"Powerful, personal, and purifying." Heather Sellers, author of Field Notes from the Flood ZoneBased on iconic representations of Bible scenes, David Starkey's poems in The Moon Shall Not Give Her Light attempt to recapture some of the strangeness of great Italian painters like Giotto, Fillipo Lippi, Bellini, Caravaggio and Gentileschi, while incorporating elements of contemporary life into work that is by turns witty, wild, sad, subversive and re...

The dramatic, legendary story of Henry VIII, his six wives, and the England they ruled—told by one of the world's preeminent historians of the Tudor era."Extraordinary. . . . It is a tribute to Starkey's narrative drive, his puckish wit, and sharp discrimination that it doesn't seem a page too long. . . . With each queen, Starkey offers a vivid character study but also has fresh discoveries that subtly alter the picture he started out with." — Sunday Ti...

One of rock and roll’s iconic figures, Bruce Springsteen produced his most influential, and many would argue his greatest, body of work from 1973 to 1987. During that time, he released eight studio albums, along with the mammoth live album Live/1975-1985. Among these records are five that are included on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born to Run, Nebraska, and Born in the U.S.A., all of which ca...

An exploration of the British monarchy from the retreat of the Romans up until the modern day. This compendium volume of two earlier books is fully revised and updated.The monarchy is one of Britain’s longest surviving institutions – as well as one of its most tumultuous and revered. In this masterful book, David Starkey looks at the monarchy as a whole, charting its history from Roman times, to the Wars of the Roses, the chaos of the Civil War, the fall of Charles I and Cromwell's...

In What Just Happened: 210 Haiku Against the Trump Presidency (a Satire), David Starkey memorializes each week of Donald Trump's four years in office with a single haiku. While the poems sizzle with dismay and disbelief, they are often tempered by dark comedy as Starkey catalogues Trump's outrages in lines you won't soon forget."Here's a book of high-speed history for you, friends. It's easy to forget the Trump years, probably because we want to. But if we are to remember ...

The regal courts of the English Stuart Kings, from James I (1603-1625) to the ill-fated James II (1685-1689), were magnificent affairs. In a country otherwise given to increasingly austere Puritan ways of living, the royal court shone with a brilliance usually associated with the courts of the Catholic kings of mainland Europe. They were centres of great culture, patronage, ceremony and politics. The real importance of the courts, though down-played for many years, is now ...

This revised and updated third edition of Best New Horror showcases some of the very best short stories and novellas published in 1991. In this vilifying volume you will rediscover terrifying tales by, amongst many others, Ramsey Campbell, Robert McCammon, Dennis Etchison, Elizabeth Hand, Michael Marshall Smith, Charles L. Grant, Joel Lane and Thomas Tessier, along with an overview of the year in horror by the editors and a nightmare necrology of those who kicked off this mortal coil durin...

'A soaring account of the months that transformed a messy feudal squabble into Magna Carta...his crisp storytelling, based around short chapters and rolling rhetoric, is extremely entertaining.' Dan Jones, Mail on Sunday'I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Good history is descriptive, narrative and analytical. This is good history.' Gerard DeGroot, The TimesAt Runnymede, on the banks of the River Thames, on 15 June 1215, the seal of King John w...

For the kings and queens of England, a trumpet fanfare or crash of cymbals could be as vital a weapon as a cannon. Showcasing a monarch’s power, prestige and taste, music has been the lifeblood of many a royal dynasty.From sacred choral works to soaring symphonies, Music and Monarchy looks at how England’s character was shaped by its music. To David Starkey and Katie Greening, works like Handel’s Water Music and Tallis’s Mass for Four Voices were more than enterta...

From the author of Poor Ghost comes a poignant road trip novel following two middle-aged brothers, Chris and Andy Fairley, as they attempt an unlikely musical comeback in Japan.Chris and Andy Fairley couldn’t be more opposite—Chris, an uptight, ever-pessimist, and Andy, a go-with-the-flow hopeful. Their glory days seemed long behind them since their moderate success as a folk-rock duo and their relationship with each other fizzled out in the mid-1980s. But...

Few artists can legitimately claim to be groundbreaking, but Talking Heads are one of them. Like Elvis, the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Radiohead (who took their name from a Talking Heads song), the band recorded some of the most memorable popular music of the past seventy-five years. In his song-by-song discussion of their work, American musician and journalist David Starkey looks at how David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth emerged from New York’s mid-1970s punk scene an...

David Starkey's A Few Things You Should Know About the Weasel is a far-ranging and fearless collection, of great humour, intelligence and sympathy. Ranging through philosophy, art and history -- both global and domestic -- these poems skillfully chronicle the darkness that is our current age and condition, and the pinpricks of light thta may show us the way out.