Amit Gupta directs this adaptation of Owen Sheers' debut novel starring Andrea Riseborough and Michael Sheen. It's 1944 and D-Day has failed. The United Kingdom is now under Nazi occupation. In the remote Welsh village of Olchon, farmer's wife Sarah Lewis (Riseborough) wakes up one morning to find her husband has mysteriously disappeared along with all the other men in the village. Then, as they wait for news, a German patrol arrives in their valley on an undisclosed mission. During the harsh winter that follows, the two groups are forced to pull together to survive the last days of the war. Cut off from the conflict around them, both the villagers and the Nazis find the lines between collaboration, duty, occupation and survival becoming less defined as time goes on...

The story of a modern centurion: Tom Cobley's excellent and comprehensive account of his 40 years of service has much to tell the reader. His service took him from Australia and the Pacific Islands, to Britain and Northern Ireland, to the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, and places in between. In different regiments of two armies, often alongside men from other armies, he served on operations in many theatres. He tells of service life, the training, comradeship and preparation for operations; his insights show what it is really like. He tells of command and staff work on operations. And above all we learn of Tom Cobley, the centurion himself. General Sir Rupert Smith KCB, DSO*, OBE, QGM (DSACEUR 1998-2001) Although I have served with the Parachute Regiment for close to 40 years, I only got to know Colonel Tom Cobley later in his career. When he was in Afghanistan I was the UK Chief of Joint Operations (CJO), with operational responsibility for our forces there. Subsequently I saw him in Iraq, first as CJO and later as the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), when visiting the NATO training mission. Finally, he worked in my EU strategic level Headquarters at Mons, whilst I had command of the EU operation in Bosnia. It is my experience that you find the best soldiers wherever there is an operation; the same faces always turn up where the action is. Tom is no exception and his account of his fascinating and varied career is well worth reading. General Sir John Reith KCB, CBE (DSACEUR 2004-2007)

Defence managers, like their counterparts in both the public and private sector need to learn to cope with change and the resulting uncertainty. This is no easy task for uncertain situations meaning that there are no sure answers or solutions. This volume represents the attempts of its contributors, military and academic, to assist in the process. To some extent uncertainty is nothing new, indeed it may be the only certainty in an era of rapid social change, increasing economic pressures. The end of the Cold War, a rise in global terrorism and rapid developments in informatics have accelerated the pace of change. Tried and trusted techniques that served well in the past are no longer appropriate in an era where defence services must be ready to challenge unknown adversaries, accept a range of responsibilities in operations other than war, and where even fundamental social values are being changed and challenged. This volume maintains a practical focus by offering contributions from serving officers as well as academics. Subjects covered range from the broad context of international affairs since 11 September 2001, to the finer detail of maintaining a proper work-life balance for se

The Gothic tradition continues to excite the popular imagination. John C. Tibbetts presents interviews and conversations with prominent novelists, filmmakers, artists, and film and television directors and actors as they trace the Gothic mode across three centuries, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through H.P. Lovecraft, to today's science fiction, goth, and steampunk culture. H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert (Psycho) Bloch, Chris (The Polar Express) Van Allsburg, Maurice Sendak, Gahan Wilson, Ray Harryhausen, Christopher Reeve, Greg Bear, William Shatner, and many more share their worlds of imagination and terror.

'This is the room from which I will direct the war,' Churchill declared, shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1940. It was from these cramped confines that Churchill turned a seemingly inevitable defeat at the hands of the Nazis into a famous victory. Built in 1938 as a temporary refuge in case of air raid attack, this secret bunker became a second home to Churchill - and to large numbers of military personnel and civil servants whose work until now has been largely unsung. Drawing on a fascinating range of original material, including newly available first-hand accounts of the people who lived there, Holmes reveals how and why the bunker and its war machine developed; how the inhabitants' lives were transformed; and how their work led to victory. Elegant and illuminating, Churchill's Bunker is a unique exploration of one of the most important sites in British history.

