Alan Paton

Alan Pattullo

Alan Pauls

Alan Pollock is a playwright, translator and screenwriter. His numerous plays include One Night in November, Pigs and All Tomorrow's Parties.

Alan Pollock

Alan Root was born in London in 1937 but moved to Kenya as a young boy. He dropped out of school at sixteen but soon found himself behind the camera. He married Joan Thorpe in 1961 and together they produced an array of award-winning wildlife films including Baobab: Portrait of a Tree, commissioned by David Attenborough, Safari by Balloon, The Year of the Wildebeest and Castles of Clay, which was nominated for an Oscar. Alan won over sixty awards during his career, including an Emmy, three Lifetime Achievement Awards an OBE. Alan Root died in August 2017.

Alan Root

Alan Rosenthal

Alan Ruddock

Alan Rugman

Alan Rusbridger

Alan Ryan

Alan S. Blinder

Alan Shearer CBE  grew up in Newcastle, leaving home as a  teenager to pursue a career in professional football with his first  team, Southampton. He went on to  reach football stardom, winning the Premier League with Blackburn in  1995, breaking the world transfer record by signing to Newcastle United  in 1996 and achieving international success as the Captain of England.  Alan also holds the record for most goals scored in Premier League history.

Alan Shearer

Alan Siegel

Alan Simpson

Alan Spence

Alan Stewart

Alan Taylor

Alan Tennant

Alan Thompson

Alan Titchmarsh MBE is known to millions through his career as a television presenter of shows including Love Your Weekend, Love Your Garden, Ground Force, Gardeners' World, The Alan Titchmarsh Show and Spring Into Summer. He has written more than forty gardening books, as well as twelve novels and three volumes of memoirs. He was made MBE in the millennium New Year Honours list and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour, the Royal Horticultural Society's highest award.

Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Unterman

Alan Watts was a British philosopher, writer and speaker who was best known for his expertise in Eastern philosophies including Zen Buddhism and Taoism. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, the meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness.

Alan W Watts

Alan Warner is the author of eight novels: Morvern Callar, These Demented Lands, The Sopranos, The Man Who Walks, The Worms Can Carry Me to Heaven, The Stars in the Bright Sky, which was longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, The Deadman's Pedal and Their Lips Talk of Mischief. He is Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University.

Alan Warner

Alan Watts

Alan Weisman is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including the global bestseller The World Without Us, which has been translated into 34 international languages and was nominated for numerous awards. His writing has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and many other places. Alan has worked on all seven continent and reported from 58 countries, and lives in western Massachusetts.

Alan Weisman

Alanna Mitchell

Alasdair Fotheringham is a freelance journalist and writer based in Spain. He writes regularly on cycling for the ‘I’, The Independent.co.uk, The Express, ProCycling and Cyclingnews. He has been reporting on the Tour de France and other top road cycling events since 1992. His first book was The Eagle of Toledo, a biography of cycling’s greatest ever climber, Federico Martín Bahamontes. He has also written Reckless, a biography of the ill-fated Luis Ocaña, the 1973 Tour winner and considered Eddy Merck’s top Grand Tour rival, and The End of the Road, an account of the 1998 Tour de France.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Wickham

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957, the son of a vet. Having graduated from Cambridge University in modern languages, he went into journalism, principally with the Mirror Group. When Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, Campbell worked for him first as press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003. He continued to act as an advisor to Mr Blair and the Labour Party, including during subsequent election campaigns. He now splits his time between writing, speaking, politics in Britain and overseas, consultancy and charity, as chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and a leading ambassador for the mental health campaign Time to Change. 
 
He lives in North London with his partner of thirty-five years, Fiona Millar. They have three children. His interests include running, cycling, bagpipes and Burnley Football Club. He has published six volumes of diaries, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller, The Blair Years, a memoir on depression, The Happy Depressive, and three novels.

Alastair Campbell

Alastair Nathan Cook was born in Gloucester, December 1984. He is an English cricketer. He plays for Essex County Cricket Club and previously for England. Cook is the fifth highest Test scorer of all time. 
 
He is regarded as England's most successful batsman ever and now he is an icon and role model in sport. 
 
Outside of cricket, Alastair has written columns in the Telegraph and Metro, he is a talented saxophone player and donates his time to raising money for cancer charities and the David Randall Foundation. He is now married with three children.

Alastair Cook

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Catherine McCall

'I am six.We are sitting on the piano bench. Daddy's wearing his undershorts.That's all. I'm wearing my white underpants.That's all. It doesn't feel like we're going to make beautiful music ...' 
 
Catherine McCall's father was a high-profile doctor, her mother regularly hosted bridge parties. Growing up in their beautiful, historic home, Cathy appeared to have everything a girl could want. 
 
No one, not the neighbours, the nuns at school or her beloved grandmother, could have guessed that there was a torture chamber in the basement of 763 Montgomery Place, or that Cathy was being raped repeatedly by her father. By the age of eighteen, Cathy didn't know either: she had repressed every memory of abuse. 
 
Twenty years later, looking after her now ailing parents, Cathy's memories begin to return. In this starkly authentic and utterly immediate memoir, Cathy describes both how she uncovered the horrific secrets she'd kept so well throughout her childhood and her inspirational journey to overcome them.

Never Tell

A True Story of Overcoming a Terrifying Childhood

Tim Bradford

Tim Bradford is growing up in a small town in Lincolnshire in the 1970s. Market Rasen is not the most exciting place, but to his teenage mind it was the centre of the universe. Tim is at that in-between phase between childhood and adolescence, where you are trying to be grown up and get your first snogs whilst at the same time still playing with airfix models and making dens. 
 
Tim takes us through his first crushes, falling in love with the local beauty queen and an elusive Gallic beauty on a French exchange. His first attempts at getting drunk and trying to impress girls, forming bands which churned out endless numbers of rubbish songs and trying to avoid deckings by the local hards. Tim and his equally hapless friends are gradually working towards breaking free of their childhoods and moving away from their roots. Life in this small town was a rollercoaster of mundane happenings. Small Town paints a portrait of the energy and melancholy at the heart of our generation, the inability to live for now and the feeling that something better is just around the corner. Too young (just) to be baby boomers and too English and uncool to call itself Generation X. It's a universal tale about dreams, ambitions, brass bands, cubs, rugby songs, football stickers, tractors, young love and valve amplifiers connected up to cheap distortion pedals, set at a time of political change and pudding basin hair.

Small Town England

And How I Survived It

Michael J. Fox

'At the turn from our bedroom into the hallway, there is an old full-length mirror in a wooden frame ... This reflected version of myself, shaking, rumpled, pinched and slightly stooped, would be alarming were it not for the self-satisfied expression pasted across my face. I would ask the obvious question, "What are you smiling about?" but I already know the answer: "It just gets better from here."' 
 
Struck with Parkinson's - a debilitating, degenerative disease - at the height of his fame, Michael J. Fox has taken what some might consider cause for depression and turned it into a beacon of hope for millions. 
 
In Always Looking Up, Michael's Sunday Times bestselling memoir, he writes with warmth, humour and incredible honesty about the journey he has undertaken since he came to terms with his condition.

Always Looking Up

Peter Gethers

There are only three things a cat needs for a fine life - good food, a comfortable bed, and universal praise and love. Luckily - after converting his human, Peter, from cat hater to cat lover - Norton has plenty of all three. And they're about to get better, as his Peter and girlfriend Janice decide to up sticks and spend a year in rural France. 
 
Norton in Provence is like - well - the cat who got the cream, whether he is hunting for mice in the rambling garden, hanging out with the local stray cats in the sun-drenched town square or being treated to delicacies in fine restaurants. And with Norton by his side, Peter finds that his Gallic neighbours welcome their new guests with open arms. 
 
Over the course of the year, Peter learns how to sit back, relax and enjoy the pleasures of a simple life. In A Cat Called Norton, the eponymous cat taught Peter how to love. Now, in For the Love of Norton, he teaches Peter what it is to truly live.

