Adam Henson presents Countryfile, often from his 650-hectare farm in the Cotswolds. Having studied Agriculture at college, Adam took over Bemborough Farm from his father, Joe. The farm now grows wheat, spring barley and oilseed rape, runs a flock of 400 commercial ewes and has the UK's leading collection of rare breeds, many of which are in demand for film sets and advertisements. Cotswold Farm Park (www.cotswoldfarmpark.co.uk) offers a total countryside experience for all the family, welcoming more than 100,000 visitors each year. 
 
Adam presented Lambing Live with Kate Humble, writes for Countryfile magazine and has appeared on Radio 4's On Your Farm and Farming Today. He is the author of three previous books, Adam’s Farm: My Life on the Land, the Sunday Times bestseller, Like Farmer, Like Son and A Farmer and His Dog.

Adam Henson

Adam Higginbotham writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Businessweek, Smithsonian, Men’s Journal, and The Atavist. He began his career in magazines and newspapers in London, where he was the editor-­in-chief of The Face and a contributing editor at The Sunday Telegraph. The author of Midnight in Chernobyl, he lives in New York City.

Adam Higginbotham

Adam Hills is an internationally recognised comedian and host of award-winning Channel 4 show The Last Leg. His collection of stories from a life in comedy, Best Foot Forward, was a Times bestseller.

Adam Hills

Adam Howling

Adam J. Kurtz

Adam Jacot de Boinod

ADAM JOHNSON won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for his second novel, the New York Times bestseller The Orphan Master’s Son (‘Excavates the very meaning of life’ New York Times). His short story 'Nirvana' won the prestigious Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award. He is the author of acclaimed story collections, Fortune Smiles and Emporium and the novel Parasites Like Us. He teaches creative writing at Stanford University and lives with his family in San Francisco.

Adam Johnson

Adam Kay is a former doctor who has written five million books and sold seven copies. No, hang on – he’s written seven books and sold five million copies. His debut book, This is Going to Hurt, is a literary sensation: a Sunday Times number one bestseller for over a year, winning a record-breaking four National Book Awards and selling over 3 million copies. Kay adapted This is Going to Hurt as a BAFTA-winning comedy-drama series for the BBC. Adam Kay’s children’s books have been translated into 32 languages and sold over 1 million copies, making him one of the UK’s bestselling children’s authors. Kay’s Anatomy became the fastest-selling children’s general non-fiction hardback of the decade. His first picture book, Amy Gets Eaten, was published in 2023, and his first children’s novel, Dexter Procter the Ten-Year-Old Doctor, was published in September 2024.

Adam Kay

Adam studied illustration and animation, and received a BA followed by an MA from the Edinburgh College of Art. As a student he won a competition to create a short film for MOMI and Channel 4, and once his career producing animated commercials was under way, he became an illustrator as well. He has regular columns in the UK and the US.

Adam Larkum

Adam Lashinsky

Adam Macqueen

Adam Mars-Jones

Adam O'Riordan was born in Manchester in 1982, where he currently lives. In 2008 he became the youngest Poet-in-Residence at The Wordsworth Trust, the Centre for British Romanticism. His first collection In the Flesh (2010) win a Somerset Maugham Award. He is the Academic Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Adam O'Riordan

Adam Phillips, formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practising psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of numerous works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently On Giving Up, On Wanting to Change, Attention Seeking, In Writing, Unforbidden Pleasures and Missing Out. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Adam Phillips

Adam Rackley

Adam Richardson is the UK's top trending health and fitness coach with a rapidly growing audience across both TikTok and Instagram. Adam is passionate about removing barriers to exercise and movement, a philosophy that is key to his work as a Personal Trainer in which he strives to help his clients feel more confident, as well as more fit and healthy.

Adam Richardson

Adam Roberts is acknowledged as the senior scholar of international relations in the UK. He was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University 1986-2007, and President of the British Academy 2009-13 - the head of humanities in Britain. He was on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London (2002-08), a member of the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board (2003-15) and is now on the Board of Advisers of the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare at the United States Military Academy, West Point.

