THE AUTHOR HAS CHOSEN TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS OUT OF CONCERN FOR THE SAFETY OF HIS OR HER SOURCES.

Alex Urban

Alex Wheatle

Alex is an author and best-selling children’s book illustrator. Since he could first hold a pencil, Alex has been drawing characters, bringing each to life with a sense of mischief and fun. After studying Illustration for Children’s Publishing at the North Wales School of Art and Design, he went on to illustrate The Runaway Pea, which was selected for the BookTrust’s 2020 Time to Read Campaign. Alex has won the Inspiread 2023 Book Award for his picture book I Did See a Mammoth, the 2020 Shrewsbury Book Fest award and The FCBG 2020 award for his illustrations in The Runaway Pea, as well as being nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal and was a finalist in the 2020 Oscar’s Book Prize. His books have been translated into multiple languages. A love of fun storytelling and growing up on 80’s cartoons lead Alex to write his own books, which combine captivating characters and quirky exploits, along with a positive moral message. Alex currently lives in his hometown of Northampton with his wife, two sons, and their chihuahua.

Alex Willmore

Alex Y. Ferguson

Alex de Campi's mostly-indie career stretches from her Eisner-nominated debut Smoke (Dark Horse) through recent Eisner nominees Bad Girls (Gallery 13) and Twisted Romance (Image). Plus company work: she's killed off most of Riverdale, twice, in Archie vs Predator I &amp; II. Her next projects are YA adventure The Backups (Imprint / MacMillan, 2020) and a thriller with director Duncan Jones. Catch her YA adventure Reversal on her Patreon, and action-thriller Bad Karma on Panel Syndicate. She also writes for TV and film (the Blade Runner anime &amp; more). She is on social media as @alexdecampi and lives in Manhattan.

Alex de Campi

Alexa Chung

Alexander Aciman

Alexander Armstrong is one half of the comedy duo Armstrong &amp; Miller who had a regular series on Channel 4 from 1997 to 2001 and then returned with three series of the BAFTA winning Armstrong &amp; Miller Show on BBC1 in 2007. Alexander’s many straight acting roles have included Love Life, Life Begins, Mutual Friends and the sitcomHunderby. He frequently hosts Have I Got News For You?, is the voice of Danger Mouse and the narrator of CBeebies cult hit Hey Duggee. Alexander is also a presenter on Classic FM and has a number one bestselling classical album to his name, but is probably best known for presenting the highly successful daytime quiz show Pointless, now in its twelfth series.

Alexander Armstrong

Alexander Barabanov

Alexander Betts

Alexander Breeze

Alexander C. Karp is co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies Inc. The company, established in Palo Alto, California, in 2003, builds software and artificial intelligence capabilities that are used by defense and intelligence agencies in the United States and allied nations around the world, as well as companies across the commercial sector. Karp is a graduate of Haverford College and Stanford Law School. He earned his doctorate in social theory from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Alexander C.Karp

Alexander Chee won a Whiting Award for his first novel, Edinburgh, and is a recipient of the NEA Fellowship in Fiction and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Ledig House and Civitella Ranieri. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Slate, and NPR, among others, and he is a contributing editor at the New Republic. He has recently been selected as a prestigious LA Times critic-at-large. He lives in New York City.

Alexander Chee

Alexander Douglas was born in Canberra, Australia where he studied music and philosophy. He now teaches the history of philosophy and the philosophy of economics at the University of St Andrews. He has published two books on the philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza and one on the philosophy of debt. He has grown increasingly interested in combining ideas from Western and East Asian philosophy. He loves music, literature, history, and engineering. He lives with his wife in Edinburgh.

Alexander Douglas

Alexander Freed is the author of the Star Wars Alphabet Squadron trilogy, Star Wars: Battle­front: Twilight Company and Star Wars: Rogue One and has written many short stories, comic books, and videogames. Born near Philadelphia, he currently re­sides in San Francisco, California. He enjoys the city’s culture, history, and secrets, but he misses snow.

