Search results for ""Gibson Square""

Charles II's succession to the throne came at a time of national turbulence: his father had been beheaded, Oliver Cromwell had usurped his right to reign. England was at sea among Europe's constantly shifting allegiances. But Henry Jermyn, a Suffolk commoner, lover to the queen mother and possibly even father to the king, was there to keep the royal family together. Jermyn's deft way of secretly manipulating government and raising an army almost prevented Civil War. He was instrumental in saving the monarchy and set in motion the rise of the British Empire. A duellist, soldier and spymaster, Jermyn was close to the great men of the 17th century: Francis Bacon (his kinsman), Louis XIV, Cardinal Richelieu, Inigo Jones, Samuel Peypys, Christopher Wren and Thomas Hobbes (whose Leviathan he inspired). The King's Henchman is a story of love, family, regicide, adversity and last-minute escapes, set against the backdrop of bloody Civil War. It is also the remarkable love story of a commoner and a royal who together shared a vision for Britain and created St James's Square and Greenwich Park as its first grand expression.

Read more less

Can classical music change lives? In Soul Music, novelist Candace Allen embarks on a personal journey that takes her from the streets of London and Scotland to Venezuela, where the Sistema scheme has offered thousands of young people a route out of the ghetto mentality through virtuoso musical training, bringing global fame to the charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel; to Ramallah, and Daniel Barenboim's East-West Divan Orchestra in which young Israelis and Palestinians play side-by-side.

Read more less

One of the most acclaimed books on diversity and its problems in a new updated edition.

Read more less

The history of modern Russia traditionally has Communism at its centre: Lenin defines its rise, Gorbachev its fall, and Putin its aftermath. In this radical new history, Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Popov, however, introduce a new historical axis: the Cheka-the Bolsheviks' nebulous revolutionary intelligence service. Wrapped around the Party in a fight to the death from 1918 under its first head Felix Dzerzhinsky, only Stalin was able to resist its stranglehold at the cost of enormous bloodshed. Luring Russia into submission over less than a century, its murder-plots and unrivalled scheming culminated in the capture of the Kremlin in 2000. Drawing on Popov's secret documents of over two decades as a senior officer in one of the KGB's key covert sections, and on Felshtinsky's encyclopedic knowledge of Russian state archives open in the 1990s, little-known sources, and access to leading oligarchs, a new Russian history emerges. The story they tell is often unexpected while introducing a new cast of characters still of great influence-potentially surpassing Lenin's role-on our world today. In addition, the authors introduce a host of hitherto unknown characters who should be considered as pivotal, not least Felix Dzerzhinsky the ruthless first head of the Cheka. Obscure in comparison to Lenin or Stalin, he should however be considered as important an architect of modern Russia as Lenin. From Red Terror to Terrorist State is the first comprehensive history of the Cheka, its vice-like hold over Russia, global reach and ambitions. A monumental record by two exceptional Russian-intelligence experts, it presents an unrivaled wealth of unknown, authoritative, and detailed facts. Narrated from inside the intelligence services, it fundamentally transforms our understanding of how Russia works and how the Kremlin should be viewed.

Read more less

Before Fridtjof Nansen's Greenland expedition of 1888, the vast impenetrable arctic regions exasperated nineteenth-century scientists. The twenty-six-year-old thought he knew better. Convinced that he would succeed by skiing, a sport practically unknown at the time, he put together a group of only six members to cross the arctic interior of Greenland for the first time. They would pull their own sledges and, on a shoe-string, arrange transport to Greenland on two steam liners to drop them off in the icy Arctic sea. They could only afford a basic camera to document their trip. Astonishingly, this audacious but much criticised plan succeeded! Nansen's riveting expedition classic including his diary entries are here republished for the first time in full. His words and captivating expedition photographs caught with a student camera set in motion a golden age of exploration.

