As the first world war broke out across Europe, Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole became trapped by ice. Their ship, the Endurance, was crushed and the men were forced to survive in and escape
Learn the secrets to excelling at interview, direct from top interviewers and recruiters, in Why You? by James Reed, chairman of recruitment specialists REED, You can't prepare an answer for every int
This tender, deeply funny novel is about an eccentric elderly Ukranian widower in England and the struggles of his two feuding daughters to thwart the voluptuous young gold digger from the old country
A Sunday Telegraph and Times Higher Education 'Book of the Week', Deborah Cohen's Family Secrets is a gripping book about what families - Victorian and modern - try to hide, and why. In an Edinburgh t
Focusing on the relationship between WB Yeats and his father or Thomas Mann and his children or JM Synge and his mother, the author examines a world of family relations, richly comic or savage in its
In Georgian London: Into the Streets, Lucy Inglis takes readers on a tour of London's most formative age - the age of love, sex, intellect, art, great ambition and fantastic ruin. Travel back to the G
A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Forei
She was always Em to us. There may have been a time when we called her something ordinary like Mummy, or Ma, but I don't remember. She was Em, and our father, sometimes, was the Big Hoom. In a tiny fl
The city of Troy has been ransacked by conquering Greeks and lies in smouldering ruins. A warrior, Aeneas, manages to escape from the ashes. He will go on to change the history of the world. This is a
The Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of the 5th century BC, is generally regarded as the first work of history and the first great masterpiece of non-fiction writing. Few history b
A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers. Matt Shore is a pilot down on his luck. Once he'd flown big jets and dropped supplies in war zones. Now he's ferrying high-cl
"For Kicks" is a spy story. Faced with a threat to the whole sport of steeplechasing, the stewards decide that only an undercover operation can succeed in revealing the mystery. Daniel Roke,
Valentine, a blind, confused and dying old man, seeking his peace with God, makes his last confession to a visiting friend, Thomas Lyon, mistaking him for a priest. Thomas, in Newmarket to research fo
Despite his reputation for intricate and impressive restaurant cooking, Gary Rhodes believes that the best way to cook something is often the most simple. In his latest book, he strips out complicated
Each week in the television series Cutting the Mustard, a struggling restaurant receives the Gordon Ramsay treatment. His personality is forceful, to say the least. His reputation for explosive outbur
Rob Brydon - star of "Gavin and Stacey", Steve Coogan's partner in "The Trip", and one of Britain's favourite comedians. A multi-award-winning actor, writer, comedian and presenter known for his warmt
Armed only with conviction, curiosity, enthusiasm and a stout pair of trousers, the author hurtles around the world - along motorway, autoroute, freeway and autobahn - in search of answers to life's p
Two families become embroiled in each other's lives and long buried secrets are unravelled. This is a dark, compelling and controversial novel of one family's darkest secrets.
Hanging from a rope in the attic of a deserted tenement is the body of a criminal believed hiding out on the Costa del Sol these last ten years. His face has been hideously disfigured. Investigating o
"I employ this thing called The Shovel List." "A shovel...?" "No. A Shovel List. It's more of a conceptual thing. It's a list of all the people and things I hate so much that I want to hit them in the
Zoe, Jennifer and Nadia are three women with nothing in common. Except for the man who wants to kill them. He sends them terrifying letters, full of the intimate details of their lives - and promises
Alastair Cooke's Letter from America: 1946-2004 is a defining collection from his legendary BBC Radio broadcasts that guides us through nearly sixty years of changing life in the United States. Alista
Rudolf Rassendyll, having heroically saved the kingdom of Ruritania and nobly given up the hand of the beautiful Princess Flavia, has returned to his normal life in England. But when, three years late
The scar on Rhoda Gradwyn's face was to be the death of her... When the notorious investigative journalist, Rhoda Gradwyn, books into Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a
Her boyfriend said she was quirky but it was more than that. Some things were important in life. You had to fight for them. Helen was prepared for that - only she wasn't as strong as people thought. W
I'm the King of the Castle is Susan Hill's spellbinding novel of childhood cruelty. With an introduction by Esther Freud. Susan Hill's I'm King of the Castle was first published in 1970. Telling the s
This work includes Shakespeare's writing on power: in love, war, government and the family. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and
Don't Tell Alfred is the wickedly funny sequel to Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. 'I believe it would have been normal for me to have paid a visit to the outgoing ambas
The Blessing by Nancy Mitford with an introduction by Alex Kapranos. It isn't just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace and her young son Sigi are finally able to join her dashing aristoc
Annie's put fifteen years into safe, slightly obsessive Duncan, and now she's like her money back, please. It's time to move on. But she lives in Gooleness, the north's answer to a question nobody ask
Pioneering art historian Jacob Burckhardt saw the Italian Renaissance as no less than the beginning of the modern world. In this hugely influential work he argues that the Renaissance's creativity, co
Munich, 1936. She doesn't know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English up
Shortlisted for the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Elif Shafak's The Flea Palace is a moving and highly original novel about a group of individuals who live in the same building and who toget
In a moment of sudden inspiration Sarah Worth - S - has walked out on her husband to join the Ashram Arhat. Famous for his transcendent wisdom and divine immobility, the Arhat has transferred his ahra
Sensitive and book-loving Laura is born in the rural hamlet of Lark Rise, where life has followed an unchanging pattern for centuries and the days are governed by the rhythms of nature. This is the un
An academic and writer, during the Second World War John Stewart Collis was put to agricultural work. Clearing and thinning an Ash wood, he found a meditative peace and an earnest pleasure in the use
Since their first publication in 1821, de Maistre's dark writings have fascinated and appalled critics, with their relentless hatred of the Enlightenment and view of humans as murderous beasts who can
Martin Middlebrook's The First Day on the Somme is a compelling and intensely moving account of the blackest day in the history of the British army. On 1 July, 1916, a continuous line of British soldi
