Search results for ""Author Bill"
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Life Changing: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON GLOBAL CONSERVATION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON GLOBAL CONSERVATION 'Pilcher is both very funny and very, very clever.' Gillian Burke 'Richly entertaining throughout.' Sunday Times For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth’s natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This thought-provoking book considers the many ways that we’ve altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth. We have carved chihuahuas from wolves and fancy chickens from jungle fowl. We’ve added spider genes to goats and coral genes to tropical fish. It’s possible to buy genetically-modified pets, eat genetically-modified fish and watch cloned ponies thunder up and down the polo field. Now, as our global dominance grows, our influence extends far beyond these species. As we warm our world and radically reshape the biosphere, we affect the evolution of all living things, near and far, from the emergence of novel hybrids such as the pizzly bear, to the entirely new strains of animals and plants that are evolving at breakneck speed to cope with their altered environment. In Life Changing, Helen introduces us to these post-natural creations and talks to the scientists who create, study and tend to them. At a time when the future of so many species is uncertain, we meet some of the conservationists seeking to steer evolution onto firmer footings with novel methods like the ‘spermcopter’, coral IVF and plans to release wild elephants into Denmark. Helen explores the changing relationship between humans and the natural world, and reveals how, with evidence-based thinking, humans can help life change for the better.
£10.99
John Wiley & Sons Inc E-Paper Displays
E-PAPER DISPLAYS An in-depth introduction to a promising technology, curated by one of its pioneering inventors Electronic paper (e-paper) has one of the most promising futures in technology. E-paper’s potential is unlimited, as the displays require extremely low power and imitate the aesthetic of ink on the page. This allows e-paper devices to have a wider range of viewing angles than traditional LED products and are capable of being viewed in direct sunlight—and without any additional power. As a result, e-paper displays create less eye strain, have a greater flexibility in their use, and have the potential to be used in place of paper for billboard advertising, educational applications, and transport signage, and more. In E-Paper Displays, editor Bo-Ru Yang and his team of experts present a detailed view into the important technologies involved in e-paper displays, with a particlular emphasis on how this technology’s unique properties make possible a wide range of personal and professional electronic products. As climate change makes efficient energy use more important than ever, e-paper can become an essential tool for future products on a large scale. As we rely more and more on technology, having lightweight devices with long battery life will become critical. This book provides engineers and innovators with an introduction to this important technology and shows new pathways for development. E-Paper Displays readers will also find: The editor is one of the leading pioneers in this technology Contributions from an international team of experts in e-paper technology Descriptions of many advanced display types that rely on different principles than the widely used LCD and OLED types Another innovative title from Wiley-SID (Society for Information Displays) series As we enter a new stage in our industrial development, E-Paper Displays is an essential reference for computer engineers and developers, as well as innovators and scientists, and their students.
£105.00
Taylor & Francis Inc Medication Treatments for Nicotine Dependence
Despite the prevalence of both pharmaceutical and behavioral approaches to encourage cessation, over a billion people still indulge in tobacco. Even in the U.S., where tobacco use is considered a clearly treatable and socially regrettable condition, a significant percentage of individuals remain resistant to treatment modalities. It is believed that the problem lies with the availability, the effectiveness, and the tolerance of the treatments. Thus, the development of new and more effective medications for treating nicotine dependence is an area of significant therapeutic importance, and one made increasingly more viable given our rapidly increasing knowledge about the actions of nicotine and tobacco components on the brain.“We are entering a Renaissance period … that promises to provide us with improved pharmacological tools to tackle this most serious of worldwide public health problems.” -- from the Preface Medication Treatments for Nicotine Dependence assembles contributions from leading researchers and clinicians to provide the most comprehensive volume on current and future possibilities for addressing nicotine and tobacco dependence with medication. Organized into six sections, this important work covers— Basic pharmacology and physiology of nicotine and nicotinic receptors First-line medications for nicotine addiction, including NRTs and sustained release bupropion Second-line medications including antidepressants, inhibitors, and antagonists Promising treatments currently in development Special topics such as the combination of medications with behavioral treatments and pharmacogenetic approaches to treatment The text concludes with the presentation of two unique perspectives on the development of medications for nicotine dependence and its implications for clinical practice. Medication Treatments for Nicotine Dependence serves as a useful primer and resource for established investigators, as well as those new to the research; for students from a range of disciplines, including pharmacology, psychology, public health, and medicine; and for those clinicians actively engaged in the treatment of nicotine dependence.
£210.00
WW Norton & Co Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis
The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic upheavals and internal divisions shaping the most multicultural, multilingual, and global institution in the world. Through powerful individual stories and sweeping birds-eye views, Catholicism provides a mesmerising assessment of the Church’s complex role in modern history: both shaper and follower of the politics of nation states, both conservator of hierarchies and evangeliser of egalitarianism. McGreevy documents the hopes and ambitions of European missionaries building churches and schools in all corners of the world, African Catholics fighting for political (and religious) independence, Latin American Catholics attracted to a theology of liberation, and Polish and South Korean Catholics demanding democratic governments. He includes a vast cast of riveting characters, known and unknown, including the Mexican revolutionary Fr. Servando Teresa de Mier; Daniel O’Connell, hero of Irish emancipation; Sr. Josephine Bakhita, a formerly enslaved Sudanese nun; Chinese statesman Ma Xiaobang; French philosopher and reformer Jacques Maritain; German Jewish philosopher and convert, Edith Stein; John Paul II, Polish pope and opponent of communism; Gustavo Gutiérrez, Peruvian founder of liberation theology; and French American patron of modern art, Dominique de Menil. Throughout this essential volume, McGreevy details currents of reform within the Church as well as movements protective of traditional customs and beliefs. Conflicts with political leaders and a devotional revival in the nineteenth century, the experiences of decolonisation after World War II and the Second Vatican Council in the twentieth century and the trauma of clerical sexual abuse in the twenty-first all demonstrate how religion shapes our modern world. Finally, McGreevy addresses the challenges faced by Pope Francis as he struggles to unite the over one billion members of the world’s largest religious community.
£17.99
HarperChristian Resources Jesus in Me Bible Study Guide plus Streaming Video: Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion
From internationally recognized Bible teacher and daughter of Billy Graham, this focused Bible course and workshop is designed to guide you into a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit through reading God's Word. In the Jesus In Me video-based Bible study (video streaming included) Anne Graham Lotz provides a format for studying the Bible that will help you learn to listen for God's voice, know Him in an intimate relationship, and communicate with Him through His Word.Throughout the eight sessions, you and your group will discover why the Holy Spirit is an essential part of the Christian life and how he speaks directly to you through the pages of your Bible. Anne begins with a workshop and video instruction on an effective, 5-step approach to studying your Bible.After that, you'll apply the skills of asking and listening as you work through five Bible studies per week on selected Scriptures about the Holy Spirit. This video study guide has everything you need for both small group and individual use and includes: The study guide itself—with the workshop instruction, discussion and reflection questions, video notes, and a facilitator's guide. An individual access code to stream all eight video presentations online (you don't need to buy a DVD!). Sessions and run times: Bible Study Workshop (49:00) Loving the Person of the Holy Spirit (18:00) Enjoying the Presence of the Holy Spirit (17:30) Relying on the Power of the Holy Spirit (17:00) Embracing the Purpose of the Holy Spirit (15:00) Living by the Precepts of the Holy Spirit (16:30) Reflecting on the Purity of the Holy Spirit (21:00) Trusting the Priority of the Holy Spirit (21:30) Streaming video access code included. Access code subject to expiration after 12/31/2027. Code may be redeemed only by the recipient of this package. Code may not be transferred or sold separately from this package. Internet connection required. Void where prohibited, taxed, or restricted by law. Additional offer details inside.
£17.68
Cornell University Press 3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan
On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by the shockwaves of a 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake originating less than 50 miles off its eastern coastline. The most powerful earthquake to have hit Japan in recorded history, it produced a devastating tsunami with waves reaching heights of over 130 feet that in turn caused an unprecedented multireactor meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This triple catastrophe claimed almost 20,000 lives, destroyed whole towns, and will ultimately cost hundreds of billions of dollars for reconstruction.In 3.11, Richard Samuels offers the first broad scholarly assessment of the disaster's impact on Japan's government and society. The events of March 2011 occurred after two decades of social and economic malaise—as well as considerable political and administrative dysfunction at both the national and local levels—and resulted in national soul-searching. Political reformers saw in the tragedy cause for hope: an opportunity for Japan to remake itself. Samuels explores Japan's post-earthquake actions in three key sectors: national security, energy policy, and local governance. For some reformers, 3.11 was a warning for Japan to overhaul its priorities and political processes. For others, it was a once-in-a-millennium event; they cautioned that while national policy could be improved, dramatic changes would be counterproductive. Still others declared that the catastrophe demonstrated the need to return to an idealized past and rebuild what has been lost to modernity and globalization.Samuels chronicles the battles among these perspectives and analyzes various attempts to mobilize popular support by political entrepreneurs who repeatedly invoked three powerfully affective themes: leadership, community, and vulnerability. Assessing reformers’ successes and failures as they used the catastrophe to push their particular agendas—and by examining the earthquake and its aftermath alongside prior disasters in Japan, China, and the United States—Samuels outlines Japan’s rhetoric of crisis and shows how it has come to define post-3.11 politics and public policy.