Read more less

George Walden specialised in China at the Foreign Office and was one of the few Westerners in China in 1964 who spoke Mandarin. In this razor-sharp analysis he argues that we compare the country to Britain or the United States at our peril. The Chinese juggernaut that has launched on to the world stage is of a size without any precedent in human history. Every year 30 million Chinese migrate from the countryside to the city. The only way to grasp what our future with China is going to be like for the next 30 years is to view its culture and insecurities on its own terms.

Read more less

A primer on modern China by a leading expert.

Read more less

Updated edition of the book that got former FSB Colonel Alexander Litvinenko killed according to MI6. It unveils the first-ever fake news campaign that the FSB created to have former FSB head Vladimir Putin elected as President of Russia.

Read more less

Helena Frith Powell noticed her first wrinkle when she accidentally caught sight of herself in her car's rear-view mirror. It set her off on an entertaining quest to find the most potent weapons in the battle against the effects of time on the face and body, without spending a fortune.

Read more less

Following the US execution of Bin Laden, a Syrian sleeper cell detonates a nuclear bomb in the heart of London by ramming a vehicle into the Bank of England. Forced to take shelter from the packed radiation dust, a seemingly random group of people gathers in a hairdressing salon nearby. They are all connected to the attack in some way, but how? It is up to MI5 agent Tony Underwood to prevent the bombers' next attack and crack the secrets that everyone is trying to hide from him.

Read more less

At the age of eleven, Helena Frith Powell's mother gave her a letter after school. It was from her real father her mother told her, not the abusive and moody man Helena had always assumed was the one. This new father was glamorous, an Italian film maker, and he would like her to meet his family on a grand tour of Italy. The moving discovery of Italy and the many relatives Helena never knew she had is wittily described in Ciao Bella, the memoir of her trip through Italy with her father. In a new twist, her father receives a prestigious literary prize in 2008 at the age of 80 and is reunited with her mother after 25 years - will it last?

Read more less

Inspirational warts-and-all business story how the founder of IKEA became the world's richest man starting with a single furniture store in rural Sweden.

Read more less

Do you remember your first love? Have you ever wondered 'What if - '? Marina has the life she always dreamed of. She is married to Mark, a gorgeous surgeon, writes a personal column for a leading tabloid and lives in the heart of Chelsea. But when writing a column about first love she stumbles on Tom, her one-that-got-away, and begins to feel that her life is not as complete as she had thought. When they are brought together at a New Year's Eve reunion, she realises that he still has power to make her weak at the knees. Marina finds herself struggling to choose between safety with her surgeon or new passion with her teenage crush. She has to decide: London or Rome, husband or lover?

Read more less

With the summer beckoning, life in France seems the ultimate dream for all of us rosbifs. But behind the sun, the wine, and the beautifully honey-coloured houses what is the reality of actually living in France? Based on her own experiences, those of her friends and of the many readers who write in to her Sunday Times column French Mistress, Powell tells the story of the daily passions in La Douce France warts and all in a fresh, fast and humorous narrative.

Read more less

What do you do if you find a bra in your husband's luggage that isn't yours? Or even his! This is the dilemma facing mother-of-three Sophie Reed, shortly after she moves to France with her family to start a new life. As they are unpacking her husband admits to having an affair with a French woman called Cecile. Sophie thinks about throwing him out with the bra. But then what? Should she move back to England? Her inner French woman tells her otherwise. She is getting to know her enigmatic, aristocratic neighbour. And then there is her old flame, the breathtakingly sexy, and now famous, Johnny Fray...French women think nothing of having several lovers, but is that the answer for an inexperienced English girl who has been married for ten years?

Read more less

Like her five literary sisters, Diana Mitford has written widely not only on her own fascinating, controversial life, but has recorded her intimately-placed observations of friends who also happened to have been leading political and social figures of the day. The majority of these scintillating articles circulated privately to a small group of people are published for the very first time in this volume.

