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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. E. W. Mason

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

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Tharik Hussain

This revelatory history explores the ancient roots of Muslim Europe, tracing their journey through the Mediterranean. 
 
Our odyssey begins in the little-known Sufi lodges in Cyprus, where Muslims arrived in 647AD. From there, we travel through the continent – visiting places such as Sicily, Malta, Portugal and Spain – encountering red-haired European Sultans and Arabic-speaking Christian Kings. We meet forgotten Muslim pioneers, such as Abbas Ibn Firnas who gave us flight and Ibn Sina who gave us modern medicine. We see the Islam-inspired mudejar art of fourteenth-century Christians in Spain, and how such cross fertilisation birthed Europe’s ‘Renaissance’. We discover the long-forgotten tombs of European Muslims who knew the Prophet Muhammad, and the author – award-winning writer Tharik Hussain – becomes the first Muslim in over 900 years to pray inside the remains of a nameless Sicilian Mosque. 
 
To remedy Europe’s Islamic amnesia, this ambitious history reveals that Islam is no side show to Western culture – but rather has been integral to its development over 1,400 years.

Muslim Europe

A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History

Luke Kemp

A radical retelling of human history through collapse – from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond. 
 
** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ** 
 
‘A brilliant, utterly convincing account of the evolution of human society and why we are probably reaching humanity's end days’ HENRY MARSH 
 
'Absolutely essential reading for understanding why past civilisations collapsed, and how to protect our own from the same fate' LEWIS DARTNELL 
 
For the first 300,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change. 
 
As we reluctantly congregated in the first farms and cities, people began to rely on novel lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. And when more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organization. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires – with vast bureaucracies and militaries – carved up and dominated the globe. 
 
What brought them down? Whether in the early cities of Cahokia in North America or Tiwanaku in South America, or the sprawling empires of Egypt, Rome and China, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power that hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population. 
 
Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last. 
 
'An excellent survey of human history through the collapses of Goliath-like kings, states and empires' OBSERVER 
 
'A comprehensive overview of societal collapse, based on the analysis of dozens of cases spanning thousands of years from the Paleolithic to today. Highly recommended' PETER TURCHIN 
 
'A deeply sobering and strangely inspiring history of how societies collapse - and how we can still save ours. Read it now, or your descendants will find it in the ruins' JOHANN HARI 
 
'Like reading Thomas Piketty filtered through Mad Max' NEW YORK TIMES

Goliath’s Curse

The History and Future of Societal Collapse

Devi Sridhar

Have you ever questioned why, despite the avalanche of self-help books and optimization hacks, we remain embroiled in multiple global health crises? Populations worldwide are gaining life-shortening excess weight (even in poorer countries), and water contamination is rampant (even in richer countries). In such dire circumstances, a gratitude journal won’t help. 
 
The stark reality is that we’ve been sold a monumental lie. The obsession with individual health optimization has distracted us from the real game-changer: holding governments accountable for policies that can significantly extend our lifespans. How Not to Die (Too Soon) is a vital, transformative guide that shifts the focus from individual responsibility to societal accountability. It’s time to demand the changes that will save lives.

How Not to Die (Too Soon)

The Lies We’ve Been Sold and the Policies That Can Save Us

Deepa Paul

In the early hours of dawn in Amsterdam, Deepa Paul rises from her boyfriend’s bed. She gets dressed, slips away with a kiss and cycles home, where she is welcomed into the arms of her husband, whose contentment is mellow alongside her own. There isn’t a glimmer of shame, deception or guilt, only the honesty and compassion needed to make this kind of life possible — even if it wasn’t always this easy.You might have questions. Whose idea was it? What are the rules? Are you ever jealous? In this memoir, Deepa offers her answers openly and tenderly, as she explores the truth to questions of her own. Can I ask for what I want, and still honour the life I have chosen? Do I deserve it? Is it worth it?Unexpectedly relatable and joyfully vibrant, this is one woman’s story of discovering her own desires and how to liberate them, of shifting identities from mother to lover and back again, and of finding the courage to ask for the marriage she wanted, beyond the marriage she had.One question at a time.

