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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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Mutya Buena

Mutya Buena was only thirteen when she became one third of the original line up of the iconic girlband, Sugababes. 
 
Launching into fame, her life became unrecognisable overnight. Suddenly she was going straight from the studio to school in the early hours, rubbing shoulders with music royalty, and hearing fans scream her name. 
 
This is the story of the girl the tabloids never saw. 
 
In Real Girl Mutya takes us through the highs of her spectacular career and the lows that came with a life in the limelight and shares for the first time the struggles she’d kept hidden from the public eye. 
 
Now the Sugababes are back and shining brighter than ever, Mutya is ready to share her story on her own terms.

Real Girl

Oisin Murphy

'A GRIPPING AND INCREDIBLY HONEST INSIGHT INTO OUR SPORT, FROM ONE OF RACING’S MOST EXCITING TALENTS' FRANKIE DETTORI 
 
‘AN ASTONISHINGLY HONEST ACCOUNT OF WHAT IT'S LIKE BEING A PROFESSIONAL JOCKEY.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
THE THRILLING AND SEARINGLY HONEST MEMOIR FROM FIVE-TIME CHAMPION JOCKEY OISIN MURPHY. 
 
Born prematurely, weighing less than a bag of sugar, Oisin Murphy’s life has always been one of struggle. 
 
From a young age he found communion with horses. Mesmerised by their power, their spirit, he discovered a gift for the saddle. Oisin quickly established himself as one of horseracing’s most prodigious talents. 
 
But reaching the pinnacle of the sport has required a high-wire dance that continues to push his body and mind to their breaking point. Despite four champion jockey crowns, alcohol addiction lurked beneath the surface, and a string of misdemeanours have overshadowed his racing. 
 
Fast paced and searingly honest, Sacrifice lays bare Oisin’s personal struggles and immerses readers in the daily life of a jockey throughout an entire season. 
 
From the countless unseen hours of horse work to the psychological turmoil of racing, the private agony of wasting, and the vital community of the weighing room, it pulls back the curtain and examines the fine line between elite performance and personal destruction in a sport that demands nothing less than total obsession. 
 
Part-autobiography, part-diary written in real-time, this incredible and immersive memoir charts Oisin Murphy's year in the saddle, laying bare the pressures of life at the pinnacle of horse-racing. 
 
'ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I'VE READ ALL YEAR. UTTERLY COMPELLING.' BRENDAN O'CONNOR

Sacrifice

A Year in the Life of a Champion Jockey

Ruth Jones

James Corden

Gavin & Stacey’ is a TV series like no other. Now, for the first time, its creators James Corden and Ruth Jones tell the full extraordinary story of how they turned their little show into a full-on cultural phenomenon. 
 
As they recount the rejection, obstacles and challenges they faced on the way to giving birth to their beloved comedy creation, James and Ruth also explore the flourishing of their own real-life friendship. While their now legendary on-screen characters Nessa and Smithy had a profound awkwardness to negotiate, culminating in that marriage proposal in the 2019 Christmas special, Ruth and James forged a magical relationship of mutual support based also on a deep, shared sense of subversive fun. 
 
Here, from their tentative initial pitch to the emotionally overwhelming final day of filming, the duo detail what’s occurred every step of the way, bouncing off each other in inimitable style. Full of revelations and never-before-heard stories, this is a one-of-a-kind book about a show that’s already gone down in history.

When Gavin Met Stacey and Everything in Between

A Story of Love and Friendship

Lee Child

From global bestseller and creator of Jack Reacher, comes Lee Child’s first-ever autobiographical collection. 
 
On Monday September 5th, 1994, at home, at the dining room table, I sat down to write. An hour later, I gave the first chapter to my wife. I asked, “Should I continue?” 
 
“Yes,” she said. “I like it.” 
 
From urgently scribbling out his debut Killing Floor in pencil (the stub of which he still owns), to taking a step back with Blue Moon, and everything in between, here are 24 fascinating personal reflections on his life and work, crafted across decades. 
 
Whether it is through Lee’s moving account of meeting a fan years after her mother brought her to a book signing, to facing his first computer and the coming of the internet, to writing about New York just before – and just after – 9/11, to later seeing his novels adapted for the big screen . . . each riveting piece deftly evokes where he was, psychologically and physically, when he wrote each novel. 
 
