The Intemperate Engineer, Adrian Vaughan (Allan)

Drawing on the letters and diaries of Isamabard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), published here for the first time, this biography follows his development through his railway engineering projects and reveals the private man behind the public figure, challenging the ‘Brunel myth’ that has presided since 1957.  
Lesley Blanch, Anne Boston (John Murray)
Lesley Blanch, author of The Wilder Shores of Love, died in 2007, aged 102. This biography draws on publishers’ archives, unpublished journals and interviews to tell the story of the life of the British writer.
The Fireside Conversations, Lawrence W. Levine and Cornelia R. Levine (University of California Press)
Following his decision to close all American banks, two days after his inauguration, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his series of Fireside Chats, during which he used the intimacy of radio to share his plans directly with the people. This book charts the period from 1933 to 1938, setting each of the Fireside Chats in context and reprinting a selection of the letters that the president received from a huge variety of ordinary Americans.
Inside Room 40: The Codebreakers of World War 1, Paul Gannon (Allan)
This study of the codebreakers of the First World War provides an account of the Zimmerman affair, when the decoders of Room 40 successfully decoded a German proposal to Mexico to join them in declaring war on the USA, and profiles the key figures who went on from Room 40 to work at Bletchley Park, including Dilly Knox, Alastair Denniston and Nigel De Grey.