Search results for ""Profile Books Ltd""
Profile Books Ltd How to be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity
*A Waterstones Best Book of 2023* *A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week* *A New York Times Editor's Pick* 'A total eye-opener, I loved it' Nuala McGovern 'You'll never look at Renaissance portraits in the same way' Maggie O'Farrell 'Terrific ... that rare thing, a serious history that is both accessible and entertaining' Literary Review Plunge into the intimate history of cosmetics, and discover how, for centuries, women have turned to make up as a rich source of creativity, community and resistance The Renaissance was an era obsessed with appearances. And beauty culture from the time has left traces that give us a window into an overlooked realm of history - revealing everything from sixteenth-century women's body anxieties to their sophisticated botanical and chemical knowledge. How to be a Renaissance Woman allows us to glimpse the world of the female artists, artisans and businesswomen carving out space for themselves, as well as those who gained power and influence in the cut-throat world of the court. In a vivid exploration of women's lives, Professor Jill Burke invites us to rediscover historical cosmetic recipes and unpack the origins of the beauty ideals that are still with us today. 'Taking a fresh, women-led perspective, Burke highlights a rich tapestry of female experience that encompasses everyone from artisans to aristocrats ... The everyday women mixing their own beauty products should rightly be considered chemists and botanists' The Times 'A fun, informative and occasionally sobering look at the lives of women across social strata ... The real shock of the book is not what's unfamiliar, it is how much of it seems to mirror today's obsessions and controversies' The New York Times
£21.46
Profile Books Ltd The Magick of Matter: Crystals, Chaos and the Wizardry of Physics
As heard on BBC Radio 4 Start The Week 'Felix Flicker brilliantly reveals the secrets behind the modern-day magic we call physics' Marcus du Sautoy Imagine you had a crystal that lit upon your command: magic must be at work, and you must surely be a wizard. But what if you discovered that you routinely cast such spells? Are the spells no longer magic ... or are you a wizard? The modern term for wizardry is condensed matter physics. It is the study of the world around us - the states of matter and how they emerge from the quantum realm. Thanks to its practical magic we can make lasers which cut through solid metal, trains which hover in mid-air, and crystals which light our homes. It is one of the best-kept secrets in science; a third of all physicists work on it, yet its story has never been told. Join Felix Flicker as he introduces the magic of condensed matter physics. It will be a journey that reveals the subtle spells that conjure crystals from chaos and create new particles that have never before existed. The Magick of Matter will revolutionise what you know about physics and reality; you'll never see the world in the same way again.
£11.01
Profile Books Ltd I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home
'I was so captivated by this book, so utterly drawn in and overwhelmed by the emotional force of it, that it stayed in my bloodstream, it felt, long after I'd finished it.' Nigella Lawson 'Sharp and engrossing' Roxane Gay As the bookish daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami Attenberg was drawn to the road. Her wanderlust led her to drive solo across America, and eventually on travels around the globe, embracing - for better and worse - all the messy life she encountered along the way. As she travelled she was crafting, grafting and honing her work, piecing together a living and career, and wrestling with a deep longing for independence while also searching for community, and eventually, a place she might want to stay in for good. This remarkable memoir reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring and singular story of living the creative life, and finding one's way home.
£10.34
Profile Books Ltd Love in a Time of Hate: Art and Passion in the Shadow of War, 1929-39
A Financial Times 'Book to Read in 2023' 1930s Europe - as the Roaring Twenties wind down and the world rumbles towards war, the great minds of the time have other concerns. Jean-Paul Sartre waits anxiously in a Parisian café for his first date with no-show Simone de Beauvoir. Marlene Dietrich slips from her loveless marriage into the dive bars of Berlin. Father and son Thomas and Klaus Mann clash over each other's homosexuality. And Vladimir Nabokov lovingly places a fresh-caught butterfly at the end of Verá's bed. Little do they all know, the book burning will soon begin. Love in a Time of Hate skilfully interweaves some of the greatest love stories of the 1930s with the darkening backdrop of fascism in Europe, in an irresistible journey into the past that brings history and its actors to vivid life.
