Bloomsbury Operation Chiffon. The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland Taylor Peter

In the darkest months of the Second World War, Churchill approved what seemed to many like a suicide mission. Under orders to attack the St Nazaire U-boat base on the Atlantic seaboard, British commandos undertook "the greatest raid of all", turning an old destroyer into a live bomb and using it to ram the gates of a Nazi stronghold. Five Victoria Crosses were awarded -- more than in any similar operation • Drawing on official documents, interviews, unknown accounts and the astonished reactions of French civilians and German forces, The Greatest Raid recreates in cinematic detail the hours in which the "Charioteers" fought and died, from Lt Gerard Brett, the curator at the V & A, to "Bertie" Burtinshaw, who went into battle humming There'll Always be an England, and from Lt Stuart Chant, who set the fuses with 90 seconds to escape, to the epic solo reconnaissance of the legendary Times journalist Capt Micky Burn

In September 1941, a young American woman strides up the steps of a hotel in Lyon, Vichy France. Her papers say she is a journalist. Her wooden leg is disguised by a determined gait and a distracting beauty. She is there to spark the resistance • By 1942 Virginia Hall was the Gestapo's most urgent target, having infiltrated Vichy command, trained civilians in guerrilla warfare and sprung soldiers from Nazi prison camps. The first woman to go undercover for British SOE, her intelligence changed the course of the war - but her fight was still not over • This is a spy history like no other, telling the story of the hunting accident that disabled her, the discrimination she fought and the secret life that helped her triumph over shocking adversity

The extraordinary story of the UK’s most gruelling and spectacularly beautiful islands. Tom Steel’s acclaimed portrait of the St Kildan’s lives is now updated in this reissued edition • Situated at the westernmost point of the United Kingdom, the spectacularly beautiful but utterly bleak island of St Kilda is familiar to virtually nobody. A lonely archipelago off the coast of Scotland, it is hard to believe that for over two thousand years, men and women lived here, cut off from the rest of the world • With a population never exceeding two hundred in its history, the St Kildans were fiercely self-sufficient. An intensely religious people, they climbed cliffs from childhood and caught birds for food. Their sense of community was unparalleled and isolation enveloped their day-to-day existence

This is the secret history of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Wonderland is part of our cultural heritage. But beneath the fairy tale lies the complex history of the author and his subject. Charles Dodgson was a quiet academic but his second self, Lewis Carroll, was a storyteller, innovator and avid collector of "child-friends". Carroll's imagination was to give Alice Liddell, his "dream-child", a fictional alter ego that would never let her grow up • This is a biography that beautifully unravels the magic of Alice. It is a history of love and loss, innocence and ambiguity. It is the story of one man's need to make a Wonderland in a changing world

On 8 December 1854, Emmanuel Barthelemy visited 73 Warren Street in the heart of radical London for the very last time. Within half an hour, two men were dead • The newspapers of Victorian England were soon in a frenzy. Who was this foreigner come to British shores to slay two upstanding subjects? But Barthelemy was no ordinary criminal • Marc Mulholland reveals the true story of one of nineteenth-century London's most notorious murderers and revolutionaries. Following in Barthelemy’s footsteps, he leads us from the barricades of the French capital to the English fireside of Karl Marx, and the dangling noose of London's Newgate prison, shining a light into a dark underworld of conspiracy, rebellion and fatal idealism • The Murderer of Warren Street is a thrilling portrait of a troubled man in troubled times - full of resonance for our own terrorised age

The Gypsy Code is a true story of secret identity, revenge and forbidden love that's perfect for fans of Running with the Firm, Undercover and Soldier Spy • Mike Woodhouse had everything: an engineering business, a wine bar, a home, a Range Rover and a boat. Then he caught a group of travellers stealing from his warehouse. A car chase, petrol bombing and court case later, and everything had changed • A marked man, Mike was forced to leave everything behind and move to the Peak District for a fresh start. But his old life was never far behind and when he fell for Rhoda, a Romany Gypsy, kin to the very people he was hiding from, he knew he wouldn't be safe for much longer

Two rival spies. One fake marriage. What could possibly go wrong • When rumours of an assassination plot against the Queen begin to circulate, Alice is immediately assigned to the case • However, she won't be working alone • Enter Daniel Bixby. Unflappable master spy and Alice's greatest rival • Together they must assume the identity of husband and wife in order to gain access to the traitor party • Alice is determined to remain professional. This is work after all • But when an attraction starts to grow there may be more at stake than just the throne

Bestselling author and co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Andrew McAfee says there's a new reason for optimism: we're past the point of "peak stuff" - from here on out, it'll take fewer resources to make things, and cost less to lead a comfortable life • This turn of events invalidates the predictions of overpopulation alarmists and those who argue we need to drastically reduce our conception of how much is enough. What has made this turnabout possible? One thing primarily: the collaboration between technology and capitalism • Capitalism's quest for higher profits is a quest for lower costs; materials and resources are expensive, and technological progress allows companies to use fewer of them even as they grow their markets

Soap Saves Lives. But did you know that excessive use of soap and skin-care products is harming our health and the environment? Apart from in hand-washing there is no need to use soap on our bodies at all? • Doctor and preventative medicine expert James Hamblin gave up showering five years ago and only ever uses soap on his hands. In Clean, he takes us on an irreverent and entertaining journey through our complex relationship with our bodies and cleanliness. Drawing on the latest science, he introduces a new way to think about cleanliness - one that is cheaper, simpler and better for our skin, our immunity and the world in which we live

Отредактированная и представленная Биллом Брайсоном, при участии Ричарда Докинза, Маргарет Этвуд, Ричарда Холмса, Мартина Риса, Ричарда Форти, Стива Джонса, Джеймса Глейка и Нила Стивенсона, среди прочих, эта прекрасная, богато иллюстрированная книга рассказывает историю науки и Королевского общества с 1660 года по настоящее время • С момента своего основания в 1660 году Королевское общество было пионером в области научных открытий и исследований. Старейшая из существующих научных академий, ее основой является Братство самых выдающихся ученых в истории, включая Чарльза Дарвина, Исаака Ньютона и Альберта Эйнштейна. Сегодня его стипендиатами являются самые влиятельные мужчины и женщины в науке, многие из которых внесли свой вклад в создание этого новаторского тома наряду с некоторыми из самых знаменитых в мире романистов, эссеистов и историков