Search results for ""ATLANTIC BOOKS""

'The story of Brawn GP is legendary... Exciting and magical.' Damon HillForeword by Bernie Ecclestone____________________________The full story of F1's incredible 2009 championship battle has never been told. Until now.At the end of 2008, Nick Fry, then head of Honda's F1 team, was told by his Japanese bosses that the motor company was pulling out of F1. In response, Nick and chief engineer Ross Brawn persuaded Honda to sell them the company for £1 - a gamble that would take the team all the way to winning the 2009 Driver's and the Constructor's Championship with a borrowed engine, a heavily adapted chassis and, at least initially, no sponsors.Giving the inside track on the drivers, the rivalries, on negotiating with Bernie Ecclestone and on hiring and working with global superstars Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, Survive. Drive. Win. is a gripping memoir of how one man found himself in the driving seat for one of the most incredible journeys in the history of motor sport.'Nick Fry and Ed Gorman take us behind the mysterious and tightly closed doors of F1 to tell the remarkable story of the 2009 season.' Martin Brundle

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· · A NUMBER ONE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER · ·'Pacey and exciting and totally joyous.' Jo Spain, author of The Confession________________________You won't be able to look awayWhen Vittoria Devine and Lily Power find themselves sitting next to each other on a flight to New York, they discover they both have men in their lives whose impact has been devastating. Lily's family life is in turmoil, her brother left on the brink of ruin by a con man. Vittoria's philandering husband's latest mistress is pregnant. By the time they land, Vittoria and Lily have realised that they can help each other right the balance. But only one of them knows the real story...'Delightfully dark and satisfying' Roz Watkins, author of the DI Meg Dalton series

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'Provocative and compelling, it is a spectacular debut' - Daily MailMichael lost his wife in a terrorist attack on a London train. Since then, he has been seeing a therapist to help him come to terms with his grief - and his anger. He can't get over the fact that the man he holds responsible has seemingly got away scot-free. He doesn't blame the bombers, who he considers only as the logical conclusion to a long chain of events. No, to Michael's mind, the ultimate cause is the politician whose cynical policies have had such deadly impact abroad. His therapist suggests that he write his feelings down to help him forgive and move on, but as a retired headteacher, Michael believes that for every crime there should be a fitting punishment - and so in the pages of his diary he begins to set out the case for, and set about committing, murder. Waltzing through the darkling journal of a brilliant mind put to serious misuse, Kill [redacted] is a powerful and provocative exploration of the contours of grief and the limits of moral justice, and a blazing condemnation of all those who hold, and abuse, power.ONE OF THE BEST DEBUT NOVELS of 2019 (the i )

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'A strange and joyous marvel' Richard Flanagan'Delightful... Enchanting' Guardian'Spectacular' CultureflyA young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his sister, Charlotte - who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire.The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.SHORTLISTED FOR THE READINGS PRIZE FOR NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION

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A hot summer. A shocking murder. A town of secrets, waiting to explode...A beautiful young teacher has been murdered, her body found in the lake, strewn with red roses. Local policewoman Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock pushes to be assigned to the case, concealing the fact that she knew the murdered woman in high school years before.But that's not all Gemma's trying to hide. As the investigation digs deeper into the victim's past, other secrets threaten to come to light, secrets that were supposed to remain buried. The lake holds the key to solving the murder, but it also has the power to drag Gemma down into its dark depths...

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With extinction imminent, researchers visit an exclusive national park to observe one of the last troops of bonobo chimpanzees. Amid unusual behaviour and unexplained deaths, Shel Murray suspects her team is being hunted. Back at home, Shel's partner is attacked touring their new property. Amnesiac and quarantined, John is visited by an inscrutable doctor, tending to the still fresh wounds. As his memory returns, John questions not only the assault, but the renewed marks on his body, and the black fungus now growing on the walls.A sudden event changes everything. Shel is interrogated over the expedition in the park; John throws himself into work, developing new software. Together, with a greater understanding of how much they have to lose, they face a grave threat, something that promises to devour everything.

