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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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Minoo Dinshaw

At the Inns of Court, the intellectual, literary, and social heart of early 17th century London, many pivotal friendships were forged: few closer than that of Bulstrode Whitelocke and Edward (Ned) Hyde. Both young men were lively characters, industrious, well-connected, principled and optimistic. They dreamed of reforming the government of Charles I, a young court with age-old problems, by restoring the traditional harmony of Crown and Parliament. This is the story of how their hopes climbed, overreached, and fell into an abyss of relentless civil war. 
 
This highly original, vivid and engaging book recreates the atmosphere, drama, players and ideas of what is arguably England’s (and Britain’s) most crucial and traumatic formative period. Through the stories of his two protagonists, Minoo Dinshaw shows how subtle religious and political differences, careful personal judgments, and mere happenstance combined to place these two friends, most reluctantly, on opposite sides in the English Civil Wars. They would both survive, unlike many thousands of others, into old age; both would become influential historians, shaping how we still understand the conflicts of their age. But their friendship, like the once hopeful country in which it had first flourished, would be forever changed: permanently marred by what both men believed to be senseless and unnecessary civil strife.

Friends in Youth

Choosing Sides in the English Civil War

Marcus Bull

Even as the great siege began it was understood by both sides to be an epic – a potentially decisive encounter between an uneasy assortment of soldiers, native Maltese, adventurers and Knights Hospitaller on a strategically crucial but near waterless island and a vast, seemingly all-powerful Ottoman armada. With three quarters of the Mediterranean’s coasts already in the hands of the Sultan and his allies, all eyes were now on Malta. 
 
This superb new account of the siege emphasises the crucial importance of the siege while at the same time putting it in a far wider context. While since mistakenly recast as a climactic battle between the West and the East, it was also much more interesting and nuanced than that – both sides had many other interests and priorities beyond Malta. Süleyman the Magnificent had conquered and subsumed regions from Hungary to the Persian Gulf; Philip II was building an empire in America and Asia. 
 
Drawing on a wide range of eyewitness stories, Marcus Bull gives a vivid sense of the period’s technologies, values and assumptions. It was a grim world built on the labour of many thousands of disposable galley-slaves, shockingly brutal forms of warfare and religious absolutism. But it was also a world filled with the most extraordinary new discoveries and ideas. Both these worlds come together in the siege and in this book.

The Great Siege of Malta

Sinclair McKay

Built by slave labour in the early years of the eighteenth century, Saint Petersburg was Peter the Great’s so-called ‘window on to Europe’, a city that would outdo all of Europe in its splendour. But a window works both ways, and as bestselling historian Sinclair McKay writes, St Petersburg has always been a city that has drawn Westerners who wanted to see into Russia. It is also a city where much has happened. It was St Petersburg until 1917, Petrograd after the revolution, Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924, and St Petersburg once again from 1991. 
 
This biography of a city stretches from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, who was born and made in St Petersburg. The story centres the ‘900 days and nights’ of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941–44. Unlike Paris or Prague, the Nazis weren’t trying to take over, they wanted to wipe it off the map. According to some, this siege of 1.5 million people – including Putin’s mother – was an attempted genocide. Based on first-hand and many unpublished accounts from figures from all walks of life – irascible authors, factory workers, bakers, furriers, dancers, sailors, grandparents, children – this masterpiece reveals the central importance of St Petersburg over the centuries. This is the story of the city told from the perspective of the people who lived there.

Saint Petersburg

The City That Defied Hitler

Sacrifice and Redemption in the City That Defied Hitler

Annie Jacobsen

This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances. 
 
For more than forty years, the U.S. government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. 
 
The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the Navy, Air Force, and Army-and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs, using never before seen declassified documents as well as exclusive interviews with, and unprecedented access to, more than fifty of the individuals involved. Speaking on the record, many for the first time, are former CIA and Defense Department scientists, analysts, and program managers, as well as the government psychics themselves. 
 
