Winner of the 2011 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Award, and nominated for the 2009-2010 PEN/JR Ackerley prize.On the August bank holiday weekend in 1979, 14-year-old Timothy Knatchbull went out on a boat trip off the shore of Mullaghmore in County Sligo, Ireland. It was a trip that would cost four lives - and change his own for ever.The IRA bomb that exploded in their boat killed Knatchbull's grandfather Lord Mountbatten, his grandmother Lady Brabourne, his twin brother Nicholas, and local teenager Paul Maxwell. In telling this story for the first time, Knatchbull is not only revisiting the terrible events he and his family lived through, but also writing an intensely personal account of human triumph over tragedy.For thirty years, Knatchbull has lived with the echoes of that day: the death of the twin from whom he had been inseparable; the loss of his adored grandparents, whose funerals along with his twin's he and his parents were too injured to attend; the recovery from physical wounds; and the emotional legacy that proved harder to endure.In From A Clear Blue Sky Timothy Knatchbull delves into his past, present and future, and reveals a story of courage and fortitude as he, his family, and their English and Irish friends dealt with the shocking assassinations and their aftermath. Taking place in Ireland at the height of the Troubles, it gives a compelling insight into that period of Irish history. But more importantly it brings home that although tragedy can strike at any moment, the human spirit is able to recover and evolve over time.This book about truth and reconciliation, unflinching in its detail, asks searching questions about why human beings inflict misery on others, and holds lessons about how we can learn to forgive, to heal and to move on. It will resonate with readers the world over.

    Starting with the servants hard at work while the family is still abed, and culminating in a lavish dinner party, Upstairs & Downstairs lifts the curtain on this fascinating period, as well as its historical bookends, the Victorian and post-World War I eras. Includes accounts from actual masters and servants, along with feature spreads on famous figures like Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf.

    Step inside the props cupboard or the hair and make-up truck and catch a glimpse of the secret backstage world. In-depth interviews and exclusive photos give insight into the actors' experiences on set as well as the celebrated creative team behind the award-winning drama. Straight from the director's chair, this is the inside track on all aspects of the making of the show.

    As the country celebrates, the new monarch must face one of the most difficult challenges he has ever encountered: the dreaded BBC Radio Broadcast to the Nation. Only one man can prepare the terrified King for his ordeal at the microphone – Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue. With his unconventional methods such as tongue-twisters, breathing exercises, and Shakespearean quotations, and a variety of teaching styles ranging from empathy to bullying, Logue aims to give George VI the confidence to navigate the minefield ahead. As the two men wrestle with the intricacies of the speech, their conversation ranges from the Abdication Crisis to the King's childhood and his uneasy relationship with his father - and the King's dependence on and deep friendship with Logue becomes apparent.Starring Alex Jennings as George VI and Trevor Littledale as Logue, this is a riveting portrait of a prominent man at a pivotal moment in his own life and in the history of the 20th century. Running time 45 minutes.

    They all shared an inbred sense of duty and a genuine desire to see it performed. None fought against what she saw as her destiny but only sought to fulfill it. Some were passionate, others less so. Some were good wives; some were caring mothers. They were all catalysts, the pivots of their worlds for a time. More than just a window into the politics and power brokering of royal marriage, Crowned in a Far Country charts the transformations of privileged princesses into women of power and historical importance.

    Now, in 1925, as Downton Abbey prepares to close its doors for the final time, Jessica Fellowes leads us through the house and estate, reliving the iconic moments of the wonderfully aristocratic Crawley family and their servants as they navigate the emerging modern age.Travelling from Great Hall to servants’ hall, bedroom to boot room, we glimpse as we go Matthew and Isobel Crawley arriving for the first time, the death of Kemal Pamuk, Cora’s tragic miscarriage, Edith’s affair with Michael Gregson, Mary’s new haircut, Thomas and O’Brien’s scheming, Anna and Bates’s troubles with the law, and Carson’s marriage to Mrs Hughes.Alongside are in-depth interviews with the cast, who have worked on the show for six years and know it so well, as well as a complete episode guide for the first five seasons and a teaser for the sixth. Packed full of stunning location shots and stills from all six seasons of the show including exclusive behind-the-scenes photography, this celebratory book is the ultimate gift for Downton Abbey fans the world over.

    Unwilling to accept the idea of the twice-married American as future Queen of England, the government was determined to pressure the King into giving up Mrs. Simpson and, when that failed, into giving up his crown. The King's phone lines were tapped by his own government, dubious police reports poisoned Mrs Simpson's reputation, and threats to sabotage her divorce were deployed to edge the King towards abdication.The hopeless attempts of the King's allies, particularly Winston Churchill, to keep him on the throne were dismissed as sinister conspiracy, whilst the King wrecked his own chances with wildly unrealistic goals and ill-thought-out schemes that served only to frame him as erratic and unreliable as a monarch. As each side was overwhelmed by desperation and distrust, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin fought to steer events to a smooth conclusion.In this fascinating behind-the-scenes account of the royal abdication crisis of 1936, Adrian Phillips reveals the previously untold story of the hidden political machinations and insidious battles in Westminster and Whitehall that settled the fate of the King and Mrs Simpson.

