In his rich & nuanced portrait of the remarkable elusive Rothschild family Oxford scholar & bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family&s phenomenal economic success He reveals for the first time the details of the family&s vast political network which gave it access to & influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age & he tells a family saga tracing the importance of unity & the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto & later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe A definitive work of impeccable scholarship with a thoroughly engaging narrative & The House of Rothschild& is a biography of the rarest kind in which mysterious & fascinating historical figures finally spring to life ...

This second volume of Niall Ferguson's acclaimed landmark history of the legendary Rothschild banking dynasty concludes his myth-breaking portrait of one of the most powerful & fascinating families of modern times With all the depth clarity & drama with which he traced the Rothschild's ascent Ferguson shows how their power waned as conflicts from Crimea to the Second World War repeatedly threatened the stability of their worldwide empire & how their failure to establish themselves successfully in the United States would prove fateful At once a classic family saga & a major work of economic social & political history this is the definitive biography of some of the most powerful financiers of recent times ...

' Extremely atmospheric & unputdownable I loved it' Marian Keyes What readers are saying about The House of Secrets' Libby & Zoe are complex courageous & believeable & I found their stories absolutely compelling to read with a very satisfying ending''I cried I smiled I swore in anger at parts such a brilliant piece of writing'' Enjoyed every page of this lovely book & its lovely heroines Zoe & Libby Highly recommended for a great feel good read'' Finished the whole book in one night literally unputdownable' An ordinary house on an ordinary street built in 1936 & never lived in Its rooms might be empty but this house is full of secrets When Zoe & Win raw & reeling from a recent tragedy move into their new home it's meant to be a fresh start & a way to mend the holes in their relationship But pushed to the back of a cupboard is a suitcase that's been gathering dust for eighty years Inside is a wedding dress letters & a diary all belonging to a woman called Libby & there's something else in the suitcase something that echoes Zoe's own pain Zoe follows Libby's trail from Paris to Spain on the brink of Civil War to secret trysts in London & as Libby finds the courage to live & love again Zoe begins to let go of her own grief But when Libby's story takes a darker turn Zoe becomes increasingly obsessed with discovering what really happened all those years ago Because if Libby managed to get her happy ever after then maybe Zoe & Win can too Perfect for fans of Rachel Rhys Jenny Ashcroft Santa Montefiore & Kathryn Hughes ' An engrossing read' Woman & Home'A wonderful book' Heat' This beautiful dual love story is a real page-turner' Hello!' Filled with warmth & great characters' Stylist ...

For fans of Downton Abbey Atonement & Birdsong
- a compelling historical saga from popular TV historian Kate Williams 432 pages
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' Horowitz has captured Holmes Heaven' (THE TIMES)
- THE HOUSE OF SILK was the first official new Sherlock Holmes mystery & a SUNDAY
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Russia 1915 Sixteen year old farmer's son Georgy Jachmenev steps in front of an assassin's bullet intended for a senior member of the Russian Imperial Family & is instantly proclaimed a hero 496 pages Boyne John ...

Translated by Constance Garnett with an introduction by Anthony Briggs Dostoevsky's fascination for mental breakdown & violence (20 murders in his four main novels) was based on his own life & these two unmistakably autobiographical works bear this out The House of the Dead is fiction but based on his four years in a Siberian prison An educated upper-class man is condemned to live among criminals & brutal guards with arbitrary punishments lousy food disgusting living conditions hard toil & many floggings Somehow he avoids bitterness & recrimination; faith in humanity survives With its breadth of characterisation acute sense of detail & strong narrative interest this work can still shock entertain & inspire In The Gambler we see the Russian community in a German spa town Drawn to the casino Alexey becomes obsessed with roulette In a gripping story full of psychological interest his growing mania eclipses even his interest in Polina a heroine of demonic & vibrant sexuality Dostoevsky himself was rescued from a similar gambling obsession by the young stenographer who took down this work at his dictation & married him soon afterwards ...

WINNER OF THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2017 THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2017 & THE LONGMAN-HISTORY TODAY BOOK PRIZE 2017THE TIMES SPECTATOR BBC HISTORY & TLS BOOKS OF THE YEAR' Masterful gripping filled with astonishing vivid & heartbreaking stories of crime & punishment of redemption love & terrifying violence It has an amazing cast of despots murderers whores & heroes It's a wonderful read' Simon Sebag Montefiore It was known as 'the vast prison without a roof' From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the Russian Revolution the tsarist regime exiled more than one million prisoners & their families beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia The House of the Dead brings to life both the brutal realities of an inhuman system & the tragic & inspiring fates of those who endured it This is the vividly told history of common criminals & political radicals the victims of serfdom & village politics the wives & children who followed husbands & fathers & of fugitives & bounty-hunters The tsars looked on Siberia as creating the ultimate political quarantine from the contagions of revolution Generations of rebels
- republicans nationalists & socialists
- were condemned to oblivion thousands of kilometres from European Russia Over the nineteenth century however these political exiles transformed Siberia's mines prisons & remote settlements into an enormous laboratory of revolution This masterly work of original research taps a mass of almost unknown primary evidence held in Russian & Siberian archives to tell the epic story both of Russia's struggle to govern its monstrous penal colony & Siberia's ultimate decisive impact on the political forces of the modern world' An absolutely fascinating book rich in fact & anecdote'
- David Aaronovitch'A splendid example of academic scholarship for a public audience Yet even though he is an impressively calm & sober narrator the injustices & atrocities pile up on every page'
- Dominic Sandbrook'A superb colourful history of Siberian exile under the tsars'
- The Times




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Peter Kristufek's sweeping family saga covering Slovakia's history from 1938 to the early 2000s explores the way the pressure of history makes a decent but weak man harm the people around him skilfully weaving into the narrative extracts from authentic period documents ranging from advertisements to poetry & diaries 560 pages Kristufek Peter ...

As a girl Clara del Valle can read fortunes make objects move as if they had lives of their own & predict the future Following the mysterious death of her sister Rosa the Beautiful Clara is mute for nine years When she breaks her silence it is to announce that she will be married soon to the stern & volatile landowner Esteban Trueba Set in an unnamed Latin American country over three generations The House of the Spirits is a magnificent epic of a proud & passionate family secret loves & violent revolution ...