Adam Roberts

Adam Roberts is the author of The Amateur Gourmet and Secrets of the Best Chefs, and coauthor of Give My Swiss Chards to Broadway. He started his food blog, The Amateur Gourmet, in 2004 and currently writes The Amateur Gourmet Newsletter on Substack. Roberts has also written for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and for film and television. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and their dog, Winston. Food Person is his first novel.

Adam Robinson is based in the Middle East and is a regular contributor to newspapers in the Arab world and also to the British media. He is the author of numerous books on the region, including Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of the Terrorist.

Adam Robinson

Adam Ross

Adam Rutherford

Adam Rutherford is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and geneticist at University College London. His books include A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Book of Humans, and the Sunday Times bestseller How to Argue with a Racist. He has written and presented numerous documentaries for BBC radio and television, including Inside Science and The Cell. Adam has also worked as a science advisor on many films, including the Oscar-winning Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).

Adam Smith

Adam Smyth runs the 39 Step Press, an experiment in printing, from a cold barn in Oxfordshire. He is also Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Adam Smyth

Adam Sweeting

Adam Tandy

Adam Thirlwell was born in London in 1978. The author of three previous novels, his work has been translated into thirty languages. His essays appear in the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, and he is an advisory editor of the Paris Review. His awards include a Somerset Maugham Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2018 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has twice been selected by Granta as one of their Best of Young British Novelists.

Adam Thirlwell

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, appeared in 1992 and he has published two books of stories and ten further novels, most recently Missing Fay (2017), and six poetry collections. 
 
 
www.adamthorpe.net

Adam Thorpe

Adam Tooze is the author of the highly praised Crashed, The Deluge and The Wages of Destruction, all published by Allen Lane. He has been the recipient of the Wolfson Prize for History, the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Prize and the Lionel Gelber Prize. Tooze has taught at Cambridge and Yale and is now Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University.

Adam Tooze

Adam Usden

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Daniel Goldberg

Linus Larsson

Just a few years ago, Markus Persson was a bored IT-developer in Stockholm. In the evenings, he toiled away on a labour of love: a game with a tiny but dedicated online following. It was called Minecraft and Markus released it to the world in early 2009. The game itself looks deceptively simple. It resembles a digital version of Lego – bricks stacked on top of each other, giving players a world where they build whatever structures their mind can conjure. A breath of fresh air compared to the industry giants’ shooter games. In the space of a few years, Minecraft has become one of the most astonishing success stories of the internet age, attracting millions of players and proving how a single great idea can topple empires in the digital, post-industrial world. 
 
This is the story of the man behind the game. Here Markus opens up for the first time about his life. About his old Lego-filled desk at school, the first computer his father brought home one day and also about growing up in a family marked by drug abuse and conflict. But above all it is the story of the fine line between seeming misfit and creative madman, and the birth of a tech visionary.

Minecraft

The Unlikely Tale of Markus 'Notch' Persson and the Game that Changed Everything

Britney Fuller

‘To start: it was just me and my mom. I am an only child, and she is a single parent. My mother is a trash hoarder. Ever since I can remember the house was always messy and stunk. At around age 9ish I noticed that something was wrong. I started throwing bags of trash away every day, just to have my mom freak out when she got home. We didn’t eat at home anymore because the fridge was disgusting, and she used the sink as a trash can, so it got clogged. We always ate out, we never had a home-cooked meal, and I’ve never had a family dinner at a dinner table. I had a stool in the corner of the living room. That is what I sat on, and that alone. I kept that corner as clean as I could. Made sure there was foot space, and that there wasn’t dust on the walls. That was my corner, my space. It never seemed to matter though, eventually that spot would get overrun with trash too...’ 
 
Trash is Britney Fuller's shocking account of growing up in the house of a hoarder.

Trash

An Innocent Girl. A Shocking Story of Squalor and Neglect.

Matt Andrews

Prank text messaging. You knew it was going to happen someday. It was inevitable, almost destined. From corkboards at your local supermarket to Craigslist, people confidently post their phone numbers everywhere in the hope it will lead to more business. Textastrophe explores the relationships one can have with these uninhibited strangers: frustrated, good-humoured, and everything in between, the conversations posted on the site are always hysterical.