Alexander Freed

Alexander Garros

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Humboldt

Alexander Kent's great interest in the ships and men of the eighteenth century navy was aroused when he was still at school. Although he attended fleet reviews and explored modern warships and dockyards with his father, he found that the great days of square riggers and battles at close quarters captured his imagination. H.M.S. Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, was always high on his list of regular visits. 
 
He served in the Royal Navy as a young man, and saw action in the Battle of the Atlantic and other major theatres of war, but his first love of the great days of sail remained unshaken. 
 
Now firmly established as a leading writer of authentic sea stories, he was the author of twenty-eight acclaimed books featuring Richard Bolitho. Under his own name, Douglas Reeman, and in the course of a career spanning forty-five years, he wrote over thirty novels and two non-fiction books. He died in January 2017.

Alexander Kent

Alexander Lee

Alexander Lernet-Holenia was born in Vienna in 1897. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War and became a protégé of Rainer Maria Rilke. During his life he wrote poetry, novels, plays and was a successful screenwriter. His books were included on the first Nazi blacklist and subsequently burned, but after the end of the Second World War, he again became a vital figure in Austrian cultural life.

Alexander Lernet-Holenia

Alexander MacLeod was born in Inverness, Cape Breton in Canada. His first collection, Light Lifting, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and won an Atlantic Book Award. In 2019, he won an O Henry Prize for his short story, 'Lagomorph', originally published in Granta, and the first story in Animal Person. MacLeod lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and teaches at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.

Alexander MacLeod

Alexander Mackendrick

Alex Maskill was born in Watford, and grew up both there and in Eastbourne, East Sussex. He's has just completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Leicester and now has a degree in Politics. He hopes to follow this with an MSc in Computer Science. 
The Hive Construct is his first novel and won the 2013 Terry Pratchett Prize.

Alexander Maskill

Alexander McCall Smith is one of the world's most prolific and most popular authors. His career has been a varied one: for many years he was a professor of Medical Law and worked in universities in the United Kingdom and abroad. Then, after the publication of his highly successful No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which has sold over twenty million copies, he devoted his time to the writing of fiction and has seen his various series of books translated into over forty-six languages and become bestsellers through the world. These include the Scotland Street novels, first published as a serial novel in The Scotsman, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the Von Igelfeld series, and the Corduroy Mansions series, novels which started life as a delightful (but challenging to write) cross-media serial, written on the website of the Telegraph Media Group. This series won two major cross-media awards - Association of Online Publishers Digital Publishing Award 2009 for a Cross Media Project and the New Media Age award. In addition to these series, Alexander writes stand-alone books, including The Forever Girl; Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party and Emma - a reworking of the classic Jane Austen novel. He is also the author of a book on Edinburgh, A Work of Beauty: Alexander McCall Smith's Edinburgh, as well as several collections of short stories, academic works, and over thirty books for children. He has received numerous awards for his writing, including the British Book Awards Author of the Year Award in 2004 and a CBE for service to literature in 2007. He holds honorary doctorates from nine universities in Europe and North America. In March of 2011 he received an award from the President of Botswana for his services through literature to that country. Alexander McCall Smith lives in Edinburgh. He is married to a doctor and has two daughters.

Alexander McCall-Smith

Alexander Monro

Alexander Norman has written a number of books with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and has known him personally for over 30 years. He regularly gives lectures on Tibetan history and culture and is fascinated by the country and its people. He lives in the UK.

Alexander Norman

Alexander Piatigorsky

Alexander Pope was born on 21st May 1688.He was brought up a Roman Catholic at a time where the laws of England were prejudicial towards Catholics. He suffered tuberculosis as a child and was crippled by it. He never grew taller than 4'6". He first published The Rape of the Lock when he was twenty-three years old in 1712. He later added to it in 1714 and 1717. It was written to reconcile two families who had fallen out over a similar incident where a young Lord Petre had cut off a lock of hair from Arabella Fermor's head. Pope went on to translate the works of Homer and produce The Dunciad and An Essay on Man. Pope died on 30th May 1744.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pushkin

