Alexander Monro

Alexander Norman has written a number of books with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and has known him personally for over 30 years. He regularly gives lectures on Tibetan history and culture and is fascinated by the country and its people. He lives in the UK.

Alexander Norman

Alexander Piatigorsky

Alexander Pope was born on 21st May 1688.He was brought up a Roman Catholic at a time where the laws of England were prejudicial towards Catholics. He suffered tuberculosis as a child and was crippled by it. He never grew taller than 4'6". He first published The Rape of the Lock when he was twenty-three years old in 1712. He later added to it in 1714 and 1717. It was written to reconcile two families who had fallen out over a similar incident where a young Lord Petre had cut off a lock of hair from Arabella Fermor's head. Pope went on to translate the works of Homer and produce The Dunciad and An Essay on Man. Pope died on 30th May 1744.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pushkin

Alexander Roy

Alexander Shannon

Alexander Sinclair

Alexander Slater is an author and illustrator from London who loves stories with big ideas and bigger heart. He holds a First Class degree in Graphic Design and Illustration from the University of Hertfordshire and has earned several awards in design and cartooning. When he’s not doodling or daydreaming, he can be found cooking, walking his adorable cockapoo, Bailey, or entertaining his millions of followers on his TikTok account @AlexRabbit

Alexander Slater

Alexander Soderberg previously worked as a scriptwriter and story editor for Swedish television, where he worked on adaptations of well-known crime novels as well as drama and sitcoms.

Alexander Soderberg

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Stille

Alexander Watson is the author of the prize-winning history of the Central Powers in the First World War, Ring of Steel. He is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Alexander Watson

In his lifetime Alexander von Humboldt was a major international celebrity - only Napoleon, it was said, was more well-known. He was born into the Prussian nobility in 1769 and destined for a career in the civil service. In his twenties he combined his position in the Ministry of Mines with his own investigative studies in science, geology and botany. He travelled around Europe, meeting many other adventurers of his age - including Bligh, Banks and Bougainville – and spent many stimulating months with Goethe in Weimar and Jena. He inherited a fortune on the death of his mother and immediately began planning a major expedition. Napoleon's activities thwarted him at every turn, but he succeeded, rather surprisingly, to gain the permission of Carlos IV to visit the Spanish colonies in South America, and set off with the French botanist Aimé Bonpland and many boxes full of scientific instruments, dodging British warships en route. These five extraordinary years of exploration and research gave Humboldt material for a lifetime's writing. But the expenses of publication exhausted his funds and after more than twenty years living in Paris he was obliged to return to Prussia as a chamberlain at the court of Friedrich Wilhelm III. It was hardly to his taste. He did manage one more major expedition across Russia, when he was sixty years old. Tirelessly energetic, he never stopped working and writing. He was mourned worldwide when he died at the age of nearly ninety in 1859.

Alexander von Humboldt

Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin

Alexandra Bell studied Law at university and signed her first book deal at nineteen. Since then, she has written multiple books for both adults and young people. She works at a legal advice charity and lives in Hampshire with her husband, sons, and Sphynx cats.

Alexandra Bell

Alexandra Brinck is a textile designer and repair specialist. Her work focusses on sustainability and mending – from hands-on repair commissions to delivering training programmes for professional repairers as well as running workshops and events for the general public.

Alexandra Brinck

Allie Brosh has enjoyed writing ever since her mother tricked her into writing a story to distract her from her immediate goal of wrapping the cat in duct-tape.  She started her award-winning blog in 2009.  Brosh lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband Duncan, her two dogs, and six pet rats. Visit HyperboleAndAHalf.blogspot.com.

Alexandra Brosh

Alexandra Bruce

Alexandra Chesterfield is a behavioural scientist with a master's degree in Cognitive and Decision Science. Forever curious about why we do what we do, she currently works in financial services, leading a team of behavioural scientists to help get better outcomes for employees and customers. For four years, she was an elected Councillor in Guildford for the Conservative Party. She has personally experienced the effects of affective polarisation, both in and out of the workplace.

Alexandra Chesterfield

Alexandra Christo is a British author whose characters are always funnier and far more deadly than she is. She studied Creative Writing at university and graduated with the desire to never stop letting her imagination run wild. She currently lives in Hertfordshire with a rapidly growing garden and a never-ending stack of books. Her debut novel To Kill a Kingdom is an international bestseller and her Young Adult fantasy books have been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide.

