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Janina Ramirez

From the bestselling author of FEMINA, a brilliant reappraisal of the medieval women whose lives have been exploited over centuries for political, nation-building ends. 
 
In LEGENDA, bestselling historian Professor Janina Ramirez peels back the layers of time to reveal how the lives of women have been co-opted by those intent on crafting national identities. Their names are well known, and summaries of their achievements have been recited in classrooms for decades, but medieval women like Joan of Arc, Lady Godiva and Isabella of Castile have been misrepresented, their stories twisted and weaponised. Meanwhile, ground-breaking 18th- and 19th-century women who blazed a trail through revolutionary Europe have been forgotten, their legacies too easily dismissed or ignored. 
 
Questioning established narratives and searching for the real women behind the legends, Ramirez interrogates what defines a nation and who gets to build it, shining a light on how history is so often hijacked to serve the ideological and political interests of the present. 
 
PRAISE FOR JANINA RAMIREZ: 
 
'Ramirez blasts a powerful spotlight into the so-called Dark Ages and reveals a vibrant world, awash with colour and character' DAN SNOW, host of History Hit 
 
'Skillfully brings out from the shadows the lives of women who ruled, fought, traded, created, and inspired' CAT JARMAN, author of River Kings 
 
'Like the interlace stonework on an Anglo-Saxon cross, Janina Ramirez's themes are interwoven with a conssumate skill' TOM HOLLAND, author of Dominion and host of The Rest is History 
 
'Ramirez makes us look into the mists of history in new, exciting and provocative ways' PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads

Legenda

The Real Women Behind the Myths That Shaped Europe

George W. Bush

Forty-three men have served as President of the United States. Countless books have been written about them. But never before has a President told the story of his father, another President, through his own eyes and in his own words. A unique and intimate biography, the book covers the entire scope of the elder President Bush’s life and career, including his service in the Pacific during World War II, his pioneering work in the Texas oil business, and his political rise as a Congressman, U.S. Representative to China and the United Nations, CIA Director, Vice President, and President. 
 
The book shines new light on both the accomplished statesman and the warm, decent man known best by his family. In addition, George W. Bush discusses his father’s influence on him throughout his own life, from his childhood in West Texas to his early campaign trips with his father, and from his decision to go into politics to his own two-term Presidency.

41: A Portrait of My Father

Zeinab Badawi

Discover the ground-breaking, must-read history of Africa, the Sunday Times bestseller charting the epic story of the oldest inhabited continent in the world from the perspectives of Africans themselves. Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 
 
Picked as a best paperback by the Sunday Times, Guardian and I paper 
 
Radio 4 Book of the Week 
 
As recommended on The Rest is Politics 
 
Everyone is originally from Africa, and this book is therefore for everyone. For too long, Africa’s history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Now, award-winning journalist and broadcaster Zeinab Badawi sets the record straight. In this fascinating book, Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history – from the origins of humanity, through ancient civilisations and medieval empires, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. 
 
Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, Badawi weaves together a gripping new history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves. 
 
Praise for An African History of Africa: 
‘Fascinating, thought-provoking and entertaining’ Sunday Times 
 
‘Dazzling . . . A book that feels long-overdue’ Vogue 
 
‘Authoritative and compelling’ BBC History 
 
‘Both a tour d'horizon and a tour de force, marvellously readable and beautifully written . . . I cannot recommend it too strongly or praise it too highly’ Professor Sir David Cannadine 
 
‘Remarkable’ Margaret Busby CBE 
 
‘Epic, magnificent, brilliant’ Professor Kate Williams

An African History of Africa

From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence

Luke Dormehl

2016 marks the 60-year anniversary of the phrase ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and in this fascinating book, Luke Dormehl charts the weird and wonderful journey of one of mankind’s greatest projects, the creation of Thinking Machines. 
 
This is a story of how what it means to be human in the face of accelerating machine intelligence. It’s about trying to make computers that are smarter than we are, and what happens when it goes wrong. About what creativity means when all knowledge is data that can be stored on microchips. Or about what happens when machines can learn from their mistakes much faster than humans can. And above all, it’s about the dazzling future around the corner, how our lives might just change forever, and whether you and I aren’t just thinking machines of a sort as well.

