Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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Daniel Lavelle

From Orwell Prize-winning journalist Daniel Lavelle comes a wild road trip chasing aliens through the UFO heartlands into the soul of America 
 
The US government has been investigating unidentified aerial phenomena in a secret division of the Department of Defence. A former intelligence official urged the US to disclose evidence of UFOs after saying the government has possession of ‘intact and partially intact’ alien vehicles. And what about those sightings of Tic Tac, Gimbal, Go Fast and the infamous Oumuamua? Had an alien invasion been going on right under our noses? 
 
Danny Lavelle, our charming, borderline-bewildered investigator, sets out on a road trip through America’s UFO heartlands to get some answers (thankfully around 41% of Americans believe aliens have made contact, so he has plenty of sources to choose from). Talking to those in the know in government and the wider UFO scene – often the same thing – Danny follows everyone from Lue Elizondo to Jeremy Corbell, whilst attending sky watches (sometimes falling asleep in the American desert), listening to the stories of alien abductees and chatting with Starseeds (those human beings who claim to be actual aliens). 
 
Whether he’s smoking weed whilst holding dumortierite crystals to access his interdimensional past, or discussing the make-up of ‘space beads’ with the Harvard astrophysicist who’s convinced he’s found evidence of alien life, or investigating the clandestine Skinwalker Ranch, Danny’s journey becomes a deeper story about our unshakeable fascination with little green men – and our deepest wishes not to be alone in the universe. 
 
Encountering a fair amount of religiosity, conspiratorial thinking and plain old magical thinking, Chasing Aliens is a wild journey into the heart of America – where aliens are as American as George Washington and warm apple pie. This is a book for anyone who’s interested in our (possible) neighbours in the universe, and our ongoing search for meaning and answers to life’s great mysteries, trapped as we are in the uncertainty of our short, mortal lives.

Chasing Aliens

Faith and Conspiracy in the UFO Heartlands

Barack Obama

Bruce Springsteen

Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material. 
 
Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders-one Black and one white-looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself. 
 
It includes: 
· Original introductions by President Obama and Bruce Springsteen 
· Exclusive new material from the Renegades podcast recording sessions 
· Obama's never-before-seen annotated speeches 
· Springsteen's handwritten lyrics for songs spanning his 50-year-long career 
· Rare and exclusive photographs from the authors' personal archives

Renegades

Born in the USA

Will Hermes

Crime was everywhere, the government was broke and the city's infrastructure was collapsing, but between 1974 and 1978 virtually all forms of music were being recreated in New York City: disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the Minimalist classical composers, hip hop and punk. 
 
Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith arrived from New Jersey; Grandmaster Flash transformed the turntable into a musical instrument; Steve Reich and Philip Glass shared an apartment as they experimented with composition; the New York Dolls and Talking Heads blew away the grungy clubs; Weather Report and Herbie Hancock created jazz-rock; and Bob Dylan returned with Blood on the Tracks.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever

Ari Folman

David Polonsky

Lena Guberman

It's the middle of the night at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and a thunderbolt has just shattered the protective glass case in which the most famous diary in history is displayed. Magically, Anne's imaginary friend, Kitty, comes to life. 
 
When Kitty learns that Anne and her beloved sister Margot have died in the war, 
she runs away from the house and follows the sisters&rsquo; path, recounting the complete story of Anne Frank's life, family, and diary from her own unique perspective. In the present day, Kitty's adventures bring her in contact with the refugee crisis in Europe, from which she discovers the true meaning of Anne Frank's legacy.

Where Is Anne Frank

Luke Kemp

A radical retelling of human history through collapse – from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond. 
 
** FEATURED IN THE NEW BBC SERIES CIVILISATIONS: RISE AND FALL ** 
** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ** 
 
‘A brilliant, utterly convincing account of the evolution of human society and why we are probably reaching humanity's end days’ HENRY MARSH 
 
'Absolutely essential reading for understanding why past civilisations collapsed, and how to protect our own from the same fate' LEWIS DARTNELL 
 
For the first 300,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change. 
 
As we reluctantly congregated in the first farms and cities, people began to rely on novel lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. And when more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organization. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires – with vast bureaucracies and militaries – carved up and dominated the globe. 
 
What brought them down? Whether in the early cities of Cahokia in North America or Tiwanaku in South America, or the sprawling empires of Egypt, Rome and China, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power that hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population. 
 
Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last. 
 
'An excellent survey of human history through the collapses of Goliath-like kings, states and empires' OBSERVER 
 
'A comprehensive overview of societal collapse, based on the analysis of dozens of cases spanning thousands of years from the Paleolithic to today. Highly recommended' PETER TURCHIN 
 
'A deeply sobering and strangely inspiring history of how societies collapse - and how we can still save ours. Read it now, or your descendants will find it in the ruins' JOHANN HARI 
 
'Like reading Thomas Piketty filtered through Mad Max' NEW YORK TIMES

Goliath’s Curse

The History and Future of Societal Collapse

Sinclair McKay

With the threat of invasion from Hitler's forces looming large in 1940, men of all ages and backgrounds assembled under the banner of the Home Guard. A voluntary force much later nicknamed ‘Dad’s Army’, at its height there were almost two million volunteers prepared to defend every corner of the kingdom, including notable figures like George Orwell, A.A. Milne, and C.S. Lewis. Many women took part too, including in the Women's Home Defence Force which formed in 1941. 
 
