5ive Guys FC

82ASK

A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. Humphreys

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

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Serhii Plokhy

On 16 July 1945, the Nuclear Age began with the explosion of the first atomic bomb and the words of J. Robert Oppenheimer: 'Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.'While the threat of mutually assured destruction kept a lid on a simmering and tense geopolitical landscape, events like the Chernobyl disaster and near-misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis showed that total destruction was only ever one malfunction, mistake, or miscommunication away. Now, as governments re-arm their nuclear arsenals, treaties designed to limit the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons fall away, and nuclear weapons come increasingly within reach of non-state actors, we are on the brink of a renaissance of the nuclear industry.In The Nuclear Age, acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy paints an intricate picture of a world governed by fear. From the first artificial splitting of the atom in 1917 and the race to create the first atomic bomb in World War II, through the fraught arms race of the Cold War, to the imperialism, neo-colonial motivation and wars being waged today, the threat posed by nuclear weapons is as pertinent as ever. 
 
As he examines the motivations of key players, Plokhy confronts the crucial question of our age: what can we learn from the first nuclear arms race that can help us to stop the new one?

The Nuclear Age

An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival

Jeremy Clarkson

Clarkson’s farm is the gift that keeps on giving, and now our hero has decided to bring his misunderstood entrepreneurial flair to bear on a new venture: a pub. Let the doors open on The Farmer’s Dog. 
 
All British produce, Hawkstone beer on tap, a private bar for farmers and a vintage tractor hanging from the ceiling. The perfect country pub. But as the Cotwolds’ newest publican quickly discovers, there’s a lot more to landlording than pulling pints. 
 
Just as well, then, that he still has Lisa, Kaleb, Cheerful Charlie and Gerald to help him through...

Diddly Squat: The Farmer's Dog

Karen Hao

Longlisted for the 2025 Financial Times &amp; Schroders Business Book of the Year 
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2025 
Shortlisted for Foyles Non Fiction Book of the Year 2025 
A New York Times Bestseller 
 
An eye-opening account of the tech arms race shaping out planet, from an award-winning journalist and AI insider to the world of Sam Altman and OpenAI 
 
When longtime AI expert and journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, it was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely market forces. 
But the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that it requires an unprecedented amount of proprietary resources: the ‘compute’ power of scarce high-end chips, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans on the ground ‘cleaning it up’ for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the need for energy and water underlying everything. We have entered a new, ominous age of empire with OpenAI setting a breakneck pace, as a small group of the most valuable companies in human history try to chase it down. 
In exhilarating prose and with unparalleled access to those closest to Sam Altman, Hao recounts the meteoric rise of OpenAI and shows us the sinister impact that this industry is having on society.

Empire of AI

Inside the reckless race for total domination

Naomi Alderman

What’s the most useful thing you could know about your own life?In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and incisive thinking to a question that affects us all: how do we understand, and navigate, the epoch we’re living through? She calls this epoch the Information Crisis. 
 
The internet has flooded us with more knowledge, opinions, ideas, opportunities, as well as verbal attacks and misinformation, than ever before. It lets us learn more quickly and also spread falsehood more quickly, it brings us together and also divides us in new ways, it is now the lens through which we perceive and understand the world. There is no going back. But we have been here before. In fact, this is humanity’s third information crisis. 
 
The first, the invention of writing 5,000 years ago, and the second, the invention of the printing press 600 years ago, drastically reshaped our perceptions, interactions and mental landscapes in ways that feel acutely familiar. Overwhelmed by information, people become afraid and angry, unsettled and distressed, as well as more knowledgeable, educated and curious. By looking at those previous information crises, both the turmoil and the advances, Alderman asks what we can learn from the past to better understand our present, and prepare for our future. 
 
Drawing on the work of philosophers and historians, Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today explores how new technology opens up new ways of being and helps us chart a way forward (once again), through the turbulent seas of information overload.

Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today

(and other lessons from history about living through an information crisis)

Mark Urban

'Punchy. Trenchant. Heavyweight. Mark Urban’s Tank blows the doors off, just as you’d expect from such an accomplished author. Take cover!’ Damien Lewis, author of SAS Great Escapes 
 
An authoritative history of the tank and the remarkable individuals who designed them and fought in them, from a former officer and best-selling historian 
 
Tanks are the ultimate embodiment of industrial age warfare. In the popular imagination, they represent both a terrifying beast of destruction and a potent symbol of liberation. 
 
