For longer than recorded history there have been tales of spirits and of places where our hackles rise and our skin turns cold. Bestselling historian Neil Oliver travels the British Isles on a deliciously spine-chilling tour that spans several centuries and explores more than 20 sites - castles, vicarages and towers, lonely shorelines and forgotten battlefields - to unpick their stories.. Oliver invokes his family's history alongside that of kings and queens past as he probes why our emotions and senses are heightened in certain locations where the separation between dimensions seems gossamer thin. Our landscape is riven with these places, creaking from the weight of the secrets they hold, the echoes of tragedy and dark deeds . From Inverness to Devon, Co Dublin to Norfolk, Hauntings casts an enjoyably eerie glow with stories that, told generation after generation, are inextricable from place - and considers why they matter.
Neil Oliver Book order
Neil Oliver is a Scottish archaeologist, historian, and broadcaster whose work often delves into the rich history of Scotland and its coastlines. He brings these narratives to life through engaging television presentations. Beyond his non-fiction endeavors, Oliver also explores the realms of fiction, crafting stories steeped in historical intrigue and mystery.






- 2023
- 2022
Neil Oliver takes us on a whistlestop tour around the world and through a million years to give us a unique and invaluable grasp of how human history pieces together. From the east to the west, north to south, these 100 moments act like stepping stones allowing us to make sense of how these pivotal events have shaped the world we know today. Including many moments readers will expect, there are also surprises, and with them, some remarkable, unforgettable stories that give a whole new insight on our past.
- 2021
From much-loved historian Neil Oliver comes a whole new insight on our past, told through 100 remarkable, unforgettable stories. In his brilliant and excitingly ambitious new book, Neil Oliver takes us on a whistlestop tour around the world and through a million years to give us a unique and invaluable grasp of how human history pieces together. From the east to the west, north to south, these 100 moments act like stepping stones allowing us to make sense of how these pivotal events have shaped the world we know today. Including many moments readers will expect - from Genghis Khan's domination on earth to Armstrong's first steps on the moon, and from the advent of the printing press to the birth of the internet - there are also surprises, and with them, some remarkable, unforgettable stories that give a whole new insight on our past.
- 2020
From the bestselling author of The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places comes this inspiring and beautifully written meditation on the wisdom inherited from our ancestors. For all we have gained in the modern world, simple peace of mind is hard to find.
- 2018
Not Forgotten
- 336 pages
- 12 hours of reading
The hidden and often moving story of Britain's coming of age in the First World War.
- 2018
The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places
- 448 pages
- 16 hours of reading
(Edward Stourton)From much-loved historian Neil Oliver, comes this beautifully written, kaleidoscopic history of a place with a story like no other. The British Isles, this archipelago of islands, is to Neil Oliver the best place in the world.
- 2015
Master of Shadows
- 512 pages
- 18 hours of reading
In fifteenth-century Constantinople, Prince Constantine saves the life of a broken-hearted girl. But the price of his valour is high. John Grant is a young man on the edge of the world. His unique abilities carry him from his home in Scotland to the heart of the Byzantine Empire in search of a girl and the chance to fulfil a death-bed promise. Lena has remained hidden from the men who have been searching for her for many years. When she's hunted down, at last she knows what she must do. With an army amassing beyond the city's ancient walls, the fates of these three will intertwine. As the Siege of Constantinople reaches its climax, each must make a choice between head and heart, duty and destiny.
- 2012
The Vikings famously took no prisoners, relished cruel retribution, and prided themselves on their bloody-thirsty skills as warriors. But their prowess in battle is only a small part of their story, which stretches from their Scandinavian origins to America in the west and as far as Baghdad in the east. As the Vikings did not write their history, we have to discover it for ourselves, and that discovery, as Neil Oliver reveals, tells an extraordinary story of a people who, from the brink of destruction, reached a quarter of the way around the globe and built an empire that lasted nearly two hundred years. Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1000 years ago? VIKINGS will explore many of these questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.
- 2012
A History of Ancient Britain
- 400 pages
- 14 hours of reading
This text presents a history of ancient Britain and the indelible marks which thousands of years of human civilization have made upon the landscape.
- 2009
A History Of Scotland
- 459 pages
- 17 hours of reading
'The beauty of Scotland is overwhelming and I've often thought that Scotland's popular history is just like her landscape - impossibly romantic, obscured by mist and myth and always changing.' The dramatic story of Scotland - by charismatic television historian, Neil Oliver.


