A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy and is known as @agatharoza on Wattpad.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children. Angelica is also the author of Hunt A Killer, a PERFECT SCORE novel, under the pen name A.M. Ellis, which she wrote as an IP for Scholastic in the US.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

Aaron Edwards is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He is the author and editor of several books, including Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars Since 1945, and has lectured all over the world on aspects of national and international security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Aaron Edwards

Aaron Robertson is a writer, an editor, and a translator of Italian literature. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was short-listed for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and in 2021 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Point, and Literary Hub, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Aaron Robertson

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Nasser Abu Srour

This is the story of a wall that somehow chose me as the witness of what it said and did 
 
Nasser Abu Srour grew up in a refugee camp in the West Bank, on the outskirts of Bethlehem. As a child, he played in its shadow and explored the little world within the camp. As he grew older, he began questioning the boundaries that limited his existence. Later, sentenced to life in prison, with no hope of parole, he found himself surrounded by a physical wall. 
 
This is the story of how, over thirty years in captivity, he crafted a new definition of freedom. Turning to writings by philosophers as varied as Derrida, Kirkegaard and Freud, he begins to let go of freedom as a question that demanded an answer, in order to preserve it as a dream. The wall becomes his stable point of reference, his anchor, both physically and psychologically. 
 
As each year brings with it new waves of releases of prisoners, he dares to hope, and seeks refuge in the wall when these hopes are dashed. And, in a small miracle, he finds love with a lawyer from the outside – while in her absence, the wall is his solace and his curse. 
 
A testimony of how the most difficult of circumstances can build a person up instead of tearing them down, The Tale of a Wall is an extraordinary record of the vast confinement and power of the mind.

The Tale of a Wall

Reflections on Hope and Freedom

Stephen Fisher

'With his wealth of knowledge and exacting eye for detail, [Fisher's] book on D-Day is sure to impress a vast audience' Dan Snow 
'Stephen Fisher... is a very rare beast - a man who can bring stunning research and scholarship hand-in-glove with the gifts of a fine storyteller' James Holland 
'Written with verve and panache... It’s a brilliant evocation of one of the greatest days in history, and Fisher has done it proud. Bravo!' Robert Lyman, author of Victory to Defeat: The British Army 1918-1940 
_________ 
 
6th June 1944 saw the largest seaborne assault in human history: D-Day. The landings on the five Normandy beaches, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, will go down in legend as the first footsteps on the journey to end the war in northern Europe. 
 
While much has been written about the operation as a whole, little detailed attention has been paid to the battle for Sword Beach itself, the easternmost of the amphibious attack areas. For the first time, historian and archaeologist Stephen Fisher puts the British landing under the spotlight and using previously unseen research, documents and personal testimonies pieces together the buildup, the day itself and its aftermath in such a way as to uniquely bring the operation to vivid life. 
 
Following a massive air and naval bombardment that began before the sun had even risen, the stage was set for the first of tens of thousands of troops to come ashore on Sword that day. It was to be a day of triumph and tragedy as the Allies pushed forward to the key objective of Caen against German defenders who were, uniquely on D-Day, backed up by an armoured division. 
 
Never before has this campaign been afforded such insightful and detailed scrutiny. Stephen Fisher brings his considerable knowledge and expertise to paint a thrilling picture of how the deep beachhead was established and pays tribute to the heroism and sacrifices that were made on that fateful day.

Sword Beach

The Untold Story of D-Day’s Forgotten Victory

Phillips Payson O'Brien

In THE STRATEGISTS, Professor Phillips Payson O'Brien shows how the views these five leaders forged in WW1 are crucial to understanding how they fought WW2. For example, Churchill's experiences of facing the German Army in France in 1916 made him unwilling to send masses of British soldiers back there in the 1940s, while Hitler's mistakes on the Eastern Front were influenced by his reluctance to accept that conditions had changed since his own time fighting. The implications of the power of leaders remain with us to this day: to truly understand what is happening in Ukraine, for example, requires us to know what has influenced the leaders involved. 
 
