Aiden Aslin is a British-born resident of Ukraine. Living in Mykolaiv with his fiancé, he joined the Ukrainian marines in 2018 and was called to the frontline ahead of the Russian invasion in February 2022. He was one of over a thousand soldiers who surrendered after the month-long siege at the Mariupol steelworks, whereupon he was singled out for his British passport. His surrender, captivity, treatment and subsequent release received global media attention.

Aiden Aslin

Aiko Bethea is the founder of RARE Coaching &amp; Consulting, a leadership development company that helps aspiring leaders successfully navigate the workplace with more impactful approaches to leadership. She has worked with Fortune 100 companies, research &amp; academic institutes, and global non-profit organisations. Bethea is also Senior Leadership Consultant for the Brené Brown Education &amp; Research Group and was named by Forbes as a leading anti-racism educator. Bethea was a contributing writer in the New York Times bestselling anthology You Are Your Best Thing (2021). Anchored, Aligned, Accountable is her first book.

Aiko Bethea

Ailie Busby

Ailsa McFarlane was born in 1997 in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Snowdonia in the United Kingdom. After leaving school, she studied veterinary science before dropping out to travel the United States and Europe by road. Highway Blue is her first novel.

Ailsa McFarlane

Aimee Bender is the author of the novels The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a New York Times bestseller, and An Invisible Sign of My Own; and of the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Willful Creatures and The Color Master. Her work has been widely anthologised and has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

Aimee Bender

Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was a Martinican poet and politician who played a leading role in the struggle to liberate the French colonies of Africa and the Caribbean. Renowned for co-founding the Négritude movement, Césaire was a pioneer in surrealist poetry. His achievements as a writer were recognised worldwide with awards including the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the Laporte Prize, the Viareggio-Versilia Prize for Literature, and the Grand Prix National de Poésie; in 2002, he was made Commander of the Order of Merit of Cote d'Ivoire. His works include the plays A Tempest (1969) and A Season in the Congo (1966), the searing political essay Discourse on Colonialism (1956), and the long poem Return to My Native Land (1950), dubbed "nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of this time" (Andre Breton).

Aimé Césaire

Aingeala Flannery

Aingelda Ardizzone

Ainsley Harriott is nothing short of a cookery legend; a pioneer in quick and easy home cooking, he has hosted some of the UK's most popular culinary series. His love of food and people, together with his natural curiosity and accessible recipes, make him a much-loved British TV personality. Recent popular ITV shows include Ainsley's Caribbean Kitchen, Ainsley Mediterranean Cookbook, Ainsley's Food We Love and now Ainsley's Good Mood Food.

Ainsley Harriott

Air Fryer UK

Aishling Morgan

Aisling Bea

Aisling Fitzsimons

Aislinn Hunter is the author of a novel, Stay; a collection of stories, What's Left Us; and two collections of poetry, Into the Early Hours and The Possible Past. The World Before Us is her first book of fiction in twelve years. After travelling to London and Edinburgh over the past few years to study for a PhD, Aislinn Hunter now lives and teaches in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Aislinn Hunter

Aiste Gazdar

Ajahn Sumedho

Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

Ajaz Ahmed is the CEO of AKQA, the ideas and innovation company he founded aged 21. AKQA today employs over 1,500 people in 15 offices around the world. In 2014 AKQA won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation. Ajaz co-authored Velocity: The Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital. For essays and thoughts visit http://www.akqa.com/ajaz.

Ajaz Ahmed

Akasha Moon is a professional Tarot reader, medium and vocational healer. Under her other pen name Kala Trobe, she has published Invoke the Goddess and Invoke the Gods with Llewellyn. She's passionate about her subject and believes that, although it can bring about some serious benefits, magic can be a lot of fun.

Akasha Moon

Akiyuki Nosaka (1930-2015) was a novelist, singer, lyricist and former member of the House of Councillors in Japan. Born in Kamakura, Kanagawa, his memories of living through the Second World War – including the loss of his adoptive father in the 1945 Kobe bombings – served as the inspiration for his most famous short stories. In 1967, he won the Naoki Prize for Grave of the Fireflies and American Hijiki, both based on the Japanese experience of the War. Nosaka also wrote erotic fiction, including The Pornographers (1963), and in later life he continued his career as a newspaper and TV journalist, as well as a politician and chanson singer.

