Japan is the pre-eminent food nation on earth. The Japanese go to great lengths to eat and prepare the finest, most delectable and sometimes freakiest food imaginable. Eating Japanese food means eatin...

Henrietta Howard, later Countess of Suffolk, was the long-term mistress and confidante of King George II. This wonderful biography reveals a woman who was far more than the mistress to the King: a ded...

Poignant, funny and dazzling, Helen Simpson’s fifth collection of short stories deals with the full stretch, from birth to death and everything in between.

Ivan Grigoryevich has been in the Gulag for thirty years. Released after Stalin’s death, he finds that the years of terror have imposed a collective moral slavery. He must struggle to find a place for...

Engineers of the Soul is the riveting story of two journeys – one literal, one imaginary – through contemporary Russia and through Soviet-era literature.

In this original chronicling of the life of one of England’s greatest monarchs, Borman explores Elizabeth’s relationships with the key women in her life. It is a chronicle of the servants, friends and...

In these extraordinary poems, using multiple viewpoints, Ruth Padel illuminates the development of Darwin’s thought, the drama of the discovery of evolution, and the fluctuating emotions of Darwin the...

City of Strangers is a stunning debut by a gifted young writer, an unforgettable exploration of how we live now, of the city’s latent violence, of masculinity, and of the chance encounters upon which ...