and Economic Unit. He frequently works as a producer on Radio 4's Today programme and on Radio 5 Live.

Andrew Bryson

Andrew Carroll

Andrew Cartmel is a British author and journalist. He was also the script editor of Doctor Who from 1987 to 1989. He has worked as a script editor on other television series, as a magazine editor, as a comics writer, as a film studies lecturer, and as a novelist.

Andrew Cartmel

Andrew Cave has been interviewing the world's leading business figures for more than 25 years, writing for The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph from London and New York. His previous books include Billions to Bust - and Back, The Power of Purpose and The Secrets of CEOs.

Andrew Cave

Born in 1956, Andrew Chaikin grew up in Great Neck, New York, with a fascination for the heavens and space exploration. While studying geology at Brown University he participated in the Viking mission to Mars at the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition to his work as a space historian and science journalist, Chaikin has taught extensively at NASA. He lives in Vermont. Info about Chaikin's other books can be found on his website, www.andrewchaikin.com.

Andrew Chaikin

Andrew Chen is best known for his newsletter on tech and business, whose 200,000 followers include many of the most notable founders in Silicon Valley. He is currently a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the startup investor behind Twitter, Airbnb, Github, Lyft, Reddit and Skype. He was formerly head of rider growth at Uber, where he oversaw an increase from 15 million to 100 million active users of the platform.

Andrew Chen

Andrew Child is the author of nine thrillers written under the name Andrew Grant. He is the younger brother of Lee Child. Born in Birmingham, he lives in Wyoming with his wife, the novelist Tasha Alexander.

Andrew Child

Andrew Clover

Andrew Collins

Andrew Collins is a writer and broadcaster, whose early career at the NME and Q led him to Radio 1, Radio 4 and 6 Music. He is Film Editor of Radio Times, the author of three memoirs, co-writer of BBC sitcoms Grass and Not Going Out, and the host of Saturday Night at the Movies on Classic FM.

Andrew Cooper

Andrew Cope

Andrew Crofts

Andrew Cunningham

Andrew Davies

Andrew Dempster

Andrew Dickson

Andrew is the multi-award winning author of over eighty books for children and adults. His best-selling books and graphic novels have been translated into thirty languages around the world and have sold over eleven million copies in the last two decades. His innovative graphic novels Illegal, and Global (co-written with Eoin Colfer) are both best-selling international hits. His non-fiction work includes the recent award-winning A History of the World in 25 Cities (co-written with Tracey Turner).

Andrew Donkin

Andrew Downie

Andrew Eames

Andrew Eburne

Andrew Feinstein

Andrew Floyer Acland

Andrew Fox

Andrew Fuller

Andrew Fusek Peters has written award-winning books for all ages (many with his wife, Polly), including poetry collections, fiction and radio plays. Today, he lives and works in Shropshire, where he is passionate about  the countryside and addicted to the pleasures of wild swimming.

Andrew Fusek Peters

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Keith Allen

'He'll either win the Victoria Cross or go to prison,' said Keith Allen's headmaster, 1966. 
 
Born a Navy baby, Keith Allen learnt young that when things get too settled you move on. That's the way he has lived his life ever since - always leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. 
 
He might have been a professional footballer if his criminal behaviour hadn't got in the way. He spent time in prison, went on the run, drifted through squats and festivals, survived marriages, relationships and parenthood. He has loitered with intent in the worlds of comedy, music art, theatre and film, but never long enough to ever fully conform to expectations. He's become renowned for his extrovert and contentious behaviour, his radical opinions and his acting pedigree. But at 54-years-old ... has he finally grown up? 
 
Revelatory and unapologetically honest, Grow Up takes you on a break-neck journey through the chaotic life of someone who's broken all the rules.

Grow Up

Carla Van Raay

The Price of Passion is the eagerly awaited sequel to Carla van Raay's international bestselling memoir, God's Callgirl. 
 
A former nun and prostitute, Carla van Raay thought she had come to terms with her traumatic past. But then she received a phone call that threatened to upset the balance once again. 
 
Carla had first met Aaron at a tumultuous time in her life. She had left a convent after 13 years of bitter cruelty, lost her virginity in a brutal fashion to a man she barely knew, and then hastily got married before giving birth to a beautiful daughter. Now Aaron was back. And what's more he wanted to resume a relationship that had been intense, yet short-lived. But so much had happened since then. Carla had left her husband and, after years of repression in the convent, had turned to prostitution. 
 