For the Love of Norton

The Cat who Taught his Human How to Live

Gerald Nissenbaum

John Sedgwick

'In my work I am ruthless about one thing. My clients cannot lie to me... They can lie to their ex-wives, their children, their employers, their friends. But they cannot lie to me.' 
 
When someone who is used to having it all is faced with losing everything things can get pretty ugly. A big-money divorce showcases the extremes of human behaviour - betrayal, jealousy, lust, rage and revenge. When resentment is high and pride is damaged those involved will go to extraordinary lengths to stop their ex partner getting what they want. 
 
In his forty-year career Nissenbaum's high-profile cases have involved custody fights (including a battle over a human skull), international kidnappings, prostitution, extortion, fraud, mental health and addiction issues, the Mafia, and murder. This fascinating and gripping exposé shows how rich and desperate can be a very explosive combination.

Divorce Confidential

Grace Maxwell

In February 2005, Edwyn Collins suffered two devastating brain haemorrhages. He should have died. Doctors advised that if he did survive, there would be little of him left. If that wasn't enough, he went on to contract MRSA as a result of an operation to his skull and spent six months in hospital. Initially, Edwyn couldn't speak, read, write, walk, sit up or feed himself. He had lost all movement in his right side and was suffering from aphasia - an inability to use or understand language. When he initially recovered consciousness the only words he could say were 'Grace', 'Maxwell', 'yes' and 'no'. 
 
But with the help of his partner Grace and their son Will, Edwyn fought back. Slowly, and with monumental effort, he began to teach his brain to read and speak all over again - with some areas of his mind it was if he had been a slate wiped utterly clean. Through a long and arduous road of therapy he began to re-inhabit his body until he could walk again. 
 
Grace's story is an intimate and inspiring account of what you do to survive when your husband is all but taken away without warning by a stroke.

Falling and Laughing

The Restoration of Edwyn Collins

Jeremy Hardy

When Jeremy Hardy decided to explore his ancestry it was, in part, to get to the bottom of his grandmother Rebecca's dubious claims that the family descended from a certain 17th-century architect and that, more recently, Jeremy's great-grandfather was a Royal bodyguard. Other legends ranged from the great aunt who ran illegal hooch during Prohibition to the wronged Victorian servant girl who bore an illegitimate Hardy, not forgetting the family's rightful claim to a large country estate. 
 
Wild stories aside, Jeremy sets out to such diverse locations as the Croydon one-way system and the hostile waters around Malta in order to find traces of recognisable family traits and a sense of how he came to be. With wry humour and a keen eye for the absurd and the frustrating, Jeremy takes us on a by turns funny and moving journey into the world of family ancestry. 
 
My Family and Other Strangers will be enjoyed by anyone who has tried to decipher the 1901 census records, or simply wishes they too had asked their grandparents more about their lives.

My Family and Other Strangers

Adventures in Family History

Emma Jackson

Now available in an updated edition called Exploited, available in print and ebook. 
 
'I'd never have guessed that when your world's tumbling down you can carry on as usual. But it wasn't like I had a big sign on my back saying "I've been raped." Nobody noticed a thing.' 
 
Emma was just 13 when her happy childhood came crashing down. She had no idea the young lads she and her friends met every Saturday in the shopping mall weren't all they seemed. 
 
The boys were part of an organised gang targeting innocent young girls, grooming them for prostitution. Captivated by the ring leader, Emma didn't see the first brutal rape coming. From then on, her life was never her own ... 
 
This is the harrowing true story of how a nice girl from a good home found herself drawn into a trap of degradation and violence, frightened for her life and not knowing where to turn. But it is also the story of finding the courage and inner strength to risk everything, and escape.

The End of My World

The shocking true story of a young girl forced to become a sex slave

Oran Canfield

Whether he was performing the circus as a reluctant child juggler, living in a punk rock commune or staying with a coke-addled cop in Mexico on a school exchange program, Oran Canfield never had a 'normal' childhood. 
 
