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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Lindsey Burrow

The life-affirming, No.1 bestselling memoir of Lindsey Burrow, the working mother of three young children who has inspired the nation through her selfless commitment to husband Rob Burrow (CBE), the rugby league legend she cared for throughout his heroic battle with motor neurone disease (MND). 
 
A Pride of Britain Award Winner 
 
Take Care: A Memoir of Love, Family & Never Giving Up explores the deepest reserves of resilience, personal sacrifice and hope that Lindsey Burrow exhibited on a daily basis when her family’s life was upended by the terminal MND diagnosis. Juggling her day job for the NHS as a physiotherapist, with round-the-clock care for Rob, who couldn’t move or talk, and could only eat with Lindsey’s assistance, she simultaneously raised her brilliant young family and helped to raise awareness for MND. The efforts of Rob, Lindsey and Kevin Sinfield have raised over £15 million for charity. 
 
In 2024, Lindsey presented her debut ITV1 documentary, ‘Who Cares for Our Carers?’ which highlighted the emotional and practical hardships faced by thousands of her fellow unpaid carers, whose hidden work is worth an estimated £162bn a year in the UK, the equivalent of another NHS. Told in Lindsey’s characteristically humble, charming and inspirational style, Take Care explores her life and shares her honest experiences of finding strength in the good and the bad times, in order to offer readers and families hope to overcome challenges in their own lives. The book sheds a light on the many families across the UK who care for their loved ones with little support. Finally, the book is a rousing call to action, for us all as a society to take better care of one another.

Take Care

A Memoir of Love, Family & Never Giving Up

Herman Pontzer

As an evolutionary anthropologist conducting ground-breaking research with human populations around the globe, Herman Pontzer has come to see much more clearly how our genes and environments combine to shape our bodies and our health: for better or worse. In this book, he takes us on a tour of the human body and the surprising ways it can change in response to its environment: from the Andean groups who have developed increased lung capacity to the Sama divers who have larger spleens. He also highlights the critical ways we misinterpret biological adaptations: from healthcare, race and IQ to sex and gender. 
 
With so much of our wellbeing and public discourse centred on human biology, a clear understanding of the distinction between socially constructed and genetic differences is more important than ever. This timely reappraisal of an overlooked science is an essential guide to our remarkable bodies.

Adaptable

The Surprising Science of Human Diversity

Alice Mah

'Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations.' 
 
Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their home villages in China to sweep the tombs of their ancestors, making offerings of food and incense to prevent them from becoming hungry ghosts that could cause misfortune. Yet for the past century, a time ruptured by war and revolution, many tombs have been left unattended. Following a record year of wildfires, Alice Mah returns to her family’s rice village in South China, and discovers that her ancestors are almost forgotten, and there are no tombs left to sweep. Instead, there are incalculable clan debts to be paid. 
 
Here Mah chronicles her journey from the rice villages of South China to her home in post-industrial England, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she grew up, to the isles and industry of Scotland where she now lives. As years pass and fires rage on, she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors’ neglected graves. Her research on pollution gives way to growing eco-anxiety, culminating in a crisis of spiritual belief. 
 
A haunting blend of memoir, cultural history and environmental exploration, Red Pockets confronts the hungry ghosts of our neglected ancestors, while searching for an acceptable offering. What do we owe to past and future generations? What do we owe to the places that we inhabit?

Red Pockets

An Offering

Leor Zmigrod

Why do some people become radicalized? Who is most susceptible to ideological thinking? Can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas? 
 
Drawing on her groundbreaking research, Dr Leor Zmigrod uncovers the hidden mechanisms driving our beliefs and behaviours. She uses the powerful tools of neuroscience to show that our political beliefs are not transient thoughts in our minds, divorced from our bodies – ideologies actually change our neural architecture, our cells. For instance, she demonstrates how a simple card sorting game can reveal your entire approach to life. Cognitive rigidity in such tasks – struggling to adapt to new rules – mirrors the rigidity with which you cling to social and political ideologies. While some individuals are more susceptible to dogmatic thinking than others, all of us can strive to be more flexible. 
 
The Ideological Brain is essential reading in today’s polarized and polarizing world. To foster a more informed, resilient and freer society, we need to zoom into the processes happening inside each of us and learn to spot rigid thinking in ourselves and others. We need to learn to avoid black-and-white thinking and embrace ambiguity. We need to recognize our ability to resist irrational rules and authority. Regardless of your political stance, this book will challenge you to reassess your convictions – and what they are doing to your brain.