The Price of Passion is a very personal story written with honesty and raw emotion. It is the story of two people who have tried to overcome abusive pasts embarking on a new, yet equally challenging, journey; but neither could have foreseen what lay ahead.

The Price of Passion

Tom Sykes

Tom had always drunk. Initially it was to escape the drudge of school and the distress of his rapidly disintegrating family, but as his career in journalism took off, so his alcohol consumption turned into a full-blown obsession. Having first run amok in London, it was landing the seemingly plum job of nightlife columnist at the New York Post that saw his life spiral completely out of control. Tom treated Manhattan as his Martini, until one day - hungover and alone - he realised he was totally out of his depth and, what's more, he didn't even care. What Did I Do Last Night? is the sad, funny and brutally honest tale of his descent into uncontrollable excess.

What Did I Do Last Night?

Piers Morgan

'They say you can always remember where you where when pivotal moments happen, such as losing your virginity or Elvis dying. Let me add another to the list: the moment I sang a duet to the the "Macarena" with Timmy Mallett, live to millions of people...' 
 
Sacked from his high-profile job as a national newspaper editor, Piers Morgan dived helplessly into the world of celebrity. But even twenty years of commenting on the lives of the rich and famous couldn't prepare him for the extraordinary world he uncovered... 
 
A riveting, scandelous and brutally honest account of one man's quest for celebrity, Don't You Know Who I Am? lifts the lid on the egos and outrageous behaviour of everyone from Paris Hilton to Cherie Blair, Kate Moss to the legend that is the Hoff.

Don't You Know Who I Am?

Insider Diaries of Fame, Power and Naked Ambition

Celine Roberts

Given away by her mother at five months old, raped on the day of her first communion at age seven - when Celine Roberts was told 'No one wants you', she believed it. 
 
Illegitimate and unwanted, Celine was forced by her foster mother into prostitution. Her bones were broken, her nose was crushed and she ate candle wax to stay alive. 
 
Celine was finally rescued and sent to an industrial school, where she picked up the pieces of her shattered life. She also began the search for her parents. But what she found gave her battered survival instincts the hardest knock of all ... 
 
Full of the most heartbreaking tragedy but ultimately survival and hope, No One Wants You is the remarkably honest and compelling memoir of a woman triumphing over her brutal past.

No One Wants You

A true story of a child forced into prostitution

Charles Rollings

'For you, the war is over.' These famous words marked the end of the Second World War for nearly half a million allied servicemen, and the beginning of a very different battle in captivity. Waged against boredom, brutality, disease, hunger and despair, it was a battle for survival, fought without the aid of weapons against fully armed enemy captors. 
 
Based on interviews and correspondence with ex-POWs and their relatives over the last 30 years, Prisoner of War is a major survey of allied POWs from all walks of life. Extraordinary stories of extremes: courage, hope and desperation are revealed in the words of those that were there. 
 
Arranged chronologically, the book follows those involved from capture, through interrogation, imprisonment, escape, to final liberation and homecoming. POWs and, in particular, those who broke free, have become a post-war cultural icon; a symbol of the will to survive against the odds. Rich with incident and emotion, Prisoner of War is a compelling look at the lives of extraordinary individuals trapped behind the wire.

Prisoner Of War

Voices from Behind the Wire in the Second World War

Shannon Lush

Jennifer Fleming

With today's hectic lifestyles the last thing you want to do after a busy day is clean the house. But Speed Cleaning is here to provide the answers for everyone who wants a clean house but doesn't have the time to spend hours with cloth and duster in hand. Shannon Lush and Jennifer Fleming show how in just 15 minutes a day their sure-fire systems and ingenious methods are all you need to achieve a spotless house without the hard work. Filled with brilliant and practical advice, non-toxic cleaning methods and good old-fashioned common sense, this book shows how to clean your house top to bottom, room by room as well as providing handy hints and tips for yearly Spring and Autumn cleaning and organisational dos and don'ts for everyday routines. A must-have for anyone who wants a spotless house with limited time and minimum effort.

Speed Cleaning

A Spotless House in Just 15 Minutes a Day

In a handy and easy to use format Spotless provides encylcopediac answers to all kinds of domestic disasters - from how to repair scratches to removing stains and other disfigurements. An essential book for the kitchen bookshelf, each chapter addresses the stains, cleaning and household problems that may come about in each room of the house: the kitchen, laundry, bathroom, bedroom, children's room and even outdoors on a deck or patio. Filled with easy, do-it-yourself cleaning solutions, handy hints and examples Spotless is a domestic bible that will be referred to again and again.