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Chosen for the Radio 2 Book Club with Simon Mayo'A carefully crafted and utterly compelling tale of lost opportunity and impossible choices.' Amanda Brooke, author of The AffairWhy do you love your child? Is it because they're a straight A student, a talented footballer? Or is it simply because they're yours?Sarah and Phil love both their children, James and Lauren. The couple have the same hopes and aspirations as any parent. But their expectations are shattered when they discover that their perfect baby daughter has been born with a flaw; a tiny, but life-changing glitch that is destined to shape her future, and theirs, irrevocably. Over time the family adapt and even thrive. Then one day a blood test casts doubt on the very basis of their family. Lauren is not Phil's child. Suddenly, their precious family is on the brink of destruction. But the truth they face is far more complex and challenging than simple infidelity. It tests their capacity to love, each other and their children, and it raises the question of what makes - and what breaks - a family.

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'Beginners belongs on the list of books that have changed the way I understand my own limitations.'Malcolm GladwellFor many of us, the last time we learned a new skill was during childhood. We live in an age which reveres expertise but looks down on the beginner. Upon entering adulthood and middle age, we begin to shy away from trying new things, instead preferring to stay nestled firmly in our comfort zones. Beginners asks the question: why are children the only ones allowed to experience the inherent fun of facing daily challenges? And could we benefit from embracing new skills, even if we're initially hopeless? Bestselling author Tom Vanderbilt sets out to find the answer, tasking himself with acquiring several new skills under the tutelage of professionals, including drawing, juggling, surfing and much more. Witty and often surprisingly profound, Beginners is an uplifting exploration of the science of brain plasticity and how we can learn how to learn anew.

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'A delightful and scintillating hymn to science.' Carlo RovelliComedian Robin Ince quickly abandoned science at school, bored by a fog of dull lessons and intimidated by the barrage of equations. But, twenty years later, he fell in love and he now presents one of the world's most popular science podcasts. Every year he meets hundreds of the world's greatest thinkers.In this erudite and witty book, Robin reveals why scientific wonder isn't just for the professionals. Filled with interviews featuring astronauts, comedians, teachers, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and more - as well as charting Robin's own journey with science - The Importance of Being Interested explores why many wrongly think of the discipline as distant and difficult. From the glorious appeal of the stars above to why scientific curiosity can encourage much needed intellectual humility, this optimistic and profound book will leave you filled with a thirst for intellectual adventure.

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'What we ought to do, as writers, is seize freedom now, immediately, by recognizing that we already have it.'Cynthia Ozick, one of 'the greatest living American writers', has, over a lifetime of observation, produced some of the sharpest and most influential works of criticism in contemporary Anglo-American writing. Described as the 'Emily Dickinson of the Bronx' and 'one of the most accomplished and graceful literary stylists of her time', her acclaimed works span topics from Henry James to Helen Keller, and from Christian Heroism to lovesickness. The essays selected here come from the six volumes Ozick published in the USA over the last thirty-three years. Collected by David Miller, Ozick's friend and agent, they represent the diversity, curiosity, originality, and crackling wit of her works. A volume to treasure, to re-read and to relish, this is Cynthia Ozick, 'the Athena of America's literary pantheon', at her very best.

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You've seen the BBC 2 series, now read the novel based on the TV show. Don't miss VERSAILLES the most sexy and shocking drama ever written about the king who built the world's most famous palace. Packed with sex, scandal and intrigue, VERSAILLES will keep you up all night. 1667. The civil wars are over and King Louis XIV is on the French throne. To keep the nobles from their plots to overthrow his crown, the King gathers the court at Versailles. He plans to keep them there under his scrutiny by building the greatest palace the world has ever seen. The Palace of Versailles will be an opulent prison where Louis' power is absolute. The nobles have no choice but to play Louis' game of manipulation and treachery. As tensions rise the court becomes a battlefield of tactical liaisons and salacious passions. Versailles is not the paradise it appears to be; instead, it is a labyrinth of treason and secrets, of political schemes and deadly conspiracies. It is a place of passion and death, love and vengeance. The King will take what is rightfully his.

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Did you know that the word 'prestige' derives from the Latin word for 'illusion'? Or that 'infantry' stems from a Latin word meaning one who could not speak? In this original and highly entertaining book, Peter Jones reveals the roots of Latin words that are now common in the English language and shows how Romans actually used them in the ancient world. Covering every aspect of Roman life - from politics, philosophy, religion and the arts, to technology, warfare, medicine and botany - Quid Pro Quo highlights the vital role Latin has played in the creation of our vast vocabulary.