After being abandoned as a baby by his motivational guru father (Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) Oran spent time with a succession of friends, relatives, teachers, commune dwellers, socialist rebels and circus clowns. But Oran's life only truly entered freefall when he became addicted to heroin at the age of twenty-three. His parents are again united in their desire to make him quit, but Oran is convinced that he is beyond all help ... 
 
Freefall is Oran's remarkably honest, often hilarious and compulsively readable memoir, which shows that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom in order to start living life fully, and for yourself.

Freefall

Beth Ellis

A young girl at the mercy of her abusive stepfather and the religious community that protects him - Bad Things in the Night is a moving true story of pain and triumph. 
 
As a child Beth was imprisoned within a Jehovah's Witness family, kept away from her mother, forbidden from wearing a school skirt above her knees by day, abused by her stepfather at night. Years later, when she summons the courage to report her stepfather to the police for the first time, she is forced to relieve her childhood torment. 
 
Will Beth's fight for justice be worth the suffering reawakened?

Bad Things in the Night

Kelly Corrigan

For Kelly Corrigan, family was everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. Yet even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place - 'that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap' - comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. 
 
But Kelly is abruptly shoved into coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast - and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. When George, too, learns that he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her - and to show us a woman who finally takes the leap and grows up.

The Middle Place

Katharine Hibbert

For many the daily grind can feel like a trap - work, gym, drinks, shops, home, bed, work. But what would happen if one day you just jacked it all in, to survive on next to nothing? Katharine Hibbert decided to find out. 
 
No job, no rented flat, no shopping, no debit card and no travel pass. Katharine decided to give it all up, to walk the streets with only a backpack and spend a year living off the food, clothes, other goods and accommodation that would otherwise go to waste. It would be year of squatting, scavenging and no spending. Would she survive and if she did would she ever want to go back? 
 
The journey takes her on a fascinating trip, from drug-dens to lavish squatted mansions. She has to learn to fend for herself and to trust the generosity of strangers and friends she makes along the 
way. She falls into a hidden community who teach her how to build a life using the things that others throw away, and finds that life on the margins amounts to so much more than you might think.

Free

Adventures on the margins of a wasteful society

Jon Katz

When Jon Katz hears about Izzy, a three-year-old Border collie kept alone in a field on an abandoned farm, his heart speaks louder than his head and he agrees to take him in. 
 
Once again Jon finds himself challenged by a difficult dog. Having found his human, Izzy wants to go with Jon wherever he may be, and jumps fences and chews through locks to do so. Jon has been through this before with his dog Orson, and isn't sure he can cope with the responsibility and potential heartache again. 
 
But Jon's motley collection of animals - from Jesus the baby donkey to Elvis the surprisingly sociable steer, as well of course as farm manager and Border collie Rose - form an ideal refuge for Izzy. And as Jon and Izzy decide they are perfect companions, Jon realises just how much life on the farm has taught him about patience, perseverance and love. 
 
Please note, Saving Izzy is the UK title for the book published in the US as Dog Days.

Saving Izzy

The Abandoned Dog Who Stole My Heart

John Ortved

The Simpsons is the world's most popular entertainment phenomenon, regularly voted on both sides of the Atlantic as the best TV show ever made. 
 
Simpsons Confidential is the uncensored, unauthorised oral history of the show from the people who made it happen. It takes you into the inner sanctum of the series to reveal the mechanics and politics of how The Simpsons became of global significance - from Matt Groening drawing his first Homer on the ride over to pitch the show, to Conan O'Brien and the other Harvard comedy geniuses taking us into the daily life of the writing room. Animators, writers, actors, directors, producers, executives and celebrity guest stars - everyone from Rupert Murdoch down - all offer their opinions, insights and stories. 
 
Positively fizzing with indiscretions and intrigue, here at last is the book that legions of Simpsons fans have been waiting for.

