Search results for ""ATLANTIC BOOKS""

'P. J. O'Rourke was the funniest writer of his generation, one of the smartest and one of the most prolific. Now that he belongs to the ages, P.J. takes his rightful place along with Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker in the Pantheon of Quote Gods.' Christopher Buckley from his introductionWhen The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations was published in 1994, P. J. O'Rourke had more entries than any living writer. And he kept writing funny stuff for another 28 years. Now, for the first time, the best material is collected in one volume. Edited by his longtime friend Terry McDonell, The Funny Stuff is arranged in six sections, organized by subject in alphabetical order from Agriculture to Xenophobia. Not only did P.J. write memorable one-liners, he also meticulously constructed riffs that built to a crescendo of hilarity and outrage - and are still being quoted years later. His prose has the electric verbal energy of Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, but P.J. is more flat-out funny. And through it all comes his clear-eyed take on politics, economics, human nature - and fun. The Funny Stuff is a book for P.J. fans to devour but also a book that will bring new readers and stand as testament to one of the truly original American writers of the last 50 years.

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After the devastation of war, a child's love heals everything.Manchester, 1922: Molly Watson has had enough. Engaged for the last three years to a penny-pinching pedant, she finally decides she'd rather be a surplus girl than marry a man she doesn't truly love. Aware of the need to support herself if she is to remain single all her life, she joins a secretarial class to learn new skills, and a whole world opens up to her.When she gets a job at St Anthony's Orphanage, she befriends caretaker Aaron Abrams. But a misunderstanding leaves them at loggerheads, and damages her in the eyes of the children she has come to care so deeply about. Can she recover her reputation, her livelihood, and her budding friendship, before it's too late?The second in a quartet of sagas set during the early 1920s, following three Surplus Girls - those women whose dreams of marriage perished in the Great War, after the deaths of millions of young men, and the new lives they forged for themselves.

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'Poetic, atmospheric' Daily Mail ___________________________Discover the perfect heatwave read, threaded with fading seaside glamour and simmering heat, from the bestselling author of The Temple House VanishingA summer of change. A lifetime of regret. The summer Natasha Rothwell turns fifteen, strange dancing lights appear in the sky above her small town, lights that she interprets as portents of doom.Natasha leads a sheltered life with her beautiful, bohemian mother in a crumbling house by the sea. As news of the lights spreads, more and more visitors arrive in the town, creating a feverish atmosphere of anticipation and dread. And the arrival of a new lodger, the handsome Mr Bowen, threatens to upset the delicate equilibrium between mother and daughter.Then Natasha's fears seem to be realized when a local teenager goes missing, and she is called on to help. But her actions over that long, hot summer will have unforeseen and ultimately tragic consequences that will cast a shadow for many years to come...

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**WINNER OF THE 2018 SWEDISH ACADEMY OF CRIME WRITERS' AWARD FOR BEST SWEDISH CRIME NOVEL****WINNER OF THE 2019 GLASS KEY AWARD****WINNER OF THE 2019 SWEDISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD**____________Even the darkest journey must come to an end...Three years ago, Lelle's daughter went missing in a remote part of Northern Sweden. Lelle has spent the intervening summers driving the Silver Road under the midnight sun, frantically searching for his lost daughter. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Meja arrives in town hoping for a fresh start. She is the same age as Lelle's daughter was - a girl on the brink of adulthood. For Meja, there are dangers to be found in this isolated place.As the days darken, Lelle and Meja's lives are intertwined in ways, both haunting and tragic, that they could never have imagined.'Haunting, intoxicating' Ali Land, author of Good Me Bad Me'Deeply affecting' Chris Whitaker, author of All the Wicked Girls

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TO LOVE, HONOUR, AND BETRAY...'One of our finest thriller writers.' Daily Mail1936: Devastated by the death of her beloved brother Hugh, Emma seeks to keep his memory alive by wholeheartedly embracing his dreams of a communist revolution. But when she marries an ambitious diplomat, she must leave her ideals behind and live within the confines of embassy life in Paris and Nazi Berlin. Then one of Hugh's old comrades reappears, asking her to report on her philandering husband, and her loyalties are torn.1979: Emma's grandson, Phil, dreams of a gap-year tour of Cold War Europe, but is nowhere near being able to fund it. So when his beloved grandmother determines to make one last trip to the places she lived as a young diplomatic wife, and to try to solve a mystery that has haunted her since the war, he jumps at the chance to accompany her. But their journey takes them to darker, more dangerous places than either of them could ever have imagined...'Thoroughly engaging. Prewar Europe has rarely been evoked with the skill that Ridpath displays here.' Financial Times

