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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Douglas Jackson

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?

If you like Simon Scarrow and Ben Kane, you'll absolutely love this enthralling and action-packed novel of Roman adventure from bestselling author Douglas Jackson. 
 
Readers are loving Gaius Valerius Verrens! 
"A triumph of a novel" - 5 STARS 
"Impossible to put down." - 5 STARS 
"A real unputdownable read" - 5 STARS 
"Spellbinding" - 5 STARS 
 
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A SOLDIER'S SWORD WILL DECIDE THE FATE OF ROME 
 
Emperor Nero's grip on power is weakening - more and more fearful of losing his position, his paranoia settles on the figure of the popular Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, Rome's greatest General who leads the imperial legions in the East. Is he preparing to march against Rome? 
 
Gaius Valerius Verrens is ordered to Antioch on a mission to kill Corbulo, a soldier he worships...Yet Corbulo's eyes are not on Rome, but on a new threat to the Empire's border: the Parthian King, Vologases, is marching to war and with such an army that if not stopped he might overwhelm the entire Roman east. 
 
Valerius marches at Corbulo's side. Outnumbered they make a stand to meet Vologases in an epic contest of military might and ingenuity that will decide the fate of the Empire. 
 
And while he fights for the Empire, and for his own survival on the battlefield, Valerius must decide whether to complete his mission, or risk incurring his Emperor's dangerous wrath. 
 
Gaius Valerius Verrens's adventures continue in Sword of Rome.

Avenger of Rome

(Gaius Valerius Verrens 3): a gripping and vivid Roman page-turner you won’t want to stop reading

James Holland

The night of May 16th, 1943. Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge 9,000lb cylindrical bomb strapped underneath it. Their mission: to destroy three dams deep within the German heartland, which provide the lifeblood to the industries supplying the Third Reich's war machine. 
 
From the outset it was an almost impossible task, a suicide mission: to fly low and at night in formationover many miles of enemy-occupied territory at the very limit of the Lancasters' capacity, and drop a new weapon that had never been tried operationally before from a precise height of just sixty feet from the water at some of the most heavily defended targets in Germany. 
 
More than that, the entire operation had to be put together in less than ten weeks. When visionary aviation engineer Barnes Wallis's concept of the bouncing bomb was green lighted, he hadn't even drawn up his plans for the weapon that was to smash the dams. What followed was an incredible race against time, which, despite numerous setbacks and against huge odds, became one of the most successful and game-changing bombing raids of all time.

Dam Busters

The Race to Smash the Dams, 1943

Tom Abraham

Tom 'Bud' Abraham was one of the very few Englishmen to serve in Vietnam. As an officer in the 1st Cavalry Division during 1967/8, he saw combat in some of the fiercest encounters of the war. His gallantry earned him a chestful of medals, including the Silver Star, one of the highest decorations awarded by the American Army. 
 
During the Tet Offensive, Tom was captured by the Vietcong. The suffering he endured during his interrogation and torture tested him to the limits, and yet his daring escape into the surrounding jungle was the beginning of a new ordeal. His struggle to survive, naked and alone, would drag him down to the level of a primitive beast. 
 
After he returned to England from Vietnam, Tom made a new life. He married, became a father, and started a successful career in business. It seemed that he had forgotten the nightmare of the past. But more than thirty years later, a trivial encounter with the police began a catastrophic chain of events. He lost everything - his family, his home, his self-respect. It became all too obvious that the psychological and emotional wounds he received in Vietnam were still festering. 
 
In trying to rebuild his life, Tom had once more to confront those traumatic memories that he had buried so deep. If he were to have any chance of a future, he would have to relive the past. His terrifying yet inspiring journey is the story of this book.

The Cage

Andy McNab

Abandoned as a baby, Andy McNab's start in life was tough. Growing up in South London with foster parents, and surrounded by poverty, he attended seven schools in as many years, disillusioned and in remedial classes. It wasn’t long before his life descended into petty crime. By the age of sixteen, he was in juvenile detention. 
 
