Showing results for "Paul" in Great Britain

In 1940, Winston Churchill famously set in motion the Special Operations Executive. With only the moon to guide their way, the daring pilots of 161 Squadron constantly faced danger: their locations could be discovered, German night-fighters and flak had to be contended with and, of course, they dealt with the worst of European weather. Despite these extra risks, these Special Duties pilots were remarkably successful.

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart King Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies. He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'. Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World.  

No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller Best-selling author Tom Bower reveals the making of a monarch – King Charles III King Charles faces many challenges as he succeeds his mother to the throne. Despite his hard work and genuine concern for the disadvantaged, King Charles III has struggled in the past...

An intimate portrait of Stephen Spender’s extraordinary life written by Matthew Spender, shifting between memoir and biography, with new insights drawn from personal recollections and his father’s copious unpublished archives. Stephen Spender’s life was a vivid prism on the twentieth...

Aunt Munca never told the truth about anything. Calling herself after the mouse in a Beatrix Potter story, she was already a figure of mystery during the childhood of her nephew Ferdinand Mount. Half a century later, a series of startling revelations sets him off on a tortuous quest to find out who this extraordinary millionairess really was. What he discovers is shocking and irretrievably sad, involving multiple deceptions, false identities and abandonments.

A Book of the Year in The Times, Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Bookseller and at Waterstones 'He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all' Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his...

Paul Morley grew up in Reddish, less than five miles from Manchester and even closer to Stockport. Ever since the age of seven, old enough to form an identity but too young to be aware that 'southern' was a category, Morley has always thought of himself as a northerner. What that meant, he wasn't entirely sure. It was for him, as it is for millions of others in England, an absolute, indisputable truth.

Brought to you by Penguin. Discover a story 400 years in the making - the definitive biography of the man who dominated England in the first half of the sixteenth century Born into the English Wars of the Roses, educated in the European Renaissance, enthralled by the Age of Exploration and...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘It is good to meet the real Jane Austen at last’ Independent on Sunday 'Brilliantly illuminating … by focusing, chapter by chapter, on one thread or another of Austen’s experience, Byrne allows us to grasp the richness of her inner life’ Guardian Who was...

'Superbly explained' Washington Post A dazzling new history of the modern world, as told through the remarkable story of population change. Every phase since the advent of the industrial revolution - from the fate of the British Empire, to the global challenges from Germany, Japan and Russia, to...

In this day and age, whatever we think we feel, you can be sure that the past has had a part to play in it. In Soft, Ferdinand Mount tells the millennium-long history of emotion through vivid snapshots, masterly storytelling and bizarre historical anecdotes. Revealing all the weird and wonderful ways people in the past expressed their grief and joy, Mount explores the shifting importance societies have placed on empathy for the misfortunes of others.

Read by the author, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, and his co-author, Matt Whyman. Including an audio-exclusive Q&A between Paul and Matt. This is the story of a simple idea that turned into a global movement. This is the story of parkrun, told for the very first time from the man who started it all...

A fun and informative trip around the highways (not forgetting the low ways) and byways of Great Britain. Within this audio you will find love and romance, murder and mayhem, royalty, aristocrats and commoners, politics and politicians, sex and scandal, sporting triumphs and sporting disasters, millionaires and eccentrics, film stars and train robbers and much more besides.

A terrifically engaging and original biography about one of England’s greatest novelists, and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited”. Evelyn...

Famed as the ultimate penalty for traitors, heretics, and royalty alike, being sent to the Tower is known to have been experienced by no less than 8,000 unfortunate souls. Many of those who were imprisoned in the Tower never returned to civilization and those who did, often did so without their head! It is hardly surprising that the Tower has earned itself a reputation among the most infamous buildings on the planet.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill had no qualms about using native German speakers from Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany itself. The majority were Jews who had fled persecution. Two examples of these secret units were X Troop Commandos and the Special Interrogation Group. The SIG men deserve their legendary status. They fought, and often died, wearing Wehmacht uniform. As this book reveals that, after infiltrating Field Marshal Rommel's Afrika Korps, one detachment even drew Nazi pay.

In 1204, the great Angevin Empire was fragmenting under King John's rule. Unable to withstand France's invasion of Normandy, John also faced difficult relations with the papacy, and rising dissent among his barons. By the time John died in 1216, the failed Magna Carta gave way to civil conflict, and more than half of the country had fallen to the dauphin of France. These troubles were then passed, along with the crown, to John's nine-year-old son, Henry III.

The Guards established an ascendancy in the Peninsular War and at the Battle of Waterloo, and in the words of the military historian, Allan Mallinson, ‘They have never truly faltered since.’ They have done so by changing when change was needed. His Majesty's Household Division is a national institution, admired by the public through its mastery of ceremonial and pageantry, and the magnificent hour that is Trooping the Colour.

In 2000, archaeologist Paul Gething rediscovered a sword. An unprepossessing length of rusty metal, it had been left in a suitcase for thirty years. But Paul had a suspicion that the sword had more to tell than appeared, so he sent it for specialist tests. When the results came back, he realized that what he had in his possession was possibly the finest, and certainly the most complex, sword ever made, which had been forged in seventh-century Northumberland by an anonymous swordsmith.