Who did the U.S. government hire for these top secret programs, and how do they explain their military and intelligence work? How do scientists approach such enigmatic subject matter? What interested the government in these supposed powers and does the research continue? 
 
Phenomena is a riveting investigation into how far governments will go in the name of national security.

Phenomena

US Government Investigations into ESP and Psychokinesis

In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present.This is the book on DARPA -- a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

The Pentagon’s Brain

An Uncensored History of DARPA

Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria first warned of the threat of “illiberal democracy” two decades ago. In Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, he sets our era of populist chaos into the sweep of history. 
 
Based on deep research and conversations with world leaders from Emmanuel Macron to Lee Kuan Yew, this book tells the story of progress and backlash, of the rise of classical liberalism and of the many periods of rage and counter-revolution that followed seismic change. From the Dutch Republic – the first modern republic, techno-superpower, and haven for liberalism almost snuffed out by force – and the French Revolution to the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the United States, it traces the rise of the world’s modern superpowers, the birth of the political divides we know today, and the ways in which technology unsettled society and caused backlash from those who felt threatened by this new world. Zakaria also details the revolutions that have convulsed our times: globalization in overdrive, digital transformation, the rise of identity politics, the return of great power politics with a vengeful Russia and an ascendant China, and the democratic decay at home which threatens the very foundations of the world built by the Enlightenment. 
 
The book warns us that liberalism’s great strength has been freeing people from arbitrary constraints – but its great weakness has been leaving individuals isolated, a void that can all too easily be filled by tribalism, populism, and identity politics. Today’s revolutions in technology and culture can even leave people so adrift that they turn against modernity itself.

Age of Revolutions

Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present

Richard J. Evans

Why did so many Germans take part in the crimes of Nazi Germany? How did they come to support Hitler and follow him almost to the very end? For too long, the Nazis have been presented as little more than psychopaths or criminals. In his major new work, renowned historian Richard J. Evans makes use of a mass of recently unearthed new evidence to strip away the veneer of myth and legend from the faces of the Third Reich and present a more realistic view of Nazi perpetrators as human beings who were disturbingly like us. 
 
Evans offers rounded, fresh and often startling new portraits of the men and women who created and served Nazi Germany, beginning with Hitler himself and going on to encompass leading figures like Göring, Goebbels and Himmler, enforcers of Hitler’s orders such as Eichmann and Heydrich, propagandists like Leni Riefenstahl, low-level perpetrators such as the notorious Irma Grese and unknown sympathizers and fellow-travellers who helped the regime in myriad ways. 
 
Hitler’s People is a chilling, brilliantly written work which allows the reader to understand the texture and values of the Third Reich and just how far individuals will go when so many normal moral constraints have disappeared.

Hitler's People

The Faces of the Third Reich

Rebecca Hall

Hugo Martinez

Women warriors planned and led slave revolts on slave ships during the passage across the Atlantic. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas. And then they were erased from history. 
 
In Wake Rebecca Hall, a historian, a granddaughter of slaves, and a woman haunted by the legacy of slavery, tells their story. With in-depth archival research and a measured use of historical imagination, she constructs the likely pasts of women rebels who fought for freedom on slave ships bound to America, as well as the stories of women who led slave revolts in Colonial New York. Beneath both is Hall's own tale: of a life lived in the shadow of slavery and its consequences. 
 
Strikingly illustrated in black and white, Wake explores both a personal and a global legacy. Part graphic novel, part memoir, it is a powerful reminder that while the past is gone, we still live in its wake. 
 
'Not only a riveting tale of Black women's leadership of slave revolts but an equally dramatic story of the engaged scholarship that enabled its discovery' - Angela Davis

Wake

The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts

Patrick Bishop

** THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ** 
 
‘An epic thriller . . . droll, moving, with a cinematic eye and not a boring line in it' OBSERVER • ‘Fascinating . . . gripping' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH • 'Excellent . . . a fresh, unexpected take on the liberation of Paris' JULIAN JACKSON, author of France on Trial 
 
From the Sunday Times-bestselling Patrick Bishop comes a heart-stopping countdown narrative recreating the liberation of Paris in 1944, one of the great and most dramatic hinge moments of WW2. 
 
