A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy novels and is an ambassador for Wattpad, known as @agatharoza. Entwined is her first novel.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A.J. Cronin

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A. T. Emerald lives with her husband and baby daughter in Nottinghamshire. She discovered her love of writing in 2020 and has not shut up about enemies to lovers ever since. She loves iced matcha, torrid love confessions with knives pressed to throats (fictional, of course) and does not accept bills for any therapy her books might incur.

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

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Alice Roberts

**'A masterpiece of evocative scientific storytelling.' BRIAN COX** 
 
**'Will appeal to fans of Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens'. Mail on Sunday ** 
 
The extraordinary story of the species that became our allies. 
 
Dogs became our companions 
Wheat fed a booming population 
Cattle gave us meat and milk 
Maize fuelled the growth of empires 
Potatoes brought us feast and famine 
Chickens led us to wonder about tomorrow 
Rice promised us a golden future 
Horses gave us strength and speed 
Apples travelled with us 
HUMANS TAMED THEM ALL 
 
For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors depended on wild plants and animals to stay alive – until they began to tame them. 
 
Combining archaeology and cutting-edge genetics, Tamed tells the story of the greatest revolution in human history and reveals the fascinating origins of ten crucial domesticated species; and how they, in turn, transformed us. In a world creaking under the strain of human activity, Alice Roberts urges us to look again at our relationship with the natural world – and our huge influence upon it. 
 
AN ECONOMIST AND MAIL ON SUNDAY 'BOOK OF THE YEAR' 2017

Tamed

Ten Species that Changed our World

Jason Hickel

________________ 
 
'There's no understanding global inequality without understanding its history. In The Divide, Jason Hickel brilliantly lays it out, layer upon layer, until you are left reeling with the outrage of it all.' - Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics 
 
· The richest eight people control more wealth than the poorest half of the world combined. 
· Today, 60 per cent of the world's population lives on less than $5 a day. 
· Though global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, 1.1 billion more people are now living in poverty. 
 
For decades we have been told a story: that development is working, that poverty is a natural phenomenon and will be eradicated through aid by 2030. But just because it is a comforting tale doesn't make it true. Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms, and aid only helps to hide this. 
 
Drawing on pioneering research and years of first-hand experience, The Divide tracks the evolution of global inequality - from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to the present day - offering revelatory answers to some of humanity's greatest problems. It is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change for the better.

The Divide

A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

Robert Reid

__________________________ 
'The universal significance of this historic event becomes ever more relevant in our own turbulent times.' MIKE LEIGH, director of the award-winning film Peterloo 
__________________________ 
The Peterloo Massacre is a revealing and compelling account of one of the darkest days in Britain's social history. 
 
On 16 August 1819, a strong force of yeomanry and regular cavalry charged into a crowd of more than 100,000 workers who had gathered on St Peter’s Field in Manchester for a meeting about Parliamentary reform. 
 
Many were killed. This violent, startling event became known as Peterloo, one of the darkest days in Britain’s social history. 
 
The Peterloo Massacre provides a revealing narrative account of the events leading up to Peterloo, starkly describes the actions of that fateful day, and examines its aftermath. It offers a new perspective on the political and military activities of the time, and shows how the very nature of society was powerfully influenced by irreversible technological change: a pattern that, two-hundred years later, still has relevance in understanding the forces shaping our world today. 
__________________________ 
'One of our nation's defining moments.' STUART MACONIE 
 
'Vivid and rather brilliant.' THE TIMES 
 
'an absorbing analysis of one of the blackest days for civil liberties which this country has ever known. It is a story of heroes and villains, of suffering and carnage and of incompetence, betrayal and brutality, told with the skill of a master craftsman who makes history leap from the page fresh as the morning’s newspapers' EVENING CHRONICLE 
 
'There are many accounts of the Peterloo Massacre but none as thoroughly researched as this one. The characters . . . come alive in his easy to read style . . . there is much to be learned from Robert Reid’s description and analysis of the role and effects of technology, and I hope his book will be widely read. It should be in every school library and discussed by all those involved in the continuing search for civilised solutions to the social and political problems currently facing our people.' CAMDEN JOURNAL

The Peterloo Massacre

John Bargh

‘John Bargh's Before You Know It moves our understanding of the mysteries of human behaviour one giant step forward. A brilliant and convincing book.’ – Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and David and Goliath 
 
How much of what we say, feel and do is under our conscious control? How much is not? And most crucial of all: if we understood how our unconscious worked – if we knew why we do what we do – could we finally, fundamentally, know ourselves? 
 