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Thomas L. Friedman

The beginning of the twenty-first century will be remembered, Friedman argues, not for military conflicts or political events, but for a whole new age of globalization &ndash; a &lsquo;flattening&rsquo; of the world. The explosion of advanced technologies now means that suddenly knowledge pools and resources have connected all over the planet, levelling the playing field as never before, so that each of us is potentially an equal &ndash; and competitor &ndash; of the other. The rules of the game have changed forever &ndash; but does this &lsquo;death of distance&rsquo;, which requires us all to run faster in order to stay in the same place, mean the world has got too small and too flat too fast for us to adjust? Friedman brilliantly demystifies the exciting, often bewildering, global scene unfolding before our eyes, one which we sense but barely yet understand. The World is Flat is the most timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and its discontents, powerfully illuminated by a world-class writer. 
 
In his new chapters: 'If It's Not Happening, It's Because You're Not Doing It' and 'What Happens When We All Have Dog's Hearing?' the author explores both the benefits and disadvantages of the very latest developments in global communication. The emergent popularity of blogging, pod-casting, YouTube and MySpace enable the modern world citizen to broadcast their views to a potential audience of billions, and the proliferation of Internet access to even the poorest communities gives everyone who wants to the tools to address issues of social injustice and inequality. On the other hand the technology that seems to improve communication on a global scale causes it to deteriorate on a local scale. Identifying ours as 'The Age of Interruption', Friedman discusses the annoyance and dangers of BlackBerrys in meeting rooms, hands-free kits in conversation and using a phone or iPod whilst driving. In an age when we are always 'connected' via email or mobile phone how can we hope to concentrate on one thing without interruption? As expected the author has revitalised this new edition of The World Is Flat with timely insights into the nature of our flat world.

The World is Flat

The Globalized World in the Twenty-first Century

Tim Flannery

In his most thrilling and personal book, Tim Flannery writes a love letter to his homeland, drawing on three decades of extensive travel, research and field work to reveal its unique nature. Flannery shows how the kangaroo is inseparable from the environment that created it. And he reveals the vast continent to be a land of subtlety and complexity that becomes comprehensible to those who take the time to learn its hidden and ancient languages.

Country

A Continent, a Scientist and a Kangaroo

Richard Vinen

In the summer of 1940 the French army was one of the largest and best in the world, confident of victory. In the space of a few nightmarish weeks that all changed as the French and their British allies were crushed and eight million people fled their homes. Richard Vinen's new book describes the consequences of that defeat. It does so not by looking at political leaders in Vichy or Paris or London but rather at those who were caught up in daily horrors of war. It describes the fate of a French prisoner of war who was punished because he wrote a love letter to a German woman, and the fate of a French woman who gave birth to a German-fathered child as the Americans landed in Normandy. It describes the 'false policemen' who proliferated in occupied Paris as desperate men on the run seeking to feed themselves by blackmailing those who were even more vulnerable than themselves. It asks why some gentile French people chose to risk imprisonment by wearing yellow stars. It recounts the fate of a couple of estranged middle-aged Jews, separated by the mobilisation of 1939, who found themselves (in July 1942) on the same train to Auschwitz. Extremely moving and brilliantly readable, The Unfree French is a remarkable addition to the literature of the Second World War.

The Unfree French

Life Under the Occupation

Saul David

In the early part of Queen Victoria&rsquo;s reign, the British Empire was well on the way to becoming the greatest empire the world had ever seen. This is the story of how it happened and the people who made it happen. In a fast-moving narrative ranging from London to the harsh terrain of India, Russia and the Far East, Saul David shows how Britain ruthlessly exploited her position as the world&rsquo;s only superpower to expand her empire. Yet little of this territorial acquisition was planned or sanctioned by the home government. Instead it was largely the work of the men on the ground, and to those at home it really did seem that the empire was acquired in a &lsquo;fit of absence of mind&rsquo;. Saul David creates a vivid portrait of life on the violent fringes of empire, and of the seemingly endless and brutal wars that were fought in the name of trade, civilization and the balance of power.

