Lionel Blue
Hitchhiking To Heaven

Lionel Blue is a paradox: Britain's most famous Rabbi and a household name, his Jewish wit and quirky spirituality never fail to entertain. Yet he has lived a life on the fringes. A Rabbi who has remained true to his tradition, he has also found a home in Christianity. A man who has struggled with his sexuality, he has learnt slowly and painfully that spiritually and sexuality are inextricably entwined. He has never tried to escape the contradictions of a life lived honestly, and he has remained open to exploration and challenge. Hitchhiking to Heaven recounts Lionel Blue's journey through life, reflecting upon events and experiences with profundity and originality but also with humour.

Gyles Brandreth
Philip And Elizabeth

This is the first major biography of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh - both royal, both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, but, in temperament and upbringing, two very different people. The Queen's childhood was loving and secure, the Duke's was turbulent: his grandfather assassinated, his father arrested, his family exiled, his parents separated when he was only ten. This is a unique biography in which the author has met all the principal players in the story and has had privileged access to the Queen. He has known the Duke of Edinburgh for over twenty-five years. Philip and Elizabeth tells the extraordinary story of these two contrasting lives and assesses their achievements, together and apart.

Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at ten, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault.

• This is the beginning of a new series featuring Alfred the Great as he faces the challenge of the Vikings.