James Arbuckle (c.1700-1742), poet and essayist, was born in Belfast to a Presbyterian merchant family of Scottish origin and educated at Glasgow University (1717-1723). In Glasgow, his poetry, influenced by Pope and the Latin classics, won praise from leading members of Scotland's literary and political establishment, including Allan Ramsay. In 1723 he moved to Dublin, producing under the name "Hibernicus" Ireland's first literary journal, in collaboration with a group of young Whig intellectuals forming the "Molesworth circle". He aimed at first to avoid politics, but in the highly politicized Dublin of Dean Swift that proved impossible. He was satirized by members of Swift's circle and responded with the ironic Panegyric on the Rev Dean Swift. His later work, especially The Tribune, developed a radical and anticlerical critique of contemporary Ireland, in which Swift was represented more as Church Tory than Irish patriot. Arbuckle was well-known in his day, but his work has not been published since the end of the eighteenth century. He has often been discussed in modern scholarly work across a range of disciplines: on Swift and Pope; Scottish poetry and especially Allan Ramsay; Francis Hutcheson and the early Scottish Enlightenment; the background to the United Irishmen of 1798; the history of Irish presbyterians. Arbuckle himself has not been the focus of detailed scholarly inquiry until now. This edition presents an annotated selection of Arbuckle's work in poetry and prose. It begins with a substantial introduction dealing with his biography and political and literary context. It is then divided into three parts. The first, on his Scottish period, includes the annotated texts of his two principal poems, Snuff and Glotta. The second presents a selection of the "Hibernicus" essays, grouped by four themes: literary (which will include a selection of his Horace translations); philosophical (responding principally to Francis Hutcheson); political (placing him in the contemporary varieties of Whiggism, and especially the dispute between Walpole and "Opposition" Whigs); religious (the focus here is on his writing on toleration). The final section deals with his response to Swift's Irish writing, as demonstrated in selected essays from The Tribune and in A Panegyric.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING EDDIE REDMAYNE AND FELICITY JONES A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW STATESMAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A DAILY TELEGRAPH BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW REPUBLIC BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A TIME MAGAZINE TOP 10 NONFICTION From ambitious scientists rising above the clouds to analyse the air to war generals floating across enemy lines, Richard Holmes takes to the air in this heart-lifting history of pioneer balloonists. Falling Upwards asks why they risked their lives, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet. The stories range from early ballooning rivals to the long-distance voyages of American entrepreneurs; from the legendary balloon escape from the Prussian siege of Paris to dauntless James Glaisher, who in the 1860s flew seven miles above the earth - without oxygen. Falling Upwards has inspired the Major Motion Picture The Aeronauts - in cinemas SOON. In a glorious fusion of history, art, science and biography, this is a book about what balloons give rise to: the spirit of discovery, and the brilliant humanity of recklessness, vision and hope.

D-Day, the largest amphibious invasion in history, took place on 6 June 1944. The subsequent battle of Normandy involved over a million men, and helped seal the fate of The Third Reich. This is a graphic account of the planning and execution of Operation Overlord, as well as the campaign which effectively destroyed the German forces in France, opening the way for the Allied advance. Including a wealth of superb photographs and maps, the book also contains 10 facsimile items of rare memorabilia, including diaries, letters and memos. This title includes top-secret hand-drawn map showing the minute-by-minute position on the way in to the drop zone just west of Ste-Mere-Eglise for elements of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. This is an extract from the pocket diary of Sergeant G.E. Hughes, then a corporal, landed with the 1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment at Arromanches.

Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Richard Holmes's dazzling portrait of the age of great scientific discovery is a groundbreaking achievement. The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook's first Endeavour voyage, who stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769 fully expecting to have located Paradise. Back in Britain, the same Romantic revolution that had inspired Banks was spurring other great thinkers on to their own voyages of artistic and scientific discovery - astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical - that together made up the 'age of wonder'. In this breathtaking group biography, Richard Holmes tells the stories of the period's celebrated innovators and their great scientific discoveries: from telescopic sight to the miner's lamp, and from the first balloon flight to African exploration.

