'The best account of this episode in English.' TLS Napoleon was the hero of his age, a man who helped France become, briefly, a hugely impressive European power. In 1814, he was imprisoned on Elba, planning an escape and plotting his course of action once he had done so. From the time he landed back in France to his loss at Waterloo, one hundred days elapsed. Scholar Alan Schom, an expert in the history of the Napoleonic era, outlines the key personalities and events of those hundred days in 1815. Napoleon is a far cry from the heroic leader of the time before he was imprisoned in Elba, attempting to gather forces and convince his old friends to help him once again. Despite the difficulties he faced from his irresponsible brothers, and acting in opposition to the statesman Talleyrand, Napoleon was only a whisker away from a famous triumph, and only eventually defeated by the mobilised force of the Allies. It was the Duke of Wellington and Blücher who defeated Napoleon, who was prepared to take on England, Austria, Prussia and Russia. The book includes a brilliant account of the manoeuvres at Waterloo, and is a fantastic tale of daring that is a useful book exactly 200 years on from the 100 days. 'Undoubtedly the best account of this episode in English' - Richard Holmes, The Times Literary Supplement 'Alan Schom has written a racy account, backed by copious detail and an abundance of quotations...a good read' - Michael Carver, Sunday Telegraph 'A brisk, pacey account of the Hundred Days, written in a fluent and engaging manner...There are excellent sketches of Fouché, Talleyrand and Carnot and a most able analysis of the background...as well as fascinating material on espionage and intelligence' - Frank McLynn in the Literary Review 'A riveting narrative of events...a sparkling portrait gallery of the personalities who shaped those events' - Russell F. Weigely, author of The Age of Battles Alan Schom was a professor of French and European history before retiring to write full-time. He is the author of Emile Zola: A Biography and Trafalgar . One Hundred Days was nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize and for the 1992 US National Book Award.

This is the story of little me, from pudgy, awkward child to pudgy, slightly less awkward adult - via school musicals, adolescent angst, stand-up, Shooting Stars , Little Britain , Doctor Who , love, loss, wigs and giant pink babygros. And, in case your attention span is as short as mine, it comes in a handy A to Z format. So B is for Baldy! (yes, people did shout this at me in the playground), G is for Gay (because I'm an actual real life gay) and I is for Idiot (I was born a berk. I probably even stubbed my toe on the way out). It will warm your heart, make you snort out loud in public and there's even a catchy song in the middle. What I'm saying is, please buy this book. It is VERY good. I know I'm biased because I wrote it but it is.

Excerpts from journals written during 1989 and 1990 share the author's thoughts on AIDS, the experimental drug AZT, gay civil rights, and the alternative films he was making

In this timely and up-to-date biography, Jon Sopel paints a vivid portrait of an ambitious young man with a mission to modernise and transform first the Labour Party, then the country. It is a portrait of a man with all the classic credentials of a Tory politician - but who is odds - on favourite to be Britain's next Labour Prime Minister.

"According to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), philosophy is a 'battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.' This audacious idea changed the way many of its practitioners saw their subject. In the first biography of Wittgenstein in more than three decades, Anthony Gottlieb evaluates this revolutionary idea, explaining the evolution of Wittgenstein's thought and his place in the history of philosophy. Wittgenstein was born into an immensely rich Viennese family but yearned to live a simple life, and he gave away his inheritance. After studying with Bertrand Russell in Cambridge, he wrote his famous Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus while serving in World War I. He then took several positions as a primary-school teacher in rural Austria before returning as a fellow to Cambridge, where a cult-like following developed around him. Wittgenstein worked not only as a philosopher and schoolteacher, but also as an aeronautical engineer in Manchester and as an architect in Vienna. Gottlieb's meticulously researched book traces the itinerant and troubled life of Wittgenstein, the development of his influential ideas, and the Viennese intellectual milieu and family background that shaped him."--from the inside front flap.

The captivating story of the famed publisher George Weidenfeld, from his struggles as an Austrian-Jewish refugee in London to his rise as a world-renowned literary figure.

Author's note, Prologue, Notes on Sources, Bibliography, and Index. 5.75" x 8.5" tall; 212 pages.

"A major influence on the BBC and independent television in Britain in the 1960s, as well as on CBC and the National Film Board in Canada, Sydney Newman acted as head of drama at a key period in the history of television. For the first time, his comprehensive memoirs--written in the years before his death in 1997--are being made public. Born to a poor Jewish family in the tenements of Queen Street in Toronto, Newman's artistic talent got him a job at the NFB under John Grierson. He then became one of the first producers at CBC TV before heading overseas to the U.K. where he revitalized drama programming. Harold Pinter and Alun Owen were playwrights whom Newman nurtured, and their contemporary, socially conscious plays were successful, both artistically and commercially. At the BBC, overseeing a staff of 400, he developed a science fiction show that flourishes to this day: Doctor Who. Providing further context to Newman's memoir is an in-depth biographical essay by Graeme Burk, which positions Newman's legacy in the history of television, and an afterword by one of Sydney's daughters, Deirdre Newman."--

In September 1925, Sidney Reilly journeyed across the Russian frontier on a mission to overthrow the Bolsheviks and restore the Czar. He vanished without a trace. The circumstances surrounding his death remain a mystery. This classic autobiography reveals the intriguing adventures and exploits of the man widely credited as being the original twentieth-century super-spy, inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond. Sidney Reilly , the so-called Ace of Spies, was a womanizing British secret agent who claimed to be Irish but was in fact Russian. Awarded the Military Cross for his daring operations, he met his death in Russia in 1925 after a sting operation by the Soviet Secret Service.

'It has taken me several years of exploration, but I am at a place now where I see autism as neither an affliction nor a superpower. It's just the blueprint for who I am. There is no cure, but that's absolutely fine by me. To cure me of my autism would be to cure me of myself.' During the first thirty years of her life, comedy script writer Sara Gibbs had been labelled a lot of things - a cry baby, a scaredy cat, a spoiled brat, a weirdo, a show off - but more than anything else, she'd been called a Drama Queen. No one understood her behaviour, her meltdowns or her intense emotions. She felt like everyone else knew a social secret that she hadn't been let in on; as if life was a party she hadn't been invited to. Why was everything so damn hard? Little did Sara know that, at the age of thirty, she would be given one more label that would change her life's trajectory forever. That one day, sitting next to her husband in a clinical psychologist's office, she would learn that she had never been a drama queen, or a weirdo, or a cry baby, but she had always been autistic. Drama Queen is both a tour inside one autistic brain and a declaration that a diagnosis on the spectrum, with the right support, accommodations and understanding, doesn't have to be a barrier to life full of love, laughter and success. It is the story of one woman trying to fit into a world that has often tried to reject her and, most importantly, it's about a life of labels, and the joy of ripping them off one by one.

Autobiography by Sir Peter Ustinov. spans his career as actor, playwright, film star and director.

Peter Sellers was undoubtedly one of Britain's most outstanding comic actors, and will be best remembered for Kubrick's Dr Strangelove and of course, Inspector Clouseau in the long-running Pink Panther films. Sellers on Sellers offers a unique perspective on Peter Sellers as his friends, family, and associates (including Kenneth Brannagh, Fiona Fullerton and Denis Norden) pool together their funniest or most pronounced memories of him and create an intimate and original portrait of a man who was less than perfect, but always entertaining. Central to the book is Michael Seller's highly personal reflections on his father and rare family photographs, providing a unique insight that only a direct family member can provide.

Presents a very detailed account, including the English and European context, of the Lopez Affair, involving Dr. Roderigo Lopez, who gained wealth via international trade and became physician to Queen Elizabeth I. At the same time, he was a spy, with multiple masters, in England and abroad. His downfall and execution on the false charge of attempted regicide stemmed from political rivalry in England. His high status was related to the advantages, such as widespread contacts, that stemmed from his Converso background. Contemporary stereotyped attitudes toward Jews were reflected in Marlowe's "Jew of Malta" and Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice."

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Epic, moving and important' ROBERT HARRIS 'A modern classic' OBSERVER 'An unforgettable epic of a book' DAILY MAIL From longstanding political columnist and co[Bokinfo]

Sir Clement Freud, renowned raconteur and wit, grandson of Sigmund Freud, writes frankly of his extraordinarily rich life as a member of one of Britain's most illustrious families. When Clement arrived in England, he was dispatched to a notorious "progressive" school, where he spent more time drinking than attending lessons. After an eccentric childhood and a spell as an apprentice chef at the Dorchester Hotel, things went downhill as he became a soldier, night-club owner, journalist, television personality and Liberal MP.

Theresa May has presided over the most dramatic and historic peacetime premiership for a century. May at 10 tells the compelling inside story of the most turbulent period in modern British politics for 100 years. Written by one of Britain's leading political and social commentators, May at 10 describes how Theresa May arrived in 10 Downing Street in 2016 with the clearest, yet toughest, agenda of any Prime Minister since the Second World War: delivering Brexit. What follows defies belief or historical precedent. This story has never been told. Including a comprehensive series of interviews with May's closest aides and allies, and with unparalleled access to the advisers who shaped her premiership, Downing Street's official historian Anthony Seldon decodes the enigma of the Prime Minister's tenure. Drawing on all his authorial experience, he unpacks what is the most intriguing government and Prime Minister of the modern era.

Born with a famous name to an unhappy marriage, Alexander Newley is the son of the Hollywood stars Joan Collins and Anthony Newley. Their life was one of almost unparalleled privilege and glamour but under the glossy veneer there was trouble: drugs, infidelity, insecurity and emotional trauma. Both Joan and Anthony were infantilised after being thrust into the spotlight so young, rendering them ill-equipped to care for Alexander and his sister Tara when they were born. This book, written with humour and compassion, tells the story of Alexander's nomadic childhood; the disintegration of his parents' marriage; and his battle to make sense of the past. It is also a meditation on art, identity and inheritance, and a portrait of London and Hollywood during the swinging sixties and the seventies. Complementing Alexander's vivid and razor-sharp prose are more than twenty of his own artworks depicting the people who played a pivotal role in his early years.