Longlisted for the 2015 Thwaites Wainwright Prize
- Silbury Hill in Wiltshire has inspired & perplexed people for generations.
...

Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men & political window dressing. On Stalin`s Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin was a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of this inner circle & their families, vividly describing how these dedicated comrades-in-arms not only worked closely with Stalin, whom they both feared & admired, but also constituted his social circle. Readers meet the wily security chief Beria, whom the rest of the team quickly had executed following Stalin`s death; Stalin`s number-two man, Molotov, who continued on the team even after his wife was arrested & exiled; the charismatic Ordzhonikidze, who ran the country`s industry with entrepreneurial flair; Andreev, who traveled to provincial purges while listening to Beethoven on a portable gramophone; & Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team four years after Stalin`s death. Among the book`s surprising findings are that Stalin almost always worked with the team on important issues & that after his death the team managed a brilliant transition to a reforming collective leadership. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges & World War II to the paranoia of Stalin`s final years, On Stalin`s Team paints an entirely new picture of Stalin within his milieu--one that transforms our understanding of how the Soviet Union was ruled during much of its existence. ...

Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men & political window dressing. On Stalin`s Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin was a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of this inner circle & their families. She vividly describes how these dedicated comrades-in-arms not only worked closely with Stalin, but also constituted his social circle. Stalin`s team included the wily security chief Beria; Andreev, who traveled to provincial purges while listening to Beethoven on a portable gramophone; & Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team four years after Stalin`s death. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges & World War II to the paranoia of Stalin`s final years, On Stalin`s Team paints an entirely new picture of Stalin within his milieu--one that transforms our understanding of how the Soviet Union was ruled during much of its existence. ...

Birt & Etho are best friends. Together they play on Sudden Hill, making marvellous contraptions out of cardboard boxes. But then a new boy, Shu, wants to join in too. Etho is happy to welcome him. Birt isn`t so sure. Eaten up with jealousy, he goes home & refuses to come out to play. Until Etho & Shu come to his house with the most marvellous cardboard contraption so far...A compelling story about accepting someone new, from the Benji Davies, the bestselling illustrator of The Storm Whale. ...

This is a moving love story & a vivid depiction of Berlin in the 1870s, from Germany`s greatest nineteenth-century novelist Theodor Fontane. Lene is a beautiful, orphaned young seamstress, & Botho is a handsome, aristocratic cavalry officer. They are in love, yet know they have only a short time together as society deems their relationship impossible & refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of their feelings. But while Botho appears to have a glittering life ahead of him, the love he feels may yet be his undoing. Published in 1887, On Tangled Paths caused a scandal on publication with its portrayal of a sexual affair across the classes, & is a taut, flawless masterpiece. Theodor Fontane was born in the Prussian province of Brandenburg in 1819. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he made his living as a writer. From 1855 to 1859, he lived in London & worked as a freelance journalist & press agent for the Prussian embassy. While working as a war correspondent during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1 he was taken prisoner, but released after two months. His first novel, Before the Storm, was published when he was fifty-eight & was followed by sixteen further novels, of which Effi Briest, No Way Back & On Tangled Paths are all published in Penguin Classics. He died in 1898. Peter James Bowman completed a Ph D on Fontane at Cambridge University, & now works as a writer & translator. ” On Tangled Paths has the flawless logic & beautiful design of the novella at its best”. (Paul Binding, The Spectator). ” There is an undertow of sadness to this novel, yet to read it is a joy, for its humanity, subtlety & visual immediacy”. (Ruth Pavey, The Independent). ” Theodor Fontane`s first true masterpiece; it has a perfect beginning, a perfect ending, & no superfluous sentence in between”. (Henry Garland). ...

On the Black Hill is an elegantly written tale of identical twin brothers who grow up on a farm in rural Wales & never leave home. They till the rough soil & sleep in the same bed, touched only occasionally by the advances of the 20th century. In depicting the lives of Benjamin & Lewis & their interactions with their small local community Chatwin comments movingly on the larger questions of human experience. ...

Estienne Barbier, born in the Loire Valley in 1699, lays claim to service in the armies of the kings of France & Prussia, but he is an inveterate liar, & the truth is less glorious: irate husbands have made the Lowlands too hot to hold him, & he has deserted his pregnant wife to stow away for the Cape of Good Hope. An expedition to the hinterland opens his eyes to the majesty of the African landscape & its wondrous animals & he is enchanted by the rumour of a fabled city of gold. But he also begins to see clearly the sordid dealing that underlies the self-righteous pomposity of the East India Company. It is a vision that makes him powerful enemies. Taking cover on a remote farm, & energetically consoling sundry widows, Barbier finds himself, to his own surprise, fomenting rebellion. ...

Couchsurfing? Surely a sofa would sink on the open sea? Couchsurfing is a global community of over a million people in 232 countries that offers couches, beds & body-sized horizontal surfaces via the internet for fellow members to bunk down on for the night. Couchsurfing is everywhere, from Kazakhstan, where there are 124 empty couches for the daring traveller, to Antartica where 30 cold couches are available. It`s free, it`s friendly & it`s the new way to travel. Fleur Britten, Sunday Times features writer is about to lose her couchsurfing virginity. Starting out in Moscow & taking the Trans-Siberian Railway with a couple of stops in Siberia & Ulan Ude, she`ll then fly to Beijing & travel through China, crossing into Kazakhstan, followed by Ubekistan. Finding couches in the unlikeliest of places finally arriving back in London to play host to other couchsurfers. With the promise of `couch available` rarely entailing a couch alone, with stories of meals, unofficial local tours & a family-like welcome, she will explore the unique couchsurfing community & so-called `couchsurfing spirit`. What motivates people to invite strangers to sleep on their sofas? How is it possible to couchsurf & stay safe & what is it that is it that has made couchsurfing such a phenomenon? This is an adventure of kindness that will lead Fleur to meet the most unusual people & visit the most unexpected places. Combined with revealing, candid images this promises to be much, much more than your average travelogue. ...

The acclaimed novel of Spain`s economic crisis
- a timely masterpiece. Under a weak winter sun in small-town Spain, a man discovers
...

These photographs reveal not only the seaside resorts & clifftop walks we all know, in a new light, the also depict the more dramatic & remote stretches of coast that are relatively inaccessible. The pictures are more than studies of empty landscape, for they reveal man's essential & natural affinity with the l&, & nowhere is this more poignantly apparent in a seafaring nation, than at the interface between rock & water, terra firma & the tidal ocean. ...