The technology behind these war machines has evolved relentlessly, and yet the coming of the information age has led many to predict that drones, missiles, and Artificial Intelligence have made the tank obsolete. Time and again, however, tanks have continued to shape – and be shaped by -- battles around the world, from their introduction in 1916, through the Second World War and tank-on-tank fights in 1990s Iraq, to the current conflict in Ukraine. 
 
In TANK, best-selling historian and former officer in the Royal Tank Regiment Mark Urban draws on wide-ranging accounts from soldiers, designers, and politicians, from Winston Churchill to Volodymyr Zelensky, to tell the remarkable story of one of the most important developments in military history. Through the ten most important vehicles ever made, Urban chronicles the incredible advances in tank technology – starting with the Mark IV, the first British tank to be used in large numbers in WW1, and following the story through the T-34 and Tiger to the M1 Abrams, a product of huge American Cold War investment that is still used to this day. 
 
Officially supported by The Tank Museum and using never-before-seen archival sources, interviews and declassified documents, this is a fascinating history of the vehicle that changed conflict forever. 
 
‘An illuminating and exciting drive through the mud and blood of twentieth-century warfare' Dr Robert Lyman, author of Operation Suicide

Tank

The 10 War Machines That Changed the World and the Remarkable Men Behind Them

Scott Galloway

‘You need this book.' Steven Bartlett, author of The Diary of a CEO 
New York Times bestseller 
 
The world is changing. It's time for a new financial playbook. 
 
In this must-have guide to optimizing your life for wealth, success and happiness, you'll learn: 
 
• how to find and follow your talent 
• what small steps you can take now that pay big returns later 
• how to develop better financial habits 
 
Bursting with practical, game-changing advice from one of the world's most popular business school professors, The Algebra of Wealth is the practical guidebook you need to win today's wealth game. 
 
Today's workers have more opportunities and mobility than any previous generation. They also face unprecedented challenges, including inflation, labour and housing shortages, and climate volatility. 
 
Even the notion of 'retirement' is undergoing a profound rethink, as our lifespans extend and our relationship with work evolves. In this environment, the tried-and-true financial advice our parents followed no longer applies. 
 
In The Algebra of Wealth, Galloway lays bare the rules of financial success in today's economy. In characteristic unvarnished, no-BS style, he explains you what you need to know in order to improve your chances of achieving economic security no matter what.

The Algebra of Wealth

A Simple Formula for Success

Tony Fadell

Build

An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

Christopher Summerfield

‘Engaging, insightful, panoramic’ Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI & Cofounder of DeepMind 
 
Stunning advances in digital technology have introduced a new wave of human-like AI systems. Chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are already reshaping economies, challenge democracies, and reshaping society in unpredictable ways. And soon, these AI systems could make autonomous decisions on their users' behalf, transforming everything we do. Understanding how they work is crucial. 
 
Can AI systems think, know, and understand?Could they manipulate or deceive you, and if so, what might they make you do?Whose interests do they represent?When will they be able to move beyond words and take action in the real world? 
 
Neuroscientist and AI researcher Christopher Summerfield explores these questions, charting AI's evolution from early ideas in the seventeenth century to today's deep neural networks. His book is the most accessible, up-to-date, and authoritative exploration of this radical technology. With an understanding of AI's inner workings, we can address the existential question of our age: can we look forward to a technological utopia, or are we writing ourselves out of history?

These Strange New Minds

How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means

Rob Dix

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'A masterpiece' Rory Sutherland, author of Alchemy 
 
What if everything you’ve been told about money is wrong? 
 
Here, a leading investor reveals what the wealthiest people know about money – but most of us don't. From why cutting down your spending will never make you rich, to why buying your own home might not be such a good idea after all, Rob Dix cuts through the bullshit to identify an alternative path to lasting wealth.

Seven Myths About Money

And the Truth About Finding Financial Freedom

Alex James

There is nothing that can touch the sound made by a close-knit group of people who have been playing together for years and years and years, playing as though their lives depended on it. For many years, all our lives did, and actually, I’d suddenly realised, they did still. 
 
One winter’s night, Alex James received an unexpected call. Blur had been invited to play their biggest gig ever: Wembley Stadium. The only trouble was, he and his bandmates hadn’t spoken to – or even shouted at – each other for years. And he now had five children, an out-of-control menagerie of cats, and a sprawling farm to run. 
 
