England Memoir

The first Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) was a soldier of such genius that a lavish palace, Blenheim, was built to honor his triumphs. Succeeding generations of Churchills sometimes achieved distinction but also included profligates and womanizers, and were saddled with the ruinous upkeep of Blenheim. The Churchills were an extraordinary family: ambitious, impecunious, impulsive, brave, and arrogant. Winston - recently voted "The Greatest Briton" - dominates them all. His failures and triumphs are revealed in the context of a poignant and sometimes tragic private life.

The fascinating, improbable true story of Maxwell Knight - the great MI5 spymaster and inspiration for the James Bond character M. Maxwell Knight was perhaps the greatest spymaster in history. He did more than anyone in his era to combat the rising threat of fascism in Britain during World War II, in spite of his own history inside this movement. He was also truly eccentric - a thrice-married jazz aficionado who kept a menagerie of exotic pets - and almost totally unqualified for espionage. Yet he had a gift for turning practically anyone into a fearless secret agent.

From award-winning author Tim Jeal comes a vivid examination of the six larger-than-life men and one extraordinary woman who set out to find the source of the White Nile in the 19th century.

In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.

Young Elizabeth Stuart was thrust into a life of wealth and splendor when her godmother, Queen Elizabeth I, died and her father, James I, ascended to the illustrious throne of England. At 16 she was married to a dashing German count far below her rank, with the understanding that James would help her husband achieve the crown of Bohemia. Her father's terrible betrayal of this promise would ruin "the Winter Queen", as Elizabeth would forever be known, imperil the lives of those she loved, and launch a war that would last for 30 years.

Queen Victoria and Albert, the Prince Consort, had nine children, who, despite their very different characters, remained a close-knit family. Inevitably, as they married into European royal families, their loyalties were divided and their lives dominated by political controversy. This is not only the story of their lives in terms of world impact but also of personal achievements in their own right, individual contributions to public life in Britain and overseas, and as the children of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.

Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.

Captain Kidd has gone down in history as America's most ruthless buccaneer. However, Captain William Kidd was no career cut-throat; he was a tough, successful New York sea captain who was hired to chase pirates. Across the oceans of the world, the pirate hunter, Kidd, pursued the pirate, Culliford. One man would hang in the harbor; the other would walk away with the treasure. The Pirate Hunter is both a masterpiece of historical detective work and a page-turner.

In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.

King George V predicted that his son, Edward VIII, would destroy himself within a year of succeeding to the throne. In December 1936 he was proved right, and the world’s press revealed the king was abandoning his throne to marry Wallis Simpson. A life spent in the shadow of his charismatic elder brother left the new king, George VI, magnificently unprepared for the demands of ruling the kingdom and empire. Drawing on personal accounts from the royal archives, Deborah Cadbury uncovers the very private conflict.

In My Life and Rugby he tells his story for the first time, including the full inside story of England’s 2019 World Cup campaign. Since taking over as head coach of England in 2015, Eddie Jones has orchestrated a complete revival of the national team. He has won the Six Nations Championship back-to-back, including England’s first Grand Slam in a generation and their first-ever whitewash of Australia in their own backyard, as well as taking them on their longest-ever winning streak, matching the world record held by the All Blacks.

In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare's great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past. But that year, at age 42, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn - King Lear - then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.

They were the closest of sisters and the best of friends. But when, in a quixotic twist of fate, their uncle Edward Vlll decided to abdicate the throne, the dynamic between Elizabeth and Margaret was dramatically altered. Forever more Margaret would have to curtsey to the sister she called 'Lillibet'. And bow to her wishes. From the idyll of their cloistered early life, through their hidden war-time lives, into the divergent paths they took following their father's death and Elizabeth's ascension to the throne, this book explores their relationship over the years.

Darkest England and the Way Out is the classic work of Salvation Army founder William Booth. He and his wife Catherine went from a modest ministry in London to a global movement of Christian soldiers marching down the streets of cities and towns everywhere. They were persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, and even martyred for the cause of Christ.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Athelstan: The Making of England by Tom Holland, read by Roy McMillan. The formation of England happened against the odds - the division of the country into rival kingdoms, the assaults of the Vikings, the precarious position of the island on the edge of the known world. But King Alfred ensured the survival of Wessex, his son Eadweard expanded it, and his grandson Æthelstan finally united Mercia and Wessex, conquered Northumbria and became Rex totius Britanniae.

Marie Louise Bruce's engrossing account of Anne Boleyn charts the rise and fall of this remarkable young woman through the course of her short life, from her early days at Hever Castle, to the luxurious courts of France and England, to her terrifying last days in the Tower of London. By utilizing a wealth of primary sources, including the love letters between Henry and Anne along with innumerable documents written by courtiers and ambassadors, Bruce brings to life the splendor of the Tudor court and its most famous king and queen.

The fifteenth century was a turbulent age: the Hundred Years War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses dominated the lives of people both inside and out of the royal courts. Joan of Navarre, Katherine of Valois, Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Wydeville and Anne Neville were the queens who stood by England's sovereigns, caught up in wars that changed the course of their lives, and the course of history. They were also formidable women who defied the limitations of their times, often living out the brutal consequences of their determination.

It has almost been 300 years since Sir Robert Walpole arguably became the first holder of the office of Prime Minister in 1721 - an office which today is under scrutiny like never before. The Prime Ministers, edited by leading political commentator Iain Dale, brings to life all 55 of Britain's 'First Among Equals' with an essay for each office holder, written by key figures in British politics.

Philip II ruled France with an iron fist for over 40 years, expanding its borders and increasing its power. For his entire reign his counterpart on the English throne was a member of the Plantagenet dynasty, and Philip took on them all: Henry II, Richard the Lionheart, John and Henry III. And yet we know so little about medieval England’s greatest enemy.

‘Oh my goodness - another girl, Mrs Swain!' Clara's normal iron composure broke, and she screamed, ‘No! That's not the bloody deal!' And that was how my nanna, Bertha Swain, entered the world. When Helen Batten's marriage breaks down, she starts on a journey of discovery into her family's past and the mysteries surrounding her enigmatic nanna's early life. What she unearths is a tale of five feisty redheads struggling to climb out of poverty and find love through two world wars.