Read more less

On 29 May 1953 Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary conquered Everest, three days before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Before their success, Everest had claimed the lives of dozens of climbers, including George Leigh Mallory in 1924. Norgay, the descendant of generations of yak herders, was destined to become a llama, but his love for the mountains was that much stronger. He had but one dream all his life, despite seven sherpas dying in 1922, and that was to conquer Everest. For thirty years expeditions had been struggling to scale its fiendishly difficult icy slopes and he was part of every single one until the one with Hillary succeeded. No adventure enthusiast will want to miss this unique Buddhist perspective on climbing.

Read more less

Like a modern Viking 32-year-old Nansen set sail from Norway in 1893 to reach the North Pole. Experts warned him that his voyage was tantamount to suicide. Compact and nimble, his ship the Fram had been specially built to withstand the relentless, devastating pressure of the polar ice cap. At the right moment, he intended to strike out into the polar desert and finish the final leg by sledge.Nansen's vivid memoir became an international phenomenon when, having been given up for dead, he emerged three years later. His epic struggle against snowdrifts, ice floes, polar bears, scurvy, gnawing hunger and the loneliness of the polar night would inspire young explorers such as Scott and Amundsen a generation later to make new conquests. This first unabridged edition since 1897 includes photographs not previously published.

Read more less

Who is the richest, the first, the best, the most beautiful, the most influential, the most important, the poorest, the best-dressed WAG? --- As the influx of money into English football grew stratospheric, so did the wealth of the footballers and their WAGS. Once housewives, today WAGgery guarantees instant celebrity. Their own WAG ‘league’ draws as much media attention as the beautiful game. Here is the first-ever history of WAGs and how they came to dominate the front pages as much as the footballers do the sports pages. There are epic rivalries, catfights and gossip between and about the women and their husbands; from the first stirrings of the phenomenon 1960s to the WAGs’ roaring entry on to the front pages, to today where they are an institution with winners and losers. What makes WAGs tick? Do they want to get to know the man behind their footballer? Or is it something else? Come and find out! --- Victoria Beckham, Coleen Rooney, Rebekah Vardy, Cheryl Cole, Joy Beverley, Angie Best, Tina Moore, Danielle Souness, Karen Souness, Sheryl Gascoigne, Ulrika Johnson, Nancy Dell’Olio, Stacey Giggs, Natasha Giggs, Vanessa Perroncel and many others.

Read more less

Liz Cowley's first volume of bestselling humorous gardening cameos inspired by the seasons, out in a new series design and large gift format, with five new cameos.

Read more less

Dr Richard Halvorsen brings together the latest medical knowledge on all modern child vaccines (age 0-15yrs), as well as the diseases they aim to protect against, including the ’flu virus. The guide includes what is known about the link between vaccination, autism and other auto-immune diseases, and what parents can do. Where it is useful to parents, Dr Richard Halvorsen has added clinical information from his surgery as a general practitioner for almost three decades where it is useful to parents, as well as a quick reference guide.

Read more less

A hard-hitting history by one of Britain's leading public-health experts.

Read more less

Who is Keir Starmer? When Keir Starmer won the Labour Party Leadership election in April 2020, the expectation was that he would quickly become a fierce Leader of the Opposition as a former director of public prosecutions, human-rights barrister and genuinely keen football supporter. Instead, his performance was not as surefooted as his supporters had hoped for, or his opponents feared. The 2021 local elections and Hartlepool by-election did not resurrect the Red Wall and only in the Tory-blue South did his party make cosmetic gains. Both in Parliament and in media interviews Starmer struggled to connect with the floating or even the traditional Labour voter. His approach seemed to raise as many questions as Jeremy Corbyn's leftwing leadership. Nigel Cawthorne attended Starmer's grammar school a few years before him (and David Walliams). Sharing the same formative experience, he goes in search of the man behind the lawyer who was covered for almost three decades by a gown and horsehair wig in one of Britain's most cloistered professions.

Read more less

The dramatic story of how the 13 mountain peaks, including the Matterhorn, were conquered by 25-year-old Edward Whymper, armed with tweeds, an ice-axe and Alpenstock. Includes for the first time the 56 photographs he took a decade later.

Read more less

The acclaimed biography delving into the real Keir Starmer for the first time in an updated paperback.

