Jonathan Keeble

1815 was the year of Waterloo, the British victory that ended Napoleon's European ambitions and ushered in a century largely of peace for Britain. But what sort of country were Wellington's troops fighting for? Overseas, the bounds of Empire were expanding; while at home the population endured the chill of economic recession.

Aled Jones found fame as the young chorister who sang the title track for the Christmas favourite 'The Snowman'. After his voice broke he had to carve out a new career, which he has done with great success, and is now a popular presenter on Songs of Praise, Classic FM and BBC Radio 2.

The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the tenth longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Haunted by the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on earth. 

In his eightieth year, Colin Thubron takes a dramatic journey from the Amur's secret source to its giant mouth, covering almost 3,000 miles. Harassed by injury and by arrest from the local police, he makes his way along both the Russian and Chinese shores, starting out by Mongolian horse, then hitchhiking, sailing on poacher's sloops or travelling the Trans-Siberian Express. 

Having revived his Russian and Mandarin, he talks to everyone he meets, from Chinese traders to Russian fishermen, from monks to indigenous peoples. By the time he reaches the river's desolate end, where Russia's nineteenth-century imperial dream petered out, a whole, pivotal world has come alive.

A new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Glass Room and The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. Ancestry contains stories that are gripping and heart-breaking, from the squalor and vitality of Dickensian London to the excitement of seafaring in the last days of sail and the horror of the trenches of the Crimea.

The philosophy of Aristotle dominated Western thought for over a thousand years. Above all, Aristotle is credited with the founding of logic. He divided human knowledge into separate categories, and enabled our understanding of the world to develop in a systematic fashion.

In nineteenth-century Istanbul, a Polish prince has been kidnapped, but little do the kidnappers realise that their revolutionary cell has been penetrated by their enemies. As Yashim, the Ottoman detective, draws closer to the prince's whereabouts, he finds himself in the most treacherous situation of his career.

When an ageing rock band visit an old country house in an attempt to inspire some new material, they awaken more than their creativity in the woods surrounding the mansion. Their agent Troy is insistent that fame is within their grasp. But is the price of success too high?

Salonika in 1916, one of the jewels in the Ottoman crown, is now suddenly Greek. In a city seething with intrigue, cafe society continues unperturbed. The native inhabitants make from the soldiers what money they can, trading their traditional chivalry towards the enemy against the need to survive.

Britannia, AD 51. For nearly a decade, the Roman Empire has fought to assert its hold over Britannia. But relentless opposition from native tribes led by the fanatical King Caratacus threatens to destroy everything.

Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro are dispatched from Rome to aid the campaign. Placed in command of an outpost in the remote western mountains, they face a challenge even more deadly than the unremitting attacks of barbarian forces. For they must wrench control of the fort from Centurion Quertus, a man who wages a savage personal war and inspires a loyalty in his men above their bond with Rome.

With dangerous enemies on both sides, Cato and Macro face the fight of their lives to bring peace to the most perilous frontier in Europe. 

It is AD 55. As trouble brews on the eastern fringes of the Roman Empire, Tribune Cato and Centurion Macro must prepare for war…

The wily Parthian Empire has invaded Armenia, a frontier territory claimed by Rome, ousting King Rhadamistus. The king is ambitious and ruthless, but he is vital to Rome's strategic interests. General Corbulo must restore him to power, while also readying the troops for war with the powerful Parthian Empire. Corbulo orders new arrivals Cato and Macro, and their elite cohort of Praetorian Guards, to carry out the task.

Marching into unmapped and unfamiliar terrain to restore an unpopular king is a perilous mission. Allies cannot be trusted and foes lurk on all sides. The bravery and skill of the Roman army will be tested to the limit.

Lieutenant John Pearce's companions arrive in London just in time to join him in fetching a ship laden with contraband back from France - an illegal act but very profitable. Are Pearce and his Pelicans sailing into prosperity or danger? Book 7 of series.

From the earliest forays of peoples in hand-hewn canoes through uncharted waters to the routes now taken daily by supertankers in their thousands, maritime networks form a continuum of interaction and interconnection across the globe: 90 per cent of global trade is still conducted by sea. This is history of the grandest scale and scope, and from a bracingly different perspective - not, as in most global histories, from the land but from the boundless seas.

Who were the three men the Soviet and American superpowers exchanged on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge on February 10, 1962? They had been drawn into the Cold War by duty and curiosity, rescued against daunting odds by fate and by their families, and then all but forgotten. This is the true story of those men.

Roman Britain, AD 52. The western tribes, inspired by the Druids' hatred of the Romans, prepare to make a stand. But can they match the discipline and courage of the legionaries?

Wounded during a skirmish, Centurion Macro remains behind in charge of the fort as Prefect Cato leads an invasion deep into the hills. Cato's mission: to cement Rome's triumph over the natives by crushing the Druid stronghold. But with winter drawing in, the terrain is barely passable through icy rain and snowstorms.

