Nonfiction

'[The letters] cover war, fame and her first infatuation with another woman...all related in a voice that is funny, gracious, intimate' The Observer"I find myself talking to you about all...

How did Syria's revolution lose its way? Drawing on the author's firsthand knowledge of the country's complex religious and ethnic communities, this book illuminates the darker recesses of Syria's history,...

The third book in the bestselling and hilarious series of 'Am I Alone ...?' books From bin Laden to Pippa Middleton's bottom, and from riots to Rebekah Wade, Telegraph readers...

Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of...

Why do the revolving doors of power always leave us disappointed? In Why Politics Fails, award-winning Oxford professor Ben Ansell shows that it's not the politicians that are the problem,...

FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2022 THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2021 'A complex story, which Tooze tells with clarity and verve... The world is unlikely...

Cider with Rosie is the first part of the poet Laurie Lee's (1914-1997) autobiographical trilogy. It describes his life in the Gloucestershire village of Slad from his earliest years until...

"Walled Gardens" is a brilliant portrait of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, struggling through the post-war depression aided by drink, horse-racing and religion, and their own idiosyncratic adaptations to modern life. Seen...

With his sharp wit and poet's eye, Tim Heath writes of a forty-year career, mostly in New Zealand but also in Samoa. He's worked in small country schools, in big...

Russia is a country of contradictions: a nation of cultural refinement and artistic originality and yet also a country that rules by 'the iron fist'. In this riveting history, Martin...

As an RAF medical officer, Aidan had served in France, survived Dunkirk, and was plunged into adventures in the Japanese-American arena comparable with those of famous war heroes. Interned by...

What is the difference between literal and figurative writing? Is there really a secret set of tricks used by top authors to make their writing even better? Why not use...

Secret Societies in one form or another have existed throughout the history of human culture. But what is their appeal? What is it that makes so-called respectable people indulge in...

The Holy Grail is a subject that fascinates and intrigues. Through its various guises as magic cauldron, cornucopia, horn of plenty and chalice cup it has remained at the centre...

The Knights Templar were the most powerful military religious order of the Middle Ages. Formed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, they participated in the Crusades and rapidly gained...

At the end of the Second World War the victorious Allies began unprecedented proceedings against those leading Nazis who had been captured. The trial that followed was conducted in four...

In this account of life in post-war literary Dublin, Anthony Cronin writes of the frustrations and pathologies of this generation: the excess of drink; the shortage of sex; the insecurity...

WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2008'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy' Laura Silverman, Daily MailThe ruins...

Eight hundred years ago, the Cathars, a group of heretical Christians from all walks of society, high and low, flourished in what is now the Languedoc in Southern France. Their...

Written in 731 starting with the Roman invasion, it chronicles the growth of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England.This masterpiece of English medieval historical literature constitutes the first account of English history.Translated...

Muhammad Yunus set up the Grameen Bank in his home country of Bangladesh with a loan of just [pound]17, to lend tiny amounts of money to the poorest of the...

There is no book in English about the wartime Berlin 'salon' run by Kitty Schmidt under the secret control of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Final SolutionSalon...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'When one of the world's leading scholars of civil war tells us that a country is on the brink of violent conflict, we should pay attention....

Traditionally known as the Father of History, the Greek writer Herodotus(c. 484-420 BC), was the first man to tell a story in prose on the scale of the ILIAD and...

Primo Levi's account of life as a concentration camp prisoner falls into two parts. IF THIS IS A MAN describes his deportation to Poland and the twenty months he spend...

THE SECOND SEX is a hymn to human freedom and a classic of the existentialist movement. It also has claims to be the most important s ingle book in the...

Easily the most celebrated historical work in English, Gibbon's account of the Roman empire was in its time a landmark in classical and historical scholarship and remains a remarkable fresh...

A concise and practical book for experienced and novice writers.