The Ideological Brain

How Rigid Beliefs Harm Our Minds & Bodies – And Why It Matters

A Radical Science of Susceptible Minds

Stephen J. Dubner

Steven D. Levitt

Which is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool? Why do drug dealers still live with their mums? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. 
 
Freakonomics is the groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and award-winning journalist Stephen J. Dubner, that turns the conventional wisdom of economics on is head. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives — how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. 
 
From parenting to crime, sport to politics, fear to traffic jams, asking provocative and profound questions about human motivation, Freakonomics will make you see the familiar world through a completely original lens.

Freakonomics

A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Alison Wood Brooks

Conversation is at the heart of our relationships and decision-making - but the science behind our everyday interactions, and how to improve them, is little known. 
 
In Talk, Harvard Professor Alison Wood Brooks provides fascinating insights into the power of effective communication. She gives you the tools that her MBA students say transform their lives, bringing together psychology, linguistics, sociology and neuroscience in her original framework: 
 
T – Topics – including the surprising impact of preparing topics before a conversation 
A – Asking – why we need to do more (and why we do less than we think) 
L – Levity – how to find the fun in conversations with anyone 
K – Kindness – how to be a better listener and not simply pretend to be one! 
 
Through her own original research, Brooks shows readers how small changes in how we communicate can make a big difference to our relationships, our careers and our lives.

Talk

The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves

Jason Allen-Paisant

The Possibility of Tenderness is a personal history narrated through the lens of the ‘grung’ and plants. It’s also a people’s history of the land, a family saga, an archival detective story through time. It’s the migration tale of a young scholar who arrives in Britain from rural Jamaica to study at Oxford to achieve ‘upward social mobility’ and who now lives in Roundhay Leeds. Suddenly, amidst his journey of dreams and class aspiration, the plants and people of his native district, Coffee Grove, begin to offer different ways of living, alternative dreams, and the possibility of tenderness and the permission to roam England. 
 
Marrying the local and the familial with global history and unfolding as a timely and immersive tale of land, environment, and the world of plants, The Possibility of Tenderness reveals how the history of a tiny rural village in a mountainous region of Jamaica is interlinked with that of modern Britain. And, also what that rural village can teach us about leisure, land ownership and reclamation today. 
 
Mama, the author’s grandmother, is a central protagonist of the story. Alongside her, herbalists, plant workers, farmers, and plant lovers help forge an intimate portrait of Coffee Grove, as do the plants themselves; fever grass, jointa, search mi heart, leaf of life, helping Allen-Paisant revise his sense of self and solidify a new understanding of his place in the world. 
 
The Possibility of Tenderness is a cross-pollinating book about the transformative power of plants, the legacy of dreams, and the lessons they offer for living with the earth.

The Possibility of Tenderness

A Jamaican memoir of plants and dreams

John Davidson

THE MUST-READ MEMOIR BEHIND THE MAJOR BAFTA AWARD-WINNING FILM, I SWEAR, STARRING ROBERT ARAMAYO. From the remarkable Scottish campaigner, this is the powerful and moving autobiography offering extraordinary insight into what it is like to live with a severe form of Tourette's Syndrome. 
 
'Funny and heartfelt ... this skilfully told tale deserves praise for how it lets us non-sweary people see inside the ordinary, albeit anxious, mind of someone with Tourette syndrome.' THE TIMES 
 
Born in the 1970s on the Scottish Borders, John’s was ten when his tics first arrived, as if from nowhere. Previously a happy, popular, football-mad boy he was labelled disruptive, rude, and even mad. As his condition progressed, from blinks and jerks to involuntary rude and obscene shouting, John was bullied, rejected - alienated from his family and a society that had no idea what to make of him. 
 
Hospitalized and drugged for months, it was only an extraordinary and transformative friendship, and John’s dogged optimism, that turned his life around, making I Swear an inspirational story of triumph over adversity. 
 
