Described by Churchill as "that strange, glittering being", Vickers met GD as an old lady in a mental hospital many years ago. She enraptured many, including Berenson, Proust and Rodin.
The author lived alongside Elizabeth and Margaret at Windsor during the war, between the ages of 16 and 22, the span of these diaries. She remained a confidante until her death in 2001.
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.
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
A fascinating history of Christianity told through the tumultuous and sometimes contested tales of twenty different churches and chapels scattered across Britain and Ireland.
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
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.
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
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
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
More reading of natural runes - its subtitle gives the game away: 'How to Read Signs in Every Cloud, Breeze, Hill, Street, Plant, Animal, and Dewdrop'. He doesn't go so far as the use of lak... read more
Not Oscar (of the 'Ark' or 'List') but a Cafe in Innsbruck.... A vivid portrayal of a family's brushes with history, from the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the importance of cake.
We've seen the effects of creeping populism, polarisation and prejudice in the US. All three are now present and powerful in Britain, fanned and misused for political ends. MdA decries the d... read more
A gorgeous, rich, magnificent imagining of a 1960s pop group, which even nods at Sandoe's in its plethora of walk-on parts (Bowie, Zappa...). Sex, drugs & rock 'n' roll, wit, linguistic jinx... read more
The indefatigable author of 'Schindler's Ark' picks up here on the story of Dickens's youngest son, who emigrated to Australia to become a sheep farmer.
An accomplished thriller that connects an Iraqi former interpreter with a body on a beach and a vastly lucrative defence contract: Powers, author of the brilliant The Yellow Birds, is a vete... 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
A deliciously-written debut novel, in which a harried civil servant is assigned to help a Victorian time-traveller adjust to the C21st. By turns a romance, a thriller and an acid critique of... read more
In this debut novel by a fine poet, a young woman's table-waiting, mould-spraying life of urban precariousness is disrupted by a glamorous stranger with a shared enemy.
A scrapbook becomes a twisty Ariadne's thread, leading its compiler into a world of art, vast wealth and murder. Sharp, with more than a touch of black humour.
1930s' Shanghai is the scene for silliness of riotous proportions - war, romance, espionage, a beautiful assassin, shifting loyalties, shadowy politics.