Akiyuki Nosaka

Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche was an experienced meditation master of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He was co-founder of the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre and supervised many other centres in Europe, Africa and Asia. He formed several humanitarian organisations for the aid of refugees, the distressed and the poor and was advisor to a large number of people, including therapists in the UK and Europe. He died in 2013.

Akong Tulku Rinpoche

Akshi Singh is an associate editor at Parapraxis and deputy editor at Critical Quarterly, and is the editor of a special collection of Critical Quarterly presenting new writing on Marion Milner. She collaborates regularly with the Derek Jarman lab, and writes for the London Review of Books. Singh moved to the UK from India to study for a PhD in psychoanalysis and literature with Jacqueline Rose. She is currently training to be a psychoanalyst at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.

Akshi Singh

Al Ewing

Al Franken

Al Gore

Al Holloway

Al Murray's alter ego, The Pub Landlord, is one of the most recognizable and successful comic creations of the past twenty years, and Murray, who has won numerous awards and accolades, continues to fill arenas and theatres around the world. 
 
He is also the author of many successful books including Watching War Films with My Dad and Command, a sharply entertaining analysis of the key allied military leaders in the Second World War. He is well known for co-hosting the hugely popular Second World War history podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk with fellow bestselling military author James Holland. 
 
Arnhem: Black Tuesday is his first history book about a single campaign.

Al Murray

Al Murray is a Perrier Award-winning comic, TV personality and, as 'The Pub Landlord', the author of the bestselling The Pub Landlord's Book of British Common Sense and Think Yourself British. Most recently, he has taken on the leadership of the Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP).

Actor and director Al Pacino is a unique and enduring figure in the world of American stage and film. He grew up in New York City’s South Bronx, attended the School of Performing Art, and studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio with Charles Laughton and the Actors Studio with mentor Lee Strasberg. 
 
 
He has been nominated for the Academy Award nine times, for movies including The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather Part II, and The Irishman, and won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1992 for Scent of a Woman. He has been nominated for the Golden Globe Award nineteen times, and won four, and has been nominated for three Tonys and won two. 
 
 
Pacino has been awarded the Kennedy Center Honor, the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, the National Merit of Arts from President Obama, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures.

Al Pacino

Al Pittampalli

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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

Alastair Campbell

The Blair Years is the most compelling and revealing account of contemporary politics you will ever read. Taken from Alastair Campbell's daily diaries, it charts the rise of New Labour and the tumultuous years of Tony Blair's leadership, providing the first important record of a remarkable decade in our national life. 
 
Here are the defining events of our time, from Labour's new dawn to the war on terror, from the death of Diana to negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland, from Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, through to the Hutton Inquiry of 2003, the year Campbell resigned his position at No 10. But above all here is Tony Blair up close and personal, taking the decisions that affected the lives of millions, under relentless and often hostile pressure. 
 
Often described as the second most powerful figure in Britain, Alastair Campbell is no stranger to controversy. Feared and admired in equal measure, hated by some, he was pivotal to the founding of New Labour and the sensational election victory of 1997. As Blair's press secretary, strategist and trusted confidant, Campbell spent more waking hours alongside the Prime Minister than anyone. His diaires - at times brutally frank, often funny, always compelling - take the reader right to the heart of government. 
 
The Blair Years is a story of politics in the raw, of progress and setback, of reputations made and destroyed, under the relentless scrutiny of a 24-hour media. Unflinchingly told, it covers the crises and scandals, the rows and resignations, the ups and downs of Britain's hothouse politics. But amid the big events are insights and observations that make this a remarkably human portrayal of some of the most powerful people in the world. 
 
There has never been so riveting a book about life at the very top, nor a more human book about politics, told by a man who saw it all.

The Blair Years

Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries

Harry Bernstein

On a narrow cobbled street in a northern mill town young Harry Bernstein and his family face a daily struggle to make ends meet. This is the true story of those harsh years, overshadowed by the First World War. 
 
Amidst the hardship and suffering, Harry's devoted mother clings to a dream - that one day they might escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America. But the regular pleas to relatives in Chicago yield nothing, until one day, when Harry is twelve years old, the family looks on astonished as he opens a letter which contains the longed-for steamship tickets. 
 
But the better life of which they'd dreamed proves elusive. Deprivation follows them to Chicago - and for Harry, life becomes more difficult still as he finds himself torn between his responsibilities to his mother, and his first love...

