Showing results by author "Ian" in All Categories

Richard Ainsworth moved to rural France to escape, so being voted mayor of the small town of Saint-Sauver comes as a terrible shock. Fortunately bureaucracy has its benefits and he is shipped off to a health spa to recuperate. The Esprit de l'Air is a world-famous venue on an island fort off the west coast of France, and was chosen specifically by his business partner and bounty hunter of international repute, Valérie d'Orçay. Richard should have been prepared then.

Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.

John Rebus is Edinburgh’s most famous fictional detective – a hard-drinking, music-loving maverick with a defiant disregard for authority and a stubborn determination to get to the truth. Alongside his loyal colleague and friend Siobhan Clarke, he traverses Scotland’s dark and dangerous underworld investigating violent crimes – many of them involving his sparring partner and nemesis, notorious gangster Ger Cafferty. These eight thrilling dramas find him tackling suspicious deaths, serial killers and stone-cold cases.

Here is the unforgettable 'Fletch', everyone's favourite criminal, making the most of his enforced stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Never a man to shrink from a challenge, even from behind bars, Fletch could manage anything from organising a win on the horses to buying a council flat in Mayfair. Amazing his cellmates and infuriating officialdom, Fletch, the Arthur Daley of penal servitude, always comes out on top. Starring Ronnie Barker with Brian Wilde, Richard Beckinsale and Fulton Mackay.

In these sparkling A to Zs, time-travelling historian Ian Mortimer visits four classic periods of English history: the fourteenth century, the Elizabethan age, the Restoration and the Regency. As he ranges from the Great Plague to the Great Freeze, from Armada to Austen, and from tobacco to toenails, he shines a light into corners of history we never knew were so fascinating -- or so revealing of the whole.

Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat? Ian Mortimer shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. He sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking you to the Middle Ages. The result is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: evolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail.

Welcome to Flamford, the town sanity forgot. Edgy, sharp-tongued City burn-out Andy Chambers has been advised, for the sake of his health, to take a break from his stressful London lifestyle and get some rest. So he goes to stay with his estranged uncle, Jeff Whitaker, at his seaside home in Flamford - but, as he soon discovers, living with his relative is far from relaxing.

“Le Chiffre” is a ruthless operative and the accountant for a soviet SMERSH cell in France, but he’s on the verge of disaster after gambling away his client’s money. Taking the last of his stash, he lures a dozen wealthy players to a high-stakes baccarat game, hoping to hustle his way whole. The British Secret Service would like to see this red thorn plucked from the hide of Europe, and sends their best card sharp, James Bond, to bankrupt Le Chiffre for good.

Experience the Cold War like never before with Cold War Conversations — an award-winning podcast recommended by The New York Times. Each week, host Ian Sanders brings you raw, firsthand accounts from the people who lived through one of history’s most tense and transformative eras — soldiers, spies, civilians, and more. These aren’t stories from textbooks. They’re unfiltered voices from the frontlines of history — emotional, gripping, and deeply human. This is Cold War history, told from the inside out. We cover subjects such as spies, spying, the Iron Curtain, nuclear weapons, ...

John and Paul were more than friends, collaborators or rivals in the sense we normally understand those terms. They were both exceptionally intense young men who had the fabric of their world ruptured at a young age. There have been millions of words written about The Beatles, but this is the first book to focus on what lay at the heart of this phenomenon: the alchemy of two young men. Ian Leslie explores this volatile, madly creative quasi-marriage and misunderstood story. The result is a wildly enjoyable biography, told through the songs, which will make us see and hear John and Paul afresh.

Edward’s life is one of the most extraordinary in all English history. He ordered his uncle to be beheaded, he usurped his father’s throne and he started a war which lasted for more than a hundred years. He took the crown when it was at its lowest point and raised it to new heights, presenting himself as a new King Arthur, victorious across Europe. He was the architect of many English icons - from parliamentary rule to the adoption of English as the official language and even the building of a great clock tower at Westminster. 

In the 'fantasy' universe of the phenomenally bestselling Discworld series, everything runs on magic and common sense. The world is flat and million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten. Our world seems different - it runs on rules, often rather strange ones. Science is our way of finding...

Thirteen classic BBC radio episodes starring James Bolam and Rodney Bewes. One of the most popular TV comedies of the 70s, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? won a best sitcom BAFTA and attracted an audience of millions before being adapted for radio. In these 13 episodes, we catch up with Newcastle lads Bob and Terry as they meet by chance after years apart. Now engaged to Thelma, Bob is having prewedding nerves, while Terry is having trouble adjusting to life after the army.

In the hallowed city of Tours, the death of a sixteen-year-old dressed as an 'Immortal Knight' appears to be a tragic overdose. Juge d'instruction Matthieu Lombard is called in to investigate. When, weeks later, a provocative author is found brutally murdered, Lombard suspects the two deaths are connected by a sinister, coercive force. As he digs deeper, the case begins to challenge his loyalties and unearth disturbing echoes from his own past. What started as apparent roleplay turns into something far darker — and far deadlier.

Brought to you by Penguin. In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveller's Guides - after the Middle Ages, Elizabethan England and Restoration Britain - Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history: the Regency (aka Georgian England)...

If given the chance to be a genius, few people would say no. Outstanding talent is a key component of great success, after all. What form this ‘great success’ takes is largely up to the individual, but it is often associated with money, fame, and power. Selfish pursuits, yes, but it is only natural to look out for number one first and foremost. This is true even of the altruistic. For instance, if some wonder-child figures out a foolproof way to achieve lasting world peace they would still need an immense amount of influence and resources to turn that idea into reality.

In a contest of change, which century from the past millennium would come up trumps? Imagine the Black Death took on the female vote in a pub brawl, or the Industrial Revolution faced the Internet in a medieval joust - whose side would you be on? In this hugely entertaining book, celebrated historian Ian Mortimer takes us on a whirlwind tour of Western history, pitting one century against another in his quest to measure change.

It begins with a phone call. Gordon Reeve's brother has been found dead in his car in San Diego. The car was locked from the inside, a gun was in his hand. In the US to identify the body Gordon realises that his brother has been murdered. What's more, it's soon obvious that his own life is in...

We tend to think about the Middle Ages as a dark and backward time, characterised by violence, ignorance and superstition. We believe that life was unchanging over the period, so if a peasant fell asleep in in the year 1000 and woke up six hundred years later, he would return to a world that was instantly recognisable. We hold that change is facilitated by science and technological innovation, and that it was the inventions of recent centuries, from the steam engine to the Internet, that created the modern world. We couldn't be more wrong.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook of Ian Kershaw's The End, a searing account of the last days of the Nazi Regime and the downfall of a nation. Read by David Timson. The last months of the Second World War were a nightmarish time to be alive. Unimaginable levels of violence destroyed entire...