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A Guardian Book of the Month'Echoes of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Stephen King's The Stand...' Guardian on SouthIf a virus doesn't kill you, the South will...The USA has been ravaged by Civil War. It's been thirty years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South. While the South has been devastated by disease - the North has emerged victorious, but terrified of reprisals. Both territories remain at the mercy of the vicious Northern dictator, Renard.Two survivors, Dyce and Vida, journeyed deep into the Southern terrains in search of a cure for Renard's chemical warfare. Now they find themselves scouring the Northern territories on a new and far deadlier pursuit; to eliminate Renard himself. Could Dyce and Vida unite a fractured America - and at what cost?This is the story of Dyce and Vida.This is the story of the Resistance and its last, desperate, stand.This is the story of North.

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'The whole thing sparks astonishingly to life' ObserverWhen Ian Buruma arrived in Tokyo as a young film student in 1975, he found a feverish and surreal metropolis in the midst of an economic boom, where everything seemed new and history only remained in fragments. Through his adventures in the world of avant-garde theatre, his encounters with carnival acts, fashion photographers and moments on-set with Akira Kurosawa, Buruma came of age. For an outsider, unattached to the cultural burdens placed on the Japanese, this was a place to be truly free. A Tokyo Romance is a portrait of a young artist and the fantastical city that shaped him, and a timeless story about the desire to transgress boundaries: cultural, artistic and sexual.

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The Diocesan Exorcist for Hereford must reveal the haunting presence of Susan Lulham...First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night. - Daily MailThe angular, modernist house was an unexpected bargain for Zoe and Jonathan Mahonie - newcomers to the city of Hereford and apparently unaware that the house's pristine, white interior walls had been coated with the lifeblood of a previous owner. How is Merrily Watkins, Diocesan Exorcist for Hereford, to know if Zoe Mahonie is lying or deluded when she claims that the wrathful Susan Lulham is still in residence? Then comes another bloody death. Who is the real killer?A MERRILY WATKINS SERIES NOVELLA

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Merrily Watkins is the most singular of crime fiction protagonists... As ever [Rickman]'s supremely skillful at teasing out the menace that lies behind English folk customs and legends and weaving them into a compelling contemporary narrative. - Mail on SundayIN THE DARK HEART OF THE COUNTRYSIDE...Aidan Lloyd's cold and sombre funeral suggests he won't be resting in peace. But not even diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins foresees its unearthly aftermath.As a string of killings shakes the wintry Welsh border and a farming feud intensifies, Merrily - personally threatened by an enemy within - confronts secrets hidden in ancient dances and the walls of an enigmatic medieval church.

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BOOK 2 OF THE TOWER - NOW A MAJOR ITV DRAMA'Sensational... A brilliant, high-octane crime novel' Tony ParsonsOctober 1987: the morning after the Great Storm. Fifteen-year-old Tania Mills walks out her front door and disappears. Twenty-seven years later her mother still prays for her return. DS Sarah Collins in the Met's Homicide Command is determined to find out what happened, but is soon pulled into a shocking new case and must once again work with a troubled young police officer from her past, Lizzie Griffiths.PC Lizzie Griffiths, now a trainee detective, is working in the Domestic Violence Unit, known by cops as the 'murder prevention squad'. Called to an incident of domestic violence, she encounters a vicious, volatile man - and a woman too frightened to ask for help. Soon Lizzie finds herself drawn into the centre of the investigation as she fights to protect a mother and daughter in peril.As both cases unfold, Sarah and Lizzie must survive the dangerous territory where love and violence meet.

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A New York Times Book of the Year, 2018A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICKA dazzling love letter to a beloved institution - our libraries.After moving to Los Angeles, Susan Orlean became fascinated by a mysterious local crime that has gone unsolved since it was carried out on the morning of 29 April 1986: who set fire to the Los Angeles Public Library, ultimately destroying more than 400,000 books, and perhaps even more perplexing, why? With her characteristic humour, insight and compassion, Orlean uses this terrible event as a lens through which to tell the story of all libraries - their history, their meaning and their uncertain future as they adapt and redefine themselves in a digital world. Filled with heart, passion and extraordinary characters, The Library Book discusses the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives.