When the Germans marched in and the lamps went out in the City of Light the millions who loved Paris mourned. Liberation, four years later, triggered an explosion of joy and relief. It was the party of the century and everybody who was anybody was there. General Charles de Gaulle seized the moment to create an instant legend that would take its place alongside the great moments in French history. After years of oppression and humiliation Parisians had risen to reclaim their city and drive out the forces of darkness – or so the story went. 
 
This fresh new account of the liberation, packed with revelation, tells the story of those heady days of suspense, danger, exhilaration – and vengeance – through the eyes of a range of participants, reflecting all sides of the conflict: Americans, French and Germans; resisters and collaborators. Among them are famous names like Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger and Pablo Picasso, but also some fascinating unknowns including a medic turned Resistance gunwoman, an androgynous Hungarian sculptor and a French bluestocking who quietly set about saving the nation’s art treasures from the Nazi looters. 
 
Paris ’44 looks behind the mythology to tell the real story of the liberation and expose the conflicts and contradictions of France under the occupation – the shame as well as the glory. This gripping war-time narrative will enthral anyone who has a place for Paris in their hearts.

Paris '44

The Shame and the Glory

Biyi Bandele

'Run, Àjàyí, run!' 
 
The day the Malian slave traders invaded the Nigerian town of Òsogùn, thirteen-year-old Àjàyí's life was split in two. 
 
Before, there was his childhood, surrounded by friends and family, watched over by the ancient Yorùbá gods of forest and water, earth and sky. After: capture, slavery - and release, into the service of a new god, his own culture left far behind. So Àjàyí becomes Samuel Crowther - missionary, linguist, minister - and abolitionist: driven to negotiate against his own people to end the miserable trade in human beings which destroyed his family. 
 
From the heart-stopping drama of Àjàyí's last day of freedom to his consecration as the first African Bishop of the Anglican Church, Biyi Bándélé's kaleidoscopic reimagining of Crowther's life is a brilliant tour de force.

Yorùbá Boy Running

Up to now, no one outside of official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilisation as we know it. Frantic calls over secure lines work to confirm the worst as armoured helicopters are scrambled to evacuate the chosen few to secure bunkers. One nuclear missile will provoke two dozen in return. Decisions over hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, knowing that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction. 
 
Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts, Nuclear War is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever.

Nuclear War

A Scenario

Chigozie Obioma

FROM THE TWICE BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR 
 
Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and the New American Voices Award 
 
Named a Best Book of the Year by the Economist, Boston Globe, and Kirkus Reviews 
 
'A major voice' SALMAN RUSHDIE 
'Remarkable' ALICE WALKER 
'A sweeping, heart-racing, mystical novel' NEW YORK TIMES 
'Chigozie Obioma is that rare thing: an original' WALL STREET JOURNAL 
'As much Bildungsroman as battle song' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS 
'A moving story of conflict, faith and fractured bonds, blending myth and realism with emotional power' iPAPERWhen a country is torn apart by civil war, Kunle and Tunde are separated, each on opposite sides. Desperate to find his brother, Kunle’s search becomes one of atonement, leading him to join an army and to fight in a war he barely understands. Amidst the chaos, he forms deep, lifelong friendships and falls in love. But his ultimate hope remains: to reunite with his family. 
 
An emotionally powerful masterpiece, Chigozie Obioma’s odyssey of brotherhood, love, and extraordinary courage set against the backdrop of the Biafran War captures the essence of a young man’s quest for redemption in a nation ablaze. 
 
'A gutsy ... coming-of-age tale with romance at its heart' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Mr Obioma has been described as the heir to Chinua Achebe ... He pulls from the same wells of rage and horror as his literary forebear did' ECONOMIST 
 
'A remarkable talent' INDEPENDENT 
 
'Incredibly moving and hopeful' NADIFA MOHAMMED 
 
'A wondrous novel' NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH

The Road to the Country

Al Murray

Discover the Sunday Times bestseller and incredible true story behind the most catastrophic 24-hours the British military faced in World War II from the bestselling author. 
 
