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Once the all-conquering bad boy of tennis, John McEnroe is increasingly better known for his insightful commentaries and opinions on the game. In this memoir he reflects on his playing years but also on his life since, developing new careers in broadcasting and art dealing, and bringing up a large family. Still competing in senior tournaments and recently coach to Milos Raonic, he also has plenty to say on the state of modern tennis.

Dylan Thomas was not only a gifted poet, but an expressive letter writer. Charming, funny and indiscreet, his correspondence offers an insight into his thoughts, feelings and opinions as he drank, begged and borrowed his way through his flamboyant life. Edited by Dylan Thomas expert Paul Ferris, this new, two-volume edition includes more than 100 previously unpublished letters. The volumes included in this set are: Dylan Thomas The Collected Letters Volume I: 1931-1939 (Read more...)Dylan Thomas The Collected Letters Volumes II: 1939-1953 (Read more...)

This candid memoir by Czech-born journalist and arts administrator John Tusa recollects the wrangles with BBC senior management over the creation of Newsnight in 1979 (he was a presenter). It also reveals how as managing director of the World Service (1986–93) he saw off unwanted political influence over its remit. And musing on his stint as head of the Barbican (1995–2007), he demonstrates how his passion for the arts turned the centre’s fortunes around.

In 1780, the anti-Papist Gordon riots left 1,000 dead and London in flames; half a century later, Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Act. This narrative history charts the struggles that brought about that conclusion. It profiles the key players, including George III, a staunch opponent of emancipation; the political rivals Wellington and Peel; and the Irish campaigner Daniel O’Connell; and examines the conflict between the right to practise one’s religion and allegiance to the state.

For more than 20 years, readers turned to AA Gill’s columns every Sunday for his wit, perception and outrageously funny one-liners. Drawn from a range of publications including The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair and Tatler, this compilation presents some of the best of his restaurant reviews, travel journalism, TV criticism and feature articles. Among the collection are his excoriation of vegetarians, provocative reportage from Sudan and Haiti, and reflections on his father’s Alzheimers and his own impending death from pancreatic cancer.

Passing was the first innovation of the organized game of football in the late 19th century and ever since, coaches have attempted to devise strategies that give them an advantage. This classic book explains the developments from W-M to tiki-taka.

Rudolf Hoess was Commandant of Auschwitz from its construction in 1940 until late 1943, and supervised the murder of over three million Jews as part of the Nazis’ ‘final solution’. He was an expert in the administration of concentration camps and mass exterminations. Hoess wrote this autobiography in 1947 while in prison in Poland. He was tried, sentenced and hanged later that year. The autobiography and other documents are translated here by Constantine Fitzgibbon, with an introduction by Primo Levi.

Discovered by chance by farmers in 1974, the mausoleum of the first emperor of China contained one of the wonders of the world: the Terracotta Army. Based on unique access to leading Chinese archaeologists, this book sets the clay warriors in the context of Chinese society 2,200 years ago, describes the latest discoveries at the vast and only partly excavated site, and hints at what may still be uncovered – including the imperial tomb itself.

The letters in this second volume cover the years of fame, the exhilaration and pain of Thomas’s tempestuous marriage to Caitlin Macnamara, his drinking and his hell-raising. They record the creation of Under Milk Wood, and the slide into alcoholism that claimed his life at the age of 39.

Spanning Thomas’s Welsh childhood, his early career and marriage, this volume charts his growing confidence as a poet as he experiments with ideas, submits verses for publication, gains the support of prominent figures including TS Eliot, Stephen Spender and Edith Sitwell, and casts a satirical eye over the literary world.

The loyal brother of Edward IV, Richard was entrusted as Protector of Edward’s son and heir, but in 1483 he took the crown himself while his nephews, Edward V and Prince Richard, disappeared. It was widely rumoured that the king had murdered his brother’s sons. Avoiding the bias of Richard’s evil reputation, this narrative history of his life and reign returns to original sources and looks in depth at contemporary politics, Richard’s earlier years and northern affinity, and how he constructed his own power base.

Beginning with the Wife of Bath and what she can tell us of the wool trade and matrimony, each of Chaucer’s 23 pilgrims on the road to Canterbury illuminates several aspects of 14th-century life in this unusual social history. From close readings of the Ploughman, the Miller, the Reeve and the Franklin the practicalities of rural life are revealed; while other pilgrims, from ‘Mine Host’ to the Shipman, provide the detail and inspire discussion of city, religious and military life.