Through John’s eyes, we see Tourette’s not just as a medical condition, but as a lens through which we can all better understand the importance of human connection. And how essential, as well as ultimately rewarding, it can be to keep going and never give up.'An astonishing tale about an amazing man.' - JOJO MOYES, author of Me Before You and Someone Else's Shoes 
 
'This superb book is an engaging and fascinating account of what it's like to live with Tourette's.' DAILY MAIL 
 
'Brave, shocking, funny and moving ... This is a really important book.' RACHEL JOYCE, bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Homemade God

I Swear

My Life with Tourette’s

Diane Keaton

In her one-of-a-kind voice, Diane Keaton shares the wisdom she’s accumulated through the years as a mother, daughter, actress, artist, and international style icon. From a mortifying encounter with a makeup artist to an awkward excursion to Victoria’s Secret with her teenage daughter, Keaton reveals candid moments from her life in and out of the public eye. She recounts her experiences with the many men in her life—including Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Al Pacino—shows how our ideals of beauty change as we age, and explains why a life well lived may be the most beautiful thing of all.

Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty

Daniel Levitin

'Fascinating' OBSERVER 
'Essential' WALL STREET JOURNAL 
‘Intriguing’ GUARDIAN 
 
We are only just beginning to appreciate the healing power of music on our minds and bodies. Here, a neuroscientist and celebrated musician introduces a bold new paradigm for medical treatment. From explaining how ‘rhythmic auditory stimulation’ can fight multiple sclerosis, to examining why Tracy Chapman’s songs might just help cure PTSD, Professor Daniel Levitin explores how we can use music to repair our bodies and heal our deepest psychological wounds. The result is both a surprising tour through the science of music, and a joyful celebration of humanity’s oldest obsession.

Music as Medicine

How We Can Harness Its Therapeutic Power

Owen O'Kane

Anxiety is a normal and sometimes healthy process, but in a world that feels increasingly unsafe and unpredictable, many of us find ourselves in its grip far more than is comfortable or truly necessary. If you subconsciously believe that worrying or investing in your anxiety will keep you safe, it is easy to get unwittingly hooked on it. To break free of anxiety, you must break free from the underlying beliefs that you cling to and the cyclical thoughts that perpetuate it. Addicted to Anxiety will help you understand anxiety from the perspective of addiction, identifying your triggers and learning how to break your habits and actively replace them with new, more productive behaviours. It will put the power back in your own hands to live a calmer and less anxious life.

Addicted to Anxiety

Rangan Chatterjee

The Instant No.1 Bestseller 
 
'Even your first taste of this book’s practical, inviting and effective strategies for happiness will make you glad you did.' - from the foreword by Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks 
 
Happiness is a practice, not a destination. We often treat happiness as something to pursue, a reward we’ll reach once life is finally in order. But what if happiness is not an outcome, but a practice - the foundation that shapes how we meet each moment? 
 
Drawing on over twenty years as a doctor, Dr Rangan Chatterjee has seen that motivation and willpower rarely sustain us for long. True wellbeing only becomes possible when we learn to nurture what he calls core happiness - a steadier, more resilient form of joy that doesn’t depend on circumstances. 
 
In Happy Mind, Happy Life, Dr Chatterjee blends science, case studies, and simple exercises to show how small, daily choices ripple into lasting change. Through ten simple but profound ways, you’ll explore how to: 
<ul><li>Treat yourself with compassion and respect</li><li>Redesign your relationship with technology</li><li>Respond to criticism without being derailed</li></ul> 
This is not a manual for quick fixes, but an invitation to reimagine how you live - so that health, clarity, and contentment flow naturally into your days. 
 
Previously published as a trade paperback

Happy Mind, Happy Life

10 Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day

Adam Richardson

The Sunday Times bestseller 
 
Discover how mobility exercises and stretches can help you achieve a happier, healthier body for longer with this easy fitness guide! 
 
You're sitting like a prawn right now, aren't you? 
 
Mobility training is your secret weapon to building a body that lasts. It improves flexibility, strength, stamina, and posture - for life. Whether you're new to exercise or total gym buff, these quick and easy exercises will change your game. 
 
In How To Build a Body That Lasts, top fitness coach Adam Richardson shows how to work quick exercises into your daily routine - without having to find time for a full workout in your busy day. 
 
In this comprehensive and myth-busting book, Richardson lays out a roadmap to help you break free from stiffness and pain. Whether you want to tackle a stiff neck, sore back or tight hips, this book provides inclusive exercises for all ages, shapes and body sizes which can be done within the comfort of your own home - no fancy equipment or costly gym membership required. 
 
