Bloomsbury presents Athens and Sparta by Adrian Goldsworthy, read by Mark Elstob.Two great cities. One fierce rivalry. Countless untold stories.Athens and Sparta were the two big players in Ancient Greece. United, they helped lead the Greeks in defeating the great Persian invasion. Divided, they spread conflict and destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean. They were not simply rivals for power, but polar opposites in culture and ideology: Athens was the out...

Until recently, Germany appeared to be a paragon of economic and political success. Angela Merkel was widely seen as the true 'leader of the free world', and Germany's export-driven economic model seemed to deliver prosperity. But recent events - from Germany's dependence on Russian gas to its car industry's delays in the race to electric - have undermined this view.In Kaput, Wolfgang Münchau argues that the weaknesses of Germany's economy have, in fact, been brewing for decades. T...

Bloomsbury presents The Shabbat Effect by Alan Morinis, read by Mark Elstob.What if one day of rest could transform your entire life?One of the most important biblical mandates, so significant that it numbers among the Ten Commandments, is the directive to observe a weekly day of rest. The Shabbat Effect illuminates how the practice of a day set aside for rest brings about a deep, lasting, and pervasive transformation of character,...

'Well-researched and enthralling, Peter Ricketts brings the wartime Foreign Office to life.’ – Tim Bouverie'The gripping story of how the men and women of the Foreign Office secured Britain's victory in the Second World War and created a new international order.' – Professor Helen McCarthyDiscover the untold story of the British diplomats who shaped WWII—and the peace that followed—in this vivid exploration of a transformative moment in modern history....

'Devilishly clever and compulsive' Daily Mail'Science Fiction at its best' SpectatorIn Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, Brian W. Aldiss tells the tale of mankind's future over the course of forty million years. Each of these nine connected short stories highlights a different millennia in which man has adapted to new environments and hardships. It is one of the most powerful and ambitious forays into the far future s...

Bloomsbury presents… Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China by Jack Weatherford, read by Mark ElstobControl the sea, and you control everything...a gripping tale of naval warfare, dynastic rivalry, and technical innovation, from the author of the classic work Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never...

Brought to you by Penguin.In the annals of military history, the Western Front stands as an enduring symbol of the folly and futility of war.However, The Western Front, by bestselling military historian Nick Lloyd, reveals that the story is not, as so many assume, one of pointlessness and stupidity. Rather, it is an epic triumph against the odds. With a cast of hundreds and a huge canvas of places and events, Lloyd tells the whole tale, revealing w...

From an award-winning historian, the definitive history of classical Greece and the rivalry between its two greatest cities.No period has more profoundly influenced the Western world than classical Greece, and at its center stood two cities: Athens and Sparta. Side by side, they beat the Persians, the only superpower of that age. Yet later, they spread conflict and destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean, culminating in the horrors of the Peloponnesian War...

'I recommend our diplomats and ministers read this book: it will provide them with an intellectual backbone. On the big calls [Bootle] has a spectacularly good record.' - The Sunday Times'Bootle is right on every count.' - The GuardianThe Extensively Revised 5th Edition of this Highly Acclaimed Book for the 10th Anniversary of the Brexit VoteEurope is facing an existential challenge - with a spiral...

Star humans were engineered to exist within the mantle of a star, mere tools of their Earth-evolved makers in a war against the Xeelee, owners of the universe. Stephen Baxter's third novel in his magnificent Xeelee Sequence is an exotic and endearing story of an abandoned people.Abandoned to their fate, their history lost along with contact with their makers, Star people survive in an environment that is possibly the strangest in science fiction. Microscopic inhabitants of superflu...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Passchendaele by Nick Lloyd, read by Mark Elstob.Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes.The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars:

Based on a true story, The Forgotten Child is a heart-breaking memoir of an abandoned newborn baby left to die, his tempestuous upbringing, and how he came through the other side.It’s a freezing winter’s night in 1954. A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel...