Peter Stanford

The UK's parish churches, chapels, cathedrals, convents, abbeys and monasteries, spanning 1600 years, are a spectacularly rich but often overlooked heritage. Many are visited for their architectural and aesthetic qualities - they make up 45% of all Grade 1 listed buildings in the country - but rarely is the deeper historical story that they tell explored and joined up into a single narrative in our sceptical, secular times. This book tells that story...

In the secular, sceptical, scientific post-Christian world of the West, statistics reveal that many of us still believe in angels. A survey even reports that one in six atheists may rule out God but accept angels. But what are angels, and what is their basis, their history and their continuing role in the great faiths, and beyond their walls? Are they a symbol of God's concern, nothing more than a metaphor, part of the poetry of religion, created...

In this fascinating historical and cultural biography, writer and broadcaster Peter Stanford deconstructs that most vilified of Bible characters: Judas Iscariot, who famously betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Beginning with the gospel accounts, he explores 2000 years of cultural and theological history to investigate how the very name Judas came to be synonymous with betrayal and, ultimately, human evil.

Poet, translator of classical texts, novelist, detective writer (under the pen-name Nicholas Blake), performer and, at that time, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, C Day-Lewis had many careers all at once. This biography tells the private story behind the many headlines that this Anglo-Irish Poet Laureate generated in his lifetime.