Biography

Naguib Mahfouz

Egypt's Nobel Laureate
by Rasheed El-Enany

The Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) was the father of the Arabic novel. Born in the old quarter of Jamaliyya in Cairo, the traditional neighbourhood played an important role in his earlier realistic novels such as Midaq Alley and The Cairo Trilogy, and as a metaphor for Egyptian society in later works such as Children of the Alley and The Harafish. He established an international reputation and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, but accusations of a blasphemous portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad in Children of the Alley lead to a fatwa against him by Islamic extremists, and he was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in 1994.

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Price: £7.99

Napoleon

Life&Times
by Timothy Wilson Smith

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) has been compared to Alexander the Great, with whom he shared the qualities of youth, daring and unbridled ambition, to Julius Caesar, another soldier-politician with a genius for propaganda, and to Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire.

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Price: £7.99

Gandhi

The Man, his People and the Empire
by Rajmohan Gandhi

This monumental biography of one of the most intriguing figures of the 20th century, written by his grandson, is the first to give a complete and balanced account of Gandhi’s remarkable life, the development of his beliefs and his political campaigns, and his complex relations with his family.

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Price: £20.00

Scott & Amundsen

Duel in the Ice
by Rainer-K. Langner

On 17 January 1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his four companions of the British Antarctic expedition finally reached the South Pole, only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it by 34 days. The tragic drama of the British party’s desperate return journey, including the heroic suicide of Captain Oates, only became known after their final camp was found in November 1912 and Scott’s diary was recovered. They had died only 18 kilometres short of the supply depot that would have saved them.

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Price: £14.40

Elizabeth I & Mary Stuart

The Perils of Marriage
by Anka Muhlstein

In this major new double biography, Anka Muhlstein examines the turbulent relationship between Elizabeth I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots. Uniquely at this time, both of the thrones of the British Isles were held by women, which brought the issue of royal marriages to the fore.

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Price: £14.40