Victoria's Wars

The Rise of Empire

James Walvin

As we approach the bicentenary of the abolition of the Atlantic trade, Walvin has selected the historical texts that recreate the mindset that made such a savage institution possible - morally acceptable even. Setting these historical documents against Walvin's own incisive historical narrative, the two layers of this extraordinary, definitive account of the Atlantic slave trade enable us to understand the rise and fall of one of the most shameful chapters in British history, the repercussions of which the modern world is still living with.

A Short History of Slavery

Andrew Hussey

Paris is the city of light and the city of darkness - a place of ceaseless revolution and reinvention that for two thousand years has drawn those with the highest ideals and the lowest morals to its teeming streets. 
 
In Andrew Hussey's wonderful book we encounter the myriad citizens whose stories have shaped Paris: the nineteenth-century flaneurs aimlessly wandering Haussman's new streets; survivors and victims of ravaging plagues; the builders of Notre Dame Cathedral; those who turned the River Seine red with blood on St Bartholomew's Day; and the many others whose lives have imprinted themselves on a city that has always aroused strong emotions.

Paris

The Secret History

Olaudah Equiano

In an adventurous and extraordinary life, Equiano (c.1745-c.1797) criss-crossed the Atlantic world, from West Africa to the Caribbean to the USA to Britain, either as a slave or fighting with the Royal Navy. His account of his life is not only one of the great documents of the abolition movement, but also a startling, moving story of danger and betrayal. 
 
Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries &ndash; but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.

Sold as a Slave

John Lewis Gaddis

In 1950, when Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il-Sung met in Moscow to discuss the future, they had reason to feel optimistic. International Communism seemed everywhere on the offensive: all of Eastern Europe was securely in the Soviet camp; America's monopoly on nuclear weapons was a thing of the past; and Mao's forces had assumed control over the world's most populous country. The story of the previous five decades was one of the worst fears confirmed, and there seemed as of 1950 little sign, at least to the West, that the next fifty years would be any less dark. 
 
In fact, of course, the century's end brought the widespread triumph of political and economic freedom over its ideological enemies. In The Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis makes a major contribution to our understanding of this epochal story. Beginning with the Second World War and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union, he provides a thrilling account of the strategic dynamics that drove the age. Now, as Britain once more finds itself in a global confrontation with an implacable ideological enemy, The Cold War tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand.

The Cold War

N A M Rodger

The Command of the Ocean describes with unprecedented authority and scholarship the rise of Britain to naval greatness, and the central place of the Navy and naval activity in the life of the nation and government. It describes not just battles, voyages and cruises but how the Navy was manned, how it was supplied with timber, hemp and iron, how its men (and sometimes women) were fed, and above all how it was financed and directed. It was during the century and a half covered by this book that the successful organizing of these last three - victualling, money and management - took the Navy to the heart of the British state. It is the great achievement of the book to show how completely integrated and mutually dependent Britain and the Navy then became.

The Command of the Ocean

A Naval History of Britain 1649-1815

Niall Ferguson

The abridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Niall Ferguson's comprehensive The War of the World, read by Sean Barrett. 
 
The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece.

The War of the World

Robin Lane Fox

Tough, resolute, fearless, Alexander was a born warrior and ruler of passionate ambition who understood the intense adventure of conquest and of the unknown. When he died in 323 BC aged thirty-two, his vast empire comprised more than two million square miles, spanning from Greece to India. His achievements were unparalleled - he had excelled as leader to his men, founded eighteen new cities and stamped the face of Greek culture on the ancient East. The myth he created is as potent today as it was in the ancient world. 
 
Robin Lane Fox's superb account searches through the mass of conflicting evidence and legend to focus on Alexander as a man of his own time. Combining historical scholarship and acute psychological insight, it brings this colossal figure vividly to life.

Alexander the Great

How did Christianity compare and compete with the cults of the pagan gods in the Roman Empire?  This scholarly work from award-winning historian, Robin Lane Fox, places Christians and pagans side by side in the context of civil life and contrasts their religious experiences, visions, cults and oracles.  Leading up to the time of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, the book aims to enlarge and confirm the value of contemporary evidence, some of which has only recently been discovered.