‘Utterly brilliant... this book really is the last word on the Battle of Arnhem’ James Holland 
’Superb... A military historian of originality and insight to compare with the best’ Saul David 
_________ 
 
The Battle of Arnhem is one of the best-known stories in British military history: a daring but doomed attempt to secure a vital bridgehead across the Rhine in order to end the war before Christmas 1944. 
 
It is always written about, with the benefit of unerring 20/20 hindsight, as being destined to fail, but the men who fought there, men of military legend, didn't know that that was to be their fate. 
 
Now, in Arnhem: Black Tuesday, Al Murray focuses on the events of one day as they happened through the eyes of the British participants, without bringing any knowledge of what would happen tomorrow to bear, offering a very different perspective on a familiar narrative. 
 
Some things went right and a great many more went wrong, but recounting them in this way allows the reader to understand for the first time how certain decisions were taken in the moment and how opportunities were squandered. 
 
Al Murray has always been obsessed by this legendary battle, and in Arnhem: Black Tuesday he showcases all of his knowledge, interpretation and enthusiasm to bear to tell the story of one of history’s great heroic failures differently for the first time. 
_________Praise for Arnhem: Black Tuesday: 
 
‘Original and insightful’ Telegraph 
'A revelation.. This is Arnhem unplugged. By confining himself to men in and around Arnhem on that Tuesday, Murray achieves something special' The Times

Arnhem: Black Tuesday

Adam Higginbotham

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger space shuttle disaster based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research – riveting history that reads like a thriller 
 
On the morning of 28 January 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions around the world witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in twentieth century history – one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened – and why – has never been told. 
 
Based on extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space follows a handful of central protagonists – including each of the seven members of the doomed crew – through the years leading up to the accident, a detailed account of the tragedy itself, and into the investigation that followed. It’s a compelling tale of optimism and ingenuity shattered by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubristic ‘go fever’; and of an investigation driven by heroic leakers and whistle-blowers determined to bring the truth to light. 
 
With astonishing clarity and narrative verve, Adam Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program, the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster, as well as the designers, engineers and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space. A masterful blend of riveting human drama, fascinating science and shocking political infighting, Challenger brings to life a turning point in our history. The result is an even more complex and extraordinary story than any of us remembered – or thought possible.

Challenger

A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

Clare Hammond

In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together. 
 
Her journey would take her from Myanmar's tropical south to the embattled mountain towns that border India and China. In dilapidated carriages, along tracks in disrepair, through contested ethnic states and former sites of forced labour, visiting temples, tea shops and festivals, Clare encountered a colourful and contradictory Myanmar through the stories of its people. Simultaneously a lush and evocative travelogue, an unsparing account of Myanmar's recent history, and an astonishing, conversation-shifting engagement with Britain's colonial legacy, On the Shadow Tracks is that rare and necessary thing: a book that finds and tells the truth.

On the Shadow Tracks

A Journey through Occupied Myanmar

Simon Sinek

In 2009, Simon Sinek ignited a movement to help people find a greater sense of purpose at work and added a new word to the lexicon of business: WHY. People and companies now regularly talk about their WHY. Sinek’s videos have been seen by over a billion people around the world, including more than 65 million who’ve watched his TED Talk based on Start with Why. 
 
Sinek starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over? 
 
Start With Why shows that the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way— and it's the opposite of what everyone else does. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common but they inspired people, not with WHAT they did...but with WHY they did it. 
 
Sinek provides a simple framework that inspires people to build organizations and lead movements in a more powerful and effective way. And it all starts with WHY. 
 
With a new foreword touching on the importance of holding onto our WHY in a distracted age, new examples, and original stories updated, this 15th anniversary edition celebrates a simple but transformative idea that has changed the way we think about leadership and legacy.