Recruited into the Army from there, it soon became apparent that he had the reading age of an eleven year old. The next six months in the Army education system changed his course of his life forever. Today Everything Changes is the inspiring story of when life changed for Andy McNab.

Today Everything Changes

Quick Read

Matt Gallagher

Iraq, late 2007. Lieutenant Matt Gallagher arrives just as US policy shifts from lethal operations to counter-insurgency. He encounters a world where nothing is as it seems. Friends are enemies, reconciliation is war, roads are bombs and silence is deadly. Nothing left to do except 'embrace the suck'... 
 
...and blog about it. Matt Gallagher's response was to write an on-line journal (called Kaboom) which quickly went viral. Read by thousands of soldiers who recognised its unflinchingly honest portrayal of the real war, as well as high-ranking Pentagon officials and interested parties around the world, Kaboom was shut down by the US Army in June 2008. Now you can read the whole story, based on that brilliant, acerbic, banned blog. Kaboom paints a shockingly original and uncompromising portrait of a savage war the world is still struggling to understand.

Kaboom

Mike Rossiter

Operation Market Garden: a plan to capture the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem and outflank the German front. 
 
In all twelve thousand airborne troops were to land, either by parachute or glider, at three drop zones and move towards their objective. As the world now knows the mission was to be 'a bridge too far' for the British forces. 
 
Mike Rossiter has interviewed three of the survivors of those fateful days, each involved in a different flank of the British attack, and in vivid detail reconstructs the events that lead up to this most famous of glorious defeats. It is at once a story of hubris and bad planning, but also of valiant sacrifice and inspirational courage.

We Fought at Arnhem

Rowland White

It was to be one of the most ambitious operations since 617 Squadron bounced their revolutionary bombs into the dams of the Ruhr Valley in 1943 . . . 
 
April 1982. Argentine forces had invaded the Falkland Islands. Britain needed an answer. And fast. 
 
The idea was simple: to destroy the vital landing strip at Port Stanley. The reality was more complicated. The only aircraft that could possibly do the job was three months from being scrapped, and the distance it had to travel was four thousand miles beyond its maximum range. It would take fifteen Victor tankers and seventeen separate in-flight refuellings to get one Avro Vulcan B2 over the target, and give its crew any chance of coming back alive. 
 
Yet less than a month later, a formation of elderly British jets launched from a remote island airbase to carry out the longest-range air attack in history. At its head was a single aircraft, six men, and twenty-one thousand-pound bombs, facing the hornet’s nest of modern weaponry defending the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands. There would be no second chances . . .

Vulcan 607

Christabel Bielenberg

Brought together for the first time in one edition, both of Christabel Bielenberg's bestselling memoirs give an incredibly moving, emotionally charged and compelling insight into life in Nazi Germany during The Third Reich and during the aftermath of World War Two. Offering a new perspective, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the wartime era. 
 
'This is one of the best WWII books I have ever read' -- ***** Reader review 
'An excellent book and a must-read for anyone interested in this era' -- ***** Reader review 
'Absorbing' -- ***** Reader review 
'Intensely moving' -- ***** Reader review 
'A wonderful book. I couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review 
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The Past is Myself 
 Christabel Bielenberg, a niece of newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe, married a German lawyer in 1934. She lived through the war in Germany, as a German citizen under the horrors of Nazi rule and Allied bombings. The Past is Myself is her story of that experience - and an unforgettable portrait of an evil time. 
 
 The Road Ahead 
 Following the extraordinary success of her wartime memoir, The Past is Myself, Christabel Bielenberg received thousands of letters from readers begging her to describe what happened next. In The Road Ahead she continues her story with the outbreak of peace - a time of struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. She also tells of life in her newly adopted country, Ireland, her involvement with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland, and with characteristic modesty and gratitude, looks back on a rich, full life. 
 
Anyone interested in the Second World War and life in the 1930s and 1940s will devour these unflinchingly honest and enthralling memoirs, published together in one edition for the first time.

