The former Paratrooper hit the headlines when he was arrested in Russia in April 2006, having become the first man to cross the Bering Straits from Alaska by foot. His first book, Giant Steps, in which he tells the true story of his ongoing record-breaking attempt to walk solo around the world, was published by Little, Brown in paperback in April 2007. Frederick Forsyth said that ‘it is an odyssey worthy of Ulysses himself, a saga fit for the old Nordic gods’.
Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, he is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brunel University.
His books include The Ascent of Gravity (W&N, 2017), which was The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year; The Magicians (Faber & Faber, 2020); Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand (Michael O’Mara, 2018); What A Wonderful World (Faber & Faber, 2013); Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You (Faber & Faber, 2007); Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devil (Faber & Faber, 2008); We Need to Talk about Kelvin (Faber & Faber, 2009) and Afterglow of Creation (Faber & Faber, 2010). The latter two were both runners-up for the Royal Society Book Prize. Marcus has also tried his hand at apps and won The Bookseller Digital Innovation of the Year for Solar System for iPad.
Marcus was a regular guest on the BBC4 comedy-science show, It’s Only A Theory, with Andy Hamilton and Reginald D. Hunter, and often appears on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. He has appeared at a variety of events from the Cheltenham Literary Festival to the Sydney Writers Festival, from the National Theatre to the Wilderness Festival. And he has done stand-up comedy at a variety of venues from an upturned inflatable cow on London’s South Bank to a glass-bottomed boat in a shark tank at the Brighton Sealife Centre.
The One Thing You Need To Know (2023), is published by Michael O’Mara Books. From gravity to black holes, special relativity to global warming, this authoritative and entertaining book breaks down complex science into manageable chunks, explaining the one thing you really need to know to get to grips with the subject. Marcus’ latest book, A Crack in Everything (Head of Zeus, 2024) is the story of how black holes came in from the cold and took cosmic centre stage.
Andrew is a correspondent at Wired magazine whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New Yorker and the New York Times. His first book, Tubes, was published by Penguin in 2012 to wide acclaim and became a National Bestseller. It was described by Independent as ‘this year’s most original and stimulating “travel” book’. His second book, The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast, was published in June 2019 by The Bodley Head in the UK and by Eco/HarperCollins in the US. It was reviewed in The New Yorker and The Economist, featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and became an episode of 99% Invisible.
Stephen is a novelist, scriptwriter and director. His first novel The Good Italian (2014) sold to Hodder & Stoughton in a two-book deal. Set in Eritrea in 1935 when it was an Italian colony, it tells the story of Enzo, a shy Italian man who is the harbour master in Massawa. His life is transformed when he starts a relationship with his Eritrean maid, Aatifa. Then the Italian government introduces a law forbidding all Italian men from having relationships with native women. The book was shortlisted for the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown Award and the Romantic Novelists Association Historical Fiction Award.
His second novel, The Reluctant Contact, was published in September 2017. This spy thriller, murder mystery and love story, takes place in the former Soviet mining town, Pyramiden, during the twenty-four-hour darkness of an Arctic winter.
Rhidian Brook is an award-winning writer of fiction. His first novel, The Testimony of Taliesin Jones (Penguin, 2014), won several prizes including the Somerset Maugham Award. His third, The Aftermath (Penguin, 2014), was an international bestseller and has been translated into twenty-five languages; and made into a major motion picture. His latest novel – The Killing of Butterfly Joe (Pan MacMillan, 2019) – is a dazzling and epic tale of desire, friendship and experience.
He has written for television and the screen and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’, which lead to his most recent book, Godbothering (SPCK Publishing, 2020).
Photo courtesy of Nikki Gibbs
Dame Claire Bertschinger is Director for the Diploma in Tropical Nursing Course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is credited with inspiring the global fundraising phenomenon, Band Aid and Live Aid, generating around £150m for starving people in Ethiopia.
Her work in the country in 1984, when the effects of civil war and famine led to desperate conditions for the population, was captured in a news broadcast that had a global impact. During that time, Dame Claire was a field nurse for the International Red Cross, at a feeding station at Mekele, where tens of thousands of refugees had gathered in the hope of getting food. Organising a feeding centre for children, she could provide meals for only 300 a day, when thousands more were starving.
