I usually read novels for relaxation, not historical information, but I made an exception for Tom Crewe’s excellent debut novel.
It relates the story, based on real lives, of the married John Addington, who starts a relationship with Frank, a working-class printer. Meanwhile, Edith, his friend Henry Ellis’s wife, falls in love with Angelica. John and Henry decide to explore their unusual relationships by writing Sexual Inversion together.
Their book sets out a new, rational way of living, but the publishers are soon put on trial for obscene libel, and both John and Henry are now in danger. How high a price are they willing to pay for this new life? This debut novel is adventurous, challenging, and remarkable, and I highly recommend it.
Discover Tom Crewe's magnificent debut novel about forbidden desire and the search for freedom in Victorian England...
'Beautifully written' Graham Norton 'Subtle, sexy and beautifully crafted' Sarah Waters 'Lavishly imagined' Sunday Times ______________
After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John has finally found a man who returns his feelings. Meanwhile, Henry is convinced that his new unconventional marriage will bring freedom.
United by a shared vision, they begin work on a revolutionary book arguing for the legalisation of homosexuality.
Before it can be published however, Oscar Wilde is arrested and their daring book threatens to throw them, and all…
The history books I most enjoy are those that tell me about events of which I knew little or nothing, and want to learn more.
One such event was the fall of Smyrna (now Izmir) in western Turkey in 1922. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War I, Greek troops occupied the multicultural city of Smyrna. After three years, Turkish nationalist forces led by Kemal Ataturk forces re-entered the city, setting its buildings on fire and killing up to 100,000 of its Greek, Armenian, and other inhabitants in an act of what is now called ethnic cleansing.
Giles Milton recalls this horrific tragedy, focusing on the cosmopolitan merchants who had made their wealth there as well as on the many poor people who lost their lives or fled into exile.
On Saturday 9th September, 1922, the victorious Turkish cavalry rode into Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. What happened over the next two weeks must rank as one of the most compelling human dramas of the twentieth century. Almost two million people were caught up in a disaster of truly epic proportions.
PARADISE LOST is told with the narrative verve that has made Giles Milton a bestselling historian. It unfolds through the memories of the survivors, many of them interviewed for the first time, and the eyewitness accounts of those who found themselves caught up…
As a historian, I often have to remind myself that history is made every day and does not just exist in the past. And nowhere is that statement truer today than in Ukraine, currently fighting Russian forces who invaded their country in February 2022.
Serhii Plokhy is the leading historian of Ukraine and here explores the origins and evolution of this conflict after both countries emerged as independent states after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The war is the largest conflict in Europe since World War II, and its importance cannot be overstated, but Plokhy is a sure guide to help us understand what is happening, and why.
Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war-and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows increasingly isolated.
Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Though the current war began eight years before the all-out assault-on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament-the…
Help your child learn about the Titanic with this fact-packed guide.
From how this "virtually unsinkable" vessel ended up on the bottom of the sea to the treasures that lay undiscovered for decades, let your child discover all about how triumph turned to tragedy as the Titanic sank to its watery grave.