Simpsons Confidential

The uncensored, totally unauthorised history of the world's greatest TV show by the people that made it

Larry McDonald

Patrick Robinson

When Lehman Brothers bank went under, the world gasped. One of the world's biggest and most successful banks, its downfall was the event that sparked the slide of the world economy toward a Great Depression II. 
 
This is the gripping inside story of the dark characters who ruled Lehman, who refused to heed warnings that the company was headed for an iceberg; the world-class, mid-level people who valiantly fought to get Lehman off its disastrous course; the crash that didn't have to happen. A news-breaking explanation that answers the question everyone still asks: "why did it happen?" 
 
Larry McDonald, a former vice-president at Lehman Brothers in charge of distressed debt trading and convertible securities, was right at the centre of the meltdown of the company and gives an intimate look at the madhouse that Lehman became. This book shows beyond a doubt that Richard Fuld, the long-time CEO of Lehman, and his top executives, were totally out to lunch, allowing Lehman's risk profile to reach gargantuan proportions. 
 
While the traders, like Larry McDonald, clearly predicted more than two years in advance that the market for packaged subprime mortgages and credit default swaps would evaporate, the high-flying Lehman bosses pushed hard on the gas pedal until the very end.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense

The Incredible Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers

Len Goodman

Better Late Than Never is the extraordinary true story of how a man born into poverty in London's East End went on to find stardom late in life when he was chosen to be head judge on BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing. Len Goodman tells all about his new-found fame, his experiences on Strictly Come Dancing, and also on the no.1 US show Dancing with the Stars and his encounters with the likes of Heather Mills-McCartney and John Sergeant. 
 
But the real story is in his East End roots. And Len's early life couldn't be more East End. The son of a Bethnal Green costermonger he spent his formative years running the fruit and veg barrow and being bathed at night in the same water Nan used to cook the beetroot. There are echoes of Billy Elliot too. Though Len was a welder in the London Docks, he dreamt of being a professional footballer, and came close to making the grade had he not broken his foot on Hackney Marshes. The doctor recommended ballroom dancing as a light aid to his recovery. And Len, it turned out, was a natural. At first his family and work mates mocked, but soon he had made the final of a national competition and the welders descended en masse to the Albert Hall to cheer him on. With his dance partner, and then wife Cheryl, Len won the British Championships in his late twenties and ballroom dancing became his life. 
 
Funny and heart-warming, Len Goodman's autobiography has all the honest East End charm of Tommy Steele, Mike Read or Roberta Taylor.

Better Late Than Never

From Barrow Boy to Ballroom

When Jon took on a troublesome two-year-old Border Collie in A Dog Year, it turned his sedate life upside down and culminated in a move from suburbia to a rural farm. 
 
But the contrary Collie - incredibly loyal but incredibly misbehaved - never settles down. Jon tries everything, obedience training, changing his name from Devon to Orson, even acupuncture, and it all helps a little, but not enough. 
 
Together Jon and Orson chase sheep across high meadows, wade through snow, bask by a roaring stove and struggle to keep faith in each other. A story of great joy and heartbreak, in A Good Dog Jon faces the most difficult decision any dog lover has to make ...

A Good Dog

The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life

Lucy Edge

What happens when an urban girl swaps her kitten heels in the city for karma in the country? 
 
It is a big year for Lucy - she has met the love of her life and they're planning to trade the city rat race for a Norfolk farmhouse, get married, and try for a baby. 
 
But country life isn't quite what Lucy imagined. Sure, there's time to stop and chat, but where does she find the people to stop and chat to? 
 
She has almost had it up to here when, one day, she stumbles across a local yoga club. There - in a small room above Knit and Knatter - she finds the laughter, friendship and wisdom to steer her through whatever dramas life throws at her. 
 
A funny and heart-warming true story about one woman's search for love and friendship in the lotus position.

The Handbag and Wellies Yoga Club

Pam Hobbs

'Dad walked determinedly down the path, joined by two neighbours with five children between them. As we reached the corner of Kent Avenue, I looked back for one last wave. But Mum had buried her head in her pinny and it was a year before I saw her again.' 
 