This is the story of what happened next. Taking us behind the scenes of a raucous, rollercoaster year, Alex describes how the band made a surprise – and emotional – return, recording an acclaimed album and playing sold-out shows around the world, from Colchester to Colombia and beyond. Plus: how he went on a crash diet to fit back into his ‘Britpop Trousers,’ somehow organised an entire festival of his own, and tried to perfect the recipe for a giant Frazzle. 
 
Over the Rainbow is a heartfelt and hilarious account of what it feels like to be catapulted back into the limelight with one of the world’s biggest bands. It is a love letter to Blur, to friendship and to music. And it shows us all that, however old – or hungover – we might feel, nothing’s ever truly over: it’s always just the start of the next thing.

Over the Rainbow

Tales from an Unexpected Year

James Cheshire

Oliver Uberti

Humans create data with nearly everything we do. This world of information is invisible, but it shapes society in profound ways. 
 
In Atlas of the Invisible, award-winning geographer-designer team James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti redefine what an atlas can be. Transforming enormous data sets into rich maps and cutting-edge visualisations, they uncover truths about our past, reflect who we are today, and highlight what we face in the years ahead. With their joyfully inquisitive approach, Cheshire and Uberti explore happiness and anxiety levels around the globe; they trace the undersea cables and cell towers that connect us; they examine hidden scars of geopolitics; and illustrate how a warming planet affects everything from hurricanes to the hajj. 
 
Years in the making, Atlas of the Invisible invites readers to marvel at the promise and peril of data, and to revel in the secrets and contours of a newly visible world.

Atlas of the Invisible

Maps & Graphics That Will Change How You See the World

Florian Gadsby

Florian Gadsby has devoted his life to pottery, refining his technique towards the point of perfection - and as his skill has grown, so has his social media following, which today numbers in the millions. Based at a studio in North London, he releases three new collections per year, characterized by simple forms and sharp edges, which sell out in a matter of minutes. 
 
In By My Hands, Florian tells the story of his artistic awakening, his education in England, Ireland and Japan, and of the sheer discipline which has led him to become the cultural sensation he is today. Arguing for the value in dedicating yourself to a craft, Florian weaves anecdotes about particular pots and processes into the narrative of his life, exploring what he has learnt from specific pieces he was taught to throw during his apprenticeships and how they have informed his philosophy and approach to his work. 
 
By My Hands is an ode to the beauty of small things, such as a simple hand-thrown mug or bowl, which can brighten life's daily rituals and make them more meaningful - as well as an inspiring testament to the power of perseverance.

By My Hands

A Potter’s Apprenticeship

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

It has become habitual to think of our relationship with energy as one of transition: with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil, oil by nuclear and then at some future point all replaced by green sources. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s devastating but unnervingly entertaining book shows what an extraordinary delusion this is. Far from the industrial era passing through a series of transformations, each new phase has in practice remained almost wholly entangled with the previous one. Indeed the very idea of transition turns out to be untrue. 
 
The author shares the same acute anxiety about the need for a green transition as the rest of us, but shows how, disastrously, our industrial history has in fact been based on symbiosis, with each major energy source feeding off the others. Using a fascinating array of examples, Fressoz describes how we have gorged on all forms of energy – with whole forests needed to prop up coal mines, coal remaining central to the creation of innumerable new products and oil still central to our lives. The world now burns more wood and coal than ever before. 
 
This book reveals an uncomfortable truth: ‘transition’ was originally itself promoted by energy companies, not as a genuine plan, but as a means to put off any meaningful change. More and More and More forces its readers to understand the modern world in all its voracious reality, and the true nature of the challenges heading our way.

More and More and More

An All-Consuming History

An All-Consuming History of Energy

Jerry Brotton

North, south, east and west: almost all societies use the four cardinal directions to orientate themselves, to understand who they are by projecting where they are. 
 
In Four Points of the Compass, Jerry Brotton takes the reader on a journey of directional discovery. He reveals why Hebrew culture privileges east; why Renaissance Europeans began drawing north at the top of their maps; why early Islam revered the south; why the Aztecs used five colour-coded cardinal directions; and why no societies, primitive or modern, have ever orientated themselves westwards. He ends by reflecting on our digital age in which we, the little blue dot on the screen, have become the most important compass point. Throughout, Brotton shows that the directions reflect a human desire to create order and that they only have meaning, literally and metaphorically, depending on where you stand.

