Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

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Dan Cruickshank

Spanning the architectural history of the country house from the disarming Elizabethan charm of South Wraxall, the classical rigour of Kinross in Scotland, the majesty and ingenuity of Hawksmoor's Easton Neston, the Palladian sweep of Wentworth Woodhouse, with over 300 rooms and frontage of 600 feet, the imperial exuberance of Clandeboye, through to the ebullient vitality of Lutyens' Marshcourt, the stories of these houses tell the story of our nation. 
 
 All are the are buildings of the greatest architectural interest, each with a fascinating human story to tell, and all remain private homes that are closed to the public. But their owners have opened their doors and allowed Dan Cruickshank to roam the corridors and rummage in the cellars as he teases out the story of each house - who built them, the generations who lived in them, and the families who lost them. Along the way he has uncovered tales of excess and profligacy, tragedy, comedy, power and ambition. 
 
 And as these intriguing narratives take shape, Dan shows how the story of each house is inseparable from the social and economic history of Britain. Each one is built as a wave of economic development crests, or crumbles. Each one's architecture and design is thus expressive of the aims, strengths and frailties of those who built them. Together they plot the psychological, economic and social route map of our country's ruling class in a rich new telling of our island story.

The Country House Revealed

A Secret History of the British Ancestral Home

Laurence Rees

Selling Politics investigates the secret world of political consultants, the men who create an image of their clients for the public eye. 
 
Author Laurence Rees argues that the roots of political propaganda lie in Nazi Germany with Hitler’s master of visual propaganda, Dr Josef Goebbels. Goebbels’ passion for cinema led him to discover the ‘Great Truth’, namely that in order for film propaganda to persuade it must entertain rather than inform. Over the past thirty years the use of film and television propaganda had flourished, particularly in the United States where a candidate’s ability to woo voters on the screen is fundamental to his success in a presidential election. 
 
Rees shows how television manipulates its viewers into making judgements based purely on the visual image and explains why propaganda works best when it engages the emotions rather than the intellect. We see clearly how these insidious techniques have also played a key role in contemporary British politics as consultants have followed the example of their American counterparts. 
 
Written in1992, a year that encompassed a general election in Britain and a presidential election in the United States, Selling Politics is a book for our times. It will fascinate readers who care about the practice of politics and the way democracy functions as the 21st century approaches.

Selling Politics

Accompanies the TV series We Have Ways Of Making You Think

Reggie Yates

From Grange Hill to Top of the Pops, Reggie Yates has been on camera nearly all of his life, but it’s as a documentary filmmaker – and a pretty fearless one at that – where he has truly been making his mark, investigating everything from gun crime in Chicago, to life as a refugee in Iraq. 
 
In his first book, Unseen, Reggie takes us behind the scenes on his journey from TV host to documentary storyteller. Using some of the key moments and extreme circumstances he has found himself in, Reggie examines what he has learned about the world, and himself as a person. 
 
Beginning as a brief exploration of Reggie’s relationship with the camera and life growing up on screen, Unseen explores the journey Reggie has taken in the documentary world. Initially resistant to documentary making, Reggie was convinced his point of view as a young black working class man with a history in music, children’s TV and entertainment would not make his films remotely credible. Through conflict and challenges on screen, the understanding gained from the very thing once seen as a weakness would become his strength on camera, as the eye of the everyman and voice of the audience. Unseen unpicks the stories behind the fascinating characters and situations Reggie encounters across a series of films, as well as chronicling the personal growth through each testing shoot for Yates himself.

Unseen

My Journey

Lori Oliwenstein

Robert Winston

Accompanying the major new BBC documentary series, Superhuman explores the human bodys astonishing ability to heal, renew and regenerate itself. In recording the before, during and after of radical operations on real people it introduces us to the pioneering efforts of medical teams and alerts us to the ethical issues that new medical advances raise. Over six chapters Superhuman addresses significant developments within six key medical areas: cancer, infection, transplantation, trauma, repair and reproduction. Acknowledging the debt modern physicians owe to yesterday Superhuman begins by investigating the human bodys innate abilities to heal itself. And, as we gladly launch ourselves into an age of biotechnology, it questions whether we might now use all the information available to us to comprehend finally how our bodies work? If we can achieve that, perhaps becoming superhuman is truly within our reach. Chapter one introduces us to the trauma surgeons who have discovered that the shock that follows trauma can prove beneficial in saving the body and the brain. Chapter two chronicles the astonishing technology now being used in medical transplants and the contentious issues these processes excite. Should technology continue to develop apace how are doctors and patients to choose between using an artificial limb created specifically for a patient, a human limb grown from the patients own genetic information, or the alternative solutions offered by the animal kingdom? And is intervention of true benefit to the patient if it requires a lifetime of immuno-suppressing drugs? The recent successes of the Human Genome Project have dissolved the boundaries of regeneration with made-to-order organs no longer beyond our limits. Chapter three presents the scientists responsible for engineering human tissue from materials found in the body and outlines how they might help us might claim our lost powers of regeneration. Chapter four relates how we are faring in the battle against the old enemy cancer and tells how experts in this field are trying to regain control of the cancer cells that turn against us. Chapter five explains how we strive to combat the threats we all face living in a modern world teeming with globetrotters who share one feature we're all potential contagion-carriers. Superhuman goes on to inform of the dangers of pushing too far to eradicate infectious disease from our lives completely. Chapter six spotlights an area of considerable debate that will possibly alter the course of human evolution fertility and genetic manipulation. Superhuman discusses both the advantages and the dangers of new technologies in this area, arguing that they have many positive applications and that often the hazards are overstated, solely through fear. In an attempt never to lose sight of our humanity while inviting the superhuman in us all to work, Superhuman encourages a holistic approach to medicine and an open forum for the discussion of the future of medical science.

Superhuman

Hugh Cunningham

The Invention of Childhood will paint a vivid picture of the lives of children in Britain from pagan Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. Drawing heavily on primary sources, such as diaries, autobiographies, paintings, photographs and letters, the book will present a complete chronological history of the experience of children in Britain during the past 1500 years. We will learn the key elements that have shaped their lives down the ages and how this has differed as a result of gender, geography and ethnicity. The book will also relate children's lives to larger events in national and international history. Written by Hugh Cunningham the Professor of History at the Universtity of Kent at Canterbury, and an expert on childhood history - the book will accompany the Radio 4 series presented by the highly respected children's author Michael Morpurgo. Michael is contributing a lengthy foreword to the book. 'The Invention of Childhood' will expand on a number of key themes from the radio series, including the idea of childhood as a distinct stage of life. Opinions on when childhood should start and end, and how it differs from adulthood have changed considerably down the centuries. And these inventions and reinventions of childhood (hence the title) have had a profound effect on children's lives. The prolonged childhood we enjoy in Britain today was a luxury few could afford in the past. This fascinating study will draw attention to the ways in which we may find childhood and children in the past quite similar to the present and to ways in which childrens lives from the past seem to differ sharply from the lives children lead today.

The Invention of Childhood

Frank McLynn

In the history of warfare, an elite group of men have attained almost legendary status through their courage, ambition and unrivalled military genius. But many of these same men possessed deep personal character flaws. In Heroes &amp; Villains, acclaimed historian Frank McLynn focuses on six of the most powerful and magnetic leaders of all time: Spartacus, Attila the Hun, Richard the Lionheart, Cortés, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Napoleon. How did these mortal men rise to positions of seemingly invincible power? What were the motives, the personal strengths and often weaknesses that drove them to achieve what no one else dared? 
 
In six powerful portraits, McLynn brilliantly evokes the critical moments when each of these warriors proved themselves in battle, changing their own lives, the destiny of their people and, in some cases, the history of the world. We discover what drove Spartacus to take on the might of Rome against seemingly impossible odds, and how the young Napoleon rose to power in dramatic fashion at the Siege of Toulon. 
 
Heroes &amp; Villains is more than a collection of individual biographies. By examining the complex psychologies of these extraordinary men, McLynn builds up a convincing profile of the ultimate warrior. Accompanying a major BBC television series, this brilliant book takes us into the minds of the greatest warriors in history.

Heroes & Villains

Inside the minds of the greatest warriors in history

Alex Renton

Vital stories for hungry minds. 
 
In the first official book from BBC Radio 4's hit series The Food Programme, award-winning writer Alex Renton tells the stories of 13 key staples such as spice, oil, cocoa, bread and tomatoes, exploring their history, evolution and how our ever-growing hunger for them continues to alter our world. Look at food in a new light - as a weapon, an art form, a tool of revolution, but also a bringer of pure happiness. 
 
Discover a kaleidoscope of fascinating facts and curiosities, including the forgotten joys of lard, the secret to perfect chips and how our love of pepper led to piracy.

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