Elegantly combining a tour of Britain's ports, coasts and islands with a tour of an imaginary ship that contains fragments acquired across the centuries, Tom Nancollas has written an enchanting and thoughtful account of Britain's rich maritime heritage.

Tom Nancollas takes us aboard eleven historic vessels, covering three and a half millennia of British Maritime history, from the Middle Bronze Age to the early 20th century. Each ship has its own story to tell, which Tom brings to life with astonishing clarity. This book is written with passion and sympathy. It will live with me for a very long time.

A fascinating voyage of discovery

Vivid... Poignant... Nancollas tells fine tales, rich with that sherrycask fragrance of a world so immediate, yet so very long ago

The Ship Asunder is a first-class book. It is superbly readable and entirely serious, questioning not just how Britain thinks of its maritime past, and indeed itself, but how history is written, understood and enacted. It is a work of experiential historiography, if you like - and a delight

Fizzing with enthusiasm, Nancollas travels the country, exploring the stories of prows, masts, figureheads and propellers and visiting the sites of dockyards and ropehouses ... Sailors and landlubbers alike should love it

A gem of a book

Charming ... Attlee tells the story in easy, luminous prose, infused with a deep understanding for the way human value accrues mysteriously in things, and in the act of making them

Reading Lev's Violin is like listening to a fine instrument: thoroughly relaxing but also exciting, fun yet deeply serious ... with constant surprises and charms

Illuminating, engrossing ... a wide-ranging exploration of the history and cultural significance of the Italian violin

Beguiling and truly original ... An amazing journey ... one of the joys is the glimpses it affords of forgotten historical byways and of a colourful, sometimes roguish cast of characters ... Attlee has such a wonderful way with words that as a reader you almost imagine you can see, as well as hear, Lev's violin

Seductive, captivating ... A book that pleases the more for so neatly resisting characterisation

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst pulls off an extraordinary trick of immersive history, taking a single year in Charles Dickens's life, 1851, and placing the personal story of one of the most extraordinary writers ever to have lived within his social and cultural context

It's amazing how eruditely Robert Douglas-Fairhurst manages to illuminate our history through a microscopic focus on one brief period.

Legacy of Violence is beautifully written and follows through on its arguments doggedly... This is an important book that deserves to be read by everyone who wants to understand and argue against the current attempt to reinvigorate the romance of the British Empire

A dark, riveting book... her [Elkins'] method is what gives the book its intensity

Fascinating... a real page-turner... the writing is backed up with considerable academic research... the evidence of systematic oppression, presented as powerfully and relentlessly as it is here, will be difficult to resist

Not so much a history book as a book of historical significance