In a Strange Land is a collection of joined-up stories for these disjointed times, for the exiled and the out-of-place. Have you ever felt you are not where you should be? Rome's favourite love poet does; he must now entertain a bunch of hairy barbarians. A blood-stained dictator finds himself making breakfast for his nine youngest children in a Novotel. On the Edgware Road a Syrian ophthalmologist tells his girlfriend about a sudden career change whilst, on the other side of the city, a s...

It is 1983 and we are in Beijing. China has just started to re-open to Western trade after the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. A young Englishman finds himself caught in a dilemma: will his desire for a Chinese girl make him willing to source forbidden technology for her father? And will their relationship be used to lure him into espionage? In this part-love story, part-thriller, Chris Ruffle reveals a China now vanished beneath the veneer of modernization.

When Yorkshireman Chris Ruffle decided to build a vineyard complete with a Scottish castle in the midst of the countryside in eastern China, he was expecting difficulties, but nothing on the scale he encountered. But build it he did, and the wine is now flowing. A Decent Bottle of Wine in China tells the unique story of an adventurer determined to make his dream come true regardless of what strange and formidable obstacles are placed in his path.

Here is a collection of joined-up stories for these disjointed times, for the exiled and the out-of-place. Letters from love poets and blood-stained dictators, memos from corrupt businessmen and out-of-touch courtiers. The action stretches from Chislehurst to the Chagos Islands, from bathos to Billericay.

SPECIAL ELECTION EDITION OF THE BOOK THAT HAS SOLD OVER 100,000 COPIESTwitter hero James Felton brings you the painfully funny history of Britain you were never taught at school, fully illustrated and chronicling 52 of the most ludicrous, weird and downright 'baddie' things we Brits* have done to the world since time immemorial - before conveniently forgetting all about them, of course. Including:- Starting wars with China when they didn't buy enough of our...

Readers can discover all the foul facts about ROTTEN RULERS, including who gave the job of high priest to a donkey, who choked to death while eating a crow and who celebrated victory by eating his enemy's head.

OK - we know that history is horrible. But it's never nastier than in a rowdy revolution, when the perilous people rise up against their rotten rulers! This book gives you the bone-chilling facts behind some of the bloodiest revolutions ever, from France and Russia to China and India.

Prisoners of Geography meets Bill Bryson: a funny, fascinating, beautifully illustrated – and timely – history of countries that, for myriad and often ludicrous reasons, no longer exist.‘Countries are just daft stories we tell each other. They’re all equally implausible once you get up close’Countries die. Sometimes it’s murder, sometimes it’s by accident, and sometimes it’s because they were so ludicrous they didn’t deserve to exist in th...

The Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase is a hilarious new collection of diplomatic tales by Matthew Parris and Andrew BrysonHeard the one about the Spanish Ambassador who arrived in the scorching Saharan desert fully suited and with a mysteriously enormous suitcase? Or the horse they gave Prime Minister John Major in Turkmenistan - which hapless embassy officials had to rescue from the clutches of the Moscow railway? These and other 'funnies', as they are known...

In this, the final volume of the memoirs of Jasper Speedicut, the old soldier and courtier is deeplyand often hilariouslyinvolved in the 1900 siege of the Peking legations, the death and funeral of Queen Victoria, the final days of Oscar Wilde, the removal to safety of the personal correspondence of the Dowager Empress of Germany, the sinking of RMS Titanic, the start of the First World War, and the fates of Mata Hari and Edith Cavell. The Speedicut Papers Book 9 (19001915): Boxing Iceberg...

‘A gripping new collection from Max Hastings that puts you at the heart of the battle … Compelling’ Daily Mail ‘An unmissable read’ Sunday TimesSoldiers is a very personal gathering of sparkling, gripping tales by many writers, about men and women who have borne arms, reflecting bestselling historian Max Hastings’s lifetime of studying war. It rings the changes through the centuries, between the heroic, tragic and comic; the famous and the humble. The nea...

Imagine if P.G.Wodehouse was a diplomat: Durrell's hilarious foreign office sketches are 'sophisticated funny, but wonderful, and bonkers' ( Joanna Trollope)'A rewarding cocktail based on two parts Wodehouse and one part Saki ... So much fun.' New York Times'Whatever wars there may be and whatever crises, there will still, please heaven, be the diplomatic corps, ...