£17.46
Profile Books Ltd Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast
Winner of the 2021 Cundill History Prize Winner of the 2021 Frederick Douglass Prize 'A richly detailed account of a gripping human story' Washington Post '[An] epic history ... a sweeping, thoughtful narrative' Los Angeles Times On Sunday 27 February, 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice - in present-day Guyana - launched a massive rebellion which came amazingly close to succeeding. Surrounded by jungle and savannah, the revolutionaries and their enslavers struck and parried for an entire year. In the end, the Dutch prevailed because of one advantage: their access to soldiers and supplies. Blood on the River is the explosive story of this little-known revolution, one that almost changed the face of the Americas. Drawing on 900 interrogation transcripts collected by the Dutch when the Berbice rebellion finally collapsed, which were subsequently buried in Dutch archives, historian Marjoleine Kars reconstructs an extraordinarily rich day-by-day account of this pivotal event. Blood on the River provides a rare, in-depth look at the political vision of enslaved people at the dawn of the Age of Revolution. An astonishing original work of history, Blood on the River will change our understanding of revolutions, slavery and of the story of freedom in the New World.
£17.89
Profile Books Ltd Towards a Digital Renaissance: The evolution of creativity, values and business from cyberspace to the metaverse
Towards a Digital Renaissance traces the excitement and optimism of the early internet, the outsider cyberpunk ethic and open access. But it also monitors the more complex but ultimately more commercialised online world of today, a world dominated by corporate business in which many feel that surveillance has become overwhelming. Jeremy Silver's involvement in various start-ups, both as CEO and investor, led to his leadership of Digital Catapult. Towards a Digital Renaissance examines the interplay between state and private financing in the digital sector. It also argues for the internet's potential to transition from a 'medieval' world of the GAFA big four (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple), closed and walled up like medieval city states, to a 'digital renaissance' based on the free exchange of ideas and an enabling metaverse made up of virtual reality and artificial intelligence that deepens our experience of reality rather than restricting or monitoring it.
£21.46
Profile Books Ltd Led By The Nose: A Garden of Smells
Jenny Joseph was no ordinary poet - and Led by the Nose is no ordinary memoir. Shaped around the smells of the English countryside, it is full of the wilful personality and the sly humour that characterised the purple-clad old woman in her iconic poem 'Warning'. Joseph's eccentricities permeate each chapter as she flows through the gardening year with its chores and blossoms, frequently leading the reader off the garden path to stop, smell the roses, and ignore the world for a while. Full of the sensual awareness of Jenny Joseph's poetry, Led by the Nose is a singular memoir: a work of delicious diversion and literary flair, horticultural anxieties and countercultural tendencies, providing a glimpse - or sniff - of the landscape of this treasured poet's life.
£10.34
Profile Books Ltd All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake - LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER ~ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ~ WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 'An astonishing account of love, resilience and survival' Sunday Times 'A remarkable book' New York Times 'An extraordinary tale through the generations' Guardian In 1850s South Carolina, Rose, an enslaved woman, faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few items. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. That, in itself, is a story. But it's not the whole story. How does one uncover the lives of people who, in their day, were considered property? Harvard historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women's faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward. All That She Carried gives us history as it was lived, a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds.
£20.69
Profile Books Ltd The Book of Phobias and Manias: A History of the World in 99 Obsessions
THE PERFECT GIFT FOR ALL BIBLIOMANES A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR AND DAILY MAIL AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 WOMAN'S HOUR AND START THE WEEK Plunge into this rich, surprising and stunningly designed A-Z compendium to discover how our fixations have taken shape, from the Middle Ages to the present day, as bestselling author Kate Summerscale deftly traces the threads between the past and present, the psychological and social, the personal and the political. 'Fascinating ... Phobias and manias create a magical space between us and the world' Malcolm Gaskill, author of the No. 1 bestseller The Ruin of All Witches 'Fascinating' Observer 'An endlessly intriguing book ... All the bibliomanes (book nutters) I know will love it' Daily Mail
£13.01
Profile Books Ltd The Geometer Lobachevsky: Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize and the 2023 Kerry Group Novel of the Year
'When I was sent by the Soviet state to London to further my studies in calculus, knowing I would never become a great mathematician, I strayed instead into the foothills of anthropology ...' It is 1950 and Nikolai Lobachevsky, great-grandson of his illustrious namesake, is surveying a bog in the Irish Midlands, where he studies the locals, the land and their ways. One afternoon, soon after he arrives, he receives a telegram calling him back to Leningrad for a 'special appointment'. Lobachevsky may not be a great genius but he is not foolish: he recognises a death sentence when he sees one and leaves to go into hiding on a small island in the Shannon estuary, where the island families harvest seaweed and struggle to split rocks. Here Lobachevsky must think about death, how to avoid it and whether he will ever see his home again
£18.01
Profile Books Ltd The Gunners
What's the point in friends, if you can't share your secrets? The Gunners used to be inseparable. A gang of latchkey kids, they took their name from the doorbell of the abandoned house they played in as children - and drank in as teenagers. Together they navigated the difficult journey from childhood to adolescence and learnt their first vital lessons about becoming adults; Mikey, Sam, Lynn, Alice, Jimmy and Sally are more like a family than just friends. One day, Sally suddenly stopped speaking to them and wouldn't explain why. Years later, Sally's suicide forces the Gunners back together for her funeral. All of them have secrets they are reluctant to share, secrets which mean they must reassess their happy memories and finally be honest about the reasons Sally left. This is a generous and poignant novel about the difficulty - and the joy - of being a true friend.