Textastrophe

Dagmar O'Connor

'How can I possibly make love to the same persone for the rest of my life?' 
For many people, the prospect of sexual commitment for life is a daunting concept. How can you have a committed relationship and a fulfilling sex life - and both with the same person? 
The good news is that a monogamous relationshp can easily lead to ultimate pleasurre and ultimate sex. Commitment doesn't always have to equal boredom, and intimacy doesn't always give way to routine. Masters and Johnson-trained sex therapist Dagmar O'Connor offers expert advice in this practical and entertaining guide to overcoming common relationship problems: 
 
- Learn to deal with the common problem of 'I'm not in the mood for sex ... why aren't you?' 
- Bridge the gab between family life and sex life. 
- Free yourself for sexual activity by booking time for sex. 
- Resist the temptations of infidelity and put the excitement back into your sex life. 
Take the monotony out of monogamy.

How to Make Love to the Same Person for the Rest of Your Life... and Still Love It

Nick Jans

A Wolf Called Romeo is the remarkable story of a wolf who returned again and again to interact with the people and dogs of Juneau, Alaska, living on the edges of their community, engaging in an improbable, awe-inspiring inter-species dance and bringing the wild into sharp focus. 
 
 At first the people of Juneau were guarded, torn between caution and curiosity. But as Romeo began to tag along with cross-country skiers on their daily jaunts, play fetch with local dogs, or simply lie near author Nick Jans and nap under the sun, they came to accept Romeo, and he them. For Nick it was about trying to understand Romeo, then it was about winning his trust, and ultimately it was about watching over him, for as long as he or anyone could. 
 
Written with a deft hand and a searching heart, A Wolf Called Romeo is an unforgettable tale of a creature who defied nature and thus gave humans a chance to understand it a little more.

A Wolf Called Romeo

Tom Butler-Bowdon

Never Too Late To Be Great is about the power of thinking long. Drawing on wide research into ‘lead time’ and the ‘ten-year rule’, bestselling personal development author Tom Butler-Bowdon shows that, contrary to popular belief, people, companies, products and ideas invariably need time to realise their potential. At the age you are now, many famous and remarkable people were only just getting into their stride – and it’s likely that you have more time than you think to achieve your goals. 
 
It’s never too late to begin the journey of being or doing something remarkable. This book will show you how.

Never Too Late To Be Great

The Power of Thinking Long

Olive Dent

Starring Oona Chaplin as a V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment), and Suranne Jones and Hermione Norris as trained nurses, The Crimson Field is a gripping drama set in a tented hospital on the coast of France, where plucky real-life V.A.D. Olive Dent served two years of the Great War, and kept this extraordinarily vivid diary of day-to-day life – ever cheerful through the bitter cold, the chilblains, hunger and exhaustion. 
 
Resilient, courageous and resourceful, nurses, doctors and patients alike do their best to support each other. A Christmas fancy-dress ball, a concert performed by a stoic orchestra covered in bandages, church services held in a marquee and letters from Blighty all keep spirits up in camp, as wounded soldiers suffer terribly with quiet dignity on the makeshift wards, and nurses rush round tirelessly to make them as comfortable as possible. 
 
With original illustrations throughout by fellow V.A.D.s, Olive’s memoir is a fascinating period piece, a rare first-hand account of this little-known story, which will resonate very strongly with viewers of The Crimson Field.

A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front

Memoirs from a WWI camp hospital

Jane Plume

'I’m glad I could do her this one last favour. If it had been the other way round, I know Gina would have done the same for me.’ 
 
Jane and Gina were the best of friends. When Gina’s husband Shaun was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2009, Jane vowed to do everything she could to help her best mate and her two small sons through the awful time to come. 
 
But things were about to take a tragic turn for the worse. In 2010, Gina was killed in a shock car crash. Though devastated by her own grief, Jane knew that Gina needed her now more than ever – to help with the boys she had left behind. And after cancer claimed Shaun's life, Jane stepped in to care for the two orphans, becoming the mother her best friend could no longer be. 
 
This is the moving true story behind an incredible act of love.

