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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

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Edward Posnett

‘An exceptional first book; Harvest is a subtle, fascinating braiding of travel, cultural and natural history … It is a pleasure and an education to journey with him in these pages’ Robert Macfarlane 
 
In a centuries-old tradition, farmers in northwestern Iceland scour remote coastal plains for the down of nesting eider ducks. 
 
High inside a vast cave in Borneo, men perched atop rickety ladders collect swiftlets’ nests, a delicacy believed to be a cure for almost anything. 
 
Eiderdown and edible birds’ nests: both are luxury products, ultimately destined for the super-rich. To the rest of the world these materials are mere commodities but to the harvesters they are all imbued with myth, tradition, folklore and ritual, and form part of a shared identity and history. 
 
These objects are two of the seven natural wonders whose stories Harvest tells: eiderdown, vicuña wool, sea silk, vegetable ivory, civet coffee, guano and edible birds’ nests. Harvest follows their journey from the wildest parts of the planet, traversing Iceland, Indonesia, and Peru, to its urban centres, drawing on the voices of the gatherers, shearers and entrepreneurs who harvest, process and trade them. 
 
Blending interviews, history and travel writing, Harvest sets these human stories against our changing economic and ecological landscape. What do they tell us about capitalism, global market forces and overharvesting? How does a local micro-economy survive in a hyper-connected world? 
 
Harvest makes us see the world with wonder, curiosity and new concern. It is an original and magical new map of our world and its riches.

Harvest

The Hidden Histories of Seven Natural Objects

Olivia Koski

Jana Grcevich

Selected as a Book of the Year 2017 in Sky at Night 
 
'Just the thing to captivate a bright child or anyone, in fact, who aspires to be the next Tim Peake' Daily Telegraph 
 
AN IMAGINATIVE EXPLORATION INTO THE 'WHAT IF' OF SPACE TRAVEL 
 
Imagine taking a hike along the windswept red plains of Mars to dig for signs of life, or touring one of Jupiter’s sixty-four moons where you can take photos of its swirling storms. For a mini-break on a tight budget, the Moon is quite majestic and very quiet if you can make it during the off-season. 
 
Beautifully illustrated and packed with real-world science, The Vacation Guide to the Solar System is the essential planning guide for the curious space adventurer, covering all of the essentials for your next voyage, how to get there, and what to do when you arrive. Written by an astronomer from the American Museum of Natural History and one of the creators of the Guerilla Science collective, this tongue-in-cheek reference guide is an imaginative exploration into the ‘what if’ of space travel, sharing fascinating facts about the planets in our solar system and even some moons! 
 
'SUPERB' BBC Sky at Night 
 
'The ultimate guide for any budding space tourist' BBC Focus

The Vacation Guide to the Solar System

Science for the Savvy Space Traveller

Kit Caless

A brilliantly quirky and affectionate look at a British institution: Wetherspoon Pubs and their incredible carpets. 
 
 If you’ve ever been in a Wetherspoon's (and who hasn't), you’ve probably looked down and noticed the brilliantly-hued carpet beneath your feet. But that carpet isn’t just for disguising spilt drinks… Each Wetherspoon has a carpet that is unique and bespoke, with a design inspired by the history of the building, its locale or the name of the pub. 
 
Thanks to the hit blog 'Wetherspoon's Carpets' – which posed the important question 'are any two Wetherspoon carpets the same?’ – these tapestried hymns to British boozers have become a cultural sensation. Now, Kit Caless has travelled the length and breadth of the UK, from Berkshire to Renfrewshire, Bradford to Bridgend, to photograph over 70 splendid carpets from Wetherspoons and meet some of the pubs' regulars. Each entry appears in all its glorious colour, along with Caless's witty and informative text on the inspiration for each carpet's design, the history of the pub and key facts about the branch and its regulars. 
 
Will your Spoons be there?

Spoon's Carpets

An Appreciation

Sam Hodges

Sophie Vickers

Forget Paris – London is the city for lovers. 
 
London for Lovers navigates the changing face of the Capital, with all of its secrets and surprises, mapping out romantic dates full of originality, spontaneity, and adventure, allowing you to concentrate on the main event – each other. 
 
Whether your idea of a blissful date is walking with dinosaurs in Crystal Palace or star-gazing in Greenwich Park, sniffing out the best street eats in Maltby Street or unearthing Gothic romance in Highgate Cemetery - there are ideas here to suit every mood, every season and every budget. 
 
There are suggested routes for quiet days of romance in Leafy London - from Hampstead Heath and Kensington Gardens, to Isabella Plantation and St James Park, taking in some secret gardens on the way. Or for the night owls, Late Night London - from the Seven Noses of Soho to the streets of Shoreditch, from Dalston's hippest bars to Exmouth Market's Cafe Kick. And then there's Lost London, Last Minute London, Lazy London and Learned London, as well as Live and Left-field London. 
 
For first dates and soul mates, long term Londoners or just visiting, this book freewheels through London to find you a few hours that could change everything.

London for Lovers

Evan S Connell

Evan S. Connell explores the quixotic obsession with the new, the hidden, the unattainable that burns in an individual's soul. 
 
Each essay is an extraordinary account of passionate pursuit by legendary explorers, visionaries, and seekers compelled by a singular desire. Here we find Marco Polo, El Dorado, Paracelsus, Columbus, the thousands of children in the Innocents' Crusade, Magellan, Mary Kingsley (a Victorian naturalist, ethnologist, sailor, scholar, and guest of cannibals, and Ibn Batuta (an indefatigable explorer of the fourteenth century whose travels in the Arab world and beyond made 'the journey of Marco Polo look like a stroll around the block'). 
 
'There's no end to the list, of course,' Connell adds, 'because gradually it descends from such legendary individuals to ourselves when, as children, obsessed by that same urge, we got permission to sleep in the backyard.'

El Dorado And Other Pursuits

Michael Rips

A refreshing antidote to the saccharine charms of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, this is the quirky and hilarious memoir of a criminal lawyer who gives up his New York practise to spend a year in the Etruscan town of Sutri, near Rome, where he moves - reluctantly - with his artist wife and baby.  Himself something of an eccentric from a bizarre Nebraskan family, he has spent his adult life living in hotels; and in Sutri, he heads straight for the caf- in the main square.  From there he observes the baroque events of small-town life, conjures up a cast of Italian eccentrics (including Pasquale and his hypersensitive organ of smell), and relishes the weirdness and the wonder of Sutri's history, folklore, architecture and above all its food - particularly the notorious 'fagioli regina' (beans in a tomato and pig skin sauce) and the annual Bean Festival.   Part of the delight of reading this memoir is that it not only evokes the sights and smells of an ancient and little-known town in Southern Italy, and brings its people to extraordinary life, but it also reveals the irresistible foibles and philosophy of a talented and unusual mind. Funny, philosophical and surprisingly moving, this is the story of how a rootless American finds home in the most unexpected places and how Pasquale and his compatriots put life into perspective in the strangest way.

Pasquale's Nose

Laurens Van Der Post

Laurens Van Der Post takes us behind the iron curtain of Soviet officialdom in a quest to discover the real Russia - a land full of enigma and secrecy, but treasured by its ordinary people.

Journey Into Russia

Aman Sethi

Every morning in Sadar Bazaar, one of the oldest markets in Delhi, a gang of men gather looking for work in the building trade. For five years, Aman Sethi shared their lives, and in particular that of Mohammed Ashraf. Ashraf is a mazdoor, an itinerant house-painter, but he's not a typical labourer - he's studied biology in college, and after college learnt how to repair TV sets, cut suits, and slice chicken. He lived all over India, but now he finds himself in Delhi: the second most populous city in the country. The morning will bring hangovers, whisky breakfasts and possibly answers to the lingering questions that haunt Ashraf. How did he get here? Why is he the way he is? And is there a way back home? 
 
One of the very best young journalists in India, Aman Sethi brings Ashraf vividly alive and illuminates the lives of countless others like him. Wry, humorous and insightful, A Free Man is an unforgettable portrait of an invisible man in his invisible city, and an extraordinary human story.

A Free Man

A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi

Laurie Penny

Molly Crabapple

DISCORDIA is a story of courage and collapse in a country and a culture struggling to map out its future. A short ebook combining a 24,000-word essay with 36 detailed drawings, DISCORDIA is a feminist-art-gonzo-journalism project conceived at Occupy Wall Street and created in the summer of debt and doubt after the euphoric street protests of 2011-2012. 
 
In July 2012, artist Molly Crabapple and journalist Laurie Penny travelled to Greece. There, they drew and interviewed anarchists, autonomists, striking workers and ordinary people caught up in the Euro crisis. DISCORDIA is the result. In an impassioned climate where ‘objective’ journalism is impossible, Penny and Crabapple offer a snapshot of a nation in the grip of a very modern crisis where young and old see little reason to go on, the left is scattered and the far right is assuming greater power and influence. Along the way they drink far too much coffee, become hypnotised by street art, and somehow manage not to get arrested or mugged. 
 
DISCORDIA is an experiment in form, using the illustrated ebook format to its fullest extent to tell a story unique to the wordlength and digital platform involved. Crabapple's intricate, Victorian-inspired ink drawings lend a timeless quality to what is a conscious foray into a new kind of journalism - inspired by the New Journalism of the 1970s, in particular the art-journalism collaborations of Hunter Thompson and Ralph Steadman, but reworking that tradition for a 21st century world where young women must still fight at every turn to be taken seriously. 
 
DISCORDIA weaves together the personal and political, picking out those elements of the Greek crisis that are recognisable across the West to a generation struggling to articulate its purpose in a world of spiralling unemployment, democratic collapse and civil unrest. The solutions to the failure of modern neoliberal statecraft are very different to the 'tune in, turn on, drop out' ethos of the sixties: these days the drugs are worse and rock 'n' roll can't save us. The future is a question in search of an answer. 
 
Available only digitally, with a foreword by economic journalist and writer Paul Mason, this beautifully illustrated ebook is part-polemic, part-travelogue and part-paean to the birthplace of civilization brought to its knees. Part of the Brain Shot series, the pre-eminent source of short form digital non-fiction. 
 
'This is the Next Big Thing in journalism: digital, visual, intelligent, heartfelt, post-political, female, alarming, and engaging. It's both an honest chronicle of one corner of the collapse of a civilization, and an inspiring demonstration of the kinds of thinking, craft, and collaboration that might yet get us through.' Douglas Rushkoff, author of LIFE INC.

Discordia

Six Nights in Crisis Athens

Chris Turney

1912 was an incredible year, marking the height of the Heroic Age of Exploration. Curiosity about Antarctica was at fever pitch, and between 1910 and 1914 five teams of intrepid explorers embarked on the greatest race of the era, to travel beyond the edges of the known world and conquer this last great frontier. 
 
Pitted against each other were Captain Robert Falcon Scott for Britain, Roald Amundsen for Norway, Sir Douglas Mawson for Australasia, Wilhelm Filchner for Germany and Nobu Shirase for Japan. 'Conquest of the South Pole!' trumpeted the world's newspapers in March 1912. Amundsen had won. But behind all the headlines, there was a much bigger story. 
 
The exploits of these larger-than-life explorers, often narrated in their own words, thrilled and enthralled the world; the limits of our planet were pushed all the way to the South Pole and the door to Antarctica flung wide open. Drawing on his own polar experiences, Chris Turney reveals why 1912 witnessed the dawn of a new age in our understanding of the natural world. The tales of endurance, self-sacrifice and technological innovation that marked 1912 laid the foundation for modern scientific exploration and have continued to inspire future generations. 
 
1912 is an awe-inspiring journey - part nail-biting adventure, part scientific history - through an ancient and fascinating land.

1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica

Peter Matthiessen

African Silences is a spellbinding and sobering journey through Africa’s ravaged wildernesses. In 1978 and again in 1986, Matthiessen travelled through Senegal, Gambia, the Ivory Coast, Zaire and the Central African Republic to examine the fate of West African wildlife. African Silences shows Matthiessen at his best, taking the reader on hair-raising flights over forest and savanna, high-speed dashes by car along dirt roads, and slow journeys by river boat and jungle track, to encounter rare and endangered animals – elephants, gorillas and rhinos amongst them – and the wildlife biologists who study and attempt to protect them.

African Silences

Alice Thomson

The story of the man who strung the telegraph across Australia, and the woman who gave her name to Alice Springs. 
 
In 1855 an impoverished young scientist from Greenwich told his guardian that he was off to chance his luck in Australia - as Government Astronomer and Superintendent of Telegraphs for the small colony of South Australia. With him went his young wife Alice - after whom Alice Springs would be named. For Charles Todd was following a dream - the near impossible task of stringing a telegraph wire across one of the last uncrossed colonial wilderness, and finally connecting Australia with Britain. 
 
In 1997, their great-great-granddaughter Alice followed in their footsteps. Her plan was to track the telegraph and her ancestors, from Adelaide over the thousands of miles of desert, outback, swamp and mountain that Charles Todd had crossed in the 1860s with his 400 men.

The Singing Line

David Gilmour

Unlike France and England, Spain has not been dominated by its capital, and the focus of its history shifts from city to city over the centuries, illuminating different features of the country's past. Toledo, Cordoba, Seville and Madrid have at various times managed to establish a political and cultural supremacy, Cadiz and Barcelona dominated the economy in the 18th and 19th centuries. Salanca housed one of the great universities of medieval Europe while Santiago became the second religious centre of Christendom. In CITIES OF SPAIN David Gilmour takes us on a journey from Visigothic kingdom and the Cordoban caliphate to the Madrid of today. The portrait of these cities both now and in the heyday reveal both their spirit and their significance, and allowed the reader an intimate view of one of Europe's most fascinating and intriguing countries.

Cities of Spain

Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Robert Byron

To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage Classics are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books. 
 
THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
INTRODUCED BY SARA WHEELER 
A gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. One of the youngest members of Captain Scott's team, Apsley Cherry-Garrard was later part of the rescue party that found the frozen bodies of Scott and the three men who had accompanied him on the final push to the Pole. A masterpiece of travel writing, this is the most celebrated and compelling of all the books on Antarctic exploration. 
 
THE ROAD TO OXIANA 
In 1933, the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana - part of the border between what is now Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. This is the captivating, quirky record of his adventures and a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travellers.

Stop What You’re Doing and Read…On a Journey: The Worst Journey in the World & The Road to Oxiana

Andrew Baker

To the armchair fan, the life of the sports writer is one of unalloyed joy: all-expenses-paid trips to the most exciting events in the world, the best seats in the house, and one-on-one interviews with Anna Kournikova... Well, up to a point. 
 
Where Am I And Who's Winning? describes what it's really like to make your way through the world of sport, always on deadline, always between time zones, on a frantic, chaotic and hilarious tour of the planet's most famous and most bizarre sporting venues. There's football to be watched. And Formula One. And tennis. And two Olympics, two Commonwealth Games, ocean racing, curling, and of course the queen of sports - synchronised swimming. 
 
Permanently handicapped by jet-lag and ignorance, Andrew Baker travels by bullet train, bobsled, go-kart, and (most dangerous of all) bus in his constant quest to arrive at the match/race-meeting/mountain-top on time. Between soul-enhancing visits to the Dead Goat Saloon and the Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum, he breakfasts with Steve Redgrave, dines with Sebastian Coe and even takes in a game or two. 
 
Because nothing - not Brazilian muggers, nor Chinese security services - shall stand between him and his noble calling: to bring the great British public its daily sporting fix. 
 
Andrew Baker's brilliant comic debut will appeal to the armchair traveller and the armchair sports fan alike. But most of all to anyone who enjoys the misfortunes of others...

Where Am I And Who's Winning?

Tom Hiney

This is the strange and wondrous story of an eight-year voyage and a mission to save souls. Their mission started in the South Seas, where they reported scenes of chiefs surfing, perpetual warfare and a sudden surge of Christianity. From there they went via New Zealand, Australia and its aboriginal hinterland, through 'the Orient' to India and slave-ridden Mauritius. Based on contemporary journals, mission reports, letters and illustrations, and bursting with character and anecdote. ON THE MISSIONARY TRAIL is both the enthralling narrative of the longest missionary voyage ever undertaken and a colourful, detailed, eye-opening snapshot of little-known worlds, set against the wider picture of evangelism and guilt, heroism and humanity.

On The Missionary Trail

Mariusz Wilk

In 1991 Mariusz Wilk, a Polish journalist long fascinated by the mysteries of the Russian soul, decided to take up residence in the Solovki islands, a lonely archipelago lost amid the far northern reaches of Russia's White Sea.  For Wilk these islands represented the quintessence of  Russia: a place of exile and a microcosm of the crumbling Soviet empire. On the one hand, they were a cradle of the Orthodox faith and home to an important monastery; on the other, it was here that the first experimental gulag was built after the 1917 revolution. Over the course of years Wilk came to know every single one of the islands' 1000 or so residents. From his remote home, from which he sent regular despatches to the Paris-based Polish newspaper Kultura, he attempted to observe and come to terms with the complexities and contradictions of Russian history, its glorious past  and the cruelty of Soviet Communism. In the process, he has written a most unusual travel book, a beautifully descriptive work that belongs in the best tradition of writers such as Norman Lewis, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Claudio Magris.

