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Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre survives an unhappy childhood at the grim Lowood School. Despite Jane’s deprived background, her intelligence and courage earn her a position as a governess at the imposing home of Mr Rochester. Overcoming her sense that all at Thornfield Hall is not as it seems, Jane finds herself becoming fond of her new life. But she finds it increasingly hard to maintain her composure. As her cautious friendship with her often moody master deepens, Jane opens herself up to the possibility of happiness at last. But Thornfield Hall conceals secrets that are conspiring against their happiness.

Bleak House in half the time

Esther Summerson finds herself caught up in the frustrations of a seemingly unending law-case involving her generous guardian Mr Jarndyce and her wards Ada and Richard.Brought into contact with poverty and disease, Esther suffers a serious illness.

Meanwhile the unscrupulous lawyer Tulkinghorn seeks to expose the past of the wife of a rich aristocrat, and the secret of Esther’s birth is revealed. But in the midst of tumultuous events, will she ever find love?

Nineteen year old Dorothea Brooke is determined to lead a worthwhile life and to help others. When she meets the middle-aged scholar, Mr Casaubon, she believes marriage to him will provide her with the useful role for which she longs. Meanwhile in Middlemarch Dr Lydgate, bent on medical reform, is distracted into romance with the alluring but superficial Rosamond Vincy.

Both Dorothea and Lydgate, disillusioned with their marriages, find their idealism frustrated: and for Dorothea, her husband’s enigmatic but fascinating nephew, Will, is an added complication.

Moby Dick in half the time

Moby Dick is the tale of one man’s fatal obsession and his willingness to sacrifice his life and that of his crew to achieve his goal. The story follows the fortunes of Captain Ahab and the eccentric crew of a whaling ship, The Pequod. The ship is on its last voyage in pursuit of Moby Dick – the great white whale which wounded Ahab in the past is his quarry now. The battle with the elements, the sea, the dangerous confrontations of the whale hunts are embodied in the thrilling narration of the survivor Ishmael.

The Mill on the Floss in half the time

Maggie Tulliver’s quick imagination is stifled by the claustrophobic constraints of family life in a provincial town. Her parents suppress her natural intelligence and instead focus their hopes and ambitions on her brother Tom. Disapproved of by all her relatives, Maggie yearns to be loved and admired as unconditionally as she loves and admires her morally unbending brother.

But when Maggie does find love it compromises her irretrievably, and she has to face the bleak consequences of not conforming …

Compact editions – David Copperfield in half the time.

David Copperfield’s happy childhood is abruptly ended by his mother’s remarriage to Mr Murdstone. After enduring the misery of Salem House Academy and a life of drudgery in his step father’s business, he runs away to his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood, in Dover, and transforms his life a second time – finding friendship with the ever optimistic Mr Micawber and falling in love with the adorable but spoilt Dora. But David has to face tragedy, and outface the scheming Uriah Heep before he finds ultimate happiness.

Vanity Fair in half the time

Becky Sharp is the most alluring yet ruthless heroine ever to climb the social ladder. From sordid bohemian beginnings she moves upwards through Regency society, betraying her husband, her friend Amelia and all who cross her in her determination to acquire power.

In post-war London after Waterloo, Becky continues her manipulative schemes but finds herself thwarted by personal and social forces.

Anna Karenina in half the time

Anna Karenina is the heart-wrenching tale of a woman who recklessly throws away everything she has for a passionate affair with a young soldier. Beautiful, popular, wife to a wealthy man and mother to an adored son, Anna seems to be in an enviable position.

However, it takes only one encounter with Count Vronsky to fill her with the sense that her life has hitherto been empty. As the rest of the world fades into insignificance next to her great love, Anna faces an impossible choice¿

A masterly narrative survey of three centuries, from Alexander’s conquest and empire to the triumph of Rome.

The book begins with the personality and achievements of Alexander the Great, and continues with the military and political violence of the successor-kingdoms that fought over his inheritance.

This era saw many important developments: a shift from the oral to the written; a move from the public to the private and a new individualist ethos; a huge growth in slavery, and therefore a glut of slave-labour which destroyed the incentive to innovate; a growing gap between rich and poor; a growing taste for luxury.

WEDLOCK is the remarkable story of the Countess of Strathmore and her marriage to Andrew Robinson Stoney. Mary Eleanor Bowes was one of Britain’s richest young heiresses. She married the Count of Strathmore who died young, and pregnant with her lover’s child, Mary became engaged to George Gray. Then in swooped Andrew Robinson Stoney. Mary was bowled over and married him within the week.

But nothing was as it seemed. Stoney was broke, and his pursuit of the wealthy Countess a calculated ploy. Once married to Mary, he embarked on years of ill treatment, seizing her lands, beating her, terrorising servants, introducing prostitutes to the family home, kidnapping his own sister. But finally after many years, a servant helped Mary to escape. She began a high-profile divorce case that was the scandal of the day and was successful. But then Andrew kidnapped her and undertook a week-long rampage of terror and cruelty until the law finally caught up with him.