Spotless

Room-by-Room Solutions to Domestic Disasters

Ben Mackworth-Praed

The Book of Kells is the richest and most copiously illustrated book of in the Celto-Saxon style that still survives. However, despite its rarity and fame, there is little that is known about it. Reproducing over sixty of the wonderful images from the book itself, this guide describes the hidden meanings behind the illustrations and opens our eyes to the history behind them. Picking out the most interesting, beautiful and unique images from the 339 vellum leaves that comprise the book as a whole, it gives an illuminating insight into the manuscript and its creation. 
 
This book will appeal to everyone from the hundreds of thousands of people visiting the Book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin every year, to those interested in history, art, ancient artefacts or the gospels and anyone with a passion for beautiful objects.

The Book of Kells

Sarah Brown

Gil McNeil

From inspirational mums who are not afraid of anything - except spiders - to magical mums, reluctant mums and mums behaving badly, this is a wonderful collection of fiction and memoir from some of Britain's best-loved writers. 
 
With touching and amusing anecdotes from celebrity mums such as Nigella Lawson and Arabella Weir, as well as original illustrations from the likes of Shirley Hughes and Quentin Blake, this rich treasure trove with proceeds going to children's charity PiggyBankKids reflects many voices from across the generations and is a glorious celebration of motherhood.

Mums

A Celebration of Motherhood

Stuart Maconie

A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the clichés end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile. 
 
The bestselling Pies and Prejudice is a hugely enjoyable journey around the north of England.

Pies and Prejudice

In search of the North

Jacqueline Gold

'In retrospect, I can see I was the perfect candidate for child abuse. My parents had divorced and my mother didn't show me much love. Her self-imposed isolation kept me away from other children. My abuser had nobody in his way.' 
 
Please Let It Stop is a gripping and ultimately inspiring memoir of suffering and determination, of obstacles and inner battles. Jacqueline Gold was abused by her stepfather for many years, but one day she summoned the courage to ask him to stop. 
 
Jacqueline went on to become Chief Executive of Ann Summers, but the journey was far from easy. In this, her no-holds-barred autobiography, Jacqueline describes her abused childhood, her tumultuous struggles to find love and conquer depression, and the heartbreak of undergoing IVF. 
 
Told with remarkable honesty, her story is a testament to one woman's ability to overcome the darkest of times.

Please Let It Stop

The true story of my abused childhood

Eve Claxton

From childhood through to adulthood &shy;- if not necessarily maturity - The Book of Life offers the literary journal of a lifetime, in the company of the most fascinating and talented figures in history. 
 
From Alan Bennett's wartime childhood in Yorkshire to Mahatma Gandhi's experiment with cigarettes; Katherine Hepburn on her first acting job aged 21 and Primo Levi on being captured by Fascist militia at the same age; Darwin on his lifelong love - his work - and Nelson Mandela on his release from prison aged 71 ... life and living in all its manifold glories is represented. 
 
With insights that encompass generations and continents, this is a uniquely enjoyable immersion in some of the world's best, and most personal, writing.

The Book Of Life

Christian G. Appy

In Vietnam, Professor, Christian G. Appy has created a staggering and monumental oral history of the type that is created only once in a generation. The vivid accounts of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975. 
 
The testimony in this book, sometimes detached and reflective, often raw and emotional, allows us to see and feel what this war meant to people on all sides - Americans and Vietnamese, generals and guerillas, policy makers and protesters, CIA operatives, pilots and doctors, artists and journalists, and a variety of ordinary citizens whose lives were swept up in a cataclysm that killed three million people. 
 
A remarkable, eye-opening and essential read for anyone with even a passing interest in one of the 20th century's defining conflicts.

Vietnam

The Definitive Oral History, Told From All Sides

Terence Blacker

Though born into privilege and inheriting a fortune, Willie Donaldson ended up dying alone in a seedy rented flat, his computer still logged on to a lesbian porn site. To some, he had been one of the great, under-rated comic writers of our time, and to others, a dangerous force of corruption and decadence. 
 