Start With Why

15th Anniversary Edition: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

James Holland

‘It should become a standard work on this campaign’ Telegraph 
'James Holland is now our foremost authority on the Italian campaign' John C. McManus 
'A heart-pounding narrative of the brutal Allied fight to take Rome... This is history at its finest' James M. Scott, Pulitzer Prize finalist 
'Holland writes with eloquence and power about the harsh realities of a brutal battle that grabbed the world’s attention and helped to decide the future of Italy' Professor Michael S. Neiberg 
___________ 
 
There are no such thing as an easy victory in war but after triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion, and with the Italian surrender, the Allies were confident that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943. 
 
And yet it didn't happen. Hitler ordered his forces to dig in and fight for every yard, thus setting the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional campaigns of the Second World War. 
 
By the start of 1944, the Allies found themselves coming up against the Gustav Line: a formidable barrier of wire, minefields, bunkers and booby traps, woven into a giant chain of mountains and river valleys that stretched the width of Italy where at its strongest point perched the Abbey of Monte Cassino. 
 
It would take five long bitter winter months and the onset of summer before the Allies could finally bludgeon their way north and capture Rome. By then, more than 75,000 troops and civilians had been killed and the historic abbey and entire towns and villages had been laid waste. 
 
Following a rich cast of characters from both sides - from frontline infantry to aircrew, from clerks to battlefield commanders, and from politicians and civilians caught up in the middle of the maelstrom - James Holland has drawn widely on diaries, letters and contemporary sources to write the definitive account of this brutal battle. The result is a compelling and often heart-breaking narrative, told in the moment, as the events played out, and from the perspective of those who lived, fought and died there.

Cassino '44

Five Months of Hell in Italy

Jason Fox

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. 
 
Discover how to become the best version of yourself with this game-changing, personal development plan from the star of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins and author of Battle Scars and Life Under Fire. 
 
‘A motivational masterclass with a proven framework for improving every day.' Aldo Kane 
 
Challenge your limits, change your habits and transform your life. 
 
In Embrace the Chaos, Special Forces veteran Jason Fox sets out a revolutionary programme of personal challenges designed to help you reboot, disrupt your thinking, and grow your capabilities. 
 
Across 52 short chapters of practical advice - battle-tested on elite military operations and extreme expeditions - Foxy mentors you through a series of tasks that will enhance your life. 
These exercises range from micro-adventures and small habit changes to addressing your routine, cleansing your relationships, setting personal goals and learning new skills. 
 
In this life-changing book you’ll find: 
- A new challenge for every week of the year. 
- Practical advice and tips. 
- Physical and creative tasks. 
- Mentoring guidance through each process. 
 
Whether you’re looking for adventure, in need of mental clarity, or seeking military grade productivity, Embrace the Chaos will push you physically and mentally to become the best version of yourself.

Embrace the Chaos

52 Tactics to Make Every Day Count

Scott Bateman

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 
 
Read the legendary story of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft, seen through the eyes of former RAF captain Scott Bateman 
'An engaging and revealing read' JOHN NICHOL‘An action-packed insider’s account of what it’s like to fly this legendary flying machine in peace and war’ KeyAero.com 
-- 
 
Take wing with an unsung hero . . . 
Hercules is the hero of the skies we never talk about. First to land in any combat zone and last out, the Hercules always unflashily gets the job done – whether that’s a risky air drop or hauling out troops in an emergency evac. 
Also working as an aerial tanker, gunship, spyplane, air-sea rescuer and even a precision bomber, its versatility has time and again seen the Hercules give the RAF their edge – from Antarctica to Iraq, Afghanistan to the Falklands. 
Captain Scott Bateman drags us into the cockpit and buckles us in for an extraordinary pilot’s seat view of this aircraft’s 50-year history. 
Anytime. Anywhere. Anyhow.

Hercules

Ben Macintyre

On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Princes Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. 
A tense six-day siege ensued as millions gathered around screens across the country to witness the longest news flash in British television history, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS – hitherto an organisation shrouded in secrecy – laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. 
 
