Perfect Babies' Names is an essential resource for all parents-to-be. Taking a close look at over 3,000 names, it not only tells you each name's meaning and history, it also tells you which famous people have shared it over the years and how popular – or unpopular – it is now. With tips on how to make a shortlist and...

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Femina 'Ramirez blasts a powerful spotlight into the so-called Dark Ages' - Dan Snow Skulduggery, power struggles and politics, The Private Lives of the Saints offers an original and fascinating re-examination of life in Anglo-Saxon England. Taking them down from the clouds of their heavenly status, Sunday Times bestselling author and renowned Oxford...

A follow-up to Andrea Wulf's award-winning and critically acclaimed history of British gardening, this is the story of how George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison's passion for nature, plants, agriculture and gardens shaped the birth of America. Through a series of vignettes spanning the Declaration of Independence to the death of Adams and Jefferson exactly fifty years...

THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING BESTSELLER, NOW AN ACCLAIMED TV SERIES This is the definitive account of the run-up to 9/11: from the man who lit the spark of radical Islam in 1948, to those who built up a terror network, and to the FBI agent whose warnings of 'something big' coming were ignored until the Twin Towers fell. 'The Looming Tower...

Following Rivers of Gold and The Golden Age, World Without End is the conclusion of a magisterial three-volume history of the Spanish Empire by Hugh Thomas, its foremost worldwide authority World Without End is the climax of Hugh Thomas's great history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. It describes the conquest of Paraguay and the River Plate, of the...

‘[Go] behind the glamorous shop fronts and the glitzy shop floors of Britain’s department stores... Here the hidden history is revealed.’ Saga Magazine Meet the shopgirls and hear their incredible true stories of life behind the counter. In this lively and colourful history, we join shopgirl Chili Bouchier on her journey from the small ladies’ department at Harrods to star...

In The Story of India, Michael Wood weaves a spellbinding narrative out of the 10,000-year history of the subcontinent. Home today to more than a fifth of the world's population, India gave birth to the oldest and most influential civilization on Earth, to four world religions, and to the world's largest democracy. Now, as India bids to become a global...

A major new series from the makers of A History Of The World In 100 Objects, exploring the fascinating and complex history of Germany from the origins of the Holy Roman Empire right up to the present day. Written and presented by Neil MacGregor, it is produced by BBC Radio 4, in partnership with the British Museum. Whilst Germany’s past...

Illusions of Gold, the third volume of David Kynaston's magnificent quartet, The City of London, sweeps us from 1914 to 1945, through years of fluctuating fortunes that began with the City at an all-time high, and ended with the 'Square Mile' ravaged by bombs, at its lowest ebb ever. With unerring judgement and story-telling verve, Kynaston takes us through the...

Among the few great statesmen to emerge in Asia, Jawaharal Nehru achieved a national metamorphosis in some ways even more astonishing than that of another towering patriarch, Mao Tse-tung. Not only did he wrest from the British their most prized and dearly loved Imperial possession and give his people independence, he brought his culturally rich yet economically improvised nation into...

In the depths of Antarctic winter, hundreds of miles from land or rescue, a small fishing boat is swallowed by waves as high as houses. The captain is fatally slow to act, and then paralyzed by fear. The officers flee for their lives. Only the actions of Matt Lewis, a 23-year-old British marine biologist and one of the most inexperienced...

Do you remember the arrival of the fish finger, the rise and fall of Angel Delight, Vesta curries and Wimpy hamburgers? Did you own a fondue set or host a Tupperware party, or were you starving yourself on the Cabbage Soup Diet? Was life always too short to stuff a mushroom? And what was the point of Nouvelle Cuisine? There...

All six volumes of 'The Essential Letters from America', brought together for the first time in this definitive chronological collection of Alistair Cooke's finest broadcasts Alistair Cooke was the doyen of foreign correspondents and a radio legend, entertaining millions of listeners for over fifty years in his weekly 'Letter from America'. It was the longest-running show in radio history, and...

‘I don’t like killing, but I’m good at it. Murder isn’t so bad from a distance, just shapes popping up in my scope. Close-up work though – a garrotte around a target’s neck or a knife in their heart – it’s not for me. Too much empathy, that’s my problem. Usually. But not today. Today is different . . ....

'One of the biggest intelligence coups in recent years' The Times For years KGB operative Vasili Mitrokhin risked his life hiding top-secret material from Russian secret service archives beneath his family dacha. When he was exfiltrated to the West he took with him what the FBI called 'the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source'. This extraordinary...