"The Half-Shilling Curate", as he was affectionately known by his family, tells the very personal story of an army chaplain – The Reverend Herbert Butler Cowl – from Christmas Eve 1914 to the end of hostilities in 1919. His descriptive account, from...

John J. Pershing considered Fox Conner to have been "a brilliant soldier" and "one of the finest characters our Army has ever produced." During World War I, General Conner served as chief of operations for the American Expeditionary Force in Europe....

A. Revathi's memoir "The Truth about Me" became a sensation in India when it was published in 2011. The pathbreaking autobiography told the story of Revathi's childhood uneasiness with her male body, her exile to a house of "hijras" (the South Asian...

This strikingly original book introduces a Winston Churchill we have not known before. Award-winning author Jonathan Rose explores in tandem Churchill's careers as statesman and author, revealing the profound influence of literature and theatre on Ch...

Before Doppler radar and broadcast weather reports, Spanish-born Benito Vines (1837-1893) spent decades observing the skies at Belen Observatory in colonial Cuba, routinely issuing weather reports and forecasts to local newspapers. And before storm t...

Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in southern Ukraine, Trotsky was both a world-class intellectual and a man capable of the most narrow-minded ideological dogmatism. He was an effective military strategist and an adept diplomat, who staked the fate of th...

This landmark biography of celebrated Romantic poet John Keats explodes entrenched conceptions of him as a delicate, overly sensitive, tragic figure. Instead, Nicholas Roe reveals the real flesh-and-blood poet: a passionate man driven by ambition but...

For Anthony Rudolf, reading is a profoundly serious and intense activity, as well as a major source of pleasure and solace. At the same time, it is always interrupted by day jobs, friendships, politics and, paradoxically, by the act of writing. All o...

In this book John Radner examines the fluctuating, close, and complex friendship enjoyed by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, from the day they met in 1763 to the day when Boswell published his monumental "Life of Johnson". Drawing on everything John...

A major figure in American blues and folk music, Big Bill Broonzy (1903-1958) left his Arkansas Delta home after World War I, headed north, and became the leading Chicago bluesman of the 1930s. His success came as he fused traditional rural blues wit...