Iceland is an island of multiple identities in constant flux, just like its unruly, volcanic ground. Shaped as much by storytelling as it is by tectonic activity, Iceland’s literary heritage is one of Europe’s richest – and most ancient.

Iceland: A Literary Guide for Travellers takes the literary-minded traveller (either in person or in an armchair) on a vivid and illuminating journey. It follows Iceland’s many stories that have been passed down through the generations: told and retold by sheep farmers, psalm-writers, travelling reverends, independence fighters, scholars and hedonists.

From the captivating Norse myths, which continue to inspire contemporary authors such as A. S. Byatt, to gripping Scandinavian crime fiction and Game of Thrones, via Jules Verne and J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden and Seamus Heaney, Iceland’s influence has spread far beyond its frozen shores.

Peopled by Norse maidens and witches, elves and outlaws, and taking the reader and traveller from Reykjavik and the Bay of Smokes to the remote Westfjords and desolate highlands, this is an enthralling portrait of the Land of Ice and Fire.

Venice, La Serenissima, is one of the most breath-taking cities in the world. From its earliest beginnings in the 7th century, Venice has been a magnetic centre of trade and culture, wealth and power and has acted as a crossroads for an array of religious pilgrims and refugees, diplomats, crusading armies and merchants. The city is a floating labyrinth; the world’s greatest museum, frozen in time; a cultural jewel, slowly sinking into the lagoon from which it rose; tourist-trap, irresistible muse.

Later, Venice’s fabled beauty and reputation as a haven for freedom of expression seduced some of the most celebrated figures in history: artists such as Durer, Bellini and Turner; writers Dickens, Byron, Kafka, Poe, Rousseau, Thomas Mann, Ruskin and Ezra Pound and composers Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Stravinsky.

In this guide to literary Venice, the author uncovers the city’s myriad of secrets, revealing how every floating palace, gilded church and bustling square is imbued with the lives and creations of those who were inspired by the city, which still echoes with their voices.

6 June, 1944. 156,000 troops from 12 different countries, 11,000 aircraft, 7,000 naval vessels, 24 hours. D-Day – the beginning of the Allied invasion of Hitler’s formidable ‘Fortress Europe’ – was the largest amphibious invasion in history. There has never been a battle like it, before or since.

But beyond the statistics and over sixty years on, what is it about the events of D-Day that remain so compelling? The courage of the men who fought and died on the beaches of France? The sheer boldness of the invasion plan? Or the fact that this, Rommel’s ‘longest day’, heralded the beginning of the end of World War II?

One of the defining battles of the war, D-Day is scored into the imagination as the moment when the darkness of the Third Reich began to be swept away. This story is told through the voices of over 1,000 survivors – from high-ranking Allied and German officers, to the paratroopers who landed in Normandy before dawn, the infantry who struggled ashore and the German troops who defended the coast.

Cornelius Ryan captures the horror and the glory of D-Day, relating in emotive and compelling detail the years of inspired tactical planning that led up to the invasion, its epic implementation and every stroke of luck and individual act of heroism that would later define the battle.

This book details everyone from the Phoenicians to the Carthaginians and Aragonese who invaded Sardinia, which is covered with some of the most fascinating historical and archaeological sites in Europe – from thousands of nuraghi, Bronze Age towers and settlements, to ‘giant’s grave’ and ‘fairy house’ tombs. It also holds eccentric festivals, from Barbagia’s carnival parade of ghoulish mamuthones, said to banish winter demons, to the death-defying S’Ardia horse race in Sedilo.

There are shipwrecks off Cagliari’s coast, underwater caves and submerged Roman ruins in addition to ancient castles, churches, undisturbed hilltop villages and 2,000 miles of some of the most beautiful coastline in the world.