Four Points of the Compass

The Unexpected History of Direction

Anil Ananthaswamy

Machine-learning systems are making life-altering decisions for us: approving mortgage loans, determining whether a tumour is cancerous, or deciding whether someone gets bail. They now influence discoveries in chemistry, biology and physics - the study of genomes, extra-solar planets, even the intricacies of quantum systems. 
 
We are living through a revolution in artificial intelligence that is not slowing down. This major shift is based on simple mathematics, some of which goes back centuries: linear algebra and calculus, the stuff of eighteenth-century mathematics. Indeed by the mid-1850s, a lot of the groundwork was all done. It took the development of computer science and the kindling of 1990s computer chips designed for video games to ignite the explosion of AI that we see all around us today. In this enlightening book, Anil Ananthaswamy explains the fundamental maths behind AI, which suggests that the basics of natural and artificial intelligence might follow the same mathematical rules. 
 
As Ananthaswamy resonantly concludes, to make the most of our most wondrous technologies we need to understand their profound limitations - the clues lie in the maths that makes AI possible.

Why Machines Learn

The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI

Bola Sol

We need to talk about money. Women have been overlooked and underestimated when it comes to finance; we typically earn less, are encouraged to spend more, and have fewer opportunities to build funds. But if we talk about money and share our knowledge, we will grow in confidence and wealth. This is the secret to securing your future and paying for all the things that matter. 
 
Whether you want to have children, get married, pay for a mortgage, start your own business or pay for nice holidays, all these goals cost money. But by building solid money habits you can plan for all life’s major milestones and dream bigger. Bola Sol offers the essential tools needed to get started and make your bank balance healthier. Once you’ve done that, she demonstrates how you can grow your ambition and become wealthier. Finally, she reveals how you can use this money smartly to pay for things you want and become happier. 
 
Money isn’t everything, but Bola shows how you can build your financial knowledge to enhance your wellbeing, open up new possibilities, and achieve your life goals.

Your Money Life

How to Afford the Future You Want

Rob Jackson

Can we really restore the earth’s atmosphere within our lifetime? 
 
Whether through sustainable technologies such as fossil-free steel production, hydrogen-powered ships and electric motorbikes, or natural solutions like rewilding peatlands, people all over the world are finding new ways to travel, feed themselves and drive industry while safeguarding a liveable planet for future generations. 
 
Drawing on decades of research and a vast network of experts, Rob Jackson, Chair of the Global Carbon Project, introduces some of the brilliant innovators behind the boldest solutions to climate change – including an Eritrean agricultural scientist, a Swedish CEO and a Brazilian hydrologist. 
 
Now we have more tools to combat climate change than ever before, Into the Clear Blue Sky traces a clear path to a better future for us all – one that will see us cutting emissions in inventive new ways that protect our health and livelihoods, while repairing the damage we have caused to the atmosphere. This visionary and transformative book is the call to action we need – right now.

Into the Clear Blue Sky

The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere

Geoff White

There's an old saying: 'a rising tide lifts all boats'. It's normally couched in positive terms; that overall economic improvement will benefit everyone. In the case of hi-tech money laundering, however, it offers a dark vision of the future. The better these launderers become at their work, the more crime of all types will be enabled. It's time to understand where the water is rising, before it washes over us all. 
 
Money laundering has been around for centuries. For as long as people have been willing to steal money, there's been an industry ready to wash it. But recent tech innovations have created vastly complex new systems for laundering that threaten to overwhelm authorities, destabilise economies and disrupt societies. 
 
Rinsed is a relevatory investigation into the new army of innovative criminals using tech to launder money, and the consequences for all of us.

Rinsed

From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks

Annie Jacobsen

Up to now, no one outside of official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilisation as we know it. Frantic calls over secure lines work to confirm the worst as armoured helicopters are scrambled to evacuate the chosen few to secure bunkers. One nuclear missile will provoke two dozen in return. Decisions over hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, knowing that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction. 
 
Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts, Nuclear War is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever.

Nuclear War

A Scenario

James Rebanks

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on. 
 
Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly: her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island. 
 
This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for gathering, like feathered gold. 
 
Slowly, Rebanks begins to understand that this woman and her world are not what he had previously thought. What began as a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge, forgiveness and how to make lasting change.

The Place of Tides

Kelly Clancy

We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. They're also a lot of fun. But what happens when we mistake games for reality? 
 
