Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman, Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. This book presents an account of the madness and debauchery of ancient Rome.

Claudius has survived the murderous intrigues of his predecessors to become, reluctantly, Emperor of Rome. This book recounts his surprisingly successful reign: how he cultivates the loyalty of the army and the common people to repair the damage caused by Caligula; his relations with the Jewish King Herod Agrippa; and his invasion of Britain.

Nicholas Barber stumbles across a group of travelling players. In the town where they perform, a young woman is to be hanged for the murder of a twelve-year-old boy. They decide to enact the murder of Thomas Wells. But as the actors rehearse, they discover that the truth about the boy's death has yet to be revealed.

A story about the entangled and conflicted fortunes of two cousins: Erasmus Kemp, the son of a Lancashire merchant, and Matthew Paris, a scholar and surgeon just released from prison for denying Holy Writ. This novel was awarded 1992 Booker prize.

This is Barry Unsworth's travel memoir of his time spent in Crete - largest of the Greek isles, mythical birthplace of Zeus and home to the Minoan civilization of 1500 BC, which was one of the most glittering and sophisticated cultures the world has ever seen.

In 1914, an English archaeologist called Somerville is fulfilling a lifelong dream: to direct an excavation in the desert of Mesopotamia. Yet forces beyond his control threaten his work. The Great War is looming, and various interest groups - Turkish, German, English and American - are vying for control over the land and its economic prizes.

In the basement of a large Victorian house in London, Charles Cleasby painstakingly re-enacts the great sea battles of his hero, Horatio Nelson. He is also writing a faithful biography of the great man, as a true English hero for an age without idols, a 'bright angel' to Charles' dark shadow.

Simon Rakes - a conservation expert - is restoring the Stone Virgin, a statue that cost the life of its creator in the 14th century. The statue's past is soaked with a history of violence, sexual passion and human greed. When Simon meets Chiara, the beautiful wife of another sculptor, the past spills uncontrollably into the present.

In 1914, as the Great War looms, a disparate cast of characters is thrown together in the desert of Mesopotamia. English, Ottoman and German interest groups - soldiers, spies, engineers - find their priorities clashing as they use the land for their own self-interest in the pursuit of mineral wealth, trade routes, and the fading power of the Ottoman empire. Germans are securing trade routes with .

The Court of King Roger in Twelfth century Sicily simmers with the volatile passions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Latins and Greeks. Among them, a Norman called Thurstan Beauchamp finds employment under Yusuf, and wishes to be made a Knight. However, in his pursuit of love and knighthood, Thurstan may also be a pawn in a far more deadly game.