£23.99
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity
As the specter of religious extremism has become a fact of life today, the temptation is great to allow the evil actions and perspectives of a minority to represent an entire tradition. In the case of Islam, there has been much recent confusion in the Western world centered on distorted portrayals of its core values. Born of ignorance, such confusion feeds the very problem at hand. In The Heart of Islam one of the great intellectual figures in Islamic history offers a timely presentation of the core spiritual and social values of Islam: peace, compassion, social justice, and respect for the other. Seizing this unique moment in history to reflect on the essence of his tradition, Seyyed Hossein Nasr seeks to "open a spiritual and intellectual space for mutual understanding." Exploring Islamic values in scripture, traditional sources, and history, he also shows their clear counterparts in the Jewish and Christian traditions, revealing the common ground of the Abrahamic faiths. Nasr challenges members of the world's civilizations to stop demonizing others while identifying themselves with pure goodness and to turn instead to a deeper understanding of those shared values that can solve the acute problems facing humanity today. "Muslims must ask themselves what went wrong within their own societies," he writes, "but the West must also pose the same question about itself ...whether we are Muslims, Jews, Christians, or even secularists, whether we live in the Islamic world or in the West, we are in need of meaning in our lives, of ethical norms to guide our actions, of a vision that would allow us to live at peace with each other and with the rest of God's creation." Such help, he believes, lies at the heart of every religion and can lead the followers of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as well as other religious and spiritual traditions to a new future of mutual respect and common global purpose. The Heart of Islam is a landmark presentation of enduring value that offers hope to humanity, and a compelling portrait of the beauty and appeal of the faith of 1.2 billion people.
£9.99
Pentagon Press Terrorism in Indian Ocean Region
The Indian Ocean is the world`s third-largest body of water through which cross the vital sea lanes that help feed some of Asia`s largest economies. Nearly 80 per cent of the world`s seaborne trade in oil passes through the choke-points in these sea lanes of which 40 percent passes through the Strait of Hormuz, 35 per cent through the Strait of Malacca, and 8 per cent through the Bab el-Mandab Strait. This makes the Indian Ocean of vital importance.The Indian Ocean Rim has 26 littoral states and is home to 2.3 billion people. These states as well as their immediate hinterland vary in terms of geography, population, culture, political structures and economic development. But all of them are impacted by the phenomenon of terrorism and of growing incidents of piracy in and around the Horn of Africa. Today, it is in the Indian Ocean Region that a large majority of armed conflicts are currently taking place.This book is a compendium of the proceedings of the third Counter Terrorism Conference organised by India Foundation and the Government of Haryana (CTC 2017) with focus on terrorism in the Indian Ocean Region. As in the earlier two conferences organised by India Foundation, CTC 2017 brought together a galaxy of political and thought leaders from India and across the world to highlight various aspects of the subject.The book highlights how countries across the region are handling counter terrorism. The approaches may differ, but they aim to achieve the same result. Most importantly, what comes out clearly is the fact that terrorism can no longer be viewed as a problem of any one affected country; because of its global ramifications, it has to be fought as a joint regional and global effort. The radicalisation of sections of the population, the steps needed to counter its spread and also de-radicalise those affected populations have been emphasised in this volume. Fighting the scourge of terrorism would perforce have to be a united effort encompassing many fronts. States that use terrorism as an instrument of state policy would need to be addressed to eliminate it.
£43.95
Chronicle Books Old School Photography: 100 Things You Must Know to Take Fantastic Film Photos
Old School Photography is a must-have modern manual for learning how to create great photographs with a 35mm film camera. Famed YouTube personality Kai Wong expertly and humorously shares 100 essential tips for selecting and using film cameras, shooting with film and various lenses, and employing specific techniques to ensure you can get great results quickly. Known for his breadth of knowledge and quick wit, Kai Wong delivers an informative and entertaining read on how to take great film photos. - An informative and entertaining read on how to take great film photos - A must-have guide for those new to old-school film techniques - A much-needed book for the current resurgence of vintage 35mm film cameras Renewed interest in film photography has surged in the past few years, both amongst those rediscovering their past passion and those discovering it for the first time. Vintage cameras that had previously lost their value are now often worth more than they first sold for due to high demand amongst enthusiasts, students, and collectors. Film manufacturers have even started reissuing long discontinued stocks—for example, Kodak’s much-loved and recently re-released classic Ektachrome slide film. In our modern world, billions of people have access to instantaneous photography on their mobile phones, but as a result there has been a resurgent desire for a more tactile, physical, unaltered, and thus honest medium. Much of which, ironically, ends up on the internet, with photography fans and influencers sharing their images across Instagram, Flickr, YouTube, and the like. More so than with digital photography, film photography requires a sense of craft, skill, patience, technical knowledge, and a trial-and-error process that results in a greater sense of accomplishment. Old School Photography is both enlightening and humorous, and attracts a new generation of fans who are eager to experiment with film cameras, make prints, and post their film photographs online.
£13.49
Quercus Publishing Water and Peace: A journey through the world's most explosive conflict zones in search of deep water
In countries where scarce surface water causes disease and conflict, an abundance of water can bring peace.With the growing impact of climate change, an estimated one third of the world's population lacks fresh water. By 2050 it could well be over half, some five billion people.Alain Gachet, known as the "Wizard of H2O", explores and unravels the interrelated humanitarian, environmental, scientific and geo-political concerns generated by water scarcity. An archaeological explorer and mining engineer, Gachet has developed a technology (using Nasa satellite imagery) to identify massive aquifers beneath the earth's surface using a mathematical algorithm that could completely change our future.As well as exploring our current environmental crisis (and offering some solutions), Gachet gives an account of his extraordinary adventures as a mining engineer both before and since he became an expert in deep groundwater - in Congo; in Libya, where he has an audience with Colonel Gaddafi; in Darfur, where he works alongside refugee agencies to provide water to vast camps, often at risk to his life; in Iraq and in Kurdistan, where he encounters both the Peshmerga and the Yazidi people; and in the Turkana region of Kenya, where his discoveries of vast underground reservoirs have been transformative to the lives of the people in an area plagued by drought and disputes over livestock for generations.Gachet discusses the critical issues of climate change and desertification, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, but this is also a book about the people he meets in some of the world's most challenging zones of conflict and deprivation. Ultimately this is a book of hope as we explore some of the solutions for the future."If the quest to find high-quality water for millions has a superstar, that person is Alain Gachet. Living a truly adventurous life in a scientific field where underground water is hidden and elusive, he has advanced the science and, at the same time, uniquely served society. This is an exciting story of risk, daring, hydrophilanthropy, and reflection on one of the most important challenges facing humankind." DAVID K. KREAMER, President, International Association of Hydrogeologists
£22.50
Orion Publishing Co Black Cherry Blues
The third highly acclaimed novel in the Dave Robicheaux series, and winner of the Edgar award.Personal tragedy has left Dave Robicheaux close to the edge. Battling against his old addiction to alcohol and haunted nightly by vivid dreams and visitations, Dave finds his only tranquillity at home with his young ward Alafair. But even this fragile peace is shattered by the arrival of Dixie Lee Pugh who brings with him a brutal trail of murder and violence. Robicheaux reluctantly agrees to help out his old friend but becomes more involved than he bargained for when he finds himself suspect Number One in the series of bloody killings. Forced to leave his home, Robicheaux's precarious existence reaches breaking point when Alafair's life is threatened.Praise for one of the great American crime writers, James Lee Burke:'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly'A gorgeous prose stylist.' Stephen King'Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced.' Daily MailFans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow will love James Lee Burke: Dave Robicheaux Series1. The Neon Rain 2. Heaven's Prisoners 3. Black Cherry Blues 4. A Morning for Flamingos 5. A Stained White Radiance 6. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead 7. Dixie City Jam 8. Burning Angel 9. Cadillac Jukebox 10. Sunset Limited 11. Purple Cane Road 12. Jolie Blon's Bounce 13. Last Car to Elysian Fields 14. Crusader's Cross 15. Pegasus Descending 16. The Tin Roof Blowdown 17. Swan Peak 18. The Glass Rainbow 19. Creole Belle 20. Light of the World 21. Robicheaux Hackberry Holland Series1. Lay Down My Sword and Shield 2. Rain Gods 3. Feast Day of Fools 4. House of the Rising SunBilly Bob Holland Series1. Cimarron Rose 2. Heartwood 3. Bitterroot 4. In The Moon of Red Ponies * Each James Lee Burke novel can be read as a standalone or in series order *
£9.99
Orion Publishing Co Swan Peak
'With its trademark mix of brutality and poetry, Swan Peak is a brilliant piece of work from an American master.' ObserverAfter the devastating events recounted in THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN, Dave Robicheaux and his ex-partner in Homicide, Clete Purcel, head for the mountains and trout streams of Montana for some much-needed healing. However, while Montana might seem an unspoilt paradise peopled by men and women from an earlier, more innocent time in American history, Dave and Clete soon find that there are plenty of serpents in the garden too. The deaths of a couple of hikers suggest a perverted serial killer may be at work, while an escaped jailbird and his former tormentor are locked in a savage dance of revenge that is ultimately connected to the fortunes of a wealthy oil family hiding a terrible secret ...Praise for one of the great American crime writers, James Lee Burke:'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly'A gorgeous prose stylist.' Stephen King'Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced.' Daily MailFans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow will love James Lee Burke: Dave Robicheaux Series1. The Neon Rain 2. Heaven's Prisoners 3. Black Cherry Blues 4. A Morning for Flamingos 5. A Stained White Radiance 6. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead 7. Dixie City Jam 8. Burning Angel 9. Cadillac Jukebox 10. Sunset Limited 11. Purple Cane Road 12. Jolie Blon's Bounce 13. Last Car to Elysian Fields 14. Crusader's Cross 15. Pegasus Descending 16. The Tin Roof Blowdown 17. Swan Peak 18. The Glass Rainbow 19. Creole Belle 20. Light of the World 21. Robicheaux Hackberry Holland Series1. Lay Down My Sword and Shield 2. Rain Gods 3. Feast Day of Fools 4. House of the Rising SunBilly Bob Holland Series1. Cimarron Rose 2. Heartwood 3. Bitterroot 4. In The Moon of Red Ponies * Each James Lee Burke novel can be read as a standalone or in series order *
£9.99
Hachette Books Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins
**Winner of the American Book Award (2023)**?**Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award (2023)**The long-awaited first full biography of legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. Known as the "Saxophone Colossus," he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time, winning Grammys, the Austrian Cross of Honor, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and a National Medal of Arts. A bridge from bebop to the avant-garde, he is a lasting link to the golden age of jazz, pictured in the iconic "Great Day in Harlem" portrait. His seven-decade career has been well documented, but the backstage life of the man once called "the only jazz recluse" has gone largely untold-until now. Based on more than 200 interviews with Rollins himself, family members, friends, and collaborators, as well as Rollins' extensive personal archive, Saxophone Colossus is the comprehensive portrait of this legendary saxophonist and composer, civil rights activist and environmentalist. A child of the Harlem Renaissance, Rollins' precocious talent landed him on the bandstand and in the recording studio with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or playing opposite Billie Holiday. An icon in his own right, he recorded Tenor Madness, featuring John Coltrane; Way Out West; Freedom Suite, the first civil rights-themed album of the hard bop era; A Night at the Village Vanguard; and the 1956 classic Saxophone Colossus. Yet his meteoric rise to fame was not without its challenges. He served two sentences on Rikers Island and won his battle with heroin addiction. In 1959, Rollins took a two-year sabbatical from recording and performing, practicing up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1968, he left again to study at an ashram in India. He returned to performing from 1971 until his retirement in 2012.? The story of Sonny Rollins-innovative, unpredictable, larger than life-is the story of jazz itself, and Sonny's own narrative is as timeless and timely as the art form he represents. Part jazz oral history told in the musicians' own words, part chronicle of one man's quest for social justice and spiritual enlightenment, this is the definitive biography of one of the most enduring and influential artists in jazz and American history.
£18.99
Cornerstone The Book of Sand
The Book of Sand: the first novel in an epic series created by one of the most gifted and invented storytellers of the twenty-first century.'Shocking and satisfying ...a compelling, absorbingly different quest fantasy' Guardian'An utterly original novel from an extraordinarily creative mind' Karin Slaughter'Unique and fearless' Mark Billingham'I inhaled it! It's beautifully written and utterly compelling' Harriet Tyce'Fearless and compelling, lyrical and devastating by turns, the story never slackens pace.' Jane Corry______________SAND. A hostile world of burning sun.Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins.In the distance a group of people - a family - walk towards us.Ahead lies shelter: a 'shuck' the family call home and which they know they must reach before the light fails, as to be out after dark is to invite danger and almost certain death.To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs.It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life - except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she's beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is ...Two very different worlds featuring a group of extraordinary characters driven to the very limit of their endurance in a place where only the strongest will survive.______________More praise for The Book of Sand ...'Audacious, extraordinary and absolutely awesome' Alex North'A future classic that exists between darkness and light. I was completely entranced by it' Christopher Fowler'A huge and brilliant and engaging read. It feels like a place I have been to rather than words on a page' Alice Jolly'A remarkable achievement' Shots Magazine'What we have here is a fantasy about faith and the search for spiritual certainty... [an] ambitious religious parable.' FT______________Readers love The Book of Sand ...'This was the best reading experience of a lifetime. I fear the words haven't yet been invented to describe how good the book is. It deserves to be a huge bestseller.''I would absolutely die for a movie adaptation of this one in the future!' 'The Book of Sand is dazzling, lyrical, surreal and a beautiful legacy.''An absolute must read!''I did not want to put it down at any point.''A gripping read.''Couldn't put it down. 5*.''This was a page turner that was totally original in concept.'
£10.12
Palgrave Macmillan Capital Returns: Investing Through the Capital Cycle: A Money Manager’s Reports 2002-15
We live in an age of serial asset bubbles and spectacular busts. Economists, policymakers, central bankers and most people in the financial world have been blindsided by these busts, while investors have lost trillions. Economists argue that bubbles can only be spotted after they burst and that market moves are unpredictable. Yet Marathon Asset Management, a London-based investment firm managing over $50 billion of assets has developed a relatively simple method for identifying and potentially avoiding them: follow the money, or rather the trail of investment. Bubbles whether they affect a whole economy or merely a single industry, tend to attract a splurge of capital spending. Excessive investment drives down returns and leads inexorably to a bust. This was the case with both the technology bubble at the turn of the century and the US housing bubble which followed shortly after. More recently, vast sums have been invested in mining and energy. From an investor's perspective, the trick is to avoid investing in sectors, or markets, where investment spending is unduly elevated and competition is fierce, and to put one's money to work where capital expenditure is depressed, competitive conditions are more favourable and, as a result, prospective investment returns are higher. This capital cycle strategy encourages investors to eschew the simple 'growth' and 'value' dichotomy and identify firms that can deliver superior returns either because capital has been taken out of an industry, or because the business has strong barriers to entry (what Warren Buffett refers to as a 'moat'). Some of Marathon's most successful investments have come from obscure, sometimes niche operations whose businesses are protected from the destructive forces of the capital cycle. Capital Returns is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practical implementation of the capital cycle approach to investment. Edited and with an introduction by Edward Chancellor, the book brings together 60 of the most insightful reports written between 2002 and 2014 by Marathon portfolio managers. Capital Returns provides key insights into the capital cycle strategy, all supported with real life examples from global brewers to the semiconductor industry - showing how this approach can be usefully applied to different industry conditions and how, prior to 2008, it helped protect assets from financial catastrophe. This book will be a welcome reference for serious investors who looking to maximise portfolio returns over the long run.
£54.99
Louisiana State University Press American Energy, Imperiled Coast: Oil and Gas Development in Louisiana's Wetlands
In the post-World War II era, Louisiana's coastal wetlands underwent an industrial transformation that placed the region at the center of America's energy-producing corridor. By the twenty-first century the Louisiana Gulf Coast supplied nearly one-third of America's oil and gas, accounted for half of the country's refining capacity, and contributed billions of dollars to the U.S. economy. Today, thousands of miles of pipelines and related infrastructure link the state's coast to oil and gas consumers nationwide. During the course of this historic development, however, the dredging of pipeline canals accelerated coastal erosion. Currently, 80 percent of the United States' wetland loss occurs on Louisiana's coast despite the fact that the state is home to only 40 percent of the nation's wetland acreage, making evident the enormous unin-tended environmental cost associated with producing energy from the Gulf Coast.In American Energy, Imperiled Coast Jason P. Theriot explores the tension between oil and gas development and the land-loss crisis in Louisiana. His book offers an engaging analysis of both the impressive, albeit ecologically destructive, engineering feats that characterized industrial growth in the region and the mounting environmental problems that threaten south Louisiana's communities, culture, and ""working"" coast. As a historian and coastal Louisiana native, Theriot explains how pipeline technology enabled the expansion of oil and gas delivery - examining previously unseen photographs and company records - and traces the industry's far-reaching environmental footprint in the wetlands. Through detailed research presented in a lively and accessible narrative, Theriot pieces together decades of political, economic, social, and cultural undertakings that clashed in the 1980s and 1990s, when local citizens, scientists, politicians, environmental groups, and oil and gas interests began fighting over the causes and consequences of coastal land loss. The mission to restore coastal Louisiana ultimately collided with the perceived economic necessity of expanding offshore oil and gas development at the turn of the twenty-first century. Theriot's book bridges the gap between these competing objectives.From the discovery of oil and gas below the marshes around coastal salt domes in the 1920s and 1930s to the emergence of environmental sciences and policy reforms in the 1970s to the vast repercussions of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, American Energy, Imperiled Coast ultimately reveals that the natural and man-made forces responsible for rapid environmental change in Louisiana's wetlands over the past century can only be harnessed through collaboration between public and private entities.
£32.95
Basic Books The Case for Trump
In The Case for Trump, acclaimed historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson explains how a celebrity businessman with no political or military experience triumphed over sixteen well-qualified Republican rivals, a Democrat with a quarter-billion-dollar war chest, and a hostile media and Washington establishment to become President of the United States--and an extremely successful president at that. Hanson sets Trump in his broad political and social context to explain Trump's and ongoing political appeal to a broad swath of American voters. Growing anger at globalization, a stalled economy, immigration, costly and unfruitful overseas interventions, perceived poor trade deals, and political correctness meant by 2016 that if there were not a loud Trump outsider, he would likely have had to be invented. Trump and Trump alone saw a political opening in defending the forgotten working classes of the interior, who were alienated not only by Democrats but by elite republican candidates. (In 2012, one Republican taxi driver explained his decision to sit out the election altogether: "Geez, Romney came to Michigan wearing his wing-tips with starched jeans!")And despite the apocalyptic imaginings of both the Left and the Never Trump Right, one year into his presidency Trump boasts an impressive record of achievement of a kind rarely attained by an incoming president. Trump has realized economic and foreign policy results not seen in a generation, cutting through stasis and dismantling a corrupt old order.Hanson is not naïve about Trump's self-destructive behavior (the relentless tweeting, the threats to fire Mueller and so on) but ultimately sees him as a kind of tragic political hero, something out a Sophocles play or an American Western. His accomplishments are a direct result of his personal excesses--the fact that he is not traditionally presidential has enabled him to bring long-overdue changes in foreign and domestic policy. We could not survive a series of presidencies as volatile as Trump's, Hanson acknowledges. But "given the direction of the country over the last 16 years, half the population, the proverbial townspeople of the western, wanted some outsider, even with a dubious past, to ride in and do things that most normal politicians not only would not but could not do -- before exiting stage left or riding off into the sunset."