This is a history in which leaders – and their choices – matter. For better or worse.

The Strategists

Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler – How War Made Them, And How They Made War

Anthony Powell

**The abridged memoirs of Anthony Powell, with a new introduction from Louisa Young** 
 
'Powell can offer many of the rewards of comic creation we find in a Dickens or a Jane Austen' TLS 
 
Anthony Powell earned a reputation as a literary giant within the generation of Waugh, Orwell and Greene, best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time. 
 
These memoirs reveal Powell - the man and author - providing an insider's view of the British literary scene and social elite from the 1920s to the 1980s. In these pages, Powell observes the obscenity trial sparked by Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Shirley Temple's libel suit after Graham Greene reviewed Wee Willie Winkie with 'more than his usual verve'. Throughout, Powell paints vivid, witty and superbly written portraits of his contemporaries, other authors including Kingsley Amis, V.S. Naipaul, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf. 
 
Featuring an illuminating new introduction by Louisa Young, TO KEEP THE BALL ROLLING is the abridged version of Anthony Powell's four volumes of memoir, first published between 1976 and 1982.

To Keep The Ball Rolling

Diane Abbott

From challenging expectations as a bright and restless child of the Windrush generation to making history as the first elected Black female MP in the UK, Diane Abbott has seen it all. 
 
A Woman Like Me takes readers through Diane&rsquo;s incredible journey, painting a vivid picture of growing up in 1960s North London with her working-class Jamaican parents, before entering the hallowed halls of Cambridge University to study history. Ever since the day she first walked through the House of Commons as the first Black woman MP, she has been a fearless and vocal champion for the causes that have made Britain what it is today, whether it&rsquo;s increasing access to education for Black children and speaking out against the Iraq war or advocating tirelessly for refugees and immigrants. 
 
A unique figure in British public life, Diane has often had nothing but the courage of her convictions to carry her through incredibly hostile environments, from torrential abuse in the mainstream media and on social media, to being shunned by the political establishment, including by her own party. Written with frankness and wry humour, A Woman Like Me is an inspirational account that celebrates how one woman succeeded against massive odds and built an extraordinary legacy.

A Woman Like Me

A Memoir

Rachel Maddow

As Hitler's ascendancy began to make a Second World War inevitable, a clandestine network flooded the United States with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of its war effort and persuading Americans that their natural alliance was with the Axis. 
 
It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens' confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the US government and installing authoritarian rule. Some of the country's most influential elected officials, including senators and members of Congress, worked to disseminate Nazi talking points, while fascist paramilitaries stockpiled bombs and weapons in preparation for violent insurrection. 
 
Prequel unearths the forgotten story of these insurrectionists, as well as the heroic efforts of the journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose their plot and bring them to justice. Deeply researched, the story of how the crisis was averted is also a deeply relevant tale for our own disquieting times.

Prequel

An American fight against fascism

Paul Beaver

Small in stature but immense in reputation and talent, there was more to Eric 'Winkle' Brown than met the eye.From shooting down Luftwaffe bombers in the Battle of the Atlantic and narrowly escaping from a torpedoed ship, to a never-to-be-repeated litany of world records as a test pilot, his unparalleled flying career saw him take the controls of over four hundred different kinds of aircraft-more than any other pilot in history. 
 
A legend in his own lifetime, and by his death, a national treasure, there have always been mysteries at the heart of his story…

Winkle

The Extraordinary Life of Britain’s Greatest Pilot

Sinclair McKay

This insightful portrait of Winston Churchill delves beyond well-known political events, incorporating perspectives from various individuals who encountered him throughout his life. From Bletchley Park codebreakers to Hollywood stars, Harold Wilson to Gandhi, these lesser-known interactions reveal glimpses of the man behind the legend. 
 
We meet Churchill the mischievous schoolboy with a penchant for singing obscene songs, and Churchill the elder statesman shedding a tear in the House of Commons smoking room. Other incidents include a young journalist rudely dismissing a call from Churchill as a prank, and a visiting Dwight D. Eisenhower dreaming of being strangled, only to awake entangled in Churchill's borrowed nightshirt. 
 