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Goodread's Romance Book of the Year, 2018A Washington Post Book of the Year, 2018An AmazonBook of the Year, 2018Cosmopolitan's 33 Books to Get Excited About in 2018Elle Best Summer Reads 2018__________ A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.It's high time for Stella Lane to settle down and find a husband - or so her mother tells her. This is no easy task for a wealthy, successful woman like Stella, who also happens to have Asperger's. Analyzing data is easy; handling the awkwardness of one-on-one dates is hard. To overcome her lack of dating experience, Stella decides to hire a male escort to teach her how to be a good girlfriend.Faced with mounting bills, Michael decides to use his good looks and charm to make extra cash on the side. He has a very firm no repeat customer policy, but he's tempted to bend that rule when Stella approaches him with an unconventional proposal.The more time they spend together, the harder Michael falls for this disarming woman with a beautiful mind, and Stella discovers that love defies logic.Heart-tugging, sexy and utterly joyful - The Kiss Quotient is a book for anyone who has been in love, or in lust...

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'Jim Fraser has been at the forefront of forensic science in the UK for decades... A superb story of real-life CSI.' Dr Richard Shepherd, bestselling author of Unnatural Causes'Powerful... Fascinating' Independent Most murders are not difficult to solve. People are usually killed by someone they know, there is usually abundant evidence and the police methods used to investigate this type of crime are highly effective. But what about the more difficult cases, where the investigation involves an unusual death, an unusual killer, or is complex or politically charged? In these cases, bringing the accused before the courts can take many years, even then, the outcome may be contentious or unresolved. In this compelling and chilling memoir, Jim Fraser draws on his personal experience as a forensic scientist and cold case reviewer to give a unique insight into some of the most notable cases that he has investigated during his forty-year career, including the deaths of Rachel Nickell, Damilola Taylor and Gareth Williams, the GCHQ code breaker.Inviting the reader into the forensic scientist's micro-world, Murder Under the Microscope reveals not only how each of these cases unfolded as a human, investigative and scientific puzzle, but also why some were solved and why others remain unsolved or controversial even to this day.

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Humans invented money from nothing, so why can't we live without it? And why does no one understand what it really is? In this lively tour through the centuries, Jacob Goldstein charts the story of this paradoxical commodity, exploring where money came from, why it matters and whether bitcoin will still exist in twenty years.Full of interesting stories and quirky facts - from the islanders who used huge stones as a means of exchange to the merits of universal basic income - this is an indispensable handbook for anyone curious about how money came to make the world go round.

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A GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FINALISTLonglisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2018Crime Book of the Month, Sunday Times, February 2018'I loved this... very tough and very real.' - Margaret AtwoodWhen Stella, a young mother in an Indigenous community, looks out her window one wintry evening and spots someone being attacked on the Break - a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house - she calls the police. By the time help arrives, all that is left of the struggle is blood on the snow. As the search for the victim intensifies, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly - police, family, and friends - tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night, uncovering secrets and resentments long buried and giving blazing testimony to the lived reality of people pushed out to the coldest edges of modern Canada.

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Announced in 1912, the Schneider Trophy was a series of glamorous air contests, popularly known as races, that captivated both sides of the Atlantic. While there were many other aviation competitions, the Schneider proved to be, after a rocky start, by far the most memorable attracting a hugely popular and glamorous following whether Trophy races were held in Monaco, the Venice Lido, the Solent or Chesapeake Bay.The Schneider Trophy was a focus not just of remarkable aircraft, derring-do pilots and swooning public attention, but also of fierce rivalries between the competitors: Britain, France, Italy and the United States. It gripped the imaginations of pioneering manufacturers and two of the world's finest aircraft designers ­- Reginald Mitchell and Mario Castoldi - who worked feverishly hard to outdo one another. Perhaps inevitably, the dynamism of rival engineering and politics led to the most potent military fighters of World War Two with Reginald Mitchell's record-breaking Supermarine seaplanes morphing, one way or another, into the Spitfire.Wings Over Water not only tells the story of the Schneider Trophy afresh but also examines the backdrop and legacy of these legendary air races, which became a driver and celebration of speed and engineering prowess for both sea and ground-based aircraft. It is an exhilarating tale of raw adventure, public excitement, engineering genius and the fortunes of flying boats and seaplanes.