Lee has clearly felt unwavering gratitude for his readers since 1997. And these honest, witty and wise reflections were originally designed for fans of Reacher who may be interested in a ‘behind-the-scenes’ – or, in Lee’s words: ‘why the books turned out the way they did’. 
 
But this collection is also so much more. It is the story of a man who once put pencil to paper in an attempt to turn his luck around . . . and who made every word count.

Reacher: The Stories Behind The Stories

Ashley Walters

Chris Isaie

FROM THE STAR OF THE PHENOMENAL NETFLIX SHOW, ADOLESCENCE, COMES A POWERFUL MEMOIR, PACKED WITH INSPIRING STORIES AND HARD-EARNED WISDOM FOR LIFE'S MOST CHALLENGING MOMENTS. 
 
“I wanted to write this book for that person who feels like the world doesn’t understand what life is like for them. I want to be honest about where I have been and how I have got to where I am. Because we can’t be what we can’t see.” – Ashley Walters 
 
'An icon of British and wider Black British culture.' GQ 
 
'A raw and inspiring testament to resilience.' STEVEN BARTLETT 
 
'A deeper truth that speaks to our whole time and culture, and offers us all a way forward.' AFUA HIRSCH 
 
'An important and powerful read.' IAN WRIGHT 
 
From Adolescence and Top Boy to So Solid Crew, Ashley Walters’ explosive on-screen performances and trailblazing music has always explored the same conflicting forces that have governed his life. Born and raised in Peckham, his father in and out of prison, Ashley found the gang culture in inner city London inescapable. At 15, he was stabbed in the neck and left for dead. At 18, he had a gun held to his head as he cradled his newborn son. At 20, he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison. 
 
In this brave and inspiring book, Ashley opens up about his turbulent past. He writes candidly about his battles with identity, addiction, family and fame, and the realisation that, after years of struggle, only he could change his future. 
 
‘Always Winning’ is the framework Ashley developed to turn his life around. Revealed for the first time in this book, explored through powerful stories from his life and career, he shares the principles of this philosophy and shows how anyone can use them to overcome their own challenges, helping them to align a true sense of purpose with inner happiness and personal success and fulfilment.

Always Winning

Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow-and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling-and how their lives would play out from that point on. 
 
For Harry, this is that story at last. 
 
Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness-and, because he blamed the press for his mother's death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight. 
 
At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love. 
 
Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . . 
 
For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

Spare

Cupcake Brown

'Phenomenal woman' The Oprah Magazine 
'Dazzles you with the amazing change that is possible in one lifetime.' Washington Post 
 
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This is the heart-wrenching true story of a girl named Cupcake Brown. 
 
Orphan, runaway, addict, all before she was twenty. That's when things got really interesting... 
 
Cupcake was just eleven years old when, orphaned, she entered the child welfare system. Moved from one disastrous placement to the next, like so many, she was neglected and sexually abused. 
 
She fed her appetite for drink and drugs by selling the only thing she had. Her body. Before long she had stumbled head first into a world of gangs and extreme violence. After one crack binge she woke up behind a dumpster. Half-dressed and more than half-dead, she knew she had a choice. Change her life or die. 
 
Brutally frank and startlingly funny, A Piece of Cake is the remarkable true story of a resilient spirit who triumphed over the very worst that life could throw at her.

A Piece Of Cake

A Sunday Times Bestselling Memoir

Alicia Appleman-Jurman

'This memoir is heartbreaking.' Elie Wiesel, author of Night 
 
Alicia Jurman is five-years-old when her story begins. It is 1935 and she is living in the East Polish town of Buczacz. Although brought up in an atmosphere of anti-Semitism, nothing could have prepared her for the Russian invasion of Poland and the full horror of the Nazi Occupation. 
 
At thirteen, while fleeing the Nazis through war-ravaged Poland, Alicia began saving the lives of strangers. Her family cruelly wrenched from her, Alicia rescued other Jews from the Gestapo, led them to safe hideouts, and lent them her courage and hope. Even the sight of her mother's brutal murder could not quash this remarkable child's faith in human goodness - or her determination to prevail against overwhelming odds. 
 
After the war, Alicia continued to risk her life, leading Polish Jews on an underground route to freedom in Palestine. She swore on her brother's grave that if she survived, she would speak for her silenced family. This book is the eloquent fulfilment of that oath.

