When Jonathan Aitken was in prison, he experienced a religious conversion. When he emerged into the light of day, he headed for Oxford where he read for and obtained a degree in theology.

The Psalms have assumed a quite exceptional importance in his life. The Psalms are at the very heart of the Christian life and its liturgy - in them is found the whole range of human emotion, of triumph and despair.

In this new book, Aitken expounds his own view of the Psalms, the fruit of much prayer, study and reflection. He has busy, stressed modern men and women and the forefront of his...

Here are a hundred selected prayers, each accompanied by a spiritual reflection with personal comments. The book opens with a 9,000 word autobiographical introduction, "Journey Into Prayer," which explains how the author has collected, and in some cases written, the prayers in this book during his many experiences of life under pressure.
In his colourful career, Jonathan Aitken has been a war correspondent in Vietnam, a television presenter, the chief executive of TV-am, the chairman of a merchant bank, an MP, a Cabinet Minister, a prisoner in HMP Belmarsh and a student of theology at...

Kazakhstan is colossal in size, complicated in its history, colourful in its culture and is a nation state that most outsiders know little of. Much of the existing narrative revolves around the country's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. But his life can only be understood in the context of the land in which he was born, raised and became a leader.
For centuries the tribes of Kazakhstan had been plundered and conquered by foreign invaders. The most ruthless of these were the 20th century leaders of the Soviet Union, but after its collapse it was Nazarbayev who emerged as...