Unlock your body’s potential and rediscover the joy of movement with How To Build a Body That Lasts! 
 
*A Sunday Times bestseller - October 2024

How To Build a Body That Lasts

Exercises for Longevity, Strength and Health

Joseph Jebelli

We are constantly told to make the most of our time. Stop procrastinating. Optimise. To be happy, creative and successful requires discipline and focus. The most important thing is to be efficient with every precious hour. But when we let our brains rest, and our minds wander, something magical happens: the brain’s ’default network’ switches on, and suddenly we are able to think in completely new ways. 
 
Blending science and personal stories with practical tips, Dr Joseph Jebelli reveals how neuroscience is solving the mystery of the brain at rest, with profound implications for intelligence, creativity and even life expectancy. 
 
If we dare to break the taboo surrounding rest, we will find that long baths, walks in nature, meditation and simple daydreaming are the key to a happier, healthier – and ironically, more productive – life.

The Brain at Rest

Why doing nothing can change your life

Gemma Styles

Discover the inspiring, Sunday Times bestselling guide to navigating the unique pressures and anxieties of life today, from the award-winning Good Influence podcaster and MQ Mental Health ambassador 
 
'This book will help a lot of people feel understood and less alone.' Matt Haig, author of Reasons to Stay Alive 
‘A must-read’ ***** Reader review 
‘An honest and relatable read, which has made the topic of mental health accessible…Will be gifting my friends a copy’ ***** Reader review 
 
Why do I feel so overwhelmed? Is everyone else achieving more than me? Why did I say that embarrassing thing? What can I do to actually make a difference? 
Am I the only one who feels this way? 
 
In Why Am I Like This?, award-winning podcaster Gemma Styles captures the voice of her generation, giving words to those feelings so many of us struggle to explain. 
 
Drawing on her own experience with mental health issues and neurodivergence, Gemma paints a picture of mental health in the digital age, including her own journey and ADHD diagnosis, to highlight the ways in which mental health is often overlooked or trivialized. 
 
Featuring the insight of experts and the latest research, Gemma shows that by being curious and compassionate, we can start to feel more hopeful, connected and at peace with ourselves. 
 
Thought-provoking and heartening, this book is for anyone who feels overwhelmed, less than, or that they don't belong. 
 
Praise for Why Am I Like This?: 
‘Authentic and relatable, Gemma demystifies mental health and helps us feel less alone in our daily struggles.’ Bryony Gordon, author of Mad Woman 
‘An honest and reassuring take on mental health… I feel enlightened and better for reading it.’ Dawn O'Porter, author of Honey Bee 
'A warm, compassionate and digestible account of why our imperfect brains sometimes struggle with the demands of modern life.' Sunday Times 
‘Insightful and healing’ ***** Reader review 
‘Hard to put down…. Thank you Gemma for this amazing book. Highly recommended’ ***** Reader review 
‘Informative and comforting’ ***** Reader review

Why Am I Like This?

My Brain Isn’t Broken (and Neither Is Yours)

Gerald Durrell

A final posthumous work from the beloved conservationist and naturalist Gerald Durrell, to celebrate the centenary of his birth, with a new foreword by HRH Princess Anne. 
 
‘Gerald Durrell was magic’ SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH • ‘One of the finest and most lyrical nature writers in English’ OBSERVER 
 
Myself and Other Animals is a new book mosaicked from unpublished autobiographies, uncollected pieces and previously published extracts from Durrell’s work and archives. The result is an extraordinary journey through Durrell’s life in his own words, edited and introduced by his widow Lee Durrell. 
 
Drawing on a memoir that Durrell started writing before he became too ill to continue it, and an unfinished book from a trip to Australia in 1969 to the Great Barrier Reef, Northern Territory and Queensland, here is the unvarnished story of Durrell’s life, from touching family tributes to golden bats and pink pigeons. 
 
Moving from India to England and then to the always sun-lit Corfu, told with dry wit and insight into our fellow animals, here is the vivid finale of one of Britain’s most beloved conservationists and prose stylists.

Myself and Other Animals

Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston

Just as surgeons once believed pain was good for their patients, some argue today that death brings meaning to life. But given humans rarely live beyond a century – even while certain whales can thrive for over two hundred years – it’s hard not to see our biological limits as profoundly unfair. No wonder then that most people nearing death wish they still had more time. 
 