From checking a dating app to holding a cup of coffee or choosing who to vote for, our unconscious secretly governs everything we feel, think and do. In Before You Know It, Dr John Bargh – the world’s leading expert on the unconscious mind – reveals the psychological forces that are at work behind the scenes as we go about our daily lives, and offers simple steps to improve your sleep, boost your memory and live better.

Before You Know It

The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do

Dexter Dias

The inspiration behind the hit podcast THE 100 TYPES OF HUMAN with DEXTER DIAS and BBC 5 Live host NIHAL ARTHANAYAKE 
 
'This book is the one. Think Sapiens and triple it.' - Julia Hobsbawm, author of Fully Connected 
_______________________________ 
We all have ten types of human in our head. 
 
They're the people we become when we face life's most difficult decisions. We want to believe there are things we would always do - or things we never would. But how can we be sure? What are our limits? Do we have limits? 
 
 The Ten Types of Human is a pioneering examination of human nature. It looks at the best and worst that human beings are capable of, and asks why. It explores the frontiers of the human experience, uncovering the forces that shape our thoughts and actions in extreme situations. 
 
From courtrooms to civil wars, from Columbus to child soldiers, Dexter Dias takes us on a globe-spanning journey in search of answers, touching on the lives of some truly exceptional people. 
 
Combining cutting-edge neuroscience, social psychology and human rights research, The Ten Types of Human is a provocative map to our hidden selves. It provides a new understanding of who we are - and who we can be. 
_______________________________ 
'The Ten Types of Human is a fantastic piece of non-fiction, mixing astonishing real-life cases with the latest scientific research to provide a guide to who we really are. It's inspiring and essential.' - Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit 
 
'I emerged from this book feeling better about almost everything... a mosaic of faces building into this extraordinary portrait of our species.' - Guardian 
 
'Uplifting and indispensable.' - Howard Cunnell 
_______________________________ 
 
What readers are saying about 'the most important book in years': 
 
'utterly compelling...this one comes with a warning - only pick it up if you can risk not putting it down' - Wendy Heydorn on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
'one of the most remarkable books I've read... I can genuinely say that it has changed the way I view the world' - David Jones on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
'Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the human condition... a thrilling and beautifully crafted book' - Wasim on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
'This is the most important book I have read in years' - Natasha Geary on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
'an important and fascinating read... It will keep you glued to the page' - Hilary Burrage on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
'a journey that I will never forget, will always be grateful for, and I hope will help me question who I am... a work of genius' - Louise on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
'This is a magnificent book that will capture the interest of every type of reader... one of those rare and special books that demand rereading' - Amelia on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
 'I simply couldn't put it down... one of the most significant books of our time' - Jocelyne Quennell on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
'Read The Ten Types of Human and be prepared to fall in love' - Helen Fospero on Amazon, 5 stars

The Ten Types of Human

Who We Are and Who We Can Be

A New Understanding of Who We Are, and Who We Can Be

Jonathan Miles

'This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid' The Times - BOOK OF THE WEEK 
 
From Peter the Great to Putin, this is the unforgettable story of St Petersburg – one of the most magical, menacing and influential cities in the world. 
 
St Petersburg has always felt like an impossible metropolis, risen from the freezing mists and flooded marshland of the River Neva on the western edge of Russia. It was a new capital in an old country. Established in 1703 by the sheer will of its charismatic founder, the homicidal megalomaniac Peter-the-Great, its dazzling yet unhinged reputation was quickly fashioned by the sadistic dominion of its early rulers. 
 
This city, in its successive incarnations – St Petersburg; Petrograd; Leningrad and, once again, St Petersburg – has always been a place of perpetual contradiction. It was a window on to Europe and the Enlightenment, but so much of the glory of Russia was created here: its literature, music, dance and, for a time, its political vision. It gave birth to the artistic genius of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, Pavlova and Nureyev. Yet, for all its glittering palaces, fairytale balls and enchanting gardens, the blood of thousands has been spilt on its snow-filled streets. It has been a hotbed of war and revolution, a place of siege and starvation, and the crucible for Lenin and Stalin’s power-hungry brutality. 
 
In St Petersburg, Jonathan Miles recreates the drama of three hundred years in this absurd and brilliant city, bringing us up to the present day, when – once more – its fate hangs in the balance. This is an epic tale of murder, massacre and madness played out against squalor and splendour. It is an unforgettable portrait of a city and its people.

St Petersburg

Three Centuries of Murderous Desire

Jess Phillips

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY BOOK AWARDS 
 
‘Jess Phillips writes like she talks: brilliantly. Her humour and passion shine through every page. Loved it.’ ROBERT WEBB 
_____________________ 
If you’re thinking, ‘Jess who?’ then I’m glad that there was something about ‘Everywoman’ and ‘truth’ that caught your eye. 
 
