Non-fiction

First they led us to the baths, where they took from us everything we still had. Quite literally there wasn't even a hair left. I didn't even recognize my own mother till I heard her voice...In 1941, aged 12, Helga Weiss, her mother and father were forced to say goodbye to their home, their relatives and all that they knew, and were interned in the Nazi concentration camp of Terezin. For the next three years, Helga documented her experiences there, and those of her friends and family, in a diary. Then they were sent to Auschwitz, and the diary was left behind, hidden in a wall. Helga was one of a tiny number of Jewish children from Prague to survive the holocaust. After she returned home, she eventually managed to retrieve her diary and completed the journal of her experiences. The res

In this follow up to CALL THE MIDWIFE, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s tells more stories about the people she encountered. There's Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House - she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank's parents both died within 6 months of each other and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse. The Reverend Thornton-Appleby-Thorton, a missionary in Africa, visits the Nonnatus nuns and Sister Julienne acts as matchmaker. And Sister Monica Joan, the eccentric ninety-year-old nun, is accused of shoplifting some small items from the local market. She is let off with a

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction. Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one wh

This collection of Vonnegut's letters is the autobiography he never wrote - from the letter he posted home upon being freed from a German POW camp, to notes of advice to his children: 'Don't let anybody tell you that smoking and boozing are bad for you. Here I am fifty-five years old, and I never felt better in my life'. Peppered with insights, one-liners and missives to the likes of Norman Mailer, Gunter Grass and Bernard Malamud, Vonnegut is funny, wise and modest. As he himself said: 'I am an American fad-of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop.' Like Vonnegut's books, his letters make you think, they make you outraged and they make you laugh. Written over a sixty-year period, and never published before, these letters are alive with the unique point of view that made Vonnegut

'I loved Jon's book. It's even better than the real thing because you can't hear his voice.' Michael McIntyre A control freak looks for love (women who leave wet teaspoons in sugar bowls need not apply). 'I haven't woken up with a cup of tea by the bed for seven years. It seems such a small thing but it's one of a thousand things I miss about having someone around to take care of me. I have spent my entire adult life getting things the way I want them and all I want now is someone to give it all up for.' Is your filing faultless? Your CDs, apostrophes, cutlery all in the right places? Can you eat a biscuit in the correct way? Then Jon Richardson (single for seven years and counting) could be your ideal man...Living alone in a one bedroom flat in Swindon, Jon has had far too much time o

2013 Goodreads Choice Award in the category of Food & Cookbooks.

You fought through "War and Peace," burned through "Fahrenheit 451," and sailed through "Moby-Dick." All right, you nearly drowned in "Moby-Dick," but you made it to shore and you deserve a drink! A fun gift for barflies and a terrific treat for book clubs, "Tequila Mockingbird" is the ultimate cocktail book for the literary obsessed. Featuring 65 delicious drink recipes paired with wry commentary on history's most beloved novels--the book also includes bar bites, drinking games, and whimsical illustrations throughout.Even if you don't have a B.A. in English, tonight you're gonna drink like you do. Drinks include: "The Pitcher of Dorian Grey, The Last of the Mojitos, Love in the Time of Kahlua, Romeo and J

Bestselling author and quiz master Christopher Winn is here to test your general knowledge of Britain with over 1000 quiz questions to perplex and puzzle about our glorious islands. Covering a myriad of subjects including history, cathedrals, sports, records, modern Britain, royalty, people, places, deeds, discoveries and disasters, there is something to test everyone from Britain's brainiest boffins to the quiz beginner. Featuring a range of questions from multiple choice teasers and odd ones out to picture quizzes illustrated with charming line drawings to test your knowledge of the famous faces and facades of Britain. Alongside these sit cryptic and puzzle quizzes plus special features spotlighting different regions so you can see just how well you know your local area. Perfect for

In 2009 Malala Yousafzai began writing a blog on BBC Urdu about life in the Swat Valley as the Taliban gained control, at times banning girls from attending school. When her identity was discovered, Malala began to appear in both Pakistani and international media, advocating the freedom to pursue education for all. In October 2011, gunmen boarded Malala's school bus and shot her in the face, a bullet passing through her head and into her shoulder. Remarkably, Malala survived the shooting. At a very young age, Malala Yousafzai has become a worldwide symbol of courage and hope. Her shooting has sparked a wave of solidarity across Pakistan, not to mention globally, for the right to education, freedom from terror and female emancipation.

On 26 May, 2010 Apple Inc. passed Microsoft in valuation as the world's largest technology company. Its consumer electronic products - ranging from computers to mobile phones to portable media devices, not to mention its iTunes, iBook and App Store - have influenced nearly every facet of our lives, and it shows no sign of slowing down. But how did Apple - a company set up in the back room of a house by two friends, and one that always marketed itself as the underdog - become the marketplace leader (and the world's second largest company overall), and is it a good thing to have one company hold so much power? In The Apple Revolution Luke Dormehl shares the inside story of how Apple Inc. came to be; from the formation of the company's philosophies and user-friendly ethos, to the "iPod mo

"The Top Gear Years" brings together Jeremy Clarkson's collected magazine columns for the first time. Clarkson at his pithy, provocative, hilarious best. We now know all about the world according to Clarkson. In a series of bestselling books Jeremy has revealed it to be a puzzling, frustrating place where all too often the lunatics seem to be running the asylum. But in "The Top Gear Years", we get something rather different. Because ten years ago, at an ex-RAF aerodrome in Surrey, Jeremy and his friends built a world that was rather more to his liking: they called it "Top Gear" HQ. And "Top Gear" is for Jeremy what the jungle is for Tarzan: the perfect place to work and play. But they didn't stop there...With this corner of Surrey sorted out, Jeremy and the boys decided to have a crack

In March 2004, Hank Haney received a call from Tiger Woods in which the golf champion asked Haney to be his coach. It was a call that would change both men's lives. Tiger - only 28 at the time - was by then already an icon, judged by the sporting press as not only one of the best golfers ever, but possibly the best athlete ever. But Tiger was always looking to improve, and he wanted Hank's help. Over the next six years of working together, the supremely gifted Woods collected six major championships and rewrote golf history. Hank was one of the very few people allowed behind the curtain. Always haunting Tiger was his fear of 'the big miss' - the wildly inaccurate golf shot that can ruin an otherwise solid round - and it was because that type of blunder was sometimes part of Tiger's gam

This is chosen 16 times as a 'Book of the Year' - the top non-fiction pick of 2012. "The best work of modern history I have ever read". (A. N. Wilson, Financial Times). At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union unexpectedly found itself in control of a huge swathe of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to a completely new political and moral system: Communism. Anne Applebaum's landmark history of this brutal time shows how societies were ruthlessly eviscerated by Communist regimes, how opposition was destroyed and what life was like for ordinary people who had to choose whether to fight, to flee or to collaborate. A haunting reminder of how fragile freedom can be, Iron Curtain is an exceptional wo