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Saudi Babylon: Torture, Corruption and Cover-Up Inside the House of Saud
By Mark Hollingsworth, Sandy Mitchell. 2005
When Sandy Mitchell was arrested for his alleged involvement in two bombings in Saudi Arabia in December 2000, he thought…
it was a case of mistaken identity and that he would soon be released. Instead, he spent nearly three years in jail, where he was repeatedly tortured before being forced to sign a confession and admit his guilt on Saudi television.Throughout his incarceration the Saudi authorities knew that the attacks had been committed by al-Qaeda militants. Yet they kept Mitchell in jail and refused him access to a lawyer for a year. By this time he had been sentenced to death but he was eventually released before the penalty could be imposed. Saudi Babylon is the story of a shocking miscarriage of justice. But it also reveals an even more disturbing truth: how the British government, mindful of multi-billion-pound arms sales to Saudi Arabia, virtually abandoned Mitchell by adopting a softly-softly diplomatic approach to the corrupt Saudi royal family. Based on diaries and records of meetings with ministers and officials, this is a powerful exposé of how the British government acts when one of its citizens is illegally imprisoned and tortured by a regime with which it does business.Sapper Dorothy: 51st Division, 79th Tunnelling Co. During the First World War
By Dorothy Lawrence. 2024
The adventures of an intrepid young woman on the Western FrontIt would not be quite accurate to portray Dorothy Lawrence…
as a bona fide soldier of the British Army. Dorothy was in fact a young woman with great aspirations to embark upon a career in journalism and she knew it would be a coup to give a female perspective of the activities of men on the front line-as it were-from within their own ranks. So she devised a scheme to bring her objectives about and its success was marked by a 10 day stint in the line at Albert in 1915 with the Royal Engineers during the opening stages of the battle of Loos. Dorothy certainly saw action—the trench she occupied lay less than 400 yards from the German front line. She was eventually discovered and the entire story of how she pulled off her subterfuge, her time in the trenches and what befell her thereafter is told in this delightful account.-Print ed.Charles Lister; Letters and Recollections, With a Memoir by his Father, Lord Ribblesdale
By Thomas Lister Ribblesdale, Charles Lister. 2024
Includes Gallipoli Campaign Map and Illustrations Pack -71 photos and 31 maps of the campaign spanning the entire period of…
hostilities.“With the Hood Battalion during the campaign in the DardanellesAlthough there remains much interest in the activities of the Royal Naval Division during the First World War, there is little original material on the subject readily available. The letters which form a substantial part of this book, may have been overlooked by many readers since they were originally published under a title that gave no indication that the book was about service with ‘the sailors in khaki’. Charles Lister was a frequent correspondent with his family and friends while travelling abroad before the outbreak of war, and he continued this correspondence throughout his military service until he died of wounds sustained while serving with the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division during the Gallipoli campaign. After his death, Lister’s father, Lord Ribblesdale, published his son’s letters as a memorial.”-Print ed.SAS: Sea King Down
By Mark Aston, Stuart Tootal. 2021
The thrilling, edge-of-your-seat true story of one soldier's Special Forces operations in the Falklands War'BRILLIANT. A ROLLERCOASTER OF BLISTERING ACTION,…
SURVIVAL AND BEHIND-THE-LINES DARING' DAMIEN LEWIS________THE BIGGEST SINGLE LOSS OF LIFE FOR THE SAS SINCE WORLD WAR TWO . . .1982, the British task force sails to liberate the Falkland Islands. Aboard: SAS D Squadron, determined to make their mark.No one more so than Mark 'Splash' Aston.But they have barely seen action when their Sea King helicopter crashes in freezing South Atlantic waters, killing 22 of Mark's comrades.The last out of the sinking wreck, he suffers a broken neck. But defying medical evacuation orders, Mark sneaks off ship, re-joins his SAS comrades to land on a mountain near Port Stanley - to defend it against days of attacks by Argentine special forces . . .SAS Sea King Down is a pulse-pounding account of D-Squadron's tragic loss and subsequent heroic stand in one of the most hostile places on Earth.A story told by a man who barely survived to tell it.________'A gripping untold story of heroism, hardship and sacrifice within the SAS' BEAR GRYLLS 'Gripping, fast moving and completely authentic. A brilliant piece of work. Better than Bravo Two Zero' - Mike Rose, former Commanding Officer of the SASSabre Squadron
By Cameron Spence. 1997
With the outbreak of Gulf War hostilities a unit from 22 SAS slipped quietly over the border and into the…