Thinking Machines

The inside story of Artificial Intelligence and our race to build the future

Ashlee Vance

*An instant New York Times Bestseller* 
 
'One of the most exciting tales of our time... It's the next tech frontier, and Vance turns it into a thriller' Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs 
 
'Eloquent, expertly reported' Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store 
_______________ 
 
A momentous look at the private companies driving the revolutionary new space race, from the 3-million copy, New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk 
 
In 2008, Elon Musk's SpaceX became the first private company to build a low-cost rocket that could reach orbit. Suddenly Silicon Valley, not NASA, was the epicentre of the new Space Age. 
 
Ashlee Vance follows four pioneering companies - Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs and Rocket Lab - as they race to control access to outer space. While the space tourism ambitions of billionaires such as Bezos and Branson make headlines, these under-the-radar companies are striving to monetise Earth's lower orbit; to connect, analyse and monitor everything on Earth. 
 
With unprecedented access to private company headquarters, labs and top-secret launch locations - from the US to New Zealand, Ukraine to India - Vance presents a gripping account of private jets, communes, gun-toting bodyguards, drugs, espionage investigations and multimillionaires guzzling booze as their fortunes disappear. 
 
This is the most pressing and controversial technology story of our time. Welcome to the new Wild West above the clouds.

When The Heavens Went On Sale

The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach

Robert Gates

'As I look back, there is a parallel theme to my years at war: love. By that I mean the love - there is no other word for it - I came to feel for the troops, and the overwhelming sense of personal responsibility I developed for them. So much so that it would shape some of my most significant decisions and positions.' 
 
When Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House, he thought he’d long left Washington politics behind: After working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happily serving as president of Texas A&amp;M University. But when he was asked to help a nation mired in two wars and to aid the troops doing the fighting, he answered what he felt was the call of duty. 
 
Robert Gates was US Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011 serving under both George Bush and Barack Obama. Before that he was Director of the CIA. This is his candid and revealing account of US military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Gates oversaw the controversial ‘surge’ of US troops in both countries. As well as this, he also provides commentary on the situations in Syria, Iran, Israel and North Korea and details behind the scenes meetings with Bush, Cheney, Rice, Obama and other major political figures. 
 
Mr. Gates is the only Secretary of Defense to serve under both a Republican and a Democratic president, and in Duty he provides an unsparing, full accounting of his tenure.

Duty

Robert Kershaw

‘One of the lancers rode by, and stabbed me in the back with his lance. I then turned, and lay with my face upward, and a foot soldier stabbed me with his sword as he walked by. Immediately after, another, with his firelock and bayonet, gave me a terrible plunge, and while doing it with all his might, exclaimed, “Sacré nom de Dieu!” ’ 
 
The truly epic and brutal battle of Waterloo was a pivotal moment in history – a single day, one 24-hour period, defined the course of Europe’s future. 
 
In March 1815, the Allies declared war on Napoleon in response to his escape from exile and the renewed threat to imperial European rule. Three months later, on 18 June 1815, having suffered considerable losses at Quatre-Bras, Wellington’s army fell back on Waterloo, some ten miles south of Brussels. Halting on the ridge, they awaited Napoleon’s army, blocking their entry to the capital. This would become the Allies’ final stand, the infamous battle of Waterloo. 
 
In this intimate, hour-by-hour account, acclaimed military historian Robert Kershaw resurrects the human stories at the centre of the fighting, creating an authoritative single-volume biography of this landmark battle. Drawing on his profound insight and a field knowledge of military strategy, Kershaw takes the reader to where the impact of the orders was felt, straight into the heart of the battle, shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers on the mud-splattered ground. 
 
Masterfully weaving together painstakingly researched eyewitness accounts, diaries and letters – many never before seen or published – this gripping portrayal of Waterloo offers unparalleled authenticity. Extraordinary images of the men and women emerge in full colour; the voices of the sergeants, the exhausted foot-soldiers, the boy ensigns, the captains and the cavalry troopers, from both sides, rise from the page in vivid and telling detail, as the fate of Europe hangs by a thread.

