Saints or sinners? Perfect princesses or difficult duchesses? Monarchy’s saviours or its destroyers?

They rank among the world’s most famous women – and the most misunderstood. Throughout history, royal women have been sanitised and sanctified by supporters, distorted and demonised by critics, pitted against each other, and misrepresented by the media.

In this extraordinary portrait, journalist Catherine Mayer examines the lives of the central players, and the echoes and parallels that have run throughout history. The stories of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, Victoria, Elizabeth II, Diana, Camilla, Kate and Meghan uncovered by Catherine Mayer are far more fascinating, poignant, surprising and enraging than any of the myths. Divide and Rule reveals these extraordinary women in all their complexity, charting their achievements, quirks, kindnesses, cruelties and profound influence.

Drawing on key sources, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, this book also demonstrates the ways in which history repeats itself – to the detriment not only of royal women but all of us.

Paul Preston, the preeminent historian of modern Spain, here lays bare the complex web of financial and sexual excess that led to the hero’s vertiginous downfall. For decades, King Carlos was immensely popular in Spain and much beloved – in part because of his courageous defence of Spanish democracy after Franco’s death. However, his secrets’ gradual exposure e was detonated in April 2012 by his appearance on television cameras as he left a Madrid hospital. An astonished nation heard him make a declaration unprecedented from the lips of any Spanish Head of State, royal or republican: ‘I am very sorry. I have made a mistake and it will not happen again’.

Revelations that he had been badly injured while elephant hunting in Botswana accompanied by a woman who was not his wife opened the floodgates to prurient research into his marital infidelities. From there, it was a short step to journalistic, followed by judicial, investigation into his financial misdemeanours. The consequent accumulation of hostile coverage culminated in his abdication on 2 June 2014 and, from August 2020, a gilded exile in Abu Dhabi.

Paul Preston’s spectacular biography tells the story of the King’s very public implosion and identifies the seeds of self-destruction in Juan Carlos’s unhappy childhood and upbringing. In so doing, Preston also throws a penetrating light on the massive scale of corruption within the Spanish establishment and sets the King’s downfall against Spain’s own identity crisis as it continues to grapple with its fascist past.

Did you take it for granted, or know someone had busted their balls to make it happen? Was the food thoughtful and delicious, or bland and functional? Was the plate laid down with love or anger?

It all matters. It all stays with us.

I think about this every single day.

For years, Dawn O’Porter thought that fulfilment lived somewhere glamorous: in success, recognition, and a life turned up to full volume. Somewhere between grieving loss, learning to cook something vaguely nutritious, Hollywood dreams, raising children, writing bestselling fiction – and occasionally eating Wotsits for dinner – Dawn discovered that the real spotlight wasn’t out there.

It was actually here, in her kitchen, where daily rhythms and chaos, small disappointments and big wins played out, often erupting into a raucous party. Through the meals that nourished, impressed or perhaps sometimes barely registered, food became her stage, where she made sense of life and discovered her love language.

Hungry Eyes is a memoir of identity, tracing a path through the moments and meals that shape who we become, and the ingredients we use to gradually build a life. Dawn explores the lifelong pressure to ‘bring something to the table’, and how it determines who we think we are.

What happens when we finally take our seat at our own table – and what if the thing you’ve been chasing your whole life was already sitting right there?

This is not just a book for people who follow politics, but for anyone who has ever doubted themselves, or wanted to make a difference.

‘An essential, inspiring read’ – Natalie Portman
‘Fascinating and engaging . . . makes us yearn for an era of courage and hope’ – Nicola Sturgeon, The Observer

The deeply personal memoir from the former prime minister of New Zealand, then the world’s youngest female head of government and just the second to become a mother in office.

Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she became a global icon for her empathetic leadership that put people first. She guided her country through unprecedented challenges, from the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks to a global pandemic. She advanced visionary policies to address climate change and child poverty. And all while juggling first-time motherhood in the public eye.

This is the inspiring story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt changed our assumptions of what a leader can be. A Different Kind of Power is more than a political memoir. Powerfully evocative and refreshingly open, it is a profound insight into how it feels to lead and it asks: what if you, too, are capable of more than you ever imagined?

‘Clear-eyed and luminous’ – Bill Bailey
‘Warm and funny . . . emotionally rich and candid’ – The Guardian
‘Wonderfully frank and open’ – The Rest is Politics: Leading

Simone de Beauvoir lived her feminist philosophy. She never married or had children, she had affairs with both men and women, and she actively defied the norms for women of her era. At the same time, she conducted an intense, long-term relationship with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, whom she referred to as her husband.

De Beauvoir and Sartre met as philosophy students in Paris in 1929. For over fifty years, until their deaths in the 1980s, the couple had a close open relationship. This book contains her letters to him, revealing the details of her everyday life and her passion for the man who shared her ideals. It is an intimate portrait of a woman living in an adventurous, complicated way in the name of individual freedom.