When Macro's patrols report that the natives in the vicinity of the garrison are thinning out, a terrible suspicion takes shape in the battle-scarred soldier's mind. Has the acting Governor, Legate Quintatus, underestimated the enemy, his military judgement undermined by ambition? If there is a sophisticated and deadly plan afoot, it's Cato and his men who will pay the price.

The Roman Empire's conquest of Britannia is under threat from within.

A messenger on the streets of Rome has been intercepted and tortured, revealing a plot to sabotage the Roman army's campaign against Caratacus, commander of Britannia's native tribes. A treacherous agent's mission is to open a second front of attack against them and eliminate the two Roman soldiers who could stand in the way.

Unwarned, Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro are with the Roman army pursuing Caratacus and his men through the mountains of Britannia. Defeating Caratacus seems within their grasp. But the plot against the two heroes threatens not only their military goals but also their lives.

Scotland Yard Superintendent Perry Trethowan is enjoying an evening at a cosy Yorkshire pub when an old woman shows him an original, unpublished Brontë manuscript. Trethowan agrees to engage in a little literary detective work, but he doesn’t realise that the manuscript is motive for theft, torture – and murder.

In the first century AD the Roman Empire faces a new threat from its long-standing enemy Parthia. Parthia is vying with Rome for control of Palmyra, an officially neutral kingdom. Palmyra's royal household is on the brink of open revolt, and so a task force under the command of experienced soldiers Macro and Cato is dispatched to defend its king and guard its borders. When Parthia hears of the Roman army's presence, it starts amassing its troops for war. Macro's cohort must march against the enemy, deep into treacherous territory. If Palmyra is not to fall into the clutches of Parthia, they will have to defeat superior numbers in a desperate siege. The quest for a lasting peace has never been more challenging, nor more critical for the future of the Empire. 

A critical but fair political biography of Churchill that zooms in on crucial moments in his life and career that help us understand the man in his many contradictions. 

While in A.J.P. Taylor's words, Churchill was 'the saviour of his country', he was also a deeply flawed character, whose personal ambition would cloud his political judgement - and as a result he was often plain wrong. But the book's central argument goes beyond biography: argues that Churchill has cast a dark shadow over post-war British history and contemporary politics - from the 'Churchillian stance' of Tony Blair taking the country to war in Iraq to the delusion of a special relationship with the United States to the fateful belief in British exceptionalism: that the nation can once again stand alone in Europe. Wheatcroft takes a radically different approach to other hagiographies of Chruchill.

This is a biography that doesn't just tell the story of his life but the equally fascinating one of his legacy, focusing on how Churchill was viewed by contemporaries and those who came after.

AD 55. The Emperor Claudius is dead. Nero rules. His half-brother Britannicus has also laid claim to the throne. A bloody power struggle is underway.

All Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro want is a simple army life, fighting with their brave and loyal men. But Cato has caught the eye of rival factions determined to get him on their side. To survive, Cato must play a cunning game, and enlist the help of the one man in the Empire he can trust: Macro.

As the rebel force grows, legionaries and Praetorian Guards are moved like chess pieces by powerful and shadowy figures. A political game has created the ultimate military challenge. Can civil war be averted? The future of the empire is in Cato's hands.

It is AD 60. The hard-won province of Britannia is a thorn in the side of the Roman Empire, its tribes swift to anger, and relentless in their bloody harassment of the Roman military. Far from being a peaceful northern enclave, Britannia is a seething mass of bitter rebels and unlikely alliances against the common enemy. Corruption amongst greedy officials diverts resources from the locals who need them. For the military, it's a never-ending fight to maintain a fragile peace.  Now it's time to quell the most dangerous enemy tribes. Two of Rome's finest commanders - Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro - are charged with a mission as deadly as any they have faced in their long careers. Can they win the day, or could this be the last battle? 

For more than two hundred years, disturbances of reason, cognition and emotion - the sort of things that were once called 'madness' - have been described and treated by the medical profession. Mental illness, it is said, is an illness like any other - a disorder that can treated by doctors, whose suffering can be eased, and from which patients can return. And yet serious mental illness remains a profound mystery that is in some ways no closer to being solved than it was at the start of the twentieth century.

In this clear-sighted and provocative exploration of psychiatry, acclaimed sociologist Andrew Scull traces the history of its attempts to understand and mitigate mental illness: from the age of the asylum and unimaginable surgical and chemical interventions, through the rise and fall of Freud and the talking cure, and on to our own time of drug companies and antidepressants. Through it all, Scull argues, the often vain and rash attempts to come to terms with the enigma of mental disorder have frequently resulted in dire consequences for the patient.

Deeply researched and lucidly conveyed, Desperate Remedies masterfully illustrates the assumptions and theory behind the therapy, providing a definitive new account of psychiatry's and society's battle with mental illness.

Martin Clunes, one of Britain's favourite actors and the star of Doc Martin, writes touchingly about his life growing up with dogs and his search to discover their true nature.

