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Our RecommendationsYou can use this page to order or to send us an email enquiry. If you would prefer to speak to us first, our telephone number is +44 (0)20 7629 0647.What Ben Scott has been reading recently.BANFFY (MIKLOS) They were Counted (Arcadia£9.99) In the first volume of his 'Transylvanian Trilogy', Count Miklos Banffy takes us into the world of a bygone age. Set in Hungary just before the First World War, the reader is launched into the country estates & ballrooms of the aristocracy, where they are whirled around to a dazzling array of characters. In a style echoing Tolstoy, Banffy sets about exploring the minutiae of their personalities, and through their relationships with each other reveals the frailties and short-comings of Austria-Hungary's road to war. Through his attention to detail and power of description, Banffy draws us into his world making it impossible to leave.
HAGGARD (H. RIDER) King Solomon's Mines (Penguin Books£7.99) A classic adventure of the Victorian and late-Empire period; ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ was an instant bestseller on its release in 1885. The hero Allan Quatermain, wise in the ways of the African plain, embarks on a journey to a faraway kingdom, where the mines of Solomon are rumoured to house incalculable riches. He is accompanied by Sir Henry Curtis, searching for his long lost brother, and his friend Captain John Good. Using the somewhat unreliable map of a 16th Century Portuguese explorer, they cross deserts and scale mountains, cheating death on a number of occasions. When they discover the remains of their Portuguese predecessor in a cave they had only just spent the night in, you know the adventure is just beginning. As gripping and as colourful today as it was when it was first published.
MCMEEKIN (SEAN) The Berlin-Baghdad Express (Allen Lane£25) Sean McMeekin’s book, ‘The Berlin-Baghdad Express’ sheds light on a truly fascinating section of First World War history. Drawing us away from the attritional Western Front upon which so many books of this period are focused, McMeekin sets out in no uncertain terms the dramatic importance of Imperial Germany’s relationship with the crumbling Ottoman Empire. If the naval supremacy of Britain was to be somehow skirted, then the design of a vast and ambitious project was necessary; The Berlin-Baghdad Railway encompassed all of these ambitions, and not only reinforced Germany’s special relationship with the East, but set out to purposely cripple British interests. Not only an exciting and fresh piece of research, with plenty of new material, it is even lauded by the great Norman Stone himself.
SANSOM (C.J.) Revelation (Pan Macmillan£7.99) The latest in the Matthew Shardlake chronicles; the hunch-backed lawyer finds himself embroiled in a dangerous game when he happens upon the murdered body of a close friend. With the faithful Barak at his side, our detective is permanently engaged across the length and breadth of the city, in an effort to stop a frenetic serial killer. There are however high politics involved (as usual) and Shardlake will have to watch his step if he is not to incur the wrath of religious radicals. Sansom as ever brings Tudor London to life with sights, smells and scandal - one of the best in the series so far and the next one ('Heartstone') due out in August of this year.
WULF (ANDREA) The Brother Gardeners (Cornerstone£8.99) A simply fascinating insight into the rise of botanical study during the 18th-century; Andrea Wulf’s ‘Brother Gardeners’ traces the movement of plants all over the world through the lives of some of the century’s leading scientific lights. The dictionary of Peter Miller, the explorations of Joseph Banks and the system of Carl Linnaeus are all presented in this delightful piece of narrative history. If you don’t find plants and gardens especially interesting, then you surely will by the end of this book...
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Ben is a keen historian and an avid cricketer, living only just around the corner from the Oval. |
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