WEDLOCK is the remarkable story of the Countess of Strathmore and her marriage to Andrew Robinson Stoney. Mary Eleanor Bowes was one of Britain’s richest young heiresses. She married the Count of Strathmore who died young, and pregnant with her lover’s child, Mary became engaged to George Gray. Then in swooped Andrew Robinson Stoney. Mary was bowled over and married him within the week.

But nothing was as it seemed. Stoney was broke, and his pursuit of the wealthy Countess a calculated ploy. Once married to Mary, he embarked on years of ill treatment, seizing her lands, beating her, terrorising servants, introducing prostitutes to the family home, kidnapping his own sister. But finally after many years, a servant helped Mary to escape. She began a high-profile divorce case that was the scandal of the day and was successful. But then Andrew kidnapped her and undertook a week-long rampage of terror and cruelty until the law finally caught up with him.

Earth is in crisis, virtually destroyed by overpopulation, and mankind is teethering on the edge. ISTO – the Interstellar Trade Organization – had demanded man’s extinction, for a living planet is more important than any race upon it, and was about to start ‘reducing’ mankind when Earthgov agreed its demands, to sell 90 per cent of Earth’s inhabitants into bondage to alien races.

When Margaret is six, she imagines herself as a spy, a healer, a queen, a warrior, even a boy, to amuse herself; when she is nine, and 12, and 20, at crisis points in her life, she feels like parts of her have split off – like the Margaret who decided to follow her lover to Tercis and the Margaret who said no.

So now, as well as Margaret, she is Wilvia, learning to be a queen on B’yurngrad, and Ongamar, a spy on Cantardene, and Gretamara, a healer on Chottem, and even Naumi, a boy on Thairy, and she is many other Margarets besides.

And all these Margarets hold the key to mankind’s survival, if only they can survive and come together again as one Margaret, with all their different powers intact …

The story of the most famous revolt of the ancient world, and its legendary leader, Spartacus the Gladiator.

Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who started a prison breakout with 74 men, armed with kitchen knives. It grew into a full scale rebellion against Rome, the most famous slave revolt in history. With an army of gladiators, ex-slaves and other desperadoes, he managed to defeat a succession of Roman armies and bring the Republic to its knees.

The story of the most famous revolt of the ancient world, and its legendary leader, Spartacus the Gladiator.

Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who started a prison breakout with 74 men, armed with kitchen knives. It grew into a full scale rebellion against Rome, the most famous slave revolt in history. With an army of gladiators, ex-slaves and other desperadoes, he managed to defeat a succession of Roman armies and bring the Republic to its knees.

Abbot Christopher Jamison from hit TV series THE MONASTERY, turns his attention to the eternal questions of how to be happy, and why we believe it is so important.

Why is ‘being happy’ such an imperative nowadays? What meaning do people give happiness?

In this book Abbot Christopher turns to monastic wisdom to offer answers, and to explain that in essence, happiness is a gift, not an achievement, the fruit of giving and receiving blessings.

Following the same accessible and engaging format of FINDING SANCTUARY, Abbot Christopher takes different aspects of happiness, examines them, tells us what monastic wisdom has to say about them, and offers us steps towards our own journey to finding happiness.

Abbot Christopher Jamison from hit TV series THE MONASTERY, turns his attention to the eternal questions of how to be happy, and why we believe it is so important.

Why is ‘being happy’ such an imperative nowadays? What meaning do people give happiness?

In this book Abbot Christopher turns to monastic wisdom to offer answers, and to explain that in essence, happiness is a gift, not an achievement, the fruit of giving and receiving blessings.

Following the same accessible and engaging format of FINDING SANCTUARY, Abbot Christopher takes different aspects of happiness, examines them, tells us what monastic wisdom has to say about them, and offers us steps towards our own journey to finding happiness.

‘The most sensational book on the Royal Family in recent times’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Offers a fascinating insight into not just his life but the social mores of the day’ Evening Standard

How did a photographer who was a relentless playboy, an unashamed womaniser and a leather-clad motorcyclist marry the Queen’s sister and become the Establishment figure Lord Snowdon? The brilliantly talented Antony Armstrong-Jones often humiliated Princess Margaret, yet he was compassionate to the causes he cared about. Since his death in 2017, Snowdon still hasn’t escaped the limelight, as more and more is revealed about his wild and intriguing life.

Written with exclusive access to Snowdon and the people closest to him, this book uncovers the real man and his times. Addressing the facts behind the myths – the secret courtship of Margaret, the love child born just weeks after the royal marriage, the affairs on both sides, the suicide of one mistress and the birth of an illegitimate son to another – this balanced yet no-holds-barred account of Snowdon’s life is essential reading for fans of The Crown and Ma’am Darling.