Pagans and Christians

In the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine

The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome dominated the world for centuries and continue to intrigue and enlighten us with their inventions, whether philosophy, politics, theatre, athletics, celebrity, science or the pleasures of horse racing. Robin Lane Fox's spellbinding history spans almost a thousand years of change, from the foundation of the world's first democracy in Athens to the Roman Republic and the Empire under Hadrian. Bringing great figures such as Homer, Socrates, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the first Christian martyrs to life, exploring freedom, justice and luxury, this wonderfully exciting tour brings the turbulent histories of Greece and Rome together in a masterly study.

The Classical World

An Epic History of Greece and Rome

Ed Glinert

The East End:  Roman burial ground, medieval rubbsih tip, Victorian hell hole, WW2 bombing aarget, 21st century gentrification template.  Always a rum place, the industrial revolution replaced rose bushes and hedgerows with metallic roads and iron railways, mud banks gve way to deeo-water docks and sweatshops.  East End Chronicles tells the story of this part of London tht has always enthralled writers and readers through the bizarre, the unusual, the arcane and the mysterious.  Chapters on the Silk Weavers of Spitalfields;  Docks, Dockers and River Pirates; Murder and Mayhem on the Radcliffe Highway;  Myths and MytHmakers;  The Blitz and Bombs;  The Jewish Ghetto and more reveal the real underbelly of the history of the East End.

East End Chronicles

Roger Knight

The starting point of Roger Knight's magnificent new biography is to explain how Nelson achieved such extraordinary success. Knight places him firmly in the context of the Royal Navy at the time. He analyses Nelson's more obvious qualities, his leadership strengths and his coolness and certainty in battle, and also explores his strategic grasp, the condition of his ships, the skill of his seamen and his relationships with the officers around him - including those who could hardly be called friendly. 
 
This biography takes a cool look at Nelson's status as a hero and demolishes many of the myths that were so carefully established by the early authors, and repeated by their modern successors. Nelson was a shrewd political operator who charmed and impressed political leaders and whose advancement was helped by the relatively weak generation of admirals above him. He was a difficult subordinate, only happy when completely in command, and capable of great ruthlessness. He was flawed, but brilliant - and not to be crossed.

The Pursuit of Victory

The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson

Nigel Dalziel

The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire traces the emergence of the world's greatest empire from its earliest beginnings in the British Isles, through its ascendancy in Victorian times, to its ultimate collapse in the mid-20th century. It examines the impact of British dominance in America, India and Africa, and the enormous changes brought by Britain's settlement of Australasia. Coverage of major events - the colonization of Ireland, the American Revolution, the South African wars - is complemented by discussion of themes such as Imperial exploitation and trade, hunting for plants and animals, the Imperial exhibitions and the importance of British naval power. Also assessed are the impact of the Empire on different areas of the world and the legacy it has bestowed. Richly illustrated with photographs and full-colour maps, this is an illuminating and multi-faceted one-volume introduction to the rise and fall of the British Empire.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire

Herodotus

A king who would be worshipped as a god... 
 
When Xerxes, King of Persia, crosses the Hellespont at the head of a formidable army, it seems inevitable that Greece will be crushed beneath its might. But the Greeks are far harder to defeat than he could ever have imagined. 
 
As storms lash the Persian ships, and sinister omens predict a cruel fate for the expedition, Xerxes strives onward, certain his enemies will accept him as their king. But as he soon discovers, the Greeks will sacrifice anything, even their lives, to keep their liberty...

Xerxes Invades Greece

Colin Jones

'Paris is the World, the rest of the Earth is nothing but its suburbs' - Marivaux 
In this intelligently-written and supremely entertaining new history, Colin Jones seeks to give a sense of the city of Paris as it was lived in and experienced over time. The focal point of generation upon generation of admirers and detractors, a source of attraction or repulsion even for those who have never been there, Paris has witnessed more extraordinary events than any other major city. No spot on earth has been more walked around, written about, discussed, painted and photographed. With an eye for the revealing, startling and (sometimes) horrible detail, Colin Jones takes the reader from Roman Paris to the present, recreating the ups and downs in the history of the city and its inhabitants. Attentive to both the urban environment and to the experience of those who lived within it, PARIS: BIOGRAPHY OF A CITY will be hugely enjoyed by habitual Paris obsessives, by first-time visitors, and by those who know the city only by repute.