enemy's backyard. It would be six weeks before any of the patrol again reached safety.Sabre Squadron recounts in graphic detail their scud-busting operations deep inside Iraq. They were operating alone and out of reach of reinforcements, with the threat of detection and its fatal consequences ever present. Yet their determination to wreak havoc behind enemy lines remained undimmed, culminating in an attack that decisively reconfirmed the regiment's awesome reputation.Cameron Spence, a senior NCO on the operation, takes you as close to the fighting SAS as you are ever likely to get, conveying the relentless tension, black humour and camaraderie punctuated by explosive, nerve-shredding action that characterized the mission.This is the true story of an SAS operation of breathtaking audacity and flair, carried out under unimaginable pressure, in the face of impossible odds._____________'A brilliantly authentic account of war with an SAS patrol, it's a fantastic read' - ANDY MCNAB, bestselling author of Bravo Two Zero'Tense and at times terrifying... a well told action story' - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'A terrific read' - THE TIMES'Blood, guts and military macho - as authentic as anything you are likely to read' - MAIL ON SUNDAY'Rommel?' 'Gunner Who?': A Confrontation in the Desert (Spike Milligan War Memoirs)
By Spike Milligan. 1974
VOLUME TWO OF SPIKE MILLIGAN'S LEGENDARY MEMOIRS IS A HILARIOUS, SUBVERSIVE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF WW2'Brilliant verbal pyrotechnics, throwaway lines and…
marvelous anecdotes' Daily Mail 'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times ______________'Keep talking, Milligan. I think I can get you out on Mental Grounds.' 'That's how I got in, sir.' 'Didn't we all.' The second volume of Spike Milligan's legendary recollections of life as a gunner in World War Two sees our hero into battle in North Africa - eventually. First, there is important preparation to be done: extensive periods of loitering ('We had been standing by vehicles for an hour and nothing had happened, but it happened frequently'), psychological toughening ('If a man dies when you hang him, keep hanging him until he gets used to it') and living dangerously ('no underwear!'). At last the battle for Tunis is upon them . . .______________'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'A totally original comedy writer' Michael Palin 'Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense' GuardianRoger Casement's Diaries: 1910:The Black and the White
By Roger Sawyer. 1997
Born in Ireland in 1864 Roger Casement acted as British Consul in various parts of Africa (1895-1904) and Brazil (1906-11)…
where he denounced atrocities among Congolese and Putumayo rubber workers. knighted in 1911, He returned to Ireland, where as an ardent nationalist he attempted to enlist German help for the cause. He was hanged for high treason in London in 1916. A compulsive diary writer, his so-called 'Black' Diaries were finally released into the public domain in 1994. At the time of his trial, these diaries-detailing his promiscuous homosexual activities in Brazil-were used to condemn him and, subsequently, to poison his reputation. Published here for the first time-as are his more public 'White' Diaries of the same year-they not only offer the reader the opportunity to judge their authenticity-still a matter of heated debate-but they also take us deep into the mind of the bravest, most selfless and practical humanitarian of the Edwardian age.Robert Burns: The Patriot Bard
By Patrick Scott Hogg. 2008
Following the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns (1759-96), Patrick Scott Hogg presents the greatest of Scotland's poets…
within the true context of his times. Exploding the Burns myth, Robert Burns: The Patriot Bard replaces the ram-stam lad of popular cliché with the real, living Burns - a Scottish patriot of the heart, an idealist who wished for 'Freedom and Liberty' for his beloved country, but also a man who was pragmatically a British patriot and risked his life for democratic reform. Here Burns is painted in his native colours as a highly complex, hyper-intelligent writer in both prose and poetry, not the semi-confused, contradictory simpleton of previous biographies. The fascinating legend of Burns as a ladies' man is placed where it should be - as less important than the message of the bard.The real day-to-day Burns was irascible, stubborn-minded, independent, controversial and opinionated. He detested many of his social superiors within the feudal order and attacked them as hypocrites and oppressors of the common people. The voice of Burns, always in the language of the people, and his idealist vision of a better world endeared him as a poet of humanity 'the world o'er'. Drawing from Burns' existing canon of poetry and letters, plus some newly attributed works suppressed for over two centuries, this life story is a roller-coaster narrative that charts the success and untimely death of the greatest songwriter of all time, the real Robert Burns.The Road Taken
By Michael Buerk. 2005
'Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korem it lights up…
