Showing results by publisher "John Murray" in All Categories

Agu is just a boy when war arrives at his village. His mother and sister are rescued by the UN while he and his father remain to fight the rebels. 'Run!' shouts his father when the rebels arrive. And Agu does run. Straight into the rebels' path. In a vivid, sparkling voice, Agu tells the story of what happens to him next - his life as a child soldier. His story is shocking and painful and completely unforgettable. Beasts of No Nation gives us an extraordinary portrait of the chaos and violence of war.

The Elizabethan navy has a secret weapon: an optical instrument so powerful it gives England unassailable superiority at sea. Spain will stop at nothing to steal it and seize the two men who understand its secrets - William Ivory, the 'Queen's Eye', and the magician Dr Dee. With a second Armada threatened, intelligencer John Shakespeare is sent north to escort Dr Dee to safety. But he finds Dee's host, the Earl of Derby, dying in agony, apparently poisoned.

Battlefields have always contained a surprising number of women. Tracing the long history of female fighters, Forgotten Warriors puts the record straight, exploring how war became an all-male space, and getting to the bottom of why women were allowed to be astronauts a full thirty years before they were allowed to fight in combat.

As Hitler prepared to invade Poland during the sweltering summer of 1939, men and women from across London's museums, galleries and archives formulated ingenious plans to send the nation's highest prized objects to safety. Using stately homes, tube tunnels, slate mines, castles, prisons, stone quarries and even their own homes, a dedicated bunch of unlikely misfits packed up the nation's greatest treasures and, in a race against time, dispatched them throughout the country on a series of top-secret wartime adventures.

Sigi lived upstairs from Sara at Friedrichstrasse 19, yet before they met, Sara had no idea that Berlin could be so thrillingly irreverent or that sex could be so intoxicatingly wonderful. But then came the war and hunger, loneliness and barbed wire. It was just as a young girl, a protegee of the Academy of Magical Arts situated in Friedrichstrasse at the start of the century, had predicted. Battered and divided, Berlin, like its people, endured.

Nessa McCormack's marriage is coming back together again after her husband's affair. She is excited to be in charge of a retrospective art exhibit for one of Ireland's most beloved and enigmatic artists, the late sculptor Robert Locke. But the arrival of two outsiders imperils both her personal and professional worlds: a chance encounter with an old friend threatens to expose a betrayal Nessa thought she had long put behind her, and at work, an odd woman comes forward claiming to be the true creator of Robert Locke's most famous work, The Chalk Sculpture.

Eva looked out of the window of the charmingly crumbling guest house and thought she might be sick. She could see Frank lying on the grass in last night's clothes - it wasn't clear whether he was conscious or not. Her husband, Shay, was in bed. She loved him, of course she did, just right now the person she most wanted to see was Connor. She didn't want to think about what had happened to Bea or how Lizzie was feeling.

In On This Day in History, Dan Snow, Britain's favourite historian, tells the story of an important event that happened on each day of the year. From the signing of the Armistice treaty at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 to Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat on 1 December 1955, our past is full of all kinds of fascinating turning points.

The ultra-secret 'Berlin Tunnel' was dug in the mid-1950s from the American sector in southwest Berlin and ran nearly a quarter mile into the Soviet sector, allowing the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to tap in to critical KGB and Soviet military underground telecommunication lines. George Blake, a trusted officer working in a highly sensitive job with SIS, was privy to every aspect of the plan.

The past decade has marked a shift in America's trajectory, pivoting around the monumental presidential election of 2016. Acclaimed author and leading historian Jill Lepore has been documenting the twists and turns as they unfold, beginning with the run-up to Trump's election through to the chaos and confusion left in its wake. In this incisive collection of essays published in the New Yorker, Lepore writes with wit and warmth as she reflects on the issues of our time.

As a young, queer, plus-size person, Essie Dennis has spent a lot of time feeling like they weren't enough—not queer enough, not feminine enough, not perfect enough. When they took to social media to share how they felt, they were overwhelmed by how many others felt the same. Inviting you to challenge accepted beauty standards and the concept of 'the perfect body', Essie takes everything they have learned on their journey to self-acceptance and body satisfaction to help guide you towards loving your queer body.

Jane Logan is six months pregnant and has moved to Berlin to live with her long-term lover, rich banker Petra. The women's chic new apartment is in a trendy part of the city but Jane finds herself increasingly uneasy there. She conceives a dread of the derelict backhouse across the courtyard and begins to suspect something sinister is happening in the flat next door, where gynaecologist Alban Mann lives with his teenage daughter, Anna.

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Liam Gallagher in 1994, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news all over the world. This fascinating pop history, exploring the moment British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, UNCOMMON PEOPLE takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, films like Trainspotting were international hits, rave became what everybody did - and it felt like the revolution was happening.

In this memoir, Natasha takes on the therapist's role with her past selves to drag her social anxiety into the open. From feisty Miss 6, lonely Miss 14 reeling from a tumultuous childhood, and defiant Miss 18 pushing back against a world where she didn't fit, through to her present self, Natasha explores the way social anxiety colored her experiences and finds healing through self-acceptance.

Speaking from a wealth of experience as both a mental health expert and an autistic parent, Pooky Knightsmith guides you through the joys and challenges of raising children in a neurotypical world. From self-care and special interests to meltdowns and managing conflict, the tips and strategies in this book will help you to build a positive relationship with your child, whether they're neurotypical or neurodivergent, all while looking after your own mental health.

The Baltic's time has come. It is not only critical to Europe's security and increasingly a centre of political and military power in its own right; it is a reservoir of ideas and experiences that could shape the continent's future. This books explores the history, their culture, their peculiarities and national dilemmas of all nine Baltic countries. At its core is a search for fresh answers to Europe's problems, at a point where the continent's previously dominant powers appear tired and divided.

In 1859, in a small town jail, deep in the forests of Canada, an elderly woman sits behind bars. She came to Dunmore via the Underground Railroad to escape enslavement, but an American bounty hunter tracked her down. Now she's in jail for killing him. Lensinda Martin, a smart young reporter, wants to tell the woman's version of events, hoping that it will lead to her acquittal, but the woman will only tell her story on one condition: she gets one from Lensinda in return. As the women swap stories, it becomes apparent that their histories are interconnected.

In the winter of 2020, Annabel Abbs experienced a series of bereavements. As she grieved, she kept busy by day, but at night sleep eluded her. And yet her sleeplessness led to a profound and unexpected discovery: her Night Self. As the night transformed into a place of creativity and liberation, Annabel found she wasn't alone. From the radical fifteenth-century philosopher Laura Cereta and subversive artist Louise Bourgeois, to Virginia Woolf and the activist Peace Pilgrim, women have long found sanctuary, inspiration and courage in darkness.

When eight-year-old Leah's parents get divorced, her mother, Cessie, flees her conventional life as a suburban housewife in search of a glamorous big city career in journalism. In the chaotic years that follow, Cessie lurches from one apartment, job and toxic romance to the next, with her adoring daughter in tow. Cessie describes her parenting style as 'benign neglect', and their family motto, 'Commitment sucks the life right out of you', is tacked up on every rental fridge. In the aftermath of a disturbing sexual experience at a pool party, Leah finds herself crippled with anxiety.

Politicians are weird - we can all agree on that. But do you know how much weirder they used to be? If not, Honourable Misfits is the audiobook for you. Spanning from the past 700 years, this is a celebration of the oddest and most eccentric MPs the House of Commons has ever seen. From mad inventors and fearless adventurers to Machiavellian villains and mavericks with more money than sense, it offers 64 pen portraits of the unique, the mysterious and the downright deranged.