‘Ceaselessly interesting, knowledgeable and evocative’ – Spectator
‘A fresh way to write history’ – Alan Johnson
‘An amused, erudite homage to France . . . ambitious and original’ – The Times
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Original, knowledgeable and endlessly entertaining, France: An Adventure History is an unforgettable journey through France from the first century BC to the present day. Drawn from countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, in the library and across 30,000 miles on the author’s beloved bike, it begins with Gaulish and Roman times and ends in the age of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, the Gilets Jaunes and Covid-19. From the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris, events and themes of French history may be familiar – Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Resistance, the Tour de France – but all are presented in a shining new light.

Frequently hilarious, always surprising, this is a sweeping panorama, teeming with characters, stories and coincidences, and offering a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment. A vivid, living history of one of the world’s most fascinating nations, it will make even seasoned Francophiles wonder if they really know that terra incognita which is currently referred to as ‘France’.
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‘Packed full of discoveries’ – The Sunday Times
‘A gorgeous tapestry of insights, stories and surprises’ – Fintan O’Toole
‘A rich and vibrant narrative . . . clear-eyed but imaginative storytelling’ – Financial Times
‘Full of life’ – Prospect

‘Bound has a natural flair for storytelling and his narrative cracks along with the pace of a well-crafted thriller . . . Captivating and engrossing’ – Mail on Sunday

‘As thrilling as any tale from the heroic age of exploration . . . Bound’s account is a triumph’ – Sunday Times

On 21 November 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, finally succumbed to the crushing ice. Its crew watched in silence as the stern rose twenty feet in the air and then, it was gone. The miraculous escape and survival of all twenty-eight men on board have entered legend. And yet, the iconic ship that bore them to the brink of the Antarctic was considered forever lost.

A century later, an audacious plan to locate the ship was hatched. The Ship Beneath the Ice gives a blow-by-blow account of the two epic expeditions to find the Endurance. As with Shackleton’s own story, the voyages were filled with intense drama and teamwork under pressure. In March 2022, the Endurance was finally found to headlines all over the world.

Written by Mensun Bound, the Director of Exploration on both expeditions, this captivating narrative includes countless fascinating stories of Shackleton and his legendary ship. Complete with a selection of Frank Hurley’s photos from Shackleton’s original voyage in 1914-17, as well as from the expeditions in 2019 and 2022, The Ship Beneath the Ice is the perfect tribute to this monumental discovery.

Amid all the foreign adventurers that throng to Nepal to scale the world’s highest peaks there exists a small community of mountain people at the foothills of Himalayas. Sherpa tells their story. It’s the story of endeavour and survival at the roof of the world. It dives into their culture and tells of their existence at the edge of life and death. Written by Ankit Babu Adhikari – a writer, social science researcher and musician – and Pradeep Bashyal – a journalist with the BBC based in Nepal – Sherpa traces their story pre- and post-mountaineering revolution, their evolution as climbing crusaders with previously unpublished stories from the most notable and incredible Sherpas of the last 50 years.

This is the story of the Sherpas.

Rising a kilometre out of the storm-scoured waters around Scotland’s Isle of Skye is a dark battlement of pinnacles and ridgelines: the Cuillin.

Plagued by ferocious weather and built from rock that tears skin and confounds compasses, a crossing of the Cuillin is the toughest mountaineering expedition in the British Isles. But the traverse is only part of its lure. Hewn from the innards of an ancient volcano, this mountain range stands like a crown on an island drenched in intrigue. While nineteenth-century climbers flocked to the Alps, the ridge lay untrodden and unyielding. When a generation of mountaineers did come, they found a remarkable prize: the last peaks of Britain to be climbed – peaks that would be named after those who climbed them. Along the way, many others, from artists and poets to mystics and wanderers, have been lured by the Cuillin’s haunting beauty and magic. Those who have been seduced by the deadly magic of these mountains attest to the complexity of humans’ relationship with the intrigue of our wildest, most dangerous places.

The Black Ridge is a journey through the history and into the heights of the Cuillin of Skye – from the ridge’s violent birth to the tales of its pioneers, its thrills, its myths and its monsters. From a night spent in a cave beneath its highest peak to the ascent of its most infamous pinnacle, this is an adventure on foot through all seasons across the most mesmerising mountain range in Britain.

