Your morning flat-white helped shape the modern world'Elegantly written, witty and so wide in scope, so rich in detail and so thought provoking' Joanna BlythmanIt may seem like just a drink, but coffee's dark journey from the highlands of Ethiopia to the highstreets of every town in the country links alchemy and anthropology, poetry and politics, science and slavery.
From the author of Women from the Ankle Down comes a lively cultural biography of diamonds, which explores our society's obsession with the world's most brilliant gemstone and the real-world characters who make them shine.
Television legal analyst and attorney Lisa Green offers something new: a witty, direct and empowering legal guide for women, filled with accessible information they can employ to understand and respond to common legal issues throughout their lives, from dating, marriage, and kids to jobs, retirement, aging parents, and wills.
A lively and authoritative investigation into the lives of our ancestors, based on the revolution in the field of Bronze Age archaeology which has been taking place in Norfolk and the Fenlands over the last twenty years, and in which the author has played a central role.
The story of the 19th-century ice trade, in which ice from the lakes of New England - valued for its incredible purity - revolutionised domestic life around the world.
Shawn Levy, author of 'Rat Pack Confidential' brings alive London in the swinging Sixties with a gripping, groovy story of those who created the scene that changed the world.
Originally published in 1914, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a timeless story of socialism, political awakenings and class struggle, told with a volatile mix of heartfelt rage and sly humour.
The definitive and first non-partisan biography of one of the most formidable political figures of the twentieth century (voted Woman of the Millennium in a BBC poll, 2000)Indira Gandhi's life, from her birth in 1917, through partition and up to her assassination in 1984, was dominated by the politics of her country.
A tale of decadence and excess, great houses and wild parties, love and sexual intrigue, this biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, casts an astonishing new light on the nobility of eighteenth-century England.
From a childhood of gothic proportions in a vicarage on the Welsh borders, through adolescence, leaving herself teetering on the brink of the 1960's, Lorna Sage vividly and wittily brings to life a vanished time and place and illuminates the lives of three generations of women.
Widely considered to be the most important biography of Nelson Mandela, Antony Sampson's remarkable book has been updated with an afterword by acclaimed South African journalist, John Battersby.
A tremendously vivid, page-turning and plausible novel that depicts the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, the most spirited, independent and courageous of Henry's queens, as viewed from both the bedrooms and the kitchens of the Tudor court.
'My Secret Life' is a dark work of Victorian erotica, and an explicit memoir of unspoken desires in the English class system - encapsulating the joy of hidden sins in an age of moral fervour.
Sahib is a magnificent history of the British soldier in India from Clive to the end of Empire, making full use of personal accounts from the soldiers who served in the jewel in Britain's Imperial Crown.
Robert Carver, journalist and author of the acclaimed 'Among the Mountains', searches for high adventure and intense experiences as he follows the trail of a family mystery .
By the authors of Cool Names for Babies, and with over 50,000 hugely imaginative entries from around the world, this is the ultimate book of baby names.
FOREWORD BY RYAN TUBRIDYThe authoritative and comprehensive guide to tracing your Irish ancestryThere's never been a better time to trace your Irish family history.
101 chance meetings, juxtaposing the famous and the infamous, the artistic and the philistine, the pompous and the comical, the snobbish and the vulgar, each 1,001 words long, and with a time span stretching from the 19th century to the 21st.
In a series of powerful accounts drawn from diaries, letters, sound archives and interviews recorded during the period of devastation, discovery and transformation that make the blitz such an outstanding event in Britain's recent past, "e;The Blitz"e; brings to life the intense experiences, as they happened all over Britain.
A delightful and fascinating social history of Victorians at leisure, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of nineteenth-century men and women, from the author of the bestselling 'The Victorian House'.
From the bestselling author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, a hilarious new book from Lynne Truss about her strange journey through the world of sport and sports journalism.
The story of the Stuart dynasty is a breathless soap opera played out in just a hundred years in an array of buildings that span Europe from Scotland, via Denmark, Holland and Spain to England.
An extraordinary memoir from a man in his nineties who remembers everyday life in a North London now long gone: the hardships and deprivations of a life of poverty but also the resourcefulness and fortitude of a community determined to survive between the wars.
