Книги жанра историческая литература
‘Do yourself a favour and read this wonderful book’ ScotsmanBased on the true story of conjoined Russian twins, Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep is a tale of survival and self-determination, innocence and lies.No one expects Dasha and Masha to live beyond childhood. Not the Soviet scientists who study them, the other ‘defective’ children who bully them, or th…
Professor Tudor Parfitt, a real-life British Indiana Jones, has made the biggest discovery of the last 3,000 years – the secret location of the fabled Ark of the Covenant. In 2006, he made an incredible journey to its final resting place and in February 2008 he will reveal this to the world. This is the amazing story of his quest.This is the real-life account of Professor Tudor Parfitt's remarkabl…
Do you know when the Duke of Albemarle arranged Britain’s first boxing match, between his butler and his butcher? Or when the first speeding fine was issued for exceeding 2 mph in a built-up area?The Times On This Day is a fascinating delve into often significant, and sometimes unusual, moments throughout history.From the Register section of The Times, discover the connections between people, even…
Perfect for fans of ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’, this is a remarkable love story with a background of religious and political turmoil in Tudor England.The year is 1527. Hans Holbein makes his first visit to England, sent by the great Erasmus to paint Thomas More, courtier, scholar, patron, and his family. More's splendid house on the river in Chelsea is at the centre of Tudor society, frequented b…
As Queen Catherine’s maid, and daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, the future seems bright for Elizabeth Stafford. But when her father gives her hand to Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, the spirited young woman must sacrifice all for duty. Yet Elizabeth is surprised by her passion for her powerful new husband. And when he takes on a mistress, she is determined to fight for her love and her ho…
Two sisters. Two special agents. One War.Sisters, Secrets and Sacrifice is the incredible true story of British special agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne, two sisters who risked everything to fight for our freedom during the Second World War.The death of an eccentric recluse is rarely an event to be given more than a few lines in a local newspaper. But when, in September 2010, police were called…
The story of the unsung heroines who flew the newest, fastest, aeroplanes in World War II – mostly in southern England where the RAF was desperately short of pilots.Why would the well-bred daughter of a New England factory-owner brave the U-boat blockades of the North Atlantic in the bitter winter of 1941? What made a South African diamond heiress give up her life of house parties and London balls…
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Richard Holmes’s dazzling portrait of the most exciting period in British history is a groundbreaking achievement.The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook’s first Endeavour voyage, who stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769 fully expecting to have located Paradise. Back in Britain, th…
Without libraries, what have we? We have no past and no future. This book tells for the first time in English the story of the first great universal library in the age of printing – and of the son of Christopher Columbus who created it.This is the scarcely believable – and wholly true – story of Christopher Columbus' bastard son Hernando, who sought to equal and surpass his father's achievements b…
The ultimate story of escape to riches, revenge and redemption by ‘the Napoleon of storytellers’.Falsely accused of treason, Edmond Dantes is arrested on his wedding night and imprisoned in the grim island fortress of Chateau d’If. After staging a dramatic escape he sets out to discover the fabuouls treasure on the island of Monte Cristo and uses it to exact revenge on those responsible for his in…
‘If there is one dominant myth about the world, one huge mistake we all make … it is that we all go around assuming the world is much more of a planned place than it is.’From the industrial revolution and the rise of China, to urbanisation and the birth of bitcoin, Matt Ridley demolishes conventional assumptions that the great events and trends of our day are dictated by those on high. On the cont…
A novel of family secrets hidden through two generations, set against the stunning backdrop of the Lake District in midwinter. From the author of The Villa in Italy.One family Christmas uncovers two generations of secrets…The year of 1936 is drawing to a close. Winter grips Wetmoreland and causes a rare phenonmenon: the lakes freeze. For two local families, the Richardsons and the Grindleys, the f…
A radical look at Jane Austen as you’ve never seen her – as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain’s favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time.Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long tradition of English comic drama and took joyous participatio…
Unpublished for 90 years, Agatha Christie’s extensive and evocative letters and photographs from her year-long round-the-world trip to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America as part of the British trade mission for the famous 1924 Empire Exhibition.In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promot…
‘Yet another compulsively readable, astonishingly encyclopaedic book from Roy Porter…his best to date: an epic, one-volume narrative history of man’s struggle with the infirmities of his body, from Aesculapius to AIDS.’ SIMON SCHAMA‘Whether you are interested in the advent of the stethoscope, the history of yellow fever, the bubonic plague or, closer to home, coronary heart disease, the feminist i…