True stories: general

This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian Story

‘Propulsive … A rousing tribute to the beauty and importance of old-fashioned journalism, a taut thriller of high stakes ‘hostage diplomacy,’ and a poignant meditation on the human struggle between hope and apathy under authoritarian rule’ PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, bestselling author of London Falling

Wolfpack: Inside Hitler’s U-Boat War

A Times Book of the Year

‘A superb work of history’ JAMES HOLLAND

‘A thrilling account from a master of Second World War history’ DAN SNOW

A landmark history of the U-Boat war told through the experiences and recollections of the U-Boat crews themselves.

Tunisgrad: Victory in Africa

A BBC History Magazine and Aspects of History Book of the Year 2025

‘Terrific – full of drama … it has profoundly altered my understanding of the Second World War’ PATRICK BISHOP

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SBS COMES AN EPIC HISTORY OF THE ALLIED VICTORY IN NORTH AFRICA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

The Spy in the Archive: How one man tried to kill the KGB

LONGLISTED for the CWA ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2026

The compulsively readable new book from The Rest is Classified host Gordon Corera. About how one man – Vasili Mitrokhin – turned first disaffected dissident and then traitor to the KGB, stealing the most secret Soviet archives and smuggling them to the West.

I, Vera: The Many Lives of Vera Gedroits, a Radical Princess

‘Vera Gedroits was a true medical heroine: outrageous, intrepid and devoted to saving lives. Miranda Seymour’s genius as a story teller brings this astonishing woman blazing back to life. I shall never forget her’ LADY ANTONIA FRASER

‘Miranda Seymour has written a wonderful and unputdownable book about an astonishing woman’ MEL GIEDROYC

The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness

‘This is a book about searching in the best sense – full of ideas, beauty, doubt and adventures’ ELIZABETH KOLBERT

‘Fascinating and masterfully written’ ALICE WINN

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Islands of Abandonment, comes a new book about our relationship to the natural world.

Parallel Lives: A Love Story from a Lost Continent

This is the simplest tale in the world. Two people meet and fall in love. But the route which brought Larissa Salmina and Francis Haskell to a backstreet Venetian restaurant in 1962 was anything but straightforward.

Sword: D-Day – Trial by Battle

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A Times and Waterstones Book of the Year

‘The messy, dirty, bloody reality of Operation Overlord comes alive in Sword, Hastings’s portrait of the individual soldiers who risked their lives on the beaches of Normandy. He brings these men to life with sensitivity and beautiful prose’ THE TIMES

Lifeboat at the End of the World: A Volunteer’s Story

‘Unflinchingly candid and extraordinarily powerful’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Dominic Gregory hasn’t just delivered a survey of courage and determination – Lifeboat at the End of the World is a hymn to human decency, and that makes it a very timely book indeed’ TIM WINTON

Do you really think all lives are worth saving?

A Knock at the Door: A homeless man, a lawyer . . . and a family changed forever

‘An incredible read. I laughed, I cried and my heart was truly touched by this beautifully written true story of hope and humanity at its best.’ Rosemary Conley CBE

‘An extraordinary story. Truly Inspirational’ Tim Vine

An astonishing story of kindness, self-learning, pain, unbelievable hope and the sheer power of love to change a life.

Naples 1944: War, Liberation and Chaos

Winner of The 2025 Duke of Wellington Medal Winner for Military History

An Aspects of History Best Book of the Year; An Engelsberg Ideas Best Book of the Year

Shortlisted for the HWA Non-fiction Crown Award

‘A rigorous, myth-busting look at the city’s chaotic recovery in the wake of war and fascism’ FINANCIAL TIMES

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