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‘The pampered, petulant, self-pitying Prince. A devastating book by Britain’s top investigative author’ Daily Mail‘Explosive new book delves inside the bizarre, ultra luxury world of Prince Charles’ The SunBest-selling author Tom Bower reveals the power, passion and defiance of Prince Charles.Few heirs to the throne have suffered as much humiliation as Prince Charles. Despite his hard work and genuine concern for the disadvantaged, he has struggled to overcome his unpopularity. After Diana’s death, his approval rating crashed to 4% and has been only rescued by his marriage to Camilla. Nevertheless, just one third of Britons now support him to be the next king.Many still fear that his accession to the throne will cause a constitutional crisis. That mistrust climaxed in the aftermath of the trial of Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler, acquitted after the Queen’s sensational ‘recollection’. In unearthing many secrets surrounding that and many other dramas, Bower’s book, relying on the testimony from over 120 people employed or welcomed into the inner sanctum of Clarence House, reveals a royal household rife with intrigue and misconduct. The result is a book which uniquely will probe into the character and court of the Charles that no one, until now, has seen.

A tense and layered true-crime story about an all-American soldier boy turned bank robberAlex Blum was a clean-cut all-American kid with one unshakeable goal in life: to serve his country in the military. He was accepted into the elite Rangers regiment, but on the first day of his leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery.The Blum family was devastated and mystified. How could he have done such a thing?Alex’s attorney presented a defence based on the theory that trainee Rangers are indoctrinated on a level akin to the brainwashing in an extreme religious cult, and Alex insisted that he had believed the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger program. But Luke Elliot Sommer, the charismatic soldier behind the robbery, maintained that Alex knew exactly what he was doing, and had, in fact, planned it all with him.Who was lying? What had happened to Alex during those gruelling months of training? How accountable was he?

A major biography to mark the centenary of Queen Victoria’s death, by the uncrowned king of historical biographers, Christopher Hibbert.In 1837 Victoria came to the throne at the age of eighteen, a pretty girl not five feet tall, to preside over what was, perhaps, the most momentous period in British history. During the 64 years of her reign she saw thrones fall, empires crumble, new continents explored and mapped, while her own country became the most powerful, richest and most highly developed nation in the world. For generations the stubborn, vital woman who was seen as the epitome of this time has fascinated all who read of her.Christopher Hibbert’s biography deals with all aspects of the Queen’s life, personality and times, her relations with her large and widespread family, her ‘wicked uncles’ and their wives and mistresses, and with the politicians, prime ministers and foreign statesmen and monarchs of her day – from her opinionated grandson, the Kaiser, to the Emperor Napoleon III with whom she fell rather in love. The book describes her married life and her failings as a mother, her love of food and gossip, her strange relationships with her Indian and Scottish servants, and her influence on the manners, morals and outlook of the age to which she gave her name.

‘When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to Plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.’As a young boy in 1960s Plymouth, Allan Jenkins and his brother, Christopher, were rescued from their care home and fostered by an elderly couple. There, the brothers started to grow flowers in their riverside cottage. They found a new life with their new mum and dad.As Allan grew older, his foster parents were never quite able to provide the family he and his brother needed, but the solace he found in tending a small London allotment echoed the childhood moments when he grew nasturtiums from seed.Over the course of a year, Allan digs deeper into his past, seeking to learn more about his absent parents. Examining the truths and untruths that he’d been told, he discovers the secrets to why the two boys were in care. What emerges is a vivid portrait of the violence and neglect that lay at the heart of his family.A beautifully written, haunting memoir, Plot 29 is a mystery story and meditation on nature and nurture. It’s also a celebration of the joy to be found in sharing food and flowers with people you love.

It’s Belfast, 1975. The city lies under the dark cloud of the Troubles, and hatred fills the air like smoke. But Tony Macaulay has just turned twelve and he’s got a new job. He’s going to be a paperboy. And come rain or shine – or bombs and mortar – he will deliver…Paperboy lives in Upper Shankill, Belfast, in the heart of the conflict between Loyalists and Republicans. Bombings are on the evening news, rubble lies where buildings once stood, and rumours spread like wildfire about the IRA and the UDA.But Paperboy lives in a world of Doctor Who, Top of the Pops and fish suppers. His battles are fought with all the passion of Ireland’s opposing sides – but against acne, the dentist and the ‘wee hoods’ who rob his paper money. On his rounds he hums songs by the Bay City Rollers, dreams about outer space and dreams even more about the beautiful Sharon Burgess.In this touching, funny and nostalgic memoir, Tony Macaulay recounts his days growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, the harrowing years which saw neighbour fighting neighbour and brother fighting brother. But in the midst of all this turmoil, Paperboy, a scrappy upstart with a wicked sense of humour and sky-high dreams, dutifully goes about his paper round. He is a good paperboy, so he is.Paperboy proves that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times; it is a story that will charm your socks off, make you laugh out loud and brings to life the culture, stories and colourful characters of a very different – but very familiar – time.