Drawing on unpublished source material, exclusive interviews with the SAS, and testimony from witnesses including hostages, negotiators, intelligence officers and the on-site psychiatrist, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre takes readers on a gripping journey from the years and weeks of build-up on both sides, to the minute-by-minute account of the siege and rescue. 
 
Recreating the dramatic conversations between negotiators and hostages, the cutting-edge intelligence work happening behind-the-scenes, and the media frenzy around this moment of international significance, The Siege is the remarkable story of what really happened on those fateful six days, and the first full account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS – and itself.

The Siege

The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama

John Humphreys

Stuart Tootal

A powerful and authentic account of WWII from 101-year-old veteran John Humphreys, from boy soldier in the Royal Engineers to jumping into Arnhem with the Parachute Regiment in 1944, spearheading the attack on the bridge. For days they held on, outnumbered and outgunned by a German army fighting to the last bullet. But the Bridge Too Far is only the climax of this extraordinary story... The Last Para is the final firsthand account of this legendary action, told with incredible honesty and irrepressible spirit.

Arnhem’s Last Para

Serhii Plokhy

On 24 February 2022, the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, armoured vehicles approached the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. It was the most direct way for them to reach the capital - and an extraordinarily reckless plan after the disaster that had taken place there three decades earlier. Russian occupation of the plant had begun. It would last thirty-five days. 
 
Closely reported and narrated from multiple perspectives, this is the story of the Ukrainians who were held hostage and worked shifts for weeks instead of days to spare the world a new nuclear accident. We meet Valentyn Heiko, the foreman who had also been there for the clean-up of the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and turned sixty during the occupation; plant workers who found a way to celebrate International Women’s Day despite all odds; Russian officers who had no knowledge of nuclear reactors; and four stalkers who were caught in the middle and stood in for the overworked cook. 
 
Gripping and unforgettable, Chernobyl Roulette sounds the alarm about the dangers of nuclear sites in an unprecedented time, when plant workers are left to fight on their own while the world holds its breath. In a book that reads like a thriller, Serhii Plokhy tells a remarkable story about human nature, uncertainty and courage.

Chernobyl Roulette

A War Story

Robert Darnton

‘Events do not come naked into the world. They come clothed – in attitudes, assumptions, values, memories of the past, anticipations of the future, hopes and fears and many other emotions. To understand events, it is necessary to describe the perceptions that accompany them, for the two are inseparable.’ 
 
When a Parisian crowd stormed the Bastille in July 1789, it triggered an event of global consequence: the overthrow of the monarchy and the birth of a new society. Most historians account for the French Revolution by viewing it as the outcome of underlying conditions such as a faltering economy, class conflict or Enlightenment ideology. Without denying any of these, Robert Darnton offers a different explanation: what Parisians themselves, those at the centre of the Revolution, thought was happening at the time and how it guided their actions. 
 
To understand the rise of what he calls ‘the revolutionary temper’, Darnton draws on a lifetime’s study of pamphlets, books, underground newsletters, songs and public performances, exploring Paris as an information society not unlike our own. Its news circuits were centred in cafes and market-places, on park benches, and under the Palais-Royal’s Tree of Cracow, a favourite gathering-place for gossips. He shows how the events of forty years – from disastrous treaties, official corruption and royal scandal to thrilling hot-air balloon ascents and a new conception of the nation – all entered the collective consciousness of ordinary Parisians. As news and opinion travelled across this profoundly unequal society, public trust in royal authority eroded, its legitimacy was undermined, and the social order unravelled. 
 
Much of Robert Darnton’s work has explained the hidden dynamics of history, never more so than in this exceptional book. It is a riveting narrative, but it adds a new dimension, the perceptions of contemporary Parisians, which allows us to see these momentous decades afresh.

The Revolutionary Temper

Paris, 1748–1789

Jonathan Dimbleby

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
2025 marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Read and remember the history that led to this important moment. 
 