The Past is Myself & The Road Ahead Omnibus

When I Was a German, 1934-1945:  omnibus edition of two bestselling wartime memoirs that depict life in Nazi Germany with alarming honesty

Malcolm McPherson

Their mission was straightforward - to set up an Al Qaeda observation post in the south-eastern mountains of Afghanistan. No-one was expecting any difficulties. 
 
Instead three men - a Navy SEAL, an Air Force Combat Air Controller and an Army Ranger platoon commander - were pinned down by hostile fire on top of Takur Ghat mountain. Only one of them survived to recall the horrors of what became a truly terrible day . . . The resulting rescue mission turned into a seventeen hour battle that left seven soldiers dead. 
 
Roberts Ridge is the visceral story of those seventeen hours. With access to Pentagon generals, the SEALS and the survivors, Malcolm MacPherson takes the reader deep into the heart of the battle of Takur Ghat and brings us face to face with the reality of the new war against terrorism.

Roberts Ridge

‘A notable account of an epic human experience' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 
 
‘Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war’ Sir Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, 18 June 1940 
 
The Nazi Blitzkrieg was unlike any invasion the world had ever seen. It hit Europe with a force and aggression that no-one could counter. Within weeks the German armies were at the French coast and looking across at Britain. It seemed impossible that she would be able to resist invasion. 
 
Between the Nazis and glory stood an apparently fragile defence, but the men and women of Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands and the Royal Navy would not be cowed. Their heroics that summer would go down in history. 
 
In The Battle of Britain for the first time, James Holland tells this most epic of stories from a 360° perspective – when the fate of the world truly hung by a thread.

The Battle of Britain

General Sir Richard Dannatt

General Sir Richard Dannatt's distinguished career in the army has spanned thirty-eight years and seen him serve in many different theatres of conflict, from Northern Ireland (where he was awarded the Military Cross) to Bosnia and Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. His experiences have forged an unwavering loyalty to the fighting British soldier. 
 
As Chief of the General Staff, he was given overall command of the British army at a time when the fighting was fiercest in Afghanistan. But from his very first day in the job, General Dannatt proved himself a courageous leader and a forceful advocate for his men, never shying from controversy to tell the truth as he found it. 
 
More than any leader in recent times, Dannatt has used his position of command to get a better deal for the British soldier - the right equipment, the right conditions, the right reward - to do the job we ask of them. His leadership and example have shaped the debate about the role of the professional army in modern warfare. 
 
Leading from the Front is General Sir Richard Dannatt's reflections on a life of military service which offers a characteristically frank analysis of whether Britain's defence strategy is fit to deal with the numerous threats we will face in the 21st century.

Leading from the Front

An autobiography

Tough, resourceful, ruthless - as an SAS trooper Nick Stone was one of the best. Now he's back on the streets, working for British Intelligence as a deniable operator. It's the dirtiest job in a very, very dirty world. 
 
Andy McNab's blistering Nick Stone thrillers are bestsellers whose landscape is so compellingly close to the truth that they had to be vetted by the Ministry of Defence, and could only be published as fiction. . .

Tough, resourceful and ruthless, ex-SAS trooper Nick Stone is now working for British Intelligence on deniable operations. And is desperately in need of cash. 
 
When he is offered a lucrative freelance job, Stone thinks his problems are over. All he needs to do is kidnap a Russian mafia warlord. 
 
And so Stone is thrust into the grim underworld of Estonia, with unknown aggressors stalking the Arctic landscape. Russia has launched a cyber-espionage attack, hacking into the West's most sensitive military secrets. Stone must stop them. But the mafia are waiting in the wings with their own chillingly brutal solution...

Firewall

(Nick Stone Thriller 3)

'We believed in ourselves so much, no one ever panicked, even when the situation looked so desperate. We all believed that our best chance of staying alive was to stick together.' 
 
Flying Lancaster bombers was one of the most dangerous missions of the war. Yet night after night Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey King and the crew of C Charlie risked their lives in the skies over Germany. Together they faced incredible dangers, flak damage, close encounters with the fighter planes of the Luftwaffe, and crash landings. 
 
Against this background a friendship was formed that bound the crew of C Charlie together against all odds. 
 
