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The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit

Ebook: October 17, 2019
Hardback: October 17, 2019
Paperback: October 15, 2020

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit

Eleanor Fitzsimons

Category: Memoir & Biography,

A SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Winner of the Rubery Book Award 2020 (Non Fiction)

Edith Nesbit is considered the inventor of the children’s adventure story and her brilliant children’s books influenced bestselling authors including C.S. Lewis, P. L. Travers, J.K. Rowling, and Jacqueline Wilson, to name but a few. But who was the person behind the best loved classics The Railway Children and Five Children and It? Her once-happy childhood was eclipsed by the chronic illness and early death of her sister. In adulthood, she found herself at the centre of a love triangle between her husband and her close friend. She raised their children as her own.

Yet despite these troubling circumstances Nesbit was playful, contradictory and creative. She hosted legendary parties at her idiosyncratic Well Hall home and was described by George Bernard Shaw – one of several lovers – as ‘audaciously unconventional’. She was also an outspoken Marxist and founding member of the Fabian Society. Through Nesbit’s letters and deep archival research, Eleanor Fitzsimons reveals her as a prolific activist and writer on socialism. Nesbit railed against inequity, social injustice and state-sponsored oppression and incorporated her avant-garde ideas into her writing, influencing a generation of children – an aspect of her legacy examined here for the first time.

Eleanor Fitzsimons, acclaimed biographer and prize winning author of Wilde’s Women, has written the most authoritative biography in more than three decades. Here, she brings to light the extraordinary life story of an icon, creating a portrait of a woman in whom pragmatism and idealism worked side-by-side to produce a singular mind and literary talent.

Reviews

  • 'A terrific book' Neil Gaiman

  • 'A very well-researched biography' Kate Atkinson

  • 'Excellent' Irish Times

  • 'Readable and thorough' Guardian

  • 'Eleanor Fitzsimons' painstaking research gives us a new insight into the bizarre Bohemian life of the groundbreaking children's author E. Nesbit. It's a fantastic read' Jacqueline Wilson

  • 'Absolutely superb!' Hilary McKay, author of Costa Book award-winning The Skylarks War

  • 'In this long-overdue new biography, Eleanor Fitzsimons gives us a nuanced yet compelling portrait of E. Nesbit's many-facetted personality, life and works, as well as of the politically and culturally vibrant milieu in which she lived' Fiona Sampson, author of In Search of Mary Shelley

  • 'What a stirring and unexpected story Eleanor Fitzsimons tells and what a subject she has found. I can't think of a single writer who doesn't owe something to Edith Nesbit's glorious books for children. The extraordinary woman who wrote them proves to be every bit as brave, funny and imaginative as her own intrepid characters' Miranda Seymour, author of In Byron's Wake

  • 'One of the greatest children's writers, and an acknowledged much loved influence on Joan Aiken E. Nesbit is celebrated in this wonderful new biography by Eleanor Fitzsimons' Lizza Aiken

  • 'An exceptional biography about an absolutely fascinating individual' Adam Roberts, Vice-President of the H.G. Wells Society

  • 'A fascinating, thoughtfully organized, thoroughly researched, often surprising biography' Kirkus Review

  • 'Fitzsimons delivers a sprightly and highly readable life of a writer who deserves even wider recognition' Publishers Weekly

Queen of Spies

Ebook: September 8, 2016
Hardback: October 22, 2015
Paperback: October 15, 2020

Queen of Spies

Paddy Hayes

Category: Memoir & Biography,

The only biography of Britain’s celebrated female spy – now fully updated with previously classified materials.

From being raised in a Tanzanian shack, to attaining MI6’s most senior operational rank, Daphne Park led a highly unusual life. Drawing on first-hand accounts of intelligence workers close to agent Park, Hayes reveals how she rose in a male-dominated world to become Britain’s Cold War spy master.

With intimate, nail-biting details Queen of Spies captures both the paranoia and on-the-ground realities of intelligence work from the Second World War to the Cold War, and the life of Britain’s celebrated female spy.