The Dream

Donald James

On the morning of 24th February 1944 following a devastating Luftwaffe raid, Donald Wheal and his family were homeless refugees with bulging suitcases and faces blackened by soot blast. In World's End, the first part of his bestselling childhood autobiography, he told of his upbringing during the Blitz in the rough working class community which was Chelsea's World's End. The morning after the World's End bombing he realized that the ties that had bound him to the past were now broken -- a new world and a new fate awaited him. 
 
In White City he tells the story of how his family, now menaced by the V-bombs and rockets that were the last stage of London's war, were re-settled in a anonymous London suburb where later his adolescence was to began amidst post war privation, sexual yearning and first love. In these dark years the quest for new experiences took him all around Britain and finally to war-ravaged France. A testing period of National Service in Germany and Italy completed his journey to adulthood. 
 
White City is as funny, heartbreaking and engaging as World's End

White City

Diane Lazarus

At the age of eight Diane Lazarus first experienced the power of her amazing gift by seeing, hearing and speaking to spirits. Since then Diane has learned to control her gift, switching it on and off at will. Today she is rated in the top five professional psychics worldwide and was recently the winner of the TV series Psychic Challenge. 
 
Her ability to visualize past and future events means she's frequently used by police throughout the UK and her accuracy in several murder investigations have prompted senior officers to call for her psychic assistance in a number of high profile crimes. 
 
The book recounts how she first discovered her gift - which turned out to be, understandably - a pretty terrifying experience and how she came to develop it despite the disapproval and disbelief of many of those around her. 
 
Diane's childhood was a struggle, her family suffered at the hands of their violent father and although they managed to escape his grasp, it took time for Diane to become confident in her gift - a mixed blessing but one that she has managed to use to benefit so many others.

Mixed Blessings

My Psychic Life

Wangari Maathai

Born in a rural Kenyan village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most African girls then were uneducated. In her remarkable and inspiring autobiography, she tells of her studies with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelors and master's degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a PhD and to head a university department in Kenya. She tells of her numerous run-ins with the brutal government of Daniel arap Moi and of the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa, and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages. 
 
Maathai's extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya's government into the democracy in which she now serves as Deputy Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources and as a Member of Parliament. Eventually her achievement was internationally recognized in the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in recognition of her 'contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace'. 
 
In Unbowed, we are in the presence of a hugely charismatic yet humble woman whose remarkable story carries with it an inspiring message of hope. Hers is an extraordinary story, spanning different worlds and changing times, and revealing what the courage, determination, tenacity and humour of one good woman can achieve; how as small a thing as planting a seedling and watering it can made all the difference in the world.

Unbowed

My Autobiography

Jennifer Kloester

If you love Georgette Heyer, 'the queen of Regency romance', this is a must-read: the definitive guide to the sparkling world of Georgette Heyer's celebrated novels, which are currently being reissued. 
 
A bestselling novelist since 1921, Georgette Heyer is known across the world for her historical romances set in Regency England. Millions of readers love the outrageous lifestyle, fashion and capricious escapades of the elegant bon ton, and no one has captured that world better than Georgette Heyer, with universally beloved novels such as Regency Buck, The Grand Sophy and Friday's Child. 
 
Georgette Heyer's Regency World is the ultimate, definitive guide to Georgette Heyer's wonderful and enchanting realm: her heroines, her villains and dashing heroes, the shops, clubs and towns they frequented, the parties and seasons they celebrated, how they ate, drank, dressed, socialized, shopped and drove. 
 
An utterly delightful and fun read, beautifully illustrated and compelling in its historical detail, this is a must-have for any Georgette Heyer fan.

Georgette Heyer's Regency World

Justin Wintle

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi is an iconic figure, and the best-known prisoner of conscience alive today. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, at great personal cost she has steadfastly opposed Burma's brutal military regime since 1988, when she emerged as the leader of the Burmese democracy movement. As well as house arrest she has endured every kind of intimidation, including an attempt on her life in 2003. Yet if her exemplary fortitude has earned Aung San Suu Kyi world-wide admiration, inside Burma itself little has changed - as Justin Wintle's comprehensive biography makes hideously plain.

Perfect Hostage

Janine Latus

In April 2002, Janine Latus's youngest sister Amy wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. 'If I am gone or dead', it read, 'question Ron'. 
 
