Adrian Tinniswood

An intimate and entertaining look at the private lives of monarchs from Elizabeth I to the current occupants of Buckingham Palace, uncovering five centuries of life at the English court. Exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads we follow the power struggles and petty rivalries, the tension between duty and desire; the practicalities of cooking dinner for thousands, or ensuring the king always won when he played a game of tennis.

The Great Fire of London is a key moment in English history. Adrian Tinniswood looked at the fire and its consequences, and has produced a highly readable re-creation of what happened to the people when the streets of London ran with fire.

Although he was the greatest architect britain has ever known, Sir Christopher Wren was much more than that. A founder member of the Royal Society, with his interest in scientific thought he made a vital contribution to the work of Halley, Newton and Boyle. This book explores the great man, and the times he lived in.

As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising taxes and a growing sense that they had no place in twentieth-century Britain, hundreds of ancestral piles were dismantled and demolished. Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that so many of these great houses survived, as dukes and duchesses clung desperately to their ancestral seats and tenants' balls gave way to rock concerts, safari parks and day trippers.

From the Rolling Stones rocking Longleat to Christine Keeler rocking Cliveden, Noble Ambitions takes us on a lively tour of these crumbling halls of power, as a rakish, raffish, aristocratic Swinging London collided with traditional rural values. Capturing the spirit of the age, Adrian Tinniswood proves that the country house is not only an iconic symbol, but a lens through which to understand the shifting fortunes of Britain in an era of monumental social change.

This provides a fascinating record of the European renegades and Islamic pirates who roamed the Mediterranean and beyond throughout the seventeenth century.