Please Don't Cry

A family torn apart by grief. An incredible act of love.

Laila Morse

The reigning queen of Albert Square, Laila Morse shares her incredible story for the first time. This is a book that will shock, humble and inspire.

Just a Mo

My Story

Sir Richard Branson

Looking for advice on setting up your own company, improving your career prospects, or developing your leadership skills? Why not ask Richard Branson? 
 
In Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You in Business School, Richard distils and shares the wisdom and experience that have made him one of the world's most recognised and respected entrepreneurs. From his 'Top 5 secrets of Business Success', to hard hitting discussions about the global financial crisis, this book brings together his best advice on all things business. 
 
It's business school, the Branson way.

Like A Virgin

Secrets They Won’t Teach You at Business School

Ray Davies

As a boy in post-War England, legendary Kinks singer/songwriter Ray Davies fell in love with America – its movies and music, its culture of freedom fed his imagination. 
 
 In Americana, Davies tries to make sense of his long love-hate relationship with the country that both inspires and frustrates him, and where he nearly lost his life in a street shooting. 
 
 Some of the most fascinating characters in pop culture and the British Invasion make appearances, from the famous to the behind-the-scenes players. The book is interspersed with lyrics and also includes photographs from Davies's own collection and the Kinks’ archive. 
 
 From his quintessentially English perspective, Davies – with candour, humour, and wit – takes us on a very personal road trip through his life and storied career as a rock star, and reveals what music, fame and America really mean to him.

Americana

The Kinks, the Road and the Perfect Riff

Lyndsey Saul

It's back. And it's more awkward than ever. 
 
Ever been screwed over by predictive text on your smart phone? You are not alone. 
 
Damn You, Autocorrect! 2 brings together more of the laugh-out-loud funny and painfully embarrassing posts from the hit website, which highlight the hilarity that often ensues when text messaging goes wrong. This second volume of epic autocorrect fails is packed with never-before-seen content, as well as the most cringe-worthy posts from Damnyouautocorrect.com. 
 
 
READ THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU HIT SEND.

Damn You Autocorrect! 2

Shawn Achor

Do you want to achieve success in your personal and professional endeavours? The first step is to see a reality where success is possible. Only when we choose to believe we live in a world in which challenges can be overcome, in which our behaviour matters, and in which change is possible can we summon all our drive, energy, and emotional and intellectual resources to make that change possible. 
 
In Before Happiness, Shawn Achor, former Harvard professor, and bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage introduces a groundbreaking new theory about success and human potential. 
 
Achor shows how a positive mindset is the best predictor of motivation, engagement and performance in the workplace and in your personal life and offers five practical, actionable strategies for creating this mindset that will make us more successful at work and at home: 
 
1)Add vantage points – how to select the most valuable reality 
2)Map to success – mapping success greatly increases the chance you will get there 
3)Finding the X Spot – proven techniques for harnessing your cognitive abilities 
4)Boost the signal by cancelling the noise – how to cancel negative noise 
5)Positive Inception – how to spread positive reality to others 
 
Backed by science, great stories, and research-based strategies, by the time you finish this book, you will have a complete understanding of exactly how to create a better reality and magnify the volume of happiness and success in your life, and equally important, transfer that positive reality to others.

Before Happiness

Five Actionable Strategies to Create a Positive Path to Success

Jamal Edwards

From the iBooks Number 1 bestselling ebook series. 
 
 Jamal Edwards will forever be remembered as an inspiring and pioneering figure in the music industry. His book Self Belief: The Vision will show you how this trailblazing music entrepreneur beat the system and made it big in business in his own way. 
 
 At the age of 15, with only a hand-held camera and a Wi-Fi connection, Jamal started to build his media empire. The videos he made showcased undiscovered talent on the underground music scene. 
 
 By the age of 20 Jamal signed a deal with Sony RCA to become CEO of his own record label, Just Jam Records and was named one of Richard Branson's Virgin Media Pioneers 2012. Jamal Edwards was founder and CEO of the UK's most successful online youth broadcaster SB.TV which helped launch the careers of artists like Stormzy, Ed Sheeran and Dave. 
 
