The campaign that led to the first Battle of Newbury in 1643 represents a vital phase in the English Civil War, yet rarely has it received the attention it deserves. In this compelling and meticulously researched new study, Jon Day shows how the campaign was critical to the outcome of the war and the defeat of Charles I. The late summer 1643 was the military high tide for the king and his armies, yet within two months the opportunity had been squandered. The Royalists failed first to take ...

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year**'Rich and joyous ...The book's quiet optimism about our ability to change, and to learn to love small things passionately, will stay with me for a long time' Helen Macdonald 'Big-hearted and quietly gripping' Guardian 'I love Jon Day's writ...

'[Day has] succeeded in making that most familiar of birds seem mysterious, almost magical, and illuminated, brilliantly, the urge towards home' Malachy TallackA feral history of home, and our relationship with that most unloved bird.As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in ...

This is the definitive military history of the Civil Wars which swept the British Isles from 1642 to 1649.The martial aspects of the wars are covered in detail along with a comprehensive overview of the religious and political dimensions which shaped the armies involved in the conflict. This excellent single volume history is the perfect introduction to the military history of this turbulent decade which shaped the destiny of the British Isles.This book is part of the Military History From...

A team of historians and archaeologists re-examine what happened at the Battle of Culloden between the Scottish Jacobites and Great Britain.In battle at Culloden Moor on April 16, 1746, the Jacobite cause was dealt a mortal blow. The power of the Highland clans was broken. And the image of sword-wielding Highlanders charging into a hail of lead delivered by the red-coated battalions of the Hanoverian army has passed into legend. The battle was a turning point in Bri...

Redcoat is the brilliant story of the common British soldier from 1700 to 1900, based on the letters and diaries of the men who served and the women who followed them.Delving into the history of the period – charting events including Wolfe's victory and death at Quebec, Wellington's Peninsular War, Waterloo, the retreat from Kabul and the Sikh wars – celebrated military historian Richard Holmes provides a comprehensive portrait of a fallible but extraordinarily successful fighting ...

T he New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk explores the human relationship to the natural world in this "dazzling" essay collection ( Wall Street Journal).In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asl...

In this compelling book, Richard Holmes tells the exhilarating story of the Duke of Wellington, Britain's greatest ever soldier.Seeing Wellington as a remarkable figure, Holmes follows his career from the ruins of his family seat in Ireland to the plains of India where Wellesley first gained his reputation as a brilliant commander, to the horrors of the Peninsular War and Waterloo.Combining his astute historical analysis with semi-biographical examination, Holmes artfully i...

There are still wild places out there on our crowded planet.Through a series of personal journeys, Dan Richards explores the appeal of far-flung outposts in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans and deserts. Following a route from the Cairngorms of Scotland to the fire-watch lookouts of Washington State; from Iceland’s ‘Houses of Joy’ to the Utah desert; frozen ghost towns in Svalbard to shrines in Japan; Roald Dahl’s writing hut to a lighthouse in the North Atlantic, Richards explore...

A historian of the English Civil Wars shares a fascinating study of the seventeenth century New Model Army, examining its formation, tactics, and significance.The New Model Army was one of the best-known and most effective armies ever raised in England. Oliver Cromwell was both its greatest battlefield commander and the political leader whose position depended on its support. In this meticulously researched and accessible new study, Keith Roberts describes how Cromw...

** LONGLISTED for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2018 **M. John Harrison is a cartographer of the liminal. His work sits at the boundaries between genres – horror and science fiction, fantasy and travel writing – just as his characters occupy the no man’s land between the spatial and the spiritual. Here, in his first collection of short fiction for over 15 years, we see the master of the New Wave present unsettling visions of contemporary urban Britain, as well as supernatural par...