A razor-sharp analysis of the increasing – and terrifying – parallels between Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia, from the former BBC Moscow Correspondent and Sunday Times bestselling author Martin Sixsmith.Long Live the King.Since his re-election as US president, Donald Trump has made good on things he only dreamed of accomplishing in his first term. He has smashed constitutional constraints, trampled on free speech, suborned the ...

In September 1935, Dr Buck Ruxton strangled his wife Isabella, whom he suspected of having an affair, in their Lancashire home while their three children slept in their beds. When the nanny, Mary Rogerson, disturbed him in the act, he killed her too. To hide his crimes, he dismembered and chopped up the bodies, removing any distinguishing features, before he disposed of them in a ravine on the Scottish borders. It took the genius of Professors Sydney Smith and John Glaister, and their grou...

Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey’s wonderfully witty and Wildean quartet of biographies, stands out as one of the most radical and groundbreaking works of its genre. With relentless precision, Strachey explores the lives of four exemplars of the Victorian age: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon, irreverently bringing to light the flaws, strengths, ambitions and hypocrisies of these treasured legends. The combination of thrilling and imaginative narr...

A trail of secrets. A dangerous discovery. A deadly turn.Police officer Sebastian Clifford never planned on becoming a private investigator. But when a scandal leads to the disbandment of his London based special squad, he finds himself out of a job. That is, until his cousin calls on him to investigate her husband's high-profile death, and prove that it wasn't a suicide.Clifford's reluctant to get involved, but the more he digs, the more evidence he finds....

Oliver Twist is a poor orphan in a cruel society. Maltreated from birth, he escapes only to become an accidental member of a gang of pickpockets and robbers. Briefly rescued, he is then kidnapped as part of a plot to defraud him of his inheritance, and his prospects seem as bleak as his surroundings. But one member of the gang won’t let hope die whatever the cost. Charles Dickens transformed this dark fable on the Poor Laws into one of the bestloved books in English, filling it with brilli...

In a forgotten valley on the Devon-Somerset border, the seasons unfold, marked only by the rituals of the farming calendar. Twelve-year-old Leopold Sercombe skips school to help his father, a carter. Skinny and pale, Leo dreams of a job on the estate's stud farm. He is breaking a colt for his father when a boy dressed in a Homburg, breeches and riding boots appears. Peering under the stranger's hat, he discovers Miss Charlotte, the Master's daughter. And so begins a frie...

These five chilling nineteenth-century ghost stories from both sides of the Atlantic include some of the best in the genre. Bierce is well-known, but To Let by B. M. Croker and The Upper Berth provide moments to tingle the spine, as does An Account of Some Strange Disturbances by Le Fanu. This collection, which is further enhanced by suitably chilling music, was originally released under the title Classic Chilling Tales III.

A new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Glass Room and The Girl Who Fell from the Sky.Ancestry contains stories that are gripping and heart-breaking, from the squalor and vitality of Dickensian London to the excitement of seafaring in the last days of sail and the horror of the trenches of the Crimea."Simon Mawer is a truly great contemporary writer...his stories are richly rewarding." SIMON SCHAMA

Gleaned from the author's experiences over many years of yoga and Zen training, as well as from conversations with teachers, folk stories and temple magazines, this is a fascinating and enlightening compendium of tales from the yoga and Zen traditions.

While many accounts of the Buddha’s life mix legend and history, this compelling new biography discriminates between fact and fiction to reveal Gautama, the remarkable human being behind the myth, and sheds new light on his teachings.Plunging us into the noises, smells and jostling streets of Gautama’s world, Vishvapani Blomfield brings the Buddha to life as a passionate and determined individual - a strikingly modern figure who rejected contemporary beliefs and found his own answe...

The Complete Charles Dickens Collection: Part One contains all of Charles Dickens' major published works from 1836 to 1849. From the short stories by 'Boz' which began Dickens' journey as an author, to the great works of literature that have inspired generations - including Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, and more - and essays that give us a deeper insight into his life, opinions, and travels, this collection is an essential addit...

Leo Tolstoy & Charles Dickens: The Ultimate Collection brings together four major works of fiction from two of the greatest writers of the 1800s, as well as a one piece of their most renowned non-fiction.In this collection you'll hear Jonathan Keeble expertly narrating the grand epics of Anna Karenina and War & Peace, Stephen Fry narrating Great Expectations, Scrooge's ghostly journey narrated by Jason Isaacs, and other award-winn...