Books published by Vintage Publishing

In 1943, small teams of elite British soldiers began parachuting into the mountains of Axis-occupied Albania. They were members of Britain's Special Operations Executive, and their task was to find and arm bands of local guerillas and harass the Axis as best they could. This title draws on interviews with survivors, long-hidden diaries and more.

Even the biggest cycling fan can one day wake up to find that he has lost his faith Bad Blood is the story of Jeremy Whittle's journey from unquestioning fan to Tour de France insider and confirmed sceptic.

This collection, which contains all his most memorable works and a selection of his letters, is a feast for the senses, displaying Keats' gift for gorgeous imagery and sensuous language, his passionate devotion to beauty, as well as some of the most moving love poetry ever written.

Bjartus is a sheep farmer determined to eke a living from a blighted patch of land. Nothing, not merciless weather, nor his family will come between him and his goal of financial independence. Only Asta Solillja, the child he brings up as his daughter, can pierce his stubborn heart.

From the bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, comes the story of King Edward III, who - like Elizabeth and Victoria after him - embodied the values of his age, forged a nation out of war and re-made England. He ordered his uncle to be beheaded;

On the night of 10 February 1567 an explosion devastated the Edinburgh residence of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. For this reason Elizabeth I had opposed his family's longstanding wish to marry him to Mary Stuart, who herself claimed to be the rightful queen of England.

Even in an age of soaring skyscrapers and cavernous sports stadiums, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, with its immense, terracotta-tiled cupola, retains a rare power to astonish. This book tells the story of how the cupola was raised, from its conception to its consecration.

Private detective Albert Campion sets out to plumb the secrets of Saltey, an ancient hamlet on the Essex marshes. Once the haunt of smugglers, it now hides a secret rich and mysterious enough to trap all who enter - and someone in the village is willing to terrorise, murder and raise the very devil to keep that secret to themselves.

Presents the stories of Francis Barber, 'given' to the great eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson; Randolph Turpin, Britain's first black world champion boxer; and, David Oluwale, a Nigerian stowaway who arrived in Leeds in 1949, the events of whose life called into question the reality of English justice.

Ewald, Broccoli and the exotic Elvira are three young friends on the run - from the horrifying possibility of living mundane lives.

Collects together Sherlock Holmes' intriguing cases, including adventures with mysterious masked strangers, ingenious heists, murderous plots and hidden jewels, which take the famous detective and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson from the streets of London and the English countryside to a chilling encounter at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.

After more than twenty years together, Jean and Mark revel in a sabbatical on a remote tropical island. Life seems idyllic. Until, that is, Jean opens a salacious love-letter addressed to Mark. Looking for answers she goes undercover with a surreptitious correspondence that propels her on to alarming and illuminating adventures of her own...

Nobody knows where these boys go, or whether they are alive or dead, and without evidence the authorities claim they are simply runaways. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed.

'A brave and intelligent book' Daily TelegraphAn unforgettable memoir about gender, journeys and enduring friendshipFor years Richard Beard would take spontaneous holidays with his motor-cycling friend Drew.

Includes grandparents and great-grandparents who sum up in their own words the vast changes that have overtaken China's people over a century. This book is also at once a journey by the author through time and place, and a memorial to those who have lived through war and civil war, persecution, invasion, revolution, famine, and, Westernization.

Described by Oliver Sacks as 'one of the best scientist-writers of our time', Robert M. Sapolsky here presents the human animal in all its quirkiness and diversity. In these remarkable essays, Sapolsky once again deploys his compassion and insights into the human condition to tell us who, why and how we are.

The author was asked by the New Yorker to write a profile of Mario Batali who runs one of New York's most successful three-star restaurants. Buford accepted the commission, on the condition Batali allow him to work in his kitchen, as his slave. This memoir presents his kitchen adventures, and the story of Batali's rise to culinary fame.

A memoir that evokes with deep feeling the sense of uprootendess and exile created by this disruption, something which has been the experience of tens of thousands of people this century. It tells the story of Jewish post-war experience and the tragedies and discoveries born of cultural displacement.

Sharon Olds completes her cycle of family poems in a book at once intense and harmonic, playful with language, and rich with a new self-awareness and sense of irony.

The Resourceful Mum's Handbook provides timely practical and down-to-earth advice on what to buy and what not to buy, when it's worth splashing out on a cherished item and where you can cut corners and make savings - from pregnancy, through to birth and the newborn, and beyond.

A is for Anxiety, Alcohol and awful Activities. B is for Bedtime, Baking and Boredom. C is for Childcare and Cooking With Your Coat on. This book puts two fingers up to the pervasive notion that parenthood is an eternally rewarding experience. It taps into the very normal, but hard-to-admit ambivalence that so many parents feel about raising kids.

ultimately, each came to respsect his rival's dramatic and distinct impact on the game of golf. Arnie & Jack brilliantly brings to life the story of two men, their rivalry and a whole sport, in a gripping, no-holds-barred account of one of sport's most fascinating pairings.

Cricket, Lovely Cricket is a journey around the perennially curious world of cricket, leaving no metaphorical leg-break unturned and peering at the game from every conceivable angle.

Istanbul's Galata Bridge has spanned the Golden Horn since the sixth century AD, connecting the old city with the more Western districts to the north. But the bridge is a city in itself, peopled by merchants and petty thieves, tourists and fishermen, and at the same time a microcosmic reflection of Turkey as the link between Asia and Europe.

Sex lives and real lives and written lives merge and tangle like wires until reality begins to crumble and the sky falls in...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT MACFARLANEDuring the Second World War, John Stewart Collis volunteered to leave his comfortable life as an academic to work on the land for the war effort.

Under the hot sun, the Jeddah streets make a scene from an old black-and-white movie: the women dressed like long, dark shadows and the men in their light cotton tunics. Naser's friends have all left town for cooler climes but he can't get away: he's an outsider in Saudi and he needs to hold down his job at the local carwash.

Presents a series of stories about women stirred, bothered, or fascinated by men they cannot understand, or understand too well. This book features characters that are haunted by the ghosts of the lives they might have led - lit by new flames, old flames, and flames that are guttering out.

there's also Diana, who has just had a baby, and Mouse, who is only six and already an accomplished arsonist. With Flynn and Sam in tow, the rag tag group of children venture into the deserted countryside, pursued by a terrifying and unseen man.

It is 1995 and Noa and Amir have decided to move in together. Noa is studying photography in Jerusalem and Amir is a psychology student in Tel Aviv, so they choose a tiny flat in a village in the hills, between the two cities.