£10.03
Profile Books Ltd The Social Lives of Animals: How Co-operation Conquered the Natural World
'Any writer who can evoke the existential sadness of a lonely cockroach, or make krill thrilling, or describe a snorkelling colleague being engulfed in a "gargantuan cetacean bum detonation" is a real gift to science communication ... thought-provoking' Guardian Everything you ever wanted to know about how animals live together, and what that means for us Some animal societies hold a mirror up to the human world: elephants hold funerals for departed family members. Pinyon jays run collective creches. Rats will go out of their way to help a cold, wet stranger. Other lifestyles can seem intensely alien. Take locusts, surging over the land in their millions, unable to slow down for a moment because the hungry ranks behind will literally bite their legs off if they don't stay one step ahead (actually, you might know a few people like that). But no matter how offputting an animal might be, behavioural scientist Ashley Ward can usually find something worth celebrating. Travelling the world from the Serengeti to the frozen Antarctic ocean, with stops in the muddy fields and streams of his native northern Yorkshire, he brings his curious eye and infectious humour right down to their level. The result is a world-expanding, myth-busting tour of some of nature's greatest marvels, in delightfully broad-minded company.
£19.83
Profile Books Ltd Sleights of Mind: What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our brains
What can magic tell us about ourselves and our daily lives? If you subtly change the subject during an uncomfortable conversation, did you know you're using attentional 'misdirection', a core technique of magic? And if you've ever bought an expensive item you'd sworn never to buy, you were probably unaware that the salesperson was, like an accomplished magician, a master at creating the 'illusion of choice'. Leading neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde meet with magicians from all over the world to explain how the magician's art sheds light on consciousness, memory, attention, and belief. As the founders of the new discipline of NeuroMagic, they combine cutting-edge scientific research with startling insights into the tricks of the magic trade. By understanding how magic manipulates the processes in our brains, we can better understand how we work - in fields from law and education to marketing, health and psychology - for good and for ill.
£11.45
Profile Books Ltd Night Swimmers
'Beautifully written, full of wisdom and wonderful secondary characters. I loved it' Daily Mail 'A glowing, generous novel' Irish Times 'A warm, unsentimental and beautifully-observed book for our times' Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days Grace lives alone in Ballybrady, a little village on the sublimely beautiful east coast of Northern Ireland. She fills her days with swimming, fishing, quilting, and baiting the tourists who arrive from the city with more money than sense. She hasn't left the village since a traumatic stay in London as a young woman at the end of the 1980s. One of the tourists is Evan, taking an enforced holiday from his family and work in Belfast after breaking down after the death of his daughter in infancy. He has come to try to process his grief and make himself desirable again as a husband, a father and a business partner. But he hasn't been there a week until he gets trapped by lockdown. When Grace saves his life in a kayaking accident - if it was an accident - and Evan's troubled son arrives to stay, all three are drawn together in a way that forces a reckoning with their personal traumas and draws them back into society. This is a moving and funny debut novel set in a quirky coastal community you will be desperate to visit after reading. It will appeal to readers of Elizabeth Strout, Maggie O'Farrell and Alice Munro.
£24.35
Profile Books Ltd The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids
'Make this book a morning ritual.' Matthew McConaughey 'A parenting bible that informs behaviour and guides decision making. I love it. I use it daily.' Jake Humphrey 'A simple way to ground us, to force a reflection on the choices we're making, and the ones we want to make. And it's not just for dads.' Emily Oster, author of Cribsheet What does it mean to be a great father? And how do you become one? Parenting is a role filled with meaning and purpose, but every dad needs guidance: because fatherhood is not a one-off, it is something you do every day. Instead of a parenting book you read once as a sleep-deprived new parent, The Daily Dad provides 366 accessible meditations on fatherhood, one for each day of the year. Drawing quotes from history, literature and psychology, bestselling author Ryan Holiday - a father of two himself - has crafted a daily practice that will help dads old and new to find inspiration and advice. Each entry offers a memorable lesson on being the role model your child needs, rooted in timeless principles. From Socrates to Martin Luther King Jr., ancient philosophy to contemporary figures, The Daily Dad collates wisdom from around the world to help every dad face the day-to-day challenges in the lifelong job of parenting, and ultimately become the best father they can be.
£19.94
Profile Books Ltd The Underhistory
''Full of suspense and surprises'' - GUARDIAN''Wholly unique and deeply compelling'' - ESQUIRE''A heartfelt and chilling gothic tragedy'' - CHRIS WHITAKERPeople come to visit my home and I love to show them around. It''s not the original house of course. That was destroyed the day my entire family died. But I don''t think their ghosts know the difference.Pera Sinclair was nine the day the pilot intentionally crashed his plane into her family''s grand home, killing everyone inside. She was the girl who survived the tragedy, a sympathetic oddity, growing stranger by the day. Over the decades she rebuilt the huge and rambling building on the original site, recreating what she had lost, each room telling a piece of the story of her life and that of the many people who died there, both before and after the disaster. Her sister, murdered a hundred miles away. The soldier, broken by war. Death follows Pera, and she welcomes it in as an old friend. And while she doesn''t believe in ghosts, she
£15.05
Profile Books Ltd Gone to Ground: One woman's extraordinary account of survival in the heart of Nazi Germany
Berlin 1941. Marie Jalowicz Simon, a nineteen-year-old Jewish woman, makes an extraordinary decision. All around her, Jews are being rounded up for deportation, forced labour and extermination. Marie takes off the yellow star and vanishes into the city. In the years that follow, Marie lives under an assumed identity, moving between almost twenty different safe houses. She is forced to accept shelter wherever she can find it, and many of those she stays with expect services in return. She stays with foreign workers, committed communists and even convinced Nazis. Any false move might lead to arrest. Always on the move, never certain who could be trusted and how far, it is her quick-witted determination and the most amazing and hair-raising strokes of luck that ensure her survival. This is Marie's extraordinary story, told in her own voice with unflinching honesty after more than fifty years of silence.
£16.09
Profile Books Ltd No Bullsh*t Change: An 8 Step Guide for Leaders
'Indispensable' Sir Clive Woodward 'A punchy, practical and inspiring guide for all leaders who wish to transform and grow their team or organisation.' Justine Roberts, Founder and CEO of Mumsnet The no-nonsense guide to change: how to lead it and how to lead through it when the world is still spinning. By the award-winning author of No Bullsh*t Leadership. Nothing stays the same. The only constant we now face is change, and the demand for those who can grasp its opportunities has never been greater. Organisations today must learn to continuously adapt - and adapt faster than their competition. It is this that will drive them forward and it is this that is the modern leader's greatest challenge. Despite what we're told, leading change is not a secret knowledge available only to a chosen few. This book cuts through the bullsh*t to enable everybody to do it and do it well. Drawing on over a decade of experience leading successful change programmes around the world, Chris Hirst cuts through the unworkable guff to reveal his uncomplicated, proven strategies for team, organisational and cultural transformation. For everybody, from leaders of small teams to global enterprises, this book will transform how you lead, your results and the careers of those who work with you.
£18.01
Profile Books Ltd Mrs Gulliver
'Irresistible - a funny, sexy romp that's also smart, even wise' Kirkus starred review ' Pure elegance, subtlety and wit. A triumph of a novel' - Francesca Segal, author of Mother Ship It is 1954, and prostitution is legal in the tropical haven that is Verona Island. Here, among gangsters and corrupt lawmen, Lila Gulliver runs a brothel that promises her exclusive clientele privacy and discretion. When nineteen-year-old Carità, beautiful and blind since birth, comes to her door seeking employment, Mrs Gulliver sees a business opportunity and takes a chance. Carità is mesmerising, sharp and a mystery to her employer, always holding herself at a distance. One night, the son of a wealthy judge patronises Mrs Gulliver's establishment, immediately falling madly in love with Carità. This is Ian Drohan - young, idealistic and cushioned by wealth and family connections. Mrs Gulliver mistrusts him, and worries for Carità's future. Carità, on the other hand, is fearless, headstrong and a force of nature that Mrs Gulliver is always several steps behind. A dazzling drama filled with sex, wry wit and literary references, Mrs Gulliver follows two women who have nothing to lose in their fight for agency on an island too ready to dismiss them.
£14.19
Profile Books Ltd An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life
Shortlisted for the 2023 Victorian Premier's Literary Award 'Truly excellent' Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize 'Voyeuristically addictive, funny, and deceptively simple' Halle Butler, author of The New Me Whether working in food service or in high-end retail, lit by a laptop in a sex chat or by the camera of an acclaimed film director, or sharing a flat in the city or a holiday rental in Mallorca, the protagonists of the ten stories comprising Paul Dalla Rosa's debut collection navigate the spaces between aspiration and delusion, ambition and aimlessness, the curated profile and the unreliable body. By turns unsparing and tender, Dalla Rosa explores our lives in late-stage Capitalism, where globalisation and its false promises of connectivity leave us further alienated and disenfranchised. Like the legendary Lucia Berlin and his contemporary Ottessa Moshfegh, Dalla Rosa is a masterful observer-and hilarious eviscerator-of our ugly, beautiful attempts at finding meaning in an ugly, beautiful world.
