Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

Evelyn Waugh

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Suzanne O'Sullivan

'I loved it. She is in my view the best science writer around - a true descendant of Oliver Sacks' Sathnam Sanghera, author of The Boy with the Topknot 
 
 
The brain is the most complex structure in the universe. 
 
In Brainstorm the Wellcome Prize-winning author of It’s All in Your Head uncovers the most eye-opening symptoms medicine has to offer. 
 
‘Powerfully life-affirming... Brainstorm is testament to O'Sullivan's unshowy clarity of thought and her continued marvelling at the mysteries of the brain’ Guardian 
 
 
Brainstorm examines the stories of people whose symptoms are so strange even their doctor struggles to know how to solve them. A man who sees cartoon characters running across the room; a teenager who one day arrives home with inexplicably torn clothes; a girl whose world turns all Alice in Wonderland; another who transforms into a ragdoll whenever she even thinks about moving. 
 
 
The brain is the most complex structure in the universe, and neurologists must puzzle out life-changing diagnoses from the tiniest of clues – it’s the ultimate in medical detective work. In this riveting book, one of the UK’s leading neurologists takes you with her as she follows the trail of her patients’ symptoms: feelings of déjà vu lead us to a damaged hippocampus; spitting and fidgeting to the right temporal lobe; fear of movement to a brain tumour; a missed heart beat to the limbic system. 
 
 
It’s a journey that will open your eyes to the unfathomable intricacies of the brain, and the infinite variety of human capacity and experience.

Brainstorm

Detective Stories From the World of Neurology

Siddhartha Mukherjee

** NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER ** 
 
The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history from the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. 
 
The story begins in an Augustinian abbey in 1856, and takes the reader from Darwin’s groundbreaking theory of evolution, to the horrors of Nazi eugenics, to present day and beyond - as we learn to “read” and “write” the human genome that unleashes the potential to change the fates and identities of our children. 
 
Majestic in its scope and ambition, The Gene provides us with a definitive account of the epic history of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans – and paints a fascinating vision of both humanity’s past and future. 
 
For fans of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Being Mortal by Atul Gwande. 
 
‘Siddhartha Mukherjee is the perfect person to guide us through the past, present, and future of genome science’ Bill Gates 
 
‘A thrilling and comprehensive account of what seems certain to be the most radical, controversial and, to borrow from the subtitle, intimate science of our time…Read this book and steel yourself for what comes next’ Sunday Times

The Gene

An Intimate History

John D. Barrow

The Holy Grail of modern scientists is 'The Theory of Everything', which will contain all that can be known about the Universe - the magic formula that Einstein spent his life searching for and failed to find. In this elegant and exciting book, John D. Barrow challenges the quest for ultimate explanation.

Theories Of Everything

The Quest for Ultimate Explanation

Nichola Raihani

'A phenomenally important book' Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins 
 
Why do we live in families? 
Why do we help complete strangers? 
Why do we compare ourselves to others? 
Why do we cooperate? 
 
The science of cooperation tells us not only how we got here, but also where we might end up. In The Social Instinct Nichola Raihani introduces us to other species who, like us, live and work together. From the pied babblers of the Kalahari to the cleaner fish of the Great Barrier Reef, they happen to be some of the most fascinating and extraordinarily successful species on this planet. What do we have in common with these animals, and what can we learn from them? The Social Instinct is an exhilarating, far-reaching and thought-provoking journey through all life on Earth, with profound insights into what makes us human and how our societies work. 
 
'A pleasing juxtaposition of insightful scientific theory with illuminating anecdotes' Richard Dawkins 
 
'Surprising, thoughtful and, best of all, endlessly entertaining' Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling 
 
'A superb book about how important cooperation is' Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors

The Social Instinct

What Nature Can Teach Us About Working Together

How Cooperation Shaped the World

Hilary Rose

Steven Rose

Today, genes are called upon to explain almost every aspect of our lives, from social inequalities to health, sexual preference and criminality. Based on Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection, Evolutionary Psychology with its claim that 'it's all in our genes' has become the most popular scientific theory of the late 20th century. Books such as Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, Edward O.Wilson's Consilience and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct have become bestsellers and frame the public debate on human life and development: we can see their influence as soon as we open a Sunday newspaper.      In recent years, however, many biologists and social scientists have begun to contest this new biological determinism and shown that Evolutionary Psychology rests on shaky empirical evidence, flawed premises and unexamined political presuppositions. In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Hilary and Steven Rose have gathered together the most eminent and outspoken critics of this fashionable ideology, ranging from Stephen Jay Gould and Patrick Bateson to Mary Midgley, Tim Ingold and Annette Karmiloff-Smith. What emerges is a new perspective on human development which acknowledges the complexity of life by placing at its centre the living organism rather than the gene.

Alas Poor Darwin

Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology

Claire Eastham

'An electric, warm, comforting and funny handbook on panic and how to cope and live alongside it' Laura Dockrill, author of What Have I Done? 
 
Award-winning blogger and author Claire Eastham is an expert on panic. She's not a doctor or an academic, but over a seven-year period, she has experienced 371 panic attacks (and counting), and learnt a thing or two along the way. 
 
 Part memoir, part guide, How I Learned to Live with Panic is an intimate, honest and ultimately uplifting exploration into panic attacks. In practical thematic chapters Claire covers the crisis points where panic can hit and interviews a host of people - scientists, professors, dieticians, psychologists and people who struggle with panic - to anatomise how it can be managed. 
 
 Frank, funny and blazing, Claire's story will speak to all those seeking to reclaim their lives. 
 
'I wish I had this book when I was 18... It's smart, witty, informative and, importantly, it lets you know that if you have panic attacks too...you are not alone' Dr Sophie Mort, author of A Manual For Being Human

How I Learned to Live With Panic

an honest and intimate exploration on how to cope with panic attacks

Samantha Harvey

**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE** 
**THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** 
 
'A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas' GUARDIAN 
 
'Stunning... An uplifting book' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
Life on our planet as you've never seen it before 
 
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day. 
 
Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. 
 
The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity? 
 
'Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share' Edmund de Waal, Chair of the 2024 Booker Prize judges 
 
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, DAILY MAIL AND MAIL ON SUNDAY*

Orbital

Olivia Judson

If you have ever wondered why women always bite your head off or why one guy gets all the girls, if you have ever pondered why some men bring you balloons while others leave you their genitals, then Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation is the book for you.   It explains all this and much more.  It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, when to seduce your sisters or eat your lover.   Quirky and brilliant, it takes as its starting point all creatures great and small worried about their bizarre sex lives, and the letters they write to the wise Dr Tatiana, the only agony aunt in all creation with a prodigious knowledge of both natural history and evolutionary biology.

Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation

Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex

This is a book about universes. It tells a story that revolves around a single extraordinary fact: that Albert Einstein's famous theory of relativity describes a series of entire universes. Not many solutions to Einstein's tantalising universe equations have ever been found, but those that have are all remarkable. Some describe universes that expand in size, while others contract. Some rotate like a top, while others are chaotically unpredictable. Some are perfectly smooth, while others are lumpy. Some permit time travel into the past. Only a few allow life to evolve within them; the rest, if they exist, remain unknown and unknowable to conscious minds. 
 
Here, in The Book of Universes, we are confronted with the most fantastic and far-reaching speculations within the entire realm of science.

The Book of Universes

Henry Marsh

**BBC DOCUMENTARY CONFESSIONS OF A BRAIN SURGEON IS OUT NOW** 
 
From the No.1 bestselling author of Do No Harm, an entrancing and uplifting meditation on the gift of life. 
 
‘A book to treasure and reread’ Gavin Francis, author of Adventures in Human Being 
 
As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but even he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. 
 
In And Finally, he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient. As the days pass, his mind turns to his career, to the people and places he has known, and to creative projects still to be completed. 
 
Yet he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and nature, by his love for his family, and – most of all – by what it is to be alive. 
 
* A Daily Telegraph, The Times and Financial Times Book of the Year * 
 
‘Magnificent’ Rachel Clarke 
 
‘Vividly wry and honest’ The Times 
 
‘I admire this book enormously’ Philip Pullman 
 
‘Enthralling’ Guardian

And Finally

A Neurosurgeon’s Reflections on Life

Matters of Life and Death, the Sunday Times bestseller from the author of DO NO HARM

Cédric Villani

“This man could plainly do for mathematics what Brian Cox has done for physics” — Sunday Times 
 
How does a genius see the world? Where and how does inspiration strike? 
 
Cédric Villani takes us on a mesmerising adventure as he wrestles with the Boltzmann equation – a new theorem that will eventually win him the most coveted prize in mathematics and a place in the mathematical history books. Along the way he encounters obstacles and setbacks, losses of faith and even brushes with madness. 
 
His story is one of courage and partnership, doubt and anxiety, elation and despair. Of ordinary family life blurring with the abstract world of mathematical physics, of theories and equations that haunt your dreams and seeking the elusive inspiration found only in a locked, darkened room. 
 
Blending science with history, biography with myth, Villani conjures up an inimitable cast: the omnipresent Einstein, mad genius Kurt Godel, and Villani’s personal hero, John Nash. 
 
Step inside the magical world of Cédric Villani…

Birth of a Theorem

A Mathematical Adventure

Gabriel Weston

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LIVE IN A BODY? 
 
For Gabriel Weston, there was always something missing from the anatomy she was taught at medical school. As she became a surgeon, a mother, and ultimately a patient, she found herself grappling with the gap between the body she understood as a doctor, and the reality of living in one. 
 
In this captivating exploration of our organs, a fuller and more human picture of our bodies emerges: more fragile, frightening and miraculous than we could ever have imagined.

Alive

An Alternative Anatomy

Steven Rose's The Making of Memory is about just that, in both its senses: the biological processes by which we humans - and other animals - learn and remember, and how researchers can explore these mechanisms. But it is also about much more. 
 
When the first edition of this fascinating book won the Science book Prize in 1993, the judges described it as 'a riveting read...a first-hand account by a practicing scientist working at the forefront of medical research and Rose does not duck the issues which that raises.' 
 
Now ten years on, research has itself moved forward, and Rose has taken the opportunity to fully revise the book. But this is more than mere revision. Where ten years ago he argued the case for research on memory because it is the most extraordinary of human attributes, Rose's own research has now opened the doors to a potential new treatment for Alzheimer's Disease undreamed of a decade ago, and in an entirely new chapter he describes how this potential breakthrough has occurred.

The Making Of Memory

From Molecules to Mind

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