Reviews

  • 'Queen of Spies fills a big gap... a richly entertaining biography' Richard Norton Taylor, Guardian

  • 'Writing a biography of Daphne Park was never going to be easy and Paddy Hayes has done a very good job' Daily Telegraph

  • 'A remarkable biography of a remarkable woman - providing real insight into MI6 of the Cold War' Gordon Corera, author MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service

  • 'Daphne Park was truly the empress of British espionage. This book is a major contribution to understanding her fascinating career in MI6. Remarkably well-researched, it is required reading for anyone interested in the world of secret service' Professor Richard J Aldrich, author of GCQH: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency

  • 'A thoroughly researched and enlightening account' Times Literary Supplement

  • 'A wonderful new book that would make a great gift for anyone' Irish Daily Mail

  • 'This book was entertaining and thrilling, yet also informative and thought-provoking. It has explored many aspects of history and displays Hayes' passion for the intelligence service. It has a wide appeal to anyone who enjoys history or simply a good story' Bookbag

  • 'The only biography on Baroness Park and it fills a big gap. Hayes has produced an interesting and informative work' CIA Review of Books

  • 'Hayes is open about his own speculations, given the still-classified nature of much of this material, but he successfully conveys the inspiring nature of Park's personal story and achievements, offering an informative account of the Cold War and the workings of the super secret SIS' Publishers Weekly

  • 'A fascinating and long-overdue biography' Washington Post

  • 'The fascinating story of the evolution of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from World War II to the Cold War through the eyes of Daphne Park, one of its outstanding and most unusual operatives. He provides the reader with one of the most intimate narratives yet of how the modern SIS actually went about its business whether in Moscow, Hanoi, or the Congo' Sunday Leader

  • 'An interesting and informative work' The Intelligencer

  • 'Hayes's accomplished biography circumvents the scanty evidence by offering a broader portrait of the Secret Service itself, a badly compromised men's club in which the forthright Park still managed to succeed' Sunday Telegraph

  • 'Only the second-ever biography published about a Cold War career officer in MI6' The Big Issue

  • 'Dame Daphne's story leaves us wondering about reality as seen through the eyes of a spy; and about how far spy work affected that reality' Spectator

  • 'Hayes deftly manages to chart her extraordinary life... that read like passages from a thriller' Country Life

  • 'This is an excellent biography of a remarkable woman... Intelligence researcher Hayes opens the door on the fascinating life of one of England's greatest spies, Daphne Park... As exciting as any good spy thriller but it's all true' Kirkus Reviews

The Remarkable Lives of Numbers

Ebook: February 20, 2020
Paperback: February 20, 2020

The Remarkable Lives of Numbers

Derrick Niederman

Category: Popular Science,

Did you know there are 17 possible types of symmetric wallpaper pattern? Do you know what ‘casting out the nines’ is? Or why 88 is the fourth ‘untouchable’ number? Or how 7 is used to test for the onset of dementia.

Number fanatic Derrick Niederman has a mission to bring numbers to life. He explores the unique properties of the most exciting numbers from 1 to 200, wherever they may crop up: from mathematics to sport, from history to the natural world, from language to pop culture.

Packed with illustrations, amusing facts, puzzles, brainteasers and anecdotes, this is an enthralling and thought-provoking numerical voyage through the history of mathematics, investigating problems of logic, geometry and arithmetic along the way.

Reviews

  • 'This book is a complete joy. It made me smile. A lot' Carol Vorderman

  • 'There's more to maths than just numbers - but, as this entertaining and engaging book amply demonstrates, the depth and variety of mathematical ideas that appear when you start with 1, 2, 3 and keep going is astonishing. Once you start reading it's just like the number system itself - impossible to stop' Ian Stewart, author of Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities

  • 'A great maths book for geeks and non-geeks alike' Johnny Ball

  • 'A fun book... definitely challenging' Vanity Fair

  • 'A fascinating parade of diverse numerical characters... An entertaining mix of numerical fun and theory' Booklist

  • 'All sorts of fascinating mathematical minutiae' Time Out (Chicago)

Diary of a Rural GP

Ebook: January 28, 2021
Paperback: January 28, 2021

Diary of a Rural GP

Michael Sparrow

Category: Memoir & Biography,

Recently retired, Dr Sparrow reveals with refreshing candour and dark humour the most memorable experiences of his career as a rural GP.

