Abacus imprint: 104 books

This is a book about men and war. Not real conflict but war as it has filtered down to generations of boys and men through toys, comics, games and movies. Harry Pearson belongs to the great battalion of British men who grew up playing with toy soldiers - refighting World War II - and then stopped...

When his father dies, and he is reduced at a stroke from prosperity to penury, Euxenus decides to leave Athens and seek his fortune elsewhere. As a philosopher and intellectual of some note, he has no difficulty getting a job as tutor to a young prince in the wealthy but utterly provincial court of...

The hero is Eupolis, weary, cynical and believing only in comedy. The heroine is Athens, at the height of her schizophrenic glory. A startling mixture of comedy and tragedy, THE WALLED ORCHARD is the poignant, charming story of their turbulent relationship. With unforgettable characters and...

It seemed straightforward enough. Sean had now consumed so much alcohol that everything seemed perfectly reasonable. He'd started planning the job already. The first problem was how to do it. Thirteen thousand pounds in an envelope seems a fair price for a man's life. Particularly if you don't know...

Dwarfish Charlie Boylan carries a loaded pistol into the House of Commons. A can of worms waiting to be opened, he was a police spy for nearly forty years. He wants a pension and what he knows will get it! Did he, between Waterloo and Wellington's funeral, cause the Peterloo riot to happen? Was it...

Born on a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's long history. As a child, Maggie rode and slept in a horse-drawn wagon, picked hops and flowers, and sat beside her...

A decade and one dog after penning the bestselling Racing Pigs And Giant Marrows, and inspired by the purchase of his new hound, a petit basset-griffon Vendeen called Little Man, Harry Pearson returns to the world of stalking, ferreting and beating with this ramble through the countryside. Harry...

In a lifetime traversing Britain's lanes and byways, Dominic Reeve has witnessed a changing world for the Romani Gypsies. Since the 1950s, the horse-drawn wagons have given way to brightly chromed vehicles, stopping-places have disappeared - but the Travellers still cling to the precious old traditions...

For Chris Moore, the Great War has developed from a childhood fascination to a full-blown obsession, both for the actuality, of the war - its archives and its archaeology - as well as its abiding influence on English language, manners and customs. Exasperated with the emphasis most war literature...

Far more than an anthology, FOR KING AND COUNTRY is Brian MacArthur's attempt to write a history of the First World War by drawing on the writings of those who were present at the events they describe. Those writings will be drawn from a broad range of sources: from, most obviously, the officers and...

Sir Alfred Munnings, retiring President of the Royal Academy, chooses the 1949 Annual Banquet to launch a savage attack on Modern Art. The effect of his diatribe is doubly shocking, leaving not only his distinguished audience gasping but also many people tuning in to the BBC's live radio broadcast....

'I recommend Hamilton at every opportunity, because he was such a wonderful writer and yet is rather under-read today. All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters 'If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man' Nick Hornby Ernest...

I do not believe that a man can be truly happy unless he fully understands what he is and can act accordingly ... how can it be wrong to be happy?' These lines are taken from Will's diary, a seemingly innocuous exercise book which details his house-breaking activities. Will carefully selects houses...

Dennis 'The Menace' Pike, former wild man of Tottenham, is going grey and going straight. Anyway, it was hard work being a yob- the birds, the brawls, the endless beers- and he hasn't really got the energy any more for life on the edge. Then two old faces turn up from the past- the Bishop brothers,...