Biography of a City

Frank Welsh

Australia is a dynamic multi-cultural society, viewed by many as the world's most desirable place to live. Here Frank Welsh traces Australia's intriguing and varied history to examine how this society emerged, from its ancient Aborigine tribes and earliest British convict settlements to today's modern nation - one that retains strong links with its colonial past but is increasingly independent and diverse. 
 
While full of admiration for Australia, Welsh also exposes national myths and confronts the darker side of its history - oppression of the Aboriginal peoples and the 'White Australia' policy - and places the country in a global context, considering the changing relationship with Britain and its Asian neighbours, as well as more recent alliances with the US. 
 
Original, provocative and entertaining, Great Southern Land provides the most comprehensive one-volume history of this endlessly fascinating nation.

Great Southern Land

A New History of Australia

Hannah Arendt

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. 
 
Inspired by the trial of a bureaucrat who helped cause the Holocaust, this radical work on the banality of evil stunned the world with its exploration of a regime's moral blindness and one man's insistence that he be absolved all guilt because he was 'only following orders'.

Eichmann and the Holocaust

The Zulu War of 1879 was the most brutal and controversial British imperial conflict of the 19th century. Saul David is presenting a programme on the subject which will be aired in October 2003. He is using research from that to compile this book. The programme will hopefully raise awareness of this young historian's name and of the subject matter.

Zulu

The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879

Lucy Moore

In Maharnis Lucy Moore brilliantly recreates the lives of four princesses - two grandmothers, a mother and a daughter - of the Royal courts of India. Their extraordinary story takes in tiger hunts, exotic palaces and lavish ceremonies in India, as well as the glamorous international scene of the Edwardian and interwar era. It is also an intimate portrait of four remarkable women - Chimnabai, Sunity, Indira and Ayesha - who changed the world they lived in. Through their lives Lucy Moore tells the history of a nation during an era of great change: the rise and fall of the Raj from the Indian Mutiny to Independence and beyond.

Maharanis

The Lives and Times of Three Generations of Indian Princesses

John Bierman

Who was the real 'English patient'? The desert explorer Laszlo Almasy, on whom the character was loosely based, was very different from the romantic hero of the prize-winning novel anmd multiple Oscar-winning movie of that name. But a similar aura of mystery surrounds them both. While the fictional Almasy gave the Germans his desert maps only because he was desperate to keep a promise to his dying mistress, the real-life Almasy worked for Germany military intelligence only because he was desperate for the chance to return to the desert he loved more than anything or anybody else. Or so John Bierman implies in this arresting and carefully-researched biography. Among its many unexpected revelations is that far from being the love of his friend's wife, Almasy was a homosexual with no interest at all in the opposite sex. Nor was he really a count, although he was born into the minor Hungarian nobility. In short, the real-life Almasy remains an enigma. For instance there is good reason to believe that he became a double agent working for both sides in World War II - and compelling evidence that he spied for British intelligence during the Cold War.

The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy

The Real English Patient

Guy Walters

James Owen

The Second World War was the first truly global conflict and sixty years on its consequences continue to shape the modern world. Season by season The Voice of War charts the course of the central event of the twentieth century using the diaries, letters and memoirs of those who were there, from Russian women fighter pilots to the prisoners of the Japanese to Londoners enduring the Blitz. Their first-hand accounts place us on the ramparts of Colditz, in the hiding places of the Warsaw Ghetto, aboard a dive bomber at Pearl Harbor, with Rommel in the desert and by Churchill's side in Downing Street. Unrivalled in the immediacy, range and power of the experiences it contains, it includes writing by, among others, Joseph Goebbels, Benito Mussolini, Christabel Bielenberg, Noel Coward, Robert Capa, Airey Neave, George Patton, Hermione Ranfurly, Arthur Koestler, James Lees-Milne, Martha Gellhorn, Sophia Loren and Primo Levi. Ambitious, instructive and entertaining, this is the definitive portrait of a world at war.