The Journals Of A White Sea Wolf

Joseph O'Connor

The Irish Male at Home and Abroad is the hilarious sequel to Joe O'Connor's bestseller The Secret World of the Irish Male. From flirting lessons in downtown Manhattan to being offered a good ride in Disneyland by the now legendary Wanda, it was a long, strange and hilarious trip. Now, in The Irish Male at Home and Abroad, O'Connor returns faster, funnier and filthier than ever before. 
 
Impersonating Santa Claus in a busy Dublin store on Christmas Eve, spending a penny in Lord Jeffrey Archer's penthouse loo, traipsing the local-radio publicity circuit in 100-degree Australian heat, on the run in revolutionary Nicaragua, contemplating the Shroud of Turin, or making a deposit in a grotty sperm bank - here are tall tales and short stories: absurd, anarchic and unforgettably side-splitting adventures from home and abroad. 
 
Laugh-out-loud funny, yet always affectionate and sometimes poignant, O'Connor roams through an Ireland of wife-swapping sodomites and late-night sodalities, when not getting lost in the restless new Europe of beach holidays, terrible beauties and Baywatch lookalikes. It's going to be another weird and uproarious trip. But like Wanda once said: Hitch a ride, sweetheart, and hang on real tight!

Irish Male At Home And Abroad

Neal Ascherson

Black Sea is a homage to an ocean and its shores and a meditation on Eurasian history, from the earliest times to the present. It explores the culture, history and politics of the volatile region which surrounds the Black Sea. 
 
 Ascherson recalls the world of Herodotus and Aeschylus; Ovid's place of exile on what is now the coast of Romania; the decline and fall of Byzantium; the mysterious Christian Goths; the Tatar Khanates; the growth of Russian power across the grasslands, and the centuries of war between Ottoman and Russian Empires around the Black Sea. He examines the terrors of Stalinism and its fascist enemy, both striving for mastery of these endlessly colourful and complex shores, and investigates the turbulent history of modern Ukraine. 
 
 This is a story of Greeks, Scythians, Samatians, Huns, Goths, Turks, Russians, Ukrainians and Poles. This is the sea where Europe ended. It is the place where 'barbarism' was born. 
 
UPDATED WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR 
 
'Every page is freighted with rich and fascinating detail' Independent 
 
'A brilliant biography of place' Guardian

Black Sea

From Pericles to Putin

Joseph O'Connor's love affair with all things American led to an extraordinary tour of the United States to visit the nine different towns called Dublin, as well as some of the great cities and tiny hamlets in between. Along the way he wittily deconstructs the legends of a whole pantheon of Irish American heroes, from John F. Kennedy to Billy the Kid, and takes a quick detour to finally answer that most important question: was Elvis really Irish? 
 
The result is a hilarious, poignant and unforgettable book that celebrates the breathtaking diversity of the Irish influence on America and actually manages to find a town called Dublin, somewhere on the planet, that doesn't have one single pub within its limits...

Sweet Liberty

Travels in Irish America

Alan Tennant

In this extraordinary naturalist adventure saga, Alan Tennant, a passionate student of wildlife and of the peregrine falcon in particular, endeavours to radio-track the bird's transcontinental migration - something no one before him had ever attempted. At the time of his flight, in the mid-1980s, researchers were still unsure of the peregrine's transcontinental path: chicks hatched in the Arctic have hardly been taught how to fly and kill their food when they make their first migration, alone, following some mysterious internal call to go south. 
 
On The Wing, which begins on the windswept flats of the Texas barrier islands, ferries us across multiple continents, and is loaded with historical and scientific lore and rich characters. Chief among them is George Vose, the septugenarian Second World War vet and former stunt pilot who becomes Tennant's partner in falcon-chasing when they borrow some US Army radio-tracking equipment and set off after a bird Alan has managed to trap and tag with a feather-mounted transmitter. George, who trusts his instincts more than his instruments, is as obsessed with the mystery of flight as Tennant is and the book charts the story of their friendship. As they journey to the Arctic, following their first bird, and then way down South, through Mexico and into Belize, nearly losing their lives, running foul of the law (and, at times, at each other's throats) in the race to keep their birds in view and their rattletrap Cessna gassed up and running. 
 
But the falcons dominate this odyssey, these majestic birds - the icons of pharaohs, oriental emperors, and European nobility - whose fierce mien, speed at the kill and solitary habits have fired the human imagination for centuries. In this mesmerising narrative Alan Tennant offers us an unforgettable and moving tale that speaks to all our dreams of flight.