The book showcases the profound transformations during Churchill's lifetime, which ran from Benjamin Disraeli's premiership to the release of the Rolling Stones' Route 66, and the shift from steam to atomic power. Examining controversial aspects of his legacy, this multifaceted portrait challenges preconceived notions, inviting readers to reconsider the complexities of Churchill.

Meeting Churchill

A Life in 90 Encounters

Frank Trentmann

In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. The German people stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and a war of extermination. But by 2015 Germany looked to many to be the moral voice of Europe, welcoming almost one million refugees. At the same time, it pursued a controversially rigid fiscal discipline and made energy deals with a dictator. Many people have asked how Germany descended into the darkness of the Nazis, but this book asks another vital question: how, and how far, have the Germans since reinvented themselves? 
 
Trentmann tells the dramatic story of the Germans from the middle of the Second World War, through the Cold War and the division into East and West, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunited nation's search for a place in the world. Their journey is marked by extraordinary moral struggles: guilt, shame and limited amends; wealth versus welfare; tolerance versus racism; compassion and complicity. Through a range of voices - German soldiers and German Jews; environmentalists and coal miners; families and churches; volunteers, migrants and populists - Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait over 80 years of the conflicted people at the centre of Europe.

Out of the Darkness

The Germans, 1942-2022

Peter Biskind

The revolution has been televized. From The Sopranos to Stranger Things, the shows we watch - and the ways we watch them - have been transformed over the past fifty years. Out of the bland wasteland of 'play-it-safe' broadcasting came astonishing stories of sex , violence, and corruption shown first on cable, and then by way of streaming. Today, the power of viewers to select what they want and when they want it is greater than ever before. In short, we are living in a new golden age of television, but golden ages don't last forever, and this one may turn out to be too much of a good thing. Revolutions have a habit of eating their own, and the era of 'peak TV' may have an unhappy ending. 
 
Pandora's Box is a major new account of the small screen from incisive cultural critic Peter Biskind. Through exclusive, candid and colourful interviews with writers, showrunners, directors and actors, Biskind brings us face to face with the people whose creations we encounter every day on our sofas, revealing the dynamic interplay of art, commerce and technology. We follow executives down the corridors of power and see how their money and guile cultivate, then crush creativity; we witness the making - and unmaking - of TVs biggest hits. There has never been a more exciting time in entertainment history, and in Peter Biskind, the ideal insider guide, captures all of it.

Pandora’s Box

The Greed, Lust, and Lies That Broke Television

Jane Martinson

You May Never See Us Again is the definitive story of David and Frederick Barclay - commonly known as the Barclay brothers. Born poor, these enigmatic twins built one of the biggest fortunes in Britain together and spent six decades at the epicentre of British business, media and politics. Their empire, said to be worth &pound;7bn at its height, included Littlewoods, the Ritz, The Daily Telegraph and the channel island of Brecqhou. 
 
And yet despite their fortune and influence, the Barclays' desire for privacy meant that their story has remained largely unknown - until a very public family dispute pitched Barclay against Barclay in the High Court. 
 
Journalist Jane Martinson unravels the fascinating story of these once inseparable brothers. Through their lives she offers compelling insights into post-war Britain, from the conditions that enabled their way of doing business to thrive through to the tightly enmeshed webs of influence between capitalism, politics and the media that shape Britain today.

You May Never See Us Again

The Barclay Dynasty: A Story of Survival, Secrecy and Succession

Joachim C. Häberlen

In post-war Europe, protest was everywhere. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Paris to Prague, Milan to Wroclaw, ordinary people took to the streets, fighting for a better world. Their efforts came to a head most dramatically in 1968 and 1989, when mass movements swept Europe and rewrote its history. 
 
