Turing said 'If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.' Spring 1940, the Battle of the Atlantic rages. Vulnerable merchant convoys are at the mercy of German U-boats controlled by a cunning system of coded messages created by a machine called Enigma. Only one man believes that these codes can be broken - mathematician and Bletchley Park cryptanalyst Alan Turing. Winston Churchill later describe Turing's success in breaking the Enigma code as the single biggest contribution to the victory against Nazi Germany. Unheralded during his lifetime, he is now recognised as the father of modern computer science and as possessing one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Here his ground-breaking work and his private side lifts the veil of secrecy, particularly with regard to his post-war contribution to computing science with the Americans and his work as Manchester Computing Machine Laboratory. Only in 1974 was the official ban on any mention of Ultra lifted. Watched by MI5, Turing died of cyanide poisoning. A vat of cyanide was found in the 'nightmare room' between his bedroom and the bathroom, and the coroner ruled that Turing had committed suicide 'while the balance of his mind was disturbed'. Yet no evidence was given about the state of his mind and the verdict has been questioned ever since. Slim illustrated biography, New full price paperback128pp.

Following a successful career as an award-winning, best-selling novelist, in 2004 Lisa St Aubin de Terán retreated to a remote village in northern Mozambique. There she found her own African roots, founded a charity, and confronted new challenges. Much has been written about her life and escapades with a trio of Venezuelan exiles, life on an Andean hacienda, her return to literary fame, and two decades living in a crumbling Umbrian palace. But despite all the media hype about her, she managed to hide much of her actual life. Now, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, in this new memoir Lisa puts the shattered pieces of her life back together, filling in many of the dramatic, and often scandalous, gaps. While her life has been said to be stranger than fiction, it is fiction that has kept her afloat. This autobiography sets the record straight and shows a writer who for over half a century has enjoyed following her dreams, even when those dreams outdistanced her reach. Lisa St Aubin de Terán is the prize-winning Anglo-Guyanese London-born author of 20 books, including novels, short stories and nonfiction. Much of her writing draws on her varied life experiences. And time warps, rural communities, isolation and grace under pressure are still the dominant themes in both her life and work. It has been featured in the Times and the Sunday Times also she is appearing on BBC Radio 4 Woman?s Hour and reviews will be in The Daily Telegraph, Lady Magazine and featured heavily on social media. Famous along with Salman Rushdie and Rose Tremain in the 1980s, wild child Lisa disappeared from the London literary scene for over 20 years. She has now returned with a suitcase full of her writing - this hugely enjoybable and curious autbiography, and a bunch of novels! She was neighbours with Eric Newby and a voracious reader, described by a school teacher as a "fatherless half-caste", she adored her charismatic father. Publication date 24th January. 326pp, 234 x 153mm. New Full price hardback.

Sister of the former Prime Minister Boris, Rachel Johnson was appointed Editor of the oldest women's magazine in the world. 'All I knew about The Lady was what all middle-class mothers of a certain age and income bracket knew about The Lady. It was where you got your nanny from. End of.' Facing the challenge of a lifetime, Rachel tried to find out how to become an editor when she really never had edited before. How do you turn around a venerable title, full of gloomy articles on watery eyes and ads for walk-in baths into a totally cookin' property? And during the worst recession ever. And forget about doubling the circulation in a year. What on earth do you wear to work when you've spent the last 15 years sitting at home in sweatpants? As Rachel puts on her best Bree Van de Kamp silk blouse and penetrates the time-capsule six-storey cream and pink HQ in Covent Garden, with its Fred West basement, Ladies' Smoking Room, Anne Frank annexe and wall-safe filled with custard creams, she soon realises that if The Lady was ever to become more hip than hip replacement, it would need emergency surgery, fast. Here is Rachel's riotous and alarmingly frank account as she redesigns the magazine, persuades big names to write for peanuts, attempts to sell advertising space to bewildered executives and tackles her dreaded in-tray. Will she sink or survive? We think that she meant well but she really is an insufferable snob in the opinion of many readers. Read at your peril! 323pp. Illus.

Sub-titled 'The Scandalous High-Society Life of the Formidable Lady Killmore'. Enid Lindeman stopped traffic in Manhattan, silenced gamblers in Monte Carlo, and walked her pet cheetah through Hyde Park on a diamond collar. She stood almost six feet tall with silver hair and flashing turquoise eyes. In early 20th century society where women were expected to be demure and obedient, Enid gallivanted through life accumulating four husbands and numerous lovers, her high-jinks fascinating British gossip columnists during the inter-war years. She drove an ambulance in World War One and hid escaped Allied airmen behind enemy lines in World War Two, played bridge with Somerset Maugham and entertained Hollywood royalty in the world's most expensive private home on the Riviera, allegedly won in a game of cards. Enid bedazzled men with her beauty, outlived four husbands - two shipping magnates, a war hero and a larger-than-life Irish Earl - spent two great fortunes and earned the nickname 'Lady Killmore'. From Sydney to New York, London to Paris and Cairo to Kenya, Robert Wainwright's biography restores the remarkable Enid to thrilling, vivid life and her contributions to fashion, culture, architecture, and horse racing across three continents. Enid is admirable for her loyalty, generous spirit and disregard for the strictures of polite society and we go with her into the winemaking industry in Australia to horse breeding in Kenya and South Africa. 356pp, paperback with many archive photos.

Sub-titled 'The Small Joy of Putting One Foot In Front of Another' in the Preamble we are told 'I walked out of the door of the hotel and into Africa.' 'For me walking fills as vital as breathing. The first thing I do, every morning I can, is to go for a walk - for an hour, or longer if I can get away with it - usually alone apart from my dogs. I find the simple action of putting one foot in front of the other, and the rhythm of that action, incredibly therapeutic. It wakes me up, unscrambles my sleep-fogged head. But it also gives me a sense of immersion, of being rooted somewhere...' Kate Humble advocates that this simple act shows us that the true purpose of walking transcends the need to get from A to B and her book is a heartfelt call to action for anyone seeking to enhance their own health and happiness, one step at a time. The connection with the seasons, with the daily shifts, how a mood is lifted by the song of a skylark, a fragrant sea of bluebells or the crashing waves on a windswept beach, the book is an encouragement to reconnect with the outside world. The reason Kate Humble was in this region of Isebania, with its people particularly hated by the Maasai, was the traditional practice of female genital mutilation. Governed by their own gods, beliefs and powerful council of elders, the people within the tribe wanted to see change too and the practice of circumcising girls to become a thing of the past. 'We were there to try to capture, as faithfully and honestly as we could, the complexities of this period of huge social upheaval.' 296pp, paperback.

The bestselling novelist of the Aubrey-Maturin series was Patrick O'Brian, and this intimate biography is written by his stepson, Nikolai Tolstoy. Well researched and bounding in humanity and compassion, the book reads like a thriller as O'Brian develops into the great novelist he became. An exquisite novelist, translator and biographer, O'Brian moved in 1949 to Collioure in the South of France where he led a secluded life with his wife Mary and wrote all his major works. The 20 books that make up the beloved Aubrey-Maturin series earned him the epithet 'Jane Austen at sea' for their authentic depiction of Nelson's navy, and the relationship between Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. Outside his triumphant popularity in fiction, O'Brian also wrote erudite biographies of Picasso and Joseph Banks, as well as publishing translations of Simone de Beauvoir and Henri Charrière. The book draws upon Tolstoy's close relationship with his stepfather as well as his notebooks, letters and photographs, reproduced to the best quality given their age in this paperback edition. It is fascinating to see how much the author put into the characters of himself - the cyclical depression, the blind rages, the sometimes cruel wit, the intelligence, the capacity for love and the courage. Tolstoy describes well the hardscrabble existence of the first few years and the sheer bloody grind of making a living as a professional author. 576pp, paperback, photos.