Alicia

Memoirs of A Survivor

Jean Sasson

In the international bestseller, Princess: The True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia, Princess Al-Sa’ud and the acclaimed author Jean Sasson began a remarkable series of books. Now, more than twenty-five years later, this compelling journey continues as we follow the fortunes and the dazzling life of the Princess, her friends and her family. 
 
But, of course, there is a less glamorous, much darker side to this engaging series, and in Stepping Out of the Shadows Jean and the Princess focus their attention on how, despite positive news on civil rights reforms, Saudi women still suffer physical and psychological abuse and have little legal protection due to the archaic guardianship laws of the land. So, although this is a kingdom on the threshold of revolutionary change – change spearheaded by the young Saudi Crown Prince who is keen to modernize his country – any thoughts of equal rights and the chance to lead an independent life remain little more than dreams for most Saudi women. 
 
Whilst the Princess acknowledges and welcomes the reforms that are on the horizon, through stories of joy and sorrow, we see how she is determined to continue to fight for equal rights for women in this, her beloved kingdom.

Princess: Stepping Out Of The Shadows

After the recent success of Princess, More Tears to Cry the Princess Al-Saud and Jean Sasson are collaborating on this new book to bring readers up to date not only with the Princess and her family but the stories and experiences of characters who formed the focus of the last book: Dr Meena - the woman who helps abused women to heal and fight for their rights, and Fatima, the mother of twin daughters who, once abused and abandoned by her family, now works for the Princess in one of the royal palaces. 
 
Here too, are the stories of other Muslim women - women who are struggling with human rights abuses from across the region - from Pakistan, Syria and Northern Lebanon - and the many innocent victims who suffer the consequences of ISIS's march across the Middle East. 
 
This new book will attract both Jean Sasson's many loyal readers and new audiences eager to learn more about not only how the Saudi Royal family live, but how with courage and determination the Princess continues the fight for equal rights for women in the Middle East.

Princess: Secrets to Share

When Jean Sasson’s book Princess: Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia was published, it became an immediate international bestseller. It sold to 43 countries and spent 13 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Now, in this long-awaited, compelling new book, Sasson and the Princess ‘Sultana’ return to tell the world what it means to be a Saudi woman today. 
 
Through advances in education and with access to work, Saudi women are breaking through the barriers; they are becoming doctors, social workers, business owners and are even managing to push at the boundaries of public life. Major steps forward have, undoubtedly, been made. 
 
But this is not the whole story. Sadly, despite changes in the law, all too often legal loopholes leave women exposed to terrible suppression, abuse and crimes of psychological and physical violence. 
For many, the struggle for basic human rights continues. 
 
This fascinating insight will include personal stories of triumph and heartbreak, as told to Princess 'Sultana', her eldest daughter, and author Jean Sasson. Each of these stories will offer the reader a glimpse into different aspects of Saudi society, including the lives of the Princess, her daughter and other members of the Al-Saud Royal family.

Princess More Tears to Cry

Dave Roberts

All Dave Roberts ever wanted to do (apart from collect football programmes) was to work in advertising. More specifically, to work for the world's best advertising agency, Saatchi and Saatchi. There was just one problem. Even when he managed to persuade someone to employ him, Dave's copywriting assignments were mainly for second hand car dealers and double glazing companies. And Leeds, Manchester and, bizarrely, New Zealand were a long way from Charlotte Street and Madison Avenue. This was the world of the Sad Men. 
 
In his sparkling new memoir, Dave tells the story of a life shaped by his love of adverts, from seeing the PG Tips chimps at the age of three to writing infamous ads such as the Westpac Rap and having David Jason plug a family restaurant. Bursting with brilliant ideas - and some pretty daft ones - it is the cautionary tale of a quest for advertising glory... and not quite ever getting there.

Sad Men

Christopher Fowler

It’s the late 1970s and 20-something Christopher Fowler is a film freak, obsessively watching lousy films in run-down fleapit cinemas. He longs to be a famous screenwriter and put his dreams on the big screen. And so he heads for Wardour Street, Britain’s equivalent of Hollywood. 
But he’s made a spectacular mistake, arriving just as the nation’s filmmakers are falling to their knees, brought low by the arrival of video and the destruction of the old movie palaces. The only films being made are smutty low budget farces and TV spinoffs and instead of being asked to write another 
'Bullitt’, he's churning out short films advertising boilers and nylon sheets. Somehow, against the odds, he finds success – although in a very different guise to the one he expected. 
 