Yet, with ever-advancing science, will the ends of our lives always loom so close? For from ventilators to brain implants, modern medicine has been blurring what it means to die. In a lucid synthesis of current neuroscientific thinking, Zeleznikow-Johnston explains that death is no longer the loss of heartbeat or breath, but of personal identity – that the core of our identities is our minds, and that our minds are encoded in the structure of our brains. On this basis, he explores how recently invented brain preservation techniques now offer us all the chance of preserving our minds to enable our future revival. 
 
Whether they fought for justice or cured diseases, we are grateful to those of our ancestors who helped craft a kinder world – yet they cannot enjoy the fruits of the civilization they helped build. But if we work together to create a better future for our own descendants, we may even have the chance to live in it. Because, should we succeed, then just maybe, the future will love us enough to bring us back and share their world with us.

The Future Loves You

How and Why We Should Abolish Death

Jonathan Taplin

At a time when multiple crises are compounding to create epic inequality, four billionaires are hyping schemes that are designed to divert our attention away from issues that really matter. Each scheme - from the metaverse to cryptocurrency, space travel and transhumanism - is an existential threat in moral, political, and economic terms. In The End of Reality¸ Jonathan Taplin shines a light on the enormous cultural power of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreessen, questioning whether we want our society to be run by people who receive blood transfusions to stay young. Will we really want our children anywhere near the metaverse? Do we trust Musk to rule over Mars? 
 
Tech monopolies have brought middle-class wage stagnation, the hollowing out of towns where normal people live, a radical increase in income inequality, and unbounded public acrimony. Meanwhile, the enormous amount of taxpayer money to be funnelled into dystopian ventures, the benefits of which will accrue to billionaires. The End of Reality is both a scathing critique of the warped worldview of a tiny minority and a vision of a truly regenerative economics to build a sustainable society with healthy growth and full employment.

The End of Reality

How Elon Musk and his Friends are Changing Your World

How four billionaires are selling out our future

Elif Shafak

Postnatal depression affects millions of new mothers every year, and – like most of its victims – Elif Shafak never expected to be one of them. But after the birth of her first child in 2006, the internationally bestselling Turkish author remembers how, ‘for the first time in my adult life... words wouldn't speak to me’. 
 
As her despair finally eased, Shafak sought to resuscitate her writing life by chronicling her own experiences. In her beautiful and intimate memoir, she reveals how she struggled to overcome her depression and how literature provided the salvation she so desperately needed.

Black Milk

On Motherhood and Writing

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

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

More and More and More

An All-Consuming History

An All-Consuming History of Energy

Sunil Amrith

In this paradigm-shifting global history of how humanity has reshaped the planet, and the planet has shaped human history, Sunil Amrith twins the stories of environment and Empire, of genocide and eco-cide, of the expansion of human freedom and its costs. Drawing on an extraordinarily rich diversity of primary sources, he reckons with the ruins of Spanish silver mining in Peru, British gold mining in South Africa, and oil extraction in Central Asia. He explores the railways and highways that brought humans to new terrains of battle against each other and against nature. Amrith’s account of the ways in which the First and Second World Wars involved the massive mobilization not only of men, but of other natural resources from around the globe, provides an essential new way of understanding war as an irreversible reshaping of the planet. He also reveals the reality of migration as consequence of environmental harm.The imperial, globe-spanning pursuit of profit, joined with new forms of energy and new possibilities of freedom from hunger and discomfort, freedom to move and explore, has brought change to every inch of the Earth. Amrith relates, on the largest canvas, a mind-altering epic – vibrant with stories, characters, and vivid images – in which humanity might find the collective wisdom to save itself.

The Burning Earth

An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years

Jerry Brotton

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

Four Points of the Compass

The Unexpected History of Direction

Anil Ananthaswamy

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

Why Machines Learn

The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI

‘A renegade who was right . . . He was truly a man before his time’ SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH 
 
‘An account of Durrell’s very first job, as an animal handler at Whipsnade, just after the end of the Second World War, an experience that helped fashion his philosophy of animal keeping’ GUARDIAN 
 
At the age of two I made up my mind quite firmly and unequivocally that the only thing I wanted to do was to study animals. Nothing else interested me. 
 
