Historians turning their hands to fiction are all the rage. Since Alison Weir led the way in 2006, an ever-growing number of established non-fiction writers - Giles Milton, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Harry Sidebottom, Patrick Bishop, Ian Mortimer and myself included - have written historical novels.

No campaign of the First World War better justifies the poets' view of the conflict as futile and pitiless than Gallipoli.

From 1801, Napoleon began an ambitious programme of civil reform to standardise law and justice, centralise education, introduce uniform weights and measures and a fully functioning internal market. That achievement alone makes him one of the giants of history.

My great-great-grandfather, who made his money in the jute trade, had at one time 600 houses in London, and within three generations, the money was gone.

I realized my family was funny, because nobody ever wanted to leave our house.

I wanted to be in the situation where I could have a chance to go to the NFL and be a great quarterback and take care of my family.

If you want to stand with me as a single mom - and I know so many of my friends and colleagues do - please don't appropriate my burden as a way to validate your own. To suggest that you are single-parenting when you are simply solo for the weekend devalues what real single mothers do.

Growing up in a lower-income family, you don't have the resources to make ends meet and you have to find creative ways to get by.