From sewing back on a patient’s chiselled finger on a call-out, and the emergency countryside delivery inspired by James Herriot, to suddenly remembering the body left in the back of a Volvo, and a small oversight that blew up the local crematorium, Dr Sparrow spares no blushes.

Country Doctor

Ebook: February 20, 2020
Paperback: February 20, 2020

Country Doctor

Michael Sparrow

Category: Memoir & Biography,

Have you ever had to decide what to do with an unidentified corpse by a Devonian cowshed when the herd is due in for milking? And how would you react if one of your patients was abducted by aliens?

If you are a GP it seems these are routine matters. From coping with the suicide of a colleague to the unusual whereabouts of a jar of Coleman’s mustard, this is the story of one rural doctor’s often misguided attempts to make sense of the career in which he has unwittingly found himself.

Dr Sparrow’s adventures would be utterly unbelievable were they not 100% true stories. His bedside manner may sometimes leave a little to be desired but, if you’re in dire straits, this doctor will have you in stitches.

Low Life

Ebook: November 28, 2019
Paperback: November 28, 2019

Low Life

Jeffrey Bernard

Category: Memoir & Biography,

Described as the Tony Hancock of journalism, for forty years Bernard wrote only about himself and the failures of his life – with women, drink, doctors, horses – which have become legendary.

Low Life is an irresistible collection of the best of Bernard’s celebrated autobiographical contributions to The Spectator, once described as ‘a suicide note in weekly instalments’. Previously published in two volumes entitled Low Life: A Kind of Autobiography and Reach for the Ground, these books are now available in a single volume containing all his derisive reflections on life.

Antiauthoritarian, grumpy, charming, politically incorrect, funny, drunk and always mischievous, Bernard could usually be found at the Coach and Horses pub on London’s Greek street, a lit cigarette in his mouth and a drink in hand.

He was joined by famous friends including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Graham Green, Peter O’Toole, Ian Fleming and many others and their conversations – as well as with whomever was tending bar at the time – served as the basis for his writing. There were in fact times when he was too drunk to write, hence the famous "unwell" notice that went next to the large, hastily-sketched cartoon that filled its space in the magazine.

Beyond the Secret Garden

Ebook: August 6, 2020
Paperback: August 6, 2020

Beyond the Secret Garden

Ann Thwaite

Category: Memoir & Biography,

The definitive and revealing biography of the author of The Secret Garden.

Frances Hodgson Burnett’s favourite theme in her fiction was the reversal of fortune, and she herself knew extremes of poverty and wealth. Born in Manchester in 1849, she emigrated with her family to Tennessee because of the financial problems caused by the cotton famine. From a young age she published her stories to help the family make ends meet. Only after she married did she publish Little Lord Fauntleroy that shot her into literary stardom.

On the surface, Frances’ life was extremely successful: hosting regular literary salons in her home and travelling frequently between properties in the UK and America. But behind the colourful personal and social life, she was a complex and contradictory character. She lost both parents by her twenty-first birthday, Henry James called her "the most heavenly of women" although avoided her; prominent people admired her and there were many friendships as well as an ill-advised marriage to a much younger man that ended in heartache. Her success was punctuated by periods of depression, in one instance brought on by the tragic loss of her eldest son to consumption.

Ann Thwaite creates a sympathetic but balanced and eye-opening biography of the woman who has enchanted numerous generations of children.

Reviews

  • ‘A fascinating and valuable book’ Sunday Times

  • 'Ann Thwaite has admirably mapped out the complex and peripatetic story, attacking its problems with insight and diligence' Times Literary Supplement

  • 'Intelligent, moderate, thoughtful, well documented, well organised, and well written… a model of a literary biography' New York Review of Books

Viva La Madness

Ebook: September 21, 2011
Paperback: August 20, 2020

Viva La Madness

J. J. Connolly

Hiding out in the Caribbean until the heat dies down from his last job, X is thinking it’s time to ditch the resort life and calls up his old friend Morty to plot his return to London.

But he’s hardly stepped off the plane when his associates, Sonny King and Roy ‘Twitchy’ Burns, get on the wrong side of a feuding Venezuelan drug cartel on the hunt for a sensitive package. Suddenly he’s thrown into a stand-off between rival mobs and with so many players in the game it’s tough going making out who wants to cut him a deal and who’s trying to kill him.