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Our brains were designed for tribal life, for getting along with a select group of others (Us), and for fighting off everyone else (Them). But modern life has thrust the world's tribes into a shared space, creating conflicts of interest and clashes of values, along with unprecedented opportunities. As the world shrinks, the moral lines that divide us become more salient and more puzzling. We fight over everything from tax codes to gay marriage to global warming, and we wonder where, if at all, we can find our common ground.A grand synthesis of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Moral Tribes reveals the underlying causes of modern conflict and lights a way forward. Our emotions make us social animals, turning Me into Us. But they also make us tribal animals, turning Us against Them. Our tribal emotions make us fight, sometimes with bombs, sometimes with words, and often with life-and-death stakes. Drawing inspiration from moral philosophy and cutting-edge science, Moral Tribes shows when we should trust our instincts, when we should reason, and how the right kind of reasoning can move us forward.Joshua Greene is the director of Harvard University's Moral Cognition Lab, a pioneering scientist, a philosopher, and an acclaimed teacher. The great challenge of Moral Tribes is this: How can we get along with Them when what they want feels so wrong? Finally, Greene offers a surprisingly simple set of maxims for navigating the modern moral terrain, a practical road map for solving problems and living better lives.

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In Concorde, Jonathan Glancey tells the story of this magnificent and hugely popular aircraft anew, taking the reader from the moment Captain Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947 through to the last commercial flight of the supersonic airliner in 2003. It is a tale of national rivalries, technological leaps, daring prototypes, tightrope politics, and a dream of a Dan Dare future never quite realized. Jonathan Glancey traces the development of Concorde not just through existing material and archives, but through interviews with those who lived with the supersonic project from its inception. The result is a compelling mix of overt technological optimism, a belief that Britain and France were major players in the world of civil as well as military aviation, and faith in an ever faster, ever more sophisticated future. This is a celebration, as well as a thoroughly researched history, of a truly brilliant machine that became a sky god of its era.

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Stephen Trombley's Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World traces the development of modern thought through a sequence of accessible profiles of the most influential thinkers in every domain of intellectual endeavour since 1789. No major representative of post-Enlightenment thought escapes Trombley's attention: the German idealists Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel; the utilitarians Bentham and Mill; the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; Kierkegaard and the existentialists; founders of new fields of inquiry such as Weber, Durkheim and C.S. Peirce; the analytic philosophers Russell, Moore, Whitehead and Wittgenstein; political leaders from Mohandas K. Gandhi to Adolf Hitler; and - last but not least - the four shapers-in-chief of our modern world: the philosopher, historian and political theorist Karl Marx; the naturalist Charles Darwin, proposer of the theory of evolution; Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis; and the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, begetter of the special and general theories of relativity and founder of post-Newtonian physics.Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World offers a crisp analysis of their key ideas, and in some cases a re-evaluation of their importance as we proceed into the 21st century.

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Peter Corris has been writing his best selling Cliff Hardy detective stories for thirty years. He's written many other books, including a very successful 'as-told-to' autobiography of Fred Hollows, and a collection of short stories about golf.

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AD 58: Rome is in turmoil once more. Emperor Nero has set his heart on a new wife but to clear a path for her, he must first assassinate his Empress, Claudia Octavia. Vespasian needs to tread carefully here - Nero's new lover, Poppaea Sabina, is no friend of his and her ascent to power spells danger. Meanwhile, Nero's extravagance has reached new heights, triggering a growing financial crisis in Britannia. Vespasian is sent to Londinium to rescue the situation, only to become embroiled in a deadly rebellion, one that threatens to destroy Britannia and de-stabilise the empire...THE SEVENTH INSTALMENT IN THE VESPASIAN SERIES______________________________________________Don't miss Robert Fabbri's epic new series Alexander's Legacy

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Rome, AD41. Caligula has been assassinated and the Praetorian Guard have proclaimed Claudius Emperor - but his position is precarious. His three freedmen, Narcissus, Pallas and Callistus, must find a way to manufacture a quick victory for Claudius - but how? Pallas has the answer: retrieve the Eagle of the Seventeenth, lost in Germania nearly 40 years before.Who but Vespasian could lead a dangerous mission into the gloomy forests of Germania? Accompanied by a small band of cavalry, Vespasian and his brother try to pick up the trail of the Eagle. But they are tailed by hunters who kill off men each night and leave the corpses in their path. Someone is determined to sabotage Vespasian's mission.In search of the Eagle and the truth, while being pursued by barbarians, Vespasian must battle his way to the shores of Britannia. Yet can he escape his own Emperor's wrath?______________________________________________Don't miss Robert Fabbri's epic new series Alexander's Legacy

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'I will tell you a story, but it comes with a warning; when you hear it, you will become someone else.'He calls himself Alif, a young man born in a Middle Eastern city that straddles the ancient and modern. When Alif comes into possession of a mysterious book entitled The Thousand and One Days, he discovers a door to another world - a world from a very different time, when old magic was in the ascendant and the djinn walked amongst us. Thus begins an adventure that takes him through the crumbling streets of a once-beautiful city, to uncover the long-forgotten mysteries of the Unseen. Alif is about to become a fugitive. And he is about to unleash a destructive power that will change everything and everyone - starting with Alif himself...

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The Parish Priest must solve the mystery of a young boy's deathly fall from the Ludlow Castle ruins, and discovers a hidden obsession with the afterlife amongst the ancient streets...'Compassionate, original and sharply contemporary. Rickman's crime series is one of the best around.' - SpectatorIn the affluent, historic town of Ludlow, a teenage boy dies in a fall from the castle ruins. Accident or suicide? No great mystery - so why does the boy's uncle, retired detective Andy Mumford, turn to Diocesan Exorcist Merrily Watkins? More people will die before Merrily - her own future uncertain - uncovers a dangerous obsession with suicide, death and the afterlife hidden within these shadowed medieval streets.

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In Band of Angels, Kate Cooper tells the surprising story of early Christianity from the woman's point of view. Though they are often forgotten, women from all walks of life played an invaluable role in Christianity's growth to become a world religion.Peasants, empresses, and independent businesswomen contributed what they could to an emotional revolution unlike anything the ancient world had ever seen. By mobilizing friends and family to spread the word from household to household, they created a wave of change not unlike modern 'viral' marketing. For the most part, women in the ancient world lived out their lives almost invisibly in a man's world. Piecing together their history from the few contemporary accounts that have survived requires painstaking detective work. Yet a careful re-reading of ancient sources yields a vivid picture, and shows how daily life and the larger currents of history shaped one another. This remarkable book tells the story of how a new way of understanding relationships took root in the ancient world. By sharing the ideas that had inspired them, ancient women changed their own lives. But they did something more: they changed the world around them, and in doing so, they created an enduring legacy. Their story is a testament to what invisible people can achieve, and to how the power of ideas can change history.

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And Man Created God is a sweeping exploration of the religions of the world at the time of Jesus: this is popular history at its best.At the time of Jesus's birth, the world was in ferment. Across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia - societies rife with gods and messiahs, priests and warriors - the old certainties of family, village and tribe were being overturned. Religion was becoming the source of order and stability.And Man Created God takes the reader on a dazzling journey across the empires of the ancient world to reveal how emperors and kings manipulated religion to consolidate their power. In Rome, Augustus was deified by his brilliant spin doctors; in what is now Sudan, the warrior queen Amanirenas exploited her godlike status to inspire her armies to face, and defeat, Rome; while in China, the usurper Wang Mang won and lost the throne over his obsession with Confucianism.In this riveting account of the interplay of faith and power, Selina O'Grady answers the most urgent question of all: how did the tiny Jesus cult triumph over more popular religions - the goddess Isis, the miracle worker Apollonius, even the cult of Augustus - to become the world's dominant faith?

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How old is the sloth? How do sloths have sex?How did a sloth save Dublin?The answers to these questions, and more, are found in this wonderfully entertaining celebration of the sloth. Walking readers through the sloth's evolutionary history - from the prehistoric ground sloth to modern pygmy - William Hartston reveals the sloth's fascinating journey from maligned mammal to cause célèbre. Playfully peppered with science and filled with factoids, Sloths is a love-letter to the most anachronistic, and just a little bit ridiculous, of animals.'Riveting... Sloths is as comprehensive a look at the instincts, lifestyle and capacities of this curious creature as you are ever likely to need.' Daily Express

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Longlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award in 2020, the second book from the author of The Angel's Mark, a CWA Dagger shortlisted novel and a Walter Scott Prize Academy Recommended Read 2019'S.W. Perry's ingeniously plotted novels have become my favourite historical crime series.' S. G. MacLean, author of The Seeker series____________________Treason sleeps for no man...London, 1591. Nicholas Shelby, physician and reluctant spy, returns to his old haunts on London's lawless Bankside. But, when spymaster Robert Cecil asks him to investigate the dubious practices of a mysterious doctor from Switzerland, Nicholas is soon embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not just the life of an innocent young patient, but the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth herself.With fellow healer and mistress of the Jackdaw tavern, Bianca Merton, again at his side, Nicholas is drawn into a sinister world of zealots, charlatans and dangerous fanatics...

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The priest adjusted a cross hanging on the wall. It was a black cross without the image of Christ. Just a black cross on a grey surface. The prosecutor did not want to think about the cross burned into the forehead of the corpse...Félix Chacaltana Saldívar is a hapless, by-the-book prosecutor living in a small town, six-hundred kilometers from Lima. Until now he has led a life in which nothing exceptionally good or bad has ever happened to him. But when a charred and mutilated body, discovered during Carnival, signals the return of a serial murderer, Saldívar is inexplicably put in charge of the enquiry. As he investigates he must confront what happens to a man, and to a society, when death becomes the only certainty.

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The Number One International BestsellerThe dramatic story of freelance photographer Daniel Rye, who was held hostage for 13 months by ISIS, as told by an award-winning writer.In May 2013, freelance photographer Daniel Rye was captured in Syria and held prisoner by Islamic State for thirteen months, along with eighteen other hostages. The ISIS Hostage tells the dramatic and heart-breaking story of Daniel's ordeal and details the misery inflicted upon him by the British guards, which included Jihadi John.This tense and riveting account also follows Daniel's family and the nerve-wracking negotiations with his kidnappers. It traces their horrifying journey through impossible dilemmas and offers a rare glimpse into the secret world of the investigation launched to locate and free not only Daniel, but also the American journalist and fellow hostage James Foley.Written with Daniel's full cooperation and based on interviews with former fellow prisoners, jihadists and key figures who worked behind the scenes to secure his release, The ISIS Hostage reveals for the first time the torment suffered by the captives and tells a moving and terrifying story of friendship, torture and survival.

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'Reel History is a hoot! Alex von Tunzelmann writes with a blend of playful wit and delicious snark' Greg JennerFrom ancient Egypt to the Tudors to the Nazis, the film industry has often defined how we think of the past. But how much of what you see on the screen is true? And does it really matter if filmmakers just make it all up? Picking her way through Hollywood's version of events, acclaimed historian Alex von Tunzelmann sorts the fact from the fiction. Along the way, we meet all our favourite historical characters, on screen and in real life: from Cleopatra to Elizabeth I, from Spartacus to Abraham Lincoln, and from Attila the Hun to Nelson Mandela.Based on the long-running column in the Guardian, Reel History takes a comic look at the history of the world as told through the movies - the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly.

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A celebration of writers and their encounters with politics and public life from one of our greatest critics.Unacknowledged Legislation is a celebration of Percy Shelley's assertion that 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world'. In over thirty magnificent essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Salman Rushdie, and with his trademark wit, rigour and flair, master critic Christopher Hitchens dispels the myth of politics as a stone tied to the neck of literature. Instead, Hitchens argues that when all parties in the state were agreed on a matter, it was the individual pens that created the space for a true moral argument.I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, and inheritor, a dauphin or delfino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens. - Gore Vidal

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'Satisfyingly twisty plot, this intricate thriller ' - Daily Mail'Crazily gripping, terrifying' - Chris Whitaker, author of All the Wicked Girls______________________________When Solomon's sister is found drugged and in a coma after an online date, Solomon can't believe this was just a terrible accident. Determined to find out what happened to his sister, and with the police unwilling to help, Solomon begins to investigate on his own. He soon uncovers a rash of similar cases of women who have been found brutally murdered or assaulted after an online date. There is a predator out there working the streets of London, preying on young women. Solomon sets out to bring him to justice, putting him on a collision course with a deadly killer who is fiendishly clever and more twisted than anyone could possibly imagine...