Playing With Reality explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, biology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology and the future of democracy. As neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows us, games have been deeply intertwined with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behaviour and brought us to the brink of annihilation - yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics and technology. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy. 
 
Lucid, thought-provoking, and masterfully told, Playing With Reality makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature.

Playing with Reality

How Games Shape Our World

Webb Keane

We have always lived with ethically significant others, whether they are the pets we keep, the gods we believe in or the machines we are endowing with life. How should we treat them as our world changes? 
 
In Animals, Robots, Gods, acclaimed anthropologist Webb Keane provides a new vision of ethics, defined less by our minds, religion or society, and more by our interactions with those around us. Drawing on ground-breaking research by fieldworkers around the world, he explores the underpinnings of our moral universe. Along the way we investigate the ethical dilemmas of South Asian animal rights activists, Balinese cockfighters, Japanese robot fanciers - even macho cowboys. We meet a hunter in the Yukon who explains his prey generously gives itself up to him; a cancer sufferer in Thailand who sees his tumour as a reincarnated ox; a computer that gets you to confess your anxieties as if you were on the psychiatrist's couch. 
 
With charm, wit and insight, Keane offers us a better understanding of our doubts and certainties, showing how centuries of conversations between us and non-humans inform our conceptions of morality, and will continue to guide us in the age of AI and beyond.

Animals, Robots, Gods

Adventures in the Moral Imagination

Adam Higginbotham

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger space shuttle disaster based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research – riveting history that reads like a thriller 
 
On the morning of 28 January 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions around the world witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in twentieth century history – one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened – and why – has never been told. 
 
Based on extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space follows a handful of central protagonists – including each of the seven members of the doomed crew – through the years leading up to the accident, a detailed account of the tragedy itself, and into the investigation that followed. It’s a compelling tale of optimism and ingenuity shattered by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubristic ‘go fever’; and of an investigation driven by heroic leakers and whistle-blowers determined to bring the truth to light. 
 
With astonishing clarity and narrative verve, Adam Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program, the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster, as well as the designers, engineers and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space. A masterful blend of riveting human drama, fascinating science and shocking political infighting, Challenger brings to life a turning point in our history. The result is an even more complex and extraordinary story than any of us remembered – or thought possible.

Challenger

A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

Neil D. Lawrence

A vital perspective is missing from the discussions we're having about Artificial Intelligence: what does it mean for our identity? 
 
Our fascination with AI stems from the perceived uniqueness of human intelligence. We believe it's what differentiates us. Fears of AI not only concern how it invades our digital lives, but also the implied threat of an intelligence that displaces us from our position at the centre of the world. 
 
Neil D. Lawrence's visionary book shows why these fears may be misplaced. Atomism, proposed by Democritus, suggested it was impossible to continue dividing matter down into ever smaller components: eventually we reach a point where a cut cannot be made (the Greek for uncuttable is 'atom'). In the same way, by slicing away at the facets of human intelligence that can be replaced by machines, AI uncovers what is left: an indivisible core that is the essence of humanity. 
 
By contrasting our own (evolved, locked-in, embodied) intelligence with the capabilities of machine intelligence through history, The Atomic Human reveals the technical origins, capabilities and limitations of AI systems, and how they should be wielded. Not just by the experts, but ordinary people. Either AI is a tool for us, or we become a tool of AI. Understanding this will enable readers to choose the future we want.

The Atomic Human

Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI

Welcome back to Clarkson’s Farm. 
The spring crop failed. Farming sheep, pigs and cows was hardly more lucrative (better off breeding ostriches…) 
 
But in the face of uncooperative weather, bureaucracy, and the world’s persistent refusal to recognise his genius, our hero’s not beaten yet. Not while the farm shop’s still doing a roaring trade in smelly candles, he isn’t. 
 
Misery loves company and in girlfriend Lisa, Farm Manager Kaleb, Cheerful Charlie and Gerald his Head of Security Jeremy’s got the best. And it’s hard to feel too gloomy with a JCB telehandler, a crop-spraying hovercraft and a digger in the barn.

Diddly Squat: Home to Roost

Salman Khan

The generative AI revolution has come to education. Salman Khan, the visionary behind Khan Academy with more than 150 million users, explores how artificial intelligence and GPT technology is already beginning to transform learning, offering a future roadmap for teachers, parents, and students to navigate this exciting (and sometimes intimidating) new world. 
 
