Acclaimed novelist of the Italian Renaissance Sarah Dunant now takes on the era's most infamous family: the Borgias. By the end of the fifteenth century the beauty & creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality & corruption nowhere more than in Rome & in the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children but by his blood: he is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph this charismatic consummate politician with a huge appetite for life women & power must use papacy & family to succeed. His eldest son Cesare a dazzlingly cold intelligence & an even colder soul is his greatest
- though increasingly unstable
- weapon. Later immortalised in Machiavelli's The Prince he provides the energy & the muscle. His daughter Lucrezia beloved by both men is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens hers is a journey through three marriages: from childish innocence to painful experience from pawn to political player. Stripping away the myths around the Borgias Blood & Beauty is a majestic novel that breathes life into this astonishing family & celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling complex & relentless.

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In the western sky the bright emerald banner of the Visitor descends like a portent of annihilation. On the continent of Jacuruku the Thaumaturgs have mounted another expedition in a bid to tame the neighbouring wild jungle. Yet this is no normal wilderness. It is called Himatan & it is said to be half of the spirit-realm & half of the earth. & it is said to be ruled by a powerful entity who some name the Queen of Witches & some a goddess: the ancient Ardata. Saeng grew up knowing only the rule of the magus Thaumaturgs
- but it was the voices from that lands forgotten past that she listened to. & when her rulers launch their invasion of this jungle those voices send her & her brother on a desperate mission. To the south the desert tribes are united by the arrival of a foreign warleader a veteran commander in battered ashen mail men call the Grey Ghost. This warrior leads these tribes on a raid unlike any other deep into the heart of Thaumaturg lands. While word comes to Kazz & mercenary company the Crimson Guard of a contract in Jacuruku. & their employer? Could it be the goddess herself...
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An uneducated youth William Booth left home in 1849 at the age of twenty to preach the gospel for the New Methodist Connexion. Six years later he founded a new religious movement which succeeded to such a degree that the Salvation Army (which it became) is now a worldwide operation with massive membership. But that is only part of Booths importance & heritage. In many ways his story is also that of the Victorian poor as he & his wife Catherine made it their lives work to battle against the poverty & deprivation which were endemic in the mid- to late 1800s. Indeed it was Catherine who although a chronic invalid inspired the Armys social policy & attitude to female authority. Her campaign against child prostitution resulted in the age of consent being raised & it was Catherine who dying of cancer encouraged William to clear the slums -- In Darkest England The Way Out. Roy Hattersleys masterful dual biography is not just the story of two fascinating lives but a portrait of an integral part of our history. ...

Here is the glorious & sinister life of Marius: patrician by birth scholar by choice & one of the oldest vampires of them all. From his genesis in ancient Rome to his present day we follow the story of this aristocratic & powerful killer. His is a tale that spans the breadth of time. When the Visigoths sack his city Marius is there; with the resurgence of the glory of Rome he is there still searching for his lost love Pandora. So prevalent is Marius that it is he who gives the dark gift to the illustrious vampire Arm&. Intertwined with the stories of a magnificent Pantheon of the undead this account of Marius is the most wondrous & mind-blowing of them all. ...

Today astonishing surgical breakthroughs are making face transplants limb transplants & a host of other previously undreamed of operations possible. But getting here has not been a simple story of selfless men working tirelessly in the pursuit of medical advancement. Instead its a bloodstained tale of blunders arrogance mishap & murder. In trying to keep us alive surgeons have all too often killed us off & life-saving solutions have often come from the most surprising places. Accompanying a BBC series Blood & Guts is an incredible story of stolen corpses medical fraud lobotomized patients
- & every now & then courageous advances that have saved the lives of millions around the world. You may think twice before going under the knife...
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When journalist Michael Wilde is commissioned to write a feature about a remote research station deep in the frozen beauty of Antarctica he is prepared for some extraordinary sights. But on a diving expedition in the polar sea he comes across something so extraordinary to be almost unbelievable
- a man & woman chained together deep in the ice. The doomed lovers are brought to the surface but as the ice begins to thaw the scientists discover the unusual contents of the bottles buried behind the pair & realise they are all in terrible danger...
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Assault Regiment Wotan the elite band of men whom Kuno von Dodenburg had led so often to victory had been mercilessly cut down in the forests of the Ardennes. Only Sergeant-Major Schulze remained to lead the battered war weary survivors of Hitlers famed SS through the secret pass over the snow-locked Vertes Mountains in the Fuhrers desperate plan to save Budapest from the Soviet armies. Every single one of them knew that it was the plan of a madman & every man knew that whatever the cost it had to succeed. ...

Summer 1816. A house party on the shores of Lake Geneva. Mary Shelley & her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley along with Mary's half-sister Claire & the infamous Lord Byron take part in a challenge to see who can write the most horrifying story. Mary creates one of the most celebrated Gothic novels of all time but how did this monstrous horror flow from the pen of a 21-year-old English woman? First staged in 1984 & revived several times since Liz Lochhead tells the story of Frankenstein's creation as if set in a ghostly nursery. Using flashbacks & the rich poetic language for which she has become admired Lochhead weaves a spider's web of connections between Mary's own tragic life & that of her literary monster. ...

The machinations of King Celimus have robbed Wyl Thirsk of almost everyone he held dear & those few who have survived will bear the scars forever. Myrrens gift offers Wyl the opportunity to strike back but at what price? His best friend is murdered mercenaries pillage the land in the name of his beloved Legion & now the mad king threatens the two women who are more precious to him than life itself. He cannot save both. The old seers advice comes back to him: find the Manwitch. Only Myrrens natural father can help break the hold of the Quickening. But Wyls heart pleads otherwise: protect your loved ones. Once again it seems Wyl Thirsk faces an impossible choice. The path ahead diverges. Left & right. Head & heart. Blood & memory. A misstep here could cost him everything.. . ...

A far-reaching history of terrorism across the world from its beginnings to the modern day from the highly acclaimed author of Sacred Causes & Earthly Powers. The paperback edition will be updated to cover recent events -- including the recent terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 & the continued military clash in Gaza in early 2009. Basing his study on a wide range of sources & key players from the world of terrorism Burleigh explains & defines the meaning of terrorism & marks its progression from its hard-to-trace beginnings to the modern day. Burleigh takes us from the origins of terrorism in the Irish Republican Brotherhood -- the precursors of the IRA -- on to look at Tsarist Russia where the intelligentsia launched attacks on organs of state & left-wing fighting against Fascism & Nazism in the 1970s & 1980s in western Germany & Italy. But such nationalist terrrorism has in turn been eclipsed by international jihadist violence largely driven by widespread resentment of the successful societes of the West. Burleigh explores the background & the milieu of people engaged in careers of political violence & examines their various mindsets as revealed by their actions rather than their words. He makes clear that the West has considerable resources to comprehend & combat terrorism & shows how history enables us to see how terrrorism can be effectively contained & countered -- if only by avoiding some of the major mistakes of the past. An unrivalled study that sheds an insightful new light on a plight that threatens to affect the world at large for many years to come Blood & Rage establishes Michael Burleigh as one of the most original learned & important historians of our time. ...