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It's 1944 when the twin sisters arrive at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and shared games of their childhood. As part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, the girls experience privileges and horrors unknown to others, and they find themselves changed, stripped of the personalities they once shared, their identities altered by the burdens of guilt and pain.That winter, at a concert orchestrated by Mengele, Pearl disappears. Stasha grieves for her twin, but clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive. When the camp is liberated by the Red Army, she and her companion Feliks - a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin - travel through Poland's devastation. Undeterred by injury, starvation, or the chaos around them, motivated by equal parts danger and hope, they encounter hostile villagers, Jewish resistance fighters, and fellow refugees, their quest enabled by the notion that Mengele may be captured and brought to justice within the ruins of the Warsaw Zoo. As the young survivors discover what has become of the world, they must try to imagine a future within it.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, 2018__________________________________________"A novel of bewitching ingenuity" New York Times"Electrifying" Lit Hub__________________________________________Abe Kunstler wants his share of the American Dream, which for him is a factory job, a wife and a family. Getting these things will be harder for Abe than it is for other people, however, because his life is a lie - an invention forged in the heat of a terrible crime. Haunted by his past, terrified of exposure, and searching obsessively for redemption, Abe moves from one ruthless act to the next, tricking an alcoholic young taxi-dancer into becoming first his wife, then the mother of a child she believes is his. When the life they have built is threatened, he becomes desperate, until even Abe himself isn't sure how far he'll go to keep his secret...

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Golden Hill and The Alienist meet Gangs of New York in this sweeping historical crime drama set in 18th century New York.New York, 1799. Justy Flanagan returns to his native city after five years in Ireland fighting the English. Bloodied and battered, Justy is no stranger to violence. Now he must use all his resources to uncover the truth behind his father's murder. But while he looks so intently at the past, it is the present that threatens to trip him up.When the body of a young woman appears in the docklands, brutally murdered, Justy must venture into the dark underbelly of the nascent city, where the labyrinthine streets hold danger at every turn. And, as the conspiracy deepens, it becomes clear that those involved will stop at nothing to keep their secrets...

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Million Dollar Maths is an invaluable guide to the straightforward and outlandish mathematical strategies that can make you rich. ____________How can you turn $1000 into $1 million? What is the best way to beat the lottery odds? When is the best time to take out a loan?How did one group of gamblers bet on hole-in-ones to win £500,000? How can maths help you set up a successful tech start-up? What about proving the Goldbach Conjecture for $1 million?Learn the techniques for growing your everyday finances, as well as the common mistakes to avoid. Discover the skills, both fair and foul, that offer an additional edge when investing and gambling. And discover why we often misunderstand probability and statistics - with troubling financial costs. From making the most of special offers to utilising the power of exponential growth in your investments; from the art of card counting, to inventing the next Google, Million Dollar Maths is the quintessential primer to the myriad ways maths and finance intersect.

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Evening Standard's Wander List Guide to 2019 Getaways"A beautiful, brilliant modern classic." Sabrina Mahfouz, Guardian, Best Summer Books 2018Neha has just been diagnosed with the same terminal cancer that killed her mother. Was this her destiny? She codes a computer program to find out, one that intricately maps out her entire life and the lives of those closest to her: her dad, who left Kenya for windblown northern England; her brother, a struggling comedian whose star is finally beginning to rise; her grandmother, who lost the man she loved to racist violence. By understanding the past, Neha hopes to come to terms with her present - and reckon with her family's and her country's future.

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Book of the Year in The Economist, Guardian, New Statesman, Wall Street Journal and New York Times.Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize & the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography.'A wonderful book about one of the most important, brilliant and flawed scientists of the 20th century.' Peter Frankopan'Superb' Matt Ridley, The Times'Fascinating... The best Haldane biography yet.' New York TimesJ.B.S. Haldane's life was rich and strange, never short on genius, never lacking for drama. He is best remembered as a geneticist who revolutionized our understanding of evolution, but his peers thought him a polymath; one student called him 'the last man who knew all there was to be known'.Beginning in the 1930s, Haldane was also a staunch Communist - a stance that enhanced his public profile, led him into trouble, and even drew suspicions that he was spying for the Soviets. He wrote copiously on science and politics for the layman, in newspapers and magazines, and he gave speeches in town halls and on the radio, all of which made him, in his day, as famous in Britain as Einstein. Arthur C. Clarke called Haldane 'the most brilliant science popularizer of his generation'. He frequently narrated aspects of his life: of his childhood, as the son of a famous scientist; of his time in the trenches in the First World War and in Spain during the Civil War; of his experiments upon himself; of his secret research for the British Admiralty; of his final move to India, in 1957. A Dominant Character unpacks Haldane's boisterous life in detail, and it examines the questions he raised about the intersections of genetics and politics - questions that resonate all the more strongly today.

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Harry Field, an elderly professor looking after his baby granddaughter, allows Oliver, the child's absentee father, to take her to the park. Only too late do Harry and his daughter Judy realise that the child has fallen into the hands of the cult to which Oliver belongs - a group led by Miller, a dangerous man who claims to be God...