His achievements were significant - he published Sylvia Plath while still at Cambridge, as a producer in the Sixties he staged Beyond the Fringe, and he was later to write the celebrated Henry Root Letters - but not as impressive as his reckless talent for self-destruction. The impresario became a serial bankrupt. The man about town, who had lived with Sarah Miles and been engaged to Carly Simon, ended up as a ponce in a Chelsea brothel. Success as a writer quickly led him into a dark underworld of crack addiction, fraud and sexual obsession. Now friend and collaborator, Terence Blacker unravels the intimate truth of Willie Donaldson's strange story in all its glamour, hilarity and pain. 
 
'What a young fool I was. But how I adored him' Carly Simon 
 
'A slimy crook' Private Eye 
 
'For the skill and wit of his writing he deserves to be hailed as the English Nabokov' Auberon Waugh 
 
'I am someone who always answers the phone at 1.00 am, because I know it isn't going to be my bank manager or the Inland Revenue, but probably a crack dealer or a prostitute' Willie Donaldson

You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This

The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson

Jeff Howell

For 10 years Jeff Howell has been answering readers' queries about property through his very popular 'Ask Jeff' column in the Sunday Telegraph. This book, in user-friendly Question and Answer format, addresses all the issues every home owner needs to know. Packed with expert tips, Jeff Howell offers comprehensive and authoritative advice on everything from boilers and builders, to central heating, condensation, damp proofing, dry rot, plumbing and woodworm. Using readers' stories as case histories, this authoritative book is the key to understanding how to maintain your home properly. How do you decide what needs doing and when? How do you find a decent builder? How do you judge if the work has been done to the right standard? All the answers and more are here in this clearly presented, accessible and practical book. 
For all the latest information visit Jeff Howell's website: www.askjeff.co.uk

Guide to Looking After Your Property

Everything you need to know about maintaining your home

James Salant

Leaving Dirty Jersey is the compellingly crafted tale of James Salant's descent into crystal meth addiction. Written at the age of only twenty-two, this memoir chronicles his year-long addiction with complete honesty and heartbreaking candour. 
 
Brought up in a stable, middle-class family, the second son of two therapists, he was introduced to heroin at seventeen by his brother Joe. This resulted in a spell in rehab where he met a bunch of ex-convicts, and he soon fell into the thuggish, drifting lifestyle of meth addiction. It was to take a near-psychotic event to finally get him to clean up. 
 
With graphic descriptions of life on crystal meth - the insatiable sex drive, the paranoia, the desperate need for more drugs to sustain the high - James' writing mimics the emotional detachment of the drug and the wired yet aimless life it induces. His voice is so open and authentic, it is hard to believe he is still so young. 
 
Given the nickname Dirty Jersey, while living as a tough guy-junkie in California, James had it tattooed on the inside of his left arm. There it remains as a graphic and permanent reminder of his past life as a junkie.

Leaving Dirty Jersey

A Crystal Meth Memoir

Matt Lowe

Matt Lowe's childhood was outwardly idyllic. He was part of a large, loving family and lived comfortably on the Norfolk coast. Yet, unnoticed by his parents and peers, he was being abused by a young man who had been welcomed into the family fold...in the guise of the perfect family friend. 
 
Jeremy was intelligent, artistic and fantastic with children. A real-life Peter Pan, he was loved by the children and trusted by the adults. He was particularly fond of Matt and would organise outings and treats every weekend, just for the two of them. But from the start the relationship had a sinister side; one that Matt instinctively knew must remain hidden. 
 
Written with heart-wrenching candour, Matt's story is an unusually insightful and moving account of how one small boy endured many years of sexual and psychological abuse and how, without realising, those closest to him allowed it to happen.

The Family Friend

Sometimes the danger is closer than you think

Joshua Levine

Drawing material from the Imperial War Museum's extensive aural archive, Joshua Levine brings together voices from both sides of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain to give us a unique, complete and compelling picture of this turbulent time. 
 
In June 1940, British citizens prepared for an imminent German onslaught. Hitler's troops had overrun Holland, Belgium and France in quick succession, and the British people anticipated an invasion would soon be upon them. From July to October, they watched the Battle of Britain play out in the skies above them, aware that the result would decide their fate. Over the next nine months, the Blitz killed more than 43,000 civilians. For a year, the citizens of Britain were effectively front-line soldiers in a battle which united the country against a hated enemy. 
 
