Drawing on a wealth of contemporary source material, The Bishop`s Brothels is a fascinating social history of how commercial sex has been bought & sold in London for over a thousand years. The Bankside Brothels, or `stewes`, were a celebrated feature of London life since Roman times. Located on the south side of the River Thames, in the Bishop of Winchester`s ` Liberty of the Clink`, they were a highly lucrative source of revenue for the Church. In AD 1161 a royal decree ordered that these establishments be licensed & regulated. For many years they attracted the great & the not-so-good, helping to make Southwark the `pleasure-garden` of London. But who were the people of the Bankside Brothels? What living conditions did they have to endure? How did women cope with the constant threat of violence, unwanted pregnancy & venereal disease? The streets of Southwark & those who walked them are vividly brought to life in this richly researched exploration of the history of this stretch of the Thames over the centuries. Through the stories of those who lived & worked in this fascinating part of London, we can begin to gain an understanding of a crucial but hitherto neglected aspect of the social history of Engl&. ...

Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize for new writers A Times Children`s Book of the Week A Guardian Top Teen Read of 2015 ” Happy birthday, Stanly. We hope you like your present...” Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird is a fairly typical teenager
- unless you count the fact that his best friend is a talking beagle named Daryl, & that he gained the powers of flight & telekinesis when he turned sixteen. Unfortunately, his rural Welsh home town is not exactly crying out for its very own superhero. London is calling
- but what Stanly finds there is a good deal weirder & more terrifying than anything he could have imagined. Perhaps he should have stayed in Wales.. .

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As the Second World War neared its conclusion, Germany was a nation reduced to rubble: 3.6 million German homes had been destroyed leaving 7.5 million people homeless; an apocalyptic landscape of flattened cities & desolate wastelands. In May 1945 Germany surrendered, & Britain, America, Soviet Russia & France set about rebuilding their zones of occupation. Most urgent for the Allies in this divided, defeated country were food, water & sanitation, but from the start they were anxious to provide for the minds as well as the physical needs of the German people. Reconstruction was to be cultural as well as practical: denazification & re-education would be key to future peace & the arts crucial in modelling alternative, less militaristic, ways of life. Germany was to be reborn; its citizens as well as its cities were to be reconstructed; the mindset of the Third Reich was to be obliterated. When, later that year, twenty-two senior Nazis were put in the dock at Nuremberg, writers & artists including Rebecca West, Evelyn Waugh, John Dos Passos & Laura Knight were there to tell the world about a trial intended to ensure that tyrannous dictators could never again enslave the people of Europe. & over the next four years, many of the foremost writers & filmmakers of their generation were dispatched by Britain & America to help rebuild the country their governments had spent years bombing. Among them, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Marlene Dietrich, George Orwell, Lee Miller, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Billy Wilder & Humphrey Jennings. The Bitter Taste of Victory traces the experiences of these figures & through their individual stories offers an entirely fresh view of post-war Europe. Never before told, this is a brilliant, important & utterly mesmerising history of cultural transformation. ...

As the Second World War neared its conclusion, Germany was a nation reduced to rubble: 3.6 million German homes had been destroyed leaving 7.5 million people homeless; an apocalyptic landscape of flattened cities & desolate wastelands. In May 1945 Germany surrendered, & Britain, America, Soviet Russia & France set about rebuilding their zones of occupation. Most urgent for the Allies in this divided, defeated country were food, water & sanitation, but from the start they were anxious to provide for the minds as well as the physical needs of the German people. Reconstruction was to be cultural as well as practical: denazification & re-education would be key to future peace & the arts crucial in modelling alternative, less militaristic, ways of life. Germany was to be reborn; its citizens as well as its cities were to be reconstructed; the mindset of the Third Reich was to be obliterated. When, later that year, twenty-two senior Nazis were put in the dock at Nuremberg, writers & artists including Rebecca West, Evelyn Waugh, John Dos Passos & Laura Knight were there to tell the world about a trial intended to ensure that tyrannous dictators could never again enslave the people of Europe. & over the next four years, many of the foremost writers & filmmakers of their generation were dispatched by Britain & America to help rebuild the country their governments had spent years bombing. Among them, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Marlene Dietrich, George Orwell, Lee Miller, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Billy Wilder & Humphrey Jennings. The Bitter Taste of Victory traces the experiences of these figures & through their individual stories offers an entirely fresh view of post-war Europe. Never before told, this is a brilliant, important & utterly mesmerising history of cultural transformation. ...

Shahid is a clean-cut student, trying to make an impression on his college lecturer, Deedee Osgood, who gives his spirits a lift when she takes him to a naked rave party. Shahid`s academic prospects are threatened by the intervention of his gangster brother Chili, who, with his Armani suits & Gucci loafers, moves into Shahid`s bedsit as a hideout, bringing unnecessary danger & excitement with him. Set in London in 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin wall & the fatwah, The Black Album is a thriller with a characteristically lively background: raves, ecstasy, religious ferment & sexual passion in a dangerous time. ...

In July 1940, Walter Schellenberg of the German Secret Service drew up a list of 2, 694 people believed to be living in Britain, who were known enemies of the Reich. In that month, the Wehrmacht was poised across the Channel ready to hit Britain with blitzkrieg, the terrible & hugely successful tactic that had already overwhelmed Pol&, Denmark, Norway, Holl&, Luxembourg, Belgium & France. The names on Schellenberg`s list represent the heart & soul of a nation that made the British what they were but the list also

Includes:: a diaspora from Europe
- the intellectuals, politicians & writers who had been driven out of their own homelands by the speed of the German conquests. All human life is there
- lives that were, to the Nazis, unworthy of life. Historians have found the list a curiosity. Surely, it cannot be real? It was. The Black Book is the first book to evaluate the list, & look at the chilling reality of what Hitler had in store for the nation.



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In the aftermath of Bangladesh`s bloody war of independence in 1971, as thousands of migrants from the countryside flood the capital, journalist Khaleque Biswas begins to feel the stirrings of disillusionment. The revolutionary spirit that had filled the air & united the people under the leadership of Sheikh Mujib, the ” Father of the Nation”, seems to be dissipating. The government`s response to the crisis is inadequate, & the country`s slow slide into political corruption seems inevitable. Uncompromising & undiplomatic, Khaleque soon loses his job. Then Nur Hussain turns up: a simple young man from a remote village, his welfare has been entrusted to Khaleque by a passing acquaintance. Unable to turn Nur away, Khaleque sets out to secure him a job, but discovers that the placid fellow has no skills whatsoever, nor much ambition. He seems adept only at impersonating Sheikh Mujib, to whom he bears some resemblance. When the masses begin flocking to him, the authorities take notice
- with shocking results. Neamat Imam`s debut is an intense tale told by a born storyteller, animated by humour as dark as the iconic outerwear that gives the novel its title. The tortured origins of modern Bangladesh are brought to life vividly, & provide a poignant backdrop to a central drama that Dostoyevsky & Kafka would have applauded.
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” Completely absorbing”. (Amanda Foreman). ” Enthralling”. (Guardian). ” The Three Musketeers! The Count of Monte Cristo! The stories of course are fiction. But here a prize-winning author shows us that the inspiration for the swashbuckling stories was, in fact, Dumas` own father, Alex
- the son of a marquis & a black slave... He achieved a giddy ascent from private in the Dragoons to the rank of general; an outsider who had grown up among slaves, he was all for Liberty & Equality. Alex Dumas was the stuff of legend”. (Daily Mail). So how did such this extraordinary man get erased by history? Why are there no statues of ` Monsieur Humanity` as his troops called him? The Black Count uncovers what happened & the role Napoleon played in Dumas` downfall. By walking the same ground as Dumas
- from Haiti to the Pyramids, Paris to the prison cell at Taranto
- Reiss, like the novelist before him, triumphantly resurrects this forgotten hero. ” Entrances from first to last. Dumas the novelist would be proud”. (Independent). ” Brilliant”. (Glasgow Herald).


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` The Black Door` explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers & the intelligence agencies, from Asquith`s Secret Service Bureau to Cameron`s National Security Council. At the beginning of the 20th Century the British intelligence system was underfunded & lacked influence in government. But as the new millennium dawned, intelligence had become so integral to policy that it was used to make the case for war. Now, covert action is incorporated seamlessly into government policy, & the Prime Minister is kept constantly updated by intelligence agencies. But how did intelligence come to influence our government so completely? ` The Black Door` explores the murkier corridors of No. 10 Downing Street, chronicling the relationships between intelligence agencies & the Prime Ministers of the last century. From Churchill`s code-breakers feeding information to the Soviets to Eden`s attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, from Wilson`s paranoia of an MI5-led coup d`etat to Thatcher`s covert wars in Central America, Aldrich & Cormac entertain & enlighten as they explain how our government came to rely on intelligence to the extent that it does today. ...

Maybe it was time I forgot about Nico Peterson, & his sister, & the Cahuilla Club, & Clare Cavendish. Clare? The rest would be easy to put out of my mind, but not the black-eyed blonde.. . It is the early 1950s. In Los Angeles, Private Detective Philip Marlowe is as restless & lonely as ever, & business is a little slow. Then a new client arrives: young, beautiful, & expensively dressed, Clare Cavendish wants Marlowe to find her former lover, a man named Nico Peterson. Soon Marlowe will find himself not only under the spell of the Black-Eyed Blonde; but tangling with one of Bay City`s richest families
- & developing a singular appreciation for how far they will go to protect their fortune.. .
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