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How can sea cucumbers, geckos and termites help us cure diseases, camouflage soldiers and even keep our buildings cool? Nature's creations are more sophisticated and elegant than anything humans have created. Adapt explores how we can harness such ideas through the ground-breaking new science of biomimicry - which looks to nature to solve pressing problems in engineering and science. From the depths of the oceans to the ice sheets of the Arctic, Amina Khan talks to the researchers at the forefront of this exciting new science, who are designing everything from wind turbines to military camouflage. Adapt draws the line from nature to modernity.Khan leaves no stone unturned... Readers will leave this book with a buzzing excitement. - BBC Wildlife

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PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS POCKETFUL OF DREAMS ________________________________________The first instalment in a delightfully nostalgic saga set during World War 2, following the trials and tribulations of a larger-than-life East End family.____________________________________In the darkest days of the Blitz, hope is more important than ever.It's 1939, and as the country is preparing for the challenging times ahead, the Brogan family of London's East End is trying to keep their spirits up. But things don't seem so rosy when rationing, evacuation and air-raids start to put this larger-than-life family to the test. When a mysterious young man arrives in the local community, he provides just the dazzling distraction they need - and for eldest daughter Mattie, the promise of more than she'd ever wished for. But as the pair fall deeper in love, they are drawn into secret dangers, rife on the very London streets they call home. As the young couple race to protect the East End, can their dreams survive the darkening backdrop of wartime...?RNA Pure Passions Awards shortlisted 2010Winner Romance Reader Award (historical) 2011Jean Fullerton, the queen of the East End saga, returns with a wonderful new nostalgic novel.

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Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, America had long been involved in a shadow war. Throughout 1941, President Roosevelt concocted ingenious ways to come to Winston Churchill's aid, without breaking the Neutrality Acts. Conducting espionage at home and in South America to root out Nazi sympathizers, and waging undeclared war in the Atlantic, were just some of the tactics with which America battled Hitler in the shadows. President Roosevelt also had to contend with growing isolationism and anti-Semitism as he tried to influence public opinion. While Americans were sympathetic to those being crushed under Axis power, they were unwilling to enter a foreign war. Wortman tells the story through the eyes of the powerful as well as ordinary citizens. Their stories weave throughout the intricate tapestry of events that unfold during the crucial year of 1941.

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How far would you go to save a child? Where I Lost Her follows one woman's journey through heartbreak and loss, as she searches for the truth about a missing little girl.Tess is visiting friends in rural Vermont when she is driving alone at night and sees a young, half-dressed toddler in the middle of the road, who then runs into the woods like a frightened deer.The entire town begins searching for the little girl. But there are no sightings, no other witnesses, no reports of missing children. As local police point out, Tess's imagination has played her false before. And yet Tess is compelled to keep looking, in a desperate effort to save the little girl she can't forget.A superbly crafted and suspenseful thriller, Where I Lost Her is a gripping, haunting novel from a remarkable storyteller.Eloquent, pacy and compelling, this is a book to be devoured whole - I couldn't put it down. - Sunday Independent (Ireland)Spellbinding. I loved everything about Where I Lost Her. - Mary Kubica, bestselling author of The Good Girl

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There are many, many things that nobody knows... Do animals have a sense of humour? Why do we have five fingers? What did Jesus do in his youth? Has human evolution stopped? Can robots become self-aware? What goes on inside a black hole?Bringing together The Things That Nobody Knows and Even More Things That Nobody Knows, this bumper volume takes us on a guided tour of 1,001 gaps in our knowledge of cosmology, mathematics, animal behaviour, medical science, music, art and literature.

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An astonishing and revelatory memoir by two women who escaped the glamorous yet deadly international drug trade.Mia Flores and Olivia Flores live under assumed names. To their neighbours, they are typical single mothers, their days filled with school runs and PTA meetings. But Olivia and Mia are anything but ordinary. They live in fear, hiding from a past that included wealth beyond their wildest dreams but also more danger than they ever could have imagined.Mia and Olivia are married to the highest level American drug traffickers ever to become US informants, Chicago-born twin brothers Margarito and Pedro Flores. These men worked with - and then brought down - dozens of high-level members of the Mexican cartels, most significantly notorious kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman. The brothers and their wives had everything money could buy - luxury cars, huge houses and expensive jewellery - but came to understand that the vast wealth that accompanied cartel life came with the ever-present threat of kidnapping, death or imprisonment. Choosing their families over money, they decided to give it all up and cooperate with the US government.Now, from behind the cloak of witness protection, Olivia and Mia have come forward for the first time to tell the full story of their family's decision to risk everything and seek redemption. Cartel Wives is a love story, an insider's look into a terrifying but high-flying modern-day drug empire and, finally, the story of a major federal government operation to bring down one of the most feared men in the world.

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Jeremy O'Keefe, a middle-aged Professor, returns to his native New York after a decade teaching at Oxford, and quickly settles into a lonely rhythm of unfulfilling lectures and long, silent evenings.His quiet world is suddenly shaken by a series of encounters with a strange young man who presumes an acquaintance, and the arrival of three mysterious packages. And when a haunting figure starts to linger outside his apartment at night, his chilling conviction that he is being watched is seemingly confirmed. As Jeremy's grip on reality shifts and turns, he fears that he will never know whether he can believe his experiences, or whether his mind is in the grip of an irrational obsession.I Am No One explores the world of surveillance and self-censorship in our post-Snowden lives, where privacy no longer exists and our freedoms are inexorably eroded.

