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From that first date – and how it’s all downhill from there

We all know about the jungle of ‘dating’. But once you’ve found your ‘special’ friend you’ll have to pretend you like their taste in music, be nice to their mother and pick up their socks, and that’s only year one.

By the time you get into grumpy old middle-aged land, you’re firmly on farting terms and over-familiarity has bedded in. The only thing to do with the whole business is to laugh over it, which is the idea of this book.

Two lives torn apart by the French Revolution…

1788. Asa Ardleigh, the impressionable daughter of a country squire, has travelled to Paris with her sister Philippa and Philippa’s new husband. In the heady days before the Revolution, they find a city fizzing with new ideas – and Asa meets and falls in love with a dashing revolutionary, Didier Paulin. When Asa is forced to return to England, their affair is curtailed, but they continue to exchange letters as storm clouds gather over France and war with England looms.

Back in England, no one knows of Asa’s liaison as the family’s financial worries put pressure on her to marry. But then disturbing news reaches Asa from France, and she must decide whether to follow her head or her heart…

A stainless steel rat for a stainless steel world …

Meet Slippy Jim, aka The Stainless Steel Rat, aka James Bolivar DiGritz. A man of many names and many talents … all of which add up to make one of the greatest con men of all time.

Charming, quick-witted, physically fit, a master of disguise, a skilled liar, an accomplished bank robber and exceptionally talented at breaking and entering, he’s everything a master thief should be. He’s also about to be caught, turned, and sent back out onto the streets as part of the Special Corps.

Join the adventure in this omnibus edition of the first three Stainless Steel rat adventures: The Stainless Steel Rat, The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge, and The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World.

A philosopher is given the task of teaching a mysterious child, but does not foresee the consequences for his protegee…

After crashing and burning during his PhD viva, Mason Ambrose is offered a large amount of money to go to a mysterious tropical island – Isla de Sangre. His employer is wealthy recluse Edwina Sabachtani whose daughter has supposedly lost her sense of right and wrong after a diving accident. Mason is to use his knowledge as a philosopher to instil a conscience, a moral compass in the child.

Mason happily instructs her in schools of thought, from the stoics to the epicureans, but it is when he introduces Londa to the Beatitudes that the seeds of a rampaging sense of justice are sown. Venturing from the confines of the island, Londa sets out to create a world that is more just. But when she takes her crusade too far, kidnapping a boat full of wealthy industrialists, Mason realises he must take desperate measures…

The Lost Voices of our ‘Forgotten Army’ in the war with Japan 1941-45.

Nearly a million strong by 1944, the British 14th Army fought and ultimately conquered the Japanese forces that invaded Burma and strove to break through into India. But the victory was hard won, with great suffering along the way. With priority given to defeating Germany, these troops were last in line for additional men and equipment, and they joked about being “The Forgotten Army.” Here is the story of these remarkable soldiers, whose monument at Kohima reads: ‘When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.’

The Lost Voices of our ‘Forgotten Army’ in the war with Japan 1941-45.

Nearly a million strong by 1944, the British 14th Army fought and ultimately conquered the Japanese forces that invaded Burma and strove to break through into India. But the victory was hard won, with great suffering along the way. With priority given to defeating Germany, these troops were last in line for additional men and equipment, and they joked about being “The Forgotten Army.” Here is the story of these remarkable soldiers, whose monument at Kohima reads: ‘When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.’

A fascinating and hilarious expose of how a group of young opportunists, chancers and geniuses found instant fame and fortune by messing about on the web. And one man’s attempt to follow in their footsteps.

Having covered the first dot com boom, and founded a web-to-print publishing business during the second one, Paul counts many of the leading Internet entrepreneurs amongst his closest friends. These friendships mean he doesn’t just attend their product launches and press conferences and speak at their events, but also gets invited to their ultra-exclusive networking events, and gets drunk at their parties.

Paul has enjoyed this bizarre world of excess without having to live in it. To help the moguls celebrate raising millions of pounds of funding without having to face the wrath of the venture capitalists himself. But in 2006, Paul decided he didn’t want to be a spectator any more. He had been harbouring a great dot com project of his own and decided it was time to do something about it.

Men, money, duelling and murder: welcome to the infamous Derby race of 1844 and the gambling mania that gripped early 19th century Britain.