A revelatory memoir by the rock icon and legendary guitarist Peter Frampton. His monumental album Frampton Comes Alive! spawned three Top 20 singles and sold eight million copies the year it was released and more than 17 million to date. Frampton was first the lead singer and guitarist of The Herd and then as co-founder along with Steve Marriott of one of the first supergroups, Humble Pie. Frampton was part of a tight-knit collective of British 1960s musicians with close ties to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and The Who. This led to Frampton playing on George Harrison's solo debut, All Things Must Pass, as well as to Ringo Starr and Billy Preston appearing on Frampton's own solo debut. By the age of 22, he was touring incessantly and finding new sounds with the talk box which would become his signature guitar effect. Frampton remembers his enduring friendship with David Bowie, growing up as classmates, crossing paths throughout their careers, and playing together on the Glass Spider Tour. He shares fascinating stories of his collaborative work with Harry Nilsson, Stevie Wonder, B. B. King and members of Pearl Jam and reveals the curse and blessing of becoming the cover boy he never wanted to be, his overcoming substance abuse, and how he has continued to play and pour his heart out into his music despite an inflammatory muscle disease and his retirement from the road. 341pp, photos.

As heard on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week, this is the inspiring story of an Icelandic sheep farmer, former model and feminist heroine who is a force of nature. 'I want to tell women they can do anything, and to show that sheep farming isn't just a man's game.' Heida is a solitary farmer with a flock of 500 sheep in a wild area bordering Iceland's highlands, an area so remote it is known as the 'End of the World'. One of her neighbours is Iceland's most notorious volcano Katla, which has periodically driven away the inhabitants of Ljotarstaoir ever since people first started farming there in the 12th century. Divided into four seasons, the book tells the story of a remarkable year, when Heida reluctantly went into politics to fight plans to raise a hydro-electric power station on her land. The book paints an unforgettable portrait of a remote life close to nature, telling a heroic tale of a charismatic young woman who walked away from a career as a model to take over the family farm at the age of 23. Vivid stories of her animals and farmwork mingle with her wry poems and sense of community and here is life from a very different angle, a shepherd's life spent watchful of the dangers of earthquakes and glaciers, herding the last sheep back from the upper mountain slopes by quadbike before the deadly snows of winter descend. 305pp, fairly large print.

With a legendary career encompassing Broadway and London stages, cinema, television, concert tours, recordings, directing assignments and the world of children's publishing, in 2000 Julie Andrews was bestowed with the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire for her lifetime achievements in the arts and humanities. She was married to film director Blake Edwards for 41 years and between them the couple had five children. Told with her trademark charm and candour, Julie Andrews? memoir begins with her arrival in Hollywood to make her screen debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, followed closely by The Sound of Music. The result was an astonishing rise to fame as those now-classic films brought her almost overnight success. She reveals behind-the-scenes details and reflections on her impressive body of work, collaborations with giants of cinema like James Garner, Omar Sharif and her giggle-buddy Dudley Moore. She also unveils her personal story of adjusting to an often daunting world, a new husband addicted to painkillers, impulsively buying a yacht and overspending, dealing with unimaginable public scrutiny, being a new mother, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children and being in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films including 10, S.O.B, and Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations. Fascinating to read are her accounts of The Tamarind Seed, Hawaii, her life in the USA, finding apartments every time she filmed in the UK, family problems and a whole series of therapists. 340 desirable US roughcut pages, photos.

Sub-titled 'My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown', this bestseller has been described as 'The best royal book by a mile...funny, gossipy and riveting.' The remarkable life of Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret who was also a Maid of Honour at the Queen's Coronation, Anne Glenconner has been close to the Royal Family since childhood. Eldest child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, she was as his daughter described as 'the greatest disappointment' by her family, as she was unable to inherit. Her childhood home of Holkham Hall is one of the grandest estates in England. Bordering Sandringham, the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were frequent playmates. Lady Glenconner has been a witness to royal history and an extraordinary survivor of a generation of aristocratic women trapped without inheritance and burdened with social expectations. She married the charismatic but highly volatile Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who became owner of Mustique. Together they turned the island into a paradise for the rich and famous, and welcomed guests like Mick Jagger and David Bowie. It became a favourite retreat for Princess Margaret, but underneath the glitz and glamour, there also lurked tragedy. On Lord Glenconner's death in 2010, he left his fortune to a former employee and of their five children, two grown-up sons died, while a third son had to be nursed back from a coma by Anne, having suffered a near-fatal accident. Anne writes with extraordinary wit, generosity and courage as she exposes what life was like in her gilded cage, revealing the role of her great friendship with Princess Margaret, and the freedom she can finally now enjoy in later life. 325pp, paperback with rare colour and black and white photos.