Geoffrey King and the crew of C Charlie are unique in having flown together for fifty missions and living to tell the tale. Bomber Flight Berlin is the story of a group of ordinary men, from different walks of life, thrown together by the forces of war. It is the story of those missions above Berlin, as they flew into what seemed certain death, and aircraft all around them were blasted out of the sky. It is also a testament to a remarkable friendship.

Bomber Flight Berlin

Following the extraordinary success of her wartime memoirs, The Past Is Myself, Christabel Bielenberg received thousands of letters from readers begging her to describe what happened next. The Road Ahead takes up the story at the moment the first volume left off - with the outbreak of peace. 
 
Germany was devastated by war and its aftermath, while Britain seemed grey and exhausted to Christabel. She was soon appointed the Observer's special correspondent in Germany, and, reunited with her husband, Peter (technically an enemy alien), she joined the struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. It was Peter's near-fatal accident and her own illness which decided the young couple to turn their backs on England and Germany and make a new start farming in Ireland. 
 
Life was harsh at first, but predictably Christabel found humour in the accidents of poverty and the many mishaps of country life. The beautiful scenery of the Wicklow Mountains provided a haven for the family and for the hosts of young people from all over the world who joined them each summer. Christabel became involved with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland and learned as much as she could about the adopted country she had grown to love so passionately. Taking her seventieth birthday as a stopping point for a life that even now, some fourteen further years on, is as rich and full as it ever was, she looks back with characteristic modesty and gratitude. Her readers will be enchanted by this second volume of memoirs, as clear-sighted and generous, as honest, funny, touching and brave as The Past Is Myself.

The Road Ahead

From bestselling author Douglas Jackson, a gripping and visceral novel of the Roman invasion of Britain, for fans of Conn Iggulden and Simon Scarrow. 
 
"What stands out are Jackson's superb battle scenes. I lost myself in the riveting depictions of combat . . . I was gripped from start to finish." -- Ben Kane. 
"You will be reading this and saying to yourself, "Just one more page!"..." - ***** Reader review. 
"THIS is the story I was waiting on!" - ***** Reader review. 
 
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EMPEROR OF ROME. CONQUEROR OF BRITAIN. 
 
43 AD. Southern England. Caratacus, war chief of the Britons, watches as the scarlet cloaks of the Roman legions spread across his lands like blood. 
 
In Rome, Emperor Claudius desires total conquest and dreams of taking his place in history alongside his illustrious forebears Caesar and Augustus. 
 
Among the legions marches Rufus, keeper of the Emperor's elephant. War is coming and the united tribes of Britain will make a desperate stand against the might of Rome in their fight for freedom. 
 
The Emperor has a very special purpose for Rufus and his elephant in the midst of the battle - will the Gods favour him? 
 
Have you read Caligula - where Rufus's adventures begin?

Claudius

An action-packed historical page-turner full of intrigue and suspense…

Spoken from the Front is the story of the Afghan Campaign, told for the first time in the words of the servicemen and women who have been fighting there. With unprecedented access to soldiers of all ranks, as well as pilots, reservists, engineers, medics, Royal Military police, mechanics, cooks and other military personnel, Andy McNab has assembled a portrait of modern conflict like never before. 
 
This is the full experience of our troops on the ground and in the air. The horrors, cruelties, drudgery, excitement and banter of these soldiers' lives combine to form a chronological narrative of all the major events in Helmand during the British Army's time there. 
 
From their action-packed, dramatic, moving and often humorous testimonies in interviews, diaries, letters and emails written to family, friends and loved ones, emerges a 360-degree picture of guerrilla warfare up close and extremely personal. It is as close to the real thing as you can get.

Spoken From The Front

January 1972: the tiny outpost of British Honduras is threatened with imminent invasion by battle-hardened, US-trained Guatemalan paratroops. Britain's response must be immediate and decisive. But there is only one deterrent the government can offer: HMS Ark Royal, once the Navy's most powerful warship, now a white elephant on the verge of being scrapped. 
 
To save the small colony, she must launch a pair of Buccaneer fighter bombers on an unprecedented long-range mission. But first the old carrier must make a high-speed, 1,500 mile dash across the Atlantic towards the Gulf of Mexico. The odds of arriving in time are very slim indeed... 
 
Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts and previously unseen, classified documents, Rowland White has pieced together one of the most audacious and thrilling missions of post-war British military history.

Phoenix Squadron

HMS Ark Royal, Britain's last Topguns and the untold story of their most dramatic mission

John Moffat

In the early hours of the 27th of May, 1941, the German warship Bismarck - scourge of the Atlantic ocean - was sailing towards a fateful encounter. Two days previously, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had issued the order to "Sink the Bismarck". High winds and low visibility added to the atrocious morning weather as Fleet Air Arm pilot, John Moffat, took to the air in his open cockpit bomber. 
 
Along with twelve other brave pilots, John Moffat took down the largest warship of its time. A warship that had destroyed the famed HMS Hood within minutes, and was able to withstand anything the British military threw at them. These men, in their Swordfish, managed to avoid the fearful anti-aircraft fire and launched their torpedoes. One of them hit, holing the German warship. 
 
This is his story - of how as a young man he experienced first-hand the titanic struggle for naval supremacy, the cramped-cabins and meagre rations of WW2, the mind-numbing patrols over hundreds of miles of ocean and the adrenalin and fear of being in a fragile aircraft sought out by gunfire. As the only surviving member of his fellow pilots, John Moffat tells of everything that led him to be able to say, "I sank the Bismarck".

I Sank The Bismarck

James Nelson

Bestselling author James Nelson brings us another maritime adventure packed with battle, duty, heroism and tragedy. Perfect for readers of Julian Stockwin, CS Forester and Alexander Kent. 
 
"A triumph of imagination and good taut writing" -- BERNARD CORNWELL 
"A master both of his period and of the English language" -- PATRICK O'BRIAN 
"Nelson handles deftly the O'Brian dominated maritime genre with...tense action and battle sequences" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 
"Another page turner by James L Nelson. Gripping action with minute attention paid to historical accuracy." -- ***** Reader review 
"A literary masterpiece" -- ***** Reader review 
"Great history, great storytelling." -- ***** Reader review 
 
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CAN HE FIND THE STRENGTH HE NEEDS, AGAINST ALL ODDS? 
 
Having survived the bloody Battle of New Orleans and the loss of his ship, Captain Sam Bowater is given new orders - to take command of an ironclad warship being built in Memphis, Tennessee. Bowater and his men are taken up river by 'Mississippi' Mike Sullivan, one of the wild, undisciplined captains of the River Defence Squadron, only to find, on their arrival, that their ship is not even half-built and the enemy is closing in fast. 
 
Against his better judgment, Bowater joins forces with Sullivan on board his river gunship. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Confederates once again fling themselves bravely at the overwhelming power of the Yankee invaders. The deadly fight along the Mississippi ends at last in the massive naval battle of Memphis, as the Confederates attempt to hold back the Northern advance. 
 
Thieves of Mercy is the conclusion of James Nelson's Civil War at Sea series. The action started in Glory In The Name.

Thieves Of Mercy

a stunning and heart-pounding novel of naval adventure set during the US Civil War

They were like a band of brothers... 
 
In 1983 Andy McNab was assigned to B Squadron, one of the four Sabre Squadrons of the SAS, and within it to Air Troop, otherwise known as SEVEN TROOP. 
 
This is Andy McNab's gripping account of the time he served in the company of a remarkable group of men - from the day, freshly badged, he joined them in the Malayan jungle, to the day, ten years later, that he handed in his sand-coloured beret and started a new life. The links they forged then bound them inextricably together, but the things they saw and did during that time would take them all to breaking point - and some beyond - in the years that were to follow. He who dares doesn't always win...

Seven Troop

In the dead of night on 20 March 2003, Royal Navy Marines from 40 and 42 Commando board a fleet of twenty helicopters. With faces blackened and mouths dry at the thought of what lies ahead, they have been given the job of capturing the oil pipelines and pumping stations through which 90 per cent of Iraq's oil is exported, to seal off the whole of the Faw peninsula and hold it against any counter-attack by the Iraqi Army. They will be the first troops on the ground in Iraq, literally kicking the door down. They will also suffer the first allied casualties in the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein. 
 