In the decades between, Joachim C. Häberlen argues, new movements emerged that transformed the nature of protesting. Activism moved beyond traditional demonstrations, from squatting to staging 'happenings' and camping out at nuclear power plants. People protested in the way they dressed, the music they listened to, the lovers they slept with, the clubs where they danced all night. New movements were born, notably anti-racism, women's liberation, gay liberation and environmentalism. And protest turned inward, as activists experimented with new ways of living and feeling, from communes to group therapy, in their efforts to live a better life in the here and now. 
 
Some of these struggles succeeded, others failed. But successful or not, their history provides a glimpse into roads not taken, into futures that did not happen. The stories in Häberlen's book invite us to imagine different futures; to struggle, to fail, and to try again. In a time when we are told that there are no alternatives, they show us that there could be another way.

Beauty is in the Street

Protest and Counterculture in Post-War Europe

Ian Johnson

A documentary filmmaker who uncovered a Mao-era death camp; an independent journalist who gave voice to the millions who suffered through Covid; a magazine publisher who dodged the secret police: these are some of the people who make up Sparks: China's Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, a vital account of how some of China's most important writers, filmmakers, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to challenge the Chinese Communist Party on its most sacred ground - its monopoly on history. 
 
In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and justify its rule. 
 
But in recent years, critical thinkers from across the land have begun to challenge this state-led disremembering. Using digital technologies to bypass China's legendary surveillance state, their samizdat journals, guerilla media posts, and underground films document a pattern of disasters: from past famines and purges to the ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present. 
 
Based on years of research in Xi Jinping's China, Sparks challenges stereotypes of a China where the state has quashed all free thought, revealing instead a country engaged in one of humanity's great struggles of memory against forgetting - a battle that will shape the China that emerges in the mid-21st century.

Sparks

China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future

Yaroslav Trofimov

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yaroslav Trofimov has spent months on end at the heart of the conflict, very often on its front lines. In this authoritative account, he traces the war’s decisive moments—from the battle for Kyiv to more recently the gruelling and bloody arm wrestle involving the Wagner group over Bakhmut—to show how Ukraine and its allies have turned the tide against Russia in a modern-day battle of David and Goliath. Putin had intended to conquer Ukraine with a vicious blitzkrieg, in a few short weeks. But in the face of this existential threat, the Ukrainian people fought back, turning what looked like certain defeat into a great moral victory, even as the territorial battle continues to seesaw to this day. This is the story of their epic bravery in the face of almost unthinkable aggression.

Our Enemies Will Vanish

Charlie Porter

Why do we wear what we wear? To answer this question, we must go back and unlock the wardrobes of the early twentieth century, when fashion as we know it was born. 
 
In Bring No Clothes, acclaimed fashion writer Charlie Porter brings us face to face with six members of the Bloomsbury Group-the collective of creatives and thinkers who were in the vanguard of a social and sartorial revolution. Each of them offers fresh insight into the constraints and possibilities of fashion today: from the stifling repression of E. M. Forster's top buttons to the creativity of Vanessa Bell's wayward hems; from the sheer pleasure of Ottoline Morrell's lavish dresses to the clashing self-consciousness of Virginia Woolf's orange stockings; from Duncan Grant's liberated play with nudity to John Maynard Keynes's power play in the traditional suit. As Porter carefully unpicks what they wore and how they wore it, we see how clothing can be a means of artistic, intellectual and sexual liberation, or, conversely, a tool for patriarchal control. 
 
As he travels through libraries, archives, attics and studios, Porter uncovers new evidence about his subjects, revealing them in a thrillingly intimate, vivid new light. And, as he begins making his own clothing, his own perspective on fashion-and on life-starts to change. In the end, he shows, we should all 'bring no clothes', embracing not just a new way with fashion but a new philosophy of living-one which activates the connections between the way we dress and the way we think, act and love.

Bring No Clothes

Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion

Wolfram Eilenberger

The year is 1933. Hannah Arendt escapes Berlin, seeking refuge among the stateless gathering in Paris. Simone de Beauvoir reimagines the dance between consciousness and the world outside in a Rouen café. Ayn Rand labours in Hollywood exile on the novel she believes destined to reignite the flame of liberty in her adoptive nation. Simone Weil, disenchanted with the revolution's course in Russia, devotes her entire being to the plight of the oppressed. Over the next decade, one of the darkest in Europe's history, these four philosophers will conceive in parallel ideas that would circle the globe in the second half of the century, reshaping it. 
 