In June 1940, 10-year-old Pam Hobbs and her sister Iris took the long journey from their council home in Leigh-on-Sea to faraway rural Derbyshire. 
 
Living away from Mum and Dad for two long years, Pam was moved between four foster homes. In some she and Iris found a second family, with babies to look after, car rides and picnics, and even a pet pig. But other billets took a more sinister turn, as the adults found it easy to exploit the children in their care. 
 
Returning to Essex, things would never be the same again, and the war was far from over. Making do with rations, dodging bombs and helping with the war effort, Pam and her family struggled to get by. 
 
In Don't Forget to Write, with warmth and vivid detail, Pam describes a time that was full of overwhelming hardship and devastation; yet also of kindness and humour, resilience and courage.

Don't Forget to Write

The true story of an evacuee and her family

Peter was a confirmed loner and cat hater, until he was given a small, grey (and impeccably handsome) kitten with folded ears by his then girlfriend. The girlfriend went but Norton stayed - in fact, he and Peter became inseparable. 
 
Trotting along beside him down the street, having his own chair in restaurants or sitting on Peter's lap on plane journeys, Norton made his presence felt and Peter was a loner no more. But, after learning how to love his cat, would Peter now learn how to love another human too?

A Cat Called Norton

Sienna Lewis

'I work in a pretty ordinary office from 9 to 5. I could be the receptionist in your building, or the girl next to you on the bus reading a copy of Metro. And I'm wondering, what happened? How did I turn from a spotty teenager into this femme fatale who can't stop falling in and out of bed?' 
 
Following a bad breakup, twenty-something Sienna Lewis resolves not to commit to one man until she has found The One. Instead she starts to explore the world of internet dating, sex clubs, one-night stands and booty calls. 
 
But it's not always easy - if not getting a call from one man is bad enough, not hearing from five is even more distressing. And then there is the man she can't get out of her head, Tall Boy from the office. How will she tell him that for her it's more than just the sex ... 
 
Sienna's just an ordinary girl from the office with an extraordinary private life, and her diaries are explicit, very honest and lots of fun.

Intimate Adventures of an Office Girl

Mark Frith

When Mark Frith was told to make Heat the next big women's weekly, he dived headlong into the insanity of the celebrity world, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Posh, Kylie and Jordan. Soon Heat had over two million avid readers, and was the UK's favourite source of gossip. 
 
Charting the explosion of Big Brother, igniting the Size Zero debate and watching Britney's descent from sexpot to being sectioned, Heat was there for every major celebrity debate. 
 
Told in the irreverent style we've all come to know and love, The Celeb Diaries is Mark's incredible story of his life in the eye of the celeb storm.

The Celeb Diaries

The Sensational Inside Story of the Celebrity Decade

Tim Clare

'"Right!" My Dad slammed his fist against the dashboard. "If you want to die let's f***ing die together!" 
"Dad...don't," I said, referring to the profanity rather than the death-threat. 
But my father was lost in his own private Thelma and Louise moment. His sleep-deprived eyes were like ping-pong ball halves. His heel hit the accelerator...' 
 
Tim Clare had always dreamed of greatness. Of writing a critically-acclaimed bestseller and quitting the rat-race of everyday life. The problem was that his friends had got there first and he was... well... nowhere. Seething with envy, single and still living with his parents, he decided to have one last shot at getting his masterpiece published. After all, things couldn't get any worse. Could they? 
 
From grovelling shamelessly to Jeffrey Archer on a reality TV show to a fraught encounter with The Most Powerful Woman in Publishing, a spectacular mental breakdown to an excruciating suicide pact moment with his dad, Tim soon finds the answer is a resounding 'yes'...

We Can't All Be Astronauts

Your Friends Are Successes. You're a Failure. One Last Chance to Reach for the Stars...