Operation Telic was a bold and audacious break with military doctrine, a night-time airborne assault against heavily defended positions. 
 
With the Commandos lightly armed and isolated, the night-time landing was just the beginning. They were engaged in a series of fast-moving and hard-fought battles as they moved rapidly north until they reached the outskirts of Basra. 
 
Finally, after a two-day battle that broke the back of the Iraqi resistance, and eighteen days after their first contact with the enemy, Royal Marine Commandos entered the presidential palace in Basra. 
 
Told from the perspective, and with the cooperation of officers and men in the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, Target Basra is a story of courage, fortitude and the harsh realities of modern war, fought in the context of the turmoil of the Middle East.

Target Basra

Evan Wright

Generation Kill is about the young men sent to fight their nation's first open-ended war since Vietnam. Despite the flurry of media images to come of the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you have never really met any of these people, who serve as front-line troops. For whatever reason, the media simply doesn't get them. As we all know, news accounts of the last two wars focused almost exclusively on battlefield imagery of high-tech weapons wreaking astounding destruction, comply with analysis from retired army grandees and other experts, punctuated by the odd heart-warming patriotic sound-bite. The troops themselves play a role in the media's presentation of recent wars rather like extras in The Triumph of the Will. They are everywhere yet somehow invisible. When they speak you get the sense that what they are saying has been carefully scripted. Now Generation Kill tells the soldiers' story in their own words. 
 
The narrative focuses on a platoon of 23 marines, many of them veterans of Afghanistan, whose elite reconnaissance unit spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This is the story of young men that have been trained to become ruthless killers. It's about surviving death. It's about taking part in a war many questioned before it even began. 
 
Evan Wright was the only reporter with First Recon, which operated well ahead of most other forces, usually behind enemy lines. They were among the first marines sent into the fight and one of the last units still engaged on the outskirts of Iraq, even after the city centre fell. Generation Kill is not just a combat chronicle but an inside look at how people fighting in war actually experience it. It is both an action narrative like Black Hawk Down and a detailed portrait of a generation at war along the lines of Band of Brothers. It is not a book you are going to forget in a hurry...

Generation Kill

On the evening of 30 March, 1982, Commander David Hall, chief engineer of the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror received a telephone call giving him the order to 'store for war'. At first he didn't believe it. In the early hours of 2 April, Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Isles. 
 
The sinking of the Belgrano was one of the most dramatic moments of the Falklands conflict. For many it signalled Britain's entry into the war and it has been seen as a politically motivated decision deliberately designed to take the country irrevocably into the fight. Now Mike Rossiter - with unprecedented access to sailors from the Belgrano and HMS Conqueror - gives us a dramatic and definitive retelling of the events that led up to the sinking. 
 
With all the pace and tension of a thriller, Sink the Belgrano takes us inside the battle for the South Atlantic and shows us the human drama behind the famous, and controversial, Sun headline 'Gotcha!' We track the collision course between the British submarine Conqueror and the Argentine warship - as the two sides and everyone aboard head towards the climactic moment just outside the exclusion zone set up by the British around the Falkland Isles. We witness the behind-the-scenes arguments , discussions and powerbroking that led to the decision to fire the three torpedoes. And, for the first time, we hear from the sailors on both sides - the personal testimony of the hunt for and attack on the Belgrano, and from the Argentine side the experience of being under attack and the sinking that left 340 members of her crew dead.

Sink the Belgrano

Immediate Action is a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary life, from the day Andy McNab was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War. 
 
As a delinquent youth he kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS Regiment he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years - on five continents. 
 
Recounting with grim humour and in riveting, often horrifying, detail his activities in the world's most highly trained and efficient Special Forces unit, McNab sweeps us into a world of surveillance and intelligence-gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage rescue.There are casualties: the best men are so often the first to be killed, because they are in front. 
 