The Visionaries follows in its protagonists' footsteps from Leningrad to New York, Spain at civil war to France under occupation, as each is uprooted by totalitarianism's ascendence. It shows them facing the injustices, unfreedom and unfathomable violence of their time as women, refugees, activists, resistance fighters - but above all as thinkers. Wolfram Eilenberger expertly distils the radical, brilliant philosophies each lived as well as developed, showing the two to be part of the same story, all testament to thought's redemptive power.

The Visionaries

Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil and the Salvation of Philosophy

Barack Obama

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
The riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making?a record-breaking, critically acclaimed no.1 bestseller. 
 
'Gorgeously written, humorous, compelling, life affirming' Justin Webb, Mail on Sunday 
 
In the first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama recounts his journey from a young man searching for his identity to the 44th president of the United States, describing in strikingly personal detail his political education and landmark moments of his first term. 
 
Reflecting on his presidency, Obama takes readers from his early political dreams to his Iowa caucus victory and the historic night of November 4, 2008, when he became the first African American president. It is the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. 
 
Obama is candid about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad and bearing the expectation of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change”, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible. 
 
This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high, but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day

A Promised Land

Chips Channon

'An utterly addictive glimpse of London high society and politics in the 40s and 50s.' Robert Harris 
 
'An instant classic . . . quite simply the greatest social and political diaries of the 20th century.' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Rich, exuberant, copious and shatteringly honest.' Spectator 
 
'A scurrilous read. Fascinating. Gripping!' Alan Titchmarsh 
 
'Chips writes with such vividness that one feels one is living each day in his exalted company.' The Oldie 
_______________________________________ 
The political career of Conservative MP Henry ‘Chips’ Channon (1897–1958) was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Witty, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and knew everyone. 
 
This third and final volume begins as the Second World war is turning in the Allies’ favour. It closes with Chips slowly descending into poor health but striving to remain socially active. En route, we see him assiduously record the tribulations of both Labour and Conservative governments in parliament, gossip about the private lives of the great and the good, and conduct passionate affairs with a young army officer and the playwright Terence Rattigan, while being serially unfaithful to both. Throughout, he confirms his position as ‘the greatest British diarist of the 20th century’.

Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 3): 1943-57

Ranulph Fiennes

Co-opted by the British military, archaeologist and adventurer Thomas Edward Lawrence became involved in the 1916 Arab Revolt, fighting alongside guerilla forces, and made a legendary 300-mile journey through blistering heat. He wore Arab dress, and strongly identified with the people in his adopted lands. 
 
 By 1918, he had a £20,000 price on his head. 
 
 Despite people's fascination, Lawrence has long remained unknowable, one of history's most enigmatic explorers. But with in-depth knowledge of what it takes to venture into the unknown, this authoritative biography from explorer Ranulph Fiennes at last brings enthralling insight and clarity to this remarkable life.

Lawrence of Arabia

The definitive 21st-century biography of a 20th-century soldier, adventurer and leader

Henry Kissinger

In Leadership, Kissinger analyses the lives of six extraordinary leaders through the distinctive strategies of statecraft which he believes they embodied. After the Second World War, Konrad Adenauer brought defeated and morally bankrupt Germany back into the community of nations by what Kissinger calls 'the strategy of humility'. Charles de Gaulle set France beside the victorious Allies and renewed its historic grandeur by 'the strategy of will'. During the Cold War, Richard Nixon gave geostrategic advantage to the United States by 'the strategy of equilibrium'. After twenty-five years of conflict, Anwar Sadat brought a vision of peace to the Middle East by a 'strategy of transcendence'. Against the odds, Lee Kwan Yew created a powerhouse city-state, Singapore, by 'the strategy of excellence'. Although when she came to power Britain was known as 'the sick man of Europe', Margaret Thatcher renewed her country's morale and international position by 'the strategy of conviction'. 
 