 The book features six levels, in which Jamal sets tasks and challenges to help the reader get to where they want to be. Along the way the reader will come across Decision Points where they will have to choose a path through their business journey. 
 
 Each level features a foreword by one of Jamal's friends or mentors, including successful people in music, media and business such as Sir Richard Branson, Emeli Sandé, JacksGap, Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Idris Elba. 
 
 Level 1 - Take Control is where you'll step outside your comfort zone and find out your strengths and weakness. 
 
Level 2 - The Knowledge is where you'll start researching your ideas. 
 
 Level 3 - Building the Foundations is where you'll build your team and learn how to market and promote you and your idea. 
 
 Level 4 - Launch Time will show you how best announce your idea to your audience. 
 
 Level 5 - Going Large is where you'll learn how to grow and develop your idea. 
 
 Level 6 - Keep It Fresh is about building the momentum, keeping your focus and looking to the future. 
 
A mix of inspirational business book, memoir and game, Self Belief: The Vision shares Jamal's own story and some of the things he learned, in order to inspire other young people to get some self-belief and turn their dreams and ideas into reality.

Self Belief: The Vision

How to Be a Success on Your Own Terms

Cliff Goodwin

Covering Sid's early years in South Africa and life as a ladies' hairdresser, his obsession with gambling and women, his questioning by Scotland Yard in a murder case, Hancock's Half Hour and the Carry On films, and Sid's death on stage at the age of 63, Cliff Goodwin reveals the amazing truth behing the legend.

Sid James: A Biography

Mick Foster

Tony Allen

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

After All These Years

Our Story

Katie Beers

Carolyn Gusoff

In December 1992, a nine-year-old girl was kidnapped and locked in a secret underground dungeon. She was chained by the neck in a coffin-shaped box. She was regularly raped. She thought she would die in that dank, dark hole. But, somehow, she survived to tell the tale. 
 
Virgin Books is proud to publish HELP ME by Katie Beers, an extraordinary true story which has already shot straight into the Top Ten in The New York Times. 
 
But perhaps what’s most troubling about Katie’s tale is that, as the world started hunting for this lost little girl, it uncovered a horrific scale of abuse carried out by her godparents before she was taken. Katie was neglected. She was treated like a slave. She was sexually abused from the age of two. And no one had ever noticed, or cared, or helped. 
 
Katie needed to be rescued … instead, she was groomed by another paedophile and taken to a dungeon hell. 
 
In HELP ME, Katie recalls memories long since buried, writing together with the journalist who uncovered the awful crimes against her, to create a unique book: part crime thriller as the search for Katie intensifies; part inspiring memoir, as Katie frankly describes the horror of facing your own death, and tells us how she survived to build a new life.

Help Me

A Vulnerable Girl. A Dungeon Hell. A Staggering True Story of Survival

Luke Dormehl

On 26 May, 2010 Apple Inc. passed Microsoft in valuation as the world's largest technology company. Its consumer electronic products - ranging from computers to mobile phones to portable media devices, not to mention its iTunes, iBook and App Store - have influenced nearly every facet of our lives, and it shows no sign of slowing down. But how did Apple - a company set up in the back room of a house by two friends, and one that always marketed itself as the underdog - become the marketplace leader (and the world's second largest company overall), and is it a good thing to have one company hold so much power? 
 
In The Apple Revolution Luke Dormehl shares the inside story of how Apple Inc. came to be; from the formation of the company's philosophies and user-friendly ethos, to the "iPod moment" and global domination, leaving you with a deep understanding of how it was created, why it has flourished, and where it might be going next.

The Apple Revolution

Steve Jobs, the Counterculture and How the Crazy Ones Took over the World

Tom Jones

A seasonal snapshot of things to do in England at any time of the year, come rain or shine (or more likely just rain!). Beautifully illustrated with bitesize entries, this is the perfect gift for anyone wanting to discover all of the gems England has to offer... 
 