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'I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive' -- Christopher Hitchens, IntroductionChristopher Hitchens is widely recognized as having been one of the liveliest and most influential of contemporary political analysts. Prepared for the Worst is a collection of the best of his essays of the 1980s published on both sides of the Atlantic. These essays confirmed his reputation as a bold commentator combining intellectual tenacity with mordant wit, whether he was writing about the intrigues of Reagan's Washington, a popular novel, the work of Tom Paine, the man George Orwell, or reporting (with sympathy as well as toughness) from Beirut or Bombay, Warsaw or Managua.Hitchens writes clearly, from a well-stocked mind, and is free of the cant that affects many political journalists. - Publishers Weekly

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In 1968, at the age of 22, Karl Marlantes abandoned his Oxford University scholarship to sign up for active service with the US Marine Corps in Vietnam. Pitched into a war that had no defined military objective other than kill ratios and body counts, what he experienced over the next thirteen months in the jungles of South East Asia shook him to the core. But what happened when he came home covered with medals was almost worse. It took Karl four decades to come to terms with what had really happened, during the course of which he painstakingly constructed a fictionalized version of his war, MATTERHORN, which has subsequently been hailed as the definitive Vietnam novel.WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GO TO WAR takes us back to Vietnam, but this time there is no fictional veil. Here are the hard-won truths that underpin MATTERHORN: the author's real-life experiences behind the book's indelible scenes. But it is much more than this. It is part exorcism of Karl's own experiences of combat, part confession, part philosophical primer for the young man about to enter combat. It It is also a devastatingly frank answer to the questions 'What is it like to be a soldier?' What is it like to face death?' and 'What is it like to kill someone?'

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Stephen Trombley's A History of Western Thought, outlines the 2,500-year history of European ideas from the philosophers of Classical Antiquity to the thinkers of today.No major representative of any significant strand of Western thought escapes Trombley's attention: the Christian Scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages, the great philosophers of the Enlightenment, the German idealists from Kant to Hegel; the utilitarians Bentham and Mill; the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; Kierkegaard and the existentialists; the analytic philosophers Russell, Moore, Whitehead and Wittgenstein; and - last but not least - the four shapers-in-chief of our modern world: Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.A History of Western Thought is a masterly distillation of two-and-a-half millennia of intellectual history, and a readable and entertaining crash course in Western philosophy.

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The acclaimed international bestseller now a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh and Gemma Chan!When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn't know is that Nick's family home happens to look like a palace, that she'll ride in more private planes than cars and that she is about to encounter the strangest, craziest group of people in existence. Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian jet set; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money - and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich.

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A stocking-fodder sensation of classic Christmas carols told through the brilliantly British medium of pun, by the internationally renowned Guardian cartoonist, Martin Rowson.Carol Carnage takes the first verse and chorus line of five world-famous carols and renders them into stunning pen-and-ink puns, brimming with English eccentricity, invention and Christmas-crackerly bawdiness. Whether it is the frosty beauty of In the Bleak Midwinter maliciously misheard as the vomit-spackled Ian the Greek,Mid-wine Tour or the trumpeting joy of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen spitefully styled as a husband and wife drunkenly heckling one another in Got Dressed Yet Mary? Gin Till Morn!, the internationally renowned cartoonist Martin Rowson unrepentantly takes aim at po-faced carol enthusiasts and dangerously earnest Christmassers the world over.

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Some games are dangerous.And some are deadly...Ava doesn't believe it when the email arrives to say that her twin sister is dead. It just feels too perfect to be anything other than Zelda's usual manipulative scheming. And Ava knows her twin.Now, Ava must return home to retrace her sister's last steps. But her search turns into a twisted scavenger-hunt of her twin's making.Letter by letter, Ava unearths clues to her sister's disappearance, which reveal a series of harrowing truths from their past - truths both of them had tried to forget. A is for Ava, Z is for Zelda, but deciphering the letters in-between is not so simple...