To each of these studies, Kissinger brings historical perception, public experience and - because he knew each of their subjects, and participated in many of the events he describes - personal knowledge. The book is enriched by insights and judgements such as only he could make, and concludes with his reflections on world order and the indispensability of leadership today.

Leadership

Six Studies in World Strategy

Wesley Lowery

In 2008, Barack Obama's historic victory was heralded as a turning point for the USA. And so it would be - just not in the way that most Americans hoped. The election of the nation's first Black president fanned long-burning embers of white supremacy, igniting a new and frightening phase in a continuous historical cycle of racial progress and white backlash. 
 
In American Whitelash, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Wesley Lowery charts the return of this blood-stained trend, showing how the forces of white power retaliated against Obama's victory - and both profited from, and helped to propel, the rise of Donald Trump. Drawing on gripping first-hand reporting, he investigates four incidents of white violence since 2008: the killing of an Ecuadorian immigrant in a working-class town in Long Island, a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, an attack on a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City, and the murder of Oscar Grant, the first in an unrelenting series of police shootings that would lead to the largest sustained protest movement in the US since the Civil Rights era. 
 
Interweaving deep historical analysis with interviews with both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is entering into ever more perilous territory, and how the country still might find a route of escape.

American Whitelash

The Resurgence of Racial Violence in Our Time

Arundhati Roy

Over a lifetime spent at the frontline of solidarity and resistance, Arundhati Roy&rsquo;s words have lit a clear way through the darkness that surrounds us. Combining the skills of the architect she trained to be and the writer she became, she illuminates the hidden structures of modern empire like no one else, revealing their workings so that we can resist. 
 
Her subjects: war, nationalism, fundamentalism and rising fascism, turbocharged by neoliberalism and now technology. But also: truth, justice, freedom, resistance, solidarity and above all imagination &ndash; in particular the imagination to see what is in front of us, to envision another way, and to fight for it. 
 
Arundhati Roy&rsquo;s voice &ndash; as distinct and compelling in conversation as in her writing &ndash; explores these themes and more in this essential collection of interviews with David Barsamian, conducted over two decades, from 2001 to the present.

The Architecture of Modern Empire

Simon Heffer

‘An epic new history . . . a work of epic scholarship, breathtaking range, and piercing originality’ Daily Express 
‘An astonishing achievement of narrative history . . . I think the word is "magisterial".’ Spectator 
‘Excellent, thorough, detailed and combatively argued.’ Sunday Times______________________________________ 
 
Sing As We Go is an astonishingly ambitious overview of the political, social and cultural history of the country from 1919 to 1939. 
 
It explores and explains the politics of the period, and puts such moments of national turmoil as the General Strike of 1926 and the Abdication Crisis of 1936 under the microscope. It offers pen portraits of the era's most significant figures. It traces the changing face of Britain as cars made their first mass appearance, the suburbs sprawled, and radio and cinema became the means of popular entertainment. And it probes the deep divisions that split the nation: between the haves and have-nots, between warring ideological factions, and between those who promoted accommodation with fascism in Europe and those who bitterly opposed it. 
__________________________________________'Magisterial . . . an extraordinary achievement.’ Literary Review 
‘A masterful portrayal of political, social and cultural upheaval between the wars.’ Daily Mail

Sing As We Go

Britain Between the Wars

Diarmuid Hester

At the turn of the century, in the shade of Cambridge's cloisters, a young E. M. Forster conceals his passion for other men, even as he daydreams about the sun-warmed bodies of ancient Greece. Under the dazzling lights of interwar Paris, Josephine Baker dances her way to fame and fortune and discovers sexual freedom backstage at the Folies Bergère. And on Jersey, in the darkest days of Nazi occupation, the transgressive surrealist Claude Cahun mounts an extraordinary resistance to save the island she loves, scattering hundreds of dissident artworks along its streets and shorelines. 
 
