Ebele wishes more than anything to make Christmas with his widowed mother memorable with lots of gifts. With his mother barely able to afford food and the harsh ridicule of his friends, Ebele is disheartened. When a strange man comes to town, the boy opens his heart and home reluctantly. In return, the stranger teaches him there is more to Christmas than just gifts, and that kindness is a virtue rewarded by great fortune.
The Jaipurs were India’s mid-century golden couple; its answer to the Kennedys, or Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Jai and Ayesha, as they were known to friends like Frank Sinatra, Truman Capote and ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten, entertained lavishly at their magnificent palaces and hunting lodges in Rajasthan–and in the nightclubs of London, Paris and New York. But as the Raj gave way to the new India, Jaipur–the most glamorous and romantic of the princely states–had to find its place.
The House of Jaipur charts a dynasty’s determination to remain relevant in a democracy set on crushing its privileges. Against the odds, they secured their place at the height of Indian society; but Ayesha would pay for her criticism of Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.
From the polo field and politics to imprisonment and personal tragedy, the Jaipurs’ extraordinary journey of transformation mirrors the story of a rapidly changing country.
After decades of imperfect secularism, presided over by an often corrupt Congress establishment, Nehru’s diverse republic has yielded to Hindu nationalism. India is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
Since 2014, the ruling BJP has unleashed forces that are irreversibly transforming the country. Indian democracy, honed over decades, is now the chief enabler of Hindu extremism. Bigotry has been ennobled as a healthy form of self-assertion, and anti-Muslim vitriol has deluged the mainstream, with religious minorities living in terror of a vengeful majority. Congress now mimics Modi; other parties pray for a miracle.
In this blistering critique of India from Indira Gandhi to the present, Komireddi lays bare the cowardly concessions to the Hindu right, convenient distortions of India’s past and demeaning bribes to minorities that led to Modi’s decisive electoral victory. If secularists fail to reclaim the republic from Hindu nationalists, Komireddi argues, India will become Pakistan by another name.
In March 1917, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of All the Russias, abdicated and the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. In this masterful and forensic study, Robert Service examines the last year Nicholas’s reign and the months between that momentous abdication and his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918.
Drawing on the Tsar’s own diaries and other hitherto unexamined contemporary records, The Last of the Tsars reveals a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political foment in Russia in the aftermath of Alexander Kerensky’s February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenin’s Soviet republic.
On 25 June 1950 the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North launched one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last century. The seemingly limitless power of the Chinese-backed North was thrown against the ferocious firepower of the UN-backed South in a war that can be seen today as the stark prelude to Vietnam.
Max Hastings draws on first-hand accounts of those who fought on both sides to produce this vivid and incisive reassessment of the Korean War, bringing the military and human dimensions into sharp focus. Critically acclaimed on publication, republished with an introduction from the author, The Korean War remains the best narrative history of this conflict.
While the United States stumbles, an award-winning foreign correspondent chronicles China’s dramatic moves to become a dominant power.
As the world’s second-largest economy, China is extending its influence across the globe with the complicity of democratic nations. Joanna Chiu has spent a decade tracking China’s propulsive rise, from the political aspects of the multi-billion-dollar “New Silk Road” global investment project to a growing sway on foreign countries and multilateral institutions through “United Front” efforts. Chiu offers readers background on the protests in Hong Kong, underground churches in Beijing, and exile Uyghur communities in Turkey, and exposes Beijing’s high-tech surveillance and aggressive measures that result in human rights violations against those who challenge its power. The new world disorder documented in China Unbound lays out the disturbing implications for global stability, prosperity, and civil rights everywhere.
Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.
What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?
Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface . . .
Inspired by real events, The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is an intoxicating and suspenseful mystery, an unforgettable story of love and grief that explores the way our fears blur the line between the real and the imagined.
Tamuno has the most annoying brother in the world! Abbey is never quiet and never does what he’s told. But when he disappears into a mysterious hole in the ground one day, Tamuno goes after him without hesitation.
Her journey to rescue Abbey plunges Tamuno into a terrifying kingdom ruled by the ruthless Madam Koi Koi, whom she must best at a game of riddles in order to save her brother.
Hara can’t help getting into trouble, no matter how hard she tries. Sometimes, all she wants to do is look at something, but somehow, it breaks! Like Daddy’s special TV and Mummy’s fancy plates. Now, the eggs for making Mummy’s birthday cake are smashed and splattered on the floor! Hara didn’t break them, but she knows no one will believe her. She has to find the real culprit before Daddy gets back home in 30 minutes – or she will be in trouble again!