Alexandra Christo-Cheung

Alexandra Coghlan is a music journalist and critic. She has written for publications including the Spectator, New Statesman, the Independent, Gramophone and Opera magazines, and for ensembles including the BBC Proms, Salzburg Festival, The Academy of Ancient Music and The Sixteen. Alexandra was a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, and it was during her time there that she first discovered the beauty of King's College Chapel and the unique sound of the King's College Choir.

Alexandra Coghlan

Alexandra Dudley is a food writer and cook living in London. She is the recipe columnist for Sheerluxe, writer of the bestselling Substack newsletter Come For Supper, and host of the Come For Supper podcast. She has been dubbed a serial dinner party host but believes that the best food is usually simple and cooked at home. She prefers home cooking to restaurant food and believes that the cook should always get the first glass of champagne or slice of pudding.

Alexandra Dudley

Alexandra Fuller is the author of four memoirs, including Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight – a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Booksense Best Non-Fiction book, a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize – and the New York Times-bestselling Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, two books of non-fiction, and the novel Quiet Until the Thaw. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, National Geographic, Granta, The New York Times, Guardian and Financial Times.

Alexandra Fuller

Alexandra Heminsley is an author, ghostwriter, journalist, broadcaster and speaker. Her bestselling non-fiction work includes Running Like a Girl and Leap In, and her first novel, Under the Same Stars is to be published in 2022. She lives in Hove with her son, and proudly co-parents her LGBT+ family.

Alexandra Heminsley

Alex Hollingsworth co-founded Dig Club and is an experienced and award-winning garden designer, following a successful career in Management Consultancy. Alex trained with the Garden Design Academy of Ireland and also holds an RHS Level 2 Certificate in Horticulture and has had show gardens at Ireland’s ‘Bloom’ and ‘Gardener’s World Live’ in the UK.

Alexandra Hollingsworth

Alexandra Lapierre

Alexandra Massey

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Michael Pollan

'It's as if we made entering gothic cathedrals illegal, or museums, or sunsets!' 
 
When LSD was first discovered in the 1940s, it seemed to researchers, scientists and doctors as if the world might be on the cusp of psychological revolution. It promised to shed light on the deep mysteries of consciousness, as well as offer relief to addicts and the mentally ill. But in the 1960s, with the vicious backlash against the counter-culture, all further research was banned. In recent years, however, work has quietly begun again on the amazing potential of LSD, psilocybin and DMT. Could these drugs in fact improve the lives of many people? Diving deep into this extraordinary world and putting himself forward as a guinea-pig, Michael Pollan has written a remarkable history of psychedelics and a compelling portrait of the new generation of scientists fascinated by the implications of these drugs. How to Change Your Mind is a report from what could very well be the future of human consciousness.

How to Change Your Mind

The New Science of Psychedelics

Jeremy Clarkson

In November 2016 we woke up to the news that the forthright presenter of a popular television programme had become the most powerful man on the planet. His name, sadly, was not Jeremy Clarkson, but we might not have been any more surprised if it had been. 
 
 Because the world seems to have taken a decidedly odd turn since Jeremy last reflected on the state of things between the covers of a book. But who better than JC to help us navigate our way through the mess? 
 
 And while he's being trying to make sense of it all he's discovered one or two things along the way, including 
 
- The disabling effects of being vegan 
- How Blackpool might be improved by drilling a hole through it 
- The problem with meditation 
- A perfect location for rebuilding Palmyra 
- Why Tom Cruise can worship lizards if he wants to 
 
 It's all been a bit unsettling. 
 
 But don't worry. If You'd Just Let Me Finish is Clarkson at his best. He may be as bemused, exasperated, amused and surprised as the rest of us, but in a world gone crazy, thank God someone has still got his head screwed on ...

If You’d Just Let Me Finish

Well, someone's got to do it: in a world which simply will not see reason, Jeremy sets off on another quest to beat a path of sense through all the silliness and idiocy. 
 
And there's no knowing what might catch Jeremy's eye along the way. It could be: 
-The merits of Stonehenge as a business model 
-Why all meetings are a waste of time 
-The theft of the Queen's cows 
-One Norwegian man's unique approach to showing his gratitude 
-Fitting a burglar alarm to a tortoise 
-Or how Lou Reed was completely wrong about what makes a perfect day 
 
Pithy and provocative, this is Clarkson at his best, taking issue with whatever nonsense gets in the way of his search for all that's worth celebrating. Why should we be forced to accept stuff that's a bit rubbish? Shouldn't things work? Why doesn't someone care? I mean, is it really too much to ask? 
 
It's a good thing we've still got Jeremy out there, still looking, without fear or favour, for the answers.

Is It Really Too Much To Ask?

The World According to Clarkson Volume 5

Jeremy Clarkson shares his opinions on just about everything in The World According to Clarkson. 
 
Jeremy Clarkson has seen rather more of the world than most. He has, as they say, been around a bit. And as a result, he's got one or two things to tell us about how it all works; and being Jeremy Clarkson he's not about to voice them quietly, humbly and without great dollops of humour. 
 
In The World According to Clarkson, he reveals why it is that: 
 
-Too much science is bad for our health 
 
-'70s rock music is nothing to be ashamed of 
 
-Hunting foxes while drunk and wearing night-sights is neither big nor clever 
 
-We must work harder to get rid of cricket 
 
-He likes the Germans (well, sometimes) 
 
With a strong dose of common sense that is rarely, if ever, found inside the M25, Clarkson hilariously attacks the pompous, the ridiculous, the absurd and the downright idiotic, whilst also celebrating the eccentric, the clever and the sheer bloody brilliant. 
 
Less a manifesto for living and more a road map to modern life, The World According to Clarkson is the funniest book you'll read this year. Don't leave home without it. 
 
'Brilliant, laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out 
 
'Very funny...I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening Standard

The World According to Clarkson

The World According to Clarkson Volume 1

Colin Butcher

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Molly and Me, written and read by Colin Butcher. 
 
Ex-policeman Colin Butcher had just set up his own pet detective agency. It was running smoothly but he realized he needed a partner. And that's when inspiration struck... 
 
Enter Molly, an unloved and unwanted cocker spaniel rescued from a classifieds website. Clever and charismatic, she melts Colin's heart, the two are soon inseparable. 
 
With Colin by her side, Molly cracks cases and solve crimes across the country, using her exceptional sense of smell to locate missing pets and reunite them with their grateful owners. From the search for Pablo the ginger tom who's kidnapped from a sleepy Devonian village, to unearthing a treasure trove of stolen jewels in a north London wood, Colin and Molly's work takes them around the country, with plenty of new friends and eccentric encounters along the way. 
 
By turns charming, moving, and thrilling, Molly and Me is the story of a rescue cocker spaniel with a troubled past who - thanks to the love and devotion of her owner - finds a new life, a new purpose and a forever friend.

Molly and Me

An extraordinary tale of second chances and how a dog and her owner became the ultimate pet-detective duo

Paul Rouse

In 1882, a letter was published in the Irish Times, lamenting the decline of hurling. The game was now played only in a few isolated rural pockets, and according to no fixed set of rules. It would have been absurd to imagine that, within five years, an all-Ireland hurling championship would be underway, under the auspices of a powerful national organization. 
 
The Hurlers is a superbly readable account of that dramatic turn of events, of the colourful men who made it happen, and of the political intrigues and violent rows that marked the early years of the GAA. From the very start, republican and ecclesiastical interests jockeyed for control, along with a small core of enthusiasts who were really in it for the sport. Paul Rouse shows how sport, culture and politics swirled together in a heady, often chaotic mix.

The Hurlers

The First All-Ireland Championship and the Making of Modern Hurling

Richard Shepherd

Meet the forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd. 
 
He solves the mysteries of unexplained or sudden death. 
 
He's a detective in his own right. 
 
And he has one, ultimate and pressing question to answer: 
 
How did this person die? 
 
Unnatural Causes is an unputdownable record of an extraordinary life, a unique insight into a remarkable profession, and above all a powerful and reassuring testament to lives cut short.

Unnatural Causes

The Life and Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist

Richard Sennett

'Thank god for Richard Sennett ... essential reading for all students of the city' Anna Minton, Prospect 
 
'Constantly stimulating ideas from a veteran of urban thinking' Jonathan Meades, Guardian 
 
In Building and Dwelling, Richard Sennett distils a lifetime's thinking and practical experience to explore the relationship between the good built environment and the good life. He argues for, and describes in rich detail, the idea of an open city, one in which people learn to manage complexity. He shows how the design of cities can enrich or diminish the everyday experience of those who dwell in them. 
 
The book ranges widely - from London, Paris and Barcelona to Shanghai, Mumbai and Medellin in Colombia - and draws on classic thinkers such as Tocqueville, Heidegger, Max Weber, and Walter Benjamin. It also draws on Sennett's many decades as a practical planner himself, testing what works, what doesn't, and why. He shows what works ethically is often the most practical solution for cities' problems. This is a humane and thrilling book, which allows us to think freshly about how we live in cities. 
 
'Sennett is my kind of urbanist. He sees the modern city. He reads its secrets as he walks down the street, kicking over the detritus of the past ... There is no alternative to the planner, but please a planner who has read Sennett's book' Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times

Building and Dwelling

Ethics for the City

Kishore Mahbubani

Kishore Mahbubani's timely polemic argues passionately for the West to cease imposing its ideology on the world and intervening in the affairs of other nations. Mahbubani examines the West's greatest follies of recent times: the humiliation of Russia at the end of the Cold War, which led to the rise of Putin; and the invasion of Iraq after 9/11, which destabilised the Middle East. For the West to maintain a key international role, Mahbubani warns, it must recognise its changing status and seek to influence rather than dominate. Has The West Lost It? examines the myths and self-delusions of Western power with an outsider's critical eye.

Has the West Lost It?

A Provocation

Stephanie Shirley

Richard Askwith

In 1962, Stephanie "Steve" Shirley founded an IT software company when the concept of software barely existed. The company created huge opportunities for women in tech, allowing them to work on projects like the programming of the black box flight recorder from the comfort of their own home. The business thrived and Shirley gradually transferred ownership of the company to those who worked for it, creating 70 millionaires in the process. 
 
Let it Go explores Shirley's trail blazing career as an entrepreneur but it also charts her incredible personal story - her dramatic arrival in England as an unaccompanied Kindertransport refugee from Germany and the tragic death of her son, Giles, who suffered severely from Autism. Today, Dame Stephanie Shirley is one of Britain's leading philanthropists, devoting most of her time, energy and money to supporting and creating charities in the areas of Autism and STEM. This is an engrossing story of an extraordinary life, filled with lessons in what it means to be human.

Let It Go

My Extraordinary Story - From Refugee to Entrepreneur to Philanthropist

Didier Eribon

"There was a question that had come to trouble me a bit earlier, once I had taken the first steps on this return journey to Reims... 
 
Why, when I have had such an intense experience of forms of shame related to class, shame in relation to the milieu in which I grew up, why, when once I had arrived in Paris and started meeting people from such different class backgrounds, I would often find myself lying about my class origins... why had it never occurred to me to take up this problem in a book?" 
 
Returning to Reims is a breathtaking account of one man's return to the town where he grew up after an absence of thirty years. It is a frank, fearlessly personal story of family, memory, identity and time lost. But it is also a sociologist's view of what it means to grow up working class and then leave that class; of inequality and shifting political allegiances in an increasingly divided nation. A phenomenon in France and a huge bestseller in Germany, Didier Eribon has written the defining memoir of our times.

Returning to Reims

Mike Woodhouse

Mike Woodhouse had everything: an engineering business, a wine bar, a home, a Range Rover and a boat. Then he caught a group of travellers stealing from his warehouse. A car chase, petrol bombing and court case later, and everything had changed. 
 
A marked man, Mike was forced to leave everything behind and move to the Peak District for a fresh start. But his old life was never far behind and when he fell for Rhoda, a Romany Gypsy, kin to the very people he was hiding from, he knew he wouldn't be safe for much longer . . . 
 
The Gypsy Code is a true story of secret identity, revenge and forbidden love that's perfect for fans of Running with the Firm, Undercover and Soldier Spy.