£12.88
Profile Books Ltd Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors: Shortlisted for the 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction
'Truly infectious' Guardian 'A sparkling debut, full of tenderness and mischief. It's as if Roth and Narayan had a baby' Aatish Taseer It is a day of triumph for Appa and Amma, who have driven home a shiny new Honda Civic to show off to their neighbours in Blue Hills housing colony. But their eldest son Sreenath is behaving strangely, and it soon becomes clear why: a secretly filmed video of Sreenath and his girlfriend Anita has been posted to a porn site, and nearly everyone they know has seen it. The ensuing war - with Sreenath and Anita on one side and their families on the other - becomes a news sensation, emblematic of a wider generational struggle. The novel is narrated by Sreenath's younger brother, who is twenty years old and eager to escape his hometown and embrace his brother's rebellious spirit. But to keep his family together he will have to compromise his integrity and, in doing so, bring buried tensions between him and his brother to the surface. Full of dark comedy and insight about Indian society, shame and the online generation, this is a poignant story about now told by a narrator who will beguile and surprise you.
£16.09
Profile Books Ltd Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A Washington Post 2021 Non-Fiction Book of the Year New York Times Review of Books Editors' Choice Non-Fiction Title Longlisted for the 2022 PEN / Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography 'Beautifully told. It is high time Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Aurora Leigh were once again household names.' Mail on Sunday 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,' Elizabeth Barrett Browning famously wrote, shortly before defying her family by running away to Italy with Robert Browning. But behind the romance of her extraordinary life stands a thoroughly modern figure, who remains an electrifying study in self-invention. Elizabeth was born in 1806, a time when women could neither attend university nor vote, and yet she achieved lasting literary fame. She remains Britain's greatest woman poet, whose work has inspired writers from Emily Dickinson to George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. This vividly written biography, the first full study for over thirty years, incorporates recent archival discoveries to reveal the woman herself: a literary giant and a high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery who believed herself to be of mixed heritage; and a writer who defied chronic illness and long-term disability to change the course of cultural history. It holds up a mirror to the woman, her art - and the art of biography itself.
£22.84
Profile Books Ltd The Art of Counselling
The Art of Counselling is an insightful guide for all who work in professions where counselling is a key part of their work: for doctors who often need to counsel the bereaved and discuss intimate subjects with their patients; for lawyers who advise clients in difficult situations; social workers and the clergy whose work is largely spent helping those in distress; senior management staff looking to relate productively with their staff - all will find this book an essential companion. Rollo May's direct and personal approach, combined with the use of pertinent examples, guides the reader to understanding how to adjust his or her own personality to deal constructively and positively with others.
£10.74
Profile Books Ltd Surviving the Daily Grind: Bartleby's Guide to Work
We spend a lot of our time at work and would be depressed with nothing to do. But when it gets to Monday, many of us are already longing for the weekend and the prospect of escape. How did work become so tedious and stressful? And is there anything we can do to make it better? Based on his popular Economist Bartleby column, Philip Coggan rewrites the rules of work to help us survive the daily grind. Ranging widely, he encourages us to cut through mindless jargon, pointless bureaucracy and endless meetings to find a new, more creative - and less frustrating - way to get by and get on at work. Incisive, original, and endlessly droll, this is the guide for beleaguered underlings and harried higher-ups alike. As Rousseau might have said: "Man was born free, but is everywhere stuck in a meeting." If you've ever thought there must be a better way, this is the book for you.
£18.01
Profile Books Ltd We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir
FINALIST FOR THE US NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 2023 FOR NONFICTION Aziz Shehadeh was many things: lawyer, activist, and political detainee, he was also the father of bestselling author and activist Raja. In this new and searingly personal memoir, Raja Shehadeh unpicks the snags and complexities of their relationship. A vocal and fearless opponent, Aziz resists under the British mandatory period, then under Jordan, and, finally, under Israel. As a young man, Raja fails to recognise his father's courage and, in turn, his father does not appreciate Raja's own efforts in campaigning for Palestinian human rights. When Aziz is murdered in 1985, it changes Raja irrevocably. This is not only the story of the battle against the various oppressors of the Palestinians, but a moving portrait of a particular father and son relationship.
£18.01