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'Hugely entertaining' Guardian'Fascinating' Mail on SundayIn 1882, Jean-Martin Charcot was the premiere physician in Paris, having just established a neurology clinic at the infamous Salpêtrière Hospital, a place that was called a 'grand asylum of human misery'. Assessing the dismal conditions, he quickly upgraded the facilities, and in doing so, revolutionized the treatment of mental illness. Many of Charcot's patients had neurosyphilis (the advanced form of syphilis), a disease of mad poets, novelists, painters, and musicians, and a driving force behind the overflow of patients in Europe's asylums. A sexually transmitted disease, it is known as 'the great imitator' since its symptoms resemble those of almost any biological disease or mental illness. It is also the perfect lens through which to peel back the layers to better understand the brain and the mind. Yet, Charcot's work took a bizarre turn when he brought mesmerism - hypnotism - into his clinic, abandoning his pursuit of the biological basis of illness in favour of the far sexier and theatrical treatment of female 'hysterics', whose symptoms mimic those seen in brain disease, but were elusive in origin. This and a general fear of contagion set the stage for Sigmund Freud, whose seductive theory, Freudian analysis, brought sex and hysteria onto the psychiatrist couch, leaving the brain behind. How The Brain Lost Its Mind tells this rich and compelling story, and raises a host of philosophical and practical questions. Are we any closer to understanding the difference between a sick mind and a sick brain? The real issue remains: where should neurology and psychiatry converge to explore not just the brain, but the nature of the human psyche?

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'Superbly realised. You'll go a long way before you find a better-written thriller this year' THE TIMESBreathtaking . . . filled with twists and turns' JEFFERY DEAVER *Featured on The Times' Best Summer Reading of 2022**Featured on Crimereads' Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2022!* ______________A small town. A deadly secret.A race against an invisible killer . . .Southern California, 1987. Rancho Santa Elena might look like paradise, but a series of violent hate crimes are disturbing the peace. When Detective Benjamin Wade starts investigating, it becomes clear that the locals are hiding a secret - one they'll die to protect.With forensic expert Natasha Betencourt at his side, Ben uncovers a mysterious gang of youths involved in the town's growing white power movement. What he doesn't know is that they are part of something much bigger - a silent organisation of terror who are luring young men in using new technology.Ben zeroes in on the gang's freshest young recruit, hoping he will lead him to the mastermind of the operation. But as he digs deeper, he is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about himself and his community. And as Ben comes closer to discovering the truth, the killer is drawing closer to Ben. . .* * *Praise for Alan Drew 'Everything a great thriller should be' LEE CHILD'A vivid portrait of a seedy world' GRAHAM MOORE'Revises the old detective story and turns it in several fascinating directions' COLUM MCCANN'A clarity and wisdom reminiscent of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch' DAILY MAIL 'Smart, chilling, and impossible to put down' WILLIAM LANDAY'The sort of magically absorbing novel that keeps you turning the pages and checking the locks on the door' LAUREN GRODSTEIN

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In this revealing and entertaining guide to how the Romans confronted their own mortality, Peter Jones shows us that all the problems associated with old age and death that so transfix us today were already dealt with by our ancient ancestors two thousand years ago.Romans inhabited a world where man, knowing nothing about hygiene let alone disease, had no defences against nature. Death was everywhere. Half of all Roman children were dead by the age of five. Only eight per cent of the population made it over sixty. One bizarre result was that half the population consisted of teenagers. From the elites' philosophical take on the brevity of life to the epitaphs left by butchers, bakers and buffoons, Memento Mori ('Remember you die') shows how the Romans faced up to this world and attempted to take the sting out of death.

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'Smart, perceptive, elegant, sad, surprising and addictive. And it's also FUNNY.' Nick Hornby'What We Run the Tides probes so poignantly is the volatility of female adolescence... Knowing and powerfully enigmatic.' ObserverTeenage Eulabee and her magnetic best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighbourhood. They know Sea Cliff's homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters - as well as the upscale all-girls' school they attend. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act - or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola vehemently disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola's sudden disappearance - a potential kidnapping that shakes the quiet community and threatens to expose unspoken truths.Suspenseful and poignant, We Run the Tides is Vendela Vida's masterful portrait of an inimitable place on the brink of radical transformation. Pre-tech boom San Francisco finds its mirror in the changing lives of the teenage girls at the centre of this story of innocence lost, the pain of too much freedom, and the struggle to find one's authentic self. Told with a gimlet eye and great warmth, We Run the Tides is both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth, in all its beauty and confusion.'We Run the Tides is hypnotic, knowing, and propulsive as it examines girlhood, friendship, and the strong pull of the past.' Meg Wolitzer

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