Calling all budding explorers! The Animal Explorers series will inspire you to follow your dreams.

Stella is determined to be the first-ever squirrel in space. However, her hopes are quickly dashed when she finds that she’s too small to go to Space School.

But Stella won’t let that stop her. Surely, if she’s determined enough, she can still make her dream come true?

Soar to the Moon with Stella, then discover the inspiring stories of four real-life spacemen and women.  

• Animal Explorers is a witty, entertaining picture-book series that will inspire children to follow their dreams.
• Sharon Rentta’s glowing illustrations are packed with fabulous characters and funny details to point out and share
• Mini biographies at the end of the book tell the amazing stories of four real-life astronauts and space scientists

Also in the Animal Explorers series:

Lola the Plant Hunter, in which an adventurous polar bear travels all the way to the Amazon to seek out the rare Singing Orchid.

Toby the Deep-Sea Diver, in which a young tiger longs to explore the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean.

Praise for Sharon Rentta’s books:

“Rentta’s illustrations are first class . . . destined to become a favourite.” Carousel

“full of colour and joy . . . great to read out loud” Books for Keeps

Veteran climber Mark Synnott never planned on climbing Mount Everest. But a hundred-year mystery lured him into an expedition where a history of passionate adventure, chilling tragedy, and human aspiration unfolded.

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were last seen in 1924, eight hundred feet shy of Everest’s summit. A century later, we still don’t know whether they achieved their goal of being first to reach the top, decades before Hillary and Norgay in 1953. Irvine carried a camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit and take a photograph before they fell to their deaths?

Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face to try and find Irvine’s body and the camera. But during a season described as ‘the one that broke Everest’, an awful traffic jam of climbers at the summit resulted in tragic deaths. Synnott’s quest became something bigger than the original mystery that drew him there – an attempt to understand the madness of the mountain and why it continues to have a magnetic draw on explorers.

Exploring how science, business and politics have changed who climbs Everest, The Third Pole is a thrilling portrait of the mountain spanning a century.

Beginning with the Roman army’s first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending with the Gilets Jaunes protests in the era of Emmanuel Macron, each chapter is an adventure in its own right. Along the way, readers will find the usual faces, events and themes of French history – Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Résistance, the Tour de France – but all presented in a shining new light.

Graham Robb does not offer a standard dry list of facts and dates, but instead a panorama of France, teeming with characters, full of stories, journeys and coincidences, giving readers a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment. France: An Adventure History is a vivid, living history of one of the world’s most fascinating nations by a ceaselessly entertaining writer in complete command of subject and style.
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‘A rich and vibrant narrative . . . clear-eyed but imaginative storytelling’ Financial Times

‘Ambitious and original’ Times

In Journeys to Impossible Places, best-selling author and presenter Simon Reeve reveals the inside story of his most astonishing adventures and experiences, around the planet and close to home.

Journeys to Impossible Places continues the story Simon started in his phenomenal Sunday Times bestseller Step by Step, which traced the first decades of his life from depressed and unemployed teenager through to his early TV programmes.

Now Simon takes us on the epic and thrilling adventures that followed, in beautiful, tricky and downright dangerous corners of the world, as he travelled through the Tropics, to remote paradise islands, jungles dripping with heat and life, and on nerve-wracking secret missions.

Simon shares what his unique experiences and encounters have taught him, and the deeper lessons he draws from joy and raw grief in his personal life, from desperate struggles with his own fertility and head health, from wise friends, fatherhood, inspiring villagers, brave fighters, his beloved dogs, and a thoughtful Indian sadhu.

Journeys to Impossible Places inspires and encourages all of us to battle fear and negativity, and embrace life, risk, opportunities and the glory of our world.

Life Lessons from Explorers collects 15 of the most highly prized traits shared by those who have scaled mountains and traversed tundras, proposing how these could be applied to your own life, whether you are crossing Antarctica or battling a mental obstacle. Compelling accounts of the life and times of celebrated explorers, highlighting when they have displayed these traits are accompanied by remarkable images of the people who have travelled to the ends of the Earth, and the places they discovered.