The noble art of boxing is the world’s oldest contact sport. Its Big Bang moment was the arrival of Thomas Alva Edison, whose pioneering feature film Men Boxing was produced in 1891. From that seed, boxing grew to become the first truly global sport.97 Fights is a thrilling, no-holds-barred account that considers all the greats – Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali, Nicola Adams and Oleksandr Usyk among them. Modern boxing has weathered the storms of mob fixing, wayward fig...

Amid the flames of the culture wars, politicians have taken up arms over controls on literary culture, spurred on in part by universities 'triggering' canonical texts. Jonathan Swift's 'Battle of the Books' has flared up again. But is 'triggering' utter wokery or responsible pedagogic practice?Through dozens of case studies of triggered works, from Romeo and Juliet to Gender Queer, John Sutherland explores the recent phenomenon of triggering and i...

Intergenerational conflict is a perennial feature of society and capitalism. One side has the youth, the other side has the lion's share of the wealth, and the good things wealth can bring. In the last few years that friction has reached to dangerous heights. Call it war. And, like all war, it has the risk of doing severe damage. In this fiery polemic the author of the best-selling The War on the Old has switched sides, and now examines the conflict as it must appear to the young. For the ...

The war on the old has been declared.In the post-Brexit world, intergenerational conflict has become a visible phenomenon. There is an overwhelming sense of blame from younger generations: it was 'the wrinklies', the grey-haired plutocracy, who voted Leave; who are overburdening hospitals, shutting the youth out of the housing market and hoarding accumulated wealth.By 2020, we are told, one in five Britons will be pensioners, and living a longer retirement ...

Thackeray, author of the masterpiece Vanity Fair, was considered one of the finest writers of the Victorian heyday: Dickens was his closest rival. This anthology covers all of Thackeray's versatile genius: his sketches, journalism, essays, cartoons and fiction. With explanatory notes by Scholar and writer John Sutherland, this varied selection offers a lens into Victorian life by one of its most distinctive voices.

NOW A MAJOR EMMY AWARD-WINNING NETLIX SERIES STARRING ANDREW SCOTTOne of the BBC's 100 Novels that shaped our world.'An outstanding thriller which has deservedly become a classic' THE TIMES'Ripley - amoral, hedonistic and charming - is a genuinely original creation' DAILY TELEGRAPH'I'm a huge Highsmith fan. If there's one book I wish I'd written, it's The Tale...

'A masterclass in thrillers' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'One hell of a treat' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Blown away, almost literally' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Wow, wow, wow!!' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Proper edge-of-your-seat stuff' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Alex and Pip are in desperate need of an escape. Their stressful roles as hostage negotiators are eased on...

The Woman in White (1859-60) is the first and greatest `Sensation Novel'. Walter Hartright's mysterious midnight encounter with the woman in white draws him into a vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue. The novel is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction - Marion Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the sinister and flamboyant `Napoleon of Crime'. A masterwork of intricate construction, The Woman in Whi...

'Generous, enjoyable and well informed.' Observer**'500 expertly potted plots and personal comments on a wide range of pop and proper prose fiction.' The Times___________________________________________________________Ranging all the way from Aaron's Rod to Zuleika Dobson, via The Devil Rides Out and Middlemarch, literary connoisseur and sleuth John Sutherland offers his very pers...

A Sunday Times top-five bestseller'This is a remarkable book . . . profound and deeply moving . . . It has as much to tell us about mental illness as it does about policing' Alastair StewartJohn Sutherland joined the Met in 1992, having dreamed of being a police officer since his teens. Rising quickly through the ranks, he experienced all that is extraordinary about a life in blue: saving lives, finding the lost,...

A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'A love letter to police officers and the most vulnerable people they protect and serve' CHRISTIE WATSON, author of THE LANGUAGE OF KINDNESS'Extraordinary . . . urgent and compelling. We all have lessons to learn from this book' SIMON MAYOThere is much more to policing than tackling crime. Every one of us will need the help of an officer at some point in our lives, often when we're at our m...

On a broad and colourful canvas, extending from urban and rural England to Waterloo and the continental haunts of exiles, Thackeray gives us one of the greatest social-satirical novels in the language-one of the most entertaining and profound, and, in the person of Becky Sharp, we have one of literature's most resourceful, attractive, and amoral characters. Essentially a commentary on hypocrisy and those ethical principles to which society pays lip-service, Vanity Fair (1847-8) invites us to ...