Darkly comic, fast-paced and full of twists Viva la Madness is packed with sex, scams, drugs and enough dirty money to fill a few offshore bank accounts.

Reviews

  • 'Masterful plotting - double-crosses abound - a cracking pace and some truly excellent set pieces including a chase through the London underground all lead up to a wham-bam ending. Fast, furious, funny and highly recommended for fans of Layer Cake and new readers alike' Guardian

  • 'Connolly's style is fast and funny and just frightening enough to make you sit up all night' Independent on Sunday

  • 'The novel has its predecessor's driving energy and the protagonist's disparate colleagues are terrific characters' The Sunday Times

Layer Cake

Ebook: January 12, 2011
Paperback: August 20, 2020

Layer Cake

J. J. Connolly

Layer cake (n): a metaphor for the murky layers of the criminal world.

Smooth-talking drug dealer X has a plan to quietly bankroll enough cash to retire before his thirtieth birthday. Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman, his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it’s time to get out.

When kingpin Jimmy Price asks him to find the wayward daughter of a wealthy socialite who’s been running around with a cokehead, he accepts the job with the promise that after this he can leave the criminal world behind with Jimmy’s blessing. Oh, and he needs to find a buyer for two million ecstasy pills acquired by a crew of lowly, loud-mouth gangsters, the Yahoos. Simple enough, until an assassin named Klaus arrives to scratch him off his list, revealing this job is much more than it seems at first.

From the glitz of the London club scene of the 1990’s to the underbelly of its criminal world, Layer Cake is the best in British crime fiction.

Reviews

  • ‘This assured debut is far more sophisticated than such expressions of “gangster chic” as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Connolly displays the same infectious relish for underworld argot as Elizabethan writers fascinated by rogues’ cant, and his ostensibly artless plotting is as rich in double and triple crosses as a spy thriller’ John Dugdale, The Sunday Times

  • ‘The best crime novel I’ve ever read’ Bruce Reynolds 

  • ‘An immensely entertaining read’ Philip MacCann, The Spectator

  • ‘If the brilliantly written and intriguing Layer Cake is anything to go by, his will soon be a name to whet the appetites of readers and critics alike’ Francis Gilbert, The Times 

  • 'Funny, hectic, hard-hitting debut novel... Tart, tough and riveted at every juncture by unmistakable authenticity... sheer, unstoppable joy to read from the first page to the last' Philip Oakes, Literary Review

  • 'A storming piece of work... the novel has a grasp of street argot unparalleled since Kinky Friedman first sashayed out of his from door and nailed a checker straight out of the bat' D. J. Taylor

  • 'Connolly's style is fast and funny and just frightening enough to make you sit up all night finishing the book' Independent on Sunday

  • 'One novel in and Connolly has hit the jackpot, jump-started British crime fiction into the present... Like good drug fiction you're given glamour and squalor, a voyeuristic thrill, and the bill' Uncut

The Young Survivors

Ebook: July 23, 2020
Paperback: July 23, 2020

The Young Survivors

Debra Barnes

What if everyone you loved was suddenly taken away? Five siblings struggle to stay together as the tides of war threaten to tear them apart.

When Germany invades France in the Second World War, the five Laskowski children lose everything: their home, their Jewish community and most devastatingly their parents who are abducted in the night. There is no safe place left for them to evade the Nazis, but they cling together, never certain when the authorities will come for what is left of them.

Inspired by the poignant, true story of the author’s mother, this moving historical novel conveys the hardship, the uncertainty and the impossible choices the Laskowski children were forced to make to survive the horrors of the Holocaust.

Reviews

  • 'A poignant and gripping debut. Set against the darkest days of WWII, the novel reminds us that the bonds of family and the power of love can never be extinguished' Alyson Richman, bestselling author of The Lost Wife

  • 'A story that will make you weep, wonder and remember' Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah's Key

  • 'A haunting account... a devastating story of twins separated, of grandparents, parents and cousins, entire families, disappeared a story that had to be told' Elizabeth Fremantle, author of Queen's Gambit

  • 'A novel that is arrestingly sincere, full of touching moments and informed by careful research. The beating heart of The Young Survivors is the author's emotional connection to her characters, which is unmistakably based on longstanding and deep engagement with her own family's past' Dr Toby Simpson, Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library

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