We hear from the soldiers, airmen, fire-fighters, air-raid wardens and civilians, people in the air and on the ground, on both sides of the battle, giving us a thrilling account of Britain under siege. With first-hand testimonies from those involved in Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, Black Saturday on 7th September 1940 when the Luftwaffe began the Blitz, to its climax on the 10th May 1941, this is the definitive oral history of a period when Britain came closer to being overwhelmed by the enemy than at any other time in modern history.

Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle For Britain

A New History in the Words of the Men and Women on Both Sides

Rosemarie Jarski

Do you think the world's going to hell in a handcart? Do you reckon the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train? 
 
If the answer is a heartfelt yes, you'll feel right at home amongst the malcontents and misanthropes here. Woody Allen, W.C. Fields, Dorothy Parker, Joan Rivers, Jo Brand, Mark Lamarr and Victor Meldrew are just some of the world-class curmudgeons to sound-off hilariously about all the things that make you seethe: traffic wardens, cold callers, caravans, James Blunt, estate agents, other drivers, being put on hold, men in flip-flops and modern art. With over 4,000 entries, this is the most comprehensive collection of grumpiness there has ever been. 
 
As for you Pollyannas who persist in looking for silver linings despite dire weather warnings, isn't it about time you woke up and smelt the rancid coffee? Cast off those rose-tinted spectacles, climb on board the handcart and fasten your seatbelts: it's going to be one hell of a grumpy ride.

Grumpy Old Wit

The greatest collection of grumpy wit ever assembled from Socrates to Meldrew

Christopher Winn

Bestselling author Christopher Winn takes us on a captivating journey around London to discover the unknown tales of our capital's history. Travelling through the villages and districts that make up the world's most dynamic metropolis I Never Knew That About London unearths the hidden gems of legends, firsts, inventions, adventures and birthplaces that shape the city's compelling, and at times, turbulent past. 
 
See the Chelsea river views that inspired Turner in his final years and find out where London's first nude statue is. Explore London's finest country house in Charlton and unearth the secrets of the Mother of Parliaments . Spy out the village that gave its name to a car and the Russian word for railway station. Discover which church steeple gave us the design of the traditional wedding cake, where the sandwich was invented and where in Bond Street you can see London's oldest artefact. Visit the house where Handel and Jimi Hendrix both lived. Climb the famous 311 steps of the Monument, go from East to West and back again at Greenwich and fly the world's biggest big wheel. 
 
 Brimming with facts, stories and snippets providing a spellbinding insight into the history of London, this beautifully illustrated gem of a book is guaranteed to inform and amuse in equal measure.

I Never Knew That About London

Karen Saunders

All too often a memory of our distant student past, toasties are the ultimate no-fuss snack, prepared in seconds and ready to eat in just a few minutes. With just a couple of basic ingredients, delicious cheap meals can be made in minutes, providing tasty snacks and sandwiches for every part of the day. With a few added extras, sweet and savoury gourmet toasties can take tired taste buds on an entirely new adventure. Toastie Heaven explores variations from the conventional, to the extravagant, quirky and indulgent. From classic toasties like Tuna, Sweetcorn and Pepper Melt, to vegetarian options like Brie, Redcurrant and Watercress toasties and even sweet desserts like Bread and Butter Pudding Toasties and Toffee Apple Toasties, there is a recipe for everyone. A must-have item perfect for people living on their own, children and students,Toastie Heaven is the ultimate cookbook for anyone wanting quick and tasty snacks with minimum effort and maximum taste.

Toastie Heaven

100 great reasons to dig out the sandwich toaster

Annabel Karmel

Mealtimes can often be a battleground between parents and kids. As a parent you want your child to have a healthy, nutritious and tasty diet, but persuading them it's a good idea is a different matter! Annabel Karmel is here to convert even the fussiest of fussy eaters and make family meals fun again. 
 
With 120 healthy recipes covering everything from breakfasts to suppers to parties, Annabel gives tips and advice on improving your children's diet and encouraging new tastes. She suggests way of sneaking hidden vegetables into familiar foods such as quesadillas and focaccia pizzas, and offers a healthy take on fast-food favourites like chicken nuggets with dips and sticky barbecue ribs. There's plenty to tempt children of all ages, including pork and peanut noodles, tuna melts, cupcakes and ice creams. And for those children with food intolerances, there is a whole chapter of recipes covering dairy-free sauces, gluten-free pizzas and a wheat-free birthday cake. 
 