Far from the stereotype of charming incompetence, the Home Guard were in fact entirely serious in their approach. Many volunteers had fought in World War One, and radical veterans from the Spanish Civil War taught these men and boys new techniques in lethal guerilla fighting. Chocolate-box village greens were re-imagined as bloody battlefields, with duties including rifle and mortar training, night-time patrols and manning anti-aircraft guns – all on top of volunteers’ everyday jobs. Yet all of this was underpinned by an essential good humour, with moments of levity and comradery vital in keeping up a much-needed spirit of defiance. 
 
Sunday Times bestselling author Sinclair McKay tells the remarkable story of these courageous, highly-trained and often pioneering men and women through original archival research, vivid storytelling and insights into the beloved television comedy which has shaped the national memory of the Home Guard. With its vibrant personalities and high nostalgia factor, 'Dad's Army' tells this extraordinary story in full colour.

Dad’s Army

The Glorious True Story of the Home Guard

Art Spiegelman

The paperback boxed set of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel in its original two-volume format re-released to include a sixteen-page booklet designed by the artist. Acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust" (Wall Street Journal), Maus is considered "the first masterpiece in comic book history" (The New Yorker). 
 
 A brutally moving work of art-widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written-Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author's father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. 
 
 Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma

Maus I & II Paperback Box Set

Hillary Chute

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Spiegelman is one of our most influential contemporary artists, and it is hard to overstate his effect on postwar American culture and the world of comics. Maus has shaped the fields of literature, history, and art, and enlivened our collective sense of what these practices can accomplish. Collecting responses to the work that confirm its unique and terrain-shifting status, Maus Now sees writers such as Philip Pullman, Adam Gopnik, Ruth Franklin, and others approaching the complexity of Maus from a wide range of viewpoints and traditions. Organized into three loosely chronological sections ("Contexts", "Problems of Representation" and "Legacy"), the book offers translations of important French, Hebrew, and German essays on Maus for the first time. 
 
Maus is revelatory, and generative, in profound and long-lasting ways. With this collection, American literary scholar Hillary Chute, an expert on comics and graphic narratives, assembles the world's best writing on this classic work of graphic testimony.

Maus Now

Selected Writing

Simon Schama

Churchill and his painter locked in a struggle of stares and glares; Gainsborough watching his daughters run after a butterfly; a naked John Lennon five hours before his death. 
 
Simon Schama has written a tour de force about British portraits over the centuries in which the image-maker, the subject and everyone else looking on are brought unforgettably to life. Mesmerising in its extraordinary storytelling, and beautifully illustrated, The Face of Britain will change the way we see our past - and ourselves.

The Face of Britain

The Stories Behind the Nation’s Portraits

The Nation through Its Portraits

Erin Goeres

The definitive character-led history of the most famous year in history. 
 
On 5 January 1066, Edward the Confessor's death plunged the nation into a succession crisis that would indelibly change England forever. Mere hours after Edward’s remains had been laid to rest, his brother-in-law Harold II seized power, inciting the wrath of two formidable challengers: King Haraldr of Norway and Edward’s ambitious cousin, William, Duke of Normandy. 
 
In this startling new history, Dr Erin Goeres unveils the intense drama that unfolded over the tumultuous nineteen days between the Battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings in the Autumn of 1066, and which led to the deaths of two monarchs, ending a centuries-long Anglo-Scandinavian rule. 
 
Drawing on sources from England, Normandy and Scandinavia, Goeres uncovers complex histories, characters, and motivations. We meet the women at the heart of the fray – such as William's enigmatic wife, Matilda of Flanders, the alleged lover of Harold of England and the ‘driving force’ behind her husband's invasion – as well as the regular people who were swept up in events beyond their control, such as a farmer, beheaded for an unwillingness to give his jacket to a Norwegian invader. 
 
Nineteen Days in Autumn is a gripping tale of three nations entwined, the devastating consequences of their unravelling and the subsequent memorialisation of this saga, which has given rise to the nationalistic myths of today.

Nineteen Days in Autumn

A New History of 1066

Phillips Payson O'Brien

War and power are two of the most-widely discussed issues in all of human history, and yet they are, time and again, misunderstood — often disastrously so. 
 
Whilst we might think the outcome of war is determined by so-called ‘Great Powers’ who dominate their opponents with their impressive size and military prowess, the reality of modern conflict, as renowned strategic historian Professor Phillips Payson O’Brien demonstrates, is very different. He urges us instead to look for ‘Full Spectrum Powers’. 
 
For if we are considering how powerful a nation is and who will win a war, we need to think less about weapons, and more about the economies and societies that produce them; less about individual battles, and more about sustaining campaigns and alliances in which states operate. 
 
Using fascinating examples from the late 19th century to the present day, War and Power explains how misunderstanding war and power has led to terrible, even preventable conflicts – such as the war in Ukraine – and how more accurate analysis can help us consider the potential conflict between the US and China. 
 
War and Power provides a bold new way of understanding the dangerous world around us.

War and Power

Who Wins Wars — and Why

Iggy Pop

'Iggy... You can't help loving him.' David Bowie 
 
THESE ARE THE WORDS THAT CAME TO ME. NO MATTER HOW THEY GOT HERE, THEY DID THE FUCKING JOB. 
 
Iggy Pop hasn't left a mark on music; he's left it battered, bruised and covered in blood. 
 
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, here for the first time are his collected lyrics, complete with stunning original photographs, illustrations and Iggy and others' reflections on a genre-defining music career that spans five decades. 
 
The ultimate book for every rock and roll fan, to coincide with a new IGGY POP album, FREE, due on 6th September.

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