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.
From the engaging author of Lady In Waiting, whose late flowering as a memoirist and author of a pair of deliciously silly thrillers make her a pin-up for so many.
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
1930s' Shanghai is the scene for silliness of riotous proportions - war, romance, espionage, a beautiful assassin, shifting loyalties, shadowy politics.
The third outing for Persis Wadia in the 'Malabar House' series, in post-independence Bombay: an unknown European has been found frozen in Dehra Dun, and there are new murders on his doorste... read more
Spring comes to the village of Three Pines, and with it the children of a woman murdered there many years before and the unsealing of a bricked-up attic room... Chief Inspector Armand Gamach... read more
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
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.
A very clever debut from a distinguished hand in the art world: a Cambridge don rather stuck in his ways is repelled by an outbreak of modern art in his quad. Wafted on a cloud of academic d... read more
A marvellous dose of black humour: an atheist is murdered, only to discover that not only is there an afterlife but also his widow is getting a bit too close to his killer.
A former soldier reckons with the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland as he tries to rebuild his relationship with his daughter. By the author of Pure and Now We Shall Be Entirely Fre... read more
Another outing for the spy hunter Jonas Merrick, which begins with a Russian agent defecting in Denmark. The retired MI5 agent, dragged away from his caravan and quiet life, is known by youn... read more
Memoir by the magnificent Margolyes, conceived in an air raid in WW2 who, in a life rich with experience, mischief and energy, once mooned at Warren Beatty - "he completely deserved it. The ... read more
Born in 1916 to a noble St Petersburg family, he fled Russia with his parents and arrived in England with next to nothing. By the time he was 20 he had scored the winning try in England's fi... read more
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
Following on from his The Prime Ministers, here is a series of essays on all 46 presidents of the USA by various academics, journalists, politicians and historians.
A moving and unique coming-of-age diary written by Churchill's daughter Mary during WW2 which shows her father as PM, military leader and family man. Carefully edited by ES, Churchill's gran... read more
Another romp from the author of Lady in Waiting and Murder On Mustique. Presumably autobiographical, since it features the 11-year-old Lady Anne Coke returning home from Scotland in 1943 to ... read more
Nifty historical spy novel, in which an MI5 operative is sent to Paris to deal with a blackmail case with political repercussions. The PM is Ramsay Macdonald.
Another outing for Inspector Gamache, the Quebecois investigator - crowd control, social manipulation and a charismatic academic touting dangerous ideas lead inevitably to murder most foul.
As well as a bestselling novelist, Hustvedt has lectured on neuroscience, psychoanalysis and philosophy at scientific conferences across the world. This new essay collection draws both on he... read more
A fascinating history of Christianity told through the tumultuous and sometimes contested tales of twenty different churches and chapels scattered across Britain and Ireland.