The two authors - husband and wife - settled in the west of Ireland over thirty years ago, casting off from their life in the US on a romantic impulse to begin a new life near Christine's fa... read more
A biography of the Hungarian scientist who created the first ever programmable digital computer, and whose colleagues thought his brain was too inexplicably powerful to be entirely human.
He doesn't just write letters to his very young son, he illustrates them, copiously, in order to draw his son into the world of reading. His sketches of a walk in the wind, of men with umbre... read more
"John seemed only to float in a current of pleasure as reflected in his pictures. But hedonism, always a sturdy attribute, acquires a heroic quality with age...": Ian Collins' biography of C... read more
In February 1938 Georg Klaar, a Jewish lad of seventeen, went to his first ball in Vienna, staying until the band's last waltz. A month later came the Anschluss. The ensuing years brought ch... read more
He was a resistance fighter in WW2 Budapest, a travel photographer in South America and an abusive patriarch in 70s New York - but Steven Faludi disappeared from his daughter's life decades ... read more
Translated from the Italian, this biography marks the 700th anniversary of Dante's death. It brings to life the context in which he wrote. (Barbero's book on Waterloo was excellent.)
His mistakes as well as his achievements, and a fascinating post- Brexit look at our history since WW2, in which our leaders still vye for Churchill's mythic mantle to legitimize their polit... read more