Penguin Specials – serie

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is a chilling tale by Helen Dunmore.'It was nothing, she tells herself, but her body knows better.'Florence lives in the country, lapped by miles and miles of darkness. She feels safe there - until a noise wakes her in the middle of the night. Protection is a short story by bestselling author Helen Dunmore that will cause your skin to prickle and make you ask yourself how far you would go to protect your family.

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is a poignant novella from Anita Brookner.'I rather hope I shall die at the hairdresser's, for they are bound to know what to do. At least that is what I tell myself.'Solitude is a familiar burden for Elizabeth Warner. She lives in a basement flat near Victoria and leaves the house only to go shopping and to have her hair done - until a chance encounter at the hairdresser's brings unexpected change. At the Hairdresser's is a deeply moving, unflinchingly observed story about trust and betrayal by one of the greatest writers of contemporary fiction.

A Guest at the Feast is Colm Tóibín's touching memoir. A Guest at the Feast moves from the small town of Enniscorthy to Dublin, from memories of a mother who always had a book on the go to the author's early adulthood, from a love of literature to the influences of place and family. Tóibín's captivating memoir is the story of a writer coming of age and his connections between home, work and love. It is a perfect gem of a book.

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is Saul David's compelling examination of one of history's greatest battles.On 22nd January, at Isandlwana in Zululand, South-East Africa, the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its history. A camp of 1,700 men, armed with state-of-the-art weapons and two artillery pieces, was surprised and overwhelmed by a huge Zulu army equipped with only spears. It became the seminal battle of the Zulu War, an ill-conceived, incompetently executed and fruitless campaign for the British.In this Penguin Short, Saul David presents a concise, devastating and utterly gripping account of the most brutal of battles that will transport you to the plains of Africa and the cauldron of war, and all for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. In this Special, Colin Smith and John Bierman make the battle of Alamein come alive.A turning point in the Second World War, the battle of El Alamein was the culmination of a military campaign like no other. Fought across desolate arid terrain, the brutal fighting was matched by a camaraderie and respect between enemies as witnessed in no other theatre of war. Combining gritty personal testimonies with thorough journalistic investigation, John Bierman and Colin Smith present a compelling account of a ferocious but compassionate battle and a journey through the unforgiving North African landscape.

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form.Christmas dinner is perhaps the one meal of the year where even the most relaxed cook feels the pressure of perfection - and, although few menus can be more familiar, it's probably the one we all feel the least confident about.Cooking Christmas dinner can be stressful, but there's no need to rifle through recipe books, or frantically Google turkey cooking times on Christmas morning as Felicity Cloake has tried and tested recipes from all the greats - from Nigella Lawson and Simon Hopkinson to Delia Smith and Mrs Beeton - and pulled together the best points from each to come up with the ultimate Christmas Day recipe collection. Based on Felicity's popular Guardian column, Perfect Christmas Day combines invaluable prepping and cooking tips to calm the most frazzled of festive souls and, of course, fifteen delicious recipes. From mulled wine, blinis, stilton soufflés and the perfect prawn cocktail to turkey and gravy, stuffing, sprouts, roast potatoes, pigs-in-blankets, nut roast, and cranberry and bread sauce, to trifle, mince pies and brandy butter, Perfect Christmas Day is all you need to prepare the perfect Christmas dinner.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker - hilarious restaurant reviews by Booker nominee Will Self'Most food writing and restaurant criticism is concerned with the ideal, with how by cooking this, or dining there, you can somehow ingurgitate a new - or at any rate improved - social, aesthetic and even spiritual persona. I aimed to turn this proposition on its head, and instead of commenting on where and what people would ideally like to eat I would consider where and what they actually did: the ready meals, buffet snacks and - most importantly - fast food that millions of Britons chomp upon in the go-round of their often hurried and dyspeptic lives.'In this selection from his wickedly funny New Statesman Real Meals column, Will Self reviews the chains where most of us go to eat (KFC, Greggs, Yo! Sushi, Pizza Express and their like), delves into the ubiquitous Thai meal and Chicken Tikka Masala, and experiences hotel breakfasts, frozen TV dinners and airline food on our behalf. These are restaurant reviews of the kind you've never read before.Will Self is the author of nine novels including Cock and Bull; My Idea of Fun; Great Apes; How the Dead Live; Dorian, an Imitation; The Book of Dave; The Butt; Walking to Hollywood and Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He has written five collections of shorter fiction and three novellas: The Quantity Theory of Insanity; Grey Area; License to Hug; The Sweet Smell of Psychosis; Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo; Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys; Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe and Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes. Self has also compiled a number of nonfiction works, including The Undivided Self: Selected Stories; Junk Mail; Perfidious Man; Sore Sites; Feeding Frenzy; Psychogeography; Psycho Too and The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker.