24 Hours at Waterloo

18 June 1815

Michael Meyer

‘Makes the case for Annie Besant as a truly eminent Victorian, as brilliant and fearless as she was beautiful’ The Times 
_________ 
 
London, 1877. A petite young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. 
 
Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the crime of publishing a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably, Annie is defending herself against obscenity charges 45 years before women can practice law in England. At a time when women were expected to be obedient, Annie’s fearless voice was a sensation and spotlighted issues of sex, censorship and morality. 
 
A Dirty, Filthy Book tells the gripping story of a little-known pioneer who refused to accept the role that the establishment assigned her, and chose instead to resist.

A Dirty, Filthy Book

Annie Besant’s Fight for Reproductive Rights

Sex, Scandal, and One Woman’s Fight in the Victorian Trial of the Century

Joshua Wong

Jason Y. Ng

'Joshua Wong is a brave and inspiring young leader.' - GRETA THUNBERG 
 
 Imprisoned on 2 December 2020 for the third time, read Joshua Wong's urgent and powerful story - the Hong Konger fighting for democracy. 
 
INTRODUCTION BY AI WEIWEI, FOREWORD BY CHRIS PATTEN 
 
 Unfree Speech is Joshua's urgent call for us to defend our democratic values, whoever we are. 
 
It chronicles Joshua's path to activism, collects the letters he wrote as a political prisoner, and closes with a powerful and urgent manifesto for us to defend our democracies at time of global flux and change. 
 
Joshua Wong made history when he was 14. While the adults stayed silent, Joshua staged the first ever student protest in Hong Kong to oppose National Education - and won. 
 
 Since then, he led the Umbrella Movement, founded a political party, and rallied the international community around the Hong Kong protests, which saw 2 million people take to the streets. Now, he is in jail again. His actions have sparked worldwide attention and earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, as he continues to fight for what he believes in. 
 
 His message is clear: when we stay silent, no one is safe. When we free our speech, our voice becomes one. 
 
 'If we want freedom, we need to learn from Hong Kong. With values, tactics, and courage, Joshua Wong shows us the way.' - Timothy Snyder, bestselling author of On Tyranny 
 
'A guide to mobilising for democracy and representation in and far beyond Hong Kong.' - Julia Lovell, award-winning author of Maoism 
 
- The Times Book of the Week - 
 - Observer Book of the Week - 
 - Named by the Financial Times as one of the 50 people who shaped the decade -

Unfree Speech

The Threat to Global Democracy and Why We Must Act, Now

James O'Brien

The voice of reason in a world that won’t shut up. 
 
The Sunday Times Bestseller 
Winner of the Parliamentary Book Awards 
 
Every day, James O’Brien listens to people blaming hard-working immigrants for stealing their jobs while scrounging benefits, and pointing their fingers at the EU and feminists for destroying Britain. But what makes James’s daily LBC show such essential listening – and has made James a standout social media star – is the incisive way he punctures their assumptions and dismantles their arguments live on air, every single morning. 
 
In the bestselling How To Be Right, James provides a hilarious and invigorating guide to talking to people with unchallenged opinions. With chapters on every lightning-rod issue, James shows how people have been fooled into thinking the way they do, and in each case outlines the key questions to ask to reveal fallacies, inconsistencies and double standards. 
 
If you ever get cornered by ardent Brexiteers, Daily Mail disciples or corporate cronies, this book is your conversation survival guide.

How To Be Right

… in a world gone wrong

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 
 
'Revelatory' GUARDIAN 
 
'A firecracker somehow captured between two covers' LUCY WORSLEY 
 
An instant bestseller and one of the most celebrated history books of the year, Femina reveals the power and influence of medieval women who have been written out of our history. From royalty and religion to fame and fury, see the medieval world - and the women erased from it - with fresh eyes. 
 