By the time the letter was found, Amy was already missing. Helicopters and 'missing' posters went up and search dogs were sent out. It took more than two weeks to find Amy's body, wrapped in a tarpaulin and buried at a building site. Ron had been Amy's boyfriend. He is now in prison for her murder. 
 
Since childhood, Janine and Amy had been sexualised and belittled. As adults the sisters, trapped in a cycle of abuse, ended up in a series of violent relationships. Finally, Janine faced her demons and, with Amy's support, escaped in time. But Amy was keeping a terrible secret of her own ... 
 
Amy never escaped. She died in silent fear and pain. Janine has resolved to break that silence so that her sister didn't die in vain.

If I am Missing or Dead

Harry Bernstein was born into a world of hardship and suffering in a northern mill town, in the shadow of the First World War. 
 
His brutish father spends what little he earns at the tailoring shop on drink, while his devoted mother survives on her dreams - that new shoes might secure Harry's admission to a fancy school, that her daughter might marry well, and that one day they might all escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America. 
 
But as the years go by, life for the Bernsteins on their narrow cobbled street remains a daily struggle to make ends meet. For young Harry though, most distressing are his fears for his adored elder sister Lily, who is risking all by pursuing a forbidden love...

The Invisible Wall

Andrew Crofts

Tom Wilson

At just six years old Tom Wilson fell prey to a predator of the worst sort. David Murphy was supposed to be his carer, instead he lifted his victims from their beds in the dead of night, and Tom was powerless to stop it. 
 
Tom endured years of horrific abuse which led to years of silence and self-torture. He grew up to be a troubled man, stumbling through care homes, schools, borstal and eventually prison. The damage that was done to him in those early years had destroyed his life. 
 
Then, one day, Tom read a newspaper article which unlocked the terrible memories he'd kept hidden for over forty tormented years. And a painful battle for justice began...

Tears at Bedtime

Ralph Steadman

In the spring of 1970, Ralph Steadman went to America in search of work and found more than he bargained for. In Kentucky to cover the Derby, he met a former Hells Angel called Hunter S. Thompson. Their meeting resulted in a working relationship and a friendship that lasted for more than thirty years and spanned the turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement, Nixon and Watergate, and the decay of the American Dream. 
 
Few people knew Thompson as well as Ralph Steadman did. In this unique memoir Steadman tells his story for the first time, the story - in words and pictures - of Ralph and Hunter, a great British original on a great American original, Butch and Sundance on acid...

The Joke's Over

Memories of Hunter S. Thompson

A.N. Wilson

John Betjeman was by far the most popular poet of the twentieth century. His collected poems sold over two million copies. Television audiences loved his quirky evocations of landscape and architecture. 
 
As Poet Laureate, he became a national icon, but behind the public man were doubts and demons. For much of his fifty year marriage to Penelope Chetwode, the daughter of a Field Marshal, Betjeman had a relationship with Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter of the Duke of Devonshire and Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret. Betjeman, a devout Anglican, was tormented by guilt about the storms this emotional triangle caused. 
 
This book is the first to use fully the vast archive of personal material relating to Betjeman's private life, including literally hundreds of letters written by his wife about their life together and apart. It is a celebration of a much-loved poet, a brave campaigner for architecture at risk, and a highly popular public performer.

Betjeman

Sam Holden

When father-of-two Sam loses his job, he reluctantly agrees to stay at home while his wife returns to work. Secretly thinking this whole parenthood thing a breeze of leisurely jaunts to the park, reading the paper while the children play quietly and occasionally attending a civilised play date or two, Sam quickly realises just what exactly it means to be a stay-at-home parent. 
 
Inevitably, domestic mayhem ensues. Just trying to get dressed in the morning and out of the house without going to A&amp;E is a feat, as is managing the children's complicated play-date schedule while fending off the unwelcome advances of Jodhpur Mum at the playground. And Sam's foolproof 72-step Childcare Programme doesn't seem remotely up to the task. 
 
Desperate to get his life back on track, Sam seizes upon a variety of mad schemes, but just as things look like they're beginning to fall into place, he makes a very surprising discovery ...

Diary of a Hapless Househusband

Dinah O'Dowd

Cry Salty Tears is the tale of a mother's survival and eventual triumph over almost unbelievable domestic hardship. Not only did Dinah O'Dowd face the harsh and unforgiving elements of her background - an upbringing in poverty-stricken 50s Dublin, teenage pregnancy and a lone journey to London, but she also fought like a tigress against the shadows cast across four decades of her life by the dark central figure of her existence, her psychotically abusive husband Gerry. 
 
