The New York Times–bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome captures the Renaissance spirit in this biography of "the king of the world's booksellers."During the Renaissance, Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.At the heart of this activity, which bestselling author...

Beginning in 1912, Defiant Spirits traces the artistic development of Tom Thomson and the future members of the Group of Seven, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley, over a dozen years in Canadian history. Working in an eclectic and sometimes controversial blend of modernist styles, they produced what an English critic celebrated in the 1920s as the most vital group of paintings” of the 20th century. Ins...

The New York Times bestselling, award winning story of the construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and the Renaissance genius who reinvented architecture to build it.On August 19, 1418, a competition concerning Florence's magnificent new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore was announced: "Whoever desires to make any model or design for the vaulting of the main Dome....shall do so before the end of the month of September." The proposed do...

Discover the prodigious global influence of il bel paese in this star-studded retelling of Italy’s past—from a foremost author of historic Italy. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.“Each page brims with Bill Bryson-like trivia that is sure to delight.”—Booklist, starred reviewThe calendar. The Senate. The university. The piano, the heliocentric model, and the p...

From the acclaimed author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper, the riveting story of how Michelangelo, against all odds, created the masterpiece that has ever since adorned the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Despite having completed his masterful statu...

Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art--The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise. His latest f...

The start of a thrilling and glamourous Hollywood series from multi-million copy bestselling author Shari Low and Strictly Come Dancing's Ross King ✨When we bury our secrets, they always come back to haunt us...Their rise was meteoric.Only a few years before, they had been three friends from Glasgow, just trying to survive tough lives of danger and dysfunction.But on one Hollywood evening in 1993, they were on the world’s b...

Discover the addictive sun-drenched Hollywood Trilogy from #1 bestseller Shari Low and ITV's Ross King'A gritty raunchy thriller. A page turner that lifts the lid on Hollywood!' Catherine Zeta-Jones‘A glam, edgy thriller, just the way I like them’ Martina Cole‘Sex, scandal and secrets galore’ Jackie CollinsThis boxset contains the complete Hollywood Trilogy from Shari Low and Ross KingThe Ris...

From New York Times–bestselling author Ross King, the storied rise and reign of the greatest empire and most influential civilization of the ancient Western world“For who is so indifferent or indolent as not to wish to know by what means the Romans succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government—a thing unique in history?”—Polybius, second century BCEAncient Rome gave rise to the Roman Empire, one ...

New York Times bestselling author Ross King's biography Machiavelli is "a convincing portrait of one of the most misunderstood thinkers of all time."*The author of The Prince—his controversial handbook on power, which is one of the most influential books ever written—Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was no prince himself. Born to an established middle-class family, Machiavelli worked as a courtier and diplomat for the Republic of Florence a...

With a novelist's skill and the insight of an historian, bestselling author Ross King recalls a seminal period when Paris was the artistic center of the world, and the rivalry between Meissonier and Manet.The Judgment of Paris chronicles the dramatic decade between two famous exhibitions-the scandalous Salon des Refuses in 1863 and the first Impressionist showing in 1874-set against the rise and dramatic fall of Napoleon III and the Second Empire after the...

The thrilling second instalment in the gripping Hollywood series from multi-million copy bestselling author Shari Low and TV's Ross King.They’ve made it to the top but someone is determined to make them pay...At a glittering after-party on the night of the Academy Awards, author Mirren McLean celebrates her win with her childhood friends Davie Johnston and Zander Leith by her side.Three kids from a tough street in Glasgow, the dazzling trio rose f...