British Nonfiction

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional prime minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style, and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last four years at Number 10 were a period of intense emotional and political turmoil in her private and public life.

She slept with the devil. She killed with the devil. She never stopped loving the devil. July 1963: All of England is rocking to the music of Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and Elvis. It’s also the month when Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, two of England’s most prolific serial killers, would claim their first victim. He was a child they buried in the muddy, swampy moors near Manchester. Sleeping With The Devil: A Shocking True Crime Story of the Most Hated Woman in Britain is the tale of two bloody years in the 1960s. It was a time when British parents hugged their children a little tighter to ...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Discover the global phenomenon that tells an unforgettable story of love, loss, courage, and healing. “Compellingly artful . . . [a] blockbuster memoir.”—The New Yorker (Best Books of the Year) It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century...

September 1943. The microfilm in his boot heel is worth more than his life, and its value expires in ninety days. Colditz Castle is where the Reich sends the prisoners no other camp can hold. Flight Lieutenant Daniel Ash arrives with a secret that would get him shot in a courtyard rather than returned to a cell: before the war made him a bomber pilot, Bletchley made him a codebreaker. On his first night, a dying stranger in the next cell passes a canister through a gap in the stone. Inside: film that must reach London before its window closes, carried by a courier who didn't live to explain...

Sometimes in life you may get to live some of your dreams. Sometimes in life, you get to step briefly outside of time. Standing on the front gallery on St. Croix, looking across the channel toward distant islands, it’s impossible not to wonder what lies beyond those small shapes on the horizon. On clear days, Tortola and the scattered islands of the British Virgin Islands appear like pearls tossed across the sea — close enough to imagine, far enough to dream about. That curiosity turned into reality when friends Dan and Julie welcomed us aboard their catamaran Kindred Spirit, sailing ...

In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea...

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that probes the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe Sprawling across a...

Bloomsbury presents Spitfires by Becky Aikman, read by Laurel Lefkow. "A bold and soaring work of history . . . whip-smart, deeply researched, and beautifully written.” —Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life “A soaring narrative.”—Keith O'Brien, New York Times...

Bloomsbury presents The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, read by Sid Sagar. THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 A...

BRITISH KILLERS - VOLUME 1 This book tells the story of 9 crimes, and the events around them, which took place in the UK and captured the attention of the British media and public at the time. *The Hitman It was one of Scotland Yard's most shocking cases. Six brutal murders that only came to light during a routine robbery investigation. *The Towpath Murders In 1953, the Coronation was a time of joyous celebration for most Britons. But two teenage girls from south-west London never lived long enough to see Queen Elizabeth II crowned. *The New Forest Massacre It started as the robbery of the ...

A remarkable audio edition of C.S. Lewis' beloved classic—the only existing recording of Lewis reading his own work. C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and bestselling author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great...

This is not a book about the end of the world - it's about the start of a new one. Melting glaciers. Crumbling coasts. Vanishing seas. The feeling that our world is coming to an end has led to a rise in 'ecological grief' and prompted a wave of last-chance tourists and environmental mourners...

In the summer of 1924, a thirty-one year old Swedish immigrant named Albert Ostman packed an eighty-pound kit into the mountain wilderness above Toba Inlet, British Columbia, looking for a lost gold mine. He was a practical man — a construction worker and logger with more than a decade of backcountry experience and a reputation, in the camps where he worked, for plain dealing and plain speaking. He expected three weeks of solitude and prospecting. What he got was six days of captivity in a hidden mountain valley, held by something that no field guide has ever catalogued and no scientific ...

As heard on the New Yorker Radio Hour: The triumphant and "engaging history" (The New Yorker) of the young women who devised a winning strategy that defeated Nazi U-boats and delivered a decisive victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. By 1941, Winston Churchill had come to believe that the...

A stunning narrative from one of the most powerful young writers at work today, and the director of the Oscar-nominated documentary, Sugarcane, We Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of...

They walked out of their homes, their workplaces, their lives — and never came back. The Vanishing Hour: Britain's Most Baffling Disappearances reveals twelve real-life unsolved missing person cases from the UK — stories that remain open, heartbreaking, and unexplained. From Yorkshire to London, Devon to Scotland, these are the true crime mysteries that continue to haunt investigators and families alike. In 2009, Claudia Lawrence left for work in York and vanished. In 2007, Andrew Gosden bought a one-way ticket to London and disappeared. In 1986, Suzy Lamplugh went to meet “Mr Kipper...

The global history of high speed rail, from the railways' "wisest, most detailed historian" (The Observer) Sleek, comfortable, accessible, and sustainable, high-speed rail is the future. Since Japan’s Bullet Train first sped down the track in the sixties, it has become a global icon, as famous...

The Histories Of All The Canadian Provinces In One Blockbuster Volume Canada is not one story. It is ten provinces and three territories, each with its own ancient landscapes, founding peoples, contested histories, and hard-won identities. In this landmark work, Daniel Hardy brings them all together for the first time — a sweeping, authoritative account of how a nation was made, one province at a time. From the windswept headlands of Newfoundland, where rock two billion years old meets the ghost of a Viking settlement, to the river valleys of Prince Edward Island, the industrial ...

A novel in The L.A. Quartet. Internationally acclaimed author James Ellroy presents another literary noir masterpiece of historical paranoia. Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns—it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an...

BRITISH KILLERS – VOLUME 4 This 4th book in the series tells the story of 9 vicious crimes, and the events around them, which took place in the UK and captured the attention of the British media and public at the time. *Nicholas Vernage - Cold Blooded Cop Killer When 26-year-old Nicholas Vernage was released from Wandsworth Prison in 1991, going straight was the last thing on his mind. Within a couple of months he had returned to his life of crime with a vengeance - and had brutally stabbed to death three innocent people. *House of Horrors When police began digging up the back garden of ...