On The Wing

To the Edge of the Earth with a Peregrine Falcon

Tim Butcher

For many years Sierra Leone and Liberia have been too dangerous to travel through, bedevilled by a uniquely brutal form of violence from which sprang many of Africa's cruellest contemporary icons - child soldiers, prisoner mutilation, blood diamonds. With their wars officially over, Tim Butcher sets out on a journey across both countries, trekking for 350 miles through remote rainforest and malarial swamps. Just as he followed H M Stanley through the Congo - a journey described in his bestseller Blood River - this time he pursues a trail blazed by Graham Greene in 1935 and immortalised in the travel classic Journey Without Maps. Greene took 26 bearers, a case of scotch, and hammocks in which he and his cousin Barbara were carried. Tim walks every blistering inch to gain an extraordinary ground-level view of a troubled and overlooked region. 
 
As a journalist in Africa, Tim came to know both countries well although the wars made trips to the jungle hinterland far too risky. This is where he now heads, exploring how rebel groups thrived in the bush for so long and whether the devil of war has truly been chased away. He encounters other 'devils', masked figures guarding the spiritual secrets of jungle communities. Some are no more threatening than schoolmasters but others are much more sinister, relying on ritual cannibalism as a source of their magical power. Tim encounters these devils on an epic journey that demands courage, doggedness and good fortune. 
 
Chasing the Devil is a dramatic travel book touching on one of the most fraught parts of the globe at a unique moment in its history. Weaving history and anthropology with personal narrative - as well as new discoveries about Greene - it is as exciting as it is enlightening.

Chasing the Devil

The Search for Africa's Fighting Spirit

Sandy Gall

A mix of history and current affairs, travel, reportage and anecdote, this passionate book speaks up for the Bushmen, the first people of Africa. 
 
*Featuring a preface by Prince Charles* 
 
Bushmen were hunting and gathering, painting and mining copper, thousands of years ago. They were the first people of Africa. Deadly shots with their bows and arrows, they were, in their heyday, Lords of the Desert. They fought extremely bravely for their land, and lost. Today, they have been reduced to an underclass - dispossessed, despised and degraded. Just in time - one is tempted to say, miraculously - the Mandela government saved them from extermination in South Africa. Now, in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve, set aside specially for them by the British in 1961, they are making their last stand, refusing to be evicted in order to benefit mining and tourism. Sandy Gall, who is best known for his reporting of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, has taken up the cause of the Bushmen. His interest in their plight dates back to the 1950s and 1960s when he was working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters; in 1999 he visited the Central Kalahari with his daughter Michaela. 
 
His book celebrates the culture of these unique people, many of whom have an almost mystical bond with animals. He has portrayed many fascinating individuals who have been involved, for good or ill, in their tragic history and their present predicament. Here, for the first time, is the full story of the slaughter of an innocent people. The Bushmen of Southern Africa speaks not only for the Bushmen but for the native indigenous people of the world. It faces up to a shameful and bloodstained past and looks at burning current issues such as human rights and the ownership and exploitation of land.

The Bushmen of Southern Africa

Slaughter of the Innocent

Tim Moore

The spangled insanity, the stubborn reinforcement of crude national stereotypes, the scoreboard shamelessly corrupted by cross-border friendship and hatred... throughout those long post-ABBA decades, the Eurovision Song Contest has been drawing 450 million of us to the sofa for all the wrong reasons. And the most gloriously wrong of all: our enduring fascination with the unfortunates left to wander the desolate summit of Mount Fiasco without a point to their names. 
 
From Lisbon to Liverpool, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, Tim Moore travels the continent to track down the thirteen Eurominstrels who suffered the entertainment world's prime humiliation.

Nul Points

Morgan Spurlock

With a baby on the way and a need to make the world safe for infant-kind, an unassuming film-maker from West Virginia employs his complete lack of experience, knowledge and expertise to find the most wanted and dangerous man on earth. 
 
Beginning his epic quest in New York City, he zigzags the globe in search of the bearded man: to Britain, France, Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, drawing ever closer to the heart of darkness in the tribal regions of Pakistan. 
 
Along the way he interviews experts and imams, breaks the Ramadan fast with Muslim families, helps disarm bombs with an Israeli squad, accompanies the British and US Armies in Afghanistan, and much, much more ... all in an attempt to understand the Muslim world and the roots of the conflict overshadowing the globe today.

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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