Ask Me How It Works

Love in an Open Marriage

A Memoir of Love and Motherhood in an Open Marriage

Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Music is what makes us alive, mindful and connected to each other. Music is what makes us human. This is the power of music. 
 
Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason knows and feels the transformative power of music as much as any musician alive. From winning the prestigious BBC Young Musician Award to performing at Harry and Meghan’s wedding; from Bach’s solo suites to Bob Marley’s reggae; his ferocious passion shines through in every single performance, whether in a packed-out concert hall or on record. 
 
But how was it that someone like him – a person of colour, from a state school in Nottingham – rose to the upper echelons of the classical music world? What were the obstacles that he had to overcome, what did he learn along the way, and how could a young person follow in his footsteps today? 
 
In The Power of Music, Sheku explores the experiences and values that led him here, from a childhood of football practice and family music sessions, to his work today in the world’s finest concert halls and in the less privileged communities that surround them. As his star continues to rise, he shows us the darker side of an industry ruled by exclusivity and stubborn adherence to tradition. 
 
With its power to transform our mental and physical health, to effect social change, and to make a house a home, Sheku shows us that classical music is for everyone, not just an elite few. The Power of Music is a celebration of music of all sorts and those who make it, and a rallying call to change.

The Power of Music

How Music Connects Us All

Simon Park

Wreckers sinks the old narratives of imperialism, revealing the violent, chaotic and improvised reality of empire-building from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. 
 
While figures such as Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan are celebrated for their maritime achievements – reaching the Americas, India, and circumnavigating the globe – focusing solely on these voyages distorts our perspective on the past. Many explorers ended up as castaways, clinging to the splintered timbers of their wrecked ships, while those who survived often faced resistance and ridicule from indigenous communities across the globe. 
 
Drawing on maritime stories from various languages and continents – from Brazil and Southeast Africa to India and the Philippines – Wreckers shares dramatic tales of the sea and the events on land that followed. This offers an alternative timeline for the century after Columbus’ 1492 voyage and sheds light on the fractures and fault lines that accompanied the increasing geographical range of European ships. 
 
Simon Park argues that even when Europeans arrogantly claimed their own superiority, the truth was that they were often driven by a profound sense of greed and envy, and their actions included numerous mishaps. For example, in his hunt for gold, Martin Frobisher – who fancied himself England’s Columbus and Cortés combined – transported worthless rocks across the Atlantic by the tonne. In the search for spices, Captain and profiteer Manuel de Sousa de Sepúlveda’s ship was so overladen, it spewed its fragrant cargo when it crashed off the coast of South Africa. Moreover, in every place they went, Europeans depended on local know-how and goodwill – relying on indigenous knowledge of languages, geography, food and medicines. 
 
Wreckers reveals the precarious balance between imperious European powers, cunning locals who colluded to further their own agendas, and others who showed great tenacity in their resistance to European incursions. By focusing on stories of failure, defiance and comeuppance, Wreckers – a term Park uses to refer both to those who were wrecked and those involved in wrecking – offers a gripping and original account of a tumultuous period. It challenges the notion of unstoppable European dominance and enables a reimagining of history as a space of possibilities then, now and in the future.

Wreckers

Disaster in the Age of Discovery

Katherine Blake

You&rsquo;re Loretta Darling now, welcome to your brand-new flipping life. 
 
Dreams don&rsquo;t come true for girls like Loretta but she won&rsquo;t let that stop her. With her sights set on becoming a make-up artist to the stars, Loretta wangles her way from Lancashire to the bright lights of Golden Age Hollywood. 
 
Only it turns out that Sunset Boulevard is less about dashing fellas and chilled martinis &ndash; more sticky floors and misbehaving men. The gift of the gab can only get her so far but she refuses to go quietly. 
 
Hollywood has its secrets &hellip; and so does Loretta. 
 
For a start, that&rsquo;s not her real name, and much more than lipstick lurks inside her beauty case. 
 