Annabel has a proven track record in creating delicious, nutritious food to tempt even the most stubborn of fussy eaters. Plus with general advice on how best to cope with fussy-eating behaviours and improve mealtimes, this is more than just a recipe book - it will be the answer to many parents' prayers!

Fussy Eaters' Recipe Book

Jonathan Swan

Man Walks Into A Bar 2 is the second volume of the hugely popular and hilariously funny joke book series. A one-stop shop for anyone who likes to hear and tell jokes. The jokes are ordered thematically - wives, husbands, doctors, lawyers, the French, the Germans, jokes about nuns, jokes about monkeys, the lot. There are also regular panels which group jokes by type too - Essex girls, changing a lightbulb etc. Our material will turn you into the toast of your local pub or make you loathed in your own home - remember, it is all in the telling. From the sublimely erudite to stuff Frank Carson would turn down, this book can service you with every joke you'll ever need. 
 
Including such gems as the following: 
 
Why have elephants got big ears? 
Because Noddy won't pay the ransom. 
 
A magic tractor is driving down a country road and turns into a field. 
 
An amnesiac walks into a bar. 'Do I come here often?' 
 
I went to a book shop and asked the saleswoman where the Self Help section was. She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose. 
 
How do you know when you're a pirate? 
You just arrrrrggghh.

Man Walks Into A Bar 2

Joanne Fedler

Based on true conversations with real women, The Secret Mothers' Club is a funny, irreverent and often heartbreaking look at women, friendships and motherhood. 
 
One evening in late June a group of female friends get together for an old-school sleepover. It is a regular reunion for eight very different women, with very different lives, secrets and fantasies. The only unifying factor? They are all mothers. 
 
Be warned, you will recognise yourself and your friends within these pages - theirs are conversations we've all had: about our weight; our fantasies - sexual and otherwise; those school lunchboxes; mother's guilt; our partners; the endless struggle to balance work, housework, family and sanity; and the seemingly impossible task of deciding what to feed the family every single night of the week. 
 
This is a book about the delicate nature of mothering, the beauty and complexity of friendships, and the way in which women judge, but also support, one another.

The Secret Mothers' Club

Jeff Chang

Hip-hop is now a global multi-billion pound industry. It has spawned superstars all across the world. There have been tie-in clothing lines, TV stations, film companies, cosmetics lines. It even has its own sports, its own art style, its own dialect. It is an all-encompassing lifestyle. 
 
But where did hip-hop culture begin? Who created it? How did hip-hop become such a phenomenon? 
 
Jeff Chang, an American journalist, has written the most comprehensive book on hip-hop to date. He introduces the major players who came up with the ideas that form the basic elements of the culture. He describes how it all began with social upheavals in Jamaica, the Bronx, the Black Belt of Long Island and South Central LA. He not only provides a history of the music, but a fascinating insight into the social background of young black America. 
 
Stretching from the early 70s through to the present day, this is the definitive history of hip-hop. It will be essential reading for all DJs, B-Boys, MCs and anyone with an interest in American history.

Can't Stop Won't Stop

A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

Paddy Agnew

When journalist Paddy Agnew and his girlfriend Dympna touched down in Rome in 1985 in search of adventure, sunshine and the soul of Italian football (well, Paddy was looking for that), they were travelling into the uncharted terrain of a country they did not know and a language they did not speak. 
 
It soon became clear that neither Italy nor Italian football would be boring. In that first week in Italy, Michel Platini and Juventus won the Intercontinental Cup, whilst just days later the PLO killed 13 people in a random shooting at Rome's Fiumicino airport. Paddy covered both stories. The coming years saw the rise of TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, as he became owner of AC Milan and then Prime Minister of Italy, naming his political party 'Forza Italia' after a football chant. In that same period, Argentine Diego Maradona became the uncrowned King of Naples, leading Napoli to a first ever Scudetto title in 1987, notwithstanding a hectic, Hollywood-esque lifestyle that mixed footballing genius with off-the-field excess. 
 
Forza Italia is a fascinating tale of inspired players, skilled coaches, rich tycoons, glitzy media coverage, Mafia corruption, allegations of drug taking and fan power - culminating in the 2006 World Cup victory that delighted a nation and a match-fixing scandal that shocked the world. It is also a personalised reflection on the consistent and continuing excellence of Italian football throughout a period of huge social, political and economic upheaval, offering a unique insight into a society where football has always been much more than just a game.