The Voice of War

The Second World War Told by Those Who Fought It

Joyce Tyldesley

For over a decade Nefertiti, wife of the heretic king Akhenaten, was the most influential woman in the Bronze Age world; a beautiful queen blessed by the sun-god, adored by her family and worshipped by her people.  Her image and her name were celebrated throughout Egypt and her future seemed golden.  Suddenly Nefertiti disappeared from the royal family, vanishing so completely that it was as if she had never been.  No record survives to detail her death, no monument serves to mourn her passing and to this day her end remains an enigma - her body has never been found.   Joyce Tyldesley here provides a detailed discussion of the life and times of Nefertiti, Egypt's sun queen, set against the background of the ephemeral Amarna court.

Nefertiti

Egypt's Sun Queen

John Haywood

This new historical atlas - richly illustrated with photographs, artwork recreations and full-colour maps - explores the world's earliest civilisations from the first farming settlements of Mesopotamia, via Egypt, Greece and Rome, to the civilisations of the Far East, Europe and America. Informatively written, and ideal for both students and the general reader, it plots the rise and fall of empires, the nature of different societies and the evolution of technology.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations

Andrew Jotischky

Caroline Hull

This new historical atlas - richly illustrated with photographs, artwork recreations and full-colour maps - explores the Middle Ages from the coming of the barbarian invasions in the fourth century to the first voyages to the New World in the sixteenth. Coverage of major events - the Hundred Years' War, the Christian Reconquest of Spain - is supplemented by discussion of such key topics as the medieval economy, the growth of towns and the spread of printing, resulting in a rich and multi-faceted introduction to Europe and its neighbours in the Middle Ages.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Medieval World

Roy Porter

'As an introduction to early modern thinking and the impact of past ideas on present lives, this book can find few equals and no superiors. Porter is a witty, humane writer with an extraordinary vocabulary and a sparkling sense of fun. Whether he is quoting from obscure medical texts or analysing scabrous diaries, dishing the dirt on long-dead bigwigs or evoking sympathy for human suffering, his grasp is masterly and his erudition appealing. I wish I could read it again for the first time: you can.' Times Educational Supplement, Book of the Week 
 
In this startlingly brilliant sequel to the prize-winning ENLIGHTENMENT Roy Porter completes his lifetime's work, offering a magical, enthusiastic and charming account of the writings of some of the most attractive figures ever to write English.

Flesh in the Age of Reason

Throughout Britain's history, one factor above all others has determined the fate of the nation: its navy. N. A. M. Rodger's definitive account reveals how the political and social progress of Britain has been inextricably intertwined with the strength - and weakness - of its sea power, from the desperate early campaigns against the Vikings to the defeat of the great Spanish Armada. Covering policy, strategy, ships, recruitment and weapons, this is a superb tapestry of nearly 1,000 years of maritime history. 
 
'No other historian has examined the subject in anything like the detail found here. The result is an outstanding example of narrative history' Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph

The Safeguard of the Sea

A Naval History of Britain 660-1649

Thomas Paine

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

Common Sense

Jane Smith

Japanese Classics

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

Jeeves & Wooster

Jenny Q

Jess Tennant

Joe Rat Adventures

Joey Pigza

Johnny Maxwell

Jon Katz

Jonathon Payne & David Jones

Joseph Stark

Journey into Space

Jumpman

Post-graduation, Allyson Healey decided to embark on a three week tour of Europe. It all goes according to plan until she meets Willem. He is everything she is not; free spirited, a risk taker. She allows herself to be swept away by him for just 24 hours, and then returns home the next day. Willem, determined to find her, puts his trust in fate and travels the world hoping that somewhere he will come across her. This sweepingly romantic trio of novels is filled with emotion, romance and a life affirming belief in fate.

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