**Sunday Times Bestseller****Book of the Week on Radio 4**'A beautiful book about a part of the modern world which remains genuinely magical’ Mark Haddon'One of the most constantly fascinating, but consistently under-appreciated aspects of modern life is the business of flying. Mark Vanhoenacker has written the ideal book on the subject: a description of what it’s like to fly by a commercial pilot who is also a master prose stylist and a deeply sensi...

A pilot's love letter to the world's greatest cities from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Skyfaring'A journey around both the author's mind and the planet's great cities that leaves us energised, open to new experiences and ready to return more hopefully to our lives' ALAIN DE BOTTONGrowing up in his small hometown, Mark Vanhoenacker spun the illuminated globe in his bedroom and dreamt of elsewhere - of distant, rea...

THE DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE YEAR'Illuminates the practical reality of piloting in a concise and useful manner' Times Literary SupplementSo, hello! Welcome! Honestly, you look surprisingly relaxed. That's great to see. Have a seat on the left side of the cockpit - that's the captain's seat. Yes, that's right, you're now the captain, and yes, that's the runway down there. Fasten your seatbelt, order yourself a cup of tea, and...

Soms is het genoeg dat iemand je laat zien dat het kan.Als je altijd al op de stoel van een piloot hebt willen zitten, is Hoe land je een vliegtuig? dé manier om in de cockpit te kruipen. Marc Vanhoenacker, de vliegenier-dichter die poëzie weet te maken van de wetenschap achter vliegen, geeft jou de stuurknuppel in handen.Hij loodst je al pratend door het naderen en landen heen en bouwt zo je kennis over vliegen van de grond ad (of beter gezegd, vanuit de lucht) ...

Brought to you by Penguin.A love letter to the cities of the world, from the airline pilot-author of Skyfaring.Mark Vanhoenacker grew up in his small hometown, spinning the illuminated globe in his bedroom and dreaming of elsewhere - of distant, real cities, and a perfect metropolis that existed only in his imagination. These places were the source of endless comfort and escape, and of a lasting fascination: streets unspooled, towe...

In this 2022 interview with Justine Willis Toms, long-haul commercial pilot Mark Vanhoenacker opens our vision to a more expansive landscape. He is a seasoned pilot and a brilliant lyrical writer about his journeys as experienced both from the air and on the ground where he chronicles for us some of the planet’s great cities. He is also a regular contributor to The New York Times and a columnist for the Financial Times.He says, “I get to so see so much of the ...

In Skyfaring, airline pilot and flight romantic Mark Vanhoenacker shares his irrepressible love of flying, on a journey from day to night, from new ways of mapmaking and the poetry of physics to the names of winds and the nature of clouds. Here, anew, is the simple wonder and transcendent joy of motion, and the remarkable new perspectives that height and distance bestow on everything we love.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman, read by Patience Tomlinson.How to be a Victorian - a time traveller's guide to Victorian Britain by the BBC's Ruth GoodmanWe know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner like you or me? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your te...

In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding travelled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a house by a lake. It had been a holiday home for her family, that she had been forced to leave as the Nazis swept to power. As he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived, he realised that this house had witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, had withstood the trauma of a world war, and the dividing of a nation.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of First Light by Geoffrey Wellum, read by Andrew Brooke.Two months before the outbreak of the Second World War, eighteen-year-old Geoffrey Wellum becomes a fighter pilot with the RAF...Desperate to get in the air, he makes it through basic training to become the youngest Spitfire pilot in the prestigious 92 Squadron. Thrust into combat almost immediately, Wellum finds himself flying several sorties a day, cau...

The night of May 16th, 1943. Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge 9,000lb cylindrical bomb strapped underneath them. Their mission: to destroy three dams deep within the German heartland, which provide the lifeblood to the industries supplying the Third Reich's war machine.From the outset, it was an almost impossible task, a suicide mission: to fly low and at night in formationover many miles of enemy occupied ter...

Kolymsky Heights: A frozen Siberian hell lost in endless night and the perfect location for an underground Russian research station. It's a place so secret it doesn't officially exist… Once there, the scientists are forbidden to leave. But one scientist is desperate to get a message to the outside world. So desperate, he sends a plea across the wilderness to the West in order to summon the one man alive who can achieve the impossible...