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One night, Akram Khan walks out of his house towards an appointed time and place where he is supposed to detonate a bomb that will end his life and that of many innocent bystanders. As he wanders through the town he encounters Grace, whose life has been marred just as his has, forming an unlikely closeness borne of need and necessity.Akram tells Grace about his seemingly inexorable journey towards radicalization: a childhood within the tight-knit Pakistani community, his complex friendships among outcasts, his disastrous years in the army, and his empty arranged marriage to a woman who remains a stranger. Delicately drawn, Akram's War is an honest and shocking kaleidoscopic portrait of contemporary Britain, and of the ways in which the twists and turns of fate can scar and mark a life.

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Longlisted for the Historical Writers Association debut novel award 2016.Hendrickje, a young girl from a strict Calvinist family, leaves home to find work as a maid. Entering Rembrandt's flourishing and busy household after the death of the great artist's wife, she finds a world filled with secrets and desire.Shocked to the core after discovering the intense relationship between Rembrandt and Geertje, his housekeeper, Hendrickje is nevertheless slowly drawn to Rembrandt by his freshness, by his freedom, by his intensity.Rembrandt's Mirror explores the three women of Rembrandt's life, and the towering passions of the artist, seen through the eyes of his last, great love, Hendrickje.

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Oxford, 1862. Poor, plain Mary Prickett takes up her post as governess to the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church. When Mary meets Charles Dodgson, a friend of the family, she is flattered by his attentions and becomes convinced he plans to propose marriage. But it is also clear that he is drawn to the little girls in Mary's care, and on a boating trip one sunny day Mr Dodgson tells the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a curious tale about the precocious Alice LiddellAs Mary waits for her life to change, she becomes increasingly suspicious of Alice's friendship with Mr Dodgson. Before long, everything Mary believes is turned topsy-turvy, and her determination to get to the truth will have lasting consequences for all involved...

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Aged 105, Rose has endured more than her fair share of hardships: the Armenian genocide, the Nazi regime, and the delirium of Maoism. Yet somehow, despite all the suffering, Rose never loses her joie de vivre. As she looks back over her long life - one of survival and, sometimes, one of retribution - she recalls those unique experiences that added such spice to her life, whether it was being a confidante to Hitler, a friend to Simone de Beauvoir or cooking for Heinrich Himmler.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2016SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2015Emma Sky was working for the British Council during the invasion of Iraq, when the ad went around calling for volunteers. Appalled at what she saw as a wrongful war, she signed up, expecting to be gone for months. Instead, her time in Iraq spanned a decade, and became a personal odyssey so unlikely that it could be a work of fiction. Quickly made civilian representative of the CPA in Kirkuk, and then political advisor to General Odierno, Sky became valued for her outspoken voice and the unique perspective she offered as an outsider. In her intimate, clear-eyed memoir of her time in Iraq, a young British woman among the men of the US military, Emma Sky provides a vivid portrait of this most controversial of interventions, exploring how and why the Iraq project failed.

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Kiera Lindsey has a passion for Australian history. She has worked in the Australian film and television industries and presented a history program on ABC Radio. She has also published a regular column in The Adelaide Review. She lectures in Australian history at the University of South Australia and was the winner of the inaugural Greg Dening Memorial Prize.

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In the 1980s, a small man is pulled up out of the Indian Ocean in Port Pallid, SA, claiming to have been kidnapped as a baby. The Sergeant, whose job it is to sort the local people by colour, and thereby determine their fate, peers at the boy, then sticks a pencil into his hair, as one did in those days, waiting to see if it stays there, or falls out before he gives his verdict:'He's very odd, this Jimfish you've hauled in. If he's white he is not the right sort of white. But if he's black, who can say? We'll wait before we classify him. I'll give his age as 18, and call him Jimfish. Because he's a real fish out of water, this one is.'So begins the odyssey of Jimfish, a South African Everyman, who defies the usual classification of race that defines the rainbow nation. His journey through the last years of Apartheid will extend beyond the borders of South Africa to the wider world, where he will be an unlikely witness to the defining moments of the dying days of the twentieth century. Part fable, part fierce commentary on the politics of power, this work is the culmination of a lifetime's writing and thinking, on both the Apartheid regime and the history of the twentieth century, by a writer of enormous originality and range.

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THE SECOND INSTALMENT IN THE JOHN DEE PAPERSThe acclaimed second instalment of The John Dee Papers. Tudor intrigue, murder and the dark arts - brooding superstition leaves John Dee isolated in the land of his father...'Chills, thrills and satisfies. A fabulous read.' - Huffington PostAt the end of the sunless summer of 1560, black rumour shrouds the death of the one woman who stands between Lord Robert Dudley and marriage to the young Queen Elizabeth. Did Dudley's wife, Amy, die from an accidental fall in a deserted house, or was it murder? Even Dr John Dee, astrologer royal, adviser on the Hidden and one of Dudley's oldest friends, is uncertain. Then a rash promise to the Queen sends him to his family's old home on the Welsh Border in pursuit of the Wigmore Shewstone, a crystal credited with supernatural properties. With John Dee goes Robert Dudley, considered the most hated man in England. They travel with a London judge sent to try a sinister Welsh brigand with a legacy dating back to the Battle of Brynglas. After the battle, many of the English bodies were, according to legend, obscenely mutilated. Now, on the same haunted hill, another dead man has been found, similarly slashed. Devious politics, small-town corruption, twisted religion and a brooding superstition leave John Dee isolated in the land of his father. The previous book in the bestselling The John Dee Papers is The Bones of Avalon.

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Glasgow's melting. The temperature is rising and so is the murder rate. Douglas Brodie, ex-policeman, ex-soldier and now newest reporter on the Glasgow Gazette, has no shortage of material for his crime column.But even Brodie baulks at his latest subject: a rapist who has been tarred and feathered by a balaclava-clad group. Brodie soon discovers a link between this horrific act and a series of brutal beatings.As violence spreads and the body count rises, Brodie and advocate Samantha Campbell are entangled in a web of deception and savagery. Brodie is swamped with stories for the Gazette. But how long before he and Sam become the headline?

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In this original and thought-provoking book philosopher Michael Hampe sets out to help us understand happiness. The right and proper path to a happy life is a topic that has been debated for millennia. There are many theories, from those of ancient philosophy to those of modern neuroscience, but can any one of them ultimately tell us how the objective of a perfectly fulfilled life might be achieved? By telling the story of two friends - the unhappy philosopher Stanley Low and the happy gardener Gabriel Kolk - alongside a presentation of four essays that examine prominent and very plausible theories of happiness, Michael Hampe illustrates that there is no easy answer to our search for unadulterated bliss.Four Meditations on Happiness is an erudite and illuminating investigation into one of mankind's most elusive quests, one that allows us to reconsider what it means to be happy.

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As an F-16 fighter pilot, Darwin Cole was a family man on top of his world. Now he's a washout - drunk and alone in a trailer in the Nevada desert, haunted by the memory of an Afghan child running for her life from the Predator drone he 'piloted'. Reluctantly, Cole teams up with three journalists seeking to discover the identity of the anonymous intelligence operative who called the shots in that ill-fated mission. But in a surveillance culture, even the well-intentioned must sometimes run for their lives. Especially when they're tracking leads to the very heart of that culture - in intelligence, in the military, and among the unchecked private contractors who stand to profit richly from the advancing technology... Technology not just for use 'over there', but for right here, right now.

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It is 1977. A new force is terrorising Rome - a mob of reckless, ultraviolent youths known as La Banda della Magliana. As the gang ruthlessly take control of Rome's heroin trade, they begin an inexorable rise to power. Banda della Magliana intend to own the streets of Rome - unless their internal struggles tear them apart. Based on Rome's modern gangland history, Romanzo Criminale fearlessly confronts Italy's Age of Lead: war on the streets and terrorism, kidnappings and corruption at the highest levels of government.

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THE FIRST INSTALMENT IN THE HANNE WILHELMSEN SERIES.A superbly chilling story of corruption in the corridors of power.A drug dealer is battered to death in the outskirts of Oslo. A young Dutch student, covered in blood, walks aimlessly through the streets of central Oslo. He is taken into custody, but refuses to speak.Five days later a shady criminal lawyer called Hans Olsen is murdered. The two deaths don't seem related, but Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen is unconvinced. Soon, she uncovers a link between the bodies: Olsen defended the drug dealer. But there are powerful forces working against Hanne; a conspiracy that reaches far beyond a crooked lawyer and a small-time dealer. The investigation will take her into the offices of the most powerful men in Norway - and even put her own life at risk...

