The Girl Who Played With Fire
Stieg Larsson

Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists about to expose the truth about the sex trafficking trade are murdered and Salander's prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her.Mikael Blomkvist, editor-in-chief of Millennium, does not believe the police. Using all his magazine staff and resources to prove Salander's innocence, Blomkvist also uncovers her terrible past, spent in criminally corrupt institutions. Yet Salander is more avenging angel than helpless victim. She may be an expert at staying out of sight - but she has ways of tracking down her most elusive enemies.

The Third Reich at War
Richard J. Evans

This third and final volume in Richard J Evans' masterly trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany traces the rise and fall of German military might, against the background of the mobilization of the 'people's community' in the service of a war of conquest, racial subjugation and genocide. Interweaving a broad narrative of the war's progress with personal testimony from a wide range of people, from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives, Richard Evans lays bare the dynamics of a society plunged into war at every level. The great battles and events of the war are here, from the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's suicide in the bunker, but just as important is the recreation of the daily experience of ordinary Germans in wartime, under the growing impact of the mass bombing of Germany's towns and cities.

Ship of Rome
John Stack

Against a backdrop of the clash of the Roman and Carthaginian empires, the battle for supremacy takes place on the high seas. This exciting new series from a first time novelist stars an outsider - a Greek master mariner - as the hero, and the story is set against the backdrop of a clash of empires Roman and Carthaginian. Ship of Rome is set in the earlier period of Rome when the empire was not nearly as well established and when the Romans were challenged for their control of Southern Italy and Sicily by the powerful trading nation of Carthage.

Consider the Birds
Colin Tudge
All animals are equal - but some, as George Orwell said, are more equal than others, and birds, most people would surely agree, are in the very first rank. They can do almost everything that mammals can do - and more besides. By mastering flight, they have a way of living that encompasses the whole world. In Consider The Birds, Colin Tudge explores the life of birds, all around the globe. From the secrets of migration to their complicated family lives, their differing habitats and survival techniques to the secrets of flight, this is a fascinating account of how birds live, why they matter, and whether they really are dinosaurs.

Hitler's Private Library
Timothy Ryback

Hitler was a passionate reader, his education and worldview formed largely by the books he read. Recently, Timothy Ryback uncovered in the Library of Congress hundreds of volumes from Hitler's forgotten private collection, complete with Hitler's marginalia-underlines, question marks, exclamation points, questions, and comments. Now Ryback traces key phrases and ideas from Hitler's personal books into his writing, speeches, conversations, thinking, and actions. Ryback shows us how Hitler urged his fellow party members to read Henry Ford's anti-Semitic tract, The International Jew, and how Hitler's own notions of Aryan superiority were shaped by a specific interpretation of the Nordic epic Peer Gynt. We come to understand the particulars of his admiration for The Merchant of Venice and Don Quixote and the German philosophers who provided the basis for his anti-Semitism.

The Great Crash
Selwyn Parker

This is the story of the financial cataclysm that started with the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929, and set in motion a series of economic, political and social events that affected many millions of people in America, Britain, Europe and Australia.The Crash rolled across the world like a tidal wave, toppling governments, spreading the wave of dictatorships in Italy and Germany, infecting entire industries and plunging millions into unemployment and poverty. By the time it began to lift in 1935, the lives of people in scores of countries had changed forever. Selwyn Parker s book also poses the question: could it happen again?

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
Roger Lowenstein

Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century - an astounding net worth of $10 billion, and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street, a brilliant dealmaker who cultivates a homespun aura. Journalist Roger Lowenstein draws on three years of unprecedented access to Buffett's family, friends, and colleagues to provide the first definitive, inside account of the life and career of this American original.

Rome's Cultural Revolution
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

The period of Rome's imperial expansion, the late Republic and early Empire, saw transformations of its society, culture and identity. Drawing equally on archaeological and literary evidence, this book offers an original and provocative interpretation of these changes. Moving from recent debates about colonialism and cultural identity, both in the Roman world and more broadly, and challenging the traditional picture of 'Romanization' and 'Hellenization', it offers instead a model of overlapping cultural identities in dialogue with one another. It attributes a central role to cultural change in the process of redefinition of Roman identity, represented politically by the crisis of the Republican system and the establishment of the new Augustan order.