Telling the romantic story of Paris through seven ages of turmoil and change, this book covers the Middle Ages, the 100 years war, the Paris of Louis XIV, the age of Napoleon, the Commune, the Empire days of Louis-Napoleon and Eugenie, and the First World War and De Gaulle. It also includes the social and cultural history.

The biography of a mathematical genius. Paul Erdos was the most prolific pure mathematician in history and, arguably, the strangest too.

A revealing - amusing and sad - biography of a unique family

Robert Hughes first encountered Goya's work while a student in Australia. Looking at his etchings for the first time, he wondered what made it possible for an eighteenth-century Spanish artist to convey the essence of despair, loneliness, anxiety and loss to an adolescent two centuries and half a world away.

Describes London from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs. This title includes chapters on the history of silence and the history of light, the history of childhood and the history of suicide, the history of Cockney speech and the history of drink.

A group of American expats en route to adventure, inspiration, or perhaps even history in the making in exotic Prague, somehow get sidetracked and settle instead for the enigmatic and enlightening city of Budapest. With humour, the author captures the character of his contemporaries and renders the Hungary of the past.

Advice on every imaginable aspect of domestic management for the modern home in one 900-page volume.

England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the inter-war years, WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to ...

Mary Karr grew up in East Texas refinery town in a volatile and defiantly loving family. This memoir looks back at life with a painter mother, seven times married, whose outlaw spirit could tip over into psychosis, and a heavy-drinking, fist-swinging father who liked nothing better than to spin tales with his cronies at the Liars' Club.

'I hereby bet Tony Hawks the sum of One Hundred Pounds that he cannot hitchhike round the circumference of Ireland, with a fridge, within one calendar month.' A foolhardy attempt to win a drunken bet led to Tony Hawks having one of the most unforgettable experiences of his life. This work follows the fearless pair as they battle towards Dublin.

The story of orchid thief and obsessive, John Laroche, and the bizarre world of the orchid fanciers of Florida. The world of the orchid hunters, breeders and showmen, their rivalries, vendettas and crimes, smuggling, thefts and worse provide the backdrop to an exploration of one of the byways of human nature, the obsessive world of the collector.

After nearly two decades in England, Bill Bryson returned to the country of his birth. Gathered here are 18 months' worth of his Mail on Sunday columns about that strange phenomena, the American way of life, in which he brings his bemused wit to bear on one of the world's craziest countries.

The first novel in the chronology of Vidal's epic CHRONICLES OF EMPIRE, embodying the passage of American history.

Written by a French-born and bred author, this book shows how to eat with balance and control. It combines memoir, wisdom, wit, delicious recipes, and French common sense.

The inspirational tale of eight women who defied the confines of life in revolutionary Iran through the joy and power of literature.

In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts of New York for the urbane glamour of Paris. In the grand tradition of Stein and Hemingway, Gopnik planned to walk the paths of the Tuilleries, to lead the fabled life of an American in Paris. This is a memoir of his five years as an American family man in Paris.

Kate and John Ryan have four children, of whom the eldest are Michael and Dara. Their small town is peaceful and friendly, an unchanging background for a golden childhood. In long, hot summers Michael and Dara and their friends fish and swim or play in the ivy-clad ruins of Fernscourt, when the great house burnt down during the Troubles...

A novel from an American writer.

Contains material about the trial of German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann.