Contributors

Dr Sarah Davies is an author, chartered counselling psychologist and trauma therapist who specialises in narcissistic abuse, co-dependency and related trauma. She is the author of How to Leave a Narcissist … For Good and has been featured in publications including the Guardian, Daily Mail and Sunday Times.

Daniel Davies was born near Birmingham in 1973 to a Welsh father and a Polish-German mother. He was educated at comprehensive schools, and the universities of Cambridge and East Anglia. He has lived in Prague, Sydney and Barcelona, and is currently based in London. His novel, The Isle of Dogs, was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex New Writers Award and translated into several languages.

Alexandra David-Neel was one of the great travel writers and an authority on Tibetan Buddhism, her writings on Buddhism became a great influence on writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. She continued to travel and write until her death at 101 years old.

Nick Davidson is a documentary filmmaker and amateur geologist. He lives in London.

Ian Davidson worked for the Financial Times for many years (among other things as Paris correspondent and as chief foreign affairs columnist). His earlier Voltaire in Exile (2004), was called 'powerful and illuminating … revealing and disturbing' by the Sunday Times.

Dan Davies is a former regulatory economist at the Bank of England and analyst for a number of investment banks. His career has seen him tackle all manner of financial crookedness, including the LIBOR and FX scandals, the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank and the Swiss Nazi gold scandal. He has written for the Financial Times and the New Yorker among other publications.

Liz Dávid-Barrett is a professor at the University of Sussex, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption. She is also Deputy Director of Research for the UK government's Governance and Integrity-Anti-Corruption Evidence programme and frequently appears on high-profile political programmes such as Newsnight and Big Questions as an expert voice on corruption.

Liz previously worked as a journalist for the Economist and the Financial Times, and is the host of Kickback: The Global Anticorruption podcast, where she interviews academics and practitioners working on corruption from around the world.

General the Lord Dannatt GCB CBE MC DL served in the army from 1971-2009, during which time he led troops in Ireland and Kosovo and held the positions of Commander-in-Chief, Land Command and Chief of the General Staff. He is now Constable of the Tower of London, where he lives. His autobiography is Leading from the Front (Corgi, 2010).

Jane Darke is a writer, documentary film maker and painter. She lives and works in Cornwall.

Gillian Darley writes widely in the arts media, mostly about architecture and landscape. She is president of the Twentieth Century Society and has written acclaimed biographies of Octavia Hill, John Evelyn and John Soane – the latter two shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. Her most recent book is Ian Nairn: Words in Place (Five Leaves Publications, with David McKie). She lives in London.

Laura Dave was born in New York City and grew up in Scarsdale, New York. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in English, and went on to gain an MFA from the University of Virginia's creative writing program. She was a Henry Hoyns Fellow and a recipient of the Tennessee Williams Scholarship. She is the national and international bestselling author of Eight Hundred Grapes, London is the City in America, The Divorce Party, The First Husband, Hello, Sunshine and The Last Thing He Told Me. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Glamour, Redbook, The Huffington Post and The New York Observer. In 2008, Cosmopolitan named her a 'Fun and Fearless Phenom of the Year'. She is married to Oscar-winning screenwriter Josh Singer, with whom she resides in Los Angeles, California.

Erich von Daniken spent a lifetime gathering evidence to prove that before the dawn of recorded history our ancestors were visited by an alien race. Erich Von Daniken was responsible for popularising the ancient astronaut hypothesis of human development. Orthodox historians have been sceptical but a vast public have been drawn to his ideas by instinctive interest and wonder. His 26 books have sold over 60 million copies, in over 40 languages. He died in 2026.

Kate Daly is the founder of the award-winning separation service amicable, a leading divorce expert and a qualified relationship counsellor. She was an outspoken advocate for the campaign to introduce no-fault divorce in England and Wales in 2022, and is the host of The Divorce Podcast. amicable divorce is her first book.