We are surrounded by stationery: half-chewed Cristal Bics and bent paper clips, rubber bands to fiddle with or ping, blunt pencils, rubbers and Tipp-ex are integral parts of our everyday environment.
Neither a cosy anecdotal inside story, nor a straightforward account of women's struggle to enter the university, this history of St Hugh's College, Oxford looks both upstairs and downstairs, at dons and undergraduates but also at domestic staff.
In this history of roads and what they have meant to the people who have driven them, one of Britain's favourite cultural historians reveals how a relatively simple road system turned into a maze-like pattern of roundabouts, flyovers, and spaghetti junctions.
Between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, Britain evolved from a substantial international power yet relative artistic backwater into a global superpower and a leading cultural force in Europe.
Eight hundred years ago, the Cathars, a group of heretical Christians from all walks of society, high and low, flourished in what is now the Languedoc in Southern France.
Outwardly Nella's life was probably seen as ordinary; but behind this mask were a lively mind and a persistent pen - a pen that never gave up over almost three decades, reporting, describing, pondering, and disclosing.
'The Scots have always been a restless people', says leading Scottish historian Marjory Harper 'but in the nineteenth century their restlessness exploded into a sustained surge of emigration that carried Scotland almost to the top of a European league table of emigrant exporting countries.
Edwin Lutyens' Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval in Northern France, visited annually by tens of thousands of tourists, is arguably the finest structure erected by any British architect in the twentieth century.
In March 2004 a group led by Nick Du Toit and former SAS member Simon Mann tried to overthrow the tyrannical Obiang Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea.
In the summer of 1964, while a military coup was taking place and tanks were rolling through the streets of Algiers, Robert Irwin set off for Algeria in search of Sufi enlightenment.
*Shortlisted for the British Book Design and Production Award for Graphic Novels*'A love letter to gaming in all its forms - from board games, to role-play, to virtual reality and video games.
'A thrilling celebration of lighthouses' i newspaperAn enthralling history of Britain's rock lighthouses, and the people who built and inhabited themLighthouses are enduring monuments to our relationship with the sea.
Read stories inspired by the four Underground lines that run East and West through city - part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin.
Read stories inspired by the four Underground lines that run around and through areas of London - part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin.
Read stories inspired by the four Underground lines that run North and South through city - part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin.
From Neil MacGregor, the acclaimed creator of A History of the World in 100 Objects and the Director of the British Museum, comes a unique, enthralling exploration of the age of William Shakespeare to accompany a new BBC Radio 4 series.
A both controversial and comprehensive historical analysis of how the British Empire worked, from Wolfson Prize-winning author and historian John DarwinThe British Empire shaped the world in countless ways: repopulating continents, carving out nations, imposing its own language, technology and values.
'Fascinating, panoramic, wonderful' Tom HollandA magical book which explores how the world was seen at twelve points in history, through twelve extraordinary maps and the minds of those who made themWhat you see depends on where - and when - you are looking from.
Blue-Water Empire is Robert Holland's magnificent narrative of Britain's military and cultural ties with the Mediterranean Sea, in the style of the epic naval histories of N.
FULLY UPDATED THIRD EDITION, NOW WITH NEW POSTSCRIPT BY ALI ANSARI'If you were to read only one book on present-day Iran you could not do better than this' Ervand Abrahamian, Times Higher EducationFor some 40 years the Islamic Republic has resisted widespread condemnation, sanctions, and sustained attacks by Iraq in an eight-year war.
Cocktails can turn any occasion into an event - there's nothing more glamorous than sipping on a classic dry martini or a fashionable gin-based concoction.
Whether you're planning a lavish party or just indulging in a nightcap, The Classic Cocktail Bible gives you a range of inspirations to create the best of the exotic and the timeless cocktails.
Gretel helped to protect fugitives hunted by the Gestapo, hid her Jewish doctor in her cellar and passed to the resistance secrets learned from her work on the Enigma encryption machine.