a biblical famine, now, in the Twentieth Century.'Those words opened Michael Buerk's first report on the Ethiopian famine for the 6 o'clock news on October 24th 1984. His reports sent shock waves round the world. The Live Aid concert, a direct consequence of Bob Geldof watching that broadcast, was watched by half the planet.Michael Buerk has reported on some of the biggest stories in our lifetime: the Flixborough chemical plant fire, the Birmingham pub bombing, Lockerbie. He was in Buenos Aires at the start of the Falklands War; he reported the death throes of apartheid in South Africa. He was the face of the BBC flagship evening news for many years and has fronted everything from the popular BBC1 series 999 to the erudite Radio 4 programme The Moral Maze. He has won every major award and is universally admired and respected for his intelligent and honest journalism.Here, he also reveals the private Michael Buerk, his bigamist father, his long and happy marriage to Christine and his delight at fatherhood.Rezso Kasztner: The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews: A Survivor's Account
By Ladislaus Löb. 2008
Two months after his eleventh birthday, on 9 July 1944, the gates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp closed behind Ladislaus Löb.…
Five months later, with the Second World War still raging, he crossed the border into Switzerland, cold and hungry, but alive and safe. He was not alone, but part of a group of some 1,670 Jewish men, women and children from Hungary, who had been rescued from the Nazis as a result of a deal made by a man called Rezso Kasztner - himself a Hungarian Jew - with Adolf Eichmann, the chief architect of the Holocaust. Twelve years and a miscarriage of justice later Kasztner was murdered by an extremist Jewish gang in his adopted home of Israel. To this day he remains a highly controversial figure, regarded by some as a traitor and by many others as a hero. He was accused of betraying the bulk of the Hungarian Jewry by hand-picking only those who were politically and personally dear to him, or those from whom he could benefit financially, and the judge of his post-war trial concluded that he had 'sold his soul to Satan'.Rezso Kasztner tells his story - and also the story of a child who lived to grow up after the Holocaust thanks to him. A compelling combination of history and memoir, it is also an examination of one individual's unique achievement and a consideration of the profound moral issues raised by his dealings with some of the most evil men ever known.Rebels: My Life Behind Enemy Lines with Warlords, Fanatics and Not-so-Friendly Fire
By Aris Roussinos. 2014
A 21st century take on Dispatches, award-winning VICE News journalist Aris Roussinos tells the real stories behind life in a…
rebel army.The hidden truth about war is how much fun it is. However they begin, whatever their aims, wars are fought by young men. They fight in burned-out buildings and shelter under thorn trees. They eat their meagre rations, and starve for days cut off from supply lines. They smoke forty cigarettes a day and ride to war stoned, listening to Craig David. But the bombs and bullets are terrifyingly real, and the guys they’re killing aren’t always faceless enemies: sometimes they’re friends.For the last three years, award-winning journalist Aris Roussinos embedded himself with rebel groups across the world. Part travelogue from the world’s most dangerous hotspots, part eyewitness testimony to recent, bloody history, this is one man’s uncensored, unflinching account of living with the enemy.Putin's Prisoner: My Time as a Prisoner of War in Ukraine
By Aiden Aslin, John Sweeney. 2023
Brought to you by Penguin.Aiden Aslin joined the Ukrainian marines in 2018, compelled to defend his adopted homeland from the…
growing threat of Russian invasion. In February 2022, as Russia mounted a full-scale offensive, Aiden and his unit were stationed at the frontline at Mariupol.Pinned down at a Mariupol steelworks, after a month-long siege and running out of supplies, Aiden was part of the mass surrender of over a thousand Ukrainian troops, in April 2022. Then his real ordeal began.Singled out for his British passport, Aiden was interrogated, tortured, stabbed, turned into a propaganda zombie, tried by a kangaroo court and then sentenced to death. A victim of a catalogue of abuses of international law, Aiden struggled to cling on to any hope of survival. Certain that he was going to be executed, he was eventually freed in a prisoner exchange and permitted to return home.In Putin's Prisoner, Aiden will tell the full, harrowing story of his time fighting in Putin's war, of his six months in Russian captivity, and of his hardened resolve to defend the freedoms of the people of Ukraine.©2023 Aiden Aslin & John Sweeney (P)2023 Penguin AudioPitt the Elder: Man of War
By Edward Pearce. 2010
This remarkable book opens at the dawn of the British Empire - with the great sea battle at Quiberon Bay…