Nothing Ever Just Disappears brings to life the stories of seven remarkable figures and illuminates the connections between where they lived, who they loved, and the art they created. It shows that a queer sense of place is central to the history of the twentieth century and powerfully evokes how much is lost when queer spaces are forgotten. From the lesbian London of the suffragettes to James Baldwin's home in Provence, to Jack Smith's New York, Kevin Killian's San Francisco and the Dungeness cottage of Derek Jarman, this is a thrilling new history and a celebration of freedom, survival and the hidden places of the imagination.

Nothing Ever Just Disappears

Seven Hidden Histories

Tommy Conlon

Ronan McGreevy

November 1983. As top supermarket executive Don Tidey sets out on the school run, he is snatched from his car and driven away at speed. The IRA, using kidnapping to fund its armed campaign, has its latest victim. 
 
What follows is a massive manhunt and, twenty-three days later, a chaotic rescue in a Leitrim wood. No one emerges unscathed – not the man at the centre of the drama, not the local community, not the police, not the Irish state. And especially not the families of the soldier and the young police officer killed as Tidey is freed. 
 
Powerful, intimate and searching, The Kidnapping is a brilliantly reported account of an iconic episode and the shadow it still casts.

The Kidnapping

A hostage, a desperate manhunt and a bloody rescue that shocked Ireland

John Rapley

Peter Heather

Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, suddenly, around the turn of the millennium, history reversed. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political division, the West has found itself in rapid decline. 
 
This is not the first time the global order has witnessed such a dramatic rise and fall. The Roman Empire followed a similar arc from dizzying power to disintegration - a fact that is more than a strange historical coincidence. In Why Empires Fall, historian Peter Heather and political economist John Rapley use this Roman past to think anew about the contemporary West, its state of crisis, and what paths we could take out of it. 
 
In this exceptional, transformative intervention, Heather and Rapley explore the uncanny parallels - and productive differences - between the two cases, moving beyond the familiar tropes of invading barbarians and civilizational decay to learn new lessons from ancient history. From 399 to 1999, the life cycles of empires, they argue, sow the seeds of their inevitable destruction. The era of western global domination has reached its end - so what comes next?

Why Empires Fall

Rome, America and the Future of the West

James Holland

'Richly impressive, hard to surpass' William Boyd 
'A notable account of an epic human experience' Max Hastings 
&lsquo;James Holland brings every inch of this battle vividly to life&rsquo; History Revealed 
&lsquo;This excellent book&hellip;The Savage Storm reinforces Holland&rsquo;s reputation as certainly the busiest and probably the most popular military historian of the second world war working today&rsquo; Spectator 
&lsquo;A must for anyone wanting to better understand the brutal campaign&hellip; thoroughly deserves a place on the bookshelf&rsquo; Soldier Magazine 
_____________________ 
 
From the bestselling author of Brothers in Arms comes the story of the most pivotal Allies campaign of World War II. 
 
With the invasion of France the following year taking shape, and hot on the heels of victory in Sicily, the Allies crossed into Southern Italy in September 1943. They expected to drive the Axis forces north and be in Rome by Christmas. And although Italy surrendered, the German forces resisted fiercely and the swift hoped-for victory descended into one of the most brutal battles of the war. 
 
Even though shipping and materiel were already being safeguarded for the D-Day landings, there were still huge expectations on the progress of the invading armies, but those shortages were to slow the advance with tragic consequences. As the weather closed in, the critical weeks leading up to Monte Cassino would inflict a heavy price for every bloody, hard fought mile the Allied troops covered. 
 