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'What would Germaine do?'This is the mantra that Skip and Marlo Wells turn to as they navigate their way through the twists and turns that life brings. Such as the sectioning of their mother Karen Jane. Marlo puts her faith in her hero, Germaine Greer, and twelve-year-old Skip trusts her clever big sister to know the right thing to do. But when the sisters are forced to move to their Auntie Noreen and Uncle Doug's home in the backwater city of Crater Lakes even Marlo can't think of a solution. At age sixteen, Marlo is forced to quit school and work in the family hardware store. Skip manages to get on her auntie's bad side from the get-go and is an outcast at school as she vehemently declares the injustice of the Vietnam War - not what Noreen wants to hear with her precious son Barry off fighting. Skip and Marlo dream of escape from Crater Lakes but with Karen Jane's release nowhere on the horizon they resign themselves to their new life. Before long they make the acquaintance of the Novak brothers - Skip's classmate Honza and his eternally cheerful older brother Pavel. Marlo becomes entangled with the local drama teacher, leaving Skip to explore the town's haunts with Honza. Skip learns about the mysterious Dansie residence, a secluded house that once belonged to Roger Dansie - an actor and the closest thing to a local hero that Crater Lakes ever had. As the days roll on the Wells sisters are drawn ever deeper in to the lives of their new acquaintances, learning that their first impressions of Crater Lakes may not be as accurate as they believed. Against the backdrop of a broken home, the fight for equality and a far off war Volcano Street is a heartfelt tale of acceptance and belonging, and learning what family truly means.

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In her garden, ensconced in the lush vegetation of the Western Cape, Clare Wald, world-renowned author, mother, critic, takes up her pen and confronts her life. Sam Leroux has returned to South Africa to embark upon a project that will establish his reputation - he is to write Clare's biography. But how honest is she prepared to be? Was she complicit in crimes lurking in South Africa's past; is she an accomplice or a victim? Are her crimes against her family real or imagined? In the stories she weaves and the truth just below the surface of her shimmering prose, lie Sam's own ghosts.

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Since the end of the Cold War so-called experts have been predicting the eclipse of America's "special relationship" with Britain. But as events have shown, especially in the wake of 9/11, the political and cultural ties between America and Britain have grown stronger. Blood, Class and Empire examines the dynamics of this relationship, its many cultural manifestations-the James Bond series, PBS "Brit Kitsch," Rudyard Kipling-and explains why it still persists. Contrarian, essayist and polemicist, Christopher Hitchens notes that while the relationship is usually presented as a matter of tradition, manners, and common culture, sanctified by wartime alliance, the special ingredient is empire; transmitted from an ancient regime that has tried to preserve and renew itself thereby. England has attempted to play Greece to the American Rome, but ironically having encouraged the United States to become an equal partner in the business of empire, Britain found itself supplanted.

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Set in the 5th century AD, Azazeel is the exquisitely crafted tale of a Coptic monk's journey from Upper Egypt to Alexandria and then Syria during a time of massive upheaval in the early Church. Winner of the Arab Booker Prize, Azazeel highlights how the history of our civilization has been warped by greed and avarice since its very beginnings and how one man's beliefs are challenged not only by the malice of the devil, but by the corruption with the early Church. In sparse and often sparkling prose that reflects the arid beauty of the Syrian landscape, Azazeel is a novel that forces us to re-think many of our long-held beliefs and invites us to rediscover a lost history.

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Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award and runner-up for Countryfile Book of the Year. For millennia, the passing seasons and their rhythms have marked our progress through the year. But what do they mean to us now that we lead increasingly atomised and urban lives and our weather becomes ever more unpredictable or extreme?In this splendidly rich and lyrical celebration of the English seasons, Nick Groom investigates the trove of strange folklore and often stranger fact they have accumulated over the centuries and shows how tradition and our links with nature still have a vital role to play in all our lives.

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***'A refreshing perspective on mourning, as well as a moving tale of a social outcast' - i-D Magazine******'Subtle and understated [...] ultimately very moving' - The Big Issue******A fascinating glimpse into how [rural women's] lives are still led' - Dorset Magazine***Is it ever too late to change your life?Elegant, wry and moving, The Funeral Cryer tells the tale of one woman's mid-life re-awakening in contemporary rural China and proves that it's never too late to alter your fate.The Funeral Cryer long ago accepted the mundane realities of her life: avoided by fellow villagers because of the stigma attached to her job as a professional mourner and under-appreciated by The Husband, whose fecklessness has pushed the couple close to the brink of break-up. But just when things couldn't be bleaker, The Funeral Cryer takes a leap of faith - and in so doing things start to take a surprising turn for the better . . . Dark, moving and wry, The Funeral Cryer is both an illuminating depiction of a 'left behind' society - and proof that it's never too late to change your life.What readers have been saying about The Funeral Cryer:'A beautiful, thought-provoking book [...] incredibly humorous' - J. Wells, Five-star Reader Review'A stunning debut' - Stacey, Five-star Reader Review'A first person narrative that shows how the life of a middle-aged woman working as a funeral cryer in China is deeply linked to the people who touch her life and the way they treat her.' - Kate Poels, Five-star Reader Review'A remarkable novel that explores themes of marriage, family relationships, elderly care, and gender equality [...] this book offers a unique reading experience and an opportunity for deep contemplation.' - Rui, Five-star Reader Review'Excellent literary fiction. [...] Simultaneously the story speaks to the rural economic desperation, the separation of town and country, they way the young move to the cities and are often left with no other option to finance themselves than selling themselves. The huge discrepancy between the haves and have-nots is very evident.' - Cheryl M-M, Five-star Reader Review