Over the years Dinah suffered repeated physical assault, prolonged mental torture and destructive ignorance, yet successfully raised a family of six and nurtured the unique personality of a world superstar, her son Boy George. Finally she has reached equilibrium in the wake of the death of her husband, and is now ready to tell her story, striking a chord with women everywhere. 
 
Unflinchingly honest, heart-rending in the telling and packed with inconsolable tragedy and biting wit, Cry Salty Tears recounts the long and painful journey Dinah had to take. From the moment when she first set eyes on the charming, blue-eyed Gerry, to the first blow he struck when she was pregnant with their child, the suicide attempt that depression and all encompassing fear led her to and ultimately to her release from his psychotic clutches, Cry Salty Tears tells how, despite it all, this extraordinary woman could at last reclaim her life.

Cry Salty Tears

Anna Massey

In 2005, Anna Massey was awarded a CBE for services to drama. 
 
Daughter of the Canadian actor, Raymond Massey (perhaps best-known for his role as Dr Gillespie in the TV series Dr Killdare), and Adrianne Allen (also a very successful stage actress), drama was in her blood. Her brother, Daniel, was a much-acclaimed actor. And even her godfather was one of the great film directors of all time - John Ford. 
 
Anna's first marriage was to Jeremy Brett, famous in his later years for his elegantly febrile performance on television as Sherlock Holmes. They had a son, David, together. But it was not a happy relationship and ended in divorce. 
 
In fact, family life was never easy or straightforward. Raymond fled the roost for the United States when Anna was very little, and married again. Adrianne was the most marvellous hostess who filled the house with an exotic mixture of guests, but, as a child, crucial emotional support was supplied by Nanny, who remained with Anna until her death. 
 
From her stage debut in The Reluctant Debutante to her performance in Michael Powell's notorious film, Peeping Tom, on through TV successes like The Pallisers and Hotel du Lac to a range of work in radio, Anna Massey has enjoyed the most remarkable career. And a whole host of extraordinary, often highly eccentric characters make their entrances and exits during its course. 
 
On and off set or stage, there are encounters with the theatrical knights, Olivier, Redgrave, Richardson and Gielgud. Noel Coward takes more than one bow. Great friendships are formed with fellow actors like Alan Rickman, Alec McCowen, Dame Judi Dench, and the playwright, David Hare. And there are inevitable difficulties with directors like Otto Preminger. Anna also has to play the part of hostess to the Duke of Edinburgh - in real life. 
 
After all the inevitable vicissitudes and upsets, Anna Massey ends her book with the story of personal happiness, achieved without make-up, lighting or script. Telling Some Tales does not kiss and tell, or tell tales out of school. It is the candid, wry, funny and emotional account of a life intensely lived.

Telling Some Tales

John Vaillant

THE AWARD-WINNING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, FROM THE AUTHOR OF FIRE WEATHER, WINNER OF THE 2023 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 
WINNER OF A WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZE 2014 
 
'Absolutely spellbinding' New York Times 
'Will change how many people think about nature' Sebastian Junger 
______________________________________ 
 
JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF NORTH AMERICA'S LAST GREAT FOREST. 
 
On a bleak winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence: he destroyed the legendary Golden Spruce of the Queen Charlotte Islands. With its rich colours, towering height and luminous needles, the tree was a scientific marvel, beloved by the local Haida people who believed it sacred. 
 
The Golden Spruce tells the story of the sadness which pushed Hadwin to such a desperate act of destruction - a bizarre environmental protest which acts as a metaphor for the challenge the world faces today. But it also raises the question of what then happened to Hadwin, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances and remains missing to this day. 
 