Defence managers, like their counterparts in both the public and private sector need to learn to cope with change and the resulting uncertainty. This is no easy task for uncertain situations meaning that there are no sure answers or solutions. This volume represents the attempts of its contributors, military and academic, to assist in the process. To some extent uncertainty is nothing new, indeed it may be the only certainty in an era of rapid social change, increasing economic pressures. The end of the Cold War, a rise in global terrorism and rapid developments in informatics have accelerated the pace of change. Tried and trusted techniques that served well in the past are no longer appropriate in an era where defence services must be ready to challenge unknown adversaries, accept a range of responsibilities in operations other than war, and where even fundamental social values are being changed and challenged. This volume maintains a practical focus by offering contributions from serving officers as well as academics. Subjects covered range from the broad context of international affairs since 11 September 2001, to the finer detail of maintaining a proper work-life balance for se

Human Resource Management in the British Armed Forces continues to grow in importance. A great deal of emphasis has now been placed on people issues and these will grow in importance, particularly for the services, as the full effects of the Human Rights Act 1998 and implications of the Macpherson Report begin to hit home.

LIVES THAT NEVER GROW OLD Part of a radical new series - edited by Richard Holmes - that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Gilchrist's 'The Life of William Blake' is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. This was the first biography of William Blake ever written, at a time when the great visionary poet and painter was generally forgotten, ridiculed or dismissed as insane. Wonderfully vivid and outspoken (one chapter is entitled 'Mad or Not Mad'), it was based on revealing interviews with many of Blake's surviving friends. Blake conversed with spirits, saw angels in trees, and sunbathed naked with his wife 'like Adam and Eve'. Gilchrist adds detailed descriptions of Blake's beliefs and working methods, an account of his trial for high treason and fascinating evocations of the places in London, Kent and Sussex where he lived. The book ultimately transformed and enhanced Blake's reputation.

LIVES THAT NEVER GROW OLD This unique series - edited by Richard Holmes - recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Every book is a biographical masterpiece - still thrilling to read and vividly alive. The philosopher William Godwin fell in love with and married the radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, only to attend her deathbed (giving birth to their child, the late Mary Shelley). Heartbroken, Godwin immediately shut himself up in his study and wrote this intensely moving biography. True to his philosophical belief in absolute sincerity, Godwin coolly describes Wollstonecraft's previous love affairs, her time in revolutionary Paris, her illegitimate child, and her two suicide attempts. The book almost wrecked both their reputations, but can now be seen as a masterpiece of indiscretion and human honesty.

A beautifully reissued classic, a mixture of biography and memoir, from the author of Footsteps. Sidetracks is a sister book to Footsteps, conjured up from decades of 'wanderings from the straight and narrow' of his major biographies like Shelley and Coleridge. It is a renewed examination of the strange and sometimes shadowy pathways of biography that have always fascinated him. Sidetracks pursues this quest through an extraordinary and eclectic assortment of Romantic and Gothic writers and personalities: some French, some English, some Dutch, some American, some major, some minor, but all made hypnotically alive and memorable through Holmes's transforming touch. We meet Chatterton and Gautier, Pierrot and Voltaire, Mary Wollstonecraft and Godwin, Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, James Boswell and Zelide, MR James and some very unpleasant gothic apparitions. With each of these twenty pieces Holmes shows how fluid, playful and unconstrained the many voices of biography can be. character sketch and travelogue, true love stories and true ghost stories, and one piece, 'Dr Johnson's First Cat' which may or may not be a piece of true biographical fiction.The collection is held together by a subtle autobiographical thread, in which Holmes the Romantic biographer writes: 'to be sidetracked is, after all, to be led astray by a path or an idea, a scent or a tune, and maybe lost forever.'

Part of the outstanding biographical series - edited by Richard Holmes - that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Every book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. In this pioneering series, Richard Holmes, the world's leading Romantic biographer, sets out to recover the great forgotten tradition of English biographical writing. 'I have had no time for dusty tomes,' writes Holmes, 'I have looked for brevity, intelligence and style. Above all, I have sought out great biographical writers: biographers with passion, biographers who have found a way to the heart and soul of a memorable subject.' Jack Sheppard was an 18th-century Houdini - a handsome young escape artist who broke out of his cell on Newgate's grim Death Row three times. Jonathan Wild was the infamous Thief-Taker General who helped to recapture him and many other criminals, only to be tried and executed himself for racketeering, among scenes of mayhem at Tyburn. Daniel Defoe, the master of adventure fiction, was fascinated by 'True Confessions' and the workings of the criminal personality (including its daring, its stoicism and its humour). He was the first to retell these stories, based on personal interviews in Newgate, which also include a thrilling (sometimes hour by hour) reconstruction of events.

'Lives that Never Grow Old' is a wonderful series- edited by Richard Holmes - that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Every book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. Zelide lived in her father's moated castle in Holland, like a fairytale princess in a tower. She was the clever, sexy, mercurial young Dutch blue-stocking with whom Boswell fell disastrously in love in 1764. The rest of Zelide's story was unknown until the brilliant young Boswell scholar Geoffrey Scott pieced it together from her intimate letters and essays. Subsequent affairs with a cynical cavalry officer, a celebrated but vacillating writer (aptly named Benjamin Constant), and a thoroughly reliable music master, took her eventually to another fairytale mansion in Switzerland. This tender, funny, faintly salacious portrait of a 'belle-esprit' is one of the most exquisite biographical miniatures ever written.

"Redcoat is the story of the British soldier from the Seven Year War through to the Mutiny and the Crimea. It is consistently entertaining, full of brilliantly chosen anecdotes, and rattles along at a good light infantry pace."
DAVID CRANE, 'Spectator' Books of the Year

"It would be hard to exaggerate the excellence of this book. It is vivid, comprehensive, well written, pacy, colourful, and above all, highly informative. The author has a command of his subject of Wellingtonian proportions, and his enthusiasm communicates itself to the reader on every page."
SIMON HEFFER, 'Literary Review'

"A wonderful book, full of anecdote and good sense. Anyone who has enjoyed a Sharpe story will love it."
BERNARD CORNWELL, 'Daily Mail'

"All the best-known soldier writers are discussed here, and their anecdotes are told with enthusiasm and aplomb…This is an army from another world, and 'Redcoat' is a splendidly entertaining, moving and informative description of its strengths and foibles."
HEW STRACHAN, 'Daily Telegraph'

"Beautifully written, 'Redcoat' is a vivid account of squalor and suffering almost beyond belief, for the men, their wives and camp followers, and their horses. One of the best chapters is a description of barrack-room life that will turn a few stomachs in this more fastidious age."
JOHN CANNON, 'Times Literary Supplement'

Timely reissue of the second volume of Holmes's classic biographies of one of the greatest Romantic poets. Richard Holmes's biography of Coleridge transforms our view of the poet of 'Kubla Khan' forever. Holmes's Coleridge leaps out of these pages as the brilliant, animated and endlessly provoking poet of genius that he was. This second volume covers the last 30 years of Coleridge's career (1804-1834) during which he travelled restlessly through the Mediterranean, returned to his old haunts in the Lake District and the West Country, and finally settled in Highgate. It was a period of domestic and professional turmoil. His marriage broke up, his opium addiction increased, he quarrelled with Wordsworth, his own son Hartley Coleridge (a gifted poet himself) became an alcoholic. And after a desperate time of transition, Coleridge re-emerged on the literary scene as a new kind of philosophical and meditative author.