Read more less

Liz Cowley's first volume of bestselling humorous gardening cameos inspired by early morning gardening, out in a new series design and large gift format, with five new cameos.

Read more less

Following her previous two bestselling volumes, Liz Cowley returns with a new collection of 140 humorous cameos inspired by gardening quirks in her accessible, witty style – the perfect thing to have to hand during a tea-break!

Read more less

This mischievous novel, set in Lucca, Italy, centres around an unexpectedly passionate affair and the ripples it causes around it. There is Patricia, a young English woman and is happily married with an Italian academic and a young son. Malise and Christian are brothers from Hertfordshire. While Malise is beautiful, smart, aloof, he is also cruel, and Christian has never been able to dampen his adoration for the older brother. Sensuous, darkly-funny bordering on the demonic, this a love story that plays wickedly with Anglo-Saxon attitudes.

Read more less

When he came across an old-English limerick that made him laugh, playwright Ranjit Bolt started writing nonsensical verse to entertain his friends. On a whim he decided to staple some together and offer them at a market in his home town of Cambridge when not writing plays. Readers would go away chuckling to themselves and the booklets flew away. Their chuckling response led to A Lion Was Learning to Ski.

Read more less

The first Tao of cats, written by 37 felines for cat lovers around the world.

Read more less

Through the infamous divorce of her parents, Ada Lovelace became the most talked-about child in Georgian Britain. This riveting biography tells the extraordinary yet little known story of her life and times-when mathematics was as fashionable as knitting among women and Ada became the world's first computer programmer. But for her era's view on gender, Ada would single-handedly have started the digital age more than two centuries ago.

Read more less

We all know people who are incredibly persuasive. In this concise book the philosophy of persuasion is parsed in 38 subtle rules that will give you the magic formula to achieve success in work and life. Find out when to: • Counter bad arguments with bad arguments / • Claim victory despite defeat / • Anger your opponent / • Lying is permitted. In this practical yet entertaining book, AC Grayling has skilfully edited Arthur Schopenhauer's posthumous work for the modern reader and provided additional text of his own. Schopenhauer, eclipsed at university by Hegel (whom he thought a fraud), made the topic of this book the study of a lifetime. Here are his conclusions in 38 handy hacks anyone can use.

Read more less

A gripping analysis of pre- and post-Brexit Britain

Read more less

When General Eisenhower assumed the US presidency in 1953 the world entered the nuclear age and certainly Winston Churchill thought that Eisenhower would soon lead the US into another war. Based on declassified archive material, Ike's Bluff tells for the first time the real story. In fact, the opposite happened to Churchill's fears. Eisenhower realised the devastating consequences of a nuclear conflict well ahead of the other world powers. His broad smile hid a brilliant, ruthless tactician. He guided a fractious world through a period when the full consequences of the Bomb were only slowly realised. Harold Macmillan, with whom he had a close friendship, ruefully remarked that Britain would be wiped off the map with only 8 bombs. Facing the Soviet Union, China, and his own generals, some of whom believed a first strike was the only means of survival, Eisenhower would make his boldest and riskiest bet yet, one of such enormity that there could be but two outcomes: the survival of the world, or its end. This is the story of how he won.

Read more less

How does globalisation affect our economy and how did it cause the financial melt-down? In this unique book twelve global thinkers and business people, including global entrepreneur Richard Branson ("Losing My Viriginity"), give their compelling views on the threats and opportunities that lie ahead. Included among the contributors are Jim O'Neill head of Goldman Sachs research who coined the phrase BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries; Peter Jones of BBC Draggon's Den; and, Minister for Business Lord Mandelson, Clare Short, alternative globalisation expert and eco-feminist Vandana Shiva (Earth Democracy), and 2006 Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus (Banker to the Poor).