'This book is his best yet . . . Dimbleby’s work is in a different league, told with such skill and judgment' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 
 
A gripping and authoritative account of the year that sealed the fate of the Nazis, from the bestselling historian 
 
June 1944: In Operation Bagration, more than two million Red Army soldiers, facing 500,000 German soldiers, finally avenged their defeat in Operation Barbarossa in 1941. The same month saw the Allies triumph on the beaches of Normandy, but, despite the myths that remain, it was the events on the Eastern Front that sealed Hitler's fate and destroyed Nazism. 
 
In his new book, bestselling historian Jonathan Dimbleby describes and analyses this momentous year, covering the military, political and diplomatic story in his evocative style. Drawing on previously untranslated German, Russian and Polish sources, we see how sophisticated new forms of deception and ruthless Partisan warfare shifted the Soviets’ fortunes, how their triumphs effectively gave Stalin authority to occupy Eastern Europe and how it was the events of 1944 that enabled Stalin to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement, laying the foundations for the Cold War . . . 
 
'Mr. Dimbleby is a sure-footed guide to the labyrinthine military operations along a front line that extended nearly 2,000 miles, from the Baltic to the Black Sea' Wall Street Journal 
 
'Terrific . . . a tour de force' Sir Richard Evans 
 
'Military history at its very best' Keith Lowe 
 
Sunday Time Bestseller, June 2024

Endgame 1944

How Stalin Won The War

Hampton Sides

In July 1776, Captain James Cook began his third voyage in HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, in Hawaii, Cook was killed – stabbed by the indigenous population. 
 
What brought Cook to this end, so far from his reputation? Cook was renowned for humane leadership, dedication to science and respect for indigenous societies. 
 
Cook’s new voyage carried secret orders, and the Captain grew strange, delivering savage punishments and leading his ships into danger. The mission revealed the sharp edge of a colonial sword, leaving catastrophe in its wake. And, on the shores of Hawaii, Cook’s expedition finally tore itself apart…

The Wide Wide Sea

Phillips Payson O'Brien

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

The Strategists

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

Nick Lloyd

In the second volume of his landmark First World War trilogy, Professor Nick Lloyd tells the story for the first time of what Winston Churchill once called the 'unknown war': the vast conflict in Eastern Europe and the Balkans that brought about the collapse of three empires. 
 
Much has been written about the fighting in France and Belgium, yet the Eastern Front was no less bloody. Between 1914 and 1917, huge numbers of people - perhaps as many as 16 million soldiers and two million civilians - were killed, wounded or maimed in enormous battles that sometimes ranged across a front of 100 km in length. 
 
Through intimate eyewitness reports, diary entries and memoirs - many of which have never been translated into English before - Lloyd reconstructs the full story of a war that began in the Balkans as a local struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and which sucked in Russia, Germany and Italy, right through to the final collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918. 
 
The Eastern Front paints a vivid and authoritative picture of a conflict that shook the world, and that remains central to understanding the tragic, blood-soaked trajectory of the entire twentieth century, including the current war in Ukraine.

The Eastern Front

A History of the First World War

Rachel Maddow

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

Prequel

An American fight against fascism

Paul Beaver

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

Winkle

The Extraordinary Life of Britain’s Greatest Pilot

A Times 2024 Best Summer Read 
 
The village of Alvesdon has been home to the Castells for generations. But the year is 1939 and the peace and tranquillity there is about to be shattered once more by the stormclouds of war in Europe. As three generations of the family gather, they must all face the prospect of their lives being transformed beyond recognition the moment Britain declares war on Germany. 
 
When the inevitable happens and Britain finds itself at war, the younger members of the family and farm workers are called up to fight and those who remain must battle to keep the home fires burning and the farm afloat. The gentle certainties of rural life are replaced by the urgent clamour of war, in the air, at sea and on land, where events unfold with dizzying rapidity and unexpected consequences. 
 
Stretching from the glorious summer of 1939 to the Battle of Britain the following year, acclaimed historian James Holland paints a compelling and immersive fictional portrait of how the war changed everything. For one family and for a community, their way of life can never really be the same again…

Alvesdon

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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