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.When students graduate from university they are employed in equal numbers. Move up the ladder a few rungs and the number of women in high powered positions has fallen dramatically.Women make up just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs and still generally get paid less than their male counterparts.Barbara Becks ask why this is and what can be done about it. She covers:Closing the gapFemale labour markets: The cashier and the carpenterA world of bluestockingsWork and family: Baby bluesTop jobs: Too many suitsWomen in China: The sky's the limitLooking ahead: Here's to the next half-century

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.In the US, the average age of a gamer is 37 and 42% are female. Last year the industry earned $56billion worldwide. Tim Cross analyses the proliferation of the video games in this Economist special report, and how its successes are set to grow. Sections in the report include:All the world's a gameAs you like itThe business of gaming: Thinking out of the boxPaying for pixels E-sports: Gentlemen, start your computersViolence and addiction: No killer appAlternative uses: The play's the thingThe importance of fun: Homo ludens

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Twenty years ago one gigabyte of memory cost $200,000. Now, a terabyte (1000 gigabytes) costs a mere $100.Technology permeates our everyday lives and never more so than with our portable, personal devices. Businesses are struggling to keep up with their employees' technological abilities and demands.In Personal Technology, Martin Giles unpicks the changing landscape of technology, examining apps, new devices and their effect on world trade. In the following sections, he explains how technology and the economy are becoming inextricably linked and how this has resulted in the birth of the new, digital age.Beyond the PCConsumerisation: The power of manyApps on tapPersonal technology at work: IT's Arab springAdapting personal IT for business: The consumer-industrial complexDroid warsUbiquitous computing: Up closeTechnology and society: Here comes anyware

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Is financial innovation good or bad?Did it cause the financial crisis of 2007/2008?Are the current financial systems working for a stable global economy?Andrew Palmer answers these questions in his special report, but urges that it's more that just a debate on whether financial innovation does or doesn't work. In fact, he claims, it is almost impossible to draw these distinctions.Using a variety of examples - from social bonds to securitisations risks - he highlights the weaknesses in innovative strategies, revealing how some innovation is doomed to failure.The consequences of innovation are now so crucial and so scrutinised - it is essential reading for anyone in the business world.Sections include:Playing with fireThe ferment of financeThe little guyFrom vanilla to rocky roadThe fast and furiousOf plumbing and promisesOn the side of the angelsSafety first

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.'The line up for next year's change of leadership does not give cause for optimism' says James Miles, the Economist's China correspondent.With a heavily state owned banking system, waning numbers of workers in a labour intensive industrial economy and lack of development in new business, China's current boom may be set to bust. In the following sections, James Miles examines the restrictive nature of government in China, and what it will mean for the country and the rest of the world.Urbanisation: Where do you live?Rising power, anxious stateChina's new leaders: The princelings are comingGrowth prospects: Beware the middle-income trapDeng & CoGovernment's role in industry: The long arm of the stateDemography: Getting onIdeological battles: Universalists v exceptionalists

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Globalisation and technology are changing the structure of the labour market. Now, companies have the choice to recruit from further afield and without the need for traditional office workers. Matthew Bishop explores how companies can, and will, recruit employees in the future and how individuals can get ahead in this era of change.Sections include:The great mismatchLabour-market trends: Winners and losersBottom of the pyramidSelf-help: My big fat careerFree-for-allCompanies' concerns: Got talent?The role of government: Lending a handA better balance: More feast, less famine

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Pakistan is in a tricky situation. It is under constant scrutiny by the world media but is more often than not described in terms of its problems.There are indeed difficulties - bordering the unsettled nations of Afghanistan and Iran puts it in a precarious position. A poor and badly educated population for the most part is not helping the country's growth.There is hope.The wealth of natural resources, a growing, urban population and a more democratic government all point to a positive future.But with the NATO withdrawal from its troubled neighbours nearing, Pakistan's survival hangs in the balance.Simon Long's special report includes the following sections:Perilous JourneyToo close for comfortState of vulnerabilityCaptain's inningsIn the shadow of the mosqueLights offA taste of HunnyAlways with usDripping with bloodGoing with the flow

As we watch wave after wave of volatility threaten the global economy, it is tempting to ask, who is in charge here? The answer, journalist and economist Alan Beattie explains, is all too often no one.The crisis that began with mortgages in American suburbia has now spread around the world from banks to businesses to governments, threatening to bring decades of economic progress to a juddering halt. Globalization's strengths - its speed, breadth, and complexity - have also proved to be weaknesses as the crisis has traveled more rapidly and widely around the globe than the boom, and faster than governments have usually been able to react.The United States, which has led the global economy since the second world war, has been weakened by political division at home. Like ancient Rome, it has been challenged by an array of upstarts - emerging markets like China, India and Brazil. But just like the tribes that brought down the Roman Empire, the rising powers are strong enough to block American leadership yet not united enough to provide direction of their own. In Europe, as country after country has slid towards trouble, it has become evident that the eurozone's slow and unwieldy policy frameworks are woefully unfit for dealing with financial crises. As Beattie writes: "It [is] like watching a gang of irascible, quarrelsome architects trying to redesign a house in the middle of a raging fire."With the penetrating wit for which he is known, Alan Beattie explains how international economic institutions like the IMF can work - and how they often don't. He calls out the more spectacular failures of judgment and leadership, as well as the less frequent bright spots, in handling the crisis, showing how governments scrambled to respond as the ground started to give way.

I have been a restaurant critic for over a decade, written reviews of well over 700 establishments, and if there is one thing I have learnt it is that people like reviews of bad restaurants. No, scratch that. They adore them, feast upon them like starving vultures who have spotted fly-blown carrion out in the bush.They claim otherwise, of course. Readers like to present themselves as private arbiters of taste; as people interested in the good stuff. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they really do care whether the steak was served au point as requested or whether the soufflé had achieved a certain ineffable lightness. And yet, when I compare dinner to bodily fluids, the room to an S & M chamber in Neasden (only without the glamour or class), and the bill to an act of grand larceny, why, then the baying crowd is truly happy.Don't believe me? Then why, presented with the chance to buy this ebook filled with accounts of twenty restaurants - their chefs, their owners, their poor benighted front of house staff - getting a complete stiffing courtesy of the sort of vitriolic bloody-curdling review which would make the victims call for their mummies, did you seize it with both hands?

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form.The financial and social crisis in Greece has deep roots in the country's society and history. In this newly revised edition James Pettifer, the leading Balkan commentator and Oxford University historian brings us up to date with recent events in Greece. He explores the reasons for Greece's current situation, tracing the deep fissures caused by unresolved issues dating back to the Second World War, Greece's often difficult relationships with Turkey and the Balkan neighbours to the north, and its problematic position in the European Union. In 1981, Greece became the tenth member of what was then the European Economic Community, and for a time seemed to be making good progress in democratisation and economic development. Now that achievement is at serious risk.The author has extensive experience in Greece dating back to the time of the Colonels dictatorship in the early 1970s and its bitter aftermath. The Making of the Greek Crisis sets the scene for the country's intractable financial crisis and associated conflict with the European Union institutions in Brussels, and explains the practical, difficult choices facing the Greek people at this important turning point in their history.

In the summer of 2011, investors with Custom House Capital - some of whom had all their pension savings tied up with the investment house - faced a nightmare: the possibility that their money was gone, and that they wouldn't be getting it back. Finance journalist Niall Brady takes us behind the scenes for the first in-depth account of a disaster that has cost investors millions. He shows how clients' funds were mis-allocated to cover losses, how the Financial Regulator, though aware of irregularities at CHC for years, failed to forestall the crisis, and how it remains unclear, over a year after the scandal was uncovered, whether people will get their money back. His account of the strange culture and practices of CHC makes House of Cards a must-read for fans of Too Big to Fail and The Big Short.Niall Brady is a chartered accountant and a journalist with the Sunday Times.'Damning ... Brady tells the tale of how the rogues still run rings around the protectors' Shane Ross, Sunday Independent'One of the most shocking stories to have emerged in Ireland's economic bust' Cantillon, Irish Times'Excellent concise read. Great story' Tom Lyons, author of The FitzPatrick Tapes

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.As Western liberalist capitalism flounders in the wake of global recession, state backed companies are slowly taking over.The melding of the power of the state and the power of capitalism is on the rise. Prevalent in the emerging economies of China, Russia and Brazil, some of the world's most powerful companies are state owned. The 13 biggest oil firms are government controlled. China Mobile has over 600million customers and the Emirates airlines is growing at 20% a year.However, despite the numerous successes, Adrian Wooldridge urges caution. He asks whether it could easily survive if confronted with difficulty, criticises the embedded corruption and cronyism and asks whether a fair trading system is possible to maintain with government favoured business.Slowly but surely, the invisible hand of the market is being usurped by the visible, often authoritarian, hand of state capitalism.Sections include:The visible handSomething old, something new - a brief history of state capitalismNew masters of the universe - how state enterprise is spreadingTheme and variations - state capitalism is not all the sameMixed bag - infrastructure and innovationThe world in their hands - state capitalism looks outward and inwardAnd the winner is - fatal flaws

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Raúl Castro is changing Cuba. Recognising the limits that the Soviet style economy places upon the Cuban people, he is allowing the market greater freedoms. A new, private sector is emerging and is expected to employ around 25% of the labour force by 2015.What will these changes mean for foreign business and for Cuba's position on the global stage?As there doesn't seem to be a Castro successor and the party is pressured by the younger generation and the digital world, where will Cuba be in ten years time?This report will reflect on the likelihood and impact of political and economic change on the island - essential reading for anyone involved in the region.Sections include:Revolution in retreatThe deal's off - growing inequalitiesHasta la vista, baby - a disappearing populationEdging towards capitalism - slow reformGrandmother's footsteps - political changeThe Miami mirror - Cuba and MiamiThe biological factor - what next for the Castro dynasty?

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Retail banking is heading for a revival. With the financial crisis still hanging over Western economies, banks have rejuvenated the retail arm of the business. They are now seen as more stable sources of profit than the risky traders.Technology is both a help and a hindrance. On one hand, online banking is revolutionizing money management. But will this lead to the close of the high street bank? How can banks outstrip the developing tech companies who are offering rival services?This report will assess the challenges and opportunities that banks face in the rich world and the emerging markets. Sections include:Retail renaissanceWithering awayDispatches from the hothouseCrunching the numbersA wealth of walletsOver the sea and far awayPrivate pursuitsWorld, here we come

This is Sam Frears' story.This is also the story of an actor, a rock-climber and a man born with an extremely rare genetic disorder only affecting Ashkenazi Jews. Sam was supposed to live to the age of 5. In February, he celebrated his 40th birthday.Challenged by blindness and a body under great stress, Sam Frears is trying to live an ordinary life under extraordinary circumstances His struggles and triumphs offer an illuminating look at the differences - and similarities - that make us human. For those who enjoyed My Left Foot and Stuart: A Life Backwards, this Penguin Special offers a fresh look at what it's like to be Sam.

Pray is bestselling author Nick Hornby's extraordinary account of an astonishing season'That is why there is NOTHING better than sport' Kevin PietersenThe 2011-12 Premier League season finished on an afternoon so extraordinary that it prompted Kevin Pietersen's tweet. Yet this was just the climax of an incredible season. By May fans of most clubs had been enthralled, appalled, depressed, elated, shocked and enraged. Along the way football had somehow managed to encompass politics, high finance, the law and matters of life and death. Beginning with the weekend of 28 August when the Man Utd demolition of Arsenal 8-2 and the Man City demolition of Spurs 5-1 showed what was to come, he concentrates on a number of games whose significance went beyond the immediate result: the October games with alleged rascist incidents, the fairy-tale return of Thierry Henry, the collapse of Fabrice Muamba, the Carling Cup Final where Liverpool's victory only served to point up the club's problems, the unusual (but increasingly more common) 4-4 draw between Man Utd and Everton...It was a season of tumultuous incident and enormous entertainment, a season more glorious than most. Read all about it, and relive it, here, from the award-winning author of the football classic Fever Pitch.

A Penguin Special on Roy Lichtenstein by Alastair Sooke - read in 2 hours or less'Why, Brad darling, this painting is a masterpiece! My, soon you'll have all of New York clamoring for your work!' Roy Lichtenstein - architect of Pop art, connoisseur of the comic strip, master of irony and prophet of popular culture. From exhilarating images of ice-cool jet pilots in dog fights, to blue-haired Barbie dolls drowning in scenes of domestic heartache, Lichtenstein's instantly recognisable paintings, with their Ben-Day dots and witty one-liners, defined the art of a generation. But how did a jobbing, unassuming painter of the Fifties become a world-famous Pop artist whose work today sells for millions? What do his paintings really tell us? And what is his legacy?This book, by art critic and broadcaster Alastair Sooke, is a perfect introduction to the artist and his work. Spanning Lichtenstein's career, and explaining his unique style, it is a journey through the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest artists.Published in time for a major new retrospective of the work of Roy Lichtenstein.'Sooke is an immensely engaging character. He has none of the weighty self-regard that often afflicts art experts and critics; rather he approaches his subjects with a questioning, open, exploratory attitude' Sarah Vine, The Times'His shows are excellent - clever, lively, scholarly, but not too lecturey; he's very good at linking his painters with the world outside the studio, and at how these artists have affected the world today' Sam Wollaston reviewing 'Modern Masters', GuardianAlastair Sooke is deputy art critic of the Daily Telegraph. He has written and presented documentaries on television and radio for the BBC, including Modern Masters, an acclaimed BBC One series that chronicled modern art in the twentieth century. Since 2009 he has reported regularly for The Culture Show on BBC Two. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

From the legendary Famous Trials series of real-life courtroom dramas, two classic murder trials abridged and refreshed as Penguin Specials for modern readers, selected and introduced by Alex McBride, author of Defending the GuiltyA respectable solicitor in the town of Hay-on-Wye, harried by his troubled wife, slowly and carefully poisons her to death. Pleased with the results, he sees an opportunity for another quick-fix solution and turns his murderous attentions to his business rival... Trapped in a marriage of convenience to an aging man almost thirty years her senior, thirty-eight year-old Alma falls in love with seventeen year-old George, when he answers her advertisement for a 'willing lad' to do the housework. It's the perfect set up - a well-disposed husband and a passionate lover - until George destroys it all by trying to get the husband out of the way...These two classic cases of spousal murder - one chillingly domestic, the other bizarre and touching - took place in 1922 and 1935. In these brilliant reconstructions, they continue to confound our expectations of how murderers are meant to proceed.The legendary Famous Trials series set the benchmark for historical crime writing with its accounts of the most notorious and intriguing criminal trials of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Expertly reconstructed from court transcripts, these often sensational narratives have gripped generations of readers since they first appeared in 1941. In this digital edition, two of the very best Famous Trials have been selected, introduced and further abridged by criminal barrister and author Alex McBride to provide modern readers with the most compelling versions yet of these court-room classics.Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. His book Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and is available in Penguin. He has written for the Guardian, Independent, Prospect and New Statesman, and has contributed to various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.'Expert, authoritative, hilarious - an insider's fearless account of life at the criminal bar'Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year on Defending the Guilty

From the legendary Famous Trials series of real-life courtroom dramas, two classic murder trials abridged and refreshed as Penguin Specials for modern readers, selected and introduced by Alex McBride, author of Defending the GuiltyThomas Cream, erstwhile Sunday school teacher and serial poisoner, has an unsettling air and wonky eye. He also happens to be a doctor, which provides him with ample means and an ideal cover for his murderous activities. His victims are vulnerable young women, whose trust he gains with drinks and trips to the music hall, before offering them pills or swigs from a medicine bottle. A few hours later, they are dying in agony.The Honourable Thomas Ley, meanwhile, has an even better disguise: he's the former Justice Minister for New South Wales and a successful businessman, albeit with a shady past. Rumours abound when a political opponent disappears without trace and a business partner winds up at the bottom of a cliff.Neither killer can help themselves - and this, in the end, leads to their downfall - and both defy our comprehension. Brilliantly reconstructed here, their trials, in 1892 and 1947, reveal a deeply sinister conundrum: by the time you've discovered the secrets in their heart, it's inevitably much too late.The legendary Famous Trials series set the benchmark for historical crime writing with its accounts of the most notorious and intriguing criminal trials of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Expertly reconstructed from court transcripts, these often sensational narratives have gripped generations of readers since they first appeared in 1941. In this digital edition, two of the very best Famous Trials have been selected, introduced and further abridged by criminal barrister and author Alex McBride to provide modern readers with the most compelling versions yet of these court-room classics.Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. His book Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and is available in Penguin. He has written for the Guardian, Independent, Prospect and New Statesman, and has contributed to various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.'Expert, authoritative, hilarious - an insider's fearless account of life at the criminal bar'Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year on Defending the Guilty