Part thrilling mystery, part haunting depiction of the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, and part dramatic chronicle of the historical collision of Europeans and the native Haida, The Golden Spruce is a timely portrait of man's troubled relationship with a vanishing world. 
_______________________ 
 
'Worthy of comparison to Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild . . . A story of the heartbreakingly complex relationship between man and nature.' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY 
 
'His story is about one man and one tree, but it is much more than that. John Vaillant has written a work that will change how many people think about nature.' SEBASTIAN JUNGER 
 
'A haunting tale of a good man driven mad by environmental devastation' LOS ANGELES TIMES 
 
'Absolutely spellbinding . . . descriptions of the Queen Charlotte Islands, with their misty, murky light and hushed, cathedral-like forests, are haunting, and Vaillant does full justice to the noble, towering trees.' NEW YORK TIMES 
 
'A haunting portrait of man's vexed relationship with nature.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

The Golden Spruce

The award-winning international bestseller

David Lines

When David Lines first heard This is the Modern World by The Jam, it sparked off a love affair that continues to this day. Paul Weller became the blueprint for David's life, and he followed his music and his style with the fervour of a truly devoted fan - to the bemusement of his long-suffering family. At once disarmingly candid and hilariously funny, this is the story of what it means to have a hero, its pleasures and pitfalls. Illustrating his memoir with landmark songs from The Jam and The Style Council, David maps out the occasionally bizarre events in the life of an obsessive fan and wannabe writer. 
 
From Player's Navy Cut to Gitanes, boating blazers to cashmere sweaters, The Modfather is about acquiring style, finding substance and living life with Paul Weller.

The Modfather

My Life with Paul Weller

Donald Spoto

Born in Brussels in 1929, Audrey Hepburn was the daughter of a British father and a Dutch Baroness. But when she was five, her father deserted the family. With the outbreak of war in 1939, her mother thought they would be safer in Holland than Holland Park, but although they survived the German Occupation, the experience left its physical and emotional scars. 
 
Back in England again, Audrey studied ballet with Marie Rambert. After a few West End musicals and minor film parts, she was spotted by the author, Colette, to star in a stage version of her novel, Gigi. And then Audrey's career took off. Her debut screen role was the Princess in the enchanting Roman Holiday. It won her an Oscar. 
 
She went on to bring her unique grace and high spirits to a number of highly acclaimed films - from Funny Face and The Nun's Story to My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Robin and Marian. 
 
For a while it looked as though her personal life would follow the Hollywood dream. But her marriage to Mel Ferrer was not to last. She married and divorced a second time, and there were other passionate but short-lived affairs, some revealed for the first time in this book, but her relationships were never entirely successful. 
 
With all the insight, background knowledge and innate sympathy for his subject, qualities that have made his biographies of Hitchcock, Dietrich, Monroe and Bergman such international successes, Donald Spoto truly captures the spirit of an elusive, beautiful, talented and vulnerable woman.

Enchantment

The Life of Audrey Hepburn

Kate Williams

A dramatic, sparkling tale of sex, glamour, intrigue, romance and heartbreak, England's Mistress traces the rise and rise of the gorgeous Emma Hamilton. 
 
Born into poverty, she clawed her way up through London's underworlds of sex for sale to become England's first media superstar. Nothing could stand in the way of her dreams- except her self-destructive desires. 
 
Drawing on hundreds of previously undiscovered letters, and told with a novelist's flair, England's Mistress captures the relentless drive, innovative style and burning passion of a true heroine. In a world of tabloid fame and three-minute wonders, Emma's life is truly a tale for our time.

England's Mistress

The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton

Paul McGrath

The extraordinary and heartbreaking memoir from one of football's greatest players 
 
Paul McGrath is Ireland's best loved sportsman and also its least understood. An iconic football presence during a professional career stretching over 14 years, he played for his country in the European Championship finals of 1988 and the World Cup finals of 1990 and 1994. But, behind the implied glamour of life in the employ of great English clubs like Manchester United and Aston Villa, McGrath wrestled with a range of destructive emotions that made his success in the game little short of miraculous. 
 
That story has until now never been told. It is a story that runs from a hard, hidden childhood spent in Dublin's orphanages all the way to the pain of two marriage break-ups and the struggle to cope with life after football. Quite apart from his all too public struggle with alcoholism, the story runs through the surreal highs and calamitous lows of a life lived habitually on the edge of chaos. 
 
It is not just a football story. It is an extraordinary human story that is certain to surprise with its candour. 
 
Here, for the first time, read about the father he never met; the mother whose love never died; the routine loneliness and ritual bullying endured by a black kid growing up behind closed doors in 1960s Dublin; the emotional breakdown suffered on leaving that institution; the recovery that - remarkably - brought him all the way to Old Trafford; the rollercoaster ride that followed. Here, the guilt, fear, self-loathing are all laid bare in a story fired with hope and determination for the future. 
 