After all, revenge is a dish best served with a perfectly painted smile.

The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling

Thomas Heatherwick

'Humanise is a masterwork. It's quietly furious, impassioned, rigorous and forensic in all the right doses. It leaves me very hopeful indeed about how things could go from here' ALAIN DE BOTTON 
 
In this manifesto for change, one of the world's pre-eminent designers explores how buildings and cities around the world lost their soul - and what we can do about it. 
 
Thomas Heatherwick shows how design has a profound effect on our mental and physical health, the climate, as well as the peace and cohesion of societies. He shows how a flawed idea of utility and 'efficiency' has engulfed our towns and cities and hardened into a form of bland minimalism. But it doesn't have to be this way: there are other ways to build - with the power to lift our spirits, engage and connect us. 
 
Heatherwick draws on his own work, the ideas of other experts in the field, and recent advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to offer both a case against the inhumanity of modernist design and a rallying cry to everyone to imagine the world anew. Looking through his eyes, we take in places around the world, old and new, famous and obscure, that can sap the life out of us - or nourish our senses and our psyche. 
 
Humanise is a tautly argued provocation and an urgent call-to-arms to make the world around us a far better place for everyone to live. 
 
'This book is a super accessible guide as to why we shouldn't put up with soulless buildings and how we might change that' GRAYSON PERRY

Humanise

A Maker’s Guide to Building Our World

Christina Joyce Hauser

Ten days after calling off her wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, she realised she had almost signed up to live somebody else's life. 
 
In this intimate, frank and funny memoir in essays, CJ Hauser releases herself from her story of 'how life was supposed to be'. She goes looking for more honest ways of living, for new definitions of love. She kisses internet strangers, officiates a wedding, visits a fertility clinic. She rereads Rebecca in the house her new boyfriend shared with his ex-wife and rewinds Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story to ask whether you can ever have a fresh start with an old love. She writes about friends and lovers and blood family and chosen family and children and animals and ghosts and a whole planet in this book, and hopes you see all of these as love stories.

The Crane Wife

A Memoir in Essays

Naomi Alderman

All over the world women are discovering they have the power. 
With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain - even death. 
Suddenly, every man on the planet finds they've lost control. 
The Day of the Girls has arrived - but where will it end? 
 
With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's shocking and visceral novel are utterly transformed, and we look at the world in an entirely new light. What if the power to hurt were in women's hands? 
 
The iconic bestseller, winner of the Women's Prize, and soon-to-be-TV series, The Power is a truly extraordinary modern classic.

The Power

Neal Stephenson

In the Metaverse - cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons - there is a new drug available: Snow Crash. A cyberdrug that reduces avatars in the digital world to dust, it also infects users in real life, leaving them in a vegetative state. 
 
This is bad news for Hiro, a freelance hacker and the Metaverse's best swordfighter, and mouthy skateboard courier Y. T. Together, investigating the Infocalypse, they trace back the roots of language itself to an ancient Sumerian priesthood and find they must race to stop a shadowy virtual villain hell-bent on world domination.

Snow Crash

Qian Julie Wang

In China she was the daughter of professors. In Brooklyn her family is 'illegal.' 
 
Qian is seven when she moves to America, the 'Beautiful Country', where she and her parents find that the roads of New York City are not paved with gold, but crushing fear and scarcity. Unable to speak English at first, Qian and her parents must work wherever they can to survive, all while she battles hunger and loneliness at school. Thus begins an extraordinary story that describes days labouring in sweatshops and sushi factories, nights scavenging the streets for furniture, and the terrifying moment when the family emerges from the shadows to seek emergency medical treatment for Qian's mother. 
 
Qian Julie Wang's memoir is an unforgettable account of what it means to live under the perpetual threat of deportation and the small joys and sheer determination that kept her family afloat in a new land. Told from a child's perspective, in a voice that is intimate, poignant and startlingly lyrical, Beautiful Country is the story of a girl who learns first to live - and then escape - an invisible life.