By turns chilling, astonishing, violent, funny and moving, this blistering first-hand account of life at the forward edge of battle confirms Andy McNab's standing in the front rank of writers on modern war.

Immediate Action

Bestselling author James Nelson brings us another gripping and absorbing maritime adventure. Perfect for readers of Julian Stockwin, CS Forester and Alexander Kent. 
 
"It is, by far, the best Civil War novel I've ever read; reeking of battle, duty, heroism and tragedy...a triumph of imagination and good taut writing" -- BERNARD CORNWELL 
 
"Authenticity runs throughout the books, carrying total conviction" -- PATRICK O'BRIAN 
 
"Nelson handles deftly the O'Brian dominated maritime genre with...tense action and battle sequences" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 
 
"A real page turner where the reader feels part of the action.. you can almost feel the tension and atmosphere..." -- ***** Reader review 
 
"By far one of the best books I've ever read in my life" -- ***** Reader review 
 
****************************************************************************** 
 
THROWN IN AT THE DEEP END, CAN HE STEER HIS COMMAND TO VICTORY? 
 
At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Confederate Navy must defend nearly 3,000 miles of coastline with only a meagre collection of ships and a handful of men. One of these men is Sam Bowater, a former lieutenant in the United States Navy, who obtains his cherished first command in a tugboat turned gunboat, the Cape Fear, with a ragtag crew. 
 
Struggling with the pressures of his first command, in a naval service which is still learning the ropes, Bowater finds himself and his men the only defence between the Confederate shores and the massive Union Navy. 
 
From Hampton Roads to Roanoke Island, to an exciting, bloody night time river fight for New Orleans, Glory In The Name vividly brings to life the dramatic naval battles of the Civil War. 
 
Glory In The Name is the first story in James Nelson's Civil War at Sea series. The action continues in Thieves of Mercy.

Glory In The Name

an exciting, bloody and dramatic naval adventure set during the US Civil War

Michael J Durant

In the autumn of 1993, American special forces were dispatched to the famine-stricken land of Somalia. Their intervention in this war-torn country was the most dramatic US military action since Vietnam. A routine mission went horribly wrong when Michael Durant's Black Hawk helicopter was shot down over Mogadishu and he was quickly surrounded by Somali troops and taken captive. The brutal torture he underwent was made all too clear to the world when his coerced statements were broadcast on live television and his battered face appeared on the cover of magazines around the globe. 
 
Michael Durant's ordeal was first described in Mark Bowden's international bestseller Black Hawk Down and the critically acclaimed film of the same name. This, his first-person gripping account tells of bravery under fire, torture, imprisonment, and the terrifying day by day reality for a soldier, unarmed and helpless in enemy hands, fighting to survive.

In The Company Of Heroes

Jon Steele

Jon Steele is a war junkie. Soon after starting work as an ITN cameraman, he began to feel strangely at home in the kind of places ordinary people get evacuated from. Before long, he was living for the rush which comes as bullets fly past your head and bombs explode at your feet. Normal life just couldn't compete... 
 
In Georgia, Jon filmed on the last flight out of the besieged airport at Sokhumi, as the plane took off in the dead of night, all lights extinguished, going the wrong way down the runway, directly towards the nearby steep and virtually invisible mountain range while Abkhazian soldiers fired off random anti-aircraft shells in their general direction. 
In Moscow, he filmed in the midst of chaos as armed rebels and Militia fought bloodthirsty, hand-to-hand battles on the streets around him. 
In Rwanda, he filmed the horrific aftermath to the most brutal massacre of modern times - and his own neck got far too close to the edge of a machete for comfort. 
In Zaire, he filmed endless fields full of young children deranged by hunger and ravaged by cholera. 
In Bosnia, Jon realised that he had, in fact, seen and filmed more than he could cope with, and finally spiralled out of control, deep into emotional meltdown. 
 
But somehow War Junkie is also an incredibly funny and exhilarating book. The humour is dark but sharp as broken glass. The action comes so thick and fast you can forget to breathe. 
 
War Junkie is shocking, hilarious, deeply moving and, ultimately, it packs a powerful psychological punch. It will challenge everything you thought you knew about modern warfare as it shines an unforgiving spotlight into some of the darkest recesses of recent history.

