Featuring exclusive interviews with Jack Grealish, John McGinn, Ollie Watkins, Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa, along with many other key figures

In early July 2018, Aston Villa were staring into the abyss.

Locked in a cash crisis triggered by defeat in the Championship play-off final, one of English football’s most historic and successful clubs stood on the brink of financial catastrophe.

Yet less than six years later, Villa were celebrating qualifying for the Champions League for the first time in their history.

Waking The Giant takes you inside one of the most extraordinary revival acts in modern football, from the last-minute takeover by billionaire duo Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens which saved the club, through the promotion and equally remarkable Premier League survival inspired by boyhood supporter Dean Smith, right up to the present day and their return to the European elite under Unai Emery.

It is a tale of triumph plucked from the jaws of despair, several times over, with Villa frequently defying the odds to keep climbing and reclaim their place at English football’s top table.

From club record runs to great escapes from relegation and British record transfers, this is a rollercoaster ride not to be missed.

Featuring exclusive interviews with:

• Jack Grealish
• John McGinn
• Ollie Watkins
• Tyrone Mings
• Ezri Konsa
• Albert Adomah
• Damian Vidagany, Director of Football Operations
• Jesus Garcia Pitarch, former sporting director
• Dean Smith, former manager
• Keith Wyness, former CEO

And dozens of other off-the-record conversations with key figures, managers, coaches, players and staff.

FROM THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF CATHERINE, THE PRINCESS OF WALES: THE BIOGRAPHY

From Elizabeth II to soon-to-be King William, The Windsor Legacy offers a riveting exploration of the British monarchy's resilience and influence over the past century, looking at its key players and conflicts, with a forward-looking examination of its future.

In an age where resilience is essential The Windsor Legacy delivers an enthralling narrative of inspiration and royal intrigue. Penned by Robert Jobson, a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author and a front-line royal correspondent for over three decades, this extraordinary work will take readers deep into the heart of royal history as well as through the secrets and secrets that plague it to this day.

From the abdication crisis, royal family entanglements, Cold War espionage, betrayal, scandalous love affairs, to more recent constitutional crises and the monarchy's most closely guarded secrets and feuds. The historic narrative romp, told through the key characters and clashes at the heart of the family will be packed with exclusive revelations, and be as comprehensive as it is captivating.

For a million years people have been travelling throughout Europe, from the mysterious homo antecessor who left his footprints on the coast of England to travellers on the motorways of today. Under every footstep lies an older one, under every paved road a donkey trail or wagon rut, under every footpath the prints of a hunter or his prey.

And yet the long, nation-spanning roads of Europe don't hold a special place in the imaginations and identities of its residents. No classic songs have been written about the E8, the way Americans have written about Route 66. Are Europeans too attached to their own home patch? Or have they too often seen armies marching towards them along those roads?

Eager to answer that question, Mathijs Deen goes in search of the warriors, refugees, bandits, pilgrims, fortune-seekers, conquerors and racers who advanced into history along the roads of Europe. From Boekelo in the Netherlands to Smolensk on the Dnieper, and from the first prehistoric Europeans to the barons who raced the open roads of Europe in the early 20th century, Down Old Roads is both a journey through Europe and a trip through time.

“It's easy to be swept away by Deen's delightful prose” New Statesman on The Boundless River

Translated from the Dutch by Jane Hedley-Prole and Jonathan Reeder

Venture behind closed doors to uncover the secrets of life in the interwar country house…

During the 1920s and 1930s, as the sun set slowly on the British Empire, England's stately homes concealed worlds both opulent and ordinary, noble and viscious. This was a realm draped in myth, hidden behind stiff upper lips and film-star smiles.

Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, on unpublished letters and diaries, on the eye-witness testimonies of belted earls, unhappy heiresses and bullying butlers, The Long Weekend reveals how the image of the country house was carefully protected by its occupants above and below stairs, and how the reality was so much more interesting than the dream.

'A perfect piece of escapism' Guardian

‘Elegant, encyclopaedic and entertaining’ The Times

'Wonderful' Judith Flanders

'A whirling, waltzing panorama through the last carefree age of British nobility’ New Statesman

Adrian Tinniswood opens the doors on the excess, intrigue and absurdities of life in the late Victorian and Edwardian country house

In the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side by side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with self-made millionaires and society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line.

Adrian Tinniswood opens the doors to the country house during this glittering golden age, when – for the privileged few – life in the country house was the best life of all.

'Fascinating' TLS

'Illuminating' Literary Review

'The range and scope of his book is breathtaking' Country Life

With stunning full-colour images

‘Remarkable … A joy to read’ JOSEPHINE QUINN, author of How the World Made the West

‘Dazzling … Will change how you see Rome, and Christianity, for ever’ CATHERINE NIXEY, author of Heresy

'One of the most important books on ancient history in many years’ HARRY SIDEBOTTOM, author of Warrior of Rome

Rome’s Age of Revolution corrects the triumphalist narrative that the Christian message was so persuasive, and indeed superior, that people converted in huge numbers, abandoning their pagan beliefs, thereby turning a small, persecuted sect into the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Tim Whitmarsh shows that Christianity would never have succeeded if it had not taken advantage of the infrastructure and culture of the Roman Empire; in turn the new religion was indelibly shaped and transformed by Roman beliefs and ideas, especially those circulating in the Greek-speaking, or Hellenistic, eastern parts of the empire. This radical transformation, Tim argues, can only be described as a revolution. And the consequences are with us to this day.

‘Riveting – incisive and stylishly written’ EDITH HALL, author of Aristotle’s Way

‘Fascinating and powerful throughout’ ANDREW PETTEGREE, author of The Book at War

‘Refreshingly innovative … Remarkable’ CANDIDA MOSS, author of God’s Ghost-writers

‘History writing at its very best’ BRUCE GORDON, author of The Bible

'What drives these pages is the guilty conscience of my profession, theoretical physics. My sole aim is to help avert what seems to me to be the unintended, yet scarcely avoidable, end point of the current politics of the governments we have elected: nuclear war.'

The world is rearming and embroiled in endless conflict. The Doomsday Clock has now been set to 85 seconds to midnight, with the risk of nuclear war the highest it has ever been. Why do we always fail to learn from the past?

In this urgent book, acclaimed physicist Carlo Rovelli reframes the history of nuclear weapons: from how the atomic bomb was born to why Germany didn't build it and why the US used it, to the narrowly averted disasters of the Cold War and the political brinkmanship careering out of control today.

As he grapples with the legacy of his scientific forebears, Rovelli spotlights the true nature of the decisions being made by leaders around the world today. A timely and ardent warning, this searing reckoning with short-sighted politics is essential reading for anyone seeking sanity at our moment of greatest peril.