Despite having written many books about the countryside, including the bestselling Country Wisdom, Rosamond Richardson only picked up a pair of binoculars and started birdwatching in her sixties. In a series of lyrical prose poems, this book charts her growing engagement with the world of birds over a single year, and the joy and serenity it brought. The result is a precisely observed exploration of the importance of nature to one’s mental and emotional wellbeing.

One of the founders of modern Israel, Shimon Peres served his country as prime minister, president and foreign minister. He is best remembered, however, for his unswerving commitment to peace. In this final book, completed shortly before his death in 2016, he reflects on 70 years in politics, the turning points in Israeli history, the qualities required for leadership, and the hard choices that face his nation in the quest for peace.

During the 17th century unprecedented numbers of people left England. They were on their way to new lives in the Caribbean and the North American colonies – but what were their motivations for undertaking such a perilous transatlantic voyage? Using contemporary letters, diaries and court records, Evans tells the personal stories of men and women who left their homeland in search of a fortune, for political and religious reasons or because their desperate poverty meant they had little to lose.

‘Thomas Gainsborough lived as if electricity shot through his sinews and crackled at his finger ends.’ A gentle, empathetic family man, he also had a volatile streak that could lead him to slash his paintings, and a loose way of talking that shocked society. This biography reveals how an easygoing Suffolk lad was propelled to the highest echelons of Georgian Bath and London by his vast natural talent, and explores the contradictions of this complex and charismatic painter.

‘First we must seize power’, Lenin told Trotsky in 1917. ‘Then we decide what to do with it.’ This compelling biography draws on long-suppressed documents to present a nuanced portrait of this complex, emotional man. It charts his long years in exile, his decisive seizure of power, and his intense relationships with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his lover, Inessa Armand, examining how this sensitive nature lover came to create a new kind of state.

The Himalayas beckon…and we go. Following a meandering path across the mountains, Robert Twigger explores a landscape of pilgrimage and revelation, of massacre and invasion, and of unutterable calm. Unravelling real and invented journeys, and the unexpected links between them, he encounters incredible stories from a unique cast of mountaineers and mystics, pundits and prophets. The result is a sweeping, enthralling and surprising journey through the dramatic history of the world’s greatest mountain range.

As Director of the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A, Sir Roy Strong was a leading figure in Britain’s cultural life. His second volume of diaries begins as he leaves the public stage to devote himself to writing and his love of gardening. With a rich and diverse cast of characters including Tony Blair, Judi Dench, Elton John, Laurence Olivier, Harold Pinter, Margaret Thatcher and the Queen, it casts a wryly humorous eye over the turn of the millennium.

In a pilgrimage back through four billion years of evolution, Dawkins and Wong follow the history of our genes in search of the microbial beginnings of life. As they encounter other species – from chimpanzees to fungi and bacteria – they listen to each evolutionary ‘tale’, shedding light on such topics as speciation and extinction, and reveal how intimately humans are connected with all life on Earth. This revised and expanded edition takes into account a decade of new research.

The Easter Rising in April 1916 saw civilian deaths, the destruction of a large part of Dublin and the true beginning of Irish independence. Coogan's account of this turning-point in Irish history introduces the major players and the ideas that drove them, and vividly describes the events which they set in train. He also examines how the British government's mishandling of the aftermath had the effect of galvanizing popular support for the rebels.

Described by the Financial Times as ‘an excellent antidote to prejudice’, this concise account of Muslim history emphasizes the importance of rethinking the Western mistrust of Islam which dates back to the time of the Crusades. As well as challenging stereotypes and highlighting how the faith has inspired scholars, mystics and poets, it reveals how Islam’s ‘sacralization of history’ means that the religion, its past history and current events are woven together especially closely.

When two ocean liners, one British the other Argentine, were pressed into military service at the outbreak of the First World War, each was disguised as the other vessel. When they met by chance in the South Atlantic – to the utter surprise of both captains – a tremendous battle ensued. Erstwhile war correspondent Colin Simpson draws on the ships’ logs, survivors’ accounts and official archives to tell the tale. Bears old cover price.

How much do we really know about the place we call home? This sweeping narrative tells how the British landscape has evolved over 12,000 years of human habitation. Epic in scope, it charts the age-old relationship between people and place and the deep-rooted tensions between town and country. From henge to high-rise, from Snowdonia to suburbia, it explores the way we have shaped the land and it has shaped us, and assesses the prospect of a sustainable future.

Kate Summerscale re-opens the case of the gruesome Road Hill murder of 1860, but models her meticulously researched account on the country-house murder mystery – the genre originally inspired by this real murder and its investigation by Jonathan Whicher, one of Scotland Yard's very first detectives. 'The best whodunnit of the year – and it's all true' (Tatler).