Forza Italia

The Fall and Rise of Italian Football

Felix Dennis

'Making money is a knack, a knack that can be acquired. And if someone like me can become rich, then so can you - no matter what your present circumstances. Here is how I did it and what I learned along the way.' So writes Felix Dennis, who believes that almost anyone of reasonable intelligence can become rich, given sufficient motivation and application. 
 
How To Get Rich is a distillation of his business wisdom. Primarily concerned with the step-by-step creation of wealth, it ruthlessly dissects the business failures and financial triumphs of 'a South London lad who became rich virtually by accident'. Part manual, part memoir, part primer, this book is a template for those who are willing to stare down failure and transform their lives. 
 
Canny, infuriating, cynical and generous by turns, How To Get Rich is an invaluable guide to 'the surprisingly simple art of collecting money which already has your name on it'.

How to Get Rich

Judy Marks

'I have long wanted to write a book about my life and the extraordinary years I spent with my husband Howard Marks. I feel now is the time. I want to write it from a woman's perspective and describe what it was like to be married to such a charismatic drug smuggler.' Judy Marks 
 
Howard Marks's story has passed into hippie folklore. At one time, the world's then most wanted man had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines and 25 registered companies. Thanks to the technical brilliance of his networking skills, it was estimated that he was trafficking as much as a tenth of all the marijuana smoked in the world. But this is only half the story. Intimately involved throughout was Marks's wife Judy. 
 
From living the high life hobnobbing with movie stars and euro trash to mixing it with the IRA and CIA, then the long, increasingly desperate years on the run, Mr Nice and Mrs Marks is about the exhilaration of their criminal life and the hell of not knowing what's happening when your husband stops telling you the truth. Now, for the first time, Judy tells her own side of the tale.

Mr Nice & Mrs Marks

- Adventures with Howard

Nada Saleh

The food of Lebanon has long been rated as one of the great cuisines of the world. Healthy, simple to prepare, full of fresh flavours and sensual aromatics, it makes great use of grains, vegetables, pulses, fruit, nuts, grilled meat, fish, olive oil and yoghurt. In this evocative new book, Nada Saleh, a trained nutritionist and talented cook, presents 200 imaginative recipes from her native Lebanon. 
 
Throughout she draws upon her many happy memories of a vibrant and sun-baked land - the family occasions when they ate in the shade of the poplar trees, enjoying mezze (traditional appetisers), meshwi (grilled meat) and locally grown fresh fruits of the season alongside delicate sweet dishes, washed down with Turkish coffee. From tempting vegetable and salad dishes like Yoghurt and Spinach Salad, via delicate Cod with Tahini to enticing Upside Down Aubergines, Stuffed Meat Roast and mouthwatering Walnut, Pistachio and Date Pastries and Molasses with Sesame Cream and Fig Jam, this charming book is a joy to cook from and is suffused with warmth and love for a distant land that, even in adversity, beguiles and inspires.

New Flavours of the Lebanese Table

The BBC Radio 4 Chronicles of Narnia Dramatisations

The Baby Trail series

Two youngsters - outcast Errol Ramsbottom and Sir Benfro the dragon - are making their way in the world with no knowledge of their entwined destinies. No one could imagine that the future of all life in the Twin Kingdoms rests in the hands of these two unlikely heroes. And theirs's is a journey that will change the lives of boy and dragon forever . . . 
 
The Ballad of Sir Benfro is a five part fantasy epic.

The Ballad of Sir Benfro

The Bare Bum Gang

The Bartimaeus Sequence

The Belgariad (RHCP)

The Belgariad (TW)

Although Betsey may be small, she’s not going to let that hold her back. She’s determined to make the most of everything life throws at her, even if it doesn’t always quite go to plan. These collections of short stories follow Betsey as she navigates her way through some of the typical challenges that face a little girl; losing her teddy bear, dealing with annoying siblings, putting on a disappointing magic show and preparing for a hurricane….and those are just for starters!

The Betsey Biggalow Adventures

The Big Book of the UK

The Bird Biography Series

The Blackthorn series

The Blackwater Saga

The Blake and Avery Mystery Series

It is 1642. England is at war with itself. King Charles and Parliament each gather soldiers to their banners. Across the land men prepare to fight for their religious and political ideals. Civil war has begun. A war that will change everything.

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