The Magician tells the story of Thomas Mann, whose life was filled with great acclaim and contradiction. He would find himself on the wrong side of history in the First World War, cheerleading the German army, but have a clear vision of the future in the second, anticipating the horrors of Nazism. He would have six children and keep his homosexuality hidden; he was a man forever connected to his family and yet bore witness to the ravages of suicide. 

Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by Poundland, and London, where frenzied riots give way to Olympic fever, Middle England follows a brilliantly vivid cast of characters through a time of immense change.

At the edge of an old orchard, on the grounds of an exclusive private girls’ school, a teenage boy is found dead. Was it murder, suicide, or something else? Disaffected police detective and struggling single parent, Adam Durwood, is assigned to investigate, but the closer he looks the more the facts don’t add up. At the centre of the mystery are three beguiling and manipulative teenagers who seem to know much more than they should, and are slowly drawing Adam into a web he can’t see.... 

Join best-selling author Jon Ronson as he traces a very strange butterfly effect.

Perhaps thanks to TV period dramas, the popular imagination may picture the Edwardian era as an idyllic window between the wars, a time of manners and tea on the lawn. But below the surface lies a frenetic and often bizarre age where scientific leaps forward went hand in hand with belief in fairies, and secrets of sex, lies and murder simmered. Across 12 episodes, in this sequel to his Victorian Secrets, Stephen Fry uncovers some of the startling and unexpected hidden histories of the Edwardians.