"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb - and I'm not blonde either." Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actress, author, business... read more
A biography of the city founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, once the largest city in the world and for a thousand years the capital of Egypt. Looks at the modern period too.
A rich and sweeping history of the colourful Ottomans, from their rise to their downfall after WW1. It shows how they shifted from a policy of integration to one of exclusivity. Multiethnic,... read more
A fascinating look at the way 29 European internal borders were made and have shifted; while some of these reflect the faultlines of old horrors, they also offer new hope. Perceptive and ext... read more
The author went to Venice in 1957, aged 25, to have fun for a season among the rich and glam. Written with 67 years' hindsight, this memoir is a vivid evocation of a vanished era.
The memoirs of Henry 'Bunter' Somerset - rock singer and songwriter, formerly the Marquess of Worcester, now the 17th Duke of Beaufort and the owner of Badminton House.
An account of Edward VIII that looks at early drafts of the abdicated King's own writings, and counterbalances the recent tabloid view of him as a traitor.
A hotter, drier earth means a dustier earth. Owens frames these microparticles as the insidious biproduct of industrialism, whose immense repercussions will be felt ever more powerfully in ... read more
Published last year in the US, this account of the rich in mid-C20th New York, and Capote's multiple betrayals of friendships, is both fascinating and shocking.
Borman's careful research shows that Anne's tragedy, intellect and family had a profound influence on Elizabeth throughout her life. A dazzling turn of the Tudor prism.
Neutral for fifty years in his work for the BBC, now he tells us what he thinks and thought about all those prime ministers, presidents, elections and scandals.
A beguiling approach to the relationship of artists to the sea, looking in detail at single works by ten artists: from Vanessa Bell's Studland Beach and Paul Nash's Winter Sea, via Alfred Wa... read more
The Jena set: Caroline Schlegel's salon in the 1790s, in that small German university town, included Novalis, Schiller, Hegel, Goethe and Humboldt. They radically changed our ideas as the Fr... read more
Tree-poaching and the ownership of wildnernesses from Sherwood to the Amazon: a well-researched study of the black market for timber and its wider implications.