From the sticky Axminster of the local cinema to the red carpet at Cannes, Film Freak is a grimly hilarious and acutely observed trawl through the arse-end of the British film industry that turns into an ultimately affecting search for friendship and happiness.

Film Freak

Richard Phillips

8th April 2009 was just an ordinary day for 53 -year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the United States-registered cargo vessel, the Maersk Alabama, as it headed towards the port of Mombasa. Ordinary that is until, two hundred or so miles off the east coast of Africa, armed Somali pirates attacked and boarded the freighter. It was the first time an American cargo ship had been hijacked in over 200 years. 
 
What the pirates didn’t expect was that the crew would fight back, nor did they expect Captain Phillips to offer himself as a hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew - a courageous gesture that resulted in his being held captive on a tiny life-boat off the anarchic, gun-plagued coast of Somalia. And so began a tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs. 
 
In A Captain's Duty, Richard Phillips tells his own extraordinary story - that of an ordinary man who did what he saw as his duty and in so doing became a hero. It is a thrilling true tale of adventure and courage in the face of deprivation, death threats and mock executions and also a compulsively readable first-hand account of the terrors of high-seas hostage-taking.

A Captain's Duty

The true story that inspired the major film, Captain Phillips

Nancy Dell'Olio

Though Nancy Dell'Olio is no stranger to the front pages, her real story has never been told. Now, for the first time she talks about herself, her life and the passions which have inspired her. It's a story which millions think they know already, from the acres of purely speculative newsprint which this fascinating woman has generated. Prepare to be surprised! The real story is far more gripping than the fictional one. 
 
Born and brought up in New York City, Nancy is a true woman of the world. She has the temperament and style of an Italian, yet she lives in London and has adopted an English lifestyle. She is also a proud European, a Catholic, a Jew and a true internationalist. She is also a successful lawyer with a keen interest in politics and world affairs - a woman for all seasons. 
 
Nancy has always emerged serene from scandal that would break most people. She values her sense of humour as her saving grace. Remember that scarlet cat suit entrance to Downing Street and all those classic red carpet moments? Nancy is just as at home in combat jacket and fatigues on the streets of Ramallah as lunching at Claridges. Fashion is fun and life is too serious to be taken seriously. 
 
Nancy's book tells the whole story of her life so far. From her childhood in New York and Puglia in Italy and the accident which nearly killed her, to the successful career in in commercial law and the passions which drive her on, despite all too public crises which would be the end of most of us. This is an inspirational and entertaining glimpse into the life of a fascinating and enigmatic woman.

My Beautiful Game

Jane Maas

What was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the sixties and seventies, that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? Now, in her immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir, Jane Maas reveals all… 
 
·Was there really that much sex at the office? 
·Were there really three-Martini lunches? 
·Were women really second-class citizens? 
Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally yes! 
 
Based on her experiences as a copywriter who succeeded in this primarily male jungle, and countless interviews with her peers, Mad Women gives us the full story. There is the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he’s used to find a ‘date’ for a client, and the Ogilvy &amp; Mather’s annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze-filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. 
 
Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and career.

Mad Women

John Baxter

For more than a century, Americans and Britons have been arriving hopefully in Paris. Most were tourists, but a significant number had other motives, ranging from learning to paint or write, to finding a rich husband; from escaping racism and politics to gaining a sexual education. John Baxter arrived because he had fallen in love with a French woman. All of these people arrived because they were re-making their lives. 
 
We'll Always Have Paris is a personal view of Paris as it appeared to the emotionally and intellectually hungry of the world. It is a guided tour of the people and places associated with the Parisian legend. It includes interviews with painters, film-makers, actresses, writers, poets. There are visits to the cafes of Montparnasse where Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Man Ray hung out. It explores the old brothels - temples of sensuality in 18th century Paris - and an erotic bookshop. Above all, it is John Baxter's personal history of Europe's most romantic capital city.

