About 	 Lucy Rycroft: Lucy is the founder of The Hope-Filled Family, a ministry encouraging Christian parents, carers and all those investing in the younger generation. She is the author of several books for adults and children, including Busy Family Devotional and the Mighty Girl, Mighty God series. She is mum to four children ages 11 to 16, who arrived by birth and adoption, and is married to Al, a church leader in York, England.

	 Lucy Rycroft

5ive Guys FC

82ASK

A A Gill

About A D Swanston: 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

About A J Baime: 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

About A J Pollard: 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

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

A K Benjamin

About A L Berridge: 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

About A L Gaylin: 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

About A S Webb: 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

About A. A. Dhand / A. A. Dhand: 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

About A. B. Poranek / A. B. Poranek: 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

About A. C. Grayling / A. C. Grayling: 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

About A. D. Miller / A. D. Miller: 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. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Ian Bogost

In an era dominated by convenience and efficiency, you’d think life would be easier and, most importantly, happier. Shouldn’t all the time saved by technology leave us with more for ourselves? The Atlantic columnist, game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost thinks not. From digital tickets to automated taps, he argues that the simple, tactile pleasures of daily life have been replaced by sleek but soulless design. 
 
Through engaging anecdotes and sharp analysis of our dematerialized lives, Bogost uncovers how modern conveniences not only fail to deliver on their promises but also rob us of moments that keep us grounded and human. The Small Stuff is not a nostalgic trip through the analogue world of a bygone era but instead reframes our view of the material world from merely utilitarian into a site of joy and gratification. Finding happiness, Bogost shows us, doesn’t require complete self-transformation, but simply noticing the sensory pleasures all around us. 
 
Humorous, thought-provoking and practical, The Small Stuff is a manifesto for re-enchanting us with the world, by observing and enjoying the small moments that make up our lives.

The Small Stuff

The Sensory Enchantment of Everyday Life

Dan Wang

America used to pride itself on ambition. Today, it looks stuck. Meanwhile, China has been busy building the future. Over the past six years, technology analyst Dan Wang lived through China’s astonishing, messy progress and the dissolution of its relationship to the West. 
 
In Breakneck, Wang offers a new framework for understanding China — which helps us to see global geopolitics more clearly too. While China is an engineering state, fearlessly building megaprojects, America is a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything, good and bad. Building big has fuelled China’s economic ascent. At the same time, social engineering has led to unbearable costs, including the traumas of zero-Covid and the one-child policy. Wang traverses China’s dazzling metropolises and factory complexes, blending political and economic analysis with reportage to show how the Communist Party’s darkening ambitions have unsettled its people. 
 
As the US and China are gearing up for a new Cold War, Breakneck reveals both the remarkable strengths and the appalling weaknesses of the engineering state. China has learned from the West's successes and failures - and now we in turn can learn from China, not least by taking its global ambitions seriously.

Breakneck

China's Quest to Engineer the Future

David Rooney

‘Vivid and compelling’ John Lancaster 
‘A delectable serving of escapist nostalgia’ The Times, Book of the Week 
 
 A non-stop flight across the Atlantic might seem routine today. But it is only possible because of those who went first. 
 
Newfoundland, 1919. Buffeted by winds, an unwieldy aircraft – made mainly from wood and stiff linen – struggled to take off from the North American island’s rocky slopes. Cramped side by side in its open cockpit were two men, freezing cold and barely able to move, but resolute. They had a dream: to be the first in human history to fly, non-stop, across the Atlantic Ocean. But there were three other teams competing against them, and as the waves raged a few miles below, memories of wartime crashes resurfaced . . . 
 
Mining letters, diaries and evocative unpublished photographs, David Rooney’s deeply researched account of this audacious contest shows how it was the airmen’s thrilling wartime experiences that ultimately led them to the ‘Big Hop’, and brought old friends together for one more daring adventure. 
 
‘An excellent book… The Big Hop consists of colourful biographical sketches of the aviators who took part in the competition and thrilling accounts of their efforts’ Daily Mail 
 
‘The Big Hop is a glorious romp through an overlooked part of aviation history, stuffed full of intriguing characters and white-knuckle courage’ Sunday Times

The Big Hop

The first flight across the Atlantic and the ordinary heroes who risked their lives for it

The First Non-stop Flight Across the Atlantic and Into the Future

Tim Spector

'No one knows more about fermenting'' Davina McCall 
 
‘The master of gut health and intelligent eating' Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 
 
An inspiring guide to the life-changing power of fermentation from world-leading gut scientist and no. 1 bestselling author Tim Spector 
 
From kombucha and kefir to sourdough, miso and coffee, Professor Tim Spector dispels the myths around fermented foods. He explains what fermented foods are, what to look for when buying them, how to make them at home, and why adding simple ferments to everyday meals can transform your gut health and overall well-being. 
 
Blending cutting-edge science with practical, reassuring advice, Ferment shows how small changes to what’s on your plate can make a big difference to your health. 
 
‘By the end of the book, I had jars of kombucha and sauerkraut brewing in my pantry’ New Scientist 
 
‘A super healthy and tasty gift for you and your gut microbiome’ Clare Bailey Mosley 
 
'Fermentation is the original wellness hack - and Tim reminds us that the best health breakthroughs can begin in a jar' Liz Earle

Ferment

The Life-Changing Power of Microbes

Sarah O'Connor

A tsunami of change, we are told, is sweeping the economy as robots and AI threaten to take over tasks done by humans. But while we worry that we’re robotizing our work, what if the real risk is that we’re robotizing ourselves? 
 
When prize-winning Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor set out to investigate what was happening on the front lines of technological change, she found people who weren’t losing their jobs to machines, but who felt they were losing something else instead. From translators forced to edit AI output to university graduates interviewed by software and warehouse workers surrounded by robots, she heard stories of work becoming lonelier, less creative, less human. 
 
But O’Connor also found hopeful stories of jobs being made better, safer and more enjoyable – where workers haven’t rejected the new tools, but instead have learned to control them. Exploring questions of power, design, institutions and ideas, her reporting shows that the way technology changes the world of work is not pre-determined, but must be contested and shaped by all of us. 
 
Inspired by stories from nineteenth-century English cotton mills to twenty-first century Swedish mines, We Are Not Machines reveals how we can fight for work which is more respectful of our limits, and more worthy of our minds.

We Are Not Machines

The Fight for the Future of Work

Minette Batters

Minette Batters was the first female president of the National Farmers’ Union in its 109-year history. During that time, she fought tooth and nail for the interests of farmers, never afraid to put her head above the parapet. 
 
But Minette’s expertise in British farming spanned many more years than her presidency. In fact, the union was the third act of a life lived at the heart of the farming community: first, she was born and raised on a farm and, even after her father warned her there was no future in farming, her heart brought her home to take over the family farm. In her third act, as advocate for the UK’s farming industry, she became not only a life-long farmer but the most visible agriculture expert in the UK, at a time when Brexit, Covid and international conflict has pushed our farms, and our food production, to a state of crisis. So, who better to understand how British farming really works? 
 
Blending memoir and manifesto, this book will be a powerful insight into the real life of farmers, a love letter to British rural life, and a rallying cry to save it – and how.

Harvest

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

Fred Mills

'The best new popular science books of 2026' - New Scientist 
 
‘A ceaselessly uplifting and positive book’ – Mark Cooper-Jones, author of This Way Up by the Map Men 
 
‘More globe-trotting than an international spy’ – Chris Broad, author of Abroad in Japan 
 
‘Fred has a gift for turning megaprojects into stories you can feel’ – Grady Hillhouse, author of Engineering in Plain Sight and creator of Practical Engineering 
 
‘Mills rightly celebrates how thinking big is often the right answer.’ – Christian Wolmar, author of Blood, Iron and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World 
 
 
Construction is the most important industry in the world. The homes we wake up to, the schools we raise our children in, the transport infrastructure we all use, the hospitals we rely on – all of it was built and enabled by construction. 
 
In Mega Builds, YouTube sensation Fred Mills charts the story of how ten colossal megaprojects are reshaping our modern world. Fred gives us a front row seat to a fascinating, fact-packed guided tour around the world, shining a spotlight on the incredible feats of engineering that serve as new chapters in the story of what’s to come. 
 
By the end of this book, you’ll learn:<ul><li>Why the world’s biggest city has been built in the worst place imaginable.</li><li>Where the vision of a single ruler in the desert is rewriting our understanding of what’s possible.</li><li>What drives us to build ever-higher buildings and design ever-faster trains.</li><li>And above all, how the dizzying scale of human imagination will inform the future of the man-made world.</li></ul> 
The trajectory of our civilisation is being authored today, all around us, not in words on a page but in steel and concrete, by an industry that most people completely overlook. Learn more about it in Mega Builds.

Mega Builds

Ten Colossal Construction Projects That Will Change Our World

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

Karen Hao

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award 2025 
Longlisted for the 2025 Financial Times &amp; Schroders Business Book of the Year 
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

Adam Higginbotham

THE PHENOMENAL GLOBAL BESTSELLER. 
 
'Superb, enthralling and necessarily terrifying . . . every step feels spring-loaded with tension... extraordinary.' 
THE NEW YORK TIMES 
- 
The story of Chernobyl is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth. Adam Higginbotham has written a harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the 1986 disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it first-hand. 
 
Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, this book makes for a masterful non-fiction thriller. 
 
Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility, and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers not only its own citizens, but all of humanity. It is a story that has long remained in dispute, clouded from the beginning in secrecy, propaganda, and misinformation. 
 
Midnight In Chernobyl is an indelible portrait of history's worst nuclear disaster, of human resilience and ingenuity and the lessons learned when mankind seeks to bend the natural world to his will - lessons which, in the face of climate change and other threats - remain not just vital but necessary. 
Now, Higginbotham brings us closer to the truth behind this colossal tragedy. 
- 
'Tells the story of the disaster and its gruesome aftermath with thriller-like flair . . . wonderful and chilling ... written with skill and passion.' 
THE OBSERVER 
 
'An invaluable contribution to history.' 
SERHII PLOKHY, EVENING STANDARD 
 
A New York Times Best Book of the Year 
A Time Best Book of the Year 
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year 
Longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 
2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Winner

Midnight in Chernobyl

The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Tony Fadell

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. 
 
An unorthodox guide to making things worth making, from 'the father of the iPod and iPhone' and the creator of Nest. 
 
Everyone deserves a mentor. 
 
For every career crisis, every fork in the road, you need someone to talk to. Someone who's been there before, who knows exactly how wobbly and conflicted you feel, who can give it to you straight: 
 
Here's how to think about choosing a job. 
Here's how to be a better manager. 
Here's how to approach design. 
Here's how to start a company. 
Here's how to run it. 
 
Tony Fadell learned all these lessons the hard way. He spent the first 10 years of his career in Silicon Valley failing spectacularly, and the next 20 building some of the most impactful devices in history - the iPod, iPhone, and Nest Learning Thermostat. He has enough stories and advice about leadership, design, startups, mentorship, decision making, devastating screwups, and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia. 
 
So that's what this book is. An advice encyclopedia. A mentor in a box. 
 
But Tony's doesn't follow the standard Silicon Valley credo that you have to radically reinvent everything you do. His advice is unorthodox because it's old school. Because it's based on human nature, not gimmicks. 
 
Tony keeps things simple: he just tells you what works. He gives you exactly what you need to make things worth making. 
 
PRAISE FOR BUILD 
This is the most fun - and the most fascinating - memoir of curiosity and invention that I've ever read.' 
 
Malcolm Gladwell, 
Host of the Revisionist History podcast. Author of Outliers and Talking to Strangers. 
 
 
Whether you're looking to build a great product, a creative team, a strong culture, or a meaningful career, Tony's guidance will get you thinking and rethinking.' 
 
Adam Grant, 
Author of Think Again & Host of the TED podcast WorkLife

Build

An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

Stephen Witt

** WINNER OF THE FT SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 ** 
**A SUNDAY TIMES, ECONOMIST AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025** 
 
This is the story of the company that is inventing the future. 
 
Nvidia is the world’s first $5-trillion company and the most important corporation on Earth. Led by its charismatic CEO, Jensen Huang, it has gone from video game equipment manufacturer to conquering the global market for AI hardware, reinventing the computer and shaping life as we know it. 
 
With unprecedented access to Huang, award-winning investigative journalist Stephen Witt takes us inside Nvidia to tell the definitive story of the greatest technology company of our times. It is the astonishing story of renegade engineers and Silicon Valley disrupters, of fearless entrepreneurs and one revolutionary leader with an extraordinarily singular vision.

The Thinking Machine

Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip

Maggie Aderin

From a childhood in Camden to the frontiers of space, an inspirational memoir from space scientist, presenter of The Sky at Night, and bestselling author Maggie Aderin. 
 
'I'd toast the moon and look at the sky... I think it draws us to it; we wonder what lies beyond.' 
 
Maggie Aderin's destiny was always written in the stars. From the age of three, inspired by The Clangers, her dream was to go into space. Throughout a chaotic childhood, ricocheting between divorced parents and acrimonious custody battles, she attended thirteen schools in fourteen years – but while her environment regularly changed, her fascination with the Universe did not. It became enmeshed in her desire to succeed as a scientist even when her school careers advice was to become a nurse. 
 
Starchild is Maggie’s emotionally honest and revealing memoir, telling a story of education and prejudice, adversity and ambition, motherhood and the moon – all recounted in her characteristically warm and relatable style. From being the only Black woman on her physics course at Imperial College London, to her groundbreaking work on the James Webb and Gemini telescopes, to starting her own public speaking company and sharing the wonders of science with thousands of children every year, Maggie’s story will inspire you to never give up on your dreams.

Starchild

My Life Under the Night Sky

Eric Schlosser

‘The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power.’ 
 
This landmark work of reportage exposed how a handful of fast-food giants came to dominate America and remake the world in their image: eroding wages, damaging consumers’ health and wrecking the environment. From talking to workers at meatpacking plants with shocking safety records to revealing the tactics used to target ever-younger customers, Eric Schlosser’s blend of humane storytelling and meticulous research encouraged millions to question the industrial food system, and to rethink the way they eat.

Fast Food Nation

The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

What The All-American Meal is Doing to the World

Christine Rosen

The Extinction of Experience reveals the true cost of our digital age – and shows us how to return to the real world, while we still can. 
 
‘A passionate case for the human experiences which are central to a truly vibrant and meaningful existence’ OLIVER BURKEMAN 
 
'Christine Rosen finds the words I've longer for ... an extremely important book' JONATHAN HAIDT 
 
Human experiences are disappearing. 
 
Community is now found online; schools prioritise typing; and with headphones in and eyes glued to our phones, we’ve even obliterated boredom. Convenient and entertaining, certainly, but with each technological embrace we risk becoming more machine-like ourselves. 
 
In this insightful reckoning with modern life and its acutely modern malady, Christine Rosen leads us toward a healthier, wiser and more humane way. 
 
'Illuminating ... well-argued and well-principled' TELEGRAPH, BEST BOOK OF 2025 
 
'Essential reading in a dislocated world' KATHERINE MAY

The Extinction of Experience

How to Be Human in a Digital World

Reclaiming Our Humanity in a Digital World

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

Paul Davies

In this exhilarating and sometimes mind-bending book, renowned scientist and author Paul Davies tells the gripping story of how, beginning with an iconic mathematical equation in the 1920s, a radical new theory of nature – quantum mechanics – burst upon the modern world, and how today we are on the cusp of the second great quantum technology revolution. 
 
Quantum 2.0 reveals how exotic states of matter that have no counterpart in the everyday world are being harnessed to enable forms of teleportation and ‘spooky’ telepathic links between remote places. Powerful new tools such as quantum computers, quantum cryptography and the quantum internet have attracted billions of dollars of investments, triggering a frantic quantum arms race. And appearing on the horizon is the most awesome and game-changing prospect of all – quantum AI. 
 
Yet underpinning this dazzling promise lies a paradox. Although quantum mechanics is the most successful scientific theory ever, quantum systems possess properties that defy intuition and shred everyday notions of reality. Albert Einstein could never quite believe it. And decades after Erwin Schrödinger introduced his famous cat paradox, scientists are still divided over how to make sense of the weird quantum realm, one where ghostly quantum particles produce tiny forces in nanotechnology, cause black holes to evaporate – and may even be making the universe expand faster and faster. Indeed, cosmologists believe, the imprint of a quantum process remains etched into the afterglow of the big bang. 
 
Quantum 2.0 takes the reader gently from the basic concepts to the cutting edge, inviting us all to peek into the new wonderland of quantum physics and glimpse its stunning implications.

Quantum 2.0

The Past, Present, and Future of Quantum Physics

Mat Watson

A highly entertaining, clued-up and panoramic guide to cars by Mat Watson, the world’s most followed car journalist on social media. 
 
Mat Watson knows everything there is to know about cars. 
 
In his 25-year career as a motor journalist, he has driven and tested every vehicle under the sun, from engineering marvels such as the Bugatti Chiron and Ferrari F40, to the grand-touring stalwarts of highways and motorways the world over – Audis, Volvos, Fords, Fiats, Citroens, Mercedes and Teslas – to absolute crapheaps which should never have made it out of the factory gates. He has crawled into hundreds of boots, peered under thousands of bonnets, kicked tens of thousands of tyres, and has perfected a nose for what makes a beautiful, brilliant and, sometimes truly atrocious, car. 
 
Mat is trusted and loved by his many millions of followers online, and his seal of approval is highly sought-after by car manufacturers the world over. His signature unserious yet highly informed style has granted him exclusive access to the biggest launches, the most exclusive cars, and the best in-car snacks. 
 
In Auto Biography, his long-awaited first book, Mat presents his own 100% completely correct and highly opinionated guide to the world of cars. From Aston Martin to Kia, BMW to Porsche, he offers up discerning and pithy takes on all the major car manufacturers, telling stories and sharing industry information that has never before been heard. 
 
Whether you're in the market for a hatchback or a hypercar, an SUV or an EV – or if you just want to know what it's like to drag-race a Koenigsegg – this is the book for you.

Auto Biography

An A-Z Exposé of Cars

Aleks Krotoski

From the epic of Gilgamesh to the alchemy of the philosopher’s stone, humanity’s eternal quest for immortality – and its rejuvenation tricks, therapies and tinctures – has always been our most mortal endeavour. 
 
But now the giants of invention and investment are building a fountain of youth of their own creation: one they not only engineer, but also own and control. Death is simply their next problem to solve, the latest expression of a hubris that regards humans as appliances to be fixed and machines to be upgraded. By harnessing technology to ‘cure’ ageing, and funding cutting-edge – and often controversial – research, today’s immortalists are locked in an arms race to be the first to pocket the profits of longevity. 
 
What was once a wild west of experimentation has wormed its way into Washington’s corridors of power. Award-winning broadcaster and academic Aleks Krotoski journeys from those cult fringes to the heartlands of government to meet the moguls, effective altruists, geroscientists and entrepreneurs who are disrupting death. Along the way she encounters radical life extensionists transfusing their teenage son’s blood, transhumanists who want to upload consciousness to the cloud, biohackers flogging AI-powered wellness apps and billionaire kingmakers building brand-new nations. 
 
This razor-sharp, powerful and at times chilling investigation empowers us to consider what it truly means to be human, asking: do we really want a handful of Silicon Valley techno-fundamentalists to be the architects of our forever?

The Immortalists

The Death of Death and the Race for Eternal Life

Arthur Parkinson

It is my hope that this book will help you discover, or reconfirm, which chicken breeds are your favourites and encourage you to keep them yourself, or at least to remember them. 
 
Spotlighting more than fifty breeds of chicken, from the classy Ancona to the lavishly laced Wyandotte, Arthur Parkinson shares everything you need to know about each breed’s attributes, behaviour, quirks and qualities alongside gorgeous illustrations of his ‘ladies’. Later in the book he offers detailed advice that will equip you with the practical skills to look after hens in your own garden, whether the most common breeds or the most perilously rare – for as Arthur notes, if we don’t celebrate all hens great and small, the lesser-known varieties may well disappear. 
 
Joyful and inspiring, Hen Party is a riotous, clucking poultry show of a book for anyone dreaming of the good life.

Hen Party

A Celebration

Ray Kurzweil

In this visionary and fundamentally optimistic book, the legendary oracle of technological change explains how AI will transform our species beyond recognition. 
 
‘The best person I know at predicting the future of AI’ BILL GATES 
'A fascinating exploration of our future' YUVAL NOAH HARARI 
'Essential reading to understand our exponential times' MUSTAFA SULEYMAN 
 
Within our lifetimes, we will be able to connect our brains directly with AI, enhancing our intelligence a millionfold and expanding our consciousness in ways we can barely imagine. This is the Singularity. Ray Kurzweil is one of the greatest inventors of our time with over 60 years’ experience in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Dozens of his long-range predictions about the rise of the internet, AI and bioengineering have been borne out. Here Kurzweil explains how the Singularity will occur and what it will mean to live free from the limits of biology: What will we choose if our bodies need no longer define us? What new realms of beauty, connection and wonder might we inhabit? Who will we become if our minds can be stored and duplicated? Drawing on a lifetime’s expertise, Kurzweil presents deeply reasoned answers to these questions and argues that we can and will transform life on earth profoundly for the better.

The Singularity is Nearer

When We Merge with AI

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Nate Soares

AI is the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced. 
 
The scramble to create superhuman AI has put us on the path to extinction – but it’s not too late to change course. Two pioneering researchers in the field, Eliezer Yudkowsy and Nate Soares, explain why artificial superintelligence would be a global suicide bomb and call for an immediate halt to its development. 
 
The technology may be complex, but the facts are simple: companies and countries are in a race to build machines that will be smarter than any person, and the world is devastatingly unprepared for what will come next. 
 
How could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Will it want to? Will it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares explore the theory and the evidence, present one possible extinction scenario, and explain what it would take for humanity to survive. 
 
The world is racing to build something truly new – and if anyone builds it, everyone dies.

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

The Case Against Superintelligent AI

James Fox

Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our identities, built our communities and shaped our regions. Craftland chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that once governed every aspect of life on these shores. 
 
Travelling the length of Britain, from the Scilly Isles to the Scottish Highlands, James Fox seeks out the country’s last remaining master craftspeople. Stepping inside the workshops of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, cutlers and coopers, bell-founders and watchmakers, we glimpse not only our past but another way of life — one that is not yet lost and whose wisdom could shape our future. 
 
For as long as there are humans, there will be craft. It is all around us, hiding in plain sight, enriching even the most modest things. And in this increasingly digital age, it is perhaps more valuable than ever. Craftland is a celebration of that deeply necessary connection between our creative instincts and the material world we inhabit, revealing a richer and more connected way of living.

Craftland

A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades

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

Andy Saunders

When we think of the history of space exploration, we can’t help but think of the Apollo missions and Neil Armstrong’s one giant leap. But what about the small steps that enabled NASA to reach for the Moon? 
 
Astronauts working on the earliest space missions, from Project Mercury to the Gemini missions of the mid-1960s, answered fundamental questions about the possibilities of long-duration space travel, paving the way for the Apollo missions and, ultimately, the Moon landings. They also took the first, and still some of the finest, images of Earth ever captured on film. 
 
Now, the bestselling author of Apollo Remastered, Andy Saunders has restored images from these first missions to show them in unprecedented detail and tell their full story, filled with dramatic life or death moments, mischievous pranks and astonishing triumphs. This stunning visual odyssey brings to life the pivotal, intimate moments of early space travel, unveiling the raw beauty and profound challenges faced by the pioneering astronauts pushing the boundaries of human achievement. Gemini and Mercury Remastered is a striking tribute to the visionaries who dared to dream beyond our world and a testament to the enduring power of exploration.

Gemini and Mercury Remastered

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

Sönke Iwersen

Michael Verfürden

Elon Musk, the self-appointed savior of civilization, the genius intent on leading us into a new age of electric vehicles, is one of the wealthiest people on the planet. But a whistleblower, a 100GB-leak of confidential Tesla documents and two investigative journalists reveal the frightening truth behind the façade: an unusually high number of workplace accidents in Musk’s factories, dangerous errors in Tesla's autopilot software, a culture of fear and deception, and countless broken promises. 
 
Through its chilling analysis of leaked internal Tesla data and court documents set alongside the astonishing first-hand accounts of employees, customers and their bereaved families, The Tesla Files is the definitive exposé of the world’s most powerful businessman and the rise and fall of his empire.

The Tesla Files

A whistleblower, a leak, a fight for truth: The Inside Story of Musk's Empire

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

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