£25.00
University of Washington Press All Russia Is Burning!: A Cultural History of Fire and Arson in Late Imperial Russia
Rural fires were an even more persistent scourge than famine in late imperial Russia, as Cathy Frierson shows in this first comprehensive study. Destroying almost three billion rubles’ worth of property in European Russia between 1860 and 1904, accidental and arson fires acted as a brake on Russia’s economic development while subjecting peasants to perennial shocks to their physical and emotional condition. The fire question captured the attention of educated, progressive Russians, who came to perceived it as a key obstacle to Russia’s becoming a modern society in the European model. Using sources ranging from literary representations and newspaper articles to statistical tables and court records, Frierson demonstrates the many meanings fire held for both peasants and the educated elite. To peasants, it was an essential source of light and warmth as well as a destructive force that regularly ignited their cramped villages of wooden, thatch-roofed huts. Absent the rule of law, they often used arson to gain justice or revenge, or to exert social control over those who would violate village norms. Frierson shows that the vast majority of arson cases in European Russia were not peasant-against-gentry acts of protest but peasant-against-peasant acts of "self-help" law or plain spite. Both the state and individual progressives set out to resolve the fire question and to educate, cajole, or coerce the peasantry into the modern world. Fire insurance, building codes, "scientific" village layouts, and volunteer firefighting brigades reduced the average number of buildings consumed in each blaze, but none of these measures succeeded in curbing the number of fires each year. More than anything else, this history of fire and arson in rural European Russia is a history of their cultural meanings in the late imperial campaign for modernity. Frierson shows the special associations of women with fire in rural life and in elite understanding of fire in the Russian countryside. Her study of the fire question demonstrates both peasant agency in fighting fire and educated Russians' hardening conviction that peasants stood in the way of Russia's advent into the company of prosperous, rational, civilized nations.
£23.99
Nova Science Publishers Inc Nature and Nutrition: A New Era of Therapeutic Herbs
The use of herbal medicinal products and supplements has increased tremendously over the past three decades with not less than 80% of people worldwide relying on them for some part of primary healthcare. This past decade has obviously witnessed a tremendous surge in acceptance and public interest in natural therapies both in developing and developed countries, with these herbal remedies being available not only in drug stores, but now also in food stores and supermarkets. The use of herbal remedies has also been widely embraced in many developed countries with complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) now becoming mainstream in the UK and the rest of Europe, as well as in North America and Australia. In the developed countries, the most important among many other reasons for seeking herbal therapy is the belief that it will promote healthier living. Herbal medicines are, therefore, often viewed as a balanced and moderate approach to healing and individuals who use them as home remedies and over-the-counter drugs spend huge amount of money (in excess of billions of dollars) on herbal products. As the global use of herbal medicinal products continues to grow and many more new products are introduced into the market, public health issues, and concerns surrounding their safety are also increasingly recognized. Although some herbal medicines have promising potential and are widely used, many of them remain untested and their use also not monitored. This makes knowledge of their potential adverse effects very limited and identification of the safest and most effective therapies as well as the promotion of their rational use more difficult. It is also common knowledge that the safety of most herbal products is further compromised by lack of suitable quality controls, inadequate labeling, and the absence of appropriate patient information. It has become essential, therefore, to furnish the general public including healthcare professionals with adequate information to facilitate better understanding of the risks associated with the use of these products and to ensure that all medicines are safe and of suitable quality.
£183.59
Princeton University Press Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils
One of the greatest mysteries in reconstructing the history of life on Earth has been the apparent absence of fossils dating back more than 550 million years. We have long known that fossils of sophisticated marine life-forms existed at the dawn of the Cambrian Period, but until recently scientists had found no traces of Precambrian fossils. The quest to find such traces began in earnest in the mid-1960s and culminated in one dramatic moment in 1993 when William Schopf identified fossilized microorganisms three and a half billion years old. This startling find opened up a vast period of time--some eighty-five percent of Earth's history--to new research and new ideas about life's beginnings. In this book, William Schopf, a pioneer of modern paleobiology, tells for the first time the exciting and fascinating story of the origins and earliest evolution of life and how that story has been unearthed. Gracefully blending his personal story of discovery with the basics needed to understand the astonishing science he describes, Schopf has produced an introduction to paleobiology for the interested reader as well as a primer for beginning students in the field. He considers such questions as how did primitive bacteria, pond scum, evolve into the complex life-forms found at the beginning of the Cambrian Period? How do scientists identify ancient microbes and what do these tiny creatures tell us about the environment of the early Earth? (And, in a related chapter, Schopf discusses his role in the controversy that swirls around recent claims of fossils in the famed meteorite from Mars.) Like all great teachers, Schopf teaches the non-specialist enough about his subject along the way that we can easily follow his descriptions of the geology, biology, and chemistry behind these discoveries. Anyone interested in the intriguing questions of the origins of life on Earth and how those origins have been discovered will find this story the best place to start.
£37.80
Little, Brown Book Group Blood: The science, medicine and mythology of menstruation
'The world's most famous and outspoken gynaecologist' (The Guardian) fights myths and fearmongering with real science, inclusive facts, and shame-free advice on the topic that impacts more than 1.8 billion people worldwide: menstruation. Women can expect to have between 350 and 450 periods in a lifetime. So why is real information so hard to find? Despite its significance, most education about menstruation focuses either on increasing the chances of pregnancy or preventing it. And while both are crucial, women deserve to know more about their bodies than just what happens in service to reproduction. Not knowing how your body works makes it challenging to advocate for yourself. Consequently, many people suffer in silence thinking their bodies are uniquely broken or they turn to disreputable sources. Blood is a practical, empowering guide to what's typical, what's concerning and when to seek care - recounted with the no-nonsense expertise and frank, fearless wit that have made Dr Jen today's most trusted voice in women's health. Dr Jen answers all your period-related questions, including: What exactly happens during menstruation? How heavy is too heavy? How much should periods hurt? And provides essential information about topics such as: * The impact of stress and health on the menstrual cycle * Menstrual migraines, PMS and period diarrhea (yes, it's totally normal) * Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and fibroids * Endometriosis and the latest treatments * The endometrium's (the uterine lining's) fascinating connection to the immune system * Different cultural perceptions of menstruation and how they affect girls and women * Menstruation and the trans and non-binary experience * Legitimate menstrual products and the facts behind toxic shock syndrome * The risks and benefits of hysterectomies Blood is about much more than biology. It's an all-in-one, revolutionary guide that will change the way we think about, talk about - and don't talk about - our bodies and our well-being.
£16.99
McGraw-Hill Education Future Forward: Leadership Lessons from Patrick McGovern, the Visionary Who Circled the Globe and Built a Technology Media Empire
Powerful lessons in forward-thinking leadership from the visionary business pioneer who turned IDG into a $3 billion technology media and venture capital empireLike Steve Jobs, Patrick McGovern built a worldwide multibillion-dollar industry by thinking differently, disrupting old business models, and embracing new technology trends. He drove the future forward and never looked back. With magazines such as Computerworld, PCWorld, and Macworld, his company, International Data Group (IDG), quickly became a global powerhouse with information technology publications in nearly 100 countries. The story of IDG’s astonishing success has been a source of inspiration for entrepreneurs all around the world. No matter what industry you work in—whether you’re heading up a small startup, expanding a mid-sized company, or running a major global corporation—McGovern’s people-first principles, insights, and integrity will help you lead the way. Learn how to:•Define a clear mission early in the game—for long-term success.•Identify new markets and stay ahead of the curve.•Expand your business globally but have it managed locally.•Listen to your customers and empower your people.•Hire the best and challenge them to do their best work.•Never stop learning and always remain curious.•Foster a let’s-try-it attitude throughout the company.•Lead with optimism and stay true to your values and vision. In addition to these timeless lessons, you’ll learn how this future-forward leader broke new ground in the 1980s by opening offices in China, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other markets deemed off-limits. You’ll discover how his company thrived in spite of major industry shifts—from mainframe computers to minicomputers to personal computers, from print to digital to smartphones—that upended many rivals. Living at the intersection of these classic disruptions, McGovern never missed a beat. He understood well before most that a revolution in information technology was underway and not only was there money to be made but that this would soon become the world’s largest industry. Most important, he never forgot the human element that is so crucial to any company’s success. His leadership in the creation of one of the world’s leading brain research institutes at MIT only served to cement his legacy. Future Forward shows you how to apply McGovern’s principles to your own organization. These are the lessons of a true visionary. This is how successful leaders take risks, take charge, and take the future by storm.