Kipling is one of the most celebrated yet most controversial of English poets. His ‘If…’ is often cited as England’s favourite poem, yet its creator is either admired or reviled as a jingoistic champion of empire. Drawing on previously unpublished material about his years in India, England and America, plus recently discovered letters that shed intriguing light on his marriage and other close relationships, this masterly biography presents a nuanced and sympathetic interpretation of the writer and the man.

Growing up in a humble shack in America’s poorest state, Elvis Presley dreamed that success would free him from poverty. So how did he become dependent on bank loans even after achieving huge worldwide fame, and why did he despise his own movies and songs, even fearing that he would be forgotten after his death? This biography focuses on identifying the origins of the contradictions and frailties that lay behind Elvis’s charming, confident onstage persona.

When his beloved wife died in 1861, Robert Browning's world collapsed and his future looked bleak indeed. Knowing that he needed to move on, but with an overwhelming desire to cling to Elizabeth's memory, he left Italy and returned to London after 15 years away, to bring up his son alone and endeavour to rebuild his life and his career. Pamela Neville-Sington's biography is moving story of love, loss, death and redemption at the heart of the Victorian literary establishment.

A magnificent portrait of the Lakes, with Rob Talbot's landscape photography and Whiteman's text describing every aspect of the region, from its geology to literary and artistic connections.

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Stylish, witty and outspoken, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Drawing on unpublished material from personal papers and diaries, this absorbing book recreates the emotional and political turmoil of the period when Herbert Asquith's government was beset by unrest from suffragettes, strikers and Irish nationalists, and the world was spiralling towards war.

At the beginning of the Second World War experts feared that rationing, a shortage of medical resources, the spread of disease via evacuation and air-raid shelters, and the psychological impact of bombardment would wreck the nation's health. This eye-opening account tells how, through a combination of planning and improvisation, doctors, nurses, social workers, scientists, nutritionists, Boy Scouts and tea ladies ensured that Britain ended the war in better health than ever before, and paved the way for the NHS and the welfare state.

Joanna Lumley is not only a star of stage and screen but a national treasure. Luckily her magpie instincts have preserved a hoard of memorabilia that make this illustrated memoir a visual feast, with photos from her Indian childhood to the present. There are souvenirs of her early modelling career, her celebrated roles in The New Avengers, The Pink Panther and Absolutely Fabulous and, of course, the causes about which she feels passionate. Felt-tip mark on upper trimmed edge.

In this magical memoir, Antonia Fraser recalls her idiosyncratic upbringing with inimitable humour and style. Packed with incident and anecdote, it vividly evokes her childhood in Oxford where her father, the future Lord Longford, was a don, her education at a convent school, wartime evacuation to a romantic Elizabethan manor house, and her 'deeply, gloriously, heroically eccentric' great-uncle, Lord Dunsany. Above all, it charts her growing fascination with the subject to which she would devote her adult life: history.

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Stylish, witty and outspoken, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Drawing on unpublished material from personal papers and diaries, this absorbing book recreates the emotional and political turmoil of the period when Herbert Asquith's government was beset by unrest from suffragettes, strikers and Irish nationalists, and the world was spiralling towards war.

Republished to mark the 50th anniversary of Churchill's death, this volume brings together all the writings on the USA from his History of the English Speaking Peoples (1956–8). Written with characteristic wit and historical insight, it spans American history from Columbus' discovery of the New World to the Cold War, and is imbued with the love and affection that the author felt for the USA – his mother's homeland. Edited by Churchill's grandson and with a new preface by Andrew Roberts.

Although assigned to major towns by the 1930s, postcodes were not in general use until towards the end of the 20th century. This humorous diary of a tour of Britain visits all 124 modern UK postcodes, making anecdotal observations about each area and identifying historical, geographical or cultural trivia, such as the fact that Strontian in PH (Perth) is the only place in Britain to have a chemical element named after it.

Although famous as a novelist, Vikram Seth had written three books of poetry before A Suitable Boy was published in 1993. In this volume the poems evoke a serene and melancholy awareness of the seasons passing, from summer's end to spring.

Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Traditional histories focus on wars, politics and great upheavals, neglecting the texture of everyday life. Not this book. Structured around the routines of a single day, this entertaining romp from a consultant to the BBC children's series Horrible Histories scours Roman rubbish bins, Egyptian tombs and Victorian sewers to reveal the origin and development of the rituals we take for granted.