A treasure trove of rare and historically important books worth £2.5million that was stolen from a warehouse in London three years ago has been found in Romania. Detectives uncovered the stash – which includes tomes by Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and Spanish painter Francisco Goya – underneath the concrete floor of a rural house in … Read more
BOOK OF THE WEEK AGENT SONYA by Ben Macintyre (Viking £25, 416 pp) Her scones were the envy of the Oxfordshire hamlet of Great Rollright, where the friendly woman known as Mrs Burton lived in a stone farmhouse. In her late 30s, she moved there with her three children and husband Len just after the … Read more
HISTORY THE WHITE SHIP by Charles Spencer (William Collins £25, 352 pp) On a cold but clear November night in 1120, almost exactly 900 years ago, a ship sailed out of Barfleur harbour on the Normandy coast, bound for Southampton. Everyone on board was cheerfully drunk but perfectly optimistic. The tide had turned and was with … Read more
POLITICS EAT THE BUDDHA by Barbara Demick (Granta, £18.99, 272pp) The very word ‘Tibet’ has romantic, resonance. The ‘Roof of the World’ conjures the vast snowy wastes of the High Himalayan plateau, populated by yaks, nomadic herders, yetis and Buddhist lamas in russet robes, capable of levitation and clairvoyance. Alas, there is a very different … Read more
Eight-year-old boy, 4ft 6in, who is ‘not a natural reader’ and ‘struggles to sit still’ achieves his goal of reading his height in books in under a year Elijah Fyrne, from Chelthenham, has read 4ft 6 worth of books in just a year Eight-year-old challenged himself to read his height in books before birthday He’s … Read more
HISTORY SICILY ’43 by James Holland (Bantam £25, 640 pp) Sicily was a tough nut to crack for the Allied forces from Britain, Canada and the U.S., who landed on the enemy-occupied Mediterranean island in the blistering summer of 1943. They came from fighting Rommel’s tanks on the wide open deserts of North Africa to … Read more
WHAT BOOK would thriller writer John Connolly take to a desert island? John Connolly is reading Bloody Sam, a biography of director Sam Peckinpah He would take George Eliot’s Middle or a DIY book to a desert island Thriller writer said Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner left him cold By Daily Mail Reporter Published: … Read more
SOCIETY OLD HOMES, NEW LIFE by Clive Aslet (Triglyph £50, 304 pp) What made audiences all over the world fall in love with Downton Abbey? Perhaps it was Lady Mary’s exquisite frocks, the Dowager Countess’s waspish put-downs, or the slow-burn romance between Carson and Mrs Hughes. But for many of us the real star was … Read more
BOOK OF THE WEEK THE GRAN TOUR by Ben Aitken (Icon £14.99, 306 pp) When Ben Aitken discovers that for £109 he can get a four-night coach trip to Scarborough, with a cooked breakfast every morning, three-course dinner every night and excursions to York and Whitby, his first thought is: ‘That’s how much my sister … Read more
Teacher forces her pupils to hold books with their heads while studying to ‘fix the children’s bad postures’ Footage shows the children trying to keep books from falling from their heads The Chinese teacher used the method to help her pupils maintain good postures Many web users praised the technique ‘effective’ while others slammed it … Read more