First came the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire following World War I; then, in the 1950s and ’60s, the Nasser-inspired wave of Arab nationalism and socialism. The Arab world’s third great political cataclysm of the past 100 years has also brought permanent changes, but not as its activists had hoped: the 2011 uprisings. Their consequences have differed greatly from area to area, splintering the Arab region into four different worlds. The Levant states have disintegrated, possibly irreversibly. The Gulf monarchies have embarked on far- reaching plans of economic and social change to stave off discontent. Egypt has retreated into military authoritarianism and a war on Islamists, threatening its future stability.
Only the Maghreb countries, which have started integrating Islamists into their political systems, offer some hope for progress toward democracy. Marina and David Ottaway have brought together fifty years of experience observing the Arab world, and a wealth of first-hand information gathered from living and travelling extensively in the region. A Tale of Four Worlds is an indispensable analysis of the profound upheavals that have shaken–and continue to transform–Arab and global politics.
In a world dominated by the British Empire, and at a time when many Europeans considered black people inferior, Sierra Leonean writer A. B. C. Merriman-Labor claimed his right to describe the world as he found it. He looked at the Empire’s great capital and laughed.
In this first biography of Merriman-Labor, Danell Jones describes the tragic spiral that pulled him down the social ladder from writer and barrister to munitions worker, from witty observer of the social order to patient in a state-run hospital for the poor. In restoring this extraordinary man to the pantheon of African observers of colonialism, she opens a window onto racial attitudes in Edwardian London.
An African in Imperial London is a rich portrait of a great metropolis, writhing its way into a new century of appalling social inequity, world-transforming inventions, and unprecedented demands for civil rights.
A novel for any woman who wonders how the hell she got here, and why life isn’t quite how she imagined it was going to be. And who is desperately trying to figure it all out when everyone around them is making gluten-free brownies.
Meet Nell.
Her life is a mess.
In a world of perfect Instagram lives, she feels like a f**k up. But when she starts a secret podcast and forms an unlikely friendship with Cricket, an eighty-something widow, things begin to change. Because Nell is determined. This time next year things will be very different. But first, she has a confession . . .
Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter will make you laugh, and it might even make you cry. Above all, it will remind you that you’re not on your own – we’re all in this together.
Spirited and intelligent, Morayo grows up surrounded by school friends and family in Ibadan. There is Eniayo, her adoring little sister – for whose sake their middle-class parents fight stigmatising superstition – and a large extended family of cousins and aunts who sometimes make Morayo’s home their own. A shameful secret forced upon her by Bros T, her cousin, thrusts Morayo into a web of oppressive silence woven by the adults around her. Morayo must learn to fiercely protect herself and her sister as young women growing up in a complex and politically charged country.
The Battle for the Falklands is a thoughtful and informed analysis of an astonishing chapter in modern British history from journalist and military historian Sir Max Hastings and political editor Simon Jenkins.
Ten weeks. 28,000 soldiers. 8,000 miles from home.
The Falklands War in 1982 was one of the strangest in British history. At the time, many Britons saw it as a tragic absurdity – thousands of men sent overseas for a tiny relic of empire – but the British victory over the Argentinians not only confirmed the quality of British arms but also boosted the political fortunes of Thatcher’s Conservative government. However, it left a chequered aftermath and was later overshadowed by the two Gulf wars.
Max Hastings’ and Simon Jenkins’ account of the conflict is a modern classic of war reportage and the definitive book on the conflict.
Marcus Rashford MBE is famous worldwide for his skills both on and off the pitch – but before he was a Manchester United and England footballer, and long before he started his inspiring campaign to end child food poverty, he was just an average kid from Wythenshawe, South Manchester. Now the nation’s favourite footballer wants to show YOU how to achieve your dreams, in this positive and inspiring guide for life.
Written with journalist Carl Anka, You Are a Champion is packed full of stories from Marcus’s own life, brilliant advice and top-tips from performance psychologist Katie Warriner. It will show you how to be the very BEST that you can be.
It shows kids how to:
– Be comfortable with who you are – you can’t be a champion until you’re happy being you!
– Dream big
– Practise like a champion
– Get out of your comfort zone and learn from your mistakes
– Navigate adversity in a positive way
– Find your team
– Use your voice and stand up for others
– Never stop learning
Most of us spend our lives ruled by a variety of negative forces death, doubt, anger, lust, and failure, worry the list could go on and on. But what if these negative forces were all rooted in the same problem? In Overcoming Fear, Dr. Creflo Dollar proves that they are all, in fact, rooted in fear. More importantly, he explains why this is actually a good thing for Christians. By demonstrating that fear is a force that does not come from God, Dr. Dollar illustrates that fear is something that Believers don t have to tolerate in their lives. Chapter by chapter, Dr. Dollar uses Scripture and powerful personal testimony to show readers how they can eliminate any type of fear imaginable from their lives, freeing themselves from the enemy s bondage and solidifying their stance in a life of faith.
