Social and cultural history

From being transported by the sound of 'True Love' by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly on the radio, as a small child living in condemned housing in ungentrified West London in the late 1950s, to going out to work as a postman humming 'Watching the Detectives' by Elvis Costello in 1977, Alan Johnson's life has always had a musical soundtrack.

Read the definitive biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, whose music and career illuminate the legacy of 1960s counterculture.

*THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY NAYEF AL-RODHAN PRIZE 2020*The riveting story of the pioneers who redefined conceptions of 'normality' in the early twentieth century.

** SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **'Astonishing' ANTONY BEEVOR 'One of the most promising young historians to enter our field for years' MAX HASTINGSA thrilling new history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy and parliamentary infighting that enabled Hitler and the Nazis to dominate Europe.

A brilliantly quirky and affectionate look at a British institution: Wetherspoon Pubs and their incredible carpets.

Read the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals the Earth's awesome impact on the shape of human civilisations.

WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARD FOR GENERAL OUTSTANDING SPORTS WRITING A captivating account of the Nazi Olympics told through the voices and stories of those who were there.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author, a dazzling, globe-spanning history of humankind's greatest invention: the city.

Beginning with Yuka, a 39,000-year-old mummified woolly mammoth recently found in the Siberian permafrost, each of the sixteen essays in Animals Strike Curious Poses investigates a different famous animal named and immortalised by humans.

Discover one of Twentieth-Century Russia's most lauded lost classics, now in a remarkable new translation.

'Rich and moving' New York Times'A book that expands and breaks your heart' Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.

Nik Cohn began to write this book in the late 1960s with a simple purpose: to catch the feel, the pulse of Rock.

A lost princess and a vanished world: a remarkable true story that moves from the Punjab of the Raj to 1930s Paris and the Second World War Remarkable and compelling Edmund de Waal Thoroughly engaging Kamila ShamsieIn a Mumbai museum in 2007, Livia Manera Sambuy encounters a photograph that will change her life forever.

Acclaimed naturalist and birdwatcher Stephen Moss brings us a year in the life of Britain's favourite bird - the robin.

'The next Bill Bryson' New York TimesTwo tigers cannot share the same mountain - Chinese proverbDespite geographical proximity, cultural similarities, and shared status as highly powerful nations, China, Korea and Japan love to hate each other.

We are an astonishing species.

'Glorious.

Behind the Throne is, above all, a history of family life.

'Intensely readable.

A New Statesman Best Book of the Year 2023.

**Shortlisted for the 2018 General Outstanding Sports Book of the Year**One of the founder members in 1895 of what became the Rugby League, Batley was once a thriving centre of commerce, one of the bustling mill towns in the Heavy Woollen District of West Yorkshire.

Shortlisted for the HWA Sharpe Books Non-Fiction Crown AwardA work of investigative history that will completely change the way in which we see the Romanov story.

A SUNDAY TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF 2021* Shortlisted for the 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year prize* A critically-acclaimed Sunday Times, Spectator and Independent Book of 2020* Now with colour photography by Michael Turek'Richly absorbing.

THE MULTI AWARD-WINNING NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA TIMES Top Ten Best True Crime book: 'Groundbreaking.

'England invented football, codified it, became champions of the world in 1966 but humiliatingly then forgot how to play the greatest game of all.

_______'A history book that should be read by all' - Stylist.

Dave Roberts was, for once, almost lost for words as the news sank in.

**THE ONLY DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST RACE - FULL OF EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH NIKI LAUDA, ROSS BRAWN, DAMON HILL, DAVID COULTHARD, SIR JACKIE STEWART, OLIVER PANIS AND 2016 WORLD CHAMPION NICO ROSBERG**Circuit de Monaco.

Today, Billie Holiday is an icon an artist whose voice has weathered countless shifts in public taste, and whose impact on contemporary music is unquestionable.

Bargain Hunt is a British institution, entertaining audiences for over 20 years, and encouraging us to look for diamonds in the rough at antique fairs and shops across the country.

In this inspirational and practical guide to country life, passionate and hugely knowledgeable countryman Alan Titchmarsh explores the heritage of rural Britain, its landscapes and wildlife, its traditions, customs and crafts.

One of the most important books about gay culture in recent times The QuietusLong-listed for the Polari First Book PrizeIn 1984 the pulsing electronics and soft vocals of Smalltown Boy would become an anthem uniting gay men.

There was life before the fall.

The exquisite sound of a lone chorister singing Once in Royal David s City amid the candlelit chapel of King s College, Cambridge, marks the start of the Christmas festivities for millions of people round the globe.

Read the devastating story of the Spanish flu - the twentieth century's greatest killer and discover what it can teach us about the current Covid-19 pandemic.

**A TIMES, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, THE CRITIC, MAIL ON SUNDAY, ECONOMIST AND PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR**'A gifted narrative historian, eloquent, graceful and witty; the stories she tells are the ones we all should know' Hilary MantelIt was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war .

Selected as a Book of the Year by The Times and The EconomistChina's history is an epic tapestry of courtly philosophies, warring factions and imperial intrigue.

How successful has Britain been in the twentieth century?

An enthralling voyage of discovery to meet a rare and mysterious bird of prey that puzzled Darwin, fascinates modern-day falconers, and carries secrets of our planet's deep past in its family history.

'Charlotte Higgins's Red Thread is a masterwork' Ali SmithA thrillingly original, labyrinthine journey through myth, art, literature, history, archaeology and memoir.

The gripping and definitive in-the-room account of the revolution that has swept the news industry over the last decade and reshaped our world.

WINNER OF THE 2016 PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE The Second World War was a German war like no other.

A FAMILY STORY AND THE TALE OF A NATION.

*Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize*In late eighteenth-century London, a group of extraordinary people gathered around a dining table once a week.

Acknowledged as a masterpiece of materialist criticism, this book delves into the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination.

Harold Nicolson was a man of extraordinary gifts.

As a small boy David Nobbs survived the Second World War unscathed, until his bedroom ceiling fell on him when the last bomb to be dropped on Britain by the Germans landed near his home.

English culture is confused, muddled and often borrowed.

One woman s investigation into the nature of memory, the past, and above all, love.

Ours is an age where solitude tends to be discussed in the context of the 'problem of loneliness'.