British Science

Victoria-Margaret is the crown princess of the empire, a direct descendent of Victoria I, the queen who changed the course of history. The imperial tradition of genetically arranged matchmaking will soon guide Margaret into a politically advantageous marriage. But before she does her duty, she'll have one summer of freedom and privacy in a far corner of empire.

England's recent lurch to the right appears to be but one example of the nationalist wave sweeping across the world, yet as acclaimed Irish critic Fintan O'Toole suggests in The Politics of Pain, it is, in reality, a phenomenon rooted in World War II. We must look not to the vagaries of the European Union but, instead, far back to the end of the British empire, if we hope to understand our most fraternal ally - and the royal mess in which the British now find themselves.

The Right to Rule is the full story of what has just happened in British politics, and how it has shaped Westminster and, by extension, the nation. Over the last decade, we have seen five different Conservative Prime Ministers, with five different missions and messages to the nation. Not for two centuries has such political turnover been seen. From the ashes of a financial crisis, to a break from the UK's biggest trading block, to a global pandemic, governments - and ideologies - have changed, but the Conservative party's power has remained.

The Wang family is hiding a secret—they all have the ability to time travel. When parents Joshua and Lily depart for the past and never return, their children Tommy and Eva are forced to deal with their grief alone. Eva tries to find her place in the present, while Tommy is pulled further and further into a past that he hopes holds the truth. When he falls in love with a woman from 1930s London Chinatown, his inability to confront his own history has serious ramifications for the people who can truly bring him happiness.

The mixed population is the fastest-growing group in the UK today, but the mainstream conversation around mixedness is stilted, repetitive and often problematic. At a time when ethnically ambiguous models fill our Instagram feeds and our high street shop windows, and when children of interracial relationships are lauded as heralding in the dawn of a post-racial utopia, journalist Natalie Morris takes a deep dive into what it really means to be mixed in Britain today.

Originally published in 1985, Outposts is Simon Winchester's journey to find the vanishing empire, "on which the sun never sets". In the course of a three-year, 100,000 mile journey - from the chill of the Antarctic to the blue seas of the Caribbean, from the South of Spain and the tip of China to the utterly remote specks in the middle of gale-swept oceans - he discovered such romance and depravity, opulence and despair that he was inspired to write what may be the last contemporary account of the British empire.

From the dark centuries of British prehistory to the ninth century AD, comes tales of giants and fairy-folk of druids and saints. From King Lear and King Arthur, to Fingal, Beowulf, Gwendolen, and Guinevere legendary characters have shaped the making of the nation. But who were they? In Mythology of the British Isles, Geoffrey Ashe explores how each of these stories are inter-connected, and how they have taken on fresh significance and meaning as historical and archaeological research has uncovered the truth behind each legend.

This audiobook will take the listener on the slow train to another era when travel meant more than hurrying from one place to the next, the journey meaning nothing but time lost in crowded carriages, condemned by broken timetables. On the Slow Train will reconnect with that long-missed need to lift our heads from the daily grind and reflect that there are still places in Britain where we can stop and stare. It will tap into many things: a love of railways, a love of history, a love of nostalgia.

The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal’s story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal’s first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.

A timely, insider account of an important and controversial step in British Columbia’s strategic effort to respond to the overdose crisis. British Columbia is in the middle of an opioid crisis. Since the province of British Columbia declared a public health emergency in 2016 more than 9,400 people have died of drug poisoning in BC–an average of six people a day–with nearly 1,500 apparent opioid-related deaths in the first eight months of 2022.

You are not an executive who can make and enforce decisions. You are a legislator who votes on making laws. You are not a counsellor, a housing officer, benefits clerk, bank or trading standards officer, but you are often expected to provide a new home, sort out benefits, provide a loan, or settle a dispute about a computer game bought for little Jimmy that doesn't work. You are, in fact, a 21st-century Member of Parliament representing about 125,000 good folk from your constituency....

For more than a century, police officers used their uniforms to control and bully criminals, which in turn led to wholesale bribery and corruption. From Victorian times up to the 1950s, this crooked atmosphere tainted the UK police image of the 'friendly Bobby'. Then came the 1960s and 1970s when the Great Train Robbery and other bigtime heists changed the rules of the 'game' forever. It was like the Wild West out there. No one knew who the good guys and who the bad guys were anymore.

The British have a relationship with their food that is unlike that of any other country. Once something that was never discussed in polite company, it is now something with which the nation is obsessed. But are we at last developing a food culture or are we just going through the motions? Eating for England is an entertaining, detailed, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek observation of the British and their food, their cooking, their eating, and how they behave in restaurants.

Helena Kennedy forensically examines the pressing new evidence that women are being discriminated against when it comes to the law. From the shocking lack of female judges to the scandal of female prisons and the double discrimination experienced by BAME women, Kennedy shows with force and fury that change for women must start at the heart of what makes society just.

Hitler’s Girl is a groundbreaking history that reveals how, in the 1930s, authoritarianism nearly took hold in Great Britain as it did in Italy and Germany. Drawing on recently declassified intelligence files, Lauren Young details the pervasiveness of Nazi sympathies among the British aristocracy, as significant factions of the upper class methodically pursued an actively pro-German agenda.

Test your knowledge or brush up on it with this unofficial Trivia Book. If you want to remember some of the great moments (with the expanse of time, we couldn’t remember them all!) of one of the most loved television shows ever, this book is for you.

Exploring the extraordinary social and political dominance enjoyed by the British aristocracy over the centuries, Entitled seeks to explain how a tiny number of noble families rose to such a position in the first place. It reveals the often nefarious means they have employed to maintain their wealth, power, and prestige and examines the greed, ambition, jealousy, and rivalry which drove aristocratic families to guard their interests with such determination.

At the dawn of the 21st century, British society is still shaped by a private education system devised to gentrify the Victorian middle classes and produce gentlemen to run the Empire. Yet it is not on the political agenda. It is rarely the subject of public debate, and we remain blind to its psychological implications. Can we afford to go on ignoring this issue? Will we continue to sacrifice the welfare of our children to satisfy our antiquated social aspirations?

Five hundred years from its launch, the colony vessel Lovelock is deep into its sub lightspeed journey, carrying four thousand humans in search of a habitable planet. When a series of explosions tear the ship apart, it is forced to land on the nearest possible location: a polar section of the Helix—a vast, spiral construct of worlds, wound about a G-type sun.

Cosy is “the slacker’s guide to staying at home, an antidote to peak frazzle.” With trademark Anglo cheekiness, Laura Weir perfectly captures the British essence of cosy. She celebrates socks, warms to the joys of toasty open fires, and extols the virtues of a quiet walk, ultimately enticing us all to create the British magic of cosy in our everyday lives.