where French ships, intended for the 1759 invasion of Britain, are chased, caught and defeated by a fleet commanded by Admiral Sir Edward Hawke. In this momentous victory Britain effectively settled the outcome of the Seven Years' War and established itself as the world's dominant imperial power.At the heart of the conflict with France was William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham and Britain's future Prime Minister. Weaving together military history and political biography Edward Pearce provides a portrait of the man 'with an eye like a diamond' - a man who had close ties with the slave trade and who preached war and British supremacy on a world stage. Alongside detailed descriptions of battles in Europe and North America we follow Pitt's career as a politician - one that was closely intertwined with General James Wolfe at Quebec; American independence; the slow mind of George III and the quick one of the rake and outsider John Wilkes.Edward Pearce scrutinises the real man at the heart of the historical events and mystique surrounding the legacy of Pitt the Elder, to present a rounded and masterful portrait of arguably the most powerful minister ever to guide Britain's foreign policy and of an age which marked a new epoch in history, when the balance of power in Europe and the world was set for almost two centuries.Personal Impressions
By Isaiah Berlin. 2009
This enthusiastically received collection contains Isaiah Berlin's appreciation of seventeen people of unusual distinction in the intellectual or political world…
- sometimes in both. The names of many of them are familiar - Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Chaim Weizmann, Albert Einstein, L. B. Namier, J. L. Austin, Maurice Bowra. With the exception of Roosevelt he met them all, and he knew many of them well. For this new edition four new portraits have been added, including recollections of Virginia Woolf and Edmund Wilson. The volume ends with a vivid and moving account of Berlin's meetings in Russia with Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova in 1945 and 1956.Peace Work (Spike Milligan War Memoirs)
By Spike Milligan. 1991
Spike Milligan's legendary war memoirs are a hilarious and subversive first-hand account of the Second World War, as well as…
a fascinating portrait of the formative years of this towering comic genius, most famous as writer and star of The Goon Show. They have sold over 4.5 million copies since they first appeared.'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express'Brilliant verbal pyrotechnics, throwaway lines and marvelous anecdotes' Daily Mail'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times'I had not informed my parents of my return, I wanted it to be a lovely surprise; it was, for me, they were away ...' The seventh and last volume of Spike Milligan's memoirs sees our hero returning from war and Italy ... but to what? Aside from shooting large, inaccurate guns at Germans, all he has done for five long years is blow a trumpet, tell rude jokes and write and perform sketches for the entertainment of bored and murderous soldiers - who on earth is going to pay a civilian to do more of that? From the giddy heights of Hackney Empire to a Zurich Freak Show and beyond, Spike makes his way through the backwaters of showbiz, first as band musician then as one-man wild-act and eventually in the company of a group of like-minded comedians called Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Peter Sellers. They decide to call themselves The Goons...'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen Fry'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard'Manifestly a genius, a comic surrealist genius and had no equal' Terry Wogan'A totally original comedy writer' Michael Palin'Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense' GuardianSpike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.Pavel's Letters
By Monika Maron. 1999
Teasing her family's past out of the fog of oblivion and lies, one of Germany's greatest writers asks about the…
secrets families keep, about the fortitude of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and about what becomes of the individual mind when the powers that be turn against it.Born in a working-class suburb of wartime Berlin, Monika Maron grew up a daughter of the East German nomenklatura, despairing of the system her mother, Hella, helped create. Haunted by the ghosts of her Baptist grandparents, she questions her mother, whose selective memory throws up obstacles to Maron's understanding of her grandparents' horrifying denouement in Polish exile. Maron reconstructs their lives from fragments of memory and a forgotten box of letters. In telling her family's powerful and heroic story, she has written a memoir that has the force of a great novel and also stands both as an elaborate metaphor for the shame of the twentieth century and a life-affirming monument to her ancestors.A Passion For Trees: The Legacy Of John Evelyn
By Maggie Campbell-Culver. 2006
Given the extent of his influence on 17th-century life, and his lasting impact on the British landscape it is remarkable…