We'll Always Have Paris

Sex And Love In The City Of Light

Celia Lyttelton

When Celia Lyttelton visited a bespoke perfumers, she realized a long-held ambition: to have a scent created solely for her. Entering this heady, exotic world of oils and essences, she was transported from a leafy London square to a place of long-forgotten memories and sensory experiences. And once drawn into this world, she felt compelled to trace the origins, history and culture of the many ingredients that made up her unique perfume... 
 
And so began a magical journey of the senses that took Celia from Grasse, the cradle of perfume, to Morocco; from the rose-growing region of Isparta in Turkey, to the Tuscan hills where the iris grows wild. And after journeying to Sri Lanka, the home of the heavenly scented jasmine, Celia ventured to India, the Yemen and finally to the 'Island of Bliss', Socotra. Here she traced the rarest and most mysterious agent in perfumery, ambergris, which is found in the bellies of whales and is said to have powerful aphrodisiac qualities. 
 
From the peasants and farmers growing their own crops, and the traders who sell to the great perfume houses, to the 'noses' who create the scents and the marketing kings who rule this powerful billion-dollar industry, Celia Lyttelton paints a mystical, sensual landscape of sights, sounds and aromas as she recalls the extraordinary people and places she encountered on her unique Scent Trail.

The Scent Trail

A Journey of the Senses

From the time she was a little girl, Maryam rebelled against the terrible second-class existence that was her destiny as an Afghan woman. 
 
She had witnessed the miserable fate of her grandmother and three aunts, and wished she had been born a boy. As a feisty teenager in Kabul, she was outraged when the Russians invaded her country. After she made a public show of defiance, she had to flee the country for her life. 
 
A new life of freedom seemed within her grasp,but her father arranged a traditional marriage to a fellow Afghan, who turned out to be a violent man. Beaten, raped and abused, Maryam found joy in the birth of a baby son. But then her brutal husband stole him away far beyond his mother's reach. For many long years she searched for her lost son, while civil war and Taliban oppression raged back home in Afghanistan. 
 
Set against a landscape littered with tragic tales of horrific suffering, Jean Sasson, author of Princess, chronicles the story of one resolute but tormented woman determined to achieve freedom and equality with men.

For the Love of a Son

One Afghan Woman's Quest for her Stolen Child

Anthony Bourke

John Rendall

In 2008, a YouTube clip became an internet phenomenon. It showed the emotional reunion of two young men and their pet lion, Christian, after they had left him in Africa to be introduced into his rightful home in the wild. 
 
Anthony 'Ace' Bourke and John Rendall visited London from Australia in 1969 and bought a boisterous lion cub in Harrods. But Christian soon grew from cuddly cub to King of the Kings Road in London, and the only way to avoid him being incarcerated in a zoo was to place him under the expert care of George Adamson in Kenya. Ace and John did not return to see their lion for a year. 
 
A Lion Called Christian tells their touching story, accompanied by stunning photographs. It's a unique and extraordinary tale of its time that resonates again today with a worldwide audience, thanks to the internet age, and is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature.

A Lion Called Christian

Christopher Fowler's memoir captures life in suburban London as it has rarely been seen: through the eyes of a lonely boy who spends his days between the library and the cinema, devouring novels, comics, cereal packets - anything that might reveal a story. 
Caught between an ever-sensible but exhausted mother and a DIY-obsessed father fighting his own demons, Christopher takes refuge in words. His parents try to understand their son's peculiar obsessions, but fast lose patience with him - and each other. The war of nerves escalates to include every member of the Fowler family, and something has to give, but does it mean that a boy must always give up his dreams for the tough lessons of real life? 
Beautifully written, this rich and astute evocation of a time and a place recalls a childhood at once entertainingly eccentric and endearingly ordinary.

Paperboy

Jack Perkowski

After a highly successful career on Wall Street, in the early 1990s Jack Perkowski needed a new challenge. Having decided that China would be the future, he set about investigating this little-known market and the business opportunities it offered. Before long, Jack set up ASIMCO, a manufacturing business specializing in car components, which now has an annual turnover of over $500 million. 
 
In Managing the Dragon Jack provides an insider's view of China, its many peculiarities and working practices. For example, we see how China's economy and government are highly decentralized and how the country tends to operate like a series of villages spread across a vast landscape; we discover how much influence 'the Party' has on the banks, and how economic incentives at local government level causes China to create overcapacity in virtually every industry. This may explain why the country has, almost single-handedly, placed the entire world in a cost / price squeeze. 
 
