Simon Prebble

In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved...

A compelling portrait of the perfect English butler, who, at the end of his career in postwar England, reviews his life and secretly questions the "greatness" of the nobleman he served. This Booker Prize-winning novel is now a Merchant-Ivory film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future, in this simplified version of Dickens' story.

Magician, Mr. Norrel of Hurtfew Abbey, uses his powers against Napoleon and the French in 1806 and is soon challenged by Jonathan Strange, a novice magician, who becomes obsessed with the Raven King, the twelfth-century founder of English magic and bizarre forms of magic.

"Courageous, insightful and candid thoughts on malady and mortality from one of our most celebrated writers"--Provided by the publisher.

Physicist Stephen Hawking examines research conducted on the cosmos since his 1988 work A brief history of time, seeking to combine Einstein's general theory of relativity with Richard Feynman's idea of multiple histories to create a single theory that describes everything that happens in the universe.

Essayist Christopher Hitchens ruminates on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men, the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard, the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell, the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad, the enduring relevance of Karl Marx, and how politics justifies itself by culture--and how the latter prompts the former.

Peter Diamond, still traumatized by the murder of his wife, finds himself again at odds with his superior, Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, when his investigation into the separate hangings of a woman and her one-time partner suggests that both were murdered, contrary to the ACC's belief that they were victims of a murder-suicide.

"A man is murdered at a society wedding held at Ely Cathedral, and the local police are mystified. In the end, they send for Scotland Yard, but not before another man is killed. This time, there's a witness, but her description of the killer is so strange that no one believes her. So it's Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge's task to find out who the murderer is and why he has set out on this killing spree, because there is another death, and the...

After decades of service and years of watching her family's troubles splashed across the tabloids, Britain's Queen is beginning to feel her age. An unexpected opportunity offers her relief: an impromptu visit to a place that holds happy memories-- the former royal yacht, Britannia, now moored near Edinburgh. When her royal attendants discovers she is missing, they set out to find her and bring her back before her absence becomes a national scandal....