    Yet it is the people around him we remember: his wife Eleanor, whom he seduced from the French king; his son Richard the Lionheart; Thomas Becket, murdered in his cathedral. Who was this great, yet tragic king? For fans of Dan Jones, George RR Martin and Bernard Cornwell.The only thing that could have stopped Henry was himself.Henry II had all the gifts of the gods. He was charismatic, clever, learned, empathetic, a brilliant tactician, with great physical strength and an astonishing self-belief. Henry was the creator of the Plantagenet dynasty of kings, who ruled through eight generations in command of vast lands in Britain and Europe. Virtually unbeaten in battle, and engaged in a ceaseless round of conquest and diplomacy, Henry forged an empire that matched Charlemagne’s.It was not just on the battlefield that Henry excelled; he presided over a blossoming of culture and learning termed ‘the twelfth century Renaissance’, pursued the tenets of reason over religious faith, and did more to advance the cause of justice and enforce the rule of law than any other English monarch before or since. Contemporaries lauded his greatness and described him as their ‘Alexander of the West’.And yet it is the people around him who are remembered: his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he seduced away from the French king; his sons Richard the Lionheart and John; Thomas Becket, murdered in his cathedral. Henry – so famed during his lifetime – has slipped into the shadows of history. King of the North Wind offers a fresh evaluation of this great yet tragic ruler.Written as historical tragedy, it tells how this most talented of kings came into conflict with those closest to him, to become the most haunted.

    Alone on the barren island of Resolution in the South Pacific, he fights against the might of a German battleship. This is the first of C.S.Forester's novels about the sea.

    Thatcher's Government was tragically assassinated by the IRA, had the most distinguished of war records.Wounded and taken prisoner in the desperate fighting at Calais in 1940, he became a compulsive escaper and the first one of the very few to make a 'home-run' from Colditz Castle. Thereafter he rejoined the fighting serving in France and Holland before becoming a member of the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremburg War Crimes trials. There he was to meet the most notorious members of the Nazi hierarchy as they faced justice and, in many cases, death. For the quality of its writing and the breadth of its author's experiences, They Have Their Exits is arguably the finest memoir to emerge from the Second World War, and one for which the sobriquet 'classic' seems wholly inadequate.

    From his christening - which Queen Victoria attended - to his days as Supreme Commander in South-East Asia during World War II, to India where he oversaw the move to independence, to the Suez crisis, we discover a man who, for all the glitter and the gold, was nothing if not human.

    Here, for the first time, Beryl Escott tells the true story of the incredible 40 women who worked for Britain's Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. These women came from a variety of backgrounds, from Gillian Gerson a Chilean actress, to the Irish Mary Herbert, recruited for her linguistic skills, through to the famous Odette Samson—the "darling spy." She explores what made them risk their lives, even those with new-born babies, for a cause greater than themselves. She takes us on a journey through their recruitment and training into their undercover operations, as they diced with death and details their often tragic demise from death by injection to being shot in a prisoner of war camps. This is a far from glamorous picture, but a moving and gripping story that needs to be told.

    Now explore this extensive collection in greater depth, and discover who Victoria really was behind her upright public persona.At only 18 years old, Victoria ascended the throne as a rebellious teenager and gradually grew to become one of the most memorable, unshakeable and powerful women in history. The extensive writings she left behind document this personal journey and show how she triumphed over scandal and corruption. Written by Internationally bestselling author, historian of 12 books and Victoria historical consultant, Helen Rappaport, and including a foreword by Daisy Goodwin – acclaimed novelist and screenwriter of the series – The Victoria Letters details the history behind the show. Revealing Victoria’s own thoughts about the love interests, family dramas and court scandals during her early reign, it also delves into the running of the royal household, the upstairs-downstairs relationships, and what it was like to live in Victorian England.Full of beautiful photography from the series and genuine imagery from the era, come behind the palace doors and discover the girl behind the Queen.

    “They are mistaken. I have not known you long, but I observe in you a natural dignity that cannot be learnt. To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen.”In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.

    Elizabeth II has lived through the Abdication, the Blitz and World War Two, the sex and spy scandals of the swinging sixties, the Cold War and the nuclear threat and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. She has known 11 US Presidents including JFK and Ronald Reagan, and other world leaders like President Mandela and Pope John XXII. Her Prime Ministers have ranged from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, the last only ten years older than her grandson. Her own family experiences, a mixture of happiness and crisis, weddings and divorces, and, in the case of Diana, violent death, have been lived in the glare of tabloid headlines. More than 2 billion people watched the wedding of her grandson Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2010 shortly before she made the first State Visit to Ireland by a British monarch for 100 years. Our world has changed more in her lifetime than in any of her predecessors': the Queen has remained a calm presence at the centre, earning the respect of monarchists and republicans. How has she done it? 'Bradford has a real grasp of history and the ability to make it spark into new life' Sunday Telegraph 'Bradford's forte, ever since she was a history-mad girl, is thinking herself into other lives' Daily Telegraph Sarah Bradford is a historian and biographer. Her books include Cesare Borgia (1976), Disraeli (1982), winner of the New York Times Book of the Year, Princess Grace (1984), Sacherevell Sitwell (1993), Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (1996), America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (2000), Lucrezia Borgia (2005) and Diana (2007). She frequently appears on television as an authority on her biographical subjects and as a commentator on notable royal events. She is currently working on a full scale biography of Queen Victoria. She lives in London.