Showing titles in Historical

Brunhild was a Visigothic princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law, Fredegund, started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet - in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport - these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades, changing the face of Europe. The two queens commanded armies, developed taxation policies, established infrastructure and negotiated with emperors and popes.

Margaret, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993) was an international celebrity in her youth. But in 1963, the year of the Profumo Affair, the 11th Duke of Argyll shocked the country when he alleged that his adulterous wife had slept with over 80 men behind his back. The duke won a divorce, and Margaret was abandoned by most of her friends. Lyndsy Spence tells a tragic story of the life and downfall of this fascinatingly complex woman, and shows how she fell victim to a cruel husband, harsh social mores, and an unforgiving class.

Brought to you by Penguin. When the gates of the last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996, Ireland moved on. Or so it seemed. Following independence in 1922, Ireland began to chase a dream: to become the perfect Catholic nation. But purity had a price. Throughout the twentieth century, thousands of...

'A fresh, unexpected, and revealing portrait of Russia' ANNE APPLEBAUM, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Red Famine 'A century of Russian history told through the women who lived it, shaped it, and survived it' NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA, founder of Pussy Riot Award-winning journalist Julia...

Great Yarmouth, September 1900: A young woman is found dead on the beach, a bootlace tied tightly around her neck. Despite her death attracting national attention in the press, nobody claims her. Detective Inspector Robert Lingwood of the Great Yarmouth police force declares he will not rest until the mystery of the young woman's death is solved. But it's only once the case has been referred to Scotland Yard that the layers of mystery start to peel away.

"[Narrator Erin] Bennett’s reading is never overdone; her directness neither shies away from [author Christine] Kuehn’s unpleasant revelations nor sensationalizes them...her light expression lets the dramatic details speak for themselves." — Booklist "[Narrator Erin] Bennett's enunciation...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Adam Smith written and read by Jesse Norman. Adam Smith is now widely regarded as 'the father of modern economics' and the most influential economist who ever lived. But what he really thought, and what the implications of his ideas are, remain fiercely...

Read by the author, Robert Hardman. The instant No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller, updated with exclusive new material covering the turbulent events of 2024, including the serious health challenges facing the King and Princess of Wales. 'Scoops aplenty are here . . . An irresistible insider account...

Vividly evoking the confusion, horror and comradeship of war - from the killing fields of Normandy bocage, through house-to-house fighting in shattered Flemish towns, to the final Rhine crossing - Lion Rampant is a powerful, authentic and moving story, telling with extraordinary clarity how the author, his fellow officers and the men of his company lived through one of the most bitter campaigns in history.

A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020 ‘Radical Wordsworth deserves to take its place as the finest modern introduction to his work, life and impact’ Financial Times ‘Richly repays reading … It is hard to think of another poet who has changed our world so much’ Sunday Times A...

The basis of the celebrated Paramount Network miniseries starring Michael Shannon and Taylor Kitsch -- Waco is the critically-acclaimed, first person account of the siege by Branch Davidian survivor, David Thibodeau. Twenty-five years ago, the FBI staged a deadly raid on the Branch Davidian...

Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24-25, 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen. The prison break from Stalag Luft III in Eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire - but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo.

Bestselling classical historian Barry Strauss delivers “an exceptionally accessible history of the Roman Empire…much of Ten Caesars reads like a script for Game of Thrones” (The Wall Street Journal)—a summation of three and a half centuries of the Roman Empire as seen through the lives...

When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.

Brought to you by Penguin. There's no pain, no theatrical agony. No screaming, no shouting. The kill shot is catastrophic, yet surgically precise. I slumped silently on to my knees and toppled forward, head first, into the dirt. The lads had seen enough death to assume mine was instantaneous...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard, read by Simon Vance. 'Completely engrossing' Andrew Roberts From The New York Times bestselling author Candice Millard, this is the gripping true story of one dramatic - and emblematic - year...

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

I used to love the rattle and whoosh of my grandma’s buttons as they scattered from their Quality Street tin. An inlaid wooden chest the size of a shoe box holds Lynn Knight’s button collection. A collection that has been passed down through three generations of women: a chunky sixties-era...

In this second part of the famous diary specially adapted for audio, Pepys gives us vivid eye-witness accounts of two famous events: the Plague and the Great Fire of London. Not only do we learn how these two events affected the people of London but also how Pepys and his family were affected...

Admiral Lord Collingwood, the eldest son of a Newcastle merchant, went to sea in 1761 at the age of 13. In his nearly fifty years in the Navy Collingwood's service took him to Boston, where he lived and fought during the American War of Independence; to Antigua, where he and Nelson both fell in love with Mary Moutray; to Corsica; Sicily; and Menorca, where he ended his career as the effective viceroy of the Mediterranean.