Shielded from emotional and physical abuse by layers of fat, Lilian struggles to escape a suffocating existence in the home of her tyrannical Victorian father and her elegant but ineffectual mother. M
In The Hidden Ways, Alistair Moffat traverses the lost paths of Scotland - its Roman roads tramped by armies, its warpaths and pilgrim routes, drove roads and rail roads, turnpikes and sea roads - in
Summer has ended, but the heat will not let up. Ash has covered everything. Weeds and wheat grow around the cars abandoned in the road. Anna and Astor live in the house behind the fence, surviving in
When Kent Nerburn received a letter from Jennifer, a young woman questioning her calling to spend her life in the arts, the writer and artist was struck by how closely her questions mirrored the doubt
It is Scotland in the early eighteenth century. Fear and superstition grip the land. Robert Wringhim, a boy of strict Calvinist upbringing, is corrupted by a shadowy figure who calls himself Gil-Marti
During the mid 1980s Howard Marks had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines, and owned 25 companies throughout the world. Whether bars, recording studios, or offshore banks, all were money laundering vehicles se
Dr James Darke has expelled himself from the world. He writes compulsively in his 'coming of old age' journal; he eats little, drinks and smokes a lot; he tries to console himself with the wisdom of t
An account of Ancient Rome in all its madness and debauchery. It paints a vivid, sometimes funny, picture of the ancient world, highlighting the complexities and politics inherent in Empire-building.
Read in the style of a secret diary, this famous sequel to I, Claudius gives a wry and human view of the Roman world, bringing to life some of the most scandalous and violent times in history.Claudius
Complicated Shadows paints a detailed and accurate portrait of an intensely private and complex individual. It draws on nearly 50 exclusive interviews with schoolmates, pre-fame friends, early band me
Over sixty years after Virginia Woolf drowned in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing sets out to walk its banks, from the source all the way to the sea. As she walks, she reflects upon the power of rivers, r
SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016OBSERVER SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016Not so long ago we timed our lives by the movement of the sun. These days our time arrives atomically and insistently, a
One of the most important books on this essential topic, On Forgiveness draws on the great philosophers and writers such as Frederick Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, and Nelson Mandela. Both timely and a
Prince Rogers Nelson released his first album in 1978. In the almost 40 years that followed he became a superstar, a recluse, an inspiration, an enigma, and a symbol. He was a master of reinvention, b
In April, 1925, at the age of 15, Jean Lucey Pratt started a journal that she kept until just a few days before her death in 1986, producing more than a million words in 45 exercise books. What emerge
'The thing he felt ending was not just one person, or even one generation; it was older, and had, in truth, been ending for a long time . . . It was a chain of stories clinging to stories, of love cli
“Some time ago, perhaps before you were even born, a young girl was walking in her garden. She may have been called Mary - that's what most of the stories say. Mary was a little bit taller than the ot
When Martha accepts a place at university, her decision is met with a mixture of hostility and pride by her uncomprehending family. This is the story of a young woman's journey to maturity and indepen
His face made a fist at the world. The twined remnant of umbilicus projected vulnerably. Hands, feet and prick. He had come equipped for the job. Newborn Conn Docherty, raw as a fresh wound, lies bet
