Books

Inspired: Magdi knew at the age of six that he wanted to save lives (Image: Yacoub family archive.)Forty years ago today legendary surgeon Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub carried out the UK’s first heart and lung transplant, saving the life of Swedish journalist Lars Ljungberg who had approached the surgeon – already famed for his heart transplants – as his last hope.Experts in the United States had refused to operate as they felt Mr Ljungberg’s organs had deteriorated too far. And although, sadly, he died 13 days later of an underlying condition, the pioneering operation itself was a success and paved the way for thousands of life-saving transplants to follow.“Mr Ljungberg was a wonderful man, very determined and intelligent, who came to Harefield Hospital and said, ‘It’s my last chance, wh...

Dom Joly digs up conspiracy theories in new book (Image: Getty)They are, fairly obviously, not questions that trouble the vast majority of us: Does Finland exist? Is the Earth really flat? Where is the US government hiding aliens? But, as Dom Joly attests, a significant number of people spend an inordinate amount of time pondering such mysteries, often online.And the comedian turned travel writer now counts himself among them, for purely scientific reasons you understand. His side-splittingly funny new book, The Conspiracy Tourist, investigates this strange and disturbing world. It’s a total hoot from page one but, as Joly warns, the rise of the conspiracy theorist comes amid a decline of public trust in science-based facts and institutions. And that’s something we ignore at our peril.“...

Michael Caine's new novel (Image: Getty/Hodder & Stoughton)When Dave looked back and remembered seeing the box for the first time, he could have sworn it had been glowing. Well, he couldn’t be sure. He was a bit hazy about the whole thing, truth be told, what with the concussion, the general commotion and the state of his nerves in general. But that’s what his memory told him: a sort of low glimmering around the edges of the black metal. Even now, in a lumpy hospital bed, waiting for the X-ray and the results of other tests the doctors were a bit vaguer about, he couldn’t quite piece it together. The whole thing made next to no sense, especially the speed – and the violence – with which it had all happened. One minute, he was making a phone call. The next, he was woken up by half of...

It was 60 years ago today that CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley died, but news of their deaths were overshadowed by the assassination of President John F Kennedy that very same day of November 22, 1963.JFK’s short administration spanned just over 1000 days, but historians lay and academic have been fascinated by the man, his wife Jackie and the whole Kennedy family for decades.Speaking previously with Express.co.uk in an exclusive interview, Christopher Andersen – the bestselling author of These Few Precious Days: The Final Year of Jack and Jackie – shared little known facts about the President and First Lady.The Kennedy expert unveiled how JFK was obsessed with death and how he prophetically had a feeling his would be a violent one.Andersen shared: “I don’t think most people realise how fata...

These action-packed books also really do work as excellent history, writes Lyle (Image: Shutterstock)WHILE Roald Dahl books are ­having the word ‘fat’ edited out and sensitivity readers and ­virtue signallers are on hand to scrutinise our every utterance, one of literature’s greatest anti-heroes is still entertaining readers more than 50 years after his first appearance.And thank goodness.Sir Harry Flashman, Flashy to his friends, is a racist, sexist, bigoted homophobe, an Empire-builder and a selfish, cowardly cad. And yet, still, readers love him.Flashman, the hero of George MacDonald Fraser’s 12-book series, started life as the irredeemable bully in Thomas Hughes’s ­classic and rather po-faced tale of public-school life, Tom Brown’s Schooldays.Unlike the pious Tom, Flashman has no ti...

Phil with England in 1993 (Image: Getty)One night on Jersey in 2004, a grand piano in Phil Tufnell’s hotel trundled along a corridor and plunged down a flight of stairs. It made a noise so loud it could possibly have been heard on neighbouring Channel Islands.Phil had been filming the short-lived It’s a Knockout-style ITV gameshow, Simply the Best. There had already been a lot of high jinks after each show, with people from the production sliding down bannisters and running around the hotel in their underpants.And the ex-England cricketer and recently crowned winner of I’m a Celebrity – which has just returned for its 23rd series – had certainly enjoyed the bonhomie too.But the piano incident was rather more serious and Phil spent the rest of his time in Jersey hiding from the hotel man...

Connelly has joined forces with some of the world’s biggest literary names against OpenAI (Image: Netflix)Bestselling crime writer Michael Connelly has revealed his will contains strict instructions that no other author can continue the Harry Bosch franchise after his death as he fights a lawsuit accusing artificial intelligence of stealing his work.The Bosch Legacy and Lincoln Lawyer creator is part of a class action against OpenAI – the multi-billion dollar company behind the controversial ChatGPT programme – for breach of copyright over the use of his novels to teach its own creation how to write. Connelly, 67, has joined forces with some of the world’s biggest literary names – including John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen, Jodi Picoult and Game of Thrones creator George R R Martin – in s...

It’s been 12 years since George RR Martin last published a novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series.Since then the Game of Thrones HBO show has been and gone, with showrunners being forced to rely on his outlines for the last two unwritten books to finish the story.Fans recently uncovered an interview with the author at a Portuguese Fantasy Convention he attended virtually, where he gave an update on his progress with The Winds of Winter.The 75-year-old said: “I’m 12 years late on this damn novel and I’m struggling with it.“I have like 1100 pages written, but I still have hundreds more pages to go. It’s a big mother of a book."Martin continued: “For whatever reason, maybe I should have started writing small books when I began this but… it’s tough. But that’s the main thing tha...

It was a repeat of the Windy Ridge tragedy more than a decade ago. Consequently, for the next few weeks I avoided the northern boundary, always changing my movements at the last minute and never repeating a schedule. I also wore a bulletproof vest at all times and each night Zingela and I slept in a different room of my house. Then we got the news that the sergeant had died from AIDS. Apparently, he had stopped taking antiretroviral drugs after being dismissed and the assassination squad disbanded as they were no longer being paid. Zingela and I were free to patrol in the north again. Zingela was also singled out by poachers, so I made sure he never left my side. But it wasn’t only poachers after him – there are hundreds of lions and hyenas in Sabi Sand Wildtuin, especially in the nor...

Leading scientists are now confident of finding an effective treatment within five years for the brutal degenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. This has been made possible by £50million of Government funding secured after the Sun-day Express launched our Fund The Fight To Cure MND crusade joining forces with leading patients, scientists and charities. Then-prime minister Boris Johnson pledged the landmark funding on November 14, 2021. With the two-year anniversary of this promise on Tuesday, father-of-three Rob, 41, who has been living with MND since 2019, said: “It is vital to keep banging the drum for the MND community. Time is not something that is on our side. The Government pledge is vital for taking research forward as efficiently as possib...