Most Popular Books by Nicholas Shakespeare

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers. Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote. Ian's childhood with his gifted brother Peter and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be “the complete man,” and he would strive for the means to achieve this “completeness'”all his life. Only a thriller writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal life and impressive career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. Exceptionally well connected, and widely travelled, from the United States and Soviet Russia to his beloved Jamaica, Ian had access to the most powerful political figures at a time of profound change. Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today. His talent for uncovering material that casts new light on his subjects is fully evident in this masterful, definitive biography. His unprecedented access to the Fleming archive and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of the man and his famous creation.

Ex-journalist John Dyer must take on a dangerous political conspiracy in order to bring his friend's killer to justice in this gripping thriller by an award-winning writer. John Dyer is living a quiet life when he receives a call that changes everything: an old university friend, Lia, has been killed. Decades have passed since his last heartbreaking conversation with her, but Dyer finds himself driven to investigate. What Dyer uncovers puts him in the path of a political conspiracy with one man at its heart. A man who, forty years ago, committed a crime witnessed by just four people. When another of the witnesses dies in suspicious circumstances, Dyer finds his life in danger. To combat the forces arrayed against him, he needs incontrovertible proof—but will he find it in time? As Dyer chases his leads from Tasmania to Argentina and finally to Michigan, where it all began, he unwittingly pits himself against an adversary more powerful than he could have imagined, in a race as heartstopping as tomorrow’s headlines.

An unnamed South American country has just put behind bars its most notorious rebel leader, the man known as Ezequiel, whose bloody war against the state has cost thirty thousand lives. And the man responsible for his capture, the police officer Agustin Rejas, has been pensioned off to a government sinecure, sworn to silence. But when he meets John Dyer, a British journalist, in a restaurant, something compels Rejas to break his vow. He describes how, after years of tracking Ezequiel, he finally determined the rebel leader was somewhere in the capital city. At the same time, Rejas was growing passionately in love with Yolanda, a beautiful dancer who was teaching his daughter ballet and whose commitment to her art was total. Narrating the final, tension-filled days of the manhunt, Rejas reveals the shocking truth that the headlines have missed.

Award-winning novelist Nicholas Shakespeare's masterful biography of one of the most charismatic & elusive literary figures of our time.

A fascinating and dramatic investigation into the events that led to Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister against the odds. ‘A gripping story of Churchill’s unlikely rise to power’ Observer London, May 1940. Britain is under threat of invasion and Neville Chamberlain’s government is about to fall. It is hard for us to imagine the Second World War without Winston Churchill taking the helm, but in Six Minutes in May Nicholas Shakespeare shows how easily events could have gone in a different direction. It took just six minutes for MPs to cast the votes that brought down Chamberlain. Shakespeare moves from Britain’s disastrous battle in Norway, for which many blamed Churchill, on to the dramatic developments in Westminster that led to Churchill becoming Prime Minister. Uncovering fascinating new research and delving into the key players’ backgrounds, Shakespeare gives us a new perspective on this critical moment in our history. ‘Totally captivating. It will stand as the best account of those extraordinary few days for very many years’ Andrew Roberts ‘Superbly written... Shakespeare has a novelist’s flair for depicting the characters and motives of men’ The Times ‘Utterly wonderful... It reads like a thriller’ Peter Frankopan SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWN 2018 *** Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Observer and The Economist ***

The award-winning writer of "The Dancer Upstairs" presents this beautifully written, sensitive story that spans the Cold War in 1960s East Germany to the 1980s, about one man's longing for a love he had the chance to grasp but failed to take.

From the renowned British author of The Dancer Upstairs comes this "meticulous, lyrical history" of the remote island and his family's connection to it ( Publishers Weekly). Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "one of the best English novelists of our time," Nicholas Shakespeare decided to move to Tasmania after falling in love with its exceptional beauty. Only later did he discover a cache of letters that revealed a deep and complicated family connection to the island. They were written by an ancestor as corrupt as he was colorful: Anthony Fenn Kemp (1773–1868), the so-called Father of Tasmania. Then Shakespeare discovered more unknown Tasmanian relations: A pair of spinsters who had never left their farm except once, in 1947, to buy shoes. Their journal recounted a saga beginning in Northern England in the 1890s with a dashing but profligate ancestor who ended his life in the Tasmanian bush. In this fascinating history of two turbulent centuries in an apparently idyllic place, Shakespeare weaves the history of the island with multiple narratives, a cast of unlikely characters from Errol Flynn to the King of Iceland, a village full of Chatwins, and a family of Shakespeares. "Tasmania is an enigmatic place and Shakespeare captures it with an appreciative eye." — The Guardian

When Nicholas Shakespeare stumbled across a box of documents belonging to his late aunt, Priscilla, he was completely unaware of where this discovery would take him and what he would learn about her hidden past. The glamorous, mysterious figure he remembered from his childhood was very different from the morally ambiguous young woman who emerged from the trove of love letters, photographs, and journals, surrounded by suitors and living the dangerous existence of a British woman in a country controlled by the enemy. He had heard rumors that Priscilla had fought in the Resistance, but the truth turned out to be far more complicated. As he investigated his aunt's life, dark secrets emerged, and Nicholas discovered the answers to the questions over which he'd been puzzling: What caused the breakdown of Priscilla's marriage to a French aristocrat? Why had she been interned in a prisoner-of-war camp, and how had she escaped? And who was the "Otto" with whom she was having a relationship as Paris was liberated? Piecing together fragments of one woman's remarkable and tragic life, Priscilla is at once a stunning story of detection, a loving portrait of a flawed woman trying to survive in terrible times, and a spellbinding slice of history.