This is a tale of money, gambling and sporting obsession; of rogues and rascals, outrageous criminality, aristocratic complacency, and a gripping investigation to expose the most audacious sporting plot of the age. In the early 1840s, Britain was the gambling capital of Europe and the Epsom Derby was attracting countless spectators and many millions of pounds in wagers. It was a time of frenzied speculation, high stakes and low morals.

But as the unprincipled Regency era gave way to the high-mindedness of the Victorian period, reformers decided it was time to challenge the murky world of illegal gambling and in 1844, launched the far-reaching Parliamentary Enquiry. When the Derby of the same year ended in chaos, with the two favourite horses doped, the Turf’s most dedicated follower and greatest tyrant Lord George Bentinck, took it upon himself to uncover the truth of what happened that day, which led to one of the most sensational court cases of the 19th century. A compelling detective story peopled with low-life aristocrats and high-minded reformers, GENTLEMEN AND BLACKGUARDS paints a rich picture of early Victorian society, bringing to light an overlooked turning point in British history.

Just over a century ago, Our Island Story entranced a nation’s children by telling their history in stories. Short, simply written chapters, packed with living characters and thrilling action – and illustrated with vivid colour pictures – illuminate all the main events from Britain’s earliest days to the end of Victoria’s reign. And its glorious fusion of myth and legend with sober fact – Canute and King Arthur with Cromwell and the Indian Mutiny – is as seductive now as it ever was.

‘I was given H.E. Marshall’s Our Island Story at Christmas 1936 and I’ve still got that copy. It was a direct inspiration for me in my career as a historian’ Antonia Fraser

‘It is written in a way that really captured my imagination and which nurtured my interest in the history of our great nation’ David Cameron

‘One of the most influential works of history of the 20th century’ Times Educational Supplement

Evelyn is struggling to come to terms with the loss of her brother in the Great War, and to make her own way in the world – when a woman arrives with her brother’s illegitimate child…

Living at home with her mother, aunt, and grandmother, Evelyn is still haunted by the death of her younger brother James in the First World War. She is also determined to make a career for herself as one of the first female lawyers. So when the doorbell rings late one night and a woman appears, claiming to have mothered James’s child, her world is turned upside down.

Evelyn distrusts Meredith at first, but also finds that this new arrival challenges her work-obsessed lifestyle. So far her legal career has not set the world alight. But then two cases arise that make Evelyn realise perhaps she can make a difference. The first concerns a woman called Leah Marchant whose children have been taken away from her simply because she is poor. The second, Stephen Wheeler, has been charged with murdering his own wife. It is clear that Wheeler is innocent but he won’t talk.

In the meantime, Meredith makes an earth-shattering accusation about James – and Evelyn falls in love with a man engaged to be married. With the Wheeler case coming to a head, and her heart in limbo, Evelyn takes matters into her own hands…

Based on the letters that inspired Clint Eastwood’s film

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA reveals the true story of the Battle of Iwo Jima, the subject of two films directed by Clint Eastwood. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS tells the story of the US Marines who raised the flag above the island: the iconic image of the war with Japan. His other film, LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA tells the story from Japanese point of view. At the heart of the story is the maverick general Tadamichi Kuriyabashi, devoted family man, brilliant leader and the first man on the island to know they were all going to die.

As Clint Eastwood comments, ‘General Kuribayashi was a unique guy. He liked America. He thought it was a mistake to go to war. . America was too big an industrial complex.’ Unlike most Japanese officers, he had travelled abroad, spent time in America, and was under no illusions as to the ultimate end. He fought and died to delay the Americans for as long as he could. He knew that once the island fell, it would be used as an airbase by US bombers to strike at Tokyo. His unorthodox methods made this the fiercest battle the US Marines have ever faced, and he sustained resistance far longer than anyone believed possible.

Kumiko Kakehashi’s heart-rending account is based on the letters written home by the doomed soldiers on the island, mostly family men, conscripted late in the war. She reveals a very different Japanese army from the popular image. It is an incredibly moving portrayal of men determined to resist to the last breath, despite their profound opposition to the regime that led them into war.

How the men and women of Britain found ‘the road home’ after the Great War. From the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author of THE LOST POST.

11am, 11.11.1918: the war is finally over.

After four long years Britain welcomed her heroes home. Wives and mothers were reunited with loved ones they’d feared they’d never see again. Fathers met sons and daughters born during the war years for the very first time. It was a time of great joy – but it was also a time of enormous change.

The soldiers and nurses who survived life at the Front faced the reality of rebuilding their lives in a society that had changed beyond recognition. How did the veterans readjust to civilian life? How did they cope with their war wounds, work and memories of lost comrades? And what of the people they returned to – the independent young women who were asked to give up the work they had been enjoying, the wives who had to readjust to life with men who seemed like strangers?

Noisy popular liberal interventionism? Or a more conservative, diplomatic approach concentrating on co-operation between nations? This is the debate that lies at the heart of modern politics and Hurd traces its most interesting and influential exponents.

He starts with Canning and Castelreagh in post Waterloo Britain; to a generation later, the victory of the interventionist Palmerston over Aberdeen; then to Salisbury (Imperialism) and Grey (European balance of power); and finally to Eden and Bevin who combined to lay the foundations of a post-war compromise.

That delicate balance has served its purpose for over half a century, but as we enter a new era of terrorism and racial conflict, the old questions and divisions are re-surfacing . . .

Noisy popular liberal interventionism? Or a more conservative, diplomatic approach concentrating on co-operation between nations? This is the debate that lies at the heart of modern politics and Hurd traces its most interesting and influential exponents.

He starts with Canning and Castelreagh in post Waterloo Britain; to a generation later, the victory of the interventionist Palmerston over Aberdeen; then to Salisbury (Imperialism) and Grey (European balance of power); and finally to Eden and Bevin who combined to lay the foundations of a post-war compromise.

That delicate balance has served its purpose for over half a century, but as we enter a new era of terrorism and racial conflict, the old questions and divisions are re-surfacing . . .

Gripping account by Richard Hammond of life before and after his terrifying high-speed car crash.

Richard Hammond is one of our most in-demand and best-loved television presenters. In September 2006, he suffered a serious brain injury following a high-speed car crash. ON THE EDGE is his compelling account of life before and after the accident and an honest description of his recovery, full of drama and incident.

An adrenalin junkie long before his association with Top Gear, Richard tells the story of his life, from the small boy showing off with ridiculous stunts on his bicycle to the adolescent with a near-obsessive attraction to speed and the smell of petrol.

After a series of jobs in local radio, he graduated to television and eventually to Top Gear. His insights into the personalities, the camaraderie and the stunts for which Top Gear has become famous, make compulsive reading. It was whilst filming for Top Gear that Richard was involved in a high speed crash, driving a jet-powered dragster.

His wife Mindy tells the story of the anxious hours and days of watching and waiting until he finally emerged from his coma. In an extraordinarily powerful piece of writing, she and Richard then piece together the stages of his recovery as his shattered mind slowly reformed. The final chapter recounts his return home and his triumphant reappearance in front of the cameras.

Gripping account by Richard Hammond of life before and after his terrifying high-speed car crash.

Richard Hammond is one of our most in-demand and best-loved television presenters. In September 2006, he suffered a serious brain injury following a high-speed car crash. ON THE EDGE is his compelling account of life before and after the accident and an honest description of his recovery, full of drama and incident.

An adrenalin junkie long before his association with Top Gear, Richard tells the story of his life, from the small boy showing off with ridiculous stunts on his bicycle to the adolescent with a near-obsessive attraction to speed and the smell of petrol.

After a series of jobs in local radio, he graduated to television and eventually to Top Gear. His insights into the personalities, the camaraderie and the stunts for which Top Gear has become famous, make compulsive reading. It was whilst filming for Top Gear that Richard was involved in a high speed crash, driving a jet-powered dragster.

His wife Mindy tells the story of the anxious hours and days of watching and waiting until he finally emerged from his coma. In an extraordinarily powerful piece of writing, she and Richard then piece together the stages of his recovery as his shattered mind slowly reformed. The final chapter recounts his return home and his triumphant reappearance in front of the cameras.

The story of the everyday heroism of British bomber crews in 1944 – the turning point year in Bomber Command’s war against Germany.

There were many ways for a combat crew to die during Bomber Command’s war of 1944. Over German territory, bursts of heavy flak could tear the wings from their planes in a split second. Flaming bullets from German fighter planes could explode their fuel tanks, cut their oxygen supplies, destroy their engines. In the spring of that year, thousands of young men were shot, blown up, or thrown from their planes five miles above the earth; and even those who returned faced the subtler dangers of ice and fog as they tried to land their battered aircraft back home.