'Excellent and unusual book - a wonderful way of discovering and planning things to do and places to visit you would never have thought of' -- ***** Reader review 
'A travel guide with humour' -- ***** Reader review 
'Good fun and interesting' -- ***** Reader review 
'A great gift for all ages' -- ***** Reader review 
'Must have book for anyone who's interesting in a staycation or any fans of weekend mini-breaks' -- ***** Reader review 
'Takes you on a journey to places you never knew existed...' -- ***** Reader review 
 
***************************************************************************************** 
Using a mixture of unique seasonal events and interesting places to visit (all presented in attractive bite-sized entries), Mad Dogs and Englishmen is a browsable gift book aimed at those who are interested in getting to know their home country better as well as tourists seeking to make the most of their stay in England. 
 
In more than 220 pages, divided into months, Tom Jones demonstrates the diversity of England as a country; presenting interesting, unusual and thought-provoking things to do which also enlighten the reader, and convey the message that England is a great place to live and explore all year round. 
 
Go to a tree cathedral, collect glass on the beach, pretend to be a spy, visit a pub with no beer, go curling and canoeing, walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs - the possibilities are endless! 
 
'England is a country which requires more than a second look, an amazingly diverse place, offering almost-unlimited landscapes, culture and history, and a diversity of opportunities which is unrivalled anywhere else in the world.'

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

A Year of Things to See and Do in England

Piers Paul Read

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

The Train Robbers

Their Story

Sarbjit Kaur Athwal

In 1998, Sarbjit Athwal was called by her husband to attend a family meeting. It looked like just another family gathering. An attractive house in west London, a large dining room, two brothers, their mother, one wife. But the subject they were discussing was anything but ordinary. At the head of the group sat the elderly mother. She stared proudly around, smiling at her children, then raised her hand for silence. ‘It’s decided then,’ the old lady announced. ‘We have to get rid of her.’ 
 
‘Her’ was Surjit Athwal, Sarbjit’s sister-in-law. Within three weeks of that meeting, Surjit was dead: lured from London to India, drugged, strangled, and her body dumped in the Ravi River, never to be seen again. 
 
After the killing, risking her own life, Sarbjit fought secretly for justice for nine long, scared years. Eventually, with immense bravery, she became the first person within a murderer’s family ever to go into open court in an honour killing trial as the Prosecution’s key witness, and the first to waive her anonymity in such a trial. As a result of her testimony, the trial led to the first successful prosecution of an honour killing without the body ever being found. 
 
But her story doesn’t end there. Since the trial, her life has been threatened; her own husband arrested after an allegation of intimidation. Shamed is a story of fear and of horror – but also of immense courage, and a woman who risked everything to see that justice was done.

Shamed

The Honour Killing That Shocked Britain – by the Sister Who Fought for Justice

Mark Leigh

Herewith a handful of sample entries to tickle your funny bones… 
 
In the 1824 war between Britain and Ashanti (now part of Ghana), the British Redcoats found themselves surrounded by 10,000 fierce Ashanti warriors, and running very low on ammunition. Their commander ordered Charles Brandon, the army’s stores manager, to break open the reserve ammunition he’d ordered. As the Ashanti advanced Brandon began to open the ammunition boxes – only to find he had brought the wrong supplies. They were all full of biscuits. 
 
The grandfather of film star Lana Turner owned a half share in a brand new company that had started bottling a fizzy drink. He thought the drink’s name would affect its saleability and wanted to change it – without success. In frustration and as a protest he sold his 50%. It’s a pity really because Coca-Cola became quite popular… 
 
Italian Vittoria Luise was out driving during a fierce storm in Naples. A huge gust of wind blew his car into the River Sele. The car began to sink, but the calm motorist managed to break a window and swim to safety. He dragged himself onto the riverbank – and it was here that he was hit by a falling tree and killed. 
 
The Times of 19 October 1986 carried the story of Emilio Tarra, a crewmember of the 1986 America’s Cup race, who was driving from Perth towards Adelaide during the Australian leg of the race. En route, his car sideswiped a kangaroo, leaving it sprawled across the road. 
 Tarra got out of his car and, assuming the kangaroo was dead, decided to take a novelty photograph to show his colleagues. Dressing the kangaroo up in his smart team blazer, he propped it against his car to take its photograph. As he was focusing his camera, the kangaroo, which had only been stunned, woke up and bounded back off into the bush, taking with it the jacket, which contained Tarra’s passport, $2,000 worth of cash and his credit cards.