Beautiful Country

A Memoir of An Undocumented Childhood

Nadifa Mohamed

Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, petty criminal. He is many things, but he is not a murderer. So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. Witnesses allegedly saw him enter a shop that night and love lends him immunity too: the fierce love of his wife, who forgives his gambling in a heartbeat, and his children. It is only in the run-up to the trial, as the prospect of returning home dwindles, that it will dawn on Mahmood that he is in a fight for his life - against conspiracy, prejudice and cruelty - and the truth may not be enough to save him.

The Fortune Men

Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Of The Year Award

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence. 
 
At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.

Open Water

Winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2021

Barack Obama

Bruce Springsteen

Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material. 
 
Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders-one Black and one white-looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself. 
 
It includes: 
· Original introductions by President Obama and Bruce Springsteen 
· Exclusive new material from the Renegades podcast recording sessions 
· Obama's never-before-seen annotated speeches 
· Springsteen's handwritten lyrics for songs spanning his 50-year-long career 
· Rare and exclusive photographs from the authors' personal archives

Renegades

Born in the USA

Bimini Bon Boulash

Jules Scheele

Bimini Bon Boulash is the nation's sweetheart, capturing hearts and minds as the gag-inducing, death-dropping, plant-based breakout star of RuPaul's Drag Race UK Season 2. Not only did she make us laugh and cry, she showed us how to develop a Positive Mental Attitude and live happily and healthily outside society's idea of 'normal'. 
 
Telling the story of how drag took her from the brink of self-destruction to the mainstage, as well as life lessons drawing on convention-breaking icons from Kate Moss to Katie Price, in this book Bimini uses all her wit, charm and kindness to show us how to lead the lives we wish we could lead, through the life-changing magic of dragging up.

Release the Beast

A Drag Queen's Guide to Life

Les Payne

Tamara Payne

The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle and the story of the twentieth century. Renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Les Payne paints vivid and dramatic scenes from start to finish, from Malcolm's clandestine meeting with the KKK in 1961 to a minute-by-minute account of his murder in 1965, in which Payne reveals the complicity of the American government. 
 
Payne interviewed everyone he could find who had known Malcolm X in a nearly thirty-year-long quest - including siblings, classmates, friends, cellmates, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders. Conjuring a never-before-seen world of one of the twentieth century's most compelling figures, this magisterial work sets his life not only within the political struggles of his day but also against the larger backdrop of American history.

The Dead Are Arising

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Chanel Miller

Chanel Miller's story changed our world forever. In 2016 Brock Turner was sentenced to just six months in jail after he was caught sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. His light sentencing, and Chanel's victim impact statement, which was read by eleven million people in four days, sparked international outrage and action. 
 
Know My Name is an intimate, profoundly moving memoir that exposes a patriarchal culture biased to protect perpetrators, a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and ultimately shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life. Entwining pain, resilience, and humour, this breath-taking memoir will stand as a modern classic.

Know My Name

The Survivor of the Stanford Sexual Assault Case Tells Her Story

Iggy Pop

'Iggy... You can't help loving him.' David Bowie 
 
THESE ARE THE WORDS THAT CAME TO ME. NO MATTER HOW THEY GOT HERE, THEY DID THE FUCKING JOB. 
 
Iggy Pop hasn't left a mark on music; he's left it battered, bruised and covered in blood. 
 
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, here for the first time are his collected lyrics, complete with stunning original photographs, illustrations and Iggy and others' reflections on a genre-defining music career that spans five decades. 
 
The ultimate book for every rock and roll fan, to coincide with a new IGGY POP album, FREE, due on 6th September.

'Til Wrong Feels Right

Lyrics and More

Lauren Bastide

Jeanne Damas

In Paris is a window on the world's most stylish city by two quintessentially Parisian women: Jeanne Damas, the it-girl, model, and actress, and Lauren Bastide, former editor-in-chief of French Elle. Dispelling the myth that there is only one type of Parisian woman, In Paris is made up of profiles of twenty different Parisiennes aged from fourteen to seventy, living in tiny studios or grand apartments, giving us a rare glimpse into their world: their homes, their careers, their style, and, most importantly, what being Parisian means to them. 
 