‘For 51 years, the conversations between them created ideas, books, and a bond which other passions enraged or enriched, but never altogether ruptured. It was, for De Beauvoir, an experiment in loving’ Guardian

'An opportunity to hear a vigorous and innovative thinker…speaking in her abrasive, touching, breathtakingly candid private voice' Sunday Times

TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY QUINTIN HOARE

'Full of wonder, hope and fascinating tales of stones and their people.' Fiona Robertson, author of Stone Lands

'An absolute delight.' James Canton, author of Renaturing and The Oak Papers

'A warm and generous guide to the bedrock of our land, and the characters who champion it'. Ruth Allen, author of Weathering and Grounded 

From the lonely heights of mountains to the womblike depths of caves, stone has always drawn us in. In The Spirit of Stone, Wyl Menmuir explores the many ways in which rock and earth form part of our identities, histories and futures. 

Across Britain and Ireland – from Mull to the Isles of Scilly – rock is everywhere beneath our feet, shaping not only our landscapes but also our imaginations and the ways we live together. 

Moving across these lands, Wyl Menmuir’s essays combine travelogue, social history and memoir, bringing together interviews, folklore and personal encounters with the landscapes themselves. 

From sacred monuments to modern sculpture, this book reveals how stone grounds us, challenges us and inspires us, such as: 

• Mountains and caves as places of pilgrimage, danger, refuge and wonder. 
• Ancient pathways and stone circles that leave traces of our ancestors written into the land. 
• Marks and monuments, from Neolithic carvings to contemporary sculpture, art that endures across centuries. 
• Everyday stone, for example the quarries, buildings and raw materials that underpin our daily lives. 

The Spirit of Stone follows on from The Draw of the Sea and The Heart of the Woods, completing a trilogy of explorations into our relationship with place. Where the first two books took readers to the water’s edge and into the forest, this book journeys into the landscapes of rock, stone and earth, reflecting on how they continue to define us. 

Resonant with the work of Robert Macfarlane, Kathleen Jamie and Peter Ross, yet strikingly original in its breadth and vision, The Spirit of Stone is a profound meditation on belonging, endurance and our shared human story written in stone. ]]> https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-everest-mystery/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=55954 There is no mystery more compelling than the disappearance of British mountaineer George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, last seen ‘going strong for the top’ of Mount Everest on 8 June 1924.

Mallory was a renowned climber; Irvine was a daring young sportsman embarking on the greatest adventure of his life . . . The question of exactly what happened to them on that fateful day has fascinated people for more than a century. Now, Irvine’s great-niece Julie Summers and mountaineering historian Jochen Hemmleb have written a gripping account of the 1924 expedition from Sandy’s perspective, challenging misconceptions regarding his role and the skills and knowledge of the two men.

The narrative brings to life all the remarkable characters involved in the attempt and describes the extraordinary feats of endurance and planning needed to survive the extreme conditions on Everest. The authors also examine whether the two men reached the summit – becoming the first to do so – or died on the ascent. Were their bodies seen by Chinese expeditions in 1960 and 1975? What can we learn from the discoveries of Mallory’s remains in 1999 and Sandy’s boot and foot in September 2024?

An intriguing detective story, The Everest Mystery is also a moving account of men pushing themselves to their limits in an attempt to make history.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMENS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2026

‘Heart-smashed’ by the death of the mother she ran from at age eighteen and shaken by the intensity of her response, Arundhati Roy began this remarkable memoir – a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is: shaped by circumstance, but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother, Mary, who she describes as ‘my shelter and my storm’.

With the scale, sweep and depth of her novels, and the passion, political clarity and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace – a memoir like no other.

‘I loved Arundhati Roy’s memoir; raw, tender, honest about the ferocity of mother-daughter relationships and the making of a writer’ Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times (Books of the Year)

FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
AUDIBLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
WINNER OF THE GOOGLE PLAY BEST OF 2025 AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDIE BOOK AWARDS 2026

A Sunday Times Best Book of 2025

A Guardian Best Sports Book 2025

A unique memoir from British cycling’s most fascinating competitor.

In the summer of 2020, sportswriter David Walsh invited Pippa York began a series of journeys following the Tour de France. A nostalgic voyage through the world’s most competitive bike race – for Walsh it was the chance to get to know the Tour’s most enigmatic riders. For York, it was a chance to revisit the race she had ridden eleven times as Robert Millar.

This book is the result – a unique and captivating sporting odyssey. The Escape blends the details of Pippa and David’s journeys with the iconic landmarks of the Tour de France to explore her early years in working-class Glasgow, her entry into competitive cycling, the psychological demands of the sport, and how they shaped her personality. It recounts her career highs and lows, life after racing, and her transition in her 40s.

Touching on doping, gender in sport, and the everyday magic of the Tour, The Escape is an unforgettable travelogue and a candid, one-of-a-kind memoir from one of cycling’s most enigmatic competitors.