Ewen Southby-Tailyour

'The 3 Commando Brigade's six month deployment in Helmand Province was among the finest pieces of soldiering I have come across' General Sir Richard Dannett, Chief of General Staff 
 
In October 2006, the Royal Marine Commandos took up their six month tour of duty in war-torn Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan - the toughest and hottest war zone on earth. After the tactical retreat of their predecessors, the Paras, the Marines knew they would have to take a different approach to have any chance of success. So they took the war to the enemy. Roving and aggressive, the Commandos forced the insurgent Taliban on to the back foot. As a result, they were involved in daily fire fights of an intensity not encountered by British troops since North Korea. 
 
3 Commando Brigade is a thrilling first-hand account of that dogged, heroic pursuit of the Taliban by the ordinary Marines, sailors and soldiers responsible. It is a story of valour, fortitude, supreme physical and mental fitness, and unrivalled professionalism under the most testing of circumstances. The account explodes from the first page with Operation Glacier, a graphic, no-holds-barred account of a Commando attack on a key Taliban base south of Garmsir - a battle that ends with the dramatic recovery of a Corporal's body from alongside the fort by Apache helicopters. From this opening salvo the action never lets up, offering a startlingly honest account of the war in Afghanistan as told by the junior officers, corporals and marines on the ground.

3 Commando Brigade

Ian Rush

In 2006, Liverpool fans voted Ian Rush among the top three all-time greatest players in the history of the club. Taking his place alongside Kenny Dalglish and Steven Gerrard, he surpassed football legends such as Fowler, Keegan, Owen, Smith, Carragher and Hansen. Ian Rush is quite simply Liverpool's greatest goalscorer and, along with Jimmy Greaves and Denis Law, one of the finest natural penalty-box predators the game has ever seen. 
 
This is the story of a rough-edged Welsh teenager thrust into the ranks of an already great side, who didn't feel up to it, but who learned how to grow as a player and a man until he became the most devastating finisher in English football. Rush's story is bursting with honesty and insight, emotional turmoil and tragedy, and hilarious tales and asides. It is a near-mythical tale of triumph and tragedy. Of an era when Liverpool FC became nigh on invincible, made the League title their own, and rode the highs of European and FA Cup Finals alongside the devastating tragedies of Heysel and Hillsborough. The drama of Rush's time at Liverpool during the 80s - the decade that defined the club more than any other - is thrillingly captured in this autobiography, which takes you into the thick of the action, as well as offering a frank and insightful analysis of football today.

Rush

The Autobiography

Hunter Davies

There's only one book that ever truly got inside the Beatles and this is it. The landmark, worldwide bestseller that has grown with the Beatles ever since. 
 
During 1967 and 1968 Hunter Davies spent eighteen months with the Beatles at the peak of their powers as they defined a generation and rewrote popular music. As their only ever authorised biographer he had unparalleled access - not just to John, Paul, George and Ringo but to friends, family and colleagues. There when it mattered, he collected a wealth of intimate and revealing material that still makes this the classic Beatles book - the one all other biographers look to. 
 
Hunter Davies remained close with the band and as such has had access to more information over the years. This 40th anniversary edition contains new material which has never been revealed before, from the author's archives and from the Beatles themselves, that will bring new insights to their legend.

The Beatles

The Authorised Biography

Ann Kenny

When Ann Kenny was four years old her foster mother hit her across the face with a fireplace shovel. She was left lying unconscious on the cold hard floor while the family went to mass. She almost lost an eye. 
 
This is just one of the childhood incidents Ann recalls in her vivid, shocking memoir of growing up in rural Ireland, in a house where she wasn't wanted. Her early story is Cinderella-like, but without the happy ending: she had two older sisters who were loved, but Ann was put to work on household chores and received constant neglect and physical abuse, and sexual abuse from her grandfather. On growing up Ann found it hard to escape the shadows of her past, marrying an alcoholic and effectively raised her children herself. 
 
Ann eventually found the road to recovery and her book is a testament to the strength of a survivor. She began writing the book as she set to find out who was the tiny child she remembered left in a wicker basket - that child turned out to be herself.