Epic Fail

The Ultimate Book of Blunders

Russell Lewis

In 2008 Major Russell Lewis commanded a company of two hundred soldiers from the British Army's legendary Parachute Regiment on a six-month tour in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan. 
 
Company Commander is his story, a riveting first-person account of incredible bravery, telling what it is like to have 200 Paras depending on you constantly, to make decisions which can and do cost lives, to see men under your command killed and injured and being under the most intense pressure imaginable every minute of every day for six long months. 
 
Company Commander is a true leader's story – a unique and vivid mix of front-line battles and strategic decision making and an intensely personal and inspiring account of a tour in the most perilous theatre of war on the planet.

Company Commander

Advertising. Is it really 'the greatest art form of the twentieth century' 
(Marshall McLuhan)? Whatever your views, it is undeniably one of the most 
popular career choices going-and one of the most difficult to get into. If 
you want to be creative and make money, or simply fancy trying your hand 
at a job in one of the most powerful industries around, then this 
indispensable guide is all you'll need to get a foot in the door and keep a 
step ahead of the competition. It's a careers guide with a difference, using 
the experience and wisdom of some of the industry's top people. You'll find 
essential advice on how to get started and how to get ahead, as well as 
the insider's view of the genuine pros and cons of each job, from copywriter 
to account handler. Your new career starts here.

How To Make It In Advertising

Donald Rumbelow

Fully updated and revised, Donald Rumbelow’s classic work is the ultimate examination of the facts, theories, fictions and fascinations surrounding the greatest whodunit in history. 
 
The Complete Jack the Ripper lays out all the evidence in the most comprehensive summary ever written about the Ripper. Rumbelow, a former London Metropolitan policeman, and an authority on crime, has subjected every theory – including those that have emerged in recent years – to the same deep scrutiny. He also examines the mythology surrounding the case and provides some fascinating insights into the portrayal of the Ripper on stage and screen and on the printed page. More seriously, he also examines the horrifying parallel crimes of the Düsseldorf Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper in an attempt to throw further light on the atrocities of Victorian London.

Complete Jack The Ripper

James Morton

While many lawyers are honest, for Gangland figures, the best lawyer is often corrupt – a ‘shyster’ – who will act as a go between with the police, provide false alibis, bribe and intimidate witnesses, jurors and judges and occasionally organise robberies and burglaries. Sometimes these lawyers even kill or may be killed themselves. 
 
Gangland: The Lawyers brings us such lawyers as Frank Ragan, who acted for three mob leaders, and James Sawyer, the barrister and forger involved in the first Great train Robbery. From the amazing story of Gambino crime boss John Gotti (the ‘Teflon Don’) and his attorney Bruce Cutler, to the American judge Joseph Peel, who had his co-judge killed, James Morton presents a worldwide history of these shady individuals and their seedy but compelling stories.

Gangland: The Lawyers

Dean Unkefer

From 1950 through the late 1960s, America feared two great enemies: Communism and illegal drugs. While the espionage stories have been well publicised, the war against drugs was far more violent and has remained mostly secret. In New York City, the centre of organised crime and drug import, the offices of the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics were based at 90 Church Street. While the FBI refused even to acknowledge organised crime, these agents stood alone against a well-organised Mafia and vicious drug cartels. To survive against impossible odds, the agents used incredibly brutal and cunning tactics to make cases and bring the war to a stalemate. Using an ever-expanding network of criminal informants held together by secret immunity deals, the sinister reputation of 90 Church grew along with the rising body count. 
 
In 1968, alarmed politicians launched an ill-fated investigation into the Bureau's operations. Accusations were made against the agents, and now fighting a war on two fronts, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was dissolved and its agents discredited. 
 
Though some names and sequences have been changed to protect identities, 90 Church is the real story of a young agent's downward slide into hell as he falls victim to addiction, deception, violence, and shifting loyalties.