that no book has been written before about John Evelyn. He was a longstanding friend of Samuel Pepys (who wrote of him, ' A most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others.'), a founder-member of the Royal Society and a prolific writer and diarist. He was an early advocate of the garden city but his most important work was Sylva: a Discourse of Forest Trees. Sylva was presented to the Royal Society to promote the planting of timber trees 'for the supply of the Navy, the employment and advantage of the poor as well as the ornamenting of the nation.' He was responsible for the first great raft of tree-planting and for a great influx of tree introductions to Britain.Maggie Campbell-Culver's book, like Sylva, has at its core a section detailing the characteristics, history and uses of 33 trees incorporating the advice Evelyn gave and demonstrating its relevance still in the 20th-century. Not only was Evelyn probably the first horticultural writer to show an appreciation of the aesthetic benefits of trees in our landscape, he is shown to be a founder-father of the modern conservation movement.Out Of The Wilderness: Diaries 1963-67
By Tony Benn. 1987
1963 saw Labour's emergence from its 'wilderness years' in Opposition, and the election of Harold Wilson following the unexpected death…
of Hugh Gaitskell. In the first Wilson government of 1964 Benn was made Postmaster General and became known as an innovator for his introduction of the Giro and arguing for a radical broadcasting policy. After Labour's landslide victory of 1966 he was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of Technology, but Labour's honeymoon came to an abrupt end in 1967 with the introduction of devaluation, leading to disilliusionment with the Government.Tony Benn's account on his relations with the industrialists, television and press chiefs, the Palace and the diplomatic world as well as trade unionists, civil servants, and his Cabinet colleagues, reveals the workings of our political and economic systems at the highest level.Out of the Wilderness is a unique political record of the 1960s, told by a man who served in five Labour administrations and who today is one of the most experienced figures both in and out of the House of Commons.'No-one interested in the political influence of the Crown, the intrigues of the civil service or the highly traditionalist character of Harold Wilson can afford to ignore it' The ObserverOperation Crossbow: The Untold Story of the Search for Hitler’s Secret Weapons
By Allan Williams. 2011
The story of the photographic intelligence work undertaken from a country house at Medmenham, Buckinghamshire, is one of the great…
lost stories of the Second World War . At its peak in 1944, almost 2,000 British and American men and women worked at the top-secret Danesfield House, interpreting photographs - the majority stereoscopic so they could be viewed in 3D - to unlock secrets of German military activity and weapons development. Millions of aerial photographs were taken by Allied pilots, flying unarmed modified Spitfires and Mosquitos on missions over Nazi Europe. it was said that an aircraft could land, the photographs be developed and initial interpretation completed within two hours - marking the culmination of years of experiments in aerial intelligence techniques.Their finest hour began in 1943, during the planning stages of the Allied invasion of Europe, when Douglas Kendall, who masterminded the interpretation work at Medmenham, led the hunt for Hitler's secret weapons. Operation Crossbow would grow from a handful of photographic interpreters to the creation of a hand-picked team, and came to involve interpreters from across the Medmenham spectrum, including the team of aircraft specialists led by the redoubtable Constance Babington Smith. In November that year, whilst analysing photographs of Peenemunde in northern Germany, they spotted a small stunted aircraft on a ramp. This intelligence breakthrough linked the Nazi research station with a growing network of sites in northern France, where ramps were being constructed aligned not only with London, but targets throughout southern Britain.Through the combined skill and dedication of the Crossbow team and the heroism of the Allied pilots, throughout late 1943 and 1944 V-weapon launch sites were located and through countermeasures destroyed, saving hundreds of thousands of lives, and changing the course of the war.Operation Crossbow is a wonderful story of human endeavour and derring-do, told for the first time.Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5
By Stella Rimington. 2002
'The story of MI5's transformation - is fascinating. So, too is Rimington's account of her rise in what was very…
definitely a man's world.' Guardian____________________________The eye-opening memoir from the first female Director-General of MI5Stella Rimington worked for MI5 between 1969 and 1996, one of the most turbulent and dramatic periods in global history. Working in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities - counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism - she became successively Director of all three branches, and finally Director-General of MI5 in 1992.She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. In Open Secret, she continues her work of opening up elements of the work of our security services to public scrutiny, revealing the surprising culture of MI5 and shedding light on some of the most fascinating events in 20th century history from the ultimate insider viewpoint.____________________________Stella Rimington is also the author of the novels At Risk and Secret Asset.