Paris to the Moon

Adam Gopnik

PB £8.99

In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York for the urbane glamour of Paris. Charmed by the beauties of the city, Gopnik set out to experience for himself the spirit and romance that has so captivated American writers throughout the twentieth century. In the grand tradition of Stein and Hemingway, Gopnik planned to walk the paths of the Tuilleries, to enjoy philosophical discussion in cafes - in short, to lead the fabled life of an American in Paris.Of course, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with everyday, not-so-fabled life.

Gadfly in Russia 

Alan Sillitoe

PB £8.99

In 1967, with a need to get away from his writing for a month or so, Allan Sillitoe set off in a blue Peugeot to Russia. Despite his desire to travel alone, he was provided with an official escort in the form of George Andjaparidze, who was to become a fellow journeyman and friend.This is a story of travelling, history, people and places: from the Nazis to perestroika; Pushkin to Tolstoy; yet another police check; racing in a German motor rally heading to Moscow; as well as late nights, vodka, getting lost and the mysteries of the Russian language. A speech in Moscow on freedom, and a visit to London by George with a Russian writer that resulted in an unexpected defection, would leave Sillitoe being viewed in a less-than-favourable light by the Soviets.In 2005, invited by the British Council, he found himself once again in Russia, offering the perfect opportunity to revisit his diaries of old to create this compelling book."Gadfly in Russia" is a fascinating account of one man's relationship with Russia and its people, and their changing fortunes, over the past 40 years .

True Tales of the Wild West

Clive Sinclair

HB £9.99

Today's Wild West is not what it was, though it wishes that it were. The old certainties are gone, leaving only questions - but can anyone separate truth from legend, fact from fiction? Two cousins set out to attempt just that: the one is Peppercorn, a fading photo-journalist in search of his inner cowboy; the other is Saltzman, lecturer in American Studies at the University of St Albans. On their travels they encounter many of the great heroes of the Wild West - or at least the men and women who impersonate them - as well as other larger-than-life characters such as innocent Mercy Sweetbriar, runner-up in the 'Appearance, Personality, and Photogenics' category of South Dakota's Miss Rodeo contest, not-so-innocent Miami Bitch, Kevin Costner, and Bill Janklow, Governor of South Dakota, and latter-day Indian fighter.In order to fully capture the extravagance of these people and the landscapes they inhabit, Clive Sinclair has been driven to invent a new genre. He calls it Dodgy Realism, a melange of fact, fantasy, and fiction. Call it what you will, his new book is both an erudite investigation of, and a glorious romp through, the heartland of America.

The Bang-Bang Club

Greg Marinovich & Joao Silva

PB £8.99

The Bang-Bang Club was a group of four young photographers, friends and colleagues, Ken Oosterbroek, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, who covered the last years of apartheid, taking many of the photographs that encapsulate the final years of white South Africa. Two of them won Pulitzer Prizes for individual photos. Ken, the oldest and a mentor to the others, died, accidentally shot while working; Kevin, the most troubled of the four, committed suicide weeks after winning his Pulitzer for a photograph of a starving baby in the Sudanese famine. Written by Greg and Joao, "The Bang-Bang Club" tells their stories, the story of four remarkable young men, the stresses, tensions and moral dilemmas of working in situations of extreme violence, pain and suffering, the relationships between the four and the story of the end of apartheid. This is an immensely powerful, riveting and harrowing book .

Don't Wait for Me

Ros Morris

PB £6.99

Ros Morris' son Zach was a bright young musician who seemed on the brink of success when his behaviour suddenly spiralled out of control. He began using more powerful and dangerous illegal drugs and stayed up all night writing strange mathematical equations on his bedroom walls and drawing diagrams of spacecraft and pyramids. His once intelligent conversation deteriorated into mindless babble and at one point he thought he was God. Over the next eight years, after he was diagnosed as suffering from bipolar disorder, Zach was sectioned under the Mental Health Act on numerous occasions and his family had to repatriate him from three different continents when his psychosis re-emerged while he was travelling. "Don't Wait for Me" is a mother's harrowing account of her son's descent into the hell of drug abuse and mental illness. It vividly describes the nightmare her family went through and highlights the despair, guilt, helplessness and anger experienced by all those involved.

Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

PB £7.99

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of today's most admired and controversial political figures. She burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened she would be next. An international bestseller, her life story INFIDEL shows the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion of free speech.Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright, curious, dutiful little girl evolves into a pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no other book could be more timely, or more significant .

Rainbow's End

Lauren St John

PB £8.99

In 1978, during the final, bloodiest phase of the Zimbabwean civil war, Lauren St John's family moved to Rainbow's End, a beautiful farm on the banks of a flowing river. Shy and horse-obsessed, eleven-year-old St John lived in an Afrtican idyll until the killing of a school friend and the coming of Independence forced her to confront the past - to realize that almost everything she had believed about her country and her life had been a lie.

Defying Hitler - A Memoir

Sebastian Haffner

PB £7.99

This memoir begins in 1914 when the family summer holiday is cut short by the outbreak of war, and ends with Hitler's assumption of power in 1933. It is a portrait of the author and his own generation in Germany, those born between 1900 and 1910, and explains through his own experiences and those of his friends how that generation found Hitler irresistible. The book was written in 1939 but never published.The manuscript was found in 1999, hidden in a chest of drawers, by the author's son, after his father had died. An unforgettable memoir of life in Germany during the rise of the Nazis, a mesmerising study of the way a generation of Germans surrendered to Hitler .

Golda Meir: The Iron Lady of the Middle East

Elinor Burkett

HB £17.99

Golda Meir was known as the Iron Lady well before Margaret Thatcher. Voted most admired woman in Britain and elsewhere, her leadership of Israel became a blue-print for the modern world. It defined the response to modern terrorism with the Munich massacre of eleven Israeli athletes taken hostage at the 1972 Olympics. It recast politics in the Middle East during the tense moments of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, prompting OPEC to start the oil crisis and global recession. Elinor Burkett has written the first authoritative life of Meir s exceptional and turbulent life. Many members of Meir s inner circle have gone on record for this biography about her influence and inspiring personality. Gaining privileged access to Israeli cabinet papers allowed Burkett to uncover many unknown aspects of Golda Meir s continuing mark on the Middle East. Golda Meir saw integrity as the currency of Israel's survival and political careerism as its blight. In 1973, Israel came close to surrender due to Moshe Dayan, her ambitious minister of defence. Meir kept the country together while battling cancer. Decades earlier, Golda Meir's tireless charm offensive on the USA forged the unlikely Washington-Jerusalem relationship at the cost of her native, Communist Russia. Privately she had affairs, refused to recognise one of her grandchildren and became estranged from her long-suffering husband. Golda Meir describes vividly how a young working-class girl from pogrom-ridden Russian Moldova became the first female leader of both the West and a left-wing nation. Her life defied the shackles of age, illness, fate, class and gender, and became a rich tribute to the power of the human spirit and its sacrifices.

Tennis Whites and Teacakes

John Betjeman

PB £8.99

Betjeman's England is a place of patriotic poets and seaside coves, provincial cathedrals and eccentric dons. For fifty years, Betjeman celebrated the glories of Englishness and what it meant to be English. Against a tide of rapid change, he unearthed forgotten heroes, bygone haunts and old-fashioned modes of thought. But as this original collection reveals, his appeal goes far beyond simple nostalgia. It lies in his passionate convictions, his humour and his humanity.What does it mean to be English? What is Englishness? For fifty years, at a time when other people were becoming more internationally aware, John Betjeman immersed himself in the glories of English culture -- its places, its writings, its heroes. Seaside architecture, national poets, the great cathedrals, our ancient townscapes -- all were hard-won achievements, he pleaded, with pleasures and delights that we threw away at our peril. Tennis Whites and Teacakes" brings together the best of Betjeman's poetry, private letters, journalism and musings to present a fully rounded picture of what he stood for.From his arguments for new steel buildings to his amusement about the etiquette of village teashops, it reveals Betjeman not just as a sentimentalist but as a passionate observer with a wonderful sense of humour and an acute eye.

The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street

Charles Nicholl

PB £8.99

In 1612, Shakespeare gave evidence at the Court of Requests in Westminster - it is the only occasion his spoken words are recorded. The case seems routine - a dispute over an unpaid marriage-dowry - but it opens up an unexpected window into the dramatist's famously obscure life-story. Charles Nicholl applies a powerful biographical magnifying glass to this fascinating episode in Shakespeare's life.Marshalling evidence from a wide variety of sources, including previously unknown documentary material on the Mountjoys, he conjures up a detailed and compelling description of the circumstances in which Shakespeare lived and worked, and in which he wrote such plays as "Othello", "Measure for Measure" and "King Lear".