It may well be the most candid sports book ever written.

Back from the Brink

The Autobiography

Daphne Du Maurier

Margaret Forster

The definitive biography of Daphne Du Maurier, one of history's greatest psychological thriller novelists 
 
Rebecca, published in 1938, brought its author instant international acclaim, capturing the popular imagination with its haunting atmosphere of suspense and mystery. Du Maurier was immediately established as the queen of the psychological thriller. But the more fame this and her other books encouraged, the more reclusive Daphne du Maurier became. 
 
Margaret Forster's award-winning biography could hardly be more worthy of its subject. Drawing on private letters and papers, and with the unflinching co-operation of Daphne du Maurier's family, Margaret Forster explores the secret drama of her life - the stifling relationship with her father, actor-manager Gerald du Maurier; her troubled marriage to war hero and royal aide, 'Boy' Browning; her wartime love affair; her passion for Cornwall and her deep friendships with the last of her father's actress loves, Gertrude Lawrence, and with an aristocratic American woman. 
 
Most significant of all, Margaret Forster ingeniously strips away the relaxed and charming facade to lay bare the true workings of a complex and emotional character whose passionate and often violent stories mirrored her own fantasy life more than anyone could ever have imagined.

Chantelle Houghton

From girl next door to the nation's sweetheart, this is the story of Chantelle's spectacular rise to fame and celebrity. Told in her own words, Chantelle takes us on what has been a sometimes bumpy, but a truly magical journey. 
 
As a little girl growing up in Essex, Chantelle Houghton dreamed of becoming famous and living the life of a star. But never could she have imagined just how this dream would eventually come true, transforming her into one of Britain's most loved and talked about celebrities. 
 
Here, we learn how her family played a crucial role in helping to shape her dreams and aspirations from an early age. We hear of the difficult times growing up and how Chantelle was able to overcome these obstacles, eventually launching a career in modeling. 
 
But it was to be Celebrity Big Brother that would change the course of Chantelle's life forever. She tells of the moment she first discovered she'd been picked, what really went on behind the scenes - the clashes of personalities in the house, the fallings out... and, of course, her falling in love with Preston. 
 
Winning Big Brother was a defining moment, and the madness that followed in those first few days outside of the house was to be just the beginning of Chantelle's new dream life. Learning to become accustomed to her new found fame hasn't been straightforward, but Chantelle has always kept her feet firmly on the ground. 
 
But it has been her love for Preston that has been the real fairy tale in Chantelle's extraordinary journey. She tells how their love grew away from the glare of paparazzi, and how this whirlwind romance ended up becoming the wedding of the year. 
 
In this honest and open autobiography, Chantelle shares her secret hopes and dreams for the future and looks back on the past year and reflects on just what an amazing fairy tale it's been.

Living the Dream

My Story

Charles Handy

Charles Handy is perhaps best known outside the business world as a wise and warm presenter of Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day'. Long recognised as one of the world's leading business thinkers (over a million copies of his books have been sold around the world), in Myself and Other More Important Matters he leaves the management territory he has so effectively and influentially mapped in the past to explore the wider issues and dilemmas - both moral and creative - raised by the turning points of his long and successful life.Here he investigates the big issues of how life can best be lived as they have emerged from the unfolding of his life and his unique and influential understanding of what really matters. 
 
From supplying oil by boat to an area larger than England as a bullish young Shell executive in Borneo to realising that there was a big difference between describing the development of a 'portfolio' life (made up of a variety of activities for a range of purposes and pay) in theory and actually himself leaving behind full-time employment, from helping to start up the London and Open business schools to listening and talking to people all over the world about how they want to manage their lives, Handy's telling of his experiences proves both revealing and significant.

Myself and Other More Important Matters

Philip Ball

Philip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim - known to later ages as Paracelsus - stands on the borderline between medieval and modern; a name that is familiar but a man who has been hard to perceive or understand. Contemporary of Luther, enemy of established medicine, scourge of the universities ('at all the German schools you cannot learn as much as at the Frankfurt Fair'), army surgeon and alchemist, myths about him - from his treating diseases from beyond the grave in mid-nineteenth century Salzburg to his Faustian bargain with the devil to regain his youth - have been far more lasting than his actual story. Even during his lifetime, he was rumoured to travel with a magical white horse and to store the elixir of life in the pommel of his sword. 
 
