Martin Bell OBE has been many things - an icon of BBC war reporting, Britain's first independent MP for 50 years, a UNICEF ambassador, and 'the man in the white suit' - a tireless campaigner for honesty and accountability in politics. But as his new book reveals, he's also a poet of light verse, and here Bell's poems continue his war by other means on duplicitous politicians, our all-consuming media, the venality of celebrity culture and much more. Oscillating between trenchant satire and touching honesty, often poignant autobiography spiced with gentle humour, Bell presents poems on Tony Blair and Iraq, on Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian war criminal whom he met on trial in the Hague, on his hero, Reuters reporter Kurt Schork, killed on assignment in Sierra Leone, and colourful episodes from his work and life, from the chart-topping calypso written about him in St Lucia to his being a guest at Idi Amin's wedding: ' - that by God / Was well worth doing, if distinctly odd.' Topical, timely - the book will include poems on key events in 2011 - and with Martin's irrepressible guiding voice, For Whom the Bell Tolls will be the perfect fireside companion this Christmas, from the man convinced that 'life begins at three score years and ten.'

Throughout history, mass demonstrations and protests - both peaceful and violent - have been used to demand and bring about reform. The recent Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and the resulting shockwaves that continue to reverberate across the Middle East serve as a potent reminder of "people power" in the quest for change. "Protest!" is a photographic history covering over 60 years of demonstrations and rebellion. Broad in scope, the powerful images in this book capture diverse and key moments in the history of popular protest, from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the momentous struggle for African-American civil rights in the 1950s and '60s, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the huge anti-war marches held after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an age of 24-hour television news coverage, it is clear that the still photograph retains the power to capture what Henri Cartier Bresson the "decisive moments of history". "Protest!" features the work of some of the world's best photojournalists, including acclaimed photographers Josef Koudelka, whose iconic photographs of the Prague Spring became symbols of the resistance, Bruno Barbey, who documented the French student riots of 1968, and Alex Majoli, who is currently photographing the ongoing Libyan uprising. Divided into four sections covering the broad areas of Rebellion and Revolution, Political Protest, The Fight for Rights, and the Quest for Peace, introductory essays set out the main themes for each chapter while captions provide fascinating background information. Ambitious and unique, the stirring photographs in this compelling book provide a window upon a period of unprecedented political, social and cultural protest.

In a land where Kings still rule, I am a Princess. You must know me only as Sultana, for I cannot reveal my true name for fear that harm will come to me and my family for what I am about to tell you. Think of a Saudi Arabian princess and what do you see? A woman glittering with jewels, living a life of unbelievable luxury. She has gold, palaces, swimming-pools, servants, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no vote, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons. Hidden behind the vell, she is a prisoner, her jailers her father, her husband, her sons. 'Sultana' is a member of the Saudi royal family, closely related to the King. For the sake of her daughters, she decided that it was time for a woman in her position to speak out about the reality of life for women in her country, whatever their rank. She tells of her own life, from her turbulent childhood to her arranged marriage - a happy one, until her husband decided to take a second wife - and of the lives of her sisters, her friends and her servants.In contrast to the affection and easy camaraderie amongst the women, she relates a history of appalling oppression against them, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations: forced marriages, servants bullied into sex slavery, summary executions. Princess is a testimony to a woman of indomitable spirit and great courage. By speaking out, 'Sultana' risked bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and upon the heads of her children. For this reason, she told her story anonymously.

Bernard Spencer (1909-63) was a distinctive voice in 20th-century English poetry, and a central figure in the Personal Landscape group of wartime Cairo writers. He spent much of his life working for the British Council, in Greece, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Austria, the settings for many of his poems. He was among the first translators of George Seferis into English, and his expatriate colleagues included Lawrence Durrell and Olivia Manning. A recurrent theme in his poetry is a particular sense of gregarious loneliness, of being someone apart. Living for many years in non-English-speaking communities, he became, quite consciously, 'a stranger here', a poet whose subtly inventive techniques and 'respect for the Object', as Durrell put it, served to fix and define modes of personal, cultural and political unease. He was to publish just two full collections, 'Aegean Islands and Other Poems' (1946) and 'With Luck Lasting' (1963), during his lifetime. Based on Roger Bowen's pioneering 'Collected Poems' (OUP, 1981), this new edition of Spencer's works is the first to include all his poetry, his translations from George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis and Eugenio Montale (made alone, or in collaboration with Lawrence Durrell and Nanos Valaoritis), and selections of his prose - including critical and travel writings, memoirs, interviews, occasional comments on poetry, and his obituary for Keith Douglas. Wherever possible the texts are derived either from manuscript and typescript holdings in the poet's principal archive at the University of Reading and others dispersed elsewhere, or checked against those various sources. The book has an introduction by poet, translator, and literary critic Peter Robinson as well as extensive notes on the published texts and a complete bibliography of Spencer's writings.