‘The most sensational book on the Royal Family in recent times’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Offers a fascinating insight into not just his life but the social mores of the day’ Evening Standard

How did a photographer who was a relentless playboy, an unashamed womaniser and a leather-clad motorcyclist marry the Queen’s sister and become the Establishment figure Lord Snowdon? The brilliantly talented Antony Armstrong-Jones often humiliated Princess Margaret, yet he was compassionate to the causes he cared about. Since his death in 2017, Snowdon still hasn’t escaped the limelight, as more and more is revealed about his wild and intriguing life.

Written with exclusive access to Snowdon and the people closest to him, this book uncovers the real man and his times. Addressing the facts behind the myths – the secret courtship of Margaret, the love child born just weeks after the royal marriage, the affairs on both sides, the suicide of one mistress and the birth of an illegitimate son to another – this balanced yet no-holds-barred account of Snowdon’s life is essential reading for fans of The Crown and Ma’am Darling.

The epic story of Jerusalem told through the lives of the men and women who created, ruled and inhabited it.

Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations. From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence.

How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the ‘centre of the world’ and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a gripping narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem’s biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women – kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores – who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem.

Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that many believe will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice – in heaven and on earth.

A new, updated, revised edition of JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY, the wider history of the Middle East through the lens of the Holy City, from King David to today.

The story of Jerusalem is the story of the world.

Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilisations. How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the ‘centre of the world’ and now the key to peace in the Middle East? Drawing on new archives and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem.

A classic of modern literature, this is not only the epic story of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and co-existence, but also a freshly-updated history of the entire Middle East, from King David to the twenty-first century, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the wars of today. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem – the only city that exists twice – in heaven and on earth.

Genuinely new story of the Second World War – the full account of England’s last war against France in 1940-42.

Most people think that England’s last war with France involved point-blank broadsides from sailing ships and breastplated Napoleonic cavalry charging red-coated British infantry. But there was a much more recent conflict than this. Under the terms of its armistice with Nazi Germany, the unoccupied part of France and its substantial colonies were ruled from the spa town of Vichy by the government of Marshal Philip Petain. Between July 1940 and November 1942, while Britain was at war with Germany, Italy and ultimately Japan, it also fought land, sea and air battles with the considerable forces at the disposal of Petain’s Vichy French.

When the Royal Navy sank the French Fleet at Mers El-Kebir almost 1,300 French sailors died in what was the twentieth century’s most one-sided sea battle. British casualties were nil. It is a wound that has still not healed, for undoubtedly these events are better remembered in France than in Britain. An embarrassment at the time, France’s maritime massacre and the bitter, hard-fought campaigns that followed rarely make more than footnotes in accounts of Allied operations against Axis forces. Until now.

Genuinely new story of the Second World War – the full account of England’s last war against France in 1940-42.

Most people think that England’s last war with France involved point-blank broadsides from sailing ships and breastplated Napoleonic cavalry charging red-coated British infantry. But there was a much more recent conflict than this. Under the terms of its armistice with Nazi Germany, the unoccupied part of France and its substantial colonies were ruled from the spa town of Vichy by the government of Marshal Philip Petain. Between July 1940 and November 1942, while Britain was at war with Germany, Italy and ultimately Japan, it also fought land, sea and air battles with the considerable forces at the disposal of Petain’s Vichy French.

When the Royal Navy sank the French Fleet at Mers El-Kebir almost 1,300 French sailors died in what was the twentieth century’s most one-sided sea battle. British casualties were nil. It is a wound that has still not healed, for undoubtedly these events are better remembered in France than in Britain. An embarrassment at the time, France’s maritime massacre and the bitter, hard-fought campaigns that followed rarely make more than footnotes in accounts of Allied operations against Axis forces. Until now.

A shocking insight into the brutalities faced by ordinary soldiers and the atrocities committed in the name of survival.

Dispassionately we stared at the bloody scene. It had become an everyday sight.

The 27th Penal Regiment care nothing for Hitler’s war. They fight only to stay alive. But then they uncover the Soviet Army’s biggest secret. A Russian commissar has hidden 30 million dollars of gold somewhere behind enemy lines.

In a madcap scheme, Porta brokers a deal with the commissar: free passage for the Russians in return for a share of the gold. To find it, Sven and his comrades must be prepared to lie, steal and go behind the lines of the deadly Russian army…

The Russian uses his machine pistol like a scythe. Feldwebel remains standing for a fraction of a second. The rain of bullets pours into him, making him twitch violently. He falls to the floor. The Russian grins. There is no doubt that he is enjoying himself.

Sven Hassel and his comrades are ordered to take O.G.P.U. Prison in any way they can, even if it means killing the Russians with their bare hands.

Armed with flame-throwers and heavy artillery, the 27th Penal Regiment plan their attack.

O.G.P.U. PRISON is one of Sven Hassel’s most compulsively readable novels, full of battle scenes, written in the gritty style that Hassel is renowned for.