Or you might already know me as that gobby MP who has a tendency to shout about the stuff I care about. Because I’m a woman with a cause, I have been called a feminazi witch, a murderer and threatened with rape. The internet attracts a classy crowd. 
 
So, speaking the truth isn’t always easy but I believe it’s worth it. And I want you to believe it too. The truth can be empowering, the truth can lead to greater equality, and the world would be incredibly boring if we let all of those people who allegedly know everything, say everything. 
 
By demanding to be heard, by dealing with our imposter syndrome, by being cheerleaders, doers not sayers, creating our own networks and by daring to believe that we can make a difference, we can. 
 
We’re women and we’re kick-ass. And that’s the truth. 
_____________________ 
'Joyfully candid and very funny.' Guardian 
 
'Jess Phillips knows the truth . . . and here she shows how scary and sad as well as joyful and liberating the answers can be.' Damian Barr 
 
'Everywoman has all the laughs [of Lena Dunham and Caitlin Moran] with a backbone of real glinting anger . . .there were so many funny and wise things on each page that whittling them down into a review seemed impossible.' Julie Birchill, Spectator 
 
'As fresh as mountain air amid the Westminster tumbleweed.' Metro 
 
'Arresting.' Observer 
_____________________ 
This title now has a new cover and there is a chance that you may receive the edition with the old cover instead of the cover displayed here.

Everywoman

One Woman’s Truth About Speaking the Truth

Alexandra Heminsley

'Remarkable' Observer 
'A joy to read' Daily Telegraph 
'Soaringly beautiful' Sunday Times Magazine 
'Genuine and persuasive' Guardian 
 
Alexandra Heminsley thought she could swim. She really did. 
 
It may have been because she could run. It may have been because she wanted to swim; or perhaps because she only ever did ten minutes of breaststroke at a time. But, as she learned one day while flailing around in the sea, she really couldn’t. 
 
Believing that a life lived fully isn’t one with the most money earned, the most stuff bought or the most races won, but one with the most experiences, experienced the most fully, she decided to conquer her fear of the water. 
 
From the ignominy of getting into a wetsuit to the triumph of swimming from Kefalonia to Ithaca, in becoming a swimmer, Alexandra learns to appreciate her body and still her mind. As it turns out, the water is never as frightening once you're in, and really, everything is better when you remember to exhale. 
 
 
What Hemmo's readers are saying: 
 
‘This book is funny, engaging, entertaining, informative, suspenseful, motivating, and inspiring... I've never read anything quite like it’ 
 ­– Nina on Goodreads, 5 stars 
 
 ‘Just like Running Like a Girl, this was an absolute joy to read. A beautifully written story of swimming, family and being a woman’ 
 – Violet on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
‘Fantastic book… Entertaining – often laugh-out-loud funny – and full of really useful advice’ 
 – J. Edwards on Amazon, 5 stars 
 
‘A fabulous book that’s beautifully written’ 
 – Nik on Goodreads, 5 stars 
 
‘I can't recommend this book enough! I absolutely love Alexandra Heminsley's writing, her attitude towards exercise and her passion for swimming’ 
 – Sarah on Goodreads, 5 stars 
 
‘an inspirational and encouraging read’ 
 – Stephanie on Goodreads, 5 stars 
 
‘the author’s enthusiasm is contagious… one cannot help but yearn to join in. … A thoroughly inspiring book with a likeable narrator unafraid to share her personal life’ 
 – Eleanor on Goodreads, 5 stars 
 
 ‘This is a delightful book, a pleasure to read… Unbelievably well written, it flows like the water she loves’ 
 ­– Bobby on Amazon, 5 stars

Leap In

A Woman, Some Waves, and the Will to Swim

Tom Dyckhoff

'A great storyteller . . . you would be hard pushed to find a more knowledgeable or entertaining [guide]' Icon 
 
'Such an interesting book . . . I cannot recommend it enough.' Lauren Laverne 
 
 
In Dubai, a luxury apartment block is built in the shape of a giant iPod. In China, President Xi Jinping denounces the trend of constructing ‘bizarre’ new buildings in wacky shapes and colours. In Cincinnati, celebrity architect Zaha Hadid is paid millions to design a single ‘iconic’ structure – with the hope of single-handedly transforming the region’s ailing fortunes. These incidents are all part of the same story: the rise of the age of spectacle. 
 
Over the last fifty years, there has been a revolution in how our cities operate. In The Age of Spectacle, Tom Dyckhoff tells the story of how architecture became obsessed with the flashy, the monumental and the ostentatious – and how we all have to live with the consequences. Exploring cityscapes from New York to Beijing, and from Bilbao to Portsmouth, Dyckhoff shows that we are not just witnessing a new kind of building: we are living through a fundamental transformation in how our urban spaces work. The corporate explosion of the last few decades has fundamentally shifted the relationship between architects, politicians and cities’ inhabitants, fostering innovative new kinds of engineering and design, but also facilitating ill-conceived vanity projects and commercial power-grabs. 
 
Timely, passionate and bursting with new ideas, The Age of Spectacle is both an examination of how twenty-first century cities work, and a manifesto for a radically new kind of urbanism. Our cities, Dyckhoff shows, can thrive in the age of spectacle – but only if they engage us not just with dazzling structures, but by responding to the needs of the people who inhabit them. 
 
'Engaging . . . The “iconic” building is the most obvious architectural phenomenon of our age yet, somehow, no one has quite done what Tom Dyckhoff does with The Age of Spectacle, which is to tell its story clearly and plainly.' Rowan Moore, Observer 
 
'First class. Finally, a book that nails the iconic movement – Tom Dyckhoff’s The Age of Spectacle is the book that I wish I had written.' Simon Jenkins 
 
'Unusually accessible [and] well argued.' Evening Standard

The Age of Spectacle

The Rise and Fall of Iconic Architecture

Adventures in Architecture and the 21st-Century City

Hugh Thomson

In the Middle Ages, mules were used to transport goods across Britain. Strong, sturdy and able to carry a good 160lbs of weight, they made ideal walking companions – as long as you didn’t ask them to do anything they didn’t want to do! 
 
So when Hugh Thomson decides he wants to revive this ancient tradition, but with a mule who is only willing to carry sandwiches, water and a map, his father can’t quite comprehend why: “Taking a mule across England? Really? Whatever for?” 
 
Using old drovers’ roads that have largely passed into disrepair, Hugh and his trusty mule Jethro set out to travel across England, from the Lake District to the Yorkshire Moors. Along the way, they discover a landscape rich in history, and encounter the charismatic people who bring it to life.

One Man and a Mule

Across England with a Pack Mule

Jamie Bartlett

From the creator of hit podcast The Missing Cryptoqueen 
______________________________ 
'Thoughtful and intelligent' Observer 
'Inside the anti-political revolt that gave us Brexit and Trump' Evening Standard 
'Fascinating... Excellent' Literary Review 
'Must read … A radical odyssey' Daily Mail 
 
In the last few years the world has changed in unexpected ways. The power of radical ideas and groups is growing. What was once considered extreme is now the mainstream. But what is life like on the political fringes? What is the real power of radicals? 
 
Radicals is an exploration of the individuals, groups and movements who are rejecting the way we live now, and attempting to find alternatives. In it, Jamie Bartlett, one of the world’s leading thinkers on radical politics and technology, takes us inside the strange and exciting worlds of the innovators, disruptors, idealists and extremists who think society is broken, and believe they know how to fix it. From dawn raids into open mines to the darkest recesses of the internet, Radicals introduces us to some of the most secretive and influential movements today: techno-futurists questing for immortality, far-right groups seeking to close borders, militant environmentalists striving to save the planet's natural reserves by any means possible, libertarian movements founding new countries, autonomous cooperatives in self-sustaining micro-societies, and psychedelic pioneers attempting to heal society with the help of powerful hallucinogens. 
 
As well as providing a fascinating glimpse at the people and ideas driving these groups, Radicals also presents a startling argument: radicals are not only the symptoms of a deep unrest within the world today, but might also offer the most plausible models for our future.

Radicals

Robbie Robertson

Robbie Robertson's singular contributions to popular music have made him one of the most beloved songwriters and guitarists of his time. With songs like ‘The Weight’, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ and ‘Up on Cripple Creek’, he and his partners in the Band fashioned a music that has endured for decades, influencing countless musicians. 
 
In this captivating memoir, written over five years of reflection, Robbie employs his unique storyteller's voice to weave together the journey that led him to some of the most pivotal events in music history. He recounts the adventures of his half-Jewish, half-Mohawk upbringing on the Six Nations Indian Reserve and on the gritty streets of Toronto; his odyssey at sixteen to the Mississippi Delta, the fountainhead of American music; the wild, early years on the road with rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks; his unexpected ties to the Cosa Nostra underworld; the gripping trial-by-fire of 'going electric' with Bob Dylan on his 1966 world tour and their ensuing celebrated collaborations; the formation of the Band and the forging of their unique sound, culminating with history’s most famous farewell concert, brought to life for all time in Martin Scorsese’s great movie The Last Waltz. 
 
This is the story of a time and place - the moment when rock 'n' roll became life, when legends like Buddy Holly and Bo Diddley crisscrossed the circuit of clubs and roadhouses from Texas to Toronto, when the Beatles, Hendrix, the Stones and Warhol moved through the same streets and hotel rooms. It’s the story of exciting change as the world tumbled through the '60s and early '70s and a generation came of age, built on music, love and freedom. Above all, it’s the moving story of the profound friendship among five young men who together created a new kind of popular music. 
 
Testimony is Robbie Robertson’s story, lyrical and true, as only he could tell it.

Testimony

Graeme Garden

Tim Brooke-Taylor

Barry Cryer

Jon Naismith

Do words fail you? Never again, once you've become the proud owner of The Complete Uxbridge English Dictionary. 
 
Every word has a meaning, but over the years those meanings change. Dip into these helpfully illustrated pages and you'll find many of the words you use every day without ever realising that their up-to-date definition is something entirely different. 
 
Words like 'bunny' (rather like a bun), or 'cherish' (rather like a chair), 'Cardiology' (the study of knitwear) or 'buggery' (the study of insects), 'Venezuala' (a gondola with a harpoon) or 'Norway' (a Geordie exclamation of surprise), 'ivy' (the Roman for "four") or 'faculty' (cockney for "there's no more PG Tips"). 
 
Thanks to The Complete Uxbridge English Dictionary you can now use familiar, everyday words in total confidence, fully appraised of their latest meanings. Happy wording!

The Complete Uxbridge English Dictionary

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue

Douglas Coupland

In Bit Rot, Douglas Coupland explores the different ways in which twentieth-century notions of the future are being shredded, and creates a gem of the digital age. Reading the stories and essays in Bit Rot is like bingeing on Netflix . . . you can't stop with just one. 
 
‘Bit rot’ is a term used in digital archiving to describe the way digital files can spontaneously and quickly decompose. As Coupland writes, ‘bit rot also describes the way my brain has been feeling since 2000, as I shed older and weaker neurons and connections and enhance new and unexpected ones’. 
 
Bit Rot the book explores the ways humanity tries to make sense of our shifting consciousness. Coupland, just like the Internet, mixes forms to achieve his ends. Short fiction is interspersed with essays on all aspects of modern life. The result is addictively satisfying for Coupland’s legion of fans hungry for his observations about our world. For almost three decades, his unique pattern recognition has powered his fiction, and his phrase-making. Every page of Bit Rot is full of wit, surprise and delight.

Bit Rot

Steve Jones

NOW A LIMITED SERIES DIRECTED BY DANNY BOYLE 
_____________________ 
 
Foreword by Chrissie Hynde 
 
Without the Sex Pistols there would be no punk rock, and without Steve Jones there would be no Sex Pistols. 
 
It was Steve who formed Kutie Jones and his Sex Pistols, the band that eventually went on to become the Sex Pistols, with his schoolmate Paul Cook and who was its original leader. As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of Punk - the influence and cultural significance of which is felt in music, fashion and the visual arts to this day - Steve tells his story for the very first time. 
 
Rising from the streets of Hammersmith, Steve Jones was once a lonely, neglected boy living off his wits and petty thievery. Given purpose by the glam art rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music, he became one of the first generation of punks taken under the wings of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. For the very first time Steve describes the neglect and abuse he suffered at the hands of his stepfather, and how his interest in music and fashion saved him from a potential life of crime. 
 
From the Kings Road of the early seventies, through the years of the Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and the recording of Never Mind the Bollocks (ranked number 41 in Rolling Stone magazine's Best Albums of All Time), to his self-imposed exile in New York and Los Angeles where he battled with alcohol, heroin and sex addiction - caught in a cycle of rehab and relapse - Lonely Boy, written with music journalist and author Ben Thompson, is the story of an unlikely guitar hero who, with the Sex Pistols, changed history.

Lonely Boy

Tales from a Sex Pistol

B. Finlay

Marie-Claire Arrieta

'This book might change your perspective on real cleanliness . . . and along the way help you to raise healthier kids. ' Giulia Enders, author of Gut 
 
'A must-read for parents ... Let Them Eat Dirt takes you inside the inside tract of a child's gut, and shows you how to give kids the best immune start early in life.' William Sears, MD, co-author of The Baby Book 
 
We all want what is best for our kids, but for years we’ve believed that microbes cause infectious diseases and have battled to keep them under control. Our modern lifestyle, with its emphasis on hyper-cleanliness, is having a negative effect on our children’s lifelong health. 
 
In Let Them Eat Dirt, microbiologists B. Brett Finlay and Marie-Claire Arrieta explain how the trillions of microbes that live in and on our bodies influence childhood development and why an imbalance in those microbes can lead to obesity, diabetes and asthma, among other chronic conditions. With practical advice from conception through to pregnancy and beyond, this invaluable guide will help you to nurture stronger, more resilient and healthier children.

Let Them Eat Dirt

How Microbes Can Make Your Child Healthier

Dan Cruickshank

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HESSELL-TILTMAN HISTORY PRIZE 2017 
 
AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016 
 
Religious strife, civil conflict, waves of immigration, the rise and fall of industry, great prosperity and grinding poverty – the handful of streets that constitute modern Spitalfields have witnessed all this and much more. 
 
In Spitalfields, one of Britain's best-loved historians tells the stories of the streets he has lived in for four decades. Starting in Roman times and continuing right up to the present day, Cruickshank explains how Spitalfields' streets evolved, what people have lived there, and what lives they have led. En route, he discovers the tales of the Huguenot weavers who made Spitalfields their own after the Great Fire of London. He recounts the experiences of the first Jewish immigrants. He evokes the slum-ridden courts and alleys of Jack the Ripper's Spitalfields. And he describes the transformation of the Spitalfields he first encountered in the 1970s from a war-damaged collection of semi-derelict houses to the vibrant community it is today. 
 
This is a fascinating evocation of one of London's most distinctive districts. At the same time, it is a history of England in miniature.

Spitalfields

The History of a Nation in a Handful of Streets

Joe Moshenska

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY and THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY 
 
'A thrilling account' The Times 
 
'As heroic as Digby himself, Moshenska has defied the tyranny of genre and made his own absorbing account' Observer 
 
'A master storyteller. Full of exquisite details, but with the grandest themes... this is a gripping adventure story' Zia Haider Rahman 
 
'A brilliant account of one of the seventeenth century's most dashing lives' Ruth Scurr 
 
'Gripping and extraordinary' Ann Wroe 
 
On the 16th of August 1628, five battle-scarred English ships sailed into the harbour of the Greek island of Milos. Dropping anchor, the 25-year-old captain banqueted with the local lord before sitting down to write an account of his journey – an account that would transform him entirely. 
 
Sir Kenelm Digby was one of the most remarkable Englishmen who ever lived: a trusted advisor to the King, but the sworn enemy of the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham; a pioneering philosopher and scientist, but committed to the occult arts of alchemy and astrology; a friend not only of Ben Jonson, Thomas Hobbes and van Dyck, but even Oliver Cromwell. He was also widely known as the ‘son of a traytor and husband of a whore’: a man who witnessed his father’s gruesome execution for high treason as a Gunpowder Plotter, and the lover of the most celebrated beauty of the age, Venetia Stanley. 
 
In an attempt to clear his name, and on a quest for personal glory, Digby assembled a fleet and set sail for the Mediterranean: a world of pirate cities and ancient ruins where people, ideas and exotic goods moved freely between languages and nations. His journey – encompassing fevers, mutiny, piracy, daring rescues and heroic sea battles – is a great and terribly overlooked adventure, and a prism through which to view England, and all of Europe, during one of the most pivotal periods in its history. 
 
A Stain in the Blood is the story of an extraordinary life, and of a journey that helped to shape a nation. It is a revelatory first work of non-fiction by one of the brightest young writers and thinkers of today.

A Stain in the Blood

The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby

Helen Rappaport

SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH AND EVENING STANDARD 
 
'[The] centenary will prompt a raft of books on the Russian Revolution. They will be hard pushed to better this highly original, exhaustively researched and superbly constructed account.' Saul David, Daily Telegraph 
 
'A gripping, vivid, deeply researched chronicle of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes of a surprising, flamboyant cast of foreigners in Petrograd, superbly narrated by Helen Rappaport.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs 
 
Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil. Foreign visitors who filled hotels, bars and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps. Among them were journalists, diplomats, businessmen, governesses and volunteer nurses. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women’s Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareava. 
 
Drawing upon a rich trove of material and through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold, Helen Rappaport takes us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened.

Caught in the Revolution

Petrograd, 1917

Michael Scott

'This vivid and engaging book brings to life some of the most important moments in ancient history, moments that have shaped not only the politics and culture of bygone eras, but the institutions, thoughts and fantasies of our time.' Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens) 
 
'A bold and imaginative page-turner that challenges ideas about the world of antiquity.' Peter Frankopan (The Silk Roads) 
 
'As panoramic as it is learned, this is ancient history for our globalised world.' Tom Holland (Dynasty, Rubicon) 
________________________________________ 
Acclaimed historian and TV presenter Michael Scott guides us through an epic story spanning ten centuries to create a bold new reading of the classical era for our globalised world. 
 
Scott challenges our traditionally western-focused perception of the past, connecting Greco-Roman civilisation to the great rulers and empires that swept across Central Asia to India and China - resulting in a truly global vision of ancient history. 
 
With stunning range and richness Ancient Worlds illustrates how the great powers and characters of antiquity shared ambitions and crises, ways of thinking and forms of governing: connections that only grew stronger over the centuries as political systems evolved, mighty armies clashed, universal religions were born and our modern world was foreshadowed. 
 
Scott focuses on three epochal 'moments' across the ancient globe, and their profound wider significance: from 509-8 BCE (birth of Athenian democracy and Rome's republic, also the age of Confucius's teachings in China); to 218 BCE (when Hannibal of Carthage challenged Rome and China saw its first emperor); to 312 CE, when Constantine sought to impose Christianity on the Roman world even as Buddhism was pervading China via the vast trading routes we now know as the 'Silk Roads.' 
 
A major work of global history, Michael Scott's enthralling journey challenges the way we think about our past, re-draws the map of the classical age to reveal its hidden connections, and shows us how ancient history has lessons for our own times.

Ancient Worlds

An Epic History of East and West

Ruth Whippman

'Essential reading. So funny, so relevant, so fascinating ... I loved it' Marian Keyes 
 
'A whip-sharp British Bill Bryson' Sunday Times 
 
'Ruth Whippman is my new favorite cultural critic, and her book was such a joy to read' Adam Grant, author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B (co-authored with Sheryl Sandberg) 
 
When British journalist Ruth Whippman moved to America it seemed that everyone she met was obsessed with one thing: finding happiness. Americans spend more money and energy on becoming happier than anyone on earth, but yet they are some of the least happy people in the developed world. 
 
So Ruth sets off on a journey to work out what’s going wrong, and most importantly, what lessons we can all learn about what truly makes for a happy life. 
 
From nearly falling apart during a controversial self-help course promising total transformation, to investigating a 'happiness city' in the Nevada desert, from spending time with the Mormons in Utah to exploring the darker truths behind the positive psychology movement, Ruth tries it all. Along the way she stumbles upon a more effective, less anxiety inducing path to contentment.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Why are we driving ourselves crazy and how can we stop?

Anna Bikont

Winner of the European Book Prize 
 
'A masterpiece' Jan T. Gross 
 
'Terrifying and necessary' Julian Barnes 
 
'Scrupulously objective and profoundly personal' Kate Atkinson 
 
On 10 July 1941 a horrifying crime was committed in the small Polish town of Jedwadbne. Early in the afternoon, the town’s Jewish population – hundreds of men, women and children – were ordered out of their homes, and marched into the town square. By the end of the day most would be dead. It was a massacre on a shocking scale, and one that was widely condemned. But only a few people were brought to justice for their part in the atrocity. The truth of what actually happened on that day was to be suppressed for more than sixty years. 
 
 Part history, part memoir, part investigation, The Crime and the Silence is an award-winning journalist's account of the events of that day: both the story of a massacre told through oral histories of survivors and witnesses, and a portrait of a Polish town coming to terms with its dark past.

The Crime and the Silence

David Vann

David Vann has loved boats all his life. So when his academic career seems to be stuck in the doldrums, he leaps at the opportunity to start an educational charter business, teaching creative writing workshops aboard a sailboat. But a trip to Turkey seems him dreaming bigger - and before he knows it, he is at the helm of his own ninety-foot boat, running charters along the Turkish coast. 
 
And here his troubles begin. Sinking deep into debt, and encountering everything from a lost rudder to freak storms, Vann is on the verge of losing everything - including his life. 
 
Part high-seas adventure, part journey of self-discovery, A Mile Down is a gripping and unforgettable story of struggle and redemption, by a writer at the top of his game.

A Mile Down

The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea

Alex Marshall

National Anthems have been sung for hundreds of years, inspired patriots and rebels, armies and athletes. Each one has its own story. And yet most of us know almost nothing about them ... until now. 
 
In Republic or Death!, Alex Marshall takes to the road on an adventure that includes cycling the route French revolutionaries marched as they first sang 'La Marseillaise'; entering a competition for the best singer of 'The Star-Spangled Banner'; and attempting to bribe his way to an audience with the deposed King of Nepal in order to uncover the story behind the only national anthem written on a Casio keyboard. 
 
As he encounters everyone from presidents and anthem composers to the sports fans and revolutionaries from whom these songs evoke such a wide range of emotions, he brings the incredible stories behind the world's anthems to life, as well as revealing what they mean to us today.

Republic or Death!

Travels in Search of National Anthems

Laurence Scott

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2015 
WINNER OF THE JERWOOD PRIZE 
ONE OF WIRED's NON-FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE 
 
We spend more time than ever online, and the digital revolution is rewiring our sense of what it means to be human. Smartphones let us live in one another's pockets, while websites advertise our spare rooms all across the world. Never before have we been so connected. Increasingly we are coaxed from the three-dimensional world around us and into the wonders of a fourth dimension, a world of digitised experiences in which we can project our idealised selves. 
 
But what does it feel like to live in constant connectivity? What new pleases and anxieties are emerging with our exposure to this networked world? How is the relationship to our bodies changing as we head deeper into digital life? Most importantly, how do we exist in public with these recoded inner lives, and how do we preserve our old ideas of isolation, disappearance and privacy on a Google-mapped planet?

The Four-Dimensional Human

Ways of Being in the Digital World

Marlena de Blasi

'If you loved Under the Tuscan Sun, you’ll love this' Red Magazine 
 
 
Every week on a Thursday evening, a group of four rural Italian women gather in an old stone house in the hills above Italy’s Orvieto. There – along with their friend, Marlena – they cook together, sit down to a beautiful supper, drink their beloved local wines, and talk. 
 
Surrounded by candle light, good food and friendship, the four women tell Marlena their evocative life stories, and of cherished ingredients and recipes whose secrets have been passed down through generations.

The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club

Rob Cowen

ONE OF BRITAIN'S FAVOURITE NATURE BOOKS AS FEATURED ON BBC's WINTERWATCH 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2016 
 
'Bold and beautiful.' Robert Macfarlane 
 
'Sensitive, thoughtful and poetic ... leading us into a whole new way of looking at the world' Michael Palin 
 
'Touched by genius' John Lewis-Stempel 
 
'Absolutely mesmerizing, utterly beautiful and engrossing' Joanne Harris 
 
After moving from London to a new home in Yorkshire, and about to become a father for the first time, Rob Cowen finds himself in unfamiliar territory. Disoriented, hemmed in by winter and yearning for open space, he ventures out to a nearby edge-land: a pylon-slung tangle of wood, hedge, field, meadow and river that lies unclaimed and overlooked on the outskirts of town. 
 
Digging deeper into this lost landscape, he begins to uncover its many layers and lives – beast, bird, insect, plant and people – in kaleidoscopic detail. As the seasons change and the birth of his child draws closer, his transformative journey into the blurry space where human and nature meet becomes increasingly profound. In bringing this edge-land to life, Cowen offers both a both a unique portrait of people and place through time and an unforgettable exploration of the common ground we share with the natural world, the past and each other.

Common Ground

One of Britain’s Favourite Nature Books as featured on BBC’s Winterwatch

John Szwed

Today, Billie Holiday is an icon – an artist whose voice has weathered countless shifts in public taste, and whose impact on contemporary music is unquestionable. But when eighteen-year-old Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia studios in November of 1933 to record ‘Riffin’ the Scotch’ and ‘Your Mother’s Son-in-Law’, no one could predict the sensation that was about to emerge; marking the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and important career in twentieth-century popular music. 
 
Drawing on revelatory new material, including unpublished memoirs and interviews, Billie Holiday is the first account to consider the singer as an artist, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy.

Billie Holiday

Matthew Parker

At the beginning of the 1650s, England was in ruins – wrecked, impoverished, grief-stricken by plague and civil war. Yet shimmering on the horizon was an intoxicating possibility, a vision of paradise: Willoughbyland. 
 
Ambitious and free-thinking adventurers poured in, attracted by the toleration, the optimism, the rich soil and the promise of the gold of El Dorado. It was England's most hopeful colony. 
 
But the Restoration saw the end of political freedom, and brought in its place spies, war, rebellion and treachery. The advent of racial slavery poisoned everything. What started out as a heaven was soon to become one of the cruellest places on earth. 
 
The history of Willoughbyland is a microcosm of empire, its heady attractions and fatal dangers.

Willoughbyland

England's Lost Colony

Charlotte Gordon

***AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4*** 
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER 
 
'A gripping account of the heartbreaks and triumphs of two of history's most formidable female intellectuals, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Gordon has reunited mother and daughter through biography, beautifully weaving their narratives for the first time.' Amanda Foreman 
 
English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and author Mary Shelley were mother and daughter, yet these two extraordinary women never knew one another. Nevertheless, their passionate and pioneering lives remained closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies eerily similar. 
 
Both women became famous writers and wrote books that changed literary history, had passionate relationships with several men, were single mothers out of wedlock; both lived in exile, fought for their position in society, and interrogated ideas of how we should live. 
 
Romantic Outlaws takes the reader on a vivid journey across revolutionary France and Victorian England to explore in this ground-breaking dual biography of the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the author who wrote Frankenstein - mother and daughter - a pair of visionary women, who should have shared a life, but who instead share a powerful literary and feminist legacy.

Romantic Outlaws

The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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