'Absolutely brilliant and highly recommended' CAITLIN MORAN 
 
'Femina is a ground-breaking history of the Middle Ages' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 
 
The instant Sunday Times bestseller, May 2023

Femina

A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It

Jamie Bartlett

'An astonishing read, plunging you into a toxic world of Insta-wealth, betrayal and ruthless ambition... A con that made Theranos look like small fry' - The Telegraph 
 
'The largest financial scam ever' - Fortune 
 
'The story of OneCoin stands out even among the outlandish capers of the cryptocurrency era' - Wall Street Journal 
____________________________________________________ 
 
In 2014, a brilliant Oxford graduate called Dr Ruja Ignatova vowed to revolutionise money. The self-styled Cryptoqueen launched OneCoin, a bold new cryptocurrency that she promised would earn its investors untold fortunes and change the world. But by the end of 2017, with billions of dollars invested from every country on earth, Ruja Ignatova had disappeared - along with the money. 
 
The Missing Cryptoqueen tells the outrageous true story of the world's most wanted woman and the author's five-year hunt for the truth. It is a modern tale of greed, rivalry and herd madness that reveals how OneCoin became the biggest scam of the 21st Century.

The Missing Cryptoqueen

The Crypto Con That Fooled the World

Robert Kagan

'The transformation of the US into an autocracy has advanced...Nobody has outlined this danger more compellingly than Robert Kagan.' - Martin Wolf, Financial Times 
 
A chilling and clear-eyed warning about the threats to our democracy posed by the increasing radicalization of the Republican Party, from a leading historian and intellectual 
 
The 2024 election could be the last free election held in a unified America. So warns Robert Kagan in this brilliant and terrifying analysis of the perilous state of democracy in the United States today. If Donald Trump loses the upcoming election, as he did in 2020, but refuses to accept the result, as he also did in the last election, he is likely to call on his millions of followers to repudiate the election results. It will be a short step from there to Republican-dominated states rejecting the legitimacy of the federal government and effectively seceding. The United States at that point will cease to be united, with grave consequences for both Americans and the world. 
 
In Rebellion, Kagan dives deeper than the op-eds and think pieces to explore the historical forces that have brought us to this moment—in particular the long history of opposition to liberalism, and to government, that has shaped America’s character from the time of the Revolution to today. Trump’s unique capacity to tap into that tradition of dissent and circumvent the American system has brought us to the edge of dissolution—not for the first time in our history but possibly the last. This is an elegant and deeply informed synthesis of history, contemporary politics, and ideas that sheds light on this crucial moment.

Rebellion

How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart Again

Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz

Roger Highfield

'Quite simply the best book about science and life that I have ever read' - Alice Roberts 
 
 
How does life begin? What drives a newly fertilized egg to keep dividing and growing until it becomes 40 trillion cells, a greater number than stars in the galaxy? How do these cells know how to make a human, from lips to heart to toes? How does your body build itself? 
 
Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz was pregnant at 42 when a routine genetic test came back with that dreaded word: abnormal. A quarter of sampled cells contained abnormalities and she was warned her baby had an increased risk of being miscarried or born with birth defects. Six months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy and her research on mice embryos went on to prove that – as she had suspected – the embryo has an amazing and previously unknown ability to correct abnormal cells at an early stage of its development. 
 
The Dance of Life will take you inside the incredible world of life just as it begins and reveal the wonder of the earliest and most profound moments in how we become human. Through Magda’s trailblazing research as a professor at Cambridge – where she has doubled the survival time of human embryos in the laboratory, and made the first artificial embryo-like structures from stem cells – you’ll discover how early life is programmed to repair and organise itself, what this means for the future of pregnancy, and how we might one day solve IVF disorders, prevent miscarriages and learn more about the dance of life as it starts to take shape. 
 
The Dance of Life is a moving celebration of the balletic beauty of life’s beginnings.

The Dance of Life

Symmetry, Cells and How We Become Human

Al Gore

In The Future, former US Vice President Al Gore, explores the political, social and economic forces that are shaping what America and the world will become in ensuing decades. From demographics to democracy, Gore explores what he calls the 'Drivers of Global Change', framing the international conversation about the future in fresh and provocative ways. 
 
With this new work, Gore hopes to help start a conversation about the large-scale drivers of change that are defining and shaping our future - from the rapid development and integration of radically new technologies to the planet-changing impact of the climate crisis, to poverty, globalization, and the democratisation of knowledge accompanying the emergence of a ubiquitous internet linking ever more intelligent devices.

The Future

Nikole Hannah-Jones

The New York Times Magazine

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. 
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist 
 
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country's original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. 
 
The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. 
 
This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation's founding and construction-and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life. 
 
Featuring contributions from: Leslie Alexander Michelle Alexander Carol Anderson Joshua Bennett Reginald Dwayne Betts Jamelle Bouie Anthea Butler Matthew Desmond Rita Dove Camille Dungy Cornelius Eady Eve L. Ewing Nikky Finney Vievee Francis Yaa Gyasi Forrest Hamer Terrance Hayes Kimberly Annece Henderson Jeneen Interlandi Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Barry Jenkins Tyehimba Jess Martha S. Jones Robert Jones, Jr. A. Van Jordan Ibram X. Kendi Eddie Kendricks Yusef Komunyakaa Kevin Kruse Kiese Laymon Trymaine Lee Jasmine Mans Terry McMillan Tiya Miles Wesley Morris Khalil Gibran Muhammad Lynn Nottage ZZ Packer Gregory Pardlo Darryl Pinckney Claudia Rankine Jason Reynolds Dorothy Roberts Sonia Sanchez Tim Seibles Evie Shockley Clint Smith Danez Smith Patricia Smith Tracy K. Smith Bryan Stevenson Nafissa Thompson-Spires Natasha Trethewey Linda Villarosa Jesmyn Ward

The 1619 Project

A New American Origin Story

Catherine Mayer

The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 
 
'Breathtaking' The Times 
 
'[The book that] made headlines around the world.' Independent 
 
The former Prince of Wales has lived his whole life in the public eye, yet he remains an enigma. He was born to be king, but he aims much higher. A landmark publication, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals Charles in all his complexity: the passionate views that mean he will never be as remote and impartial as his mother; the compulsion to make a difference and the many and startling ways in which the Prince and now King of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms has already made his mark. 
 
The book offers fresh and fascinating insights into the first marriage that did so much to define him and an assessment of his relationship with the woman he calls, with unintended accuracy, his 'dearest wife': Camilla, now Queen Consort. We see Charles as a father and a friend, a serious figure and a joker. Life at court turns out to be full of hidden dangers and unexpected comedy. 
 
Now, updated and revised with a new preface and two new chapters - covering details of Harry and Meghan's exit and its implications, the cash-for-honours scandal, Prince Andrew, and more - this significant study reveals a monarchy threatened and a man in sight of happiness yet still driven by anguish and a remarkable belief system, a charitable entrepreneur, activist, agitator and avatar of the Establishment who just as often tilts against it. 
 
Based on multiple interviews with his friends and courtiers, palace insiders and critics, and rare access to Charles himself, before his kingship, this biography explores his philanthropy and his compulsive interventionism, his faith, his significant impact on politics and the philosophy that means when he seeks harmony he sometimes creates controversy. 
 
Gripping, at times astonishing, often laugh-out-loud, this is a royal biography unlike any other. 
 
'A must-read ... this important book is nothing short of a manual to our future King's world-view' GQ 
 
'A sustained piece of higher journalism' Independent

Charles: The Heart of a King

Jack Fairweather

‘FIVE STARS … Magnificent’ Telegraph 
‘Compulsively readable’ Financial Times 
‘Gripping and timely’ The Times 
'Crackingly told' Philippe Sands 
'A kind of masterclass' Sebastian Junger 
 
 
THE NEW BOOK FROM THE BESTSELLING, COSTA PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE VOLUNTEER 
 
The true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after WWII to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past. 
 
At the end of the Nuremberg trial in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the horrors of the Holocaust were in danger of being forgotten. 
 
In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the remarkable story of Fritz Bauer, a gay German Jew who survived the Nazis and made it his mission to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide. In this deeply researched book, Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the dark, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring in the east, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced. But once Bauer lands on the trail of Adolf Eichmann, he won’t be intimidated. His journey takes him deep into the rotten heart of West Germany, where his fight for justice will set him against his own government and a network of former Nazis and spies determined to silence him. 
 
In a time when the history of the Holocaust is taken for granted, The Prosecutor reveals the courtroom battles that were fought to establish its legacy and the personal cost of speaking out. The result is a searing portrait of a nation emerging from the ruins of fascism and one man’s courage in forcing his people––and the world––to face the truth.

The Prosecutor

One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice

Ethan Mollick

The New York Times Bestseller 
 
The urgent and definitive guide to working, learning, and living in the new age of artificial intelligence from the acclaimed Wharton Professor of Management and author of the One Useful Thing Substack. 
 
'The very best book I know about the ins, outs, and ethics of generative AI. Drop everything and read it cover to cover NOW' Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit 
 
‘If you are interested in how to make the most of the transformative potential of artificial intelligence then you must read this book’ Financial Times 
 
 
 
Consumer AI has arrived. And with it, inescapable upheaval as we grapple with what it means for our jobs, lives and the future of humanity. 
 
Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI, focusing on the practical aspects of how these new tools for thought can transform our world. In Co-Intelligence, he urges us to engage with AI as co-worker, co-teacher and coach. 
 
Wide ranging, hugely thought-provoking and optimistic, Co-Intelligence reveals the promise and power of this new era.

Co-Intelligence

Living and Working with AI

Kenneth Cukier

Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger

Francis de Vericourt

A Financial Times and Economist Book of the Year 
'Wonderfully stimulating... will teach you to see around corners' - TIM HARFORD 
'A paean to cognitive agility and the elasticity of the imagination' - ECONOMIST 
'Captivating... will transform the way you think' MARISSA KING, PROFESSOR AT YALE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT 
 
 
The power of mental models to make better decisions 
 
We're often told that humans make bad decisions and that more data is better. But this is backwards: people are good at decisions precisely because we use mental models and can envision new realities outside of data. Great outcomes don't depend so much on the final moment of choosing but on generating better alternatives to choose between. That's framing. It's a cognitive muscle we can strengthen to improve our lives, work and future -- to meet this historical moment. Framers shows how.

Framers

Make Better Decisions In The Age of Big Data

Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil

Dr Jeffrey Lewis

'A book with a ferocious pace and more black humour than one could imagine'– Evening Standard 
 
**As heard on BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight** 
 
America lost 1.4 million citizens in the North Korean attacks of 2020. This is the final, authorised report of the US government commission investigating the catastrophe. 
 
 
‘The skies over the Korean Peninsula on March 21, 2020, were clear and blue . . .’ So begins this investigation by nuclear expert Dr Jeffrey Lewis into the horrific events of the three days that followed. 
 
While covering the fatal milestones — from North Korea’s accidental shootdown of a South Korean airliner to the tweet that triggered carnage — the report asks difficult questions about the conduct of world leaders along the path to war. 
 
Did President Trump and his advisers realise the dangers of provoking Kim Jong Un with social media posts? Was conflict inevitable, or could the peace talks of 2018 have been successful? Who, ultimately, is responsible for one of the greatest tragedies in world history? 
 
 
‘A bold warning of how easily the nightmare could occur’– The Times 
‘Chillingly plausible’– The Economist 
‘A Dr Strangelove for our time’– The Observer

The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States

There's no point having a mind if you're not willing to change it 
 
James O'Brien has built well over a million loyal listeners to his radio show by dissecting the opinions of callers live on air, every day. But winning the argument doesn't necessarily mean you're right. 
 
In this deeply personal book, James turns the mirror on himself to reveal what he has changed his mind about and why, and explore how examining and changing our own views is our new civic duty in a world of outrage, disagreement and echo chambers. He writes candidly about the stiff upper lip attitudes and toxic masculinity that coloured his childhood, and the therapy and personal growth that have led him question his assumptions and explore new perspectives. Laying open his personal views on everything from racial prejudice to emotional vulnerability, from fat-shaming to tattoos, he then delves into the real reasons - often irrational or unconscious - he holds them. 
 
Unflinchingly honest, revealing and funny, How Not to Be Wrong is a tonic for a world more divided than ever and a personal manifesto for a better way of thinking and living. 
 
Because after all, if we can't change our own minds we'll never really be able to change anyone else's.