The Gypsy Code

The true story of hide-and-seek in a violent underworld

Michio Kaku

Human civilization is on the verge of spreading beyond Earth. More than a possibility, it is becoming a necessity: whether our hand is forced by climate change and resource depletion or whether future catastrophes compel us to abandon Earth, one day we will make our homes among the stars. 
 
World-renowned physicist and futurist Michio Kaku explores in rich, accessible detail how humanity might gradually develop a sustainable civilization in outer space. With his trademark storytelling verve, Kaku shows us how science fiction is becoming reality: mind-boggling developments in robotics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology could enable us to build habitable cities on Mars; nearby stars might be reached by microscopic spaceships sailing through space on laser beams; and technology might one day allow us to transcend our physical bodies entirely. 
 
With irrepressible enthusiasm and wonder, Dr. Kaku takes readers on a fascinating journey to a future in which humanity could finally fulfil its long-awaited destiny among the stars - and perhaps even achieve immortality.

The Future of Humanity

Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond

Linda Yueh

What can the ideas of history's greatest economists tell us about the most important issues of our time? 
 
Renowned broadcaster and economist Linda Yueh explains, in an insightful yet accessible way, the key thoughts of history's greatest economists, how our lives have been influenced by their ideas and how they could help us with the policy challenges that we face today. Exploring the thoughts of economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to contemporary academics Douglass North and Robert Solow, Yueh asks, for example, what do the ideas of Karl Marx tell us about the future of the Chinese economy? What would John Maynard Keynes say about state intervention? And with globalisation in trouble, what can we learn about handling Brexit and Trumpism?

The Great Economists

How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today

Zadie Smith

No subject is too fringe or too mainstream for Zadie Smith's insatiable curiosity. From social media to the environment, Tarantino to Jay-Z to Knausgaard, she has endless fascination and the boundless wit, insight and wisdom to match. In Feel Free, pop culture, high culture, social change and political debate all get the Zadie Smith treatment: dissected with razor-sharp intellect, set brilliantly against the context of the utterly contemporary, and considered with a deep humanity and compassion. 
 
This electrifying new collection showcases its author as a true literary powerhouse, demonstrating once again her credentials as an essential voice of her generation.

Feel Free

Essays

Jenny Linford

The Missing Ingredient is about what makes good food, and the first book to consider the intrinsic yet often forgotten role of time in creating flavour. Written through a series of encounters with ingredients, producers, cooks, shopkeepers and chefs, exploring everything from the brief period in which sugar caramelises, the days required in the crucial process of fermentation in so many foods we love, to the months of slow ripening and close attention that make a great cheddar, or the years needed for certain wines to reach their peak, Jenny Linford shows how, time and again, time itself is the invisible ingredient. Linford shows how paying attention to time in the kitchen and elsewhere improves our food, from the patient browning of meat to the long investment of many food producers in fields and storehouses around the world. The result is a joyful account of the vital role of time in our culinary lives, and a book to savour.

The Missing Ingredient

The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavour

Kate Manne

Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? 
 
In Down Girl moral philosopher Kate Manne argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it is primarily about controlling, policing, punishing and exiling the "bad" women who challenge male dominance. And it is compatible with rewarding "the good ones" and singling out other women to serve as warnings to those who are out of order. 
 
A powerful, lucid analysis of the logic of misogyny from a remarkable feminist thinker, Down Girl is essential reading for the #MeToo era.

Down Girl

The Logic of Misogyny

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

From the bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold book that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility 
 
Why should we never listen to people who explain rather than do? Why do companies go bust? How is it that we have more slaves today than in Roman times? Why does imposing democracy on other countries never work? 
 
The answer: too many people running the world don't have skin in the game. In his inimitable, pugnacious style, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows that skin in the game applies to all aspects of our lives. It's about having something to lose and taking a risk. Citizens, lab experimenters, artisans, political activists and hedge fund traders all have skin in the game. Policy wonks, corporate executives, theoreticians, bankers and most journalists don't. 
 
As Taleb says, "The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that's necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster," and "Never trust anyone who doesn't have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them".

Skin in the Game

Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

David Graeber

'Spectacular and terrifyingly true' Owen Jones 
'Explosive' John McDonnell, New Statesman, Books of the Year 
'Thought-provoking and funny' The Times 
 
FT BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018, THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018, NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 and CITY AM BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 
 
Be honest: if your job didn't exist, would anybody miss it? Have you ever wondered why not? Up to 40% of us secretly believe our jobs probably aren't necessary. In other words: they are bullshit jobs. This book shows why, and what we can do about it. 
 
In the early twentieth century, people prophesied that technology would see us all working fifteen-hour weeks and driving flying cars. Instead, something curious happened. Not only have the flying cars not materialised, but average working hours have increased rather than decreased. And now, across the developed world, three-quarters of all jobs are in services, finance or admin: jobs that don't seem to contribute anything to society. In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber explores how this phenomenon - one more associated with the Soviet Union, but which capitalism was supposed to eliminate - has happened. In doing so, he looks at how, rather than producing anything, work has become an end in itself; the way such work maintains the current broken system of finance capital; and, finally, how we can get out of it. 
 
This book is for anyone whose heart has sunk at the sight of a whiteboard, who believes 'workshops' should only be for making things, or who just suspects that there might be a better way to run our world.

Bullshit Jobs

The Rise of Pointless Work, and What We Can Do About It

A Theory

Deborah Levy

What does it mean to be free - as an artist, a woman, a mother or daughter? And what is the price of that freedom? 
 
In this dazzling memoir, Deborah Levy confronts the essential questions of modern womanhood with humour, pragmatism, and profoundly resonant wisdom. Reflecting on the period when she wrote the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Hot Milk - when her mother was dying, her daughters were leaving home, her marriage was coming to an end - she is characteristically eloquent on the social expectations and surreal realities of daily life. And expanding far beyond these bounds, she describes a uniquely frank, wise and thrilling manifesto for female experience: embracing the exhilarating terror of freedom, seeking to understand what that freedom could mean and how it might feel.

The Cost of Living

Living Autobiography 2

James Rebanks

I am the luckiest man alive, because I get to live and work in the most beautiful place on earth: Matterdale in the English Lake District. 
 
When I was a child we didn't really go anywhere, except a week in the Isle of Man when I was about ten years old, and I never left Britain until I was twenty. 
 
Even now, years later, the best bit of any travelling is coming home. 
 
Bringing us into the world of shepherd's baking competitions, sheep shows and moments out on the fell watching the sheep run away home, James Rebanks interweaves thoughts and reflections on the art of shepherding with his photographs of the valley, people and animals that make up the daily life of the fells. A life lived by the three hundred surviving fell farming families, this is a book of photos and words filled with reverence and love.

The Illustrated Herdwick Shepherd

Kate Thompson

While the men were away at war it was strong women like Joan, Marie, Babs, Beattie and Minksy who ruled the streets of the East End. Kate Thompson tells the real stories of the war experienced by these matriarchs, a tribe of working-class women in the stinking slums, teeming tenements and sweatshops of East London. 
 
Forget church halls and jam-making, these powerfully authentic stories will have you questioning what you thought you knew about wartime women. From standing up to the Kray twins, to taking over the London Underground and crawling out of bombsites, these women fought to survive and protect their community in some of our country's darkest hours.

The Stepney Doorstep Society

The remarkable true story of the women who ruled the East End through war and peace

Robin DiAngelo

The International Bestseller 
 
'With clarity and compassion, DiAngelo allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to "bad people." In doing so, she moves our national discussions forward. This is a necessary book for all people invested in societal change' Claudia Rankine 
 
Anger. Fear. Guilt. Denial. Silence. These are the ways in which ordinary white people react when it is pointed out to them that they have done or said something that has - unintentionally - caused racial offence or hurt. After, all, a racist is the worst thing a person can be, right? But these reactions only serve to silence people of colour, who cannot give honest feedback to 'liberal' white people lest they provoke a dangerous emotional reaction. 
 
Robin DiAngelo coined the term 'White Fragility' in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy. Using knowledge and insight gained over decades of running racial awareness workshops and working on this idea as a Professor of Whiteness Studies, she shows us how we can start having more honest conversations, listen to each other better and react to feedback with grace and humility. It is not enough to simply hold abstract progressive views and condemn the obvious racists on social media - change starts with us all at a practical, granular level, and it is time for all white people to take responsibility for relinquishing their own racial supremacy. 
 