Dame Claire’s many awards include the Florence Nightingale Medal, Woman of the Year Window to the World award, and being appointed Dame Commander by Her Majesty the Queen.
Dame Claire’s memoir Moving Mountains was published by Penguin in 2010. The Daily Express called Moving Mountains ‘incredibly inspiring’ and The Sunday Times praised it as ‘a harrowing, emotionally charged account’.
A distinguished writer on gardening and social history, Ursula read Modern History at Cambridge, before training in horticulture at Kew and at Wisley. She is the author of 18 books, including three compilations of her journalism. All have been well received, in particular The English Garden, which was published in November, 2006 and was a great critical success. An updated version was published in 2017. Garden People won the Enthusiasts’ Book of the Year from the Garden Media Guild, and she has also won awards for her journalism. In 1987, she presented Village Show, two six-part Channel 4 series of gardening programmes.
In 2007, Ursula was closely involved with planning and laying out a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show (‘The Transit of Venus’) for her old college, New Hall, now Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. The garden was popular with both critics and the public. Her first book of social history is A Green and Pleasant Land: How Britain’s Gardeners Fought the Second World War, published by Hutchinson in 2013. Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps, a biography of the novelist, John Buchan, was published by Bloomsbury to stellar reviews in 2019.
Archie Brown is a British political scientist and historian who taught for 34 years at Oxford University where he is now Emeritus Professor of Politics and Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College. His books include The Gorbachev Factor (US and UK: Oxford University Press, 1996) and The Rise and Fall of Communism (UK: The Bodley Head; US: Ecco 2009), both of which won the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for best politics book of the year and the Alexander Nove Prize. The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age (UK: The Bodley Head; US: Basic Books) was named by Bill Gates as one of his Best Books of 2016.
Professor Brown has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy (1991), awarded a CGM in the 2005 Queen’s Birthday Honours list, and in November 2010 received a Diamond Jubilee Lifetime Achievement in Political Studies award from the Political Studies Association.
His most recent work is The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War (UK and US: Oxford University Press, 2020). It was awarded the Pushkin House Book Prize 2021 and was described by the Chair of the Panel of Judges, Dr Fiona Hill, as containing ‘a lifetime’s achievement of wisdom and insight’.
Photo courtesy of Rebecca Phillipson
Julia Bueno read law at Oxford University and after a brief career in the law, and another writing for an internet start-up, she trained as a psychotherapist and remains practising 15 years later.
Her first book is The Brink of Being: Talking about Miscarriage, published in May 2019 by Virago, and Penguin in the USA. The book explores the oft-misunderstood experience of miscarriage, through both her professional and personal experience, psychological research and historical insight. It was awarded Popular Medicine Book of the Year 2021 by the British Medical Association and runner-up for the overall Book of the Year.
Julia’s latest book, Everyone’s a Critic, also for Virago Press, explores self-criticism and was published in August 2022.
Louis de Bernières is the author of eight critically acclaimed novels and one collection of short stories. He was selected by Granta magazine as one of the twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Vintage, 1994) was an international bestseller and won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. A Partisan’s Daughter (Vintage, 2008) was short-listed for the Costa Novel Award. His second collection of poetry, Of Love and Desire, was published in 2016 (Harvill Secker). In November 2018, Harvill Secker published Louis’ third collection of poetry, The Cat in the Treble Clef, which looks at family and the connections we make through place, time, music and love. His most recent book, Labels and Other Stories, was published by Harvill Secker in April 2019. It features tales from throughout his career as a masterful storyteller and transports us around the globe, from the London Underground to Turkish ruins to the banks of the Amazon.
His historical trilogy that began with The Dust That Falls From Dreams (Vintage, 2016) and continued with So Much Life Left Over (Vintage, 2019), was completed in 2021 with The Autumn of the Ace (Vintage). The Mail on Sunday call de Bernières ‘a single cherishable voice’.
Louis’ latest book, The Light Over Liskeard was published by Harvill Secker in October of 2024.
As of December 2024, you can find a graphic novel adaptation of the cult classic, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, with illustrations from Arnaud Ribadeau Dumas (Cyressa).
Photo courtesy of Ivon Bartholomew
