This year (2022) has seen the sad death of the late Queen of England and this Christmas will be the first Christmas without her and her globally famous Queen's Speech at Christmas. This very timely book is a true story and work of faction that is written retrospectively, remembering the Queen of England and what she meant to a great many of her fans and also school children in the UK when she first came to her throne in 1952. England and its new Queen were on a very different planet, as they were likewise in 1953 when she became the first British monarch to let the television cameras into her life and become Britain's Television Queen thereby on a second parallel planet. These were 1950s planets that have now disappeared, or are fast disappearing, into the mists of time, as has the unforgettable Queen Elizabeth II. The story told in these pages is a very surprising, interesting and historically significant factional narrative. It's not only for the fans of the late Queen who is still fresh in their minds and with a place in their hearts during this first Christmas without her, but also for history buffs, students and lecturers of history and/or literature, lay-readers and bookworms and perhaps even republicans who monitor these affairs. The narrative is for all who like to touch social and royal history and get the feel of its handshake, written by one of the few authors remaining today who saw the Queen of England in at her televised coronation in 1953. He has now seen her out again this year in his twilight years at her massively televised lying in state and state funeral. It's a most extraordinary tale of social history and also of an unknown family's history and education, revealing how Queen Elizabeth related to and influenced her people when she first came to her throne. There were very different values and attitudes of mind and characters back then, when her fans were very different people indeed. Bob Crew is an author of several factual books who is also a former correspondent of The Times and Financial Times newspapers in London, as well as a graduate of the University of London, of which today's patron is Princess Anne. There really are few books of fact or fiction like this one, the story of which is chiefly about an unknown schoolboy and his family during the new reign of Queen Elizabeth II, as she and the 1950s history in question here cast its shadow over them all.

In the second part of John le Carré's Karla Trilogy, the battle of wits between spymaster George Smiley and his Russian adversary takes on an even more dangerous dimension. As the fall of Saigon looms, master spy George Smiley must outmaneuver his Soviet counterpart on a battlefield that neither can afford to lose. The mole has been eliminated, but the damage wrought has brought the British Secret Service to its knees. Given the charge of the gravely compromised Circus, George Smiley embarks on a campaign to uncover what Moscow Centre most wants to hide. When the trail goes cold at a Hong Kong gold seam, Smiley dispatches Gerald Westerby to shake the money tree. A part-time operative with cover as a philandering journalist, Westerby insinuates himself into a war-torn world where allegiances—and lives—are bought and sold. Brilliantly plotted and morally complex, The Honourable Schoolboy is the second installment of John le Carré's renowned Karla triology and a riveting portrayal of postcolonial espionage. With an introduction by the author.

Now in paperback, this beautifully written and gorgeously produced book describes the remarkable lives and times of the John Tradescants, father and son. In 17th-century Britain, a new breed of "curious" gardeners was pushing at the frontiers of knowledge and new plants were stealing into Europe from East and West. John Tradescant and his son were at the vanguard of this change—as gardeners, as collectors, and above all as exemplars of an age that began in wonder and ended with the dawning of science. Meticulously researched and vividly evoking the drama of their lives, this book takes readers to the edge of an expanding universe, and is a magnificent pleasure for gardeners and non-gardeners alike.