Republished to celebrate the centenary of his birth, here is Gerald Durrell’s legendary account of his coming-of-age as a reader, writer and budding naturalist at Whipsnade Zoo. He joyfully recaptures the glory of this single formative year where, in the crucible of muck, operatic brown bears, and reading Pliny by night and tending to the lions by day, the passionate worldview of one of the century’s great animal-loving renegades came into full view. 
 
‘One of the finest and most lyrical nature writers in English’ OBSERVER

Beasts in My Belfry

Nate Silver

In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape—and dominate—so much of modern life. 
 
These professional risk takers—poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century. By embedding within these worlds, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. 
 
The River has increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—including the flaws in their thinking—is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. There are certain commonalities in this otherwise diverse group: high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale. 
 
Taking us behind-the-scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply-reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers.

On the Edge

The Art of Risking Everything

David Yeager

Acclaimed developmental psychologist David Yeager reveals the new science of motivating young people in this groundbreaking book. 
______________________________ 
‘Required reading for anyone who aspires to be a wise influence on the young people they care about.’ Angela Duckworth 
 
‘This book is life-changing . . . a must-read for anyone who works with young people.’ Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology at Yale University 
 
'An important and extremely useful book.' Andrew Huberman 
__________________________________________ 
In 10 to 25, David Yeager explains the emerging science of adolescent and young adult brains to reveal how we can engage, teach and support the young people in our lives. Neuroscientists have discovered that around age ten, changes in the brain spur young people to crave socially rewarding experiences, such as pride, admiration, and respect, and to become highly averse to social pain. This sensitivity to status and respect continues into the mid-twenties. 10 to 25 helps adults to use this science to learn how to encourage young people and avoid frustrating patterns of miscommunication and conflict. 
 
Young people in this age group are poised to learn, grow, and accomplish incredible things – if only we can tap into the basic neurobiological systems that drive their motivation and behaviour. 10 to 25 offers long-term strategies to help nurture well-adjusted, independent, accomplished young adults, and is necessary reading for all parents, educators and mentors.

10 to 25

The Science of Motivating Young People

Kathryn Faulke

Kate never expected to become a home care worker. But when she left her senior role in the NHS, burnt-out and disheartened, she thought caring for people in their own homes would be a simpler job. Despite being determined not to become too involved with her 'customers', she soon found herself developing firm friendships, forging deep connections and bearing witness to the extraordinary drama to be found in ordinary lives. 
 
With energy, compassion and clarity, her memoir gives an astonishing insight into this unsung - and often maligned - profession, and into the hidden lives of the housebound and infirm. From Beryl who screams like a banshee whenever Kate tries to wash her, but collapses in giggles when her toes are tickled, to bawdy Mr Radbert who 'promised to give me his car when he can remember where he left it'. 
 
Every Kind of People is clear-eyed about the challenges facing the NHS and the care system. But it is above all a celebration of humanity and of the life-changing impact of caring, on those who offer it and those who receive it.

Every Kind of People

A Journey into the Heart of Care Work

Vaclav Smil

In this ambitious, myth-busting book, leading scientist and internationally bestselling author Vaclav Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today: Why are some of the world’s biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations? Why is food waste a colossal 1,000kcal per person daily, and how can we solve that? Could we all go vegan and be healthy? Should we? How will we feed the ballooning population without killing the planet? 
 
How Food Really Works shows how we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. Ultimately, this data-based, rigorously researched guide explains how we will survive and thrive long into the future.

How to Feed the World

A Factful Guide

Rob Jackson

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

Into the Clear Blue Sky

The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere

Emily Leeming

Genius Gut is a revolutionary guide on what and how to eat to boost your life from the inside out. Written by Dr Emily Leeming, microbiome scientist and registered dietitian, Genius Gut draws on her clinical and research expertise as a registered dietician, microbiome scientist and chef. Packed with practical resources, tables, tips, and lists, this book digests the latest ground-breaking scientific research about the powerful two-way path between our gut and brain, transforming how we eat for our gut health and mood. With 10 proven easy gut-brain hacks that you can mix and match, you will learn how and what to eat for peak emotional and physical well-being without restriction.

Genius Gut

How to Boost Your Mood and Health from the Inside Out

The Life-Changing Science of Eating for Your Second Brain

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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