90 Church

The True Story of the Narcotics Squad from Hell

'Doing good can help improve your prospects, your profits, and your business; and it can change the world. We must change the way we do business' - Richard Branson 
 
Can we bring more meaning to our lives and help change the world at the same time? 
 
In Screw Business as Usual, Richard Branson at his brilliant and motivating best, shares some fascinating and inspiring stories about the people who are already leading the way in transforming business into a force for good, for people and for the planet. Reflecting on some of his own experiences, and those of the Virgin Group, he also shares his new vision for the future and describes how businesses can help create a more prosperous world for everyone. 
 
It's time to turn capitalism upside down – to shift our values, to switch from a just profit focus to caring for people, communities and the world and to turn our work into something we both love and are proud of. It's time to Screw Business as Usual.

Screw Business as Usual

Clive Rich

Negotiation is fundamental to our lives; whether it’s getting your kids to eat their greens, making your case for a pay rise, or trying to secure a multi-million pound deal for your company. 
 
However, negotiation has changed. It's no longer about confrontation where there are winners and losers. Collaboration is now the name of the game. YouGov research commissioned for this book shows UK PLC is losing £9 million per hour from poor negotiating – £17 billion per year. Can you afford to be without a modern framework for deal-making? 
 
In The Yes Book, Clive Rich provides a method for generating success based on years of experience working for or with major organisations and super brands including Sony, Yahoo, Apple, the BBC, Tesco, and Simon Cowell's Syco, during a negotiating career in which he has brokered more than £10 billion worth of deals. 
 
By breaking negotiation into its three key elements of Attitude, Behaviour and Process, he helps you learn how to shape, create and close deals. You will discover what your negotiating style is, and how you can apply it to influence others and give yourself the edge. 
 
This is the ultimate guide to using the power of negotiation to get more of what you want, in both business and life outside the office.

The Yes Book

The Art of Better Negotiation

Hank Haney

In March 2004, Hank Haney received a call from Tiger Woods in which the golf champion asked Haney to be his coach. It was a call that would change both men’s lives. Tiger – only 28 at the time – was by then already an icon, judged by the sporting press as not only one of the best golfers ever, but possibly the best athlete ever. But Tiger was always looking to improve, and he wanted Hank’s help. Over the next six years of working together, the supremely gifted Woods collected six major championships and rewrote golf history. Hank was one of the very few people allowed behind the curtain. 
 
Always haunting Tiger was his fear of ‘the big miss’ – the wildly inaccurate golf shot that can ruin an otherwise solid round – and it was because that type of blunder was sometimes part of Tiger’s game that Hank carefully redesigned his swing mechanics. 
 
Towards the end of their time together, the champion’s laser-like focus began to blur and he became less willing to put in punishing hours practicing. Hints that Tiger hungered to reinvent himself were present in his bizarre infatuation with elite military training, and – in a development Hank didn’t see coming – in the scandal that would make headlines in late 2009. It all added up to a big miss that Hank, try as he might, couldn’t save Tiger from. 
 
There’s never been a book about Tiger Woods that is as intimate and revealing – or one so wise about what it takes to coach a superstar athlete.

The Big Miss

My Years Coaching Tiger Woods

Black Star Series

Blacklist

Set inside Blandings Castle, this comedy series follows Lord Emsworth and his pig Empress as they meet with his dysfunctional family and friends, and the havoc that follows.

Blandings

Blandings Castle

Blood City Rollers

Bloodlines

Blossom Street

Blue Ant

Bluey

Bodyguard

Bodyguard Series

Bollocks to Alton Towers

Book of Dust Series

Borderlands

Born Wicked

Boudica: the last defender of the Celtic culture; the only woman openly to have led her warriors into battle; the only British warrior to have stood against the might of Imperial Rome - and triumphed. 
 
This is her story.

Boudica

Boy Soldier

Brain Chemicals

Brave Bunnies

Bridge

Bridget Jones's Diary

Brief Encounters

Bright Young Things

Brotherband

Arthur Bryant and John May are Golden Age detectives living in the modern world. Together they head up the Peculiar Crimes Unit, ready to solve any of the weird and wonderful crimes that fall across their desks.

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