Mr Jones The Man Who Knew Too Much

Horne Fisher is the man who knew too much. He has a brilliant mind and powers of deduction - but he always faces a moral dilemma . These eight adventures will amaze and delight as we follow Horne and his friend, Harold March, in the world of crime among eminent people.

Murdered in Mongolia in 1935 on the orders of Stalin, the Welsh investigative journalist Gareth Jones is a national hero in Ukraine for reporting the truth about the Holodomor (the Soviet Union's politically-driven famine that killed millions) and is widely believed to be the inspiration for the character Mr Jones in George Orwell's Animal Farm.A graduate of Aberystwyth, Strasbourg and Cambridge universities, Jones - who spoke five languages - was talented, well-connected and determined to discover the truth behind the momentous political events of the post-war period. He travelled widely to report on Mussolini's Italy, the fledgling Irish Free State, the Depression-ravaged United States, and was the first foreign journalist to travel with Hitler and Goebbels after the Nazis had taken power in Germany.Jones' quest for truth also drew him to the Soviet Union in 1934 where his reporting of the Holodomor incurred the wrath of Stalin. The following year, on the eve of his 30th birthday, Jones was shot dead by Chinese communist bandits with links to the NKVD, the Soviet Union's secret police, and is buried in his hometown of Barry in Wales.Now the subject of Mr Jones, a feature film that depicts his battle against the Kremlin's 'fake news' agenda of famine denial, The Man Who Knew Too Much, is the first biography of Gareth Jones and reveals the remarkable yet tragically short life of this fascinating and determined Welshman who pioneered the role of investigative journalism.

A "skillful and literate" (New York Times Book Review) biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer. To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide. With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—and elegantly explains his work and its implications.

Populism is on the rise across the globe. Authoritarian populist leaders have taken over and solidified their control over many countries. Their power has been cemented during the global coronavirus pandemic, though perhaps the defeat of populist-in-chief Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential election (despite his continuing protestations to the contrary) has seen the start of the waning of this phenomenon? In the UK Brexit is 'done'; Britain is firmly out of the EU; Covid is vaccinated against; and Boris Johnson has a huge parliamentary majority and, despite never-ending problems, of his own and others' making, his grip on power with a parliamentary majority of more than 80, still seems secure. Meanwhile culture wars continue to rage. How has media, worldwide, contributed, fulled or fought this populism. Cheerleaders? Critics? Supplicants? This book examines those questions in 360 degrees with a distinguished cast of authors from journalism and academia.

For Anatoliy Yetvushenko, émigré and physicist, it should be the perfect holiday. Llandudno calls to his mind the Black Sea holidays of his childhood in the Ukraine, while his companion, Francis, is just beginning to awaken to the possibilities of male sexual love in the first years following its legalisation. But Anatoliy has memories of an earlier holiday in Lyme Regis in the 1950s, where his previous lover, who now lives near Llandudno, left him to make a loveless marriage. With its awareness of the landscape of the north coast of Wales, of quantum physics and of deep time, this novel reflects the search for intimacy and fulfilment in the shadow of political tyranny and sexual persecution. ‘A vivid and moving description of memory, loss and eventual redemption, a wise, compassionate exploration of human vulnerability and human worth.’ Rob Mimpriss ‘a chronicler of the region’s disappearing heritage.’ North Wales Chronicle

Includes music.