In 1940, at the French port of Dunkirk, more than 300,000 trapped Allied troops were heroically rescued from destruction at the hands of Nazi Germany by an extraordinary seaborne evacuation. This is a dramatic account of a defeat that paved the way to ultimate victory and preserved liberty for generations to come.

It's AD 44. Macro and newly appointed centurion Cato are ordered to provide Verica, ruler of the Atrebatans, with an army. But despite the Atrebatans' official allegiance to Rome, open revolt is brewing, for many want to resist the Roman invaders. Macro and Cato must win the loyalty of the disgruntled levies, and they face the greatest test of their army careers as only they stand between the destiny of Rome and bloody defeat.

Britannia, AD 44. The time has come to claim Britain for the Empire. Centurions Cato and Macro are preparing for the final battle. The British savages will surely stand no chance against the might of the unstoppable Roman army. But veteran Macro is having doubts about the promised ease of their success. Will they be victorious - or will the battle cost more than they could ever imagine?  Book 5 of series.

Tribune Cato and Centurion Macro, hardened veterans of the Roman army, have faced the Empire's enemies from Britannia to Parthia, from Hispania to Judea. Now once again they are on a mission that will imperil their lives and those of all who serve with them. Loyal to the last to their comrades in battle, fearless in the face of the most brutal or barbaric opponents, they are the finest men the Emperor can call on in the service of Rome. 

The Enlightenment is one of the formative periods of Western history, yet more than 300 years after it began, it remains controversial. It is often seen as the fountainhead of modern values such as human rights, religious toleration, freedom of thought, scientific thought as an exemplary form of reasoning, and rationality and evidence-based argument. Others accuse the Enlightenment of putting forward a scientific rationality which ignores the complexity and variety of human beings, propagates shallow atheism, and aims to subjugate nature to so-called technical progress.

Ritchie Robertson engages with all these views to show that the Enlightenment sought above all to increase human happiness in this world by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument and by challenging the authority traditionally assumed by the Churches. His book presents illuminating readings of many key Enlightenment texts, and overturns many received opinions.

Behind our democracy lurks a powerful network of people who wield massive power and reap huge profits in the process. Exposing the revolving doors that link these worlds, Jones shows how the people at the top represent the biggest threat to our democracy today - and it is time they were challenged.

1809. Viscount Wellington and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte have made their mark as military commanders. Lifelong enemies, they both believe their armies are strong enough to destroy any rival. But in war victory can never be certain. With Napoleon's power waning, the newly titled Duke of Wellington is perfectly placed to crush the tyrant. But his enemy refuses to surrender, and so the two giants must face a final reckoning on the bloody battlefield of Waterloo.

1804. After defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar, Napoleon Bonaparte wins victory against Austria at Austerlitz. But he is yet to triumph over his most hated enemy: Great Britain. Arthur Wellesley throws himself into the British campaign in Europe, in a series of triumphant battles in Portugal and Spain. His victories suggest that Napoleon's progress is not inexorable: freedom can be restored.

AD 48. Roman Centurions Cato and Macro are returning to Rome from a harrowing campaign, but are shipwrecked when an earthquake strikes the island of Crete. Struggling ashore they discover panic, devastation and a slave revolt. Led by a gladiator called Ajax, the slaves are driven by a bloodthirsty desire for revenge. Taking control of the local garrison, Cato and Macro must save the province, before the rebellion can threaten the Empire itself.

For over three thousand years, the Mediterranean Sea has been one of the great centres of civilization. David Abulafia's The Great Sea is the first complete history of the Mediterranean, from the erection of temples on Malta around 3500 BC to modern tourism. Ranging across time and the whole extraordinary space of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Jaffa, Genoa to Tunis, and bringing to life pilgrims, pirates, sultans and naval commanders, this is the story of the sea that has shaped much of world history.

Gordon Grimwood, a suspected murderer, leads a bunch of cops into a network of derelict air-raid shelters to find a missing child – where a hideous evil awaits them!

1938. A perfect summer on the Greek island of Lefkas for three young people untroubled by the simmering politics of Europe. Peter, visiting from Germany while his father leads an archaeological dig, has become close friends with locals Andreas and Eleni. As the world slides towards conflict and Peter is forced to leave, they swear to meet again.

1943. Andreas and Eleni have joined the partisan forces resisting the German invasion. Peter has returned - now a dangerously well-informed enemy intelligence officer. A friendship formed in peace will turn into a desperate battle between enemies sworn to sacrifice everything for the countries that they love...

Rob and Karen are enjoying a relaxing and idyllic holiday by the beach of Sicily. When offered a daytrip to visit ‘the Cathedral’- an impressive cave system accessible only by sea- they happily accept. However, in the depths of the caverns, they see far more than stalactites and mineral formations. For in this cave lurks a beast that legends are made of…

Bertrand Russell's ambitious project serves as the perfect introduction to its subject; it remains unchallenged as the greatest account of the history of Western thought. Charting philosophy's course from the pre-Socratics up to the early twentieth century, Russell relates each philosopher and school to their respective historical and cultural contexts, providing erudite commentary throughout his invaluable survey.