£21.05
Orenda Books Deep Dirty Truth
Single-mother Florida bounty-hunter Lori Anderson returns in another nail-biting, high-voltage read. When Lori is kidnapped, and her family threatened, she has 48 hours to save them ... or lose everything... 'A real cracker' Mark Billingham 'My kind of book' Lee Child 'Like Midnight Run, but much darker ... really, really good' Ian Rankin _________________ A price on her head. A secret worth dying for. 48 hours to expose the truth... Single-mother bounty-hunter Lori Anderson finally has her family back together, but her new-found happiness is shattered when she's snatched by the Miami Mob - and they want her dead. Rather than a bullet, they offer her a job: find the Mob's 'numbers man' who's in protective custody after being forced to turn federal witness against them. If Lori succeeds, they'll wipe the slate clean and the price on her head - and those of her family - will be removed. If she fails, they die. With North due in court in 48 hours, Lori sets off across Florida, racing against the clock to find him and save her family. Only in this race the prize is more deadly - and the secret she shares with JT more dangerous - than she ever could have imagined. In this race only the winner gets out alive... _________________ 'Fresh, fast and zinging with energy' Sunday Mirror 'Romping entertainment that moves faster than a bullet' Sunday Express 'Lori thinks with viper-like speed, speaks with strength and acts from her gut. Steph Broadribb has constructed a thoroughly believable world full of substantial yet flawed characters. I quite simply love this series, I leap in with total faith and just let myself go. Deep Dirty Truth is a thrilling, assertive and energetic read' LoveReading 'Sharp, thrilling and one hell of a ride. This series just gets better and better!' Chris Whitaker 'Brilliant and pacey' Steve Cavanagh 'Perfect for fans of Lee Child and Janet Evanovich' Alex Caan 'Broadribb's writing is fresh and vivid, crackling with life ... an impressive thriller, the kind of book that comfortably sits alongside seasoned pros' Crime Watch 'Stylish with an original take on the lone wolf/bounty hunter theme. This is a novel alive with tension and intriguing twists. ... There's a good deal of wit at the expense of the complacent, anachronistic, loud mouthed quick-fisted mobsters. Just a whole hell of a lot of fun' New Books Magazine
£8.99
PublicAffairs,U.S. The Looting Machine
The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent. In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it's a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states' value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa's new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft; their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline. This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa's past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africa's resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth 333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction. But who received the money? For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels France's nuclear reactors. In petro-states like Angola three-quarters of government revenue comes from oil. The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them. A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states; their people are largely serfs. The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force. What is happening in Africa's resource states is systematic looting. Like its victims, its beneficiaries have names.
£16.59
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Last Train to Hilversum: A journey in search of the magic of radio
Despite the all-pervading influence of television ninety per cent of people in Britain still listen to the radio, clocking up over a billion hours of listening between us every week. It’s a background to all our lives: we wake up to our clock radios, we have the radio on in the kitchen as we make the tea, it’s on at our workplaces and in our cars. From Listen With Mother to the illicit thrill of tuning into pirate stations like Radio Caroline; from receiving a musical education from John Peel or having our imagination unlocked by Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; from school-free summers played out against a soundtrack of Radio One and Test Match Special to more grown-up soundtracks of the Today programme on Radio 4 and the solemn, rhythmic intonation of the shipping forecast – in many ways, our lives can be measured in kilohertz. Yet radio is changing because the way we listen to the radio is changing. Last year the number of digital listeners at home exceeded the number of analogue listeners for the first time, meaning the pop and crackle and the age of stumbling upon something by chance is coming to an end. There will soon be no dial to turn, no in-between spaces on the waveband for washes of static, mysterious beeps and faint, distant voices. The mystery will be gone: we’ll always know exactly what it is we’re listening to, whether it’s via scrolling LCD on our digital radios, the box at the bottom of our TV screen or because we’ve gone in search of a particular streaming station. And so, as the world of analogue listening fades, Charlie Connelly takes stock of the history of radio and its place in our lives as one of the very few genuinely shared national experiences. He explores its geniuses, crackpots and charlatans who got us to where we are today, and remembers its voices, personalities and programmes that helped to form who we are as individuals and as a nation. He visits the key radio locations from history, and looks at its vital role over the past century on both national and local levels. Part nostalgic eulogy, part social history, part travelogue, Last Train To Hilversum is Connelly’s love letter to radio, exploring our relationship with the medium from its earliest days to the present in an attempt to recreate and revisit the world he entered on his childhood evenings on the dial as he set out on the radio journey of a lifetime.
£10.99
Temple University Press,U.S. Misconceiving Mothers: Legislators, Prosecutors, and the Politics of Prenatal Drug Exposure
A tiny African-American baby lies in a hospital incubator, tubes protruding from his nostrils, head, and limbs. \u0022He couldn't take the hit,\u0022 the caption warns. \u0022If you're pregnant, don't take drugs.\u0022 Ten years earlier, this billboard would have been largely unintelligible to many of us. But when it appeared in 1991, it immediately conjured up several powerful images: the helpless infant himself; his unseen environment, a newborn intensive care unit filled with babies crying inconsolably; and the mother who did this -- crack-addicted and unrepentant. Misconceiving Mothers is a case study of how public policy about reproduction and crime is made. Laura E. Gomez uses secondary research and first-hand interviews with legislators and prosecutors to examine attitudes toward the criminalization and/or medicalization of drug use during pregnancy by the legislature and criminal justice systems in California. She traces how an initial tendency toward criminalization gave way to a trend toward seeing the problem of \u0022crack babies\u0022 as an issue of social welfare and public health. It is no surprise that in an atmosphere of mother-blaming, particularly targeted at poor women and women of color, \u0022crack babies\u0022 so easily captured the American popular imagination in the late 1980s. What is surprising is the was prenatal drug exposure came to be institutionalized in the state apparatus. Gomez attributes this circumstance to four interrelated cause: the gendered nature of the social problem; the recasting of the problem as fundamentally \u0022medical\u0022 rather than \u0022criminal\u0022; the dynamic nature of t he process of institutionalization; and the specific feature of the legal institutions -- that is, the legislature and prosecutors' offices -- the became prominent in the case. At one level Misconceiving Mothers tells the story of a particular problem at a particular time and place -- how the California legislature and district attorneys grappled with pregnant women's drug use in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At another level, the book tells a more general story about the political nature of contemporary social problems. The story it tells is political not just because it deals with the character of political institutions but because the process itself and the nature of the claims-making concern the power to control the allocation of state resources. A number of studies have looked at how the initial criminalization of social problems takes place. Misconceiving Mothers looks at the process by which a criminalized social problem is institutionalized through the attitudes and policies of elite decision-makers.
£65.70
Canelo The Body Under the Bridge
DCI Craig Gillard will be pushed to his limits… But will he break?It seems like a routine disappearance, a case of musician’s stage fright. As a senior detective, Craig Gillard isn’t sure why he’s even involved. Until it turns out the woman’s father is the German Minister of Justice, and the British Home Secretary is on the case too.But nothing about the case is simple. How does a woman on a train simply vanish? What do you do when a trail runs cold and the pressure is on?Before long the perpetrator has another target: DCI Gillard himself. What if the detective isn’t just running the case, but is part of it? The victim merely a lure for a bigger fish.The answer is under the bridge. The chilling setting for the biggest challenge of his life.The latest DCI Gillard Crime Thriller is a knockout: fast and completely gripping, perfect for fans of Stuart Macbride, Mark Billingham and Robert Bryndza.Readers are hooked on The Body Under the Bridge ‘I couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough, firstly to find out who’d committed the crimes and then if they’d be brought to justice. It’s a cracker of a book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘I say this every time but this hands down is my favourite book in the series so far. I was glued from the beginning and kept finding ways to squeeze in one more chapter until I’d reached the end.’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘This is book #5 in the DCI Craig Gillard series and, dare I say this - it is THE best yet! Wow! the content of this plot is absolutely mind-boggling; so intricately woven through the fast-paced investigation, the reader is right there alongside Craig and his team as they navigate all the twists and turns of this cleverly constructed story. Excellent writing, dialogue and characterisation. You just don’t know what’s going to happen next: there really are some extremely harrowing and heart-stopping moments.’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘The Body Under the Bridge sets a pace few can match. I devoured it.’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‘Another book in the Craig Gillard series that gets better as the series evolves. There are many surprises and twists in this book making it difficult to put down. A really enjoyable read.’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
£10.64
Octopus Publishing Group The Insomnia Diaries: How I learned to sleep again
A Telegraph readers' best book of the yearA Financial Times readers' best 2021 summer book'A powerful new book' - The Daily Mail'Quite the story... fascinating' - Claire Byrne, RTE1'This memoir meets manual with expert tips is both honest and helpful' - Victoria Woodhall, Get the GlossFOREWORD BY DR SOPHIE BOSTOCK'29th June 0 HOURS, 0 MINUTES Eleven forty-seven pm. A door slams as the neighbour's teenage son comes home from the pub. An hour later, the last Tube rumbles past and I thump my pillow over to find a cool spot. I refuse to open the window because of my fear of hearing the first bird of morning, confirmation that the next day is about to start and I have failed, yet again. Failed in my quest to sleep, which one would think is a basic human right.But I am not a POW whose captors breach the Geneva Convention. No one has stolen my sleep from me. I am not wired up to electrodes, a neon light is not shining in my face all night long. I have blackout blinds and a king-size bed all to myself. My enemies are my brain and a body that has forgotten how to shut down.'After a single, catastrophic event, journalist Miranda Levy had one sleepless night, then another, and then another. She sought help from anyone she could: doctors, a therapist, an acupuncturist, a hypnotist, a reiki practitioner and a personal trainer - but nothing seemed to work.Sleep, wellbeing and mental health are intrinsically linked. Yet sleeplessness is surprisingly common: 16 million of us suffer from insomnia, and the sleep industry is worth £100 billion (Daily Mail). In The Insomnia Diaries, Miranda Levy tells the story of her experience of severe, disabling insomnia that affected every aspect of her life for years, and how she ultimately recovered. Part memoir, part reportage, this book will help anyone who struggles to get a good night's sleep - whether occasionally or all of the time - appreciate the issues and understand the options as they find their best way to get the rest they need. Dr Sophie Bostock, scientist, sleep expert and member of the team who developed the award-winning digital programme Sleepio, contributes a foreword. She and a host of expert contributors have advised on the medical elements within the text throughout.
