Search results for ""profile books ltd""

* THE UNMISSABLE MODESTY BLAISE SHORT STORY COLLECTION * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER In this classic collection of short stories, Modesty Blaise and her trusty lieutenant Willie Garvin find themselves fighting foes around the world. From South America to Berlin and Finland to London, they use everything that comes to hand, from a circus cannon to human kite-flying, to survive against the odds. Including 'A Better Day to Die', 'The Giggle-Wrecker', 'I Had a Date with Lady Janet', 'A Perfect Night to Break Your Neck', 'Salamander Four', and 'The Soo Girl Charity', this is an essential addition to any Modesty Blaise fan's library.

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* THE FIRST NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING MODESTY BLAISE SERIES * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER In her first adventure for British Intelligence, Modesty Blaise with her loyal lieutenant, Willie Garvin, must foil a multi-million pound diamond heist. Bored and restive, Modesty is looking for a mission when she is approached by the head of the British Intelligence. Britain is shipping ten million pounds worth of diamonds from South Africa to Beirut as partial payment for an oil concession to a Middle Eastern sheikh and the rumour is that the secrecy of this mission has been uncovered and someone may try to steal it. Modesty's knowledge and contacts within the international underworld make her the perfect person to solve the case. Knowing the difficulty of the mission, she first has to save Willie from captivity in South America. Then they travel from London to the South of France, across the Mediterranean to Cairo before battling, against impossible odds, a private army of professional killers.

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* THE TENTH NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING MODESTY BLAISE SERIES * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER Ms. Pendergast, a middle-aged nanny operating the criminal force 'El Mico', may not be your typical villain. But in the world of Modesty Blaise, who is? She and her two young charges, Jeremy and Dominic Silk, have made themselves the most potent underworld force in North Africa. In their latest triumph, they've stolen 'The Object' an item of immense value. However, they've also suffered their greatest setback - Bernard Martel, a top lieutenant, has double-crossed them and stolen it back. Pursued and close to death, a delirious Bernard reveals to Modesty Blaise a series of obscure clues, setting her and Willie Garvin on a quest to recover The Object and rescue Tracy, Bernard's wife. From thrilling Tangier, to mysterious Marrekesh, to the grandeur of the High Atlas Mountains, Modesty and Willie stop at nothing in one of their most riveting and action-packed adventures yet.

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* THE SEVENTH NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING MODESTY BLAISE SERIES * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a secret service department in the British Government, and good friend of Modesty Blaise, is being driven through the south of France. His chauffeur stops to help two nuns change a tire on their car, but it is a trap. Sir Gerald is taken prisoner - by the kidnappers, posing as holy sisters. An eyewitness convinces Modesty Blaise that Sir Gerald needs her help, and that the discovery of his car at the bottom of a gorge was a hoax. Sir Gerald is not dead, but rather a prisoner. Modesty and her trusty lieutenant Willie Garvin will find that they have met their match when they mount a rescue, and come up against Mrs McTurk, a ferocious assassin, and Mr Sexton, the world's greatest exponent of unarmed combat. To escape, Modesty must defeat the invincible Mr Sexton in a final confrontation deep underground in the Lancieux caves. Can she survive?

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THE book to buy if you have found other food books difficult to follow and put into practice. Written by a trained nurse who has herself followed the Hay Diet since 1988, it not only gives you the essential guidelines without long, complex explanations, but provides a powerful healing programme that will make you feel super-well. You will find: - The basic principles of food combining explained simply and succinctly - Diagrams at every stage to give you an at-a-glance guide - Detailed lists of meals and menus to help you choose the right combinations - Coded tables of foods for easy reference - A guide to changing over to the Hay Diet - advice on the hidden ailments that may go unrecognised - from low blood sugar and candida to allergies and food intolerances - and how the Hay Diet helps - How to adapt the Hay Diet to your individual needs. It takes time to get used to any new diet regime, but with The Hay Diet Made Easy you will find it simplicity itself: just follow the author's meal ideas until you feel confident enough to devise your own, and the spectacular benefits you will discover will more than compensate for the adjustments you have to make in your old eating habits. Dr William Hay devised the Hay diet in the early twentieth century as a way to help the body digest food more easily (by separating protein meals from carbohydrate meals). This book clearly sets out the diet in accessible terms, as well as providing diagrams to explain its principles. Jackie Habgood also shows how common health problems such as candida and hypoglycaemia can be alleviated by the Hay diet.No other book presents the basics of this diet so simply or practically.

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** THE CAST OF SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING THE APPEAL RETURN FOR A FESTIVE MURDER MYSTERY ** ** FROM THE WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS CRIME AND THRILLER BOOK OF THE YEAR ** * THE SMASH-HIT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER * * AN INSTANT TIMES BESTSELLER * * A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2023 * 'A Christmas treat' - OBSERVER 'A great deal of festive fun' - GUARDIAN 'Sharp, witty and suspenseful' - SUNDAY EXPRESS One dead Santa. A town full of suspects. Will you discover the truth? Christmas in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, to raise money for the church roof appeal. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking amongst the amateur dramatics enthusiasts. Sarah-Jane is fending off threats to her new position as Chair, the fibreglass beanstalk might be full of asbestos, and a someone is intent on ruining the panto even before the curtain goes up. Of course there's also the matter of the dead body. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they read the round robins, examine the emails and pore over the police transcripts. Will the show go on? 'A perfect stocking filler' - INDIA KNIGHT 'Hallett is as good as ever' - OBSERVER

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'Disturbing, blackly funny and completely compulsive' - ALEX NORTH 'a SERIOUSLY creepy thriller. I may never venture into the loft again' - MARK BILLINGHAM 'A brilliantly chilling story with tension on every page' - T.M. LOGAN ________________________________________ THERE'S A SERIAL KILLER ON THE RUN AND HE'S HIDING IN YOUR HOUSE Thomas Brogan is a serial killer. With a trail of bodies in his wake and the police hot on his heels, it seems like Thomas has nowhere left to hide. That is until he breaks into an abandoned house at the end of a terrace on a quiet street. And when he climbs up into the loft, he realises that he can drop down into all the other houses through the shared attic space. That's when the real fun begins. Because the one thing that Thomas enjoys even more than killing is playing games with his victims - the lonely old woman, the bickering couple, the tempting young newlyweds. And his new neighbours have more than enough dark secrets to make this game his best one yet... Do you fear The Resident? Soon you'll be dying to meet him. ________________________________________ 'Brilliant. So twisted, clever and funny. Highly recommended' - MARK EDWARDS 'Dark and disturbing yet so absorbing. Jackson knows how to reel you in' - MEL SHERRATT 'A brilliantly creepy, edge-of-your-seat, tense thriller' - WILL CARVER 'Superb. Creepy, pacy, and oh so witty' - CAZ FREAR 'A chilling psycho thriller with a very novel twist' - PAUL FINCH 'Utterly compelling and impossible to put down. Incredible' - LUCA VESTE 'Twisted as hell. I loved it!' - MANDASUE HELLER 'Clever, addictive and brazenly terrifying. I slept with the lights on after reading this one' - CHRIS WHITAKER 'Darkly thrilling and utterly compulsive. A tour de force!' - VICTORIA SELMAN 'A devilishly dark, wickedly funny crime novel' - PAUL BURSTON 'I highly recommend this book, had me terrified. I'm never going in the attic again. Ever' - LISA HALL 'Menacing, disturbing, compelling and unique' ALEX SHAW 'I devoured this skin-crawling tale of your worst fears come true' SJI HOLLIDAY 'Breathtaking, engrossing and deliciously dark, I dare you to read The Resident and think differently' - STEPHEN EDGER

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'A smart and rich compendium of what is going on within and without our bodies today ... in this brave and significant book, Orbach does battle with a full quiver of her own fire-tipped arrows, her blazing firebrand levelled at self-hatred in all its forms.' the Times In the past decades, the pressure to perfect and design our bodies has been unprecedented. Men are encouraged to surgically pump up their pecs, breast enhancement is a sweet sixteen birthday present in the suburbs of America, and eating problems - from bulimia to obesity - are growing daily, affecting children as young as six. In China, women are having their legs broken and extended by 5cms. In Iran there are 35,000 cosmetic nose reconstructions a year. The body is no longer a given and to possess a flawless one has become the ambition of millions. In her years of practice as a psychoanalyst, Susie Orbach has come to realise that the way we view our bodies is the mirror of how we view ourselves: our body becomes the measure of our worth. In this updated edition of Bodies, she addresses the modern challenges to body-image, exposing how social media has exacerbated existing issues and creates new ways we relate to our bodies. In the past decade, despite campaigns promoting body positivity, often unproven and unregulated dietary products have proliferated throughout the world. Meanwhile, movements such as #MeToo have revealed what has changed in our attitudes to bodies and what has, unfortunately, remained the same.

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Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 2020 'A novelist for our times' Anna Funder, author of Stasiland In this brilliant novel of fear and sacrifice, trauma and survival, four characters' lives intertwine across time and place. Australian soldier Toohey returns from Baghdad in 2003 with shrapnel in his neck, crippled by PTSD. A decade earlier, aspiring pianist Nasim falls from favour with Saddam Hussein and his psychopathic son Uday, triggering a perilous search for safety. In Melbourne as the millennium turns, Robbie, faced with her father's dementia and family silences that may never be addressed, begins to test boundaries. And in the present day, Gerry seeks to escape his father Toohey's tyranny and heal the wounds inflicted by it. Crossing the frontiers of war, protest and cultural reconciliation, Act of Grace is a meditation on inheritance: the damage that one generation bestows upon the next, and the potential for transformation. It is a searing, powerful and utterly original work by an exceptional Australian writer.

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Winner of the 2020 Prix Médicis etranger I want to live on foot, by hand, by pencil, at ease, responsive to whatever I meet, loose like the air that moves around my body as I walk or like a graceful swimming stroke. I want to remain astonished. Join Antonio Muñoz Molina for a walk through Madrid, Paris, London and New York, where the past and the present live side by side in the literature of newspaper headlines, billboards, casual glances and overheard conversation. This is the digital metropolis, captured in notebooks, recorded on the iPhone, where Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Charles Baudelaire, Thomas de Quincey, Fernando Pessoa and Walter Benjamin step beside us, all of us writing the unfinished poem of the crowded city.

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A Times Biography of the Year 'I learned a lot reading this ... the strength of Fracture is that it is very much like a cracking radio script: entertaining and easy to digest' Spectator Ada Lovelace. Frederick Douglass. Vladimir Lenin. Marie Curie. Frieda Kahlo. Carl Jung. Tupac Shakur. All geniuses who changed the world in ways that still influence our lives today. And all men and women who experienced, in childhood, trauma so severe that it should have broken them completely. While presenting Great Lives on Radio 4, Matthew Parris noticed a trend in the lives of the exceptional people the programme covered: many of them had been marked by extreme trauma and deprivation. They seemed to have succeeded not only in spite of their backgrounds, but perhaps even because of them. As Matthew Parris brings each individual's story to life in this original and compelling study, it becomes clear that we must rethink the origins of success, as well as the legacy of trauma.

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*A Blackwell's Book of the Year* *A Waterstones Best Popular Science Book of 2022* *A Telegraph Best Book for Summer 2022* *As heard on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour* 'Excellent ... one of those rare pop-science books that make you look at the whole world differently' The Daily Telegraph ***** 'Riveting' Mail on Sunday ***** 'Captivating' Guardian, Book of the Day 'Compelling' Observer Before the nineteenth century, the term normal was rarely ever associated with human behaviour. Normal was a term used in maths: people weren't normal - triangles were. But from the 1830s, this branch of science really took off across Europe and North America, with a proliferation of IQ tests, sex studies, a census of hallucinations - even a UK beauty map (which concluded the women in Aberdeen were "the most repellent"). This book tells the surprising history how the very notion of the normal came about, how it shaped us all, often while entrenching oppressive values. Sarah Chaney looks at why we're still asking the internet: Do I have a normal body? Is my sex life normal? Are my kids normal? And along the way, she challenges why we ever thought it might be a desirable thing to be.

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*As heard on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour* *A Blackwell's and Waterstones Best Popular Science Book of 2022* 'Excellent ... one of those rare pop-science books that make you look at the whole world differently' The Daily Telegraph ***** 'Riveting' Mail on Sunday ***** 'Captivating' Guardian, Book of the Day 'Compelling' Observer Sarah Chaney takes us on an eye-opening and surprising journey into the history of science, revisiting the studies, landmark experiments and tests that proliferated from the early 19th century to find answers to the question: what's normal? These include a census of hallucinations - and even a UK beauty map (which claimed the women in Aberdeen were "the most repellent"). On the way she exposes many of the hangovers that are still with us from these dubious endeavours, from IQ tests to the BMI. Interrogating how the notion and science of standardisation has shaped us all, as individuals and as a society, this book challenges why we ever thought that normal might be a desirable thing to be.

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'Horrific, hilarious and often rather moving' THE TIMES 'The master of razor-sharp one liners. An absolute belter' - MANDASUE HELLER 'Brilliant. This is British crime writing at its best' - MARK EDWARDS ________________________________________ MY DAD SAYS BAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN I BREAK IT... Daniel is looking forward to his birthday. He wants pie and chips, a big chocolate cake, and a comic book starring his favourite superhero. And as long as he follows The Rule, nothing bad will happen. Daniel will be twenty-three next week. And he has no idea that he's about to kill a stranger. Daniel's parents know that their beloved and vulnerable son will be taken away. They know that Daniel didn't mean to hurt anyone, he just doesn't know his own strength. They dispose of the body. Isn't that what any loving parent would do? But as forces on both sides of the law begin to close in on them, they realise they have no option but to finish what they started. Even if it means that others will have to die... Because they'll do anything to protect Daniel. Even murder. ________________________________________ 'Excellent as always. Grimy and heartbreaking in equal measure' - WILL CARVER 'A pacy, smart and darkly funny heartbreaker of a crime novel' - SUSI HOLLIDAY 'A stupendous piece of literary engineering' - JENNY O'BRIEN 'An intense and compelling read. Highly recommended' - LISA HALL 'David Jackson has done it again. The Rule is incredible' - NOELLE HOLTEN

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Formed in 1921 to provide welfare to soldiers returning from the First World War, the Royal British Legion is today the UK's leading military charity. In May 2021 the Legion celebrates its centenary. We Are the Legion is the first book to look at the whole hundred years, telling the extraordinary story of support to servicemen and women in the UK and around the world - from finding jobs and housing to healing the injuries and trauma of conflict. In recent years the Legion has quietly transformed itself from an organisation of old soldiers to a modern media-savvy charity leading the country in remembrance but also lobbying government on pensions and researching state-of-the-art rehabilitation while working alongside other leading charities on welfare provision. We Are the Legion covers every aspect of the Legion's work: the history of the poppy, the Legion's international links, its role in fostering peace between countries and its latest work on rehabilitation and support. But the book also pulls together lesser known aspects of the Legion's history, whether of the villages set aside for rehabilitation or the misguided trip to Germany in the 1930s as an attempt to foster friendship between nations. Richly illustrated with over 350 images, including an extraordinary collection of early poppy designs, Legion posters and unseen archive shots, the book also includes original photography specially commissioned for the project.

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As heard on BBC Radio 4 Start The Week 'Felix Flicker brilliantly reveals the secrets behind the modern-day magic we call physics' Marcus du Sautoy Imagine you had a crystal that lit upon your command: magic must be at work, and you must surely be a wizard. But what if you discovered that you routinely cast such spells? Are the spells no longer magic ... or are you a wizard? The modern term for wizardry is condensed matter physics. It is the study of the world around us - the states of matter and how they emerge from the quantum realm. Thanks to its practical magic we can make lasers which cut through solid metal, trains which hover in mid-air, and crystals which light our homes. It is one of the best-kept secrets in science; a third of all physicists work on it, yet its story has never been told. Join Felix Flicker as he introduces the magic of condensed matter physics. It will be a journey that reveals the subtle spells that conjure crystals from chaos and create new particles that have never before existed. The Magick of Matter will revolutionise what you know about physics and reality; you'll never see the world in the same way again.

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'I was so captivated by this book, so utterly drawn in and overwhelmed by the emotional force of it, that it stayed in my bloodstream, it felt, long after I'd finished it.' Nigella Lawson 'Sharp and engrossing' Roxane Gay As the bookish daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami Attenberg was drawn to the road. Her wanderlust led her to drive solo across America, and eventually on travels around the globe, embracing - for better and worse - all the messy life she encountered along the way. As she travelled she was crafting, grafting and honing her work, piecing together a living and career, and wrestling with a deep longing for independence while also searching for community, and eventually, a place she might want to stay in for good. This remarkable memoir reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring and singular story of living the creative life, and finding one's way home.

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A Financial Times 'Book to Read in 2023' 1930s Europe - as the Roaring Twenties wind down and the world rumbles towards war, the great minds of the time have other concerns. Jean-Paul Sartre waits anxiously in a Parisian café for his first date with no-show Simone de Beauvoir. Marlene Dietrich slips from her loveless marriage into the dive bars of Berlin. Father and son Thomas and Klaus Mann clash over each other's homosexuality. And Vladimir Nabokov lovingly places a fresh-caught butterfly at the end of Verá's bed. Little do they all know, the book burning will soon begin. Love in a Time of Hate skilfully interweaves some of the greatest love stories of the 1930s with the darkening backdrop of fascism in Europe, in an irresistible journey into the past that brings history and its actors to vivid life.

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Winner of the 2021 Cundill History Prize Winner of the 2021 Frederick Douglass Prize 'A richly detailed account of a gripping human story' Washington Post '[An] epic history ... a sweeping, thoughtful narrative' Los Angeles Times On Sunday 27 February, 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice - in present-day Guyana - launched a massive rebellion which came amazingly close to succeeding. Surrounded by jungle and savannah, the revolutionaries and their enslavers struck and parried for an entire year. In the end, the Dutch prevailed because of one advantage: their access to soldiers and supplies. Blood on the River is the explosive story of this little-known revolution, one that almost changed the face of the Americas. Drawing on 900 interrogation transcripts collected by the Dutch when the Berbice rebellion finally collapsed, which were subsequently buried in Dutch archives, historian Marjoleine Kars reconstructs an extraordinarily rich day-by-day account of this pivotal event. Blood on the River provides a rare, in-depth look at the political vision of enslaved people at the dawn of the Age of Revolution. An astonishing original work of history, Blood on the River will change our understanding of revolutions, slavery and of the story of freedom in the New World.

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Towards a Digital Renaissance traces the excitement and optimism of the early internet, the outsider cyberpunk ethic and open access. But it also monitors the more complex but ultimately more commercialised online world of today, a world dominated by corporate business in which many feel that surveillance has become overwhelming. Jeremy Silver's involvement in various start-ups, both as CEO and investor, led to his leadership of Digital Catapult. Towards a Digital Renaissance examines the interplay between state and private financing in the digital sector. It also argues for the internet's potential to transition from a 'medieval' world of the GAFA big four (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple), closed and walled up like medieval city states, to a 'digital renaissance' based on the free exchange of ideas and an enabling metaverse made up of virtual reality and artificial intelligence that deepens our experience of reality rather than restricting or monitoring it.

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Jenny Joseph was no ordinary poet - and Led by the Nose is no ordinary memoir. Shaped around the smells of the English countryside, it is full of the wilful personality and the sly humour that characterised the purple-clad old woman in her iconic poem 'Warning'. Joseph's eccentricities permeate each chapter as she flows through the gardening year with its chores and blossoms, frequently leading the reader off the garden path to stop, smell the roses, and ignore the world for a while. Full of the sensual awareness of Jenny Joseph's poetry, Led by the Nose is a singular memoir: a work of delicious diversion and literary flair, horticultural anxieties and countercultural tendencies, providing a glimpse - or sniff - of the landscape of this treasured poet's life.

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LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER ~ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ~ WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 'An astonishing account of love, resilience and survival' Sunday Times 'A remarkable book' New York Times 'An extraordinary tale through the generations' Guardian In 1850s South Carolina, Rose, an enslaved woman, faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few items. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. That, in itself, is a story. But it's not the whole story. How does one uncover the lives of people who, in their day, were considered property? Harvard historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women's faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward. All That She Carried gives us history as it was lived, a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds.

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This entertaining and endlessly surprising book takes us on an exploration into every aspect of Japanese society from the most public to the most intimate. A series of meticulous investigations gradually uncovers the multi-faceted nature of a country and people who are even more extraordinary than they seem. Our journey encompasses religion, ritual, martial arts, manners, eating, drinking, hot baths, geishas, family, home, singing, wrestling, dancing, performing, clans, education, aspiration, sexes, generations, race, crime, gangs, terror, war, kindness, cruelty, money, art, imperialism, emperor, countryside, city, politics, government, law and a language that varies according to whom you are speaking. Clear-sighted, persistent, affectionate, unsentimental and honest - Alan Macfarlane shows us Japan as it has never been seen before.

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Like everything Bennett does, these stories are playful, witty and painfully observant of ordinary people's foibles. They all have brilliant twists, are immensely entertaining and highly moral. And all are modern classics. The Laying on of Hands The painfully observant account of a memorial service for a masseur to the famous. The Clothes They Stood Up In The comic tale of an elderly couple's trials after their flat is stripped completely bare. Father! Father! Burning Bright The savage satire on the family of a dying man who rules over them from his hospital bed. The Lady in the Van The true story of the eccentric old woman who is invited to live in a homeowner's front garden. She stays there, in her van, for fifteen years. The home is Alan Bennett's. It became a West End hit and a major film, starring Maggie Smith.

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WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2008 'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy' Laura Silverman, Daily Mail The ruins of Pompeii, buried by an explosion of Vesuvius in 79 CE, offer the best evidence we have of everyday life in the Roman empire. This remarkable book rises to the challenge of making sense of those remains, as well as exploding many myths: the very date of the eruption, probably a few months later than usually thought; or the hygiene of the baths which must have been hotbeds of germs; or the legendary number of brothels, most likely only one; or the massive death count, maybe less than ten per cent of the population. An extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain's favourite classicist.

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Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Even today there are experimental results that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. In the past, similar anomalies have revolutionised our world: in the sixteenth century, a set of celestial irregularities led Copernicus to realise that the Earth goes around the sun and not the reverse. In 13 Things That Don't Make Sense Michael Brooks meets thirteen modern-day anomalies that may become tomorrow's breakthroughs. Is ninety six percent of the universe missing? If no study has ever been able to definitively show that the placebo effect works, why has it become a pillar of medical science? Was the 1977 signal from outer space a transmission from an alien civilization? Spanning fields from chemistry to cosmology, psychology to physics, Michael Brooks thrillingly captures the excitement and controversy of the scientific unknown.

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The companion book to the bestselling Concise 48 Laws of Power, which has now sold over 125,000 copies in the UK. Amoral, ruthless, clever and cunning, this is the essential guide to the art of seduction.

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The only thing most people know about Kazakhstan is that it is homeland to Borat - and he isn't even real. Actually this vast place - the last unknown inhabited country in the world - is far more surprising and entertaining. For one thing, it is as varied as Europe, combining stupendous wealth, grinding poverty, exotic traditions and a mad dash for modernity. Crisscrossing a vanished land, Christopher Robbins finds Eminem by a shrinking Aral Sea, goes eagle-hunting, visits the scene of Dostoyevsky's doomed first love, takes up residence beside one-time neighbour Leon Trotsky and visits some of the most beautiful, unspoilt places on earth.

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When a middle-aged alcoholic is found brutally battered to death on a roadside in West London, the case is assigned to a nameless detective sergeant, a tough-talking cynic and fearless loner from the Department of Unexplained Deaths at the Factory police station. Working from cassette tapes left behind in the dead man's property, our narrator must piece together the history of his blighted existence and discover the agents of its cruel end. What he doesn't expect is that digging for the truth will demand plenty of lying, and that the most terrible of villains will also prove to be the most attractive. In the first of six police procedurals that comprise the Factory series, Derek Raymond spins a riveting, and vividly human crime drama. Relentlessly pursuing justice for the dispossessed, his detective narrator treads where few others dare: in the darkest corners of London, a city of sin plagued by unemployment, racism and vice, and peopled by a cast of low-lifes, all utterly convincing and brought to life by Raymond's pitch-perfect dialogue.

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The Spanish Civil War captured the imaginations of writers and readers around the world. ¡No Pasarán! collects thirty-eight of the most vivid, poignant stories to come out of the conflict, by writers from across the political, geographical and artistic spectrum. The writers include celebrated international figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Leonardo Sciascia and Victor Serge and well known British and American observers such as George Orwell, Gamel Woolsey, Langston Hughes and Muriel Rukeyser. Uniquely, where previous collections privileged the writings of the International Brigades, ¡No Pasarán! draws most heavily on writers from Spain itself - including Mercè Rodoreda, Javier Cercas and Luís Buñuel. ¡No Pasarán! is the essential anthology of Spain's Civil War writing, and allows the reader to witness life and death, hope and despair at the front lines of one of the century's most bitter wars.

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Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Alain Mabanckou left Congo in 1989, at the age of twenty-two, not to return until a quarter of a century later. When at last he comes home to Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on Congo's south-eastern coast, he finds a country that in some ways has changed beyond recognition: the cinema where, as a child, Mabanckou gorged on glamorous American culture has become a Pentecostal temple, and his secondary school has been re-named in honour of a previously despised colonial ruler. But many things remain unchanged, not least the swirling mythology of Congolese culture which still informs everyday life in Pointe-Noire. Mabanckou though, now a decorated French-Congolese writer and esteemed professor at UCLA, finds he can only look on as an outsider at the place where he grew up. As he delves into his childhood, into the life of his departed mother and into the strange mix of belonging and absence that informs his return to Congo, Mabanckou slowly builds a stirring exploration of the way home never leaves us, however long ago we left home.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER AND LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016, THE TIMES 10 Best Thrillers of 2010s It's 1996, Bill Clinton has just been re-elected and in Houston a mayoral election is looming. As usual the campaign focuses on Pleasantville -- the African-American neighbourhood of the city that has swung almost every race since it was founded to house a growing black middle class in 1949. Axel Hathorne, former chief of police and the son of Pleasantville's founding father, was all set to become Houston's first black mayor. But his lead is slipping thanks to a late entrant into the race -- Sandy Wolcott, a defence attorney riding high on the success of a high-profile murder trial. And then, just as the competition intensifies, a girl goes missing, apparently while canvassing for Axel. And when her body is found, Axel's nephew is charged with her murder. Sam is determined that Jay Porter defends his grandson. And even though Jay is tired of wading through other people's problems, he suddenly finds himself trying his first murder case, a trial that threatens to blow the entire community wide open, and reveal the lengths that those with power are willing to go to hold onto it.

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'My Albertine, how I adored her! Her luminous eyes led me through the darkness of my youth. She was my guide through the nights of one hundred sleeps. And now she is yours.' At the age of twenty-one, a sad and hungry Patti Smith walked into a bookshop in Greenwich Village and decided to spend her last 99 cents on a novel that would change her life forever. The book was Astragal, by Albertine Sarrazin. Sarrazin was an enigmatic outsider who had spent time in jail and who wrote only two novels and a book of poems in her short life - she died the year before Patti found her book, at the age of twenty-nine. Astragal tells the story of Anne, a young woman who breaks her ankle in a daring escape from prison. She makes it to a highway where she's picked up by a motorcyclist, Julien, who's also on the run. As they travel through nights and days together, they fall in love and must do whatever they can to survive, living their lives always on the edge of danger. A bewitching and timeless novel of youthful rebellion and romance, this new edition of Patsy Southgate's original translation includes an introduction by Patti Smith.

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By the prize-winning author of Heaven My Home, a taut crime novel perfect for reading groups. Bury your bodies deep and your secrets deeper. Just after dawn, Caren inspects the grounds of Belle Vie, the historic plantation house she manages. Back at her office, the gardener calls to tell her she missed something. Something terrible. At a distance, she didn't see. A young woman lying face down in a shallow grave, her throat cut clean. So there will be police, asking questions. The family who own Belle Vie will have to be told. There's a school group on the way to visit. Where is Donovan, the member of staff no one has seen? And all the time, Caren is thinking that there are only so many keys, only so many ways in to Belle Vie with its six foot high perimeter fence. And as she lives on site with her daughter, she wonders: how much danger are they in? A thriller with as much heart as it has pace, Attica Locke combines a riveting mystery with a shattering story of how our history is never just the past.

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From Dictatorship to Democracy was a pamphlet, printed and distributed by Dr Gene Sharp and based on his study, over a period of forty years, on non-violent methods of demonstration. Now in its fourth edition, it was originally handed out by the Albert Einstein Institution, and although never actively promoted, to date it has been translated into thirty-one languages. This astonishing book travelled as a photocopied pamphlet from Burma to Indonesia, Serbia and most recently Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, with dissent in China also reported. Surreptitiously handed out amongst youth uprisings the world over - how the 'how-to' guide came about and its role in the recent Arab uprisings is an extraordinary tale. Once read you'll find yourself urging others to read it and indeed want to gift it.

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'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person ... can possibly have value.' So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. More than sixty years on, tens of thousands of people have read and enjoyed three volumes of her vivid and moving diaries, written during the Second World War and its aftermath as part of the Mass Observation project - and the basis for BAFTA-winning drama Housewife 49 starring Victoria Wood. The Diaries of Nella Last, brings together into a single volume the best of Nella's prolific outpourings, including a great deal of new, unpublished material from the war years. Capturing the everyday trials and horrors of wartime Britain and the nation's transition into peacetime and beyond, Nella's touching and often humorous narrative provides an invaluable historical portrait of what daily life was like for ordinary people in the 1940s and 1950s. Outwardly Nella's life was commonplace; but behind this mask were a penetrating mind and a lively pen. As David Kynaston said on Radio 4, she 'will come to be seen as one of the major twentieth century English diarists.'

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Ru: In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow - of tears, blood, money. Kim Thúy's Ru is literature at its most crystalline: the flow of a life on the tides of unrest and on to more peaceful waters. In vignettes of exquisite clarity, sharp observation and sly wit, we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp, and onward to a new life in Quebec. There, the young girl feels the embrace of a new community, and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream. As an adult, the waters become rough again: now a mother of two, she must learn to shape her love around the younger boy's autism. Moving seamlessly from past to present, from history to memory and back again, Ru is a book that celebrates life in all its wonder: its moments of beauty and sensuality, brutality and sorrow, comfort and comedy.

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What would be your ideal job if you didn't have to worry about money? Would you like to have more responsibility or less? How far would you go for a promotion? When did you last stand up for what you believe in? What are you afraid of? In this unique handbook to your own life and work, there are no right or wrong answers: only honest ones. Featuring sections on subjects everyone can relate to, from the professional (work and finance), to the personal (sex and relationships), The Question Book can be used alone, like a journal; or with a colleague, partner or friend. It will probe and enlighten on everything, including what your boss really thinks about you, whether you are in the right job, and what motivates you to get out of bed every morning. These wide-ranging questions - which provoke short 'yes or no's as well as open-ended responses that dig deeper - are pertinent, direct, and compulsively fun to answer. In The Question Book, you are under the spotlight. And only you have the answer.

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Her central themes are the classics, universities and teaching - and much else besides. In this second collection following on from the success of It's a Don's Life, Beard ponders whether Gaddafi's home is Roman or not, we share her 'terror of humiliation' as she enters 'hairdresser country' and follow her dilemma as she wanders through the quandary of illegible handwriting on examination papers and 'longing for the next dyslexic' - on whose paper the answers are typed, not handwritten. Praise for It's a Don's Life 'Delightful... it has the virtues of brevity, eclecticism and learning worn lightly... if they'd had Mary Beard on their side back then, the Romans would still have their empire' Daily Mail

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From Newton's Law of Gravity to the Black-Scholes model used by bankers to predict the markets, equations, are everywhere -- and they are fundamental to everyday life.Seventeen Equations that Changed the World examines seventeen ground-breaking equations that have altered the course of human history. He explores how Pythagoras's Theorem led to GPS and Satnav; how logarithms are applied in architecture; why imaginary numbers were important in the development of the digital camera, and what is really going on with Schrödinger's cat. Entertaining, surprising and vastly informative, Seventeen Equations that Changed the World is a highly original exploration -- and explanation -- of life on earth.

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The Shielding of Mrs Forbes Graham Forbes is a disappointment to his mother, who thinks that if he must have a wife, he should have done better. Though her own husband isn't all that satisfactory either. Still, this is Alan Bennett, so what is happening in the bedroom (and in lots of other places too) is altogether more startling, perhaps shocking, and ultimately more true to people's predilections. The Greening of Mrs Donaldson Mrs Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on the shores of widowhood after a marriage that had been much like many others: happy to begin with, then satisfactory and finally dull. But when she decides to take in two lodgers, her mundane life becomes much more stimulating...

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Mary Magdalene is a larger figure than any text, larger than the Bible or the Church; she has taken on a life of her own. She has been portrayed as a penitent whore, a wealthy woman, Christ's wife, an adulteress, a symbol of the frailty of women and an object of veneration. And, to this day, she remains a potent and mysterious figure. In the manner of a quest, this book follows Mary Magdalene through the centuries, explores how she has been reinterpreted for every age, and examines what she herself reveals about woman and man and the divine. It seeks the real Mary Magdalene in the New Testament and in the Gnostic gospels where she is extolled as the chief disciple of Christ. It investigates how and why the Church recast her as a fallen woman, it traces her story through the Renaissance when she became a goddess of beauty and love, and it looks at Mary Magdalene as the feminist icon she has become today.

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'Inspirational ... I can't recommend this book highly enough' Bill Gates Profound and powerful, Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba and Russia, as the charismatic but flawed genius Dr Paul Farmer challenges widely-held preconceptions about poverty and healthcare. As a medical student, Farmer found his life's calling: to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine - so readily available in the developed world - to those who need them most. Beginning in Haiti, he tackles the conditions that contribute to so many unnecessary deaths with his trademark combination of world-class expertise, unlimited compassion, and the unstinting dedication of friends and colleagues. Tracy Kidder's magnificent and moving account shows how, from achieving this modest dream, one person can make a difference in solving global problems through a clear-eyed understanding of the interaction of politics, wealth, social systems and medicine.

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But what does your furniture point at?' asks the character Joey in the sitcom Friends on hearing an acquaintance has no TV. It's a good question: since its beginnings during WW2, television has assumed a central role in our houses and our lives, just as satellite dishes and aerials have become features of urban skylines. Television (or 'the idiot's lantern', depending on your feelings about it) has created controversy, brought coronations and World Cups into living rooms, allowed us access to 24hr news and media and provided a thousand conversation starters. As shows come and go in popularity, the history of television shows us how our society has changed. Armchair Nation reveals the fascinating, lyrical and sometimes surprising history of telly, from the first demonstration of television by John Logie Baird (in Selfridges) to the fear and excitement that greeted its arrival in households (some viewers worried it might control their thoughts), the controversies of Mary Whitehouse's 'Clean Up TV' campaign and what JG Ballard thought about Big Brother. Via trips down memory lane with Morecambe and Wise, Richard Dimbleby, David Frost, Blue Peter and Coronation Street, you can flick between fascinating nuggets from the strange side of TV: what happened after a chimpanzee called 'Fred J. Muggs' interrupted American footage of the Queen's wedding, and why aliens might be tuning in to The Benny Hill Show.

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It's time for us to re-examine the past. Our lives are infinitely richer if we take the time to look at what the Greeks and Romans have given us in politics and law, religion and philosophy and education, and to learn how people really lived in Athens, Rome, Sparta and Alexandria. This is a book with a serious point to make but the author isn't simply a classicist but a comedian and broadcaster who has made television and radio documentaries about humour, education and Dorothy Parker. This is a book for us all. Whether political, cultural or social, there are endless parallels between the ancient and modern worlds. Whether it's the murder of Caesar or the political assassination of Thatcher; the narrative arc of the hit HBO series The Wire or that of Oedipus; the popular enthusiasm for the Emperor Titus or President Obama - over and over again we can be seen to be living very much like people did 2,000 or more years ago.

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There are many books on the First World War, but award-winning and bestselling historian Peter Englund takes a daring and stunning new approach. Describing the experiences of twenty ordinary people from around the world, all now unknown, he explores the everyday aspects of war: not only the tragedy and horror, but also the absurdity, monotony and even beauty. Two of these twenty will perish, two will become prisoners of war, two will become celebrated heroes and two others end up as physical wrecks. One of them goes mad, another will never hear a shot fired. Following soldiers and sailors, nurses and government workers, from Britain, Russia, Germany, Australia and South America - and in theatres of war often neglected by major histories on the period - Englund reconstructs their feelings, impressions, experiences and moods. This is a piece of anti-history: it brings this epoch-making event back to its smallest component, the individual.

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The ancient world that Alexander the Great transformed in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death. The imperial dynasties of his successors incorporated and reorganized the fallen Persian empire, creating a new land empire stretching from the shores of the Mediterranean to as far east as Bactria. In old Greece a fragile balance of power was continually disturbed by wars. Then, from the late third century, the military and diplomatic power of Rome successively defeated and dismantled every one of the post-Alexandrian political structures. The Hellenistic period (c. 323-30 BC) was then one of fragmentation, violent antagonism between large states, and struggles by small polities to retain an illusion of independence. Yet it was also a period of growth, prosperity, and intellectual achievement. A vast network spread of trade, influence and cultural contact, from Italy to Afghanistan and from Russia to Ethiopia, enriching and enlivening centres of wealth, power and intellectual ferment. From Alexander the Great's early days building an empire, via wars with Rome, rampaging pirates, Cleopatra's death and the Jewish diaspora, right up to the death of Hadrian, Chaniotis examines the social structures, economic trends, political upheaval and technological progress of an era that spans five centuries and where, perhaps, modernity began.

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In September 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length and quality, have created a record of the Second World War which is powerful, fascinating and unique. When war broke out, Nella's younger son joined the army while the rest of the family tried to adapt to civilian life. Writing each day for the "Mass Observation" project, Nella, a middle-aged housewife from the bombed town of Barrow, shows what people really felt during this time. This was the period in which she turned 50, saw her children leave home, and reviewed her life and her marriage - which she eventually compares to slavery. Her growing confidence as a result of her war work makes this a moving (though often comic) testimony, which, covering sex, death and fear of invasion, provides a new, unglamorised, female perspective on the war years.'Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books.' Oct 8, 1939

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