Managing the Dragon is a revealing and thought-provoking memoir offering a fresh perspective on a country at the dawn of a new age. Through its colourful narrative it also tells the story of one of the most influential and pioneering entrepreneurs of today.

Managing the Dragon

Building a Billion-Dollar Business in China

Peter Woolf

'For almost all my life, I've been the person you crossed the street to avoid...' 
 
Peter Woolf's life of drinking, drug-taking and thieving had begun before most people leave school. Spending most of his adult life in prison made no difference to him: life itself offered him no hope. Today, amazingly, Peter is clean and has not reoffended since a life-changing meeting in 2002 when he came face to face with some of his victims. 
 
The Damage Done is a searingly honest and gritty portrayal of a man ensconced in an endless cycle of drugs, violence, prison and depravity who, one Tuesday afternoon in a glass room at Pentonville prison, was forced to confront all that he had destroyed.

The Damage Done

Bestselling author Jean Sasson tells the dramatic true story of a young woman caught up in Saddam Hussein's genocide of the Kurdish people of Iraq. 
 
One morning Joanna, a young bride living in the Kurdish mountains of Iraq, was surprised to see dead birds drop silently out of the clear sky. They were followed by sinister canisters falling to the ground, bringing fear and death. 
 
It was 1987, and Saddam Hussein had ordered his cousin 'Chemical Ali' to bombard Joanna's village, Bergalou, with chemical weapons. Temporarily blinded in the attack, Joanna was rescued by her husband, a Kurdish freedom fighter. After being caught in another bombardment and left for dead in the rubble, they managed to flee over the mountains in a harrowing escape. 
 
Now living in the UK and working for British Airways, Joanna has told the story of her eventful life to Jean Sasson, the bestselling chronicler of oppressed women's lives in the Princess trilogy and Mayada. Love in a Torn Land is published while the world watches the trial of the notorious 'Chemical Ali', Saddam Hussein's most bloodthirsty henchman, for crimes including the genocide of the Kurdish people.

Love In A Torn Land

William Ash

Determined to take on the Nazis, Texan Bill Ash joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1939 and in so doing sacrificed his citizenship. Before long, he was sent to England wherehe flew Spitfires. Shot down over France in March 1942, he survived the crash-landing and, thanks to local civilians, evaded capture for months only to be betrayed to the Gestapo in Paris. Tortured and sentenced to death as a spy, he was saved from the firing squad by the Luftwaffe who sent him to the infamous 'Great Escape' POW camp, Stalag Luft III. It was from there that Bill began his 'tour' of Occupied Europe. Breaking out of a succession of camps, he became one of only a handful of serial escape artists to attempt more than a dozen break-outs - over the wire, under it in tunnels, through it with cutters or simply strolling out of the camp gates in disguise! They were years of extraordinary hardship, frustration and brutality - the penalty for escaping was a long spell in solitary - but throughout it all Bill Ash displayed not just remarkable courage but also an anarchic sense of humour, great humanity and an unstoppable desire for freedom. 
Honest, funny and exciting, Under the Wire is both a riveting war memoir and a tribute to the bravery and resolve of an entire generation.

Under The Wire

Paul Reizin

Paul Reizin is living proof that it is possible to find happiness through the lonely hearts column in a newspaper. So is his wife. And their baby. 
Date Expectations tells the hilarious true story of some of the most disastrous dates in the history of courtship, as Paul sets out on an increasingly fraught quest to leave singledom behind ... These include the date with the psycho hippy nutter; the date who didn't turn up; the world's shortest date; and the date with a face like a bag of spanners. 
Learn to interpret the secret language of the lonely hearts columns (e.g. 'bubbly' = fat). Learn how to read between the lines of a recorded message - fine tune your radar for those tell-tale references to cats and anger-management classes. And much, much more ... 
Remember - blind dating is like life. By the time you've learned how to do it properly, you no longer need to . . .

Date Expectations

Souad

When Souad was seventeen she fell in love. In her village, as in so many others, sex before marriage was considered a grave dishonour to one's family and was punishable by death. This was her crime. Her brother-in-law was given the task of arranging her punishment. One morning while Souad was washing the family's clothes, he crept up on her, poured petrol over her and set her alight. 
 