The leading pioneer in the world of education technology, Khan explains the ins and outs of these cutting-edge tools and how they will forever change the way we learn and teach. How learning can be transformed for good. Rather than approaching the ChatGPT revolution with white-knuckled fear, Khan wants parents and teachers to embrace AI and adapt to it (while acknowledging its imperfections and limitations). He emphasizes that embracing AI in education is not about replacing human interaction but enhancing it, so that every student can complement the work they're already doing in profoundly new and creative ways, to personalize learning, adapt assessments, and support success in the classroom, preparing students for an increasingly digital future. 
 
But Brave New Words is not just about technology – it’s about what this technology means for our society, and the practical implications for administrators, guidance counsellors, and hiring managers who can harness the power of AI in education and the workplace. Khan also delves into the ethical and social implications of generative AI, offering thoughtful insights into how we can use these tools to build a more accessible education system for students around the world.

Brave New Words

How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing)

Scott Bateman

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 
 
Read the legendary story of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft, seen through the eyes of former RAF captain Scott Bateman 
'An engaging and revealing read' JOHN NICHOL‘An action-packed insider’s account of what it’s like to fly this legendary flying machine in peace and war’ KeyAero.com 
-- 
 
Take wing with an unsung hero . . . 
Hercules is the hero of the skies we never talk about. First to land in any combat zone and last out, the Hercules always unflashily gets the job done – whether that’s a risky air drop or hauling out troops in an emergency evac. 
Also working as an aerial tanker, gunship, spyplane, air-sea rescuer and even a precision bomber, its versatility has time and again seen the Hercules give the RAF their edge – from Antarctica to Iraq, Afghanistan to the Falklands. 
Captain Scott Bateman drags us into the cockpit and buckles us in for an extraordinary pilot’s seat view of this aircraft’s 50-year history. 
Anytime. Anywhere. Anyhow.

Hercules

Lisa Kaltenegger

For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we're alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate. The question should have an obvious answer: yes or no. But once you try to find life elsewhere, you realize it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic distances? What actually is life? 
 
As founding director of Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute, astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger built a team of tenacious scientists from many disciplines to create a uniquely specialized toolkit to find life on faraway worlds. In Alien Earths, she demonstrates how we can use our homeworld as a Rosetta Stone, creatively analyzing Earth's history and its astonishing biosphere to inform this search. With infectious enthusiasm, she takes us on an eye-opening journey to the most unusual exoplanets that have shaken our worldview - planets covered in oceans of lava, lonely wanderers lost in space, and others with more than one sun in their sky! And the best contenders for Alien Earths. We also see the imagined worlds of science fiction and how close they come to reality. 
 
We live in an incredible new epoch of exploration. As our witty and knowledgeable tour guide, Professor Kaltenegger shows how we discover not merely new continents, like the explorers of old, but whole new worlds circling other stars and how we could spot life there. Worlds from where aliens may even be gazing back at us. What if we're not alone?

Alien Earths

The Search for Life in the Cosmos

Planet Hunting in the Cosmos

Hampton Sides

In July 1776, Captain James Cook began his third voyage in HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, in Hawaii, Cook was killed – stabbed by the indigenous population. 
 
What brought Cook to this end, so far from his reputation? Cook was renowned for humane leadership, dedication to science and respect for indigenous societies. 
 
Cook’s new voyage carried secret orders, and the Captain grew strange, delivering savage punishments and leading his ships into danger. The mission revealed the sharp edge of a colonial sword, leaving catastrophe in its wake. And, on the shores of Hawaii, Cook’s expedition finally tore itself apart…

The Wide Wide Sea

Mark Miodownik

Why are most gases invisible, odourless and tasteless? Why do some poison us and others make us laugh? And why do some power our engines while others make drinks fizzy? In It's a Gas, Mark Miodownik masterfully reveals an invisible world through his unique brand of scientific storytelling. 
 
Taking us back to that exhilarating – and often dangerous – moment when scientists tried to work out exactly what they had discovered, Miodownik shows that gases are the formative substances of our modern world, each with its own weird and wonderful personality. 
We see how seventeenth-century laughing gas parties led to the first use of anaesthetics in surgery, how the invention of the air valve in musical instruments gave us bicycles, cars and trainers, and how gases made us masters of the sea (by huge steamships) and skies (via extremely flammable balloons). This delight of a book reveals the immense importance of gases to modern civilisation.

It's a Gas

The Magnificent and Elusive Elements that Expand Our World

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter