Sam Wilkin is director of political risk analytics at Willis Towers Watson. He is also a fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Wealth Secrets of the One Percent (UK: Sceptre, US: Little, Brown, 2015) was an editor’s choice of the New York Times Book Review and an Amazon Book of the Month. His most recent book is History Repeating: Why Populists Rise and Governments Fall (Profile, 2018).

Photo courtesy of Daniel Zihlmann

Tim is A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. His brilliant and original book Battling the Gods (2016) has been the subject of worldwide media attention, and was shortlisted for the Runciman Prize, the PEN Hessell-Tiltman prize and the London Hellenic Prize. It has been described as ‘learned, sweeping and stimulating’ (Tom Holland, The New Statesman), ‘beautifully written and highly persuasive’ (Peter Jones, New Literary Review), and ‘brilliant … illuminating … an invigorating, urgent book that makes an important contribution to a central contemporary debate’ (Emily Wilson, The Guardian).

His next book will be Rome’s Age of Revolution: The Forging of a Christian Empire (Bodley Head and Knopf).

Photo courtesy of Emma Solley

Anna is Professor in the History of Modern Monarchy and Executive Dean of the School of Communication and Creativity at City St. Georges, University of London.  She is an international media commentator on monarchy, public history and heritage, and the Tudors and Stuarts and a regular contributor to television and radio programmes. Her lively, revisionist biography of Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen (Bloomsbury, 2009) was a bestseller in paperback and received brilliant reviews. Her second book, Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen’s Court, was published to acclaim in 2013 by Bloomsbury and by Farrar, Straus US (2014) and won the American PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Her latest book – The Sun Rising: James and the Rise of a Global Britain – was published by Bloomsbury in April 2025.

Photo courtesy of Zoë de T Photography

Acknowledged by Mary Berry as her ‘right arm’, Lucy has worked in cooking for 33 years, and for the last 31 years as Mary’s assistant. She is the author of nine books, four of them co-written with Mary, with an expertise in AGA cooking and in creating no-hassle recipes for family and friends.

Her most recent solo books include Secrets of AGA Puddings (Ebury, 2009), Tips for Better Baking (Ebury, 2009), and Secrets of AGA Cakes (Ebury, 2007). With Mary Berry, they have written Mary Berry Cooks up a Feast (Dorling Kindersley, 2019), Mary’s Household Tips & Tricks (Michael Joseph, 2017) and The Complete AGA Cookbook (Headline, 2015). The latest BBC TV tie-in book she has worked on with Mary is Simple Comforts (BBC Books, 2020), which shot to the top of the Sunday Times Bestseller list when it was released in Autumn 2020.

A distinguished historian, gardener, designer and all round polymath. Roy’s magnum opus The Story of Britain (Jonathan Cape) hit the bestseller lists in 1997 and became a classic still in print. He was Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1967 to 1973 and of the Victoria & Albert Museum from 1974 to 1987. In 1980 he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK. In 1981 he was created a Companion of Honour in recognition of his service to the nation’s culture and in 2016 he was made a Companion of Honour in recognition of his contribution to the country’s cultural life.

He has written over fifty books on a wide variety of subjects including history, biography, art and garden design as well as publishing his diaries, already recognised as the record of an age. His most recent books are The Elizabethan Image (Yale, 2019) and the third volume of his diaries Types and Shadows (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020).

In 2022, William Collins published a revised and updated edition of Coronation: A History of the British Monarchy, Sir Roy’s comprehensive history of this extraordinary and fundamental rite, speculating on the revision of its rituals and pageantry now called for in order to reflect the role of the monarchy in the twenty-first century.

Photo courtesy of Paul Lewis

Doctor, businesswoman, writer, Miriam Stoppard OBE is also a grandmother to twelve grandchildren and has written over eighty books on pregnancy, parenting, women’s health, nutrition, sex and health for older people. She produced the charming and practical guide The Grandparents Book (Dorling Kindersley, 2006), in addition to The Complete Book of Baby and Childcare (Dorling Kindersley, 2001) and Conception Pregnancy and Birth (Dorling Kindersley, 1993), both constant bestsellers.

In 1998 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. In addition to two Honorary Doctorates of Science, she has an Honorary Doctorate of Law. She writes a health advice column for The Daily Mirror and in 2012 received the prestigious Stonewall Journalist of the Year award. In 2010 she received an OBE for her services to healthcare and charity.