From the co-author of the bestselling ` The Dangerous Book for Boys`, this is a book of heroes, new & old, known & sadly forgotten, now to be glorified as they ought to be. From Captain Scott to Joe Simpson, from Douglas Bader to Ernest Shackleton, from Gertrude Bell to Emily Pankhurst, Conn Iggulden brings our great heroes from history back to life. Filled with the British sense of fair play & decency that made ` The Dangerous Book for Boys` so popular, ` The Dangerous Book of Heroes` celebrates those who fought for what is right & good, those who made amazing discoveries, those who moved boundaries in their lifetimes. A book of heroes written by Conn Iggulden, a man who knows what makes a hero. ...

Think that Ancient Egypt is just a load of old obelisks? Don`t bet your afterlife on it. Ancient Egypt should be deader than most of our yesterdays. After all it was at its height 5, 000 years ago. Yet we still marvel at its mummies & ponder over its pyramids. It`s easy to forget these people once lived & laughed, loved & breathed.. .though not for very long. These were dangerous days for princes & peasants alike. In Ancient Egypt
- a world of wars & woes, poverty & plagues
- life was short. Forty was a good age to reach. A pharaoh who was eaten by a hippo ended up as dead as a ditch-digger stung by a scorpion. Unwrap the bandages & you`ll find that the Egyptians` bizarre adventures in life were every bit as fascinating as the monuments they left to their deaths.

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DANGEROUS DAYS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE is the first in a new adult series by Terry Deary, the author of the hugely bestselling Horrible Histories, popular among children for their disgusting details, gory information & sharp wit, & among adults for engaging children (and themselves) with history. The Romans have long been held up as one of the first `civilised` societies, & yet in fact they were capable of immense cruelty. Not only that, but they made the killing of humans into a sport. The spoiled emperors were the perpetrators (and sometimes the victims) of some imaginative murders. DANGEROUS DAYS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE will include some of the violent ways to visit the Elysian Fields (i.e. death) including: animal attack in the Coliseum; being thrown from the Tarpeian Rock
- 370 deserters in 214 AD alone (or if the emperor didn`t like your poetry); by volcanic eruption from Vesuvius; by kicking (Nero`s fatal quarrel with the Empress Poppea); from poison mushrooms (Claudius); by great fires; torturous tarring; flogging to death; boiling lead (the invention of `kind` Emperor Constantine); or being skinned alive by invading barbarians.DANGEROUS DAYS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE looks at the back-story leading up to the victims` deaths, & in doing so gives the general reader a concise history of a frequently misunderstood era.
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Facing feuds & frauds, robberies & riots & the disasters of dangerous drivers, deadly designers & sleepy signalmen, Victorians risked more than just delays when stepping on a steam train. Victorian inventors certainly didn`t lack steam, but squabbling over who deserved the title of ` The Father of the Locomotive` & busy enjoying their fame & fortune, safety on the rails was not their priority. Brakes were seen as a needless luxury (until a steamer started to slide downhill towards disaster) & boilers had an inconvenient tendency to overheat & explode, & in turn, blow up anyone in reach. Four years after a mysterious murderer left only his victim`s crushed hat & walking stick on board a first class carriage, the nation trembled at the trains once more. Poorly timed repairs caused a locomotive to derail & crash into the shallow River Beult, killing ten passengers & injuring 40 more. The infamous Staplehurst disaster is said to have traumatised passenger Charles Dickens, threatening to expose his affair with the young Nell Ternan, & altering his health & writing for the rest of his life. Often recognised as having revolutionised travel & industrial Britain, Victorian railways were perilous. Few other histories honour the lives of the people killed or injured by the diseases & disasters which accounted for thousands of deaths. The victims of the Victorian railways had names, lives & families, & they deserve to be remembered... ...

The Victorians risked more than just delays when boarding a steam train.. . Victorian inventors certainly didn`t lack steam, but while they squabbled over who deserved the title of ` The Father of the Locomotive` & enjoyed their fame & fortune, safety on the rails was not their priority. Brakes were seen as a needless luxury & boilers had an inconvenient tendency to overheat & explode, & in turn, blow up anyone in reach. Often recognised as having revolutionised travel & industrial Britain, Victorian railways were perilous. Disease, accidents & disasters accounted for thousands of deaths & many more injuries. While history has focused on the triumph of engineers, the victims of the Victorian railways had names, lives & families & they deserve to be remembered.. . ...

By the 1860s, the Pilasters are one of the world`s greatest banking families, with connections that reach from the City of London to far-afield colonies. However, as the family grow ever richer in the shadow of oppression & tragedy, their very future is threatened
- by the self-same ambition & greed that first earned them their fortune. `A full-blooded melodrama, complete with moustache-twirling villains, saintly heroes, wronged women, & a lot of plot` Irish Times ` Banks, brothels, & a high body count.. .it`s all there` Financial Times `A compulsively readable, enjoyable thriller-cum-saga` Sunday Times
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Published in 1782, just years before the French Revolution, ” Les Liaisons Dangereuses” is a disturbing & ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. At its centre are two aristocrats, former lovers, who embark on a sophisticated game of seduction & manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While the Marquise de Merteuil challenges the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, the Vicomte is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. But as their intrigues become more duplicitous & they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, & deadly, than Merteuil & Valmont could have guessed. ...

From the Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri: a classic love story set in a country trying to come to terms with its past. An epic of daily life, DANGEROUS LOVE is a story of doomed love, of star-crossed lovers, separated not by their families, but by the very circumstances of their lives. `I hope among my novels this one achieves something I have long sought.` BEN OKRI. ...

In February 1880, when Arthur Conan Doyle was only twenty years old, he embarked upon `the first real outstanding adventure in my life, ` seven months as a ship`s surgeon on an Arctic whaler. The voyage took the young Conan Doyle into unknown regions & plunged him into dangerous & bloody work on the ice floes of the Arctic seas. His unforgettable adventure was echoed in a number of his early landmarks as a writer. A ghost story based on the experience, ` The Captain of the Pole-Star, ` got him noticed in publishing circles as a promising young writer, & a magazine article called ` The Glamour of the Arctic` won him the respect of intrepid Arctic explorers. During the voyage, Conan Doyle kept a detailed diary. This incredible document, hidden from public view for more than a century, is written in his clear handwriting & is illustrated with many charming pen-&-ink sketches of scenes of life on board & of the sea-creatures & other sights he saw. It provides a vivid account of the coming of age of the young man who would go on to create Sherlock Holmes, & of a life at sea that no longer exists. This book will feature a facsimile of this remarkable diary, with a transcript, as well as several non-fiction & fiction pieces based on the experience, including the Sherlock Holmes story ` The Adventure of the Black Peter.` It will also include photographs of the ship, its captain, & young Conan Doyle on deck. The publication of this unknown diary will be welcomed by all fans of Arthur Conan Doyle. ...

Expecting to be inducted into the army, Joseph has given up his job & carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. ” Dangling Man” is his journal, a wonderful account of his restless wanderings through Chicago`s streets, his musings on the past, his psychological reaction to his inactivity while war rages around him, & his uneasy insights into the nature of freedom & choice. ...