The portraits are illustrated with gorgeous full-colour photographs in Jeanne Damas' inimitable style, as well as lists of secret Parisian hideaways and style tips: from the five different types of red wine to order depending on the occasion, and the bars to drink them in, to the best red lipsticks, and places to be kissed.

In Paris

20 Women on Life in the City of Light

Mark Forsyth

For something that happens every year of our lives, we really don't know much about Christmas. 
 
We don't know that the date we celebrate was chosen by a madman, or that Christmas was first celebrated on 28 March in 243 AD - and only moved to 25 December in 354 AD. We're oblivious to the fact that the advent calendar was actually invented by a Munich housewife to stop her children pestering her for a Christmas countdown. We're unaware of the recipe that inspired the Twelve Days of Christmas. And we would never have guessed that the invention of crackers was merely a way of popularizing sweet wrappers. 
 
Luckily, like a gift from Santa himself, Mark Forsyth is here to unwrap this fundamentally funny gallimaufry of traditions and oddities, making it all finally make sense - in his wonderfully entertaining wordy way.

A Christmas Cornucopia

The Hidden Stories Behind Our Yuletide Traditions

Will Hermes

Crime was everywhere, the government was broke and the city's infrastructure was collapsing, but between 1974 and 1978 virtually all forms of music were being recreated in New York City: disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the Minimalist classical composers, hip hop and punk. 
 
Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith arrived from New Jersey; Grandmaster Flash transformed the turntable into a musical instrument; Steve Reich and Philip Glass shared an apartment as they experimented with composition; the New York Dolls and Talking Heads blew away the grungy clubs; Weather Report and Herbie Hancock created jazz-rock; and Bob Dylan returned with Blood on the Tracks.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever

Elna Baker

Growing up in a family shaped by conventional ideas of femininity, Elna Baker turned to food for self-expression. But at the age of 22, unemployed and with few romantic prospects, she faced the reality of her situation and it hit her hard. 
 
In one year, Elna Baker lost over 8 stone. 
 
Suddenly, strangers on the street who had once shouted insults were smiling spontaneously. Men who would never have given her a second glance were falling at her feet. Elna's new life was a fairytale, but adoration came at a price. She was reliant on appetite suppressants and weight loss shakes to keep her dream body alive. If old Elna became unlovable, new Elna would do everything she could to denounce her former self. 
 
Ten years later, on the eve of her dream wedding, a spell lifts. In choosing the version of herself that the world around her idolised, Elna had left her true self behind. Now, she would have to burn her dream life to the ground and rebuild it. 
 
Pretty for a Day is a vulnerable, witty and eye-opening story of the frivolity of beauty and the heartbreaking reality of extreme weight loss. This is the story of millions of women and, indeed, many men who are overwhelmed by impossible standards imposed through advertising, movies, celebrity culture, social media, and even our own friends and family. 
 
With the widespread availability of weight loss medication, like Ozempic and Mounjaro, we can choose to be thin for the first time in history. No one knows for sure what the medical or social consequences will be. 
 
Now, Elna Baker's searing memoir offers a roadmap to understand the devastating impact of weight loss. This is the story of how, after decades of undoing, Elna Baker finally got her body back.

Pretty for a Day

Chris Smalls

In the early days of the Covid pandemic, warehouse worker Chris Smalls and his colleagues continued showing up as the rest of the world was shutting down. A dedicated and experienced Amazon employee, increasingly frustrated by the inner workings of the retail giant, Smalls had already felt himself reaching breaking point. So when coworkers around him began falling ill, and with no assurances of safety coming from those at the top, he made the only choice left available to him. He staged a walkout with friend Derrick Palmer, eventually finding himself on the picket line without a job. 
 
What began as a demand to keep essential employees safe in a crisis would grow into a movement devoted to achieving dignity and security for the wage worker, triggering a groundswell of organizers at the most notable companies across America – including Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and Apple – and leading to lasting change for workers’ rights. 
 
