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

A. Igoni Barrett

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

A. J. A. Symons

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

A. J. Liebling

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

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

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

A. O. Scott

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

A. S. Byatt

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

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

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

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

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

A.E. Waite

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

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A.J. Cronin

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

A.K.Benedict

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

A.L. Kennedy

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

A.M. Ellis

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

A.N. Wilson

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

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

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

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

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

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

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

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

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Wendy Holden

Haatchi and Little B tells the inspiring and moving true story of Owen Howkins (also known as Little B, short for 'Buddy') and Haatchi, an Anatolian shepherd dog who was abandoned on a railway line as a puppy and left for dead. 
 
Thankfully, Haatchi was rescued, despite sustaining severe injuries. And so Haatchi, in turn, was able to rescue Owen, at the time an anxious and withdrawn little boy born with a rare genetic disorder, who found it hard to make friends. But Owen fell in love with his new three-legged canine housemate at first sight, and life would never be the same. 
 
The touching story of this dynamic and loveable duo is a life-affirming tale of happiness and friendship.

Haatchi and Little B

Martin Windrow

‘Perched on the back of a sunlit chair was something about 9 inches tall and shaped rather like a plump toy penguin with a nose-job. It appeared to be wearing a one-piece knitted jumpsuit of pale grey fluff with brown stitching, complete with an attached balaclava helmet. From the face-hole of the fuzzy balaclava, two big, shiny black eyes gazed up at me trustfully. Kweep, it said quietly.’ 
 
When author Martin Windrow met the tawny owlet that he christened Mumble, it was love at first sight. Raising her from a fledgling, through adolescence and into her prime years, Windrow recorded every detail of their time living together (secretly) in a south London tower block, and later in a Sussex village. This is the touching, intriguing and eccentric story of their 15-year relationship, complete with photographs and illustrations of the beautiful Mumble. Along the way, we are given fascinating insight into the ornithology of owls – from their evolution and biology to their breeding habits and hunting tactics. The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar is a witty, quirky and utterly charming account of the companionship between one man and his owl.

The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar

Richard Preston

COMING TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ON 27 MAY 2019 
_________ 
 
In March 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported. By October 2014, it had become the largest and deadliest occurrence of the disease. 
 
 Over 4,500 people have died. Almost 10,000 cases have been reported, across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the United States. 
 
 Impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone is the terrifying, true-life account of when this highly infectious virus spread from the rainforests of Africa to the suburbs of Washington, D.C in 1989. A secret SWAT team of soldiers and scientists were quickly tasked with halting the outbreak. And they did. But now, that very same virus is back. And we could be just one wrong move away from a pandemic.

The Hot Zone

The Chilling True Story of an Ebola Outbreak

Hilary Jones

Have you ever wondered why it takes so long to get out of bed in the morning? And why you always wake up bursting for a pee? Why that small blackhead has erupted into a hideous red spot overnight? And why stepping into a hot shower gives you goose bumps? 
 
Following an average family and their daily routine, Dr Hilary Jones takes you on a bold and captivating journey through the human body, answering these questions and hundreds more. 
 
From how our bodies function to why they react in certain ways, Dr Hilary tackles the questions that matter and examines what makes us tick. Fascinating and highly entertaining, A Day in Your Life reveals the incredible nature of the human body.

A Day in Your Life

24 Hours Inside the Human Body

Novak Djokovic

'A remarkable book' The Independent 
'... a revelatory read.' The Guardian 
 
What readers are saying: 
 
***** 'A lot more than just the diet Djokovic follows. It's about his whole approach to life' 
***** 'Revolutionised my diet. A year on, I feel like a different person and much healthier' 
 
In Serve to Win, Djokovic recounts how he survived the bombing of Belgrade, rising from a war-torn childhood to the top tier of his sport. He also reveals the diet that transformed his health and pushed him to the pinnacle. 
 
While Djokovic loved and craved bread, pasta and the pizza from his family's restaurant, he discovered that his body couldn't process wheat. 
 
A player once plagued by aches, breathing difficulties and injuries on court suddenly became the number-one tennis player in the world simply by changing what he ate. Eliminating gluten made him feel instantly better, clearer, lighter and quicker. His new physical health and mental focus enabled him to achieve his two childhood dreams: to win Wimbledon and to be ranked the world's number-one tennis player. 
 
He has gone on to win 22 Grand Slams, crediting his diet with making this possible. 
 
Djokovic challenges you to try his way of eating for just 14 days. He provides weekly menus and easy-to-prepare recipes that will help you lose weight and find your way to a better you. You don't need to be a professional athlete to start living and feeling better. A trimmer, stronger, healthier you is just two weeks away.

Serve To Win

Novak Djokovic’s life story with diet, exercise and motivational tips

Samantha Mooney

A Snowflake in My Hand is Samantha Mooney’s heartwarming account of the many years she spent working at New York City’s famous Animal Centre. 
In this unforgettable story, Samantha recalls the work of a dedicated team of professionals who, faced with tragic cases of abandonment and often incurable illness among the animals they cared for, somehow managed to find both companionship and laughter in that caring. As she looks back on how the centre became a sanctuary of hope where miracles sometimes happened, she also remembers one special, tiny black cat called Fledermaus who captured her heart and showed her the risks and the rewards of daring to love again.

A Snowflake In My Hand

Jesse Bering

Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does ‘free will’ really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway? 
 
Research psychologist and award-winning columnist Jesse Bering takes readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behaviour. Exploring the history of cannibalism, the neurology of people who are sexually attracted to animals, the evolution of human body fluids, the science of homosexuality and serious questions about life and death, Bering boldly goes where no science writer has gone before. 
 
With his characteristic irreverence and trademark cheekiness, Bering leaves no topic unturned or curiosity unexamined, and he does it all with an audaciously original voice. Whether you’re interested in the psychological history behind the many facets of sexual desire or the evolutionary patterns that have dictated our current phallic physique, Why Is The Penis Shaped Like That? is bound to create lively discussion and debate for years to come.

Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?

Ben Fogle

For as long as he can remember, Ben Fogle has been surrounded by creatures great and small. As a young boy his best friends were Liberty and Lexington, the family dogs. Then there was Milly the puma-sized cat, Jaws the goldfish and three very ‘charismatic’ parrots, not to mention a whole host of weird and wonderful animals that came through the doors of his father’s veterinary practice. 
 
Then came Inca, Ben’s adorable black Labrador, who changed his life. Since first melting the nation’s heart on Castaway, the duo have been inseparable. With Inca’s help, Ben was soon charming worms and tickling trout on Countryfile, minding the big cats on Animal Park and fronting the BBC’s coverage of Crufts. 
 
Ben’s passion for wildlife has taken him all over the world, from the plains of Africa to the sea ice of Antarctica. He has played with penguins, been chased by bull elephant seals and tapirs, and helped operate on a cheetah. He has given mud packs to rhinos, bathed with elephants and risked life and limb diving with Nile crocodiles, all the while campaigning tirelessly for conservation, the environment and animal welfare. 
 
Hair-raising, heart-breaking and wildly entertaining, The Accidental Naturalist tells the extraordinary true stories of Ben’s amazing encounters with animals and how they changed his life.

The Accidental Naturalist

Mark Henderson

Whether we want to improve education or cut crime, to enhance public health or to generate clean energy, we need the experimental methods of science - the best tool humanity has yet developed for working out what works. Yet from the way we're governed to the news we're fed by the media we're let down by a lack of understanding and respect for its insights and evidence. In The Geek Manifesto Mark Henderson explains why and how we need to entrench scientific thinking more deeply into every aspect of our society. A new movement is gathering. Let's turn it into a force our leaders cannot ignore. 
This edition includes an appendix: 'A Geek Manifesto for America' by David Dobbs.

The Geek Manifesto

Why science matters

Cleveland Amory

Once upon a time, on a cold and frosty Christmas Eve night, a bedraggled white cat called Polar Bear wandered into Cleveland Amory’s life and won his heart. This remarkable, much-loved cat went on to become the focus of Cleveland’s classic bestseller, The Cat Who Came for Christmas. 
 
The Cat Who Stayed for Christmas continues the true story of Cleveland and Polar Bear as they embark upon exciting adventures whilst continuing to stubbornly guard their territory and engage in hilarious battles of will. 
 
Full of unexpected delights, and written with warmth and humour, The Cat Who Stayed for Christmas recounts the many escapades of Polar Bear and the man he owns.

The Cat Who Stayed For Christmas

Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem, icon of the women's liberation movement, is a co-founder of Ms magazine and author of the bestselling Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions.Revealing her own long quest for self-esteem, she explores the nature of this quality, showing how crippling a lack of it can be, and how recapturing it can transform our lives.Too many of us lose our sense of self-worth early on.Girls are especially vulnerable, often turning from free spirits into 'female impersonators' by adolescence.Gloria Steinem describes how, by returning to her childhood self through techniques such as imagery, guided meditation and artistic expression, she rediscovered the strong, secure person every one of us is born to be.She states reassuringly that anyone can heal the inner child of the past through these and other means, and inspires us with case histories of people who came to know how valuable they are.

The Revolution From Within

Johnny Kingdom

There are few people better acquainted with the West Country than Johnny Kingdom. His knowledge of local wildlife is second to none, but he's also a fount of knowledge when it comes to all the old stories that get passed down from generation to generation. West Country Tales is a charming collection of these local myths and legends, interwoven with many more anecdotes from Johnny himself and his forbears and friends. 
The atmospheric West Country landscape lends itself perfectly to dramatic tales of eerie hauntings and ghostly happenings, daring smugglers and dashing highwaymen, and many have heard of - or might even have seen - the modern-day legend that is the Beast of Exmoor. But what about the Flying Fish of Exmoor, a slippery catch of Johnny's that sailed up and over a bridge into the back seat of a passing open-top car, never to be seen again? 
Gently humorous and wonderfully evocative, it's only a matter of time before some of Johnny's own tales weave their way into West Country lore.

Johnny Kingdom's West Country Tales

Imogen Edwards-Jones

Hospital Babylon is an in-depth, amusing and highly insightful expose of the extraordinary world of modern medicine. It will take the reader on a journey through the various departments and wards where babies are made, thighs are reduced, noses straightened and spare kidneys are flown in from the Indian subcontinent. 
 
We will meet doctors who sleep with nurses. Doctors who sleep with patients. Doctors who fiddle their insurance forms. Doctors who suck fat, pump up breasts, plump lips and lengthen penises. The doctor who specialises in flatulence. The doctor who shoots up before he operates. Doctor Feelgood who will give you anything and everything you need. As well as the doctor who makes a fortune doing buttock enlargements in the Caribbean. En route, we will discover what touches them, what amuses them and quite how obsessively insane you have to be to make it to the top. 
 
Why does a private room cost over £1000 a night? Who are the people changing your bedpan? Holding your hand as you go to sleep? What do they do to you while you're out cold? Why are drugs so expensive? How easy is it for the pharmaceutical companies to grease the good doctor's palm? Who exactly is profiting from your illness, embarrassing affliction or brand new nose? And, of course, what happens when it all goes wrong? 
 
Packed with true stories, anecdotes and revelations, Hospital Babylon is a riveting, entertaining and shocking look at 24 hours in the life of a hospital. Both amusing and appalling, it will make you question whether you should sign that consent form after all...

Hospital Babylon

Ben Fogle's life has been action-packed to say the least. He has rowed across the Atlantic, walked to the South Pole, run the Sahara and ice-skated across Sweden. He has encountered isolated tribes in deepest Papua New Guinea, caused a Boeing 747 to dump £100k of fuel before making an emergency landing in Sao Paolo, and frequently been mistaken for Prince William along the way. 
 
So how did a cripplingly shy, geeky, perennially homesick boy end up doing all this? Ben's still not entirely sure himself, but this wonderful book tells his story and will strike a chord with anyone puzzling about life, and how to live it differently. 
 
This is a book about defying expectations, conquering fears, battling laziness and, just occasionally, winning.

The Accidental Adventurer

The true story of my wilderness years

Kate McCann

'The decision to publish this book has been very difficult, and taken with heavy hearts ... My reason for writing it is simple: to give an account of the truth ... Writing this memoir has entailed recording some very personal, intimate and emotional aspects of our lives. Sharing these with strangers does not come easily to me, but if I hadn't done so I would not have felt the book gave as full a picture as it is possible for me to give. As with every action we have taken over the last five years, it ultimately boils down to whether what we are doing could help us to find Madeleine. When the answer to that question is yes, or even possibly, our family can cope with anything ... Nothing is more important to us than finding our little girl.' 
 
Kate McCann

Madeleine

Our daughter's disappearance and the continuing search for her

Cleveland Amory first met the bedraggled Polar Bear in a New York alley one snowy Christmas Eve. From the moment Cleveland rescued the starving and injured cat a special bond began to form between the damaged animal and the bachelor journalist who preferred dogs. This is the story of their first year together, the story of a stray cat with a mind of his own, and the curmudgeonly man who grew to love him. 
 
If you have ever owned a cat, or been owned by one, you will recognize the delight in the journey that followed this Christmas Eve encounter. From Polar Bear's fitness programme to their trip to Hollywood and the funny and touching conversations Cleveland and his stubborn little friend share, this is a heart-warming tale of feline and human nature that any animal lover can enjoy all year round.

The Cat Who Came For Christmas

Tom Hart Dyke

Tom Hart Dyke has a bit of a thing about plants. You might call it an obsession. You might call him certifiable, in fact. But it's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ramshackle country estate and an obsession with plant collecting could want for only one thing - in Tom's case it's a walled garden containing examples of plants collected from every corner of the globe. 
 
Tom's infectious enthusiasm for anything with chlorophyll in it and the hugely ambitious World Garden project he has undertaken at his family home, Lullingstone Castle, in Kent have been documented in a 12-part television series for BBC 2. The first six parts (Save Lullingstone Castle) were shown in spring 2006, and the second six episodes (Return to Lullingstone Castle) in spring 2007. 
 
Tom's attempts to set up the World Garden aren't exactly straightforward. You might imagine, for example, that the easiest way to start preparing the ground inside the walled Elizabethan garden which he transforms into the main part of the world garden would be to enlist the help of a few people and a lot of hard digging. Well not for Tom, who enlists instead two large pigs, who do indeed do a great job of turning over the earth and fertilising it with great organic manure. But the problem is that they keep escaping into the Hart Dyke family burial plot next door where they start digging up Tom's ancestors... 
 
The World Garden is created to bring together a truly amazing collection of plants from every continent and so to show the global origins of the plants we all grow in our gardens. It's already establishing itself as a tourist attraction of some note as well as an educational resource. 
 
This is a book for all those who bought Tim Smit's Lost Gardens of Heligan. It's stuffed full of fascinating botanical information as well as the story of Tom's hapless struggle to overcome huge logistical nightmares. It's a riveting, hilarious story of English eccentricity in full bloom.

An Englishman's Home

The Adventures of an Eccentric Gardener

Wendy Stehling

THE INSPIRATIONAL NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 
 
Based on the very latest diet and fitness research, this classic New York Times bestseller is fast, fun and effective - and in three simple steps it shows you how you can have the super sexy, thin thighs you've always wanted... 
 
THE WORK OFF 
Whatever your level of fitness, here you will find proven exercises, and stretch and tone programme that packs a punch in terms of its fat-busting, muscle-toning power... 
 
THE WALK OFF 
Discover all-important tips on how to make every step count. There's even an interval-training component to help you get more bang for your exercise buck! 
 
THE WEIGHT OFF 
A simple diet plan, up-to-the-minute nutritional advice, will help you to maximize your exercise programme and reach your goal. 
 
Fully illustrated and complete with a set of diaries to help you to keep on track, this bestselling diet and exercise programme provides all you need to achieve your ultimate dream - Thin Thighs in 30 Days.

Thin Thighs in 30 Days

Danielle Steel

This is the story of an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind, a heart of gold and a tortured soul.' 
 
From the day he was born, Nick Traina was his mother's joy. By nineteen, he was dead. This is Danielle Steel's powerful story of the son she lost and the lessons she learned during his courageous battle against darkness. Sharing tender, painful memories, Steel brings us a haunting duet between and singular young man and the mother who loved him - and a harrowing portrait of a masked killer called manic depression. 
 
Nick rocketed through life like a shooting star. He spoke in full sentences at the age of one. He was a brilliant, charming child who never slept. His gift for writing was extraordinary, his musical talent promised a golden future. But by the time he entered junior high, he was hurtling towards disaster. His mother tried desperately to get him the help he needed - the opening salvos for what would become a ferocious battle for his life. 
 
At once a loving legacy and an unsparing depiction of a devastating illness, Danielle Steel's tribute to her lost son is a gift of life, hope, healing and understanding to us all. 'I want to share the story, and the pain, the courage, the love, and what I learned in living through it...My hope is that someone will be able to use what we learned, and save a life with it'

His Bright Light

Les Pringle

Exploding pressure cookers, a thwarted wife's deadly revenge and transvestites in distress - manning an ambulance in the seventies kept you on your toes. 
 
Having survived the rites of passage as a probationer, Les Pringle now has to face up to the reality of life as an ambulance man in Thatcher's Britain. He does this with humour and fortitude - two qualities which are essential if he is to cope with cases ranging from the absurd to the heart rending. 
 
From attending murder scenes to delivering babies ... it's quite a life for Les, and one that he and his shift mates tread with warmth and humour in equal measure.

Call the Ambulance!

For Dr Hilary Jones, the question 'What's up doc?' has been asked of him ever since he qualified as a doctor at the Royal Free hospital in London over thirty years ago. 
 
As a junior medic patients used to ask him 'What's up?' when he prodded their bellies for signs of appendicitis. On the GMTV sofa presenters ask him 'What's up?' with the latest actress who has developed the typical tell-tale signs of anorexia nervosa. In the tabloid newspapers he's asked to comment on what's up with the premier league footballer who purports to suffer from sex addiction.On the radio he's asked 'What's up?' with the health of society in general, suffering as it does from epidemics of obesity and binge drinking. 
 
On a more everyday basis, in the GP surgery people ask him about unexplained lumps in their neck, or whether a pigmented mole is suspicious. Colleagues at work stop him in the corridor and say 'Can I just ask you about my child's leukaemia' or 'My mum's dementia?' At dinner parties people ask him about their haemorrhoids, or in pubs on the various merits of vasectomy. He's even been approached by complete strangers in dimly lit streets eager to hear his take on methadone and whether or not the NHS should freely supply it. 
 
And they ask him what Lorraine Kelly is really like, of course...

What's Up Doc?

Bryan Sykes

Genetically speaking, the only difference between men and women is that where women have two X chromosomes, men have one X and one Y. It is surprising that one chromosome difference out of our total of forty-six can have such an important consequence, but it does. Is this relatively small genetic variance really sufficient to explain the huge differences between the sexes, not just the physical but the psychological, social, even cultural? 
 
Drawing on his own work at the forefront of modern genetics and the exciting theories of evolutionary biology, Bryan Sykes explores the mysteries of the science of sex and gender, and takes a scientific look at what makes men tick. He addresses the most basic issues of why there are only two sexes in humans and, even, why there is sex at all. He also raises more far-reaching questions, such as: Is there a genetic cause for men's greed, aggression and promiscuity? Is there such a thing as the male homosexual gene? And what do genes tell us about the future for men? 
 