"A story as brooding and insular as the Tasmanian town in which it is set. . . . Expertly crafted, the novel illuminates love's craggy depths." — Publishers Weekly Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Torn by tragedy from his early life on a remote farm in Tasmania, Alex Dove has returned to the rugged island off Australia's southern coast years later to start over. A chance encounter with quiet, alluring Merridy Bowman—a young woman caring for her ailing father and similarly haunted by a tangled and catastrophic history—results in marriage, as two damaged souls unite to build a home, family, and livelihood far removed from civilization's bustle. Soon they are drawn into the unpredictable dynamics of small-town island life—and into the destructive orbit of an unscrupulous real estate agent who maintains a secret hold over both Doves. But when a shipwreck off the shore thrusts a troubled, possibly criminal teenage castaway into their world, Alex and Merridy's tenuously forged happiness is suddenly at grave risk, as they are forced to confront deeper questions about the true meaning of fulfillment. "Gripping . . . exhilarating . . . cathartic."— The Times "Elegant and enjoyable." — The Spectator "A very good novel indeed." — The Scotsman

In an Amazonian city, three old men sit remembering their youth. One day a woman hurries past their bench whom they all have reason to remember. Elena Colina Silves, the girl who saw a vision and was incarcerated by the church authorities.

Set in Lisbon, interwoven stories that run the bitter fate of Thomas Wavery, the high flyer, who is on his way to take up his last post as H M Consul General across the straits of Abyla.

On 1 January 1915, ramifications from the First World War, raging half a world away, were felt in Broken Hill, Australia, when in a guerrilla-style military operation, four citizens were killed and seven wounded. It was the annual picnic day in Broken Hill and a thousand citizens were dressed for fun when the only enemy attack to occur on Australian soil during World War I, took them by surprise. Nicholas Shakespeare has turned this little known piece of Australian history into a story for our time.

Bruce Chatwin is one of the most significant British novelists and travel writers of our time. His books have become modern-day classics which defy categorisation, inspired by and reflecting his incredible journeys. Tragically, Chatwin's compelling narrative voice was cut off just as he had found it. 'Bruce had just begun' said his friend, Salman Rushdie, 'we saw only the first act'. But Chatwin left behind a wealth of letters and postcards that he wrote, from his first week at school until shortly before his death at the age of forty-eight. Whether typed on Sotheby's notepaper or hastily scribbled, Chatwin's correspondence reveals more about himself than he was prepared to expose in his books; his health and finances, his literary ambitions and tastes, his uneasiness about his sexual orientation; above all, his lifelong quest for where to live. Comprising material collected over two decades from hundreds of contacts across five continents, Chatwin's letters are a valuable and illuminating record of one of the greatest and most enigmatic writers of the twentieth century.

Mit "In Tasmanien" macht Nicholas Shakespeare wie vor ihm Bruce Chatwin mit seinem berühmten Patagonien-Porträt die Erkundung einer Landschaft und ihrer Geschichte zum literarischen Ereignis. Im Zentrum stehen dabei die abenteuerlichen Leben zweier ungleicher Partner: Der eine ist Anthony Fenn Kemp, der an einem stürmischen Novembermorgen des Jahres 1804 an der Ostküste Tasmaniens, das damals noch Van-Diemens-Land hieß, unter den verwunderten Blicken der Aborigines an Land watet: Kemp ist Sohn eines bekannten Wein- und Tabakhändlers, hat in London ein üppiges Erbe durchgebracht und sich kurzerhand nach Australien in die britische Strafkolonie "under Down Under" abgesetzt. Der andere, sein Schwager und Chef der gemeinsamen Firma Potter & Kemp, William Potter, sitzt derweil daheim in England. Potter ist ein vorsichtiger, penibler Buchhalter und damit das genaue Gegenteil seines durch Tasmanien vagabundierenden Kompagnons, der sich immer wieder Geld schicken lässt, zwielichtige Geschäfte tätigt und monatelang als "Vater Tasmaniens" die halbe Insel befehligt. Kemp, der sich gern als "George Washington von Van-Diemens-Land" huldigen ließ, war nicht nur einer der ersten Kolonisten des Territoriums - er ist direkter Vorfahr von Nicholas Shakespeare und in dessen Familie das wahrscheinlich schwärzeste Schaf. Indem Nicholas Shakespeare über die Abenteuer seiner Vorfahren Potter und Kemp berichtet, erzählt er zugleich die raue Geschichte einer Insel am Ende der Welt, die den Briten einst als Kerker diente und die heute ein beliebtes Reiseziel ist.