War Junkie

Lt General Harold G Moore

Joseph L. Galloway

'If you want to know what is was like to go to Vietnam as a young American... and find yourself caught in ferocious, remorseless combat with an enemy as courageous and idealistic as you were, then you must read this book. Moore and Galloway have captured the terror and exhilaration, the comradeship and self-sacrifice, the brutality and compassion that are the dark heart of war' THE TIMES 
 
THE MUST READ CLASSIC OF THE VIETNAM WAR 
 
In November 1965, 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt.Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. 
 
Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War. How these men persevered - how they sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up - is both inspiring and devastating. 
 
General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, have interviewed hundreds of the men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders, to present a picture of soldiers facing the sort of brutal challenge they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. 
 
It is a spellbinding true portrait of warfare at its most visceral and desperate, which reveals to us, as rarely before, the extraordinary resources man can summon in the darkest of hours.

We Were Soldiers Once...And Young

Bestselling author James Nelson brings us another gripping and absorbing maritime adventure. Perfect for readers of Julian Stockwin, CS Forester and Alexander Kent. 
 
"Brilliant...Readers will gladly be swept along by a wonderful plot" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 
"A master both of his period and of the English language" -- PATRICK O'BRIAN 
"Many threads, at sea and at home, combine to make this a thrilling, un-put-downable period story." -- ***** Reader review 
"It is difficult to put this book down right from the start" -- ***** Reader review 
"A terrifically exciting adventure!" -- ***** Reader review 
 
************************************************************* 
ONE MISSION THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING... 
 
Thomas Marlowe, former pirate and captain of the Guardship, lives prosperously on his tobacco plantation near Williamsburg with his lovely wife Elizabeth. 
But when King James, the huge ex-slave who is in command of Marlowe's sloop, kills the crew of a slaveship - a blackbirder - and makes himself the most wanted man in Virginia, Marlowe is forced to go and hunt him down. 
 
Setting off in pursuit of the blackbirder, struggling to maintain control over his crew - rough privateers, set only on plunder - Marlowe follows James's trail of destruction all the way to the shores of Africa. 
 
There, in the slave port of Whydah, James and Marlowe face a common threat - and their final showdown. 
 
The Blackbirder is the second book of the Brethren of the Coast trilogy. Marlowe's story continues in The Pirate Round. Have you read The Guardship, the first adventure of the trilogy?

The Blackbirder

A captivating and thrilling adventure set on the high seas

If you like Patrick O'Brian and Bernard Cornwell, you will love this exciting, action-packed maritime adventure from bestselling author James Nelson. 
 
"A master both of his period and of the English language" -- PATRICK O'BRIAN 
"Brilliant...Readers will gladly be swept along by a wonderful plot" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 
"Don't just buy this one to see if you like it, get the three at once and cancel any engagements for the next several days." -- ***** Reader review 
"Read it far too quickly" -- ***** Reader review 
"Superb" -- ***** Reader review 
 
******************************************************** 
 
WHEN THE PAST THREATENS TO CATCH UP WITH HIM, CAN HE MUSTER THE STRENGTH HE NEEDS? 
 
When Thomas Marlowe decides to renounce his life as a pirate - and keep it a secret, he uses the bounty he has amassed to purchase a fine Virginia plantation from a beautiful young widow, Elizabeth Tinling. 
 
While defending her honour, he kills the favourite son of one of the colony's most powerful families. But in a clever piece of manoeuvring, he manages to win command of the Plymouth Prize, the colony's decrepit guardship, and is charged with leading the King's sailors in battle against the cutthroats who infest the waters off Virginia's shores. 
 
A threat from his illicit past appears, however, as an old pirate enemy plots to seize the colony's wealth, forcing Marlowe to choose between losing all - or facing the one man he fears. 
 
The Guardship is the first book of the Brethren of the Coast trilogy. Marlowe's story continues in The Blackbirder.

The Guardship

A thrilling, rip-roaring naval adventure guaranteed to keep you gripped

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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