How Not To Be Wrong

The Art of Changing Your Mind

Grigory Rodchenkov

***Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, 2020 - the inside story of the Russian doping programme by the man behind it all*** 
 
One of the Financial Times's 'Fifty people who shaped the decade' 
 
 'The biggest sports scandal the world has ever seen' 
 
In 2015, Russia's Anti-Doping Centre was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) following revelations of an elaborate state-sponsored doping programme at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Involving a nearly undetectable steroid delivery system known as 'Duchesse cocktail', tampering and switching of urine samples, and a complex state-sanctioned cover-up, the programme was masterminded by Grigory Rodchenkov. 
 
The Rodchenkov Affair tells the full, unadulterated story that was first glimpsed in Bryan Fogel's award-winning documentary and still continues to captivate and shock the world. Charting the author's childhood growing up under the Iron Curtain, his first encounter with doping as a 22-year-old student athlete at Moscow State University, and his subsequent career working for the Soviet Olympic Committee, this breathtakingly candid journey reveals a rigged system of flawed individuals, brazen deceit and impossible moral choices.

The Rodchenkov Affair

How I Brought Down Russia’s Secret Doping Empire – Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2020

Judith Heumann

Kristen Joiner

A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism--from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington--Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. 
 
 Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy Heumann began her struggle for equality early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license, to leading the section 504 sit-in that led to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Judy's actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people around the globe. 
 
Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann's memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

Being Heumann

The Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist

Katerina Gordeeva

***LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING*** 
 
'Read this book. Don't put it off until you'll supposedly be strong enough and ready for the reading. If you put it off, you'll find yourself defenseless in the face of evil.' 
- Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Chernobyl Prayer 
 
In the darkest of times, in the midst of it all, a journalist has one single task: to document everything that is happening. It is time to slow down and listen to the voice of a human being. 
 
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Since that day, prize-winning independent journalist Katerina Gordeeva has travelled to refugee centres across Europe to record the human voice and cost of war. Take My Grief Away reveals twenty-four raw, heartbreaking first-person accounts from people united in grief and their first-hand experiences of the brutality and senselessness of war. These twenty-four voices will transform what you think you know about war, grief and human nature.

Take My Grief Away

Voices from the War in Ukraine

William Shakespeare

James Anthony

'James Anthony has done something I would have confidently stated to be impossible. He has "translated" Shakespeare’s sonnets and he has done so with an insolent, loveable charm … A dazzling success’ – Stephen Fry 
 
Rediscover the greatest love poetry ever written 
 
Shall I compare you to a summer’s day? 
You’re more delightful, always shining strong; 
High winds blow hard on flowering buds in May, 
And summer never seems to last that long… 
 
 
Shakespeare’s sonnets are some of the nation’s favourite lines of verse, but the Elizabethan language can make it difficult to really understand them. Many guides offer to clarify the meaning, but lose the magic of the words by explaining them away. 
 
James Anthony has done something boldly different. 
 
He has rewritten the whole series of poems as sonnets using modern language, while retaining the rhythm and rhyme patterns that gives them such power. In doing so he breathes new life into the original poems and opens them up for a modern readership, demystifying Shakespeare’s eternal poetry with provocative new translations and delightful new lines. 
 
Presented as an attractive book with the original sonnets facing their new translations, this is a stunning collection of beautiful love poems, made new.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold

Classic Love Poems with a Modern Twist

Kai-Fu Lee

Chen Qiufan

A WALL STREET JOURNAL, WASHINGTON POST, AND FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 
*Now with a new foreword on ChatGPT* 
_____________ 
 
How will artificial intelligence change our world within twenty years? 
 
AI will be the defining development of the twenty-first century. Within two decades, aspects of daily human life will be unrecognizable. AI will generate unprecedented wealth, revolutionize medicine and education through human-machine symbiosis, and create brand new forms of communication and entertainment. However, AI will also challenge the organizing principles of our economic and social order and bring new risks in the form of autonomous weapons and smart technology that inherits human bias. AI is at a tipping point, and people need to wake up-both to AI's radiant pathways and its existential perils for life as we know it. 
 
In this provocative, utterly original work of "scientific fiction," Kai-Fu Lee, the former president of Google China and bestselling author of AI Superpowers, joins forces with celebrated novelist Chen Qiufan to imagine our AI world in 2041 in ten gripping short stories. 
 
Gazing toward a not-so-distant horizon, AI 2041 offers urgent insights into our collective future and reminds us that we are the authors of our own destiny.

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