Read more less

Ghislaine Maxwell's life of privilege was unimaginable. Her jetset world was not only made up of Presidents, top billionaires, Hollywood stars, Kennedys and Rockefellers, but also of princes, princesses, dukes and duchesses, all as regular friends - including university friend Prince Andrew, the favorite son of the Queen of England. Yet she still wanted more. Ghislaine met shadowy billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and amassed a fortune of almost $30 million over the course of their friendship. Her arrest by the FBI in July 2020 - almost a year to the day of Epstein's second arrest on sex charges - proved a stinging fall from grace as $30 million bail was refused. GHISLAINE MAXWELL leaves no stone unturned and is the first investigation based on all new sources available. An explosive true story, GHISLAINE MAXWELL is a riveting tale of wealth, power and the almost impervious Teflon power surrounding America's richest citizens.

Read more less

Imagine a world where Wellington boots come with a 24-page instruction manual, or council carers who are prohibited from making tea for OAPs in case they scald themselves on the job. Welcome to Britain in the 21st century, where the Jobsworths now lords it large, issuing edicts of mind-boggling stupidity that ruin the quality of people's lives all in the name of 'elf n safety'. Journalist Alan Pearce has compiled the most outrageous and hilarious (and unfortunately all true) examples. They will make you cringe whilst crying with laughter. Read about the author who was banned from selling his book in case it caused paper cuts; the swings removed from a playground in case children were blinded by the sun while playing on them; an international cycle race banned after worries about urinating cyclists; the risk assessment needed before a local village hall could sell mince pies. You couldn't make it up!

Read more less

Cooking humour for the inner chef.

Read more less

The autobiography Nancy Mitford intended to write herself

Read more less

In this bittersweet collection of daily moments of pleasure, conflict and disappointment, Liz delves into everything from an agonisingly slow shopper, to falling in and out of love. Her wry wit and honest observations cast a poignant light on all the big and small things that make up everyday life.Endlessly entertaining and approachable, We All Have Our Moments is a book for those who love verse, and for those who normally wouldn't.

Read more less

Wittgenstein said that if people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever happen. In this compelling A-Z of modern ignorance, Stephen Bayley gathers silly, curious and sometimes shocking facts on everything that makes our world tick. Why does Judeo-Christianity love mountains? Why was fear of drinking from skulls the original reason for cremation? And where does the word f*** come from (hint: think berets)? You'll be surprised how much you never knew!

Read more less

Is the internet changing the relationship between the sexes? While eighty per cent of those interviewed in polls say that affairs are wrong, for example, the percentage who admit to having had an affair has doubled every ten years to 2010. Looking at the latest data, social scientist Catherine Hakim traces new faultlines between men and women and how they are shifting in our increasingly sexualized culture in this landmark study of modern love and marriage.

Read more less

Few military organisations have had a greater importance than the Wagner Group: at a cursory glance no more than a disreputable private mercenary group dedicated to committing war crimes yet also, astonishingly, the challengers of the Kremlin on 23-24 June, 2023—unheard of in over two decades of Vladimir Putin’s rule. From its inception in 2014 this nebulous organisation operating from Russia was intentionally cloaked in questions. How was it able to operate alongside Russia’s top government officials? How could it deploy the logistical systems of the Russian army up to and including ordering air attacks with fighter planes of the Russian Federation, despite the deep antipathy of Russia’s powerful defence minister Sergei Shoigu? Why did the Kremlin provide such an ample helping hand to its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, for over a decade? In this compelling book, former Financial Times journalist Owen Wilson investigates the Wagner Group and their ties to Vladimir Putin. It skilfully sets out its history and the dramatic death of Yevgeny Prigozhin to cast a searching light on the person who ultimately stands behind the group.

Read more less

In 1982, eight young Guards officers in their twenties found themselves suddenly on the way to the Falklands 8000 miles away from Britain. Some four decades later, they realised that no one had written the history of this unique war in Britain's history from their side - including coming under Argentine fire on Sir Galahad on 8 June, the most dramatic day in Britain's military history since the second world war. Crispin Black tells their story and casts a startling new light on what happened to them, using the latest official documents. Even basic facts have remained hidden to this day.

Read more less