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'A delectable slice of dark academia' Times Crime ClubCleeve is not for everyone...When Eve's husband is appointed housemaster at his old boarding school, Cleeve College, she gives up her life in London to join him. But the isolation and loss of autonomy threaten both her happiness and her marriage.The arrival of Fen, an enigmatic artist and wife of the new Classics teacher, is a welcome distraction. Fen doesn't play by the rules, and she and Eve enter into a game of escalating dares, disrupting the delicate balance of school life.Then, the morning after Hazard Night, a tradition that allows the students to run wild and play pranks for one day, a body is found. Someone has been murdered. And it seems everyone has something to hide...

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A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'This feels like a vision for the 21st-century novel... It made me happy' Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly GorgeousBenson and Mike are two young guys who have been together for a few years - good years - but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other. But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past, while back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted...Funny and profound, Memorial is about family in all its strange forms, becoming who you're supposed to be and the outer limits of love.NAMED A BOOK TO WATCH IN 2021 BY:SUNDAY TIMES | THE TIMES | DAILY MAIL | THE TELEGRAPH | RADIO 4 | IRISH TIMES

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'Limburg describes movingly her own struggles as a new mother and the pressure of society's expectations...Through such delicately intertwined experiences, Limburg quietly shouts for change.' Times Literary SupplementIt seemed to me that many of the moments when my autism had caused problems, or at least marked me out as different, were those moments when I had come up against some unspoken law about how a girl or a woman should be, and failed to meet it.An autism diagnosis in midlife enabled Joanne Limburg to finally make sense of why her emotional expression, social discomfort and presentation had always marked her as an outsider. Eager to discover other women who had been misunderstood in their time, she writes a series of wide-ranging letters to four 'weird sisters' from history, addressing topics including autistic parenting, social isolation, feminism, the movement for disability rights and the appalling punishments that have been meted out over centuries to those deemed to fall short of the norm. This heartfelt, deeply compassionate and wholly original work humanises women who have so often been dismissed for their differences, and will be celebrated by 'weird sisters' everywhere.

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***A Waterstones Best Books of 2022 pick***The story of the pioneering anthropologists and their adventures among civilisations that were first thought of as being primitive and savage. What they discovered, however, would change the way we think about ourselves.In the late nineteenth century, when non-European societies were seen as 'living fossils' offering an insight into how Western civilisation had evolved, anthropology was a thrilling new discipline which attracted the brightest minds of the academic world. But, by the middle of the twentieth century, colonialism was recognised as being inextricably linked to exploitation and outdated labels like 'savage' were inconceivable when so-called 'civilised' man had wreaked such devastation across two world wars.Focusing on twelve key European and American anthropologists working in the field, from Franz Boas on Baffin Island in the 1880s to Claude Lévi-Strauss in Brazil fifty years later, Lucy Moore explores the brief flowering of anthropology as a quasi-scientific area of study with all its insights and ambivalence. In Search of Us tells the story of the men and women whose observations of the 'other' would transform attitudes about race, gender equality, sexual liberation, parenting and tolerance in ways they had never anticipated. In an enthralling, perceptive narrative, Moore shows how these radical anthropologists were inspired by their time in the furthest-flung reaches of the known world, becoming pioneers of a new way of thinking. In the end, their legacy is less about understanding foreign cultures and more about their attempts to persuade human beings to look at one another with eyes washed free from prejudice. Their intention may have been to explain what they saw as the primitive world to the civilised one but they ended up changing the way people viewed themselves - at least for a time.

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Amazon reviewers love The Scarlet Code!'A rollicking good tale''Thoroughly enjoyable, highly recommend''Exciting, swashbuckling adventure''Everything you could want from an adventure thriller: excitement, a fabulously endearing heroine and pirate to fall in love with, a cruel killer and... well-written historical detail. Superb.'1789. The Bastille has fallen...As Parisians pick souvenirs from the rubble, a killer stalks the lawless streets. His victims are female aristocrats. His executions use the most terrible methods of the ancient regime.English spy Attica Morgan is laying low in Paris, helping nobles escape. When her next charge falls victim to the killer's twisted machinations, Attica realises she alone can unmask him. But now it seems his deadly sights are set on her.As the city prisons empty, and a mob mobilises to storm Versailles, finding a dangerous criminal is never going to be easy. Attica's only hope is to enlist her old ally, reformed pirate Jemmy Avery, to track the killer though his revolutionary haunts. But even with a pirate and her fast knife, it seems Attica might not manage to stay alive.'A rip-roaring adventure' Tessa Harris on The Bastille Spy

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