abacus

Ernest Ralph Gorse's heartlessness and lack of scruple are matched only by the inventiveness and panache with which he swindles his victims. With g...

Amongst the ancient papyri of the Dead Sea, a remarkable scroll is discovered. Written in the first century AD, it purports to be the true account...

On the afternoon of 8 April 1802, in the remote southern ocean, two explorers had a remarkable chance encounter. Englishman Matthew Flinders and Fr...

The Prophet Muhammad taught the word of God to the Arabs. Within a generation of his death, his followers - as vivid a cast of heroic individuals a...

'Her territory isn't young or old; it's the heart-and brain-matter of people, their desires and worries and fantasies and intricate interactions. A...

In July 1798, a triumphant procession made its way through the streets of Paris. Echoing the parades of Roman emperors many years before, Napoleon ...

Prem is a recently married teacher who is neither very good at teaching nor at being married. He is promised an ally against his wife Indu, whom he...

To refer to the private life of Charles II is to abuse the adjective. His personal life was anything but private. His amorous liaisons were largely...

'The cruelty and magnificence of Restoration London provides endless fascination . . . there's much to delight in this volume' The Times'Don Jordan...

When Charles I was executed, his son Charles II made it his role to search out retribution, producing the biggest manhunt Britain had ever seen, on...

I saw her file it away: a good Catholic girl come to supervise her in her detention. Every girl in England, now, under the circumstances, made sure...

A grandfather who learns to let go.A grandson who learns to love. Eighty-five years old, a rebel, a retired boxer, Napoleon Sunshine is unlike oth...

On the Sussex Downs in 1066, the psychotic William and his gang of European mercenaries began the process which fragmented a civilisation. Walt, th...

It is often assumed that the national identity must be a matter of values and ideas. But in Robert Winder's brilliantly-written account it is a lan...

We are all caught up in our children's lives. We all remember our own schooldays and, as parents, we watch anxiously as our children go through it...

From the flamboyant and unpredictable Maryska, who scandalises the town when she cuts short her golden tresses, to the eccentric Uncle Pepin, who a...

John Hare has made three expeditions to the Mongolian and Chinese Gobi deserts, the first in 1993 with Russian scientists and the second and third ...

'It's a cliche to compare novelists to Jane Austen, but in the case of Jane Gardam it happens to be true. Her diamond-like prose, her understanding...

I didn't stand a chance: looking back over thirteen years, that's what I see. In the very first instant, I was won over, and of course I was: I was...

I hope the reader will be indulgent toward the extreme dispersion of themes, tones, and angles of approach that he will find in this collection. My...

When translator Edgar Logan arrives from his home in Paris to work in Edinburgh he anticipates a period of enlightenment and calm. But when he is b...