Sykes's conclusions will surprise some people and are bound to cause controversy. The all-important male Y chromosome is getting smaller and, as the generations pass, the female genome is taking over as it cannibalizes parts of the Y chromosome. Women are winning the evolutionary battle of the sexes. The shocking conclusion is that men, slowly but surely, are headed for extinction.

Adam's Curse

A Future Without Men

John Sulston

Georgina Ferry

John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists. Despite innumerable setbacks and challenges from outside competitors the ultimate success of the project can be attributed in large part to John Sulston's own determination, passion and scientific excellence. 
 
In this personal account he takes us behind the scenes of one of the largest international scientific operations ever undertaken. He is frank about the competition with Craig Venter and Celera Genomics, which threatened to undermine the international community's attempts to make the sequence freely available to everyone. He shares with us his excitement as the project unfolded. And as a pragmatist he reveals his hopes and concerns as to how the information unlocked by the Human Genome Project will affect people's lives in the future. 
 
The Common Thread is at once a compelling history of this most exciting of scientific breakthroughs and also an impassioned call for ethical responsibility in scientific research. As the boundaries between science and big business increasingly blur, and researchers race to patent medical discoveries, the international community needs to find a common protocol for the protection of the wider human interest. The Common Thread tells a story of our shared human heritage, offering hope for future research and a fresh outlook on our scientific understanding of ourselves.

The Common Thread

Charlie Elder

Armed with a field guide and a half-decent pair of binoculars, Charlie Elder travels the length and breadth of the British Isles to spot forty bird species in serious decline - the UK's Red List. He looks at why their numbers have fallen, what efforts are being made to encourage their recoveries and meets experts and enthusiasts who are working to make a difference. 
 
He also examines just why birds matter in the first place and considers the role of the birdwatcher - one species that is certainly not in decline.

While Flocks Last

Neil Barrett

Nearly every week the headlines of national newspapers shout allegations about the latest credit card fraud, internet paedophile, or major corporations whose computers have been hacked. But what people may not realize is that the nature of computer crime is becoming even more sophisticated. In the same way that all of us use computers increasingly in our business and personal lives, so too are criminals using computers, not just to commit high-tech offences, but to plan, research and co-ordinate a wide variety of crimes. The role computers play in crime, and in particular the detection and prosecution of crime has never been as significant as it is today. 
 
In a gripping true-life detective story, ex-hacker and now one of the UK's leading crime experts Neil Barrett guides us into a world where the seemingly innocuous computer screen can provide a window into the mind of even the most hardened criminal. Through some of his own high profile cases, Barrett shows us the cutting edge of modern crime. It is a dimly-lit world where hackers pit their wits, man to man, with the police experts and where the digital detective is the latest and best weapon in the police arsenal.

Traces Of Guilt

Simon Singh

Edzard Ernst

Welcome to the world of alternative medicine. 
 
Prince Charles is a staunch defender and millions of people swear by it; most UK doctors consider it to be little more than superstition and a waste of money. But how do you know which treatments really heal and which are potentially harmful? 
 
Now at last you can find out, thanks to the formidable partnership of Professor Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh. Edzard Ernst is the world's first professor of complementary medicine, based at Exeter University, where he has spent over a decade analysing meticulously the evidence for and against alternative therapies.He is supported in his findings by Simon Singh, the well-known and highly respected science writer of several international bestsellers. 
 
Together they have written the definitive book on the subject. It is honest, impartial but hard-hitting, and provides a thorough examination and judgement of more than thirty of the most popular treatments, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic and herbal medicine.In Trick or Treatment? the ultimate verdict on alternative medicine is delivered for the first time with clarity, scientific rigour and absolute authority.

Trick or Treatment?