The Girl in the Wicker Basket

John Daniell

John Daniell is a rubgy mercenary. A brutal word for an often brutal game. 
 
In 1996, when Rugby Union turned professional, John emigrated to France where he played for a decade in top competitions. His team ricocheted between fear and ecstasy, as they battled to save the club from relegation and their careers from the scrap heap. 
 
Now he lifts the lid on the dark world of the journeyman player, where losing a home game is considered a crime, coaches and club owners will do anything to win, and agents ruthlessly manipulate players. 
 
His compelling confessions are both shocking and funny, taking you behind the scenes, onto the field and into the very heart of the scrum.

Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary

Elliot Hester

What is it about air travel that brings out the craziest, rudest and most ridiculous side of human nature? After fourteen years as an air steward Elliot Hester still doesn't know. However, he does know all about crazy passengers, stressed-out crew and the infamous Mile High club. A tell-all exposé from real-life experience, Air Confidential reveals what really goes on behind the scenes and down the aisles of aeroplanes everywhere. 
 
We meet Miguel Mendoza, the playboy of the skies; Big Bertha, the flight attendant from hell; and the arrogant business man so terrified of mild turbulence he cries all the way to Miami. 
 
Packed full of scandalous tales of drunkenness, debauchery and generally bad behaviour (and not just from the passengers), these stories are so funny you'll choke on your complimentary mini-pretzels.

Air Confidential

A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage and Outrageousness at 30, 000 Feet

Russell Watson

Russell 'The Voice' Watson is a star with a real story to tell. While most stars of today find success early, Russell was still working in a Salford factory at the age of 30. He spent the evenings singing in working men's clubs for extra cash to keep the bailiffs from his family's door. The chairman of Manchester United gave him his big break in May 1999: the opportunity to sing at Old Trafford. His extraordinary performance was quickly followed by a record deal and his phenomenal debut album. 
 
Despite his outward success, Russell struggled with his health and family life. His rapid rise to fame led to a bitter divorce from his childhood sweetheart and his private life being splashed across the tabloids. Then last year he was struck down by a life-threatening brain tumour. This plunged Russell into a deep depression and it was only the thought of leaving his two children fatherless that kept him going. Just when it seemed he was fully recovered he collapsed again while recording and had to have emergency surgery on a second brain tumour that threatened his voice, his sight and his life. 
 
Now, in his own words, Russell tells us the amazing story of his life.

Finding My Voice

Five Minute Mum

Flaptastic

Fluffy

Folk Art

Football Academy

Football Skills

Forbidden Spaces Trilogy

Foul Play

DICK FRANCIS was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys and author of forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), the biography of Lester Piggott and his own autobiography (The Sport of Queens). He was rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest thriller writers in the world. 
 
 Since his death, his son FELIX FRANCIS has taken over the literary reigns from his father and Dick's legacy lives on through the Dick Francis novels. The Francis flair is clear for all to see in these national treasure thrillers, and readers will appreciate the sporadic reappearance of beloved series characters Sid Halley and Jeff Hinkley.

Francis Thriller

Frank Behr

Once a Detective Inspector in the Nottinghamshire Force, Frank Elder has retired to an isolated cottage in Cornwall, and is trying to live the quiet life. The past, however, is never far behind him.

Frank Elder

Fred

Free Collars Kingdom

Jean Plaidy combines imagination with facts to bring the French Revolution alive in this dynamic historical fiction series. From Louis XV’s debauchery to Marie Antionette’s demise, it is clear there was only one way this was going to end.

French Revolution

French Vintage Classics

Frieda Klein

Fright Club

From Scratch

Frontline Nurses Series

Frostheart

Fun With Ladybird

Funnybones

G.F. Newman’s The Corrupted

Gabriel's Inferno

The Roman grip on Britain is growing weaker and Druids are on the rise. Emperor Nero has turned away. Boudicca is preparing to lead tribes to war. 
 
Standing in her way is Gaius Valerius Verrens, commander of the veterans legion. In this battle he earns the accolade of Hero of Rome - but where will that title lead him next?

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