From the legendary Famous Trials series of real-life courtroom dramas, two classic murder trials abridged and refreshed as Penguin Specials for modern readers, selected and introduced by Alex McBride, author of Defending the GuiltyNineteen year-old Madeleine Smith may have been charged in 1857 with poisoning her lover, Emile L'Angelier, but her real sin was having sex - a lot of sex - out of wedlock. Her mistake was to write him frank and passionate letters, described by the trial judge as 'without any sense of decency', which L'Angelier threatened to send to her father when she cooled on the idea of marriage, having secretly engaged herself to someone else.Some fifty years later, the trial of Robert Wood, a respectable, hard-working illustrator by day, who frolicked with prostitutes by night, including the unfortunate Emily Dimmock, also hinged on a dangerous correspondence. Dimmock's murderer had evidently ransacked her rooms for a postcard written by Wood. Was there something he was desperate to hide? The author of his trial is certain he was guilty.But both escaped conviction - in Wood's case, thanks to the defence of the best defence barrister in the land. In Madeleine Smith's, the three judges ruled two-to-one to exclude from evidence L'Angelier's pocket book, which recorded her meetings with him on the day of the murder. These two salacious and controversial trials demonstrate how the dramatic difference between 'guilty' and 'not guilty' can sometimes be decided by a mere scrap of paper.The legendary Famous Trials series set the benchmark for historical crime writing with its accounts of the most notorious and intriguing criminal trials of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Expertly reconstructed from court transcripts, these often sensational narratives have gripped generations of readers since they first appeared in 1941. In this digital edition, two of the very best Famous Trials have been selected, introduced and further abridged by criminal barrister and author Alex McBride to provide modern readers with the most compelling versions yet of these court-room classics.Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. His book Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and is available in Penguin. He has written for the Guardian, Independent, Prospect and New Statesman, and has contributed to various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.'Expert, authoritative, hilarious - an insider's fearless account of life at the criminal bar' Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year on Defending the Guilty

'Tonight it is the concert. Two Prodigies of Nature are coming to play in my lady's ball-room. As soon as the concert begins I understand why the whole world comes to stare and listen.'Scipio is eleven years old and a lady's page. He plays the harpsichord, speaks French and German, and sings in Italian. But what was appealing and remarkable in a small child is no longer so in a 'hobbledehoy'. And after he meets the two child prodigies, Wolfi and Nannerl, at a concert, Scipio's fate will change forever.

A brilliantly written, concise and accessible summary of the Leveson inquiry and a convincing argument for why we need press reform from an expert on the subject, with an introduction by Hugh Grant, a Hacked Off campaigner, recent witness at the Leveson inquiry and presenter of the Channel 4 documentary Taking on the Tabloids.When most of the British press conspired to cover up the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, what did that tell us? That it wasn't just the News of the World that had something to hide. And when the Leveson Inquiry lifted the lid on their activities we saw what it was: illegal practices, dishonesty, a disregard for the rights of ordinary people and an arrogant assumption of unaccountability. Now the battle is on to decide whether anything will change and the editors and proprietors, with their vast propaganda power, are determined to ensure nothing will. This book, by a long-time journalist who is a founder of the Hacked Off campaign, paints a damning picture of press corruption and makes a passionate case for journalism that doesn't bully and lie - journalism that is truly answerable to the public while remaining free from government interference. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get this right, and we must not allow powerful media corporations to snatch that chance from us.