£12.99
Springer Nature Switzerland AG Technology Roadmapping and Development: A Quantitative Approach to the Management of Technology
This textbook explains Technology Roadmapping, in both its development and practice, and illustrates the underlying theory of, and empirical evidence for, technologic evolution over time afforded by this strategy. The book contains a rich set of examples and practical exercises from a wide array of domains in applied science and engineering such as transportation, energy, communications, and medicine. Professor de Weck gives a complete review of the principles, methods, and tools of technology management for organizations and technologically-enabled systems, including technology scouting, roadmapping, strategic planning, R&D project execution, intellectual property management, knowledge management, partnering and acquisition, technology transfer, innovation management, and financial technology valuation. Special topics also covered include Moore’s law, S-curves, the singularity and fundamental limits to technology. Ideal for university courses in engineering, management, and business programs, as well as self-study or online learning for professionals in a range of industries, readers of this book will learn how to develop and deploy comprehensive technology roadmaps and R&D portfolios on diverse topics of their choice. Introduces a unique framework, Advanced Technology Roadmap Architecture (ATRA), for developing quantitative technology roadmaps and competitive R&D portfolios through a lucid and rigorous step-by-step approach; Elucidates the ATRA framework through analysis which was validated on an actual $1 billion R&D portfolio at Airbus, leveraging a pedagogy significantly beyond typical university textbooks and problem sets; Reinforces concepts with in-depth case studies, practical exercises, examples, and thought experiments interwoven throughout the text; Maximizes reader competence on how to explicitly link strategy, finance, and technology. The book follows and supports the MIT Professional Education Courses “Management of Technology: Roadmapping & Development,” https://professional.mit.edu/course-catalog/management-technology-roadmapping-development and “Management of Technology: Strategy & Portfolio Analysis” https://professional.mit.edu/course-catalog/management-technology-strategy-portfolio-analysis
£59.99
New York University Press Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York’s Urban Underground
A rare look into the world of contemporary graffiti culture On the sides of buildings, on bridges, billboards, mailboxes, and street signs, and especially in the subway and train tunnels, graffiti covers much of New York City. Love it or hate it, graffiti, from the humble tag to the intricate piece (short for masterpiece), is an undeniable part of the cityscape. In Graffiti Lives, Gregory J. Snyder offers a fascinating and rare look into this world of contemporary graffiti culture. A world in which kids, often, shoplift for spray paint, scale impossibly high places to find a great spot to “get up,” run from the police, journey into underground train tunnels, fight over turf, and spend countless hours perfecting their style. Over the ten years Snyder studied this culture he even created a few works himself (under the moniker “GWIZ”), found himself serving as a lookout for other artists engaged in this illegal activity, spent time in the train tunnels in search of new work, created a blackbook for writers to tag, and took countless photographs to document this world — over sixty included in the book. A combination of amazing “flicks” and exhilarating prose, Graffiti Lives is ultimately an exploration into how graffiti writers define themselves. Snyder details that writers are not bound together by appearance or language or birthplace or class but by what they do. And what they do is reach for fame, painting their names as prominently as they can. What’s more, he discovers that, though many public officials think graffiti writing will only lead to other criminal activity, many graffiti writers have turned their youthful exploits into adult careers—from professional aerosol muralists and fine artists to designers of all kinds, employed in such fields as tattooing, studio art, magazine production, fashion, and guerilla marketing. In fact, some of the artists featured have gone on to international acclaim and to their own gallery shows. Snyder’s illuminating work shows that getting up tags, throw-ups, and pieces on New York City’s walls and subway tunnels can lead to getting out into the city’s competitive professional world. Graffiti Lives details the exciting, risky, and surprisingly rewarding pursuits of contemporary graffiti writers.
£66.60
Orion Publishing Co Rain Gods
One of the greatest American crime writers is back with Hackberry Holland: a sheriff with a haunted past on the hunt for a deranged killer.Hackberry Holland is a man haunted by a chequered and traumatic past. A former POW from the Korean War, he has left everything behind to become sheriff of a dried-out, broken-down border town in south Texas. But Hack soon finds himself dealing with more than just his own demons when nine dead prostitutes are dug up behind a run-down church. The search for justice - and revenge - pits Hack against hired guns, drug dealers who operate on both sides of the border, and a psychotic killer known as The Preacher. Praise for one of the great American crime writers, James Lee Burke:'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly'A gorgeous prose stylist.' Stephen King'Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced.' Daily MailFans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow will love James Lee Burke: Hackberry Holland Series1. Lay Down My Sword and Shield 2. Rain Gods 3. Feast Day of Fools 4. House of the Rising Sun Dave Robicheaux Series1. The Neon Rain 2. Heaven's Prisoners 3. Black Cherry Blues 4. A Morning for Flamingos 5. A Stained White Radiance 6. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead 7. Dixie City Jam 8. Burning Angel 9. Cadillac Jukebox 10. Sunset Limited 11. Purple Cane Road 12. Jolie Blon's Bounce 13. Last Car to Elysian Fields 14. Crusader's Cross 15. Pegasus Descending 16. The Tin Roof Blowdown 17. Swan Peak 18. The Glass Rainbow 19. Creole Belle 20. Light of the World 21. Robicheaux Billy Bob Holland Series1. Cimarron Rose 2. Heartwood 3. Bitterroot 4. In The Moon of Red Ponies * Each James Lee Burke novel can be read as a standalone or in series order *As Holland frantically tries to end the cycle of killings and bring justice to the dead girls, he discovers just how dark the deepest corners of the human heart can get, and how redemption can come in the form of a woman's love...
£9.99
Oxford University Press Inc China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®
China's economic growth has been revolutionary, and is the foundation of its increasingly prominent role in world affairs. It is the world's second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the world's steel and coal, the biggest source of international tourists, and one of the most influential investors in developing countries from southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America. Multinational companies make billions of dollars in profits in China each year, while traders around the world shudder at every gyration of the country's unruly stock markets. Perhaps paradoxically, its capitalist economy is governed by an authoritarian Communist Party that shows no sign of loosening its grip. China is frequently in the news, whether because of trade disputes, the challenges of its Belt and Road initiative for global infrastructure, or its increasing military strength. China's political and technological challenges, created by a country whose political system and values differ dramatically from most of the other major world economies, creates uncertainty and even fear. China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic and political story of the last three decades. Arthur Kroeber enhances our understanding of China's changes and their implications. Among the essential questions he answers are: How did China grow so fast for so long? Can it keep growing and still solve its problems of environmental damage, fast-rising debt and rampant corruption? How long can its vibrant economy co-exist with the repressive one-party state? How do China's changes affect the rest of the world? This thoroughly revised and updated second edition includes a comprehensive discussion of the origins and development of the US-China strategic rivalry, including Trump's trade war and the race for technological supremacy. It also explores the recent changes in China's political system, reflecting Xi Jinping's emergence as the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. It includes insights on changes in China's financial sector, covering the rise and fall of the shadow banking sector, and China's increasing integration with global financial markets. And it covers China's rapid technological development and the rise of its global Internet champions such as Alibaba and Tencent.
£15.72
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Special Operations Consolidated B-24 Liberators: The Unknown Secret and Specialized Duties Aircraft
Despite being America’s most produced bomber, the Consolidated B-24 Liberator has forever flown in the shadow of its more famous and glamorous B-17 rival. The workmanlike B-24 performed multiple unheralded roles in all theatres beyond its also multiple offensive missions, making it the war’s most versatile heavy bomber. Besides its offensive bombing, anti-submarine, and mining missions, the Liberator performed many little known “inoffensive” duties. Undoubtedly the most colourful of all Liberators were the so-called assembly ships of the Groups of the 2nd Air Division. Their unique paint schemes of stripes, polka dots, and checkerboard, were designed to make them ultra-conspicuous for their task of acting as leaders on which a Group formation could assemble their combat formations more quickly for a combat mission The Consolidated F-7 was a photographic reconnaissance version of the B-24 Liberator. The F-7 saw service in most theatres of the war. The long range of the Liberator also made it well suited to mapping missions during the war and post-war. Beginning in early 1944, to aid the Allied liberation of Europe, Carpetbagger B-24s were utilized to parachute spies, called “Joes” or “Janes”, or provide aerial supply of weapons and other matériel to resistance fighters in occupied Europe. Liberators also participated in the dropping of 2.75 billion propaganda leaflets using various techniques and delivery devices. Electronic Warfare played an important part in Allied global pre-invasion plans to discover the location of enemy radars, and, if possible, destroy them. This interception and analysis of an enemy electronic radiation was the origin of present day ELINT (ELectonicINTelligence). Modified RAF B-24D Airborne Electronic Reconnaissance Liberators, codenamed Ferret, were Radio Counter Measures and Electronic Intelligence aircraft that played a major role in European air opera¬tions. During 1942 the AAF became interested in aerial refueling as a means to bombing Japan. A shorter-range B-17E was selected as the receiver aircraft while the more spacious B-24D acted as the tanker. Although these tests were considered to be successful, the availability of longer-ranging B-29s and bases ever closer to Japan diminished the urgency of wartime aerial refueling. During the war, eighty-three B-24s crashed or made forced landings in Switzerland, sixty in Sweden, and several in Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. Many of these Liberators landed undamaged or were repaired to be flown by these nations. Of particular interest are the six Liberators that were captured and flown by the Luftwaffe. Packed with a unique collection of photographs. Special Operations Consolidated B-24 Liberators reveals the most unusual and little-known facets of the Second World War’s most versatile bomber.
£28.07
Octopus Publishing Group Consumed: The need for collective change; colonialism, climate change & consumerism
*** 'This powerful, speaking-truth-to-power book is an essential read for everybody who wants to stop feeling clueless and helpless about the impacts of cosumerism, and start doing their part to help create a more sustainable world' - Layla Saad 'A critique on what we buy, how it's made and the systems behind it that make an unfair and broken cycle' - New York Times 'The book is a blueprint for anyone who wants to do better' - VOGUE 'SUCH integrity. Aja is no bullsh*t.' - Florence Given 'Consumed takes us through the hideously complex topic of fashion and sustainability, from its knotty colonial roots to what everyday people can do to uproot those systems, today.' - Yassmin Abdel-Magied 'An absolute must-read' - Marie Clare Aja Barber wants change. In the 'learning' first half of the book, she will expose you to the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry; one which brokered slavery, racism and today's wealth inequality. And how these oppressive systems have bled into the fashion industry and its lack of diversity and equality. She will also reveal how we spend our money and whose pockets it goes into and whose it doesn't (clue: the people who do the actual work) and will tell her story of how she came to learn the truth.In the second 'unlearning' half of the book, she will help you to understand the uncomfortable truth behind why you consume the way you do. She asks you to confront the sense of lack you have, the feeling that you are never quite enough and the reasons why you fill the aching void with consumption rather than compassion. And she makes you challenge this power disparity, and take back ownership of it. The less you buy into the consumer culture the more power you have.CONSUMED will teach you how to be a citizen not a consumer. 'An absolute must-read' - Red Magazine 'An absolute must-read for any person who wears clothes.' - Orsola de Castro 'A hugely compelling exploration of a culture of exploitation and how, together, we can end it.' - Gina Martin 'Barber's isn't just a voice we should listen to - it is a voice we MUST listen to.' - Clementine Ford 'If you buy one book about sustainable fashion, make it this one. Consumed is an urgent call to action to demand a fashion system that is actually fair for both people and planet, not just Big Fashion billionaires. I adore Aja and I love this brilliant book.' - Venetia La Manna
£10.55
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Huddle: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power
Wall Street Journal BestsellerCNN news anchor Brooke Baldwin explores the phenomenon of “huddling,” when women lean on one another—in politics, Hollywood, activism, the arts, sports, and everyday friendships—to provide each other support, empowerment, inspiration, and the strength to solve problems or enact meaningful change. Whether they are facing adversity (like workplace inequity or a global pandemic) or organizing to make the world a better place, women are a highly potent resource for one another. Through a mix of journalism and personal narrative, Baldwin takes readers beyond the big headline-making huddles from recent years (such as the Women’s March, #MeToo, Times Up, and the record number of women running for public office) and embeds herself in groups of women of all ages, races, religions and socio-economic backgrounds who are banding together in America. HUDDLE explores several stories including: The benefits of all-girls learning environments, such as Karlie Kloss’s Kode with Klossy and Reese Witherspoon’s Filmmaker Lab for Girls in which young women are given the freedom to make mistakes, and find their confidence. The tactics employed by huddles of women who work in male-dominated industries including a group of US veterans/Democratic Congresswomen, a huddle of African-American judges in Harris County, Texas, and an all-female writers room in Hollywood. The wisdom of huddling from trusted pioneers such as Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, and Madeleine Albright as well as contemporary trailblazers like Stacey Abrams and Ava DuVernay. How professionals such as Chef Dominique Crenn and sports agent Lindsay Colas use their success to amplify other women in their fields. The ways huddles of women are dedicated to making seismic change, including a look at Indigenous women saving the planet, the women who founded Black Lives Matter, the mothers fighting for sensible gun laws, America’s favorite female athletes (Megan Rapinoe, Hilary Knight, and Sue Bird to name a few) agitating for equal pay, and female teachers rallying to improve their working conditions. The bond between women who practice self-care and trauma healing together, including the women who courageously survived sexual abuse, and the women who heal together in The Class and GirlTrek. The ways women are becoming more intentional about the life-saving power of friendship, including the bonds between military wives, new moms, and nurses getting through the time of Covid. Throughout her examination of this fascinating huddle phenomenon, Baldwin learns about the periods of huddle ‘droughts” in America, as well as the ways that Black women have been huddling for centuries. She also uncovers how huddling can be the “secret sauce” that makes many things possible for women: success in the workplace, effective grassroots change, confidence in girlhood, and a better physical and mental health profile in adulthood. Along the way, Baldwin takes readers through her own personal journey of growing up in the South and climbing the ladder of a male-dominated industry. Like so many women in her field, she encountered many sharp elbows on her career path, but became an early believer in adding more seats to the table and huddling with other women for strength and solidarity. In the process of writing HUDDLE, Baldwin learns that this seemingly new phenomenon is actually something women have been doing for generations—a quiet, collective power she learns to unlock in her transformation from journalist to champion for women.
£22.50
Nextone Inc. Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans
In the tradition of bestsellers such as Shoe Dog, Authentic is a surprisingly candid, compelling memoir by a high school dropout who went on to establish one of the world's most iconic brands. You may not have known their creator, but you certainly know the shoes: for more than four generations, Vans shoes have been synonymous with cool. Now in Authentic, a memoir written by Paul Van Doren and published just before his May 2021 death, the charismatic founder of Vans shares his story of heading West and capturing the American dream. Authentic is a celebration of Van Doren’s remarkable life and the iconic brand he built, beloved by skateboarders, creatives, and fans everywhere for its laid-back, colorful SoCal vibe, and famous for its people-oriented company culture. In Authentic, he shares his unlikely journey from high-school dropout to sneaker-industry legend. A blue-collar kid with no higher education and zero retail experience, Van Doren started out as a 16-year-old “service boy” at a local rubber factory. Over the next few decades, he leveraged a knack for numbers, a genius for efficiency, and the know-how to make a great canvas tennis shoe into an all-American success story. What began as a family shoe business has today evolved into a globally recognized brand with billions of dollars of annual revenue. Van Doren is not just an entrepreneur, he’s an innovator. In 1966, when the first House of Vans store opened, there were no stand-alone retail stores just for sneakers. Paul’s bold experiments in product design, distribution, and marketing (Why not sell custom shoes? Single shoes?), aided by legions of fans — skateboarders, surfers, even Sean Penn wearing Vans’ famous checkerboard slip-on shoe in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High — made Vans a household name. But there was also back-breaking work, a shocking bankruptcy, family turmoil, and a profound shift in how customers think about athletic shoes. The book details Van Doren’s personal life, but also hard-won business lessons learned over six turbulent decades in the shoe trade: the importance of deep-rooted values, of improvisation, of vision (and revision), and above all, of valuing people over profits. Authentic is Paul Van Doren’s written legacy and his lessons for the innovators of tomorrow. Bracingly forthright and totally entertaining, Authentic is a business memoir by an American original.