But who was Paracelsus and what did he really believe and practice? Although Paracelsus has been seen as both a charlatan and as a founder of modern science, Philip Ball's book reveals a more richly complex man - who used his eyes and ears to learn from nature how to heal, and who wrote influential books on medicine, surgery, alchemy and theology while living a drunken, combative, vagabond life. Above all, Ball reveals a man who was a product of his time - an age of great change in which the church was divided and the classics were rediscovered - and whose bringing together of the seemingly diverse disciplines of alchemy and biology signalled the beginning of the age of rationalism.

The Devil's Doctor

Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science

Andrew Miller

Henry and Miriam were raised in East London, but their families had emigrated from Eastern Europe, and they were not to end their lives in the East End. From a market stall on Petticoat Lane, their story led - from forays into the West End to the success of Henry's underwear business and a remarkable friendship with his upper-class mentor Walter - to a life lived among Astors and Parker-Bowleses, a grand flat on Regent's Park, and a world of Court, club and charity balls. 
 
Andrew Miller's compelling family history tells, elegaically but without nostalgia, of London's many faces. It is a story of immigration and Anglicisation, of the significance of race and class and language and accent in our country, of how it has been possible for people in this country to change themselves and their lives.

The Earl Of Petticoat Lane

Angela Lambert

How did a 19 year-old, middle-class, Catholic girl from Munich become Hitler's mistress and what kept him faithful until the end of their lives? Was her appeal sexual, domestic, political -- or did he really love her? 
 
This biography of Eva Braun is the first in English for 40 years. Angela Lambert has dug deep into Eva's background and brought into sharp focus a fascinating and unexpected relationship, hitherto neglected by male historians. 
 
There are more than 700 biographies of Hitler, yet this is the first thorough study of Eva Braun, his secret mistress. Using never before seen family papers and interviews with her surviving cousin, this book will cause a considerable stir. 
 
Illustrated throughout with little-known black and white photographs of life at the Berghof, it sheds new light on the man, the woman and the past.

The Lost Life of Eva Braun

Virginia Rounding

'THE MOST ACCESSIBLE AND ENJOYABLE PORTRAIT YET.' DAILY MAIL 
______________________________________________________ 
 
Power, sex, and politics: the fascinating rule of one of Russia's most significant monarchs 
 
Catherine the Great ruled Russia from 1762 until 1796. Famous for the legends circulated by political rivals about her sexual rapacity, some were true - though not the infamous rumour of her death by stallion. However, a conservative Russian court was shocked by her use of her sexuality as a political tool, as well as the number and age of her lovers. 
 
Unhappily married to the Grand Duke Peter, a man who preferred to play with his toy soldiers in the bedroom, they failed to produce an heir, and Catherine turned her attentions to a certain Sergey Saltykov who fathered the future Tsar Paul I. Six months into the reign of Peter III, Catherine, supported by the Imperial Guard, staged a successful coup against her husband and became Empress. It was her ambition to transform a vast but semi-barbaric country with the cultural and political reforms of Enlightenment Europe. 
 
In this fascinating biography, Virginia Rounding reveals an extraordinary woman in all her complexity. 
______________________________________________________ 
 
'A great thumping triumph of a book.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
'Rounding shows that the reality is far more interesting than any of the fictions.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 
 
'An intimate study of Catherine's life' GUARDIAN 
 
'Enjoyable and perceptive study . . . Rounding has read widely, and writes history with a no-nonsense style and a respectful relish for the details that make the past come alive.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
 
'Rounding writes with enviable lucidity, and gives us the most accessible and enjoyable portrait yet.' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Written with vigour and intelligence enough to do justice to its prodigious subject.' SUNDAY TIMES

Catherine The Great

Love, Sex, and Power

Detective Kamil Rahman

Detective Konrad

Detective Luc Moncrief Series

Dexter Procter

Diary of a Submissive

The adventures of wise-cracking middle school student Greg Heffley who must somehow survive the scariest time of anyone's life: middle school. The hilarious and internationally bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diddly Squat

Dino Dad

Dino Racers

Dinosaur Train

Discworld Graphic Novel Universe

The Discworld is undoubtedly Sir Terry Pratchett's most famous creation. A universe teeming with dwarves, trolls, witches, and social and cultural issues that parallel those in our own world, all wrapped up in Pratchett's inimitable comic delivery. This iconic series will make you laugh, then make you think.

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