When the Revolution Comes is the riveting inside story of how a young Black man from Hackensack, NJ with little-to-no resources led a scrappy band of Staten Island warehouse workers in an improbable fight against Amazon – and won. An epic David-and-Goliath tale, a searing exposé and a terrifying depiction of what it’s like to be working class in America today, this book tells a new, empowering story of what is possible when the overworked, underpaid and disempowered join together, a movement born in community.

When the Revolution Comes

John Robins

John Robins is a critically acclaimed stand-up comedian, Taskmaster champion, and an award-winning broadcaster. He is also an alcoholic.But what does that mean? What is an alcoholic? 
In Thirst, John tells the story of his life through the lens of alcohol, the drinks that made him, and those that broke him. From his earliest drinking experiences – pretending to be drunk after a sip of champagne aged five, spraying aftershave into his mouth at the school play afterparty, and university nights spent downing red wine alone in his room – to his last drink in 2022 and the journey into sobriety that followed, John explores our relationship with alcohol through reflections on decades of his own drinking.From hazy memory to sudden clarity he sheds light on subjects from mental health to friendship, from creativity to the lies we tell ourselves, and answers questions such as: are alcoholics born or made? How can we make sense of youthful missteps? And can Buddhism provide relief when dealing with haemorrhoids? 
Filled with insights and epiphanies from the world of addiction and recovery, Thirst blends John’s trademark raw honesty and hilarious digressions with the collective wisdom of alcoholics and those around them to offer a compelling, powerful and morbidly funny narrative for anyone who has ever asked 'why do we drink?', 'why do I drink?' or 'do I drink too much?'.

Thirst

Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life

Daniel Lavelle

Chasing Aliens

Faith and Conspiracy in the UFO Heartlands

Robert Moor

In Trees is a wondrous, curious journey through the wilds of nature and the gnarls of history, exploring how trees – from the mightiest sequoia to the tiniest bonsai – can teach us to grow wise. 
 
One day, on a whim, Robert Moor set out to climb a tree near his home, unwittingly embarking on what would become a decade-long, globe-spanning adventure in trees. From Darwin to Attenborough, Brecht to Wordsworth, cutting-edge scientists and Zen monks and Bonsai artists, In Trees explores the fundamental and meaningful role of trees in the natural world. 
 
From Ethiopia and Papua to the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Lake District, bestselling author Robert Moor uncovers the hidden art of 'tree-thinking', a powerful tool for approaching humanity's oldest questions: What is the secret to growing old well? How do we set down deeper roots in an increasingly chaotic world? And most importantly, how should we – as individuals, as communities, as stewards of the Earth – live? 
 
Weaving together history, ecology, philosophy, neuroscience, mythology, literature, and the abstract qualities of identity, belonging and memory, In Trees shares extraordinary stories of how trees have become embedded in our culture, lifestyle and imagination for centuries, becoming the key to almost everything on our planet. 
 
What began as an ode to the miracle of trees blossoms into a joyous, daring, fiercely hopeful endeavour that reveals . . . To truly grasp the wisdom of a tree, you need to begin thinking like one.

In Trees

Bryony Gordon

“You’re so desperate to make everybody else happy that you’ve forgotten what makes you happy. You’ve not just forgotten it, you’ve abandoned it, on a bonfire full of all your other hopes and dreams. A bonfire you’re too scared to light in case the neighbours report you to the council.” 
 
--- 
 
Olivia Greenwood has been trying very hard to please people for a very long time. 
 
But today is going to change Olivia in a big way. A soul-crushing career disappointment, a fiery young woman with a chip on her shoulder and a cigarette in her hand, and one single blue hallucinogenic gummy all lead to a raucous night out and one hell of a hangover. And when Olivia wakes up the next morning, it seems she’s unable to please anyone but HERSELF. 
 
So who actually is Olivia Greenwood, when she’s not trying to be what everyone else wants her to be?

People Pleaser

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.

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