The winter of 1944 was the most dangerous time to be a combat airman in RAF Bomber Command. The chances of surviving a tour were as low as one in five, and morale had finally hit rock bottom. In this comprehensive history of the air war that year, Kevin Wilson describes the most dangerous period of the Battle of Berlin, and the unparalleled losses over Magdeburg, Leipzig and Nuremberg.

He tells how ordinary men coped with constant pressure of flying, the loss of their colleagues, and the threat of death or capture. And, by telling the story of the famous events of this period – the Great Escape, D-Day, the defeat of the V1 menace – he shows how, through sheer grit and determination, the ‘Men of Air’ finally turned the tide against the Germans.

The story of the everyday heroism of British bomber crews in 1944 – the turning point year in Bomber Command’s war against Germany.

There were many ways for a combat crew to die during Bomber Command’s war of 1944. Over German territory, bursts of heavy flak could tear the wings from their planes in a split second. Flaming bullets from German fighter planes could explode their fuel tanks, cut their oxygen supplies, destroy their engines. In the spring of that year, thousands of young men were shot, blown up, or thrown from their planes five miles above the earth; and even those who returned faced the subtler dangers of ice and fog as they tried to land their battered aircraft back home.

The winter of 1944 was the most dangerous time to be a combat airman in RAF Bomber Command. The chances of surviving a tour were as low as one in five, and morale had finally hit rock bottom. In this comprehensive history of the air war that year, Kevin Wilson describes the most dangerous period of the Battle of Berlin, and the unparalleled losses over Magdeburg, Leipzig and Nuremberg.

He tells how ordinary men coped with constant pressure of flying, the loss of their colleagues, and the threat of death or capture. And, by telling the story of the famous events of this period – the Great Escape, D-Day, the defeat of the V1 menace – he shows how, through sheer grit and determination, the ‘Men of Air’ finally turned the tide against the Germans.

George Steiner, the eminent professor of English at Cambridge and Geneva universities, has outlined seven books he has never written, but has always wanted to write, in seven sections.

In this fiercely original and audacious work, George Steiner tells of seven books which he did not write. Because intimacies and indiscretions were too threatening. Because the topic brought too much pain. Because its emotional or intellectual challenge proved beyond his capacities.

The actual themes range widely and defy conventional taboos: the torment of the gifted when they live among, when they confront, the very great; the experience of sex in different languages; a love for animals greater than for human beings; the costly privilege of exile; a theology of emptiness.

Yet a unifying perception underlies this diversity. The best we have or can produce is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind every good book, as in a lit shadow, lies the book which remained unwritten, the one that would have failed better.

A fascinating slice of East End life, from the No.1 bestsellilng author of CALL THE MIDWIFE, soon to be a major BBC TV series.

In this follow up to CALL THE MIDWIFE, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s tells more stories about the people she encountered.

There’s Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House – she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank’s parents both died within 6 months of each other and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse.

The Reverend Thornton-Appleby-Thorton, a missionary in Africa, visits the Nonnatus nuns and Sister Julienne acts as matchmaker. And Sister Monica Joan, the eccentric ninety-year-old nun, is accused of shoplifting some small items from the local market. She is let off with a warning, but then Jennifer finds stolen jewels from Hatton Garden in the nun’s room. These stories give a fascinating insight into the resilience and spirit that enabled ordinary people to overcome their difficulties.

A fascinating slice of East End life, from the No.1 bestsellilng author of CALL THE MIDWIFE, soon to be a major BBC TV series.

In this follow up to CALL THE MIDWIFE, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s tells more stories about the people she encountered.

There’s Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House – she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank’s parents both died within 6 months of each other and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse.

The Reverend Thornton-Appleby-Thorton, a missionary in Africa, visits the Nonnatus nuns and Sister Julienne acts as matchmaker. And Sister Monica Joan, the eccentric ninety-year-old nun, is accused of shoplifting some small items from the local market. She is let off with a warning, but then Jennifer finds stolen jewels from Hatton Garden in the nun’s room. These stories give a fascinating insight into the resilience and spirit that enabled ordinary people to overcome their difficulties.

A fascinating slice of social history – Jennifer Worth’s tales of being a midwife in 1950s London, now a major BBC TV series.

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction.

Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer’s stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.

A fascinating slice of social history – Jennifer Worth’s tales of being a midwife in 1950s London, now a major BBC TV series.

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction.

Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer’s stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.

Jennifer Worth’s tales of being a midwife in 1950s London, now a major BBC TV series.

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction.

Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer’s stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.