Keith Floyd’s exuberant personality, as much as his cooking skills, has made him a favourite both as bestselling author and as television presenter. But here, for the first time, he tells his own story – and it is full of surprises.The stories from his childhood in Somerset are vivid and moving: his grandfather with his tin leg, his mother at the mills, and his uncle, the ferret keeper, and the black sheep of the family for ‘carrying on’ with married women.Keith Floyd spent a short spell on a local newspaper, and then, in a hilarious episode, joined the army. After he and the Ministry of Defence decided that they did not suit each other, he took his first cooking job as an assistant vegetable cook in a Bristol hotel. The great period of bistros and cafes had dawned and Keith Floyd was in the forefront, cooking in an open kitchen, with Pink Floyd blaring from the speakers.What is wonderful about this book is the vividness of the scenes he paints and the deftness with which he draws the characters – including his several wives. Those who have admired Keith Floyd’s way with a whisk will now be impressed to discover and enjoy his remarkable skill with words.

Why has time sped up?

RECIPIENT OF THE ORWELL SPECIAL PRIZE 2013Marie Colvin was the outstanding journalist of her generation. Recognised for her fearless pursuit of the truth, her courage and the humanity of her reporting, On the Front Line is a collection of her finest work, proceeds for which will go to the charitable Trust set up in her memory.Marie Colvin, who was killed in shellfire on 22 February 2012 whilst covering the uprising in Syria, was a fearless, passionate foreign correspondent, a veteran of many conflicts from around the world with a profound belief that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and a powerful compulsion to go to places where bad things were happening. Often the first to arrive and the last to leave, her insistence on experiencing the risks of those she wrote about led to a vast portfolio of work for the Sunday Times – particularly on the Middle East, and on the human toll of war.But Marie Colvin was no hard-bitten cynic and combined her fearless pursuit of the truth with an immense love of life – sailing, friendship, children, parties – which gave her an ebullient charm, and her writing a powerful human depth.On the Front Line collects the finest pieces of Marie’s journalism starting with her coverage of the 1986 US bombing of Libya; interviews with Yasser Arafat; her reports from East Timor in 1999 when her refusal to leave shamed the UN into staying and the international community into forcing the Indonesians to give the refugees safe passage. Here too is her account of her terrifying escape from the Russians, across the freezing Chechen mountains, and her reports from the strongholds of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka where she was hit by shrapnel in her left eye, losing her sight.Her death has robbed the world of a multi-prize-winning journalist and the victims of war have lost one of their most powerful advocates.

The dramatic true-life story of George Hogg, a young Oxford graduate who is caught up in the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and the Chinese Civil war, and who leads a group of Chinese children hundreds of miles across 15,000-foot mountains to safety – only to die tragically in early 1945.The author, James MacManus, was working as a reporter in Shanghai in 1980s when he heard talk of a statue being up in the remote town of Shandon on the Mongolian border in memory of an Englishman called George Hogg. This book is the result of his investigations – and the basis for a major feature film called 'The Children of Huang Shi', directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Jonathan Rhys Myers, to be released in spring 2008.One westerner who lived in China throughout the Cultural Revolution described Hogg as «an outstanding young Englishman who fell in love with foreign people and devoted his life to their betterment. What he did made him deeply and widely loved.»MacManus has been back to China to interview the surviving old boys of Hogg's school. Hogg's reputation is kept alive by their loyalty to this day.The dramatic trajectory of Hogg's life took him within a few months from a privileged existence at Oxford to life on the run from Japanese secret police in China.

Just when Judy thought the nightmare was over her past came back to haunt her.Judy was only 11 years old when she was forced to live on the streets. Beaten, half-starved and horrifically abused, she finally escaped to a life in the circus. But the charming man who said he loved her had a dark and sinister side. If she wanted to survive she had to get away.Judy fled to South Africa, taking with her her two young children. But the streets of South Africa were just as cruel. One day they took her daughter and her past was replayed in front of her eyes.Judy's incredible story of courage and determination will inspire as it will amaze.

Bestselling author and foster carer Casey Watson shares the shocking true story of Tyler, an abused eleven-year-old who, after stabbing his step-mother, had nowhere else to go.Knowing a little of Tyler’s past – his biological mother, a heroin addict, died of an overdose when he was three – Casey feels bound to do her best for him. It isn’t easy; Tyler continuously lashes out, even trying to attack Casey herself. Investigation into his earlier childhood reveals why: forced to watch his mother die he was found emaciated and traumatised two days later, then delivered to a father who didn’t want him and a step-mother who beat him.With the horrific events of his past now vividly affecting the course of his present, Casey and her husband Mike are determined to veer him away from the violence and drugs they fear he will come to depend on.Heartbreaking and profoundly moving, Nowhere to Go tells the story of a child forsaken by his family but fought for by his foster carers.

Lena Dunham, acclaimed writer-director-star of HBO and Sky Atlantic’s ‘Girls’ and the award-winning movie ‘Tiny Furniture’, displays her unique powers of observation, wisdom and humour in this exceptional collection of essays.“If I could take what I’ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I’m already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse or thinking that it was your fault when the person you are dating suddenly backs away, intimidated by the clarity of your personal mission here on earth. No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist, or a dietician. I am not a mother of three or the owner of a successful hosiery franchise. But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle.”