Alternative Medicine on Trial

When a farmer on Exmoor found a frightened and badly injured red deer calf hanging by the leg from a barbed wire fence, he knew there was only one man he could call. Johnny Kingdom took Bambi home and became her surrogate mother, nursing her through the night after the dangerous operation to amputate her now infected limb. 
 
Against the odds, Bambi survived and, as she grew bigger, became a part of Johnny's family, taking over his garden and developing a taste for custard creams (and Johnny's wife's roses). But it wasn't just Johnny and his family who loved Bambi - friends, neighbours and even complete strangers would occasionally drop by with tasty treats they thought she might enjoy. But the doe in his back garden was by no means Johnny's only contact with the red deer of Exmoor. Over the years he followed the wild herds over moor and farmland as the seasons changed, filming every detail of their lives and trying to understand what Bambi was missing out on. 
 
Millions of viewers fell in love with Bambi during Johnny's BBC television series and accompanying book, but now he tells her full story. Sometimes poignant and sometimes hilarious, this is both the tale of all of Exmoor's wild deer and the story of how one very special animal came to live a very different life.

Bambi and Me

Ronald L Mallett

Bruce Henderson

Ron Mallett was just 10 when his father died suddenly. Devastated, he found solace in the science fiction of H.G. Wells, believing that if he could build a time machine, he could go back into the past, warn his father and perhaps save his life. 
Ronald Mallett is now a professor of theoretical physics. Remarkably, this working-class African American boy from the Bronx stuck with his vision, overcoming poverty and prejudice in the pursuit of his obsession. This is the story of his extraordinary journey of self- and scientific discovery. With simple language and elegant metaphor he lays out his theories and presents the reader with what is an actual blue print for a time machine.A dramatic and compelling memoir, it is also a brilliant introduction to a riveting but generally baffling subject, and a truly inspirational account of astonishing achievement.

The Time Traveller

One Man's Mission To Make Time Travel A Reality

Deric Longden

Deric's gentle tales of life in Huddersfield with his wife Aileen and their menagerie of playful cats have won him thousands of loyal fans. And after a few years break Deric returns with the latest, and eagerly awaited, instalment of his memoirs. 
 
Deric is getting on a bit now and so are his cats. Life chez-Longden has adjusted to a slower pace, but everyday is still full of opportunities for the sort of mischief, mishaps and adventures that come with sharing your house and life with a troop of small cats with big personalities. 
 
Paws in the Proceedings has all of Deric's trademark charm, homespun wisdom and gentle wit. His remarkable eye for the humorous detail and the keen observation are very much in evidence, and this is another comic gem that will delight Deric's loyal fans and bring him to a bigger audience than ever before.

Paws In The Proceedings

Bryan Sykes, the world's first genetic archaeologist, takes us on a journey around the family tree of Britain and Ireland, to reveal how our tribal history still colours the country today. 
 
In 54BC Julius Caesar launched the first Roman invasion of Britain. His was the first detailed account of the Celtic tribes that inhabited the Isles. But where had they come from and how long had they been there? When the Romans eventually left five hundred years later, they were succeeded by invasions of Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Did these successive invasions obliterate the genetic legacy of the Celts, or have very little effect? 
 
After two decades tracing the genetic origins of peoples from all over the world, Bryan Sykes has now turned the spotlight on his own back yard. In a major research programme, the first of its kind, he set out to test the DNA of over 10,000 volunteers from across Britain and Ireland with the specific aim of answering this very question: what is our modern genetic make-up and what does it tell us of our tribal past? Are the modern people of the Isles a delicious genetic cocktail? Or did the invaders keep mostly to themselves forming separate genetic layers within the Isles? 
 
As his findings came in, Bryan Sykes discovered that the genetic evidence revealed often very different stories to the conventional accounts coming from history and archaeology. Blood of the Isles reveals the nature of our genetic make-up as never before and what this says about our attitudes to ourselves, each other, and to our past. It is a gripping story that will fascinate and surprise with its conclusions.

Blood of the Isles

A Private Thriller

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

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

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

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