'By turns mordant and then inspirational, an argument that powerful forces and tragic histories stack the deck fully against racial justice alongside one that we need only to be clearer, try harder, and do better' David Roediger, Los Angeles Review of Books 
 
'The value in White Fragility lies in its methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism in thought and action, and its call for humility and vigilance' Katy Waldman, New Yorker 
 
'A vital, necessary, and beautiful book' Michael Eric Dyson

White Fragility

Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Martin Goodman

Judaism is by some distance the oldest of the three Abrahamic religions and, despite the extraordinarily varied forms it has taken and diverse beliefs it has contained over three millennia, it has been generally understood by both Jews and gentiles as a single entity. There have been many histories of the Jewish people but remarkably few attempts to relate the history and evolution of Judaism itself. In this book, the first comprehensive, single-volume work of its kind in English, Martin Goodman explains how Judaism came to be and how it has developed from one period to another, as well as the ways in which its varieties have related to each other. Ranging from the religion's inception to the many denominations of contemporary Judaism, this book addresses one of the world's great religions on a grander scale than any predecessor.

A History of Judaism

Serhii Plokhy

On the morning of 26 April 1986 Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. The outburst put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. In the end, less than five percent of the reactor's fuel escaped, but that was enough to contaminate over half of Europe with radioactive fallout. 
 
In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy recreates these events in all of their drama, telling the stories of the firefighters, scientists, engineers, workers, soldiers, and policemen who found themselves caught in a nuclear Armageddon and succeeded in doing the seemingly impossible: extinguishing the nuclear inferno and putting the reactor to sleep. While it is clear that the immediate cause of the accident was a turbine test gone wrong, Plokhy shows how the deeper roots of Chernobyl lay in the nature of the Soviet political system and the flaws of its nuclear industry. A little more than five years later, the Soviet Union would fall apart, destroyed from within by its unsustainable communist ideology and the dysfunctional managerial and economic systems laid bare in the wake of the disaster. 
 
A poignant, fast paced account of the drama of heroes, perpetrators, and victims, Chernobyl is the definitive history of the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Chernobyl

History of a Tragedy

Lawrence Wright

God Save Texas is a journey through the most controversial state in America. It is a Republican state in the heart of Trumpland that hasn't elected a Democrat to a statewide office in more than twenty years; but it is also a state in which minorities already form a majority (including the largest number of Muslim adherents in the United States). The cities are Democrat and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king but Texas now leads California in technology exports and has an economy only somewhat smaller than Italy's. 
 
The Texas economic model of low taxes and minimal regulation has produced extraordinary growth but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. And Wright's profound portrait of the state not only reflects the United States back as it is, but as it was and as it might be. 
 
Completed as Texas battles to rebuild after the devastating storm of summer 2017, Lawrence Wright's new book manages to be both delighted and appalled by the place he has lived much of his life.

God Save Texas

A Journey into the Future of America

Steven Levitsky

Daniel Ziblatt

Democracies can die with a coup d'état - or they can die slowly. This happens most deceptively when in piecemeal fashion, with the election of an authoritarian leader, the abuse of governmental power and the complete repression of opposition. All three steps are being taken around the world and we must all understand how we can stop them. From the rule of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile to the quiet undermining of Turkey's constitutional system by President Recip Erdogan, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt draw insightful lessons from history to shine a light on regime breakdown across the 20th and 21st centuries. 
 
 Based on years of research, they present a deep understanding of how and why democracies die; an alarming analysis of how democracy is being subverted today; and a guide for maintaining and repairing a threatened democracy, for governments, political parties and individuals. History doesn't repeat itself. But we can protect our democracy by learning its lessons, before it's too late.

How Democracies Die

What History Reveals About Our Future

Sara Milne Rowe

Wishing to be better at something lies at the heart of modern life: a bad week to a better week, a frustrated parent to a better parent, an anxious speaker to better speaker, a burnt-out colleague to a better colleague. Doing anything new or better might sound simple, but in practice it can be tricky. 
 
The SHED Method is a mind-management system that offers practical advice for improving your decision making. Through a series of practices and clear steps, The Shed Method will help you become a happier, healthier and more confident you.

The SHED Method

The new mind management technique for achieving confidence, calm and success

Jeff Pearce

The poor boy who made his fortune . . . not just once but twice. 
 
Little Jeff Pearce grew up in a post-war Liverpool slum. His father lived the life of an affluent gentleman whilst his mother was forced to steal bread to feed her starving children. Life was tough and from the moment Jeff could walk he learned to go door to door, begging rags from the rich, which he sold down the markets. Leaving school at the age of fourteen, he embarked on an extraordinary journey, and found himself, before the age of thirty, a millionaire. 
 
Then, after a cruel twist of fate left him penniless, he, his wife and children were forced out of their beautiful home. 
 
With nothing but holes in his pockets, Jeff had no alternative but to go back down the markets and start all over again. Did he still have what it took? Could he really get back everything he had lost? 
 
A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams is the heartwarming true story of a little boy who had nothing but gained everything and proof that, sometimes, rags can be turned into riches . . .

A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams

Timothy Day

The sound of the choir of King's College, Cambridge - its voices perfectly blended, its emotions restrained, its impact sublime - has become famous all over the world, and for many, the distillation of a particular kind of Englishness. This is especially so at Christmas time, with the broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, whose centenary is celebrated this year. How did this small band of men and boys in a famous fenland town in England come to sing in the extraordinary way they did in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? 
 
It has been widely assumed that the King's style essentially continues an English choral tradition inherited directly from the Middle Ages. In this original and illuminating book, Timothy Day shows that this could hardly be further from the truth. Until the 1930s, the singing at King's was full of high Victorian emotionalism, like that at many other English choral foundations well into the twentieth century. 
 
The choir's modern sound was brought about by two intertwined revolutions, one social and one musical. From 1928, singing with the trebles in place of the old lay clerks, the choir was fully made up of choral scholars - college men, reading for a degree. Under two exceptional directors of music - Boris Ord from 1929 and David Willcocks from 1958 - the style was transformed and the choir broadcast and recorded until it became the epitome of English choral singing, setting the benchmark for all other choral foundations either to imitate or to react against. Its style has now been taken over and adapted by classical performers who sing both sacred and secular music in secular settings all over the world with a precision inspired by the King's tradition. 
 
I Saw Eternity the Other Night investigates the timbres of voices, the enunciation of words, the use of vibrato. But the singing of all human beings, in whatever style, always reflects in profound and subtle ways their preoccupations and attitudes to life. These are the underlying themes explored by this book.

I Saw Eternity the Other Night

King's College, Cambridge, and an English Singing Style

KPop Demon Hunters

Kane Chronicles Graphic Novels

Karin Schaeffer

Katie Morag

Katie Price's Perfect Ponies

Keep Calm

Keep Your Friends

Keeper of the Realms

Keiko

Kelly Ann's Diary

Key Words

Key Words with Peter and Jane

Kidnapped - Jon Roscoe

Kiki's Delivery Service

King of

King's Maker

Kingdom of Lies

A gripping historical fiction series set amid England's War of the Roses in which the Houses of Lancaster and York faced each other on the field of battle - and the Tudors won.

Kingmaker

Kings of the Realm

Knights Templar

Knights of the Borrowed Dark

Kurt Wallander

Four of James Ellroy's most popular crime novels featuring the infamous Dudley Smith, which include: 'The Black Dahlia', 'The Big Nowhere', 'L.A. Confidential' and 'White Jazz'.

L.A. Quartet

Lacey Flint has never worked a murder case - until a savage murder, 120 years to the day since Jack the Ripper claimed his first victim, crosses her desk. 
This case sets the precedent that Lacey Flint is never far from danger, or the River Thames, but she will stop at nothing to find the answers.

Lacey Flint

Ladybird Audio Adventures

Ladybird Classics

Ladybird Eco Books

Ladybird Grammar

Ladybird Lane

Introduce your little one to first concepts and themes with Ladybird Learners. From ABC to 123, animals to colours, we've got you covered for fun early learning experiences. The engaging illustrations and clear text offer lots of opportunities to extend young learners' vocabulary and get them talking. 
 
A colourful board book series packed with big learning ideas for curious little minds. 
 
Look out for all the titles in the series: 
 
My First Animals: Ladybird Learners 
My First ABC: Ladybird Learners 
My First Numbers: Ladybird Learners 
My First Colours: Ladybird Learners

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