William At 40: The Making Of A New Monarch by Robert Jobson

Hardback: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, is destined one day to be king. Determined to serve his country as his grandmother, the Queen has so selflessly done for seven decades, William is the epitome of a loving husband to Catherine, and a devoted father to their three children: George, Charlotte and Louis.

In public, William appears calm, balanced and determined. He is passionate about safeguarding the environment and helping to protect species under threat of extinction. The Duke and his wife have also worked tirelessly to remove the stigma that continues to mark mental health problems.

In private, however, those close to him say that William, while being a dedicated servant of the Crown can defy his calm, family-guy public demeanour.  

William At 40: The Making of a New Monarch (2022) is the definitive account - insightful and nuanced - of the life of the Duke of Cambridge as he approaches his milestone birthday. Jobson explores the complex character of the man who will one day reign as King William V. It is the story of the making of a king for our times. It is the story of the making of a monarch for the twenty-first century.

Happy 40th birthday, HRH Prince William!

About the author: Robert Jobson is one of Britain's leading royal commentators, dubbed the "Godfather of Royal Reporting" by The Wall Street Journal. He is Royal Editor of the respected London Evening Standard and regularly appears on television as a royal expert. A best-selling author and award-winning correspondent, he has been at the forefront of royal reporting for a quarter of a century. He is Royal Editor of Australia's top rated morning shows, Sunrise and The Morning Show for the 7 network and New Zealand's TVNZ Breakfast One.

In the UK, he is a regular on screen expert for ITV Daybreak, Sky News, Channel 5 and the BBC. In America, he is royal contributor for NBC's Today Show. He is also royal contributor to America's prestigious Forbes magazine and Forbes.com.

The author of 8 books, he is an accomplished guest lecturer for Cunard Insights programme and a regular on the after-dinner speeches circuit.

Just As The Calendar Began To Say Summer by Mary Oliver

Without A Prayer: The Death Of Lucas Leonard And How One Church Became A Cult by Susan Ashline

Hardback: The Word of Life Christian Church in Chadwicks, New York, seemed a little odd, but the upstate town and then the entire country were shocked by the 2015 beating death of 19-year-old Lucas Leonard by the congregation, including his own parents. 

In her excellent debut, Emmy-nominated journalist Susan Ashline details what led to the murder, the church’s fanatical founder, his strange death, and the succession of his daughter, who inflicted bizarre emotional and verbal abuse on her congregation. 

One method of control was through threatening action for any sexual misconduct, which spiralled into allegations of child abuse against Leonard and his 17-year-old brother, Chris. When locked in the church and confronted by the pastor, the pastor’s family, and the boys’ parents, they were beaten and whipped until they “confessed” to their sins. Even then, the abuse went on for hours, until Lucas was left for dead. 

Susan Ashline then follows the trials of nine members of the cult and details the mounds of evidence against them. Most were defiant, though after one defendant received a lengthy prison sentence, the rest agreed to pleas for shorter jail time. In the end, only Lucas’s father seems to realize the how and why of the tragedy and accepts his own guilt in a jailhouse letter written to the author. 

The full story has never been told until now. Meticulously researched, Without A Prayer: The Death Of Lucas Leonard And How One Church Became A Cult (2019) delves deep into the Leonard family history, the darkness within the parish-turned-cult Word of Life Christian Church, and what led Lucas, his family, and his community to that fateful night.

About the author: Susan Ashline's journalism career spans more than 25 years. Her work has received major awards, including an Emmy nomination for a public broadcasting societal concerns program, a first place Associated Press award for general excellence in individual reporting, and a Gold Medal Award for Democrat and Chronicle online excellence. She lives in Rochester, New York.

The Freemasons: A History Of The World's Most Powerful Secret Society by Jasper Ridley

Paperback: What did Mozart and Bach, Oscar Wilde and Anthony Trollope, George Washington and Frederick the Great, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt have in common? They were all Freemasons, a secret society that has been the subject of endless fascination.

To the layman, they are a mysterious brotherhood of profound if uncertain influence, a secret society purported in some popular histories to have its roots in the fabled order of the Knights Templar, or in the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids. They evoke fears of world domination by a select few who enjoy privileged access to wealth and the levers of power. The secrecy of their rites suggests the taint of sacrilege, and their hidden loyalties are sometimes accused of undermining the workings of justice and the integrity of nations. Chapters here include:

The Masons

Heretics

Grand Lodge

The Pope’s Bull

Germany and France

English Grand Lodge

Troubles and Scandals

The American Revolution

The French Revolution

Modern Freemasonry in Britain

Modern Freemasonry in the United States

Are the Freemasons a Menace

And much more!

Though not a mason himself, Jasper Ridley nonetheless refutes many of the outrageous allegations made against Freemasonry, while at the same time acknowledging the masons’ shortcomings: their clannishness, misogyny, obsession with secrecy, and devotion to arcane ritual. 

In this much-needed reassessment first published in 1999 and reprinted in 2011, he offers a substantial work of history that sifts the truth from the myth as it traces Freemasonry from its origins to the present day.

About the author: Jasper Ridley (1920-2004) was a British writer known for historical biographies. He received the 1970 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography Lord Palmerston. Ridley was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Sorbonne. He trained and practiced as a barrister before beginning his career as a writer. He was a conscientious objector during WWII, served on St Pancras Borough Council between 1945 and 1949, and stood as Labour Party candidate for Winchester in 1955. He was the author of around 20 biographies and general historical works, with subjects as diverse as Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer, Mussolini, and Tito. His work has been described by Isabel Quigley as 'the non-fiction equivalent of the upper-middlebrow novel – intelligent, accessible, not too demanding'. Ridley was master of the Carpenters Company, a vice-president of English PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists), and a keen walker. 

His last work, The Freemasons (2011) posted here, was highly acclaimed.

Thank You For Calling Your Father

British Summer

Happiness No 166

Newer With Years

 

Beware Of False Knowledge

Meghan and Harry: The Real Story by Lady Colin Campbell

Hardback: This blockbuster narrative provides the first behind-the-scenes, authoritative account of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s marriage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Diana in Private.

The fall from popular grace of Prince Harry, the previously adulated brother of the heir to the British throne, as a consequence of his marriage to the beautiful and dynamic Hollywood actress and "Suits star" Meghan Markle, makes for fascinating reading in this groundbreaking book from Lady Colin Campbell, who is the New York Times bestselling biographer of books on Princess Diana, the Queen Mother, and Queen Elizabeth’s marriage.

With a unique breadth of insight, Lady Colin Campbell goes behind the scenes, speaking to friends, relations, courtiers, and colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic to reveal the most unexpected royal story since King Edward VIII's abdication. She highlights the dilemmas involved and the issues that lurk beneath the surface, revealing why the couple decided to step down as "senior royals". 

She analyses the implications of the actions of an ambitious Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in love with each other and with the empowering lure of fame and fortune, and leads the reader through the maze of contradictions Meghan and Harry have created - while also evoking the Californian culture that has influenced the couple's conduct.

Meghan and Harry: The Real Story (2020) exposes how the royal couple tried and failed to change the royal system - by adapting it to their own needs and ambitions - and, upon failing, how they decided to create a new system and life for themselves. It is a balanced account of game changes, conflicts and ambitions.

Meghan and Harry: The Real Story (2020) is a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

About the author: Lady Colin Campbell was born in Jamaica in 1949. She is a British author, socialite and television personality who has published seven books about the British royal family. She is a London Times and New York Times bestselling author of Diana in Private and The Untold Life of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Her works include People of Colour and the Royals (2019), The Queen's Marriage (2018), Daughter of Narcissus (2009), Empress Bianca (2005), The Real Diana (2004), A Life Worth Living (1997), The Royal Marriages (1993) and Guide to Being a Modern Lady (1986). A renowned animal lover, she also ghosted With Love from Pet Heaven by Tum Tum the Springer Spaniel (2010). 

She divides her time between London and Castle Goring with her sons and her pets.

Nothing Which Sounded Human

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out Of Auschwitz To Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland

Hardback: The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn The World (2022) is the astonishing, forgotten story of the hero who escaped from Auschwitz to reveal the truth of the Holocaust.

In April 1944, a teenager named Rudolf Vrba was planning a daring and unprecedented escape from Auschwitz. After hiding in a pile of timber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their bloodhounds searched for him, Vrba and his fellow escapee Fred Wetzler would eventually cross Nazi-occupied Poland on foot, as penniless fugitives. Their mission: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solution.

Vrba would produce from memory a breathtaking report of more than thirty pages revealing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz – a report that would find its way to Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope, eventually saving over 200,000 Jewish lives.

A thrilling history with enormous historical implications, The Escape Artist is the extraordinary story of a complex man who would seek escape again and again: first from Auschwitz, then from his past, even from his own name. In telling his story, Jonathan Freedland – the journalist, broadcaster and acclaimed, multi-million copy selling author of the Sam Bourne novels – ensures that Rudolf Vrba’s heroic mission will also escape oblivion.

About the author: Jonathan Freedland is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, who also writes bestselling novels under the pseudonym, Sam Bourne. Jonathan writes for the Guardian, the New York Times and New York Review of Books, and has a monthly column in the Jewish Chronicle. He also presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series, The Long View.

Jonathan was named Columnist of the Year in the annual What the Papers Say Awards of 2002 and in 2008 he was awarded the David Watt prize for journalism. He has also been awarded The Orwell Special Prize for his contribution to political journalism (2014).

The Righteous Men, Sam Bourne's first novel, was an international bestseller and was selected as one of Richard and Judy's Summer Reads. He has continued this success with a series of bestselling thrillers and has sold over a million copies in the UK alone.

Childhood: A Miraculous World

The Most Dangerous Man In The World by Andrew Fowler

Paperback: The Most Dangerous Man in the World (2011) is the definitive account of WikiLeaks, threats against its existence and the man who is as secretive as the organisations he targets. 

Through interviews with Julian Assange, his inner circle and those who fell out with him, Andrew Fowler tells the story of how a man with a turbulent childhood and brilliance for computers created a phenomenon that has become a game-changer in journalism and global politics.

In this international thriller, Fowler gives a ringside seat on the biggest leak in history. He charts the pursuit of Assange by the US and Sweden and the offer of political asylum by Eucador. It tells the story of how in the eyes of many Assange had become, according to the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, 'the most dangerous man in the world'.

An updated version of this book - The Most Dangerous Man In The World: Julian Assange and WikiLeaks’ Fight for Freedom - was published on 2 July 2020.

About the author: Andrew Fowler is an award-winning investigative journalist and a former reporter for the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent and Four Corners programs. Fowler began his journalism career in the early 1970s, covering the IRA bombing campaign for the London Evening News. He has been the chief of staff and acting foreign editor of The Australian newspaper. Fowler first interviewed Julian Assange for Foreign Correspondent in 2010, for which the program won the New York Festival Gold Medal. He wrote the first edition of The Most Dangerous Man in the World in 2011. His two other books are The War on Journalism (Random House, 2015) and Shooting the Messenger: Criminalising Journalism (Routledge, 2017). He was also a Walkley Award and Logie finalist for a major corruption investigation.