In the eyes of their community he was a hero. An execution for a 'crime of honour' was a respectable duty unlikely to bring about condemnation from others. It certainly would not have provoked calls for his prosecution. More than five thousand cases of such honour killings are reported around the world each year and many more take place that we hear nothing about. 
 
Miraculously, Souad survived rescued by the women of her village, who put out the flames and took her to a local hospital. Horrifically burned, and abandoned by her family and community, it was only the intervention of a European aid worker that enabled Souad to receive the care and sanctuary she so desperately needed and to start her life again. She has now decided to tell her story and uncover the barbarity of honour killings, a practice which continues to this day. 
 
Burned Alive is a shocking testimony, a true story of almost unbelievable cruelty. It speaks of amazing courage and fortitude and of one woman's determination to survive. It is also a call to break the taboo of silence that surrounds this most brutal of practices and which ignores the plight of so many other women who are also victims of traditional violence.

Burned Alive

Martin Booth

Martin Booth died in February 2004, shortly after finishing the book that would be his epitaph - this wonderfully remembered, beautifully told memoir of a childhood lived to the full in a far-flung outpost of the British Empire... 
 
An inquisitive seven-year-old, Martin Booth found himself with the whole of Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in the early 1950s. Unrestricted by parental control and blessed with bright blond hair that signified good luck to the Chinese, he had free access to hidden corners of the colony normally closed to a Gweilo, a 'pale fellow' like him. Befriending rickshaw coolies and local stallholders, he learnt Cantonese, sampled delicacies such as boiled water beetles and one-hundred-year-old eggs, and participated in colourful festivals. He even entered the forbidden Kowloon Walled City, wandered into the secret lair of the Triads and visited an opium den. Along the way he encountered a colourful array of people, from the plink plonk man with his dancing monkey to Nagasaki Jim, a drunken child molester, and the Queen of Kowloon, the crazed tramp who may have been a member of the Romanov family. 
 
Shadowed by the unhappiness of his warring parents, a broad-minded mother who, like her son, was keen to embrace all things Chinese, and a bigoted father who was enraged by his family's interest in 'going native', Martin Booth's compelling memoir is a journey into Chinese culture and an extinct colonial way of life that glows with infectious curiosity and humour.

Gweilo: Memories Of A Hong Kong Childhood

Readers of Princess Sultana's extraordinary biography Princess were gripped by her powerful indictment of women's lives behind the veil within the royal family of Saudi Arabia. They were every bit as fascinated by the sequel, Daughters of Arabia. 
 
Here, the princess turns the spotlight on her two daughters, Maha and Amani, both teenagers. Surrounded by untold opulence and luxury from the day they were born, but stifled by the unbearably restrictive lifestyle imposed on them, they reacted in equally desperate ways. 
 
Their dramatic and shocking stories, together with many more which concern other members of Princess Sultana's huge family, are set against a rich backdrop of Saudi Arabian culture and social mores which she depicts with equal colour and authenticity. We learn, for example, of the fascinating ritual of the world-famous annual pilgrimage to Makkah as we accompany the princess and her family to this holiest of cities. Throughout, however, she never tires of her quest to expose the injustices which her society levels against women. In her courageous campaign to improve the lot of her own daughters of Arabia, Princess Sultana once more strikes a chord amongst all women who are lucky enough to have the freedom to speak out for themselves.

Daughters Of Arabia

Princess 2

Mayada was born into a powerful Iraqi family. One grandfather fought alongside Lawrence of Arabia. The other is acclaimed as the first true Arab nationalist. Her uncle was Prime Minister for nearly forty years, her mother an important politician. When Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party seized power, and instituted his reign of terror, Mayada found herself alone in Baghdad, a divorced parent of two children, earning a meagre living printing brochures. Until one morning in August 1999 she was summarily arrested and dragged to the notorious Baladiyat Prison, falsely accused of printing anti-government propaganda. 
 
There she was thrown into a cell with 17 'shadow women'. Like latter-day Sherezades, these women passed their days, while waiting for the next interrogation and torture session, telling each other their stories. They were eager to hear Mayada's stories of her privileged former life, of the history of her proud family, of kings and queens, of meetings with Saddam himself. 
 
Not only the story of a woman intimately connected to Iraq's cultured, ancient history, this book is a powerful witness to the terror and horror wrought by Saddam on the lives and souls of its ordinary citizens.

Mayada: Daughter Of Iraq

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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