Chronicling those dark, dramatic months in unflinching and insightful detail, The Savage Storm is unlike any campaign history yet written. James Holland has always recounted the Second World War at ground level, but this version telling brings the story vividly to life like never before. Weaving together a wealth of letters, diaries, and other incredible documents, Holland traces the battles as they were fought - across plains, over mountains, through shattered villages and cities, in intense heat and, towards the end, frigid cold and relentless rain - putting readers at the heart of the action to create an entirely fresh and revealing telling of this most pivotal phase of the war. 
_____________________ 
 
Praise for James Holland 
 
'Impeccably researched and superbly written' Observer 
'Holland has something new to say.... Filled with insight and detail' Neil Oliver 
'James Holland is the best of the new generation of WW2 historians' Sebastian Faulks 
'[A] captivating and dramatic account. . . Drawn from letters and diaries, Holland&rsquo;s immersive narrative is told through the eye-level perspectives... Readers will be enthralled' Publishers Weekly 
&lsquo;A remarkable achievement by a historian at the height of his powers. Holland has successfully illustrated both the significance and the savagery of the Italian campaign... through a powerful and compelling narrative&rsquo; Military History Matters

The Savage Storm

The Brutal Battle for Italy 1943

Owen Matthews

The new novel from a master of the Cold War thriller . . . 
 
'This is Robert Harris storytelling territory' Daily Mail 
'Outstanding' Sunday Times 
'Tense, exciting and authentic' Charles Cumming, author of Judas 62 
'Stunning' The Times 
'Brilliantly plotted' John Sweeney, author of Killer in the Kremlin 
'A standout thriller' Financial Times 
 
1963. In a desolate Russian penal colony, a radio broadcasts news of the killing of 
President John F. Kennedy . . . 
 
Alexander Vasin's new posting as director of a brutal gulag camp is far from a promotion. This is where disgraced KGB officers are sent to disappear, quietly, and forgotten. 
 
But when a violent revolt breaks out, Vasin must decide: run or die. So he runs. With him goes a mysterious prisoner – an individual who might hold the key to an extraordinarily dangerous secret: the identity of who really ordered Kennedy’s assassination. 
 
Racing from bleak Siberian wastelands to the grey streets of Soviet Moscow, Vasin needs to stay one step ahead of the most ruthless intelligence organization in the world in order to keep the most wanted man in Russia alive. And with his loyalty, morality and patriotic duty tested to the limits, he will face the ultimate choice: fall in line, or die fighting the system . . . 
 
Weaving together a critical moment in history with the cut-throat machinations of Soviet politics, this tautly told, nail-bitingly atmospheric novel is a superb Cold War thriller.

White Fox

'A masterpiece - a time machine that transports the reader back to British politics and high society at the end of the 1930s.' Robert Harris 
 
'An unrivalled guide to the social and political life of Britain in the first half of the 20th century.' Books of the Year, The Times 
 
'Fascinating.' New Statesman 
 
'Never a dull day, never a dull sentence.' Daily Mail 
_______________________________________________ 
The political career of Conservative MP Henry ‘Chips’ Channon (1897–1958) was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Witty, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and knew everyone. 
 
This second of three volumes opens in October 1938 with Channon optimistically believing that his hero Neville Chamberlain can stave off a general European conflagration. It closes with the expression of his hope that Mussolini’s fall from power in July 1943 means ‘The war must be more than half over’. In the intervening pages, he charts diplomatic to-ings and fro-ings and political manouevring, hatches a plan to keep Yugoslavia in the Allied camp, dines with English high society and foreign royalty, and passes not-always-charitable judgements on contemporaries who range from Winston Churchill and General de Gaulle to Noël Coward and Oscar Wilde’s erstwhile lover Lord Alfred Douglas.

Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 2)

1938-43

Brendan O'Leary

A century ago the resolution to Ireland’s long struggle for independence was a settlement that saw six of its northern counties remain in the United Kingdom while the other twenty-six formed the new Republic of Ireland. Since partition the unification of the two parts of the island has seemed impossible, particularly because of the bloody legacy of past conflict. 
 
However, by 2030, if not sooner, the demographic and electoral advantages of Ulster Unionists – who identify as British – will be over. Political developments on both sides of the Irish border, and within Great Britain, make calls for unification referendums increasingly likely. Yet even those who want these to happen are not prepared. 
 
Making Sense of a United Ireland is a remarkable exploration of this most contentious of issues by Professor Brendan O'Leary, a global expert on divided places, who has worked on the Irish question for nearly forty years.

Making Sense of a United Ireland

Should it happen? How might it happen?

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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