£26.95
Orion Publishing Co Crusader's Cross
America's most acclaimed crime writer returns to Louisiana with one of the best-loved detectives in fiction, Dave Robicheaux.In the summer of 1958, Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmie are just out of high school. Jimmie and Dave get work with an oil company, laying out rubber cables in the bays and mosquito-infested swamps all along the Louisiana-Texas coastline. But on the Fourth of July, change approaches in the form of Ida Durbin, a sweet-faced young woman with a lovely voice and a mandolin. Jimmie falls instantly in love with her. But Ida's not free to love - she's a prostitute, in hock to a brutal man called Kale. Jimmie agrees to meet Ida at the bus depot, ready for the road to Mexico. But Ida never shows.That was many years ago. Now, an older, well-worn Dave walks into Baptist Hospital to visit a man called Troy Bordelon, who wants to free himself of a dark secret before he dies. A bully and a sadist, he has a lot to confess to - but he chooses to talk about a young girl, a prostitute who he glimpsed briefly as a kid, bloodied and beaten, tied to a chair in his uncle's house.Praise for one of the great American crime writers, James Lee Burke:'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly'A gorgeous prose stylist.' Stephen King'Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced.' Daily MailFans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow will love James Lee Burke: Dave Robicheaux Series1. The Neon Rain 2. Heaven's Prisoners 3. Black Cherry Blues 4. A Morning for Flamingos 5. A Stained White Radiance 6. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead 7. Dixie City Jam 8. Burning Angel 9. Cadillac Jukebox 10. Sunset Limited 11. Purple Cane Road 12. Jolie Blon's Bounce 13. Last Car to Elysian Fields 14. Crusader's Cross 15. Pegasus Descending 16. The Tin Roof Blowdown 17. Swan Peak 18. The Glass Rainbow 19. Creole Belle 20. Light of the World 21. Robicheaux Hackberry Holland Series1. Lay Down My Sword and Shield 2. Rain Gods 3. Feast Day of Fools 4. House of the Rising SunBilly Bob Holland Series1. Cimarron Rose 2. Heartwood 3. Bitterroot 4. In The Moon of Red Ponies * Each James Lee Burke novel can be read as a standalone or in series order *
£9.99
Orion Publishing Co Purple Cane Road
'When James Lee Burke writes, the little birdies sing, the sun comes out and old men learn to dance again. That's how good he is. And now he's back . . . Purple Cane Road may be the finest novel Burke has written' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'At times Burke's writing and atmosphere remind one of William Faulkner; at other moments Raymond Carver. I cannot think of much higher praise that can be accorded a novel' THE TIMES'No crime writer in America can hold a pen to Burke's mastery of style and powers of evocation and empathy' GUARDIAN'PURPLE CANE ROAD is not only a brilliant mystery, with an astonishing denouement, but a moving evocation of nostalgia and pain set in a marvellously described location' SCOTSMANWhen Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers disturbing secrets from his mother's past, he embarks on a journey through a murky world of vice, politics and murder.Robicheaux has been told that his mother, Mae, was a hooker and ended her life drowned in a mud puddle by two cops working for the Mob. As Robichaeux and his partner hunt for the killers, they hook up with a door-to-door salesman turned state governor, a psychotic hit-man, and the owner of the mansion at Purple Cane Road - who knows rather too much about Robichaeux's wife . . .Praise for one of the great American crime writers, James Lee Burke:'James Lee Burke is the heavyweight champ, a great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed.' Michael Connelly'A gorgeous prose stylist.' Stephen King'Richly deserves to be described now as one of the finest crime writers America has ever produced.' Daily MailFans of Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Don Winslow will love James Lee Burke: Dave Robicheaux Series1. The Neon Rain 2. Heaven's Prisoners 3. Black Cherry Blues 4. A Morning for Flamingos 5. A Stained White Radiance 6. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead 7. Dixie City Jam 8. Burning Angel 9. Cadillac Jukebox 10. Sunset Limited 11. Purple Cane Road 12. Jolie Blon's Bounce 13. Last Car to Elysian Fields 14. Crusader's Cross 15. Pegasus Descending 16. The Tin Roof Blowdown 17. Swan Peak 18. The Glass Rainbow 19. Creole Belle 20. Light of the World 21. Robicheaux Hackberry Holland Series1. Lay Down My Sword and Shield 2. Rain Gods 3. Feast Day of Fools 4. House of the Rising SunBilly Bob Holland Series1. Cimarron Rose 2. Heartwood 3. Bitterroot 4. In The Moon of Red Ponies * Each James Lee Burke novel can be read as a standalone or in series order *
£9.99
Duke University Press Lending Power: How Self-Help Credit Union Turned Small-Time Loans into Big-Time Change
Established by Martin Eakes and Bonnie Wright in North Carolina in 1980, the nonprofit Center for Community Self-Help has grown from an innovative financial institution dedicated to civil rights into the nation's largest home lender to low- and moderate-income borrowers. Self-Help's first capital campaign—a bake sale that raised a meager seventy-seven dollars for a credit union—may not have done much to fulfill the organization's early goals of promoting worker-owned businesses, but it was a crucial first step toward wielding inclusive lending as a weapon for economic justice. In Lending Power journalist and historian Howard E. Covington Jr. narrates the compelling story of Self-Help's founders and coworkers as they built a progressive and community-oriented financial institution. First established to assist workers displaced by closed furniture and textile mills, Self-Help created a credit union that expanded into providing home loans for those on the margins of the financial market, especially people of color and single mothers. Using its own lending record, Self-Help convinced commercial banks to follow suit, extending its influence well beyond North Carolina. In 1999 its efforts led to the first state law against predatory lending. A decade later, as the Great Recession ravaged the nation's economy, its legislative victories helped influence the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Self-Help also created a federally chartered credit union to expand to California and later to Illinois and Florida, where it assisted ailing community-based credit unions and financial institutions. Throughout its history, Self-Help has never wavered from its mission to use Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of justice to extend economic opportunity to the nation's unbanked and underserved citizens. With nearly two billion dollars in assets, Self-Help also shows that such a model for nonprofits can be financially successful while serving the greater good. At a time when calls for economic justice are growing ever louder, Lending Power shows how hard-working and dedicated people can help improve their communities.
£25.99
Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press Qatar that we Lived In
Text in Arabic. In the march of every people and nation, articulated events are immortalized by history, and time engraved them on the walls of memory, they are unforgettable indeed. Qatar that I lived is full of distinguished events and inspiring moments, as I have experienced six out of eight of its rulers. And Sheikh Qassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, the founder and builder of Qatar, is my great-grandfather. This book contains comprehensive answers to questions in the minds of some about Qatar's soft power, and how to compensate for it, the lightness of demography, the limitations of geography, the weight of diplomacy, and the breadth of international reliability, as well as its vision that resulted in its progress becoming one of the richest countries and its possession of Qatar Arirways, one of the most prominent international airlines. And the famous Al Jazeera news network, and its leadership in the safest and least-crime countries, and its crowning as the first Middle Eastern Arab country to host the world's most popular tournament, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, in what can be described as a miracle that we list its roots in the march of Qatar as a people and the ruler. With pictures and documents, the book reveals how we moved from desert life and diving on precious pearls, where we used to gift to the human elegance the most beautiful types of pearls in the past, passing by our entry to the energy era and ascending to the throne of liquefied natural gas exporting countries, all the way to diversifying the economy with billions of successful investments roaming the world, and moving towards an economy based on knowledge keeping up with the accelerating present, and looking forward to a future filled with innovations of digitization and artificial intelligence, so that these lines remain a testimony and document of history, and a message to future generations that the elevation of nations and peoples has nothing to do with the large number or the wide geographical area, as long as the unity of the people and the vision of leadership and good governance is provided.
£9.99
Astra Publishing House Collected Works
"A witty, toothy, family saga, unashamedly intellectual . . . that, like youth, seems to have it all—energy, aspiration, and self-delusion." —Catherine Taylor, Financial Times"MEET SWEDEN'S SALLY ROONEY" —The Times of London"A wry bestseller that reads like the effortlessly chic European cousin of Fleishman is in Trouble." —The Telegraph of London"Poised at the intersection of life and art, reality and imagination, [Collected Works] blends the thrill of mystery with the curiosity and depth of philosophical inquiry." —The New Yorker"Collected Works . . . is as insatiable in its read as it is insightful to modern challenges of family, memory, and finding purpose." —Matthew Bedard, Flaunt"[A] sweeping and complex drama of family, art, and sacrifice . . . Readers will be captivated." —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review"A richly evocative work from a major new talent." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review A compelling mystery and poignant bildungsroman for readers of Karl Ove Knausgård, Collected Works is a novel about love, power, and art—and what leads us to make the pivotal decisions that change the course of our lives.Martin Berg’s wife, Cecilia, disappeared years ago. His memories of their carefree college days seem ever out of reach, and the intellectual curiosities that once made him the object of her desire have given way to midlife uncertainty. The methodical and quiet life he’s made for himself and his adult children couldn’t be further from the one he dreamed of in his youth, when the manuscripts lying around his apartment were flush with promise and his ailing publishing house was still new.Perhaps nothing reminds Martin of these failures more than his friend Gustav Becker, a wildly successful painter who’s returned to Gothenburg on the eve of his career-defining retrospective. Gustav, meanwhile, is hurting too. His obsession with Cecilia’s inexplicable disappearance had made his art hagiographic, fixated on her image. When posters for Gustav’s retrospective plaster Cecilia’s face on major billboards across the city, Martin’s daughter Rakel learns a haunting fact that points toward her mother’s whereabouts. She and her brother chase this clue across time, memory, and Europe to discover why Cecilia abandoned her family, with the imagined hope that the question of what makes a person leave can ever be answered.Collected Works, a major hit in Sweden, sold over 100,000 copies in its first year in print, instantly making Lydia Sandgren a literary sensation. Winner of the 2020 August Prize for Fiction, the novel is set to publish in 17 territories.
£25.13
WW Norton & Co Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters
Having penned hundreds of letters to his family over four decades, Freeman Dyson has framed them with the reflections made by a man now in his nineties. While maintaining that “the letters record the daily life of an ordinary scientist doing ordinary work,” Dyson nonetheless has worked with many of the twentieth century’s most renowned physicists, mathematicians, and intellectuals, so that Maker of Patterns presents not only his personal story but chronicles through firsthand accounts an exciting era of twentieth-century science. Though begun in the dark year of 1941 when Hitler’s armies had already conquered much of Europe, Dyson’s letters to his parents, written at Trinity College, Cambridge, often burst with the curiosity of a precocious seventeen-year-old. Pursuing mathematics and physics with a cast of legendary professors, Dyson thrived in Cambridge’s intellectual ferment, working on, for example, the theory of partitions or reading about Kurt Gödel’s hypotheses, while still finding time for billiards and mountain climbing. After graduating and serving with the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command operational research section, whose job it was “to demolish German cities and kill as many German civilians as possible,” Dyson visited a war-torn Germany, hoping through his experience to create a “tolerably peaceful world.” Juxtaposing descriptions of scientific breakthroughs with concerns for mankind’s future, Dyson’s postwar letters reflect the quandaries faced by an entire scientific generation that was dealing with the aftereffects of nuclear detonations and concentration camp killings. Arriving in America in 1947 to study with Cornell’s Hans Bethe, Dyson continued to send weekly missives to England that were never technical but written with grace and candor, creating a portrait of a generation that was eager, as Einstein once stated, to solve “deep mysteries that Nature intend[ed] to keep for herself.” We meet, among others, scientists like Richard Feynman, who took Dyson across country on Route 66, Robert Oppenheimer, Eugene Wigner, Niels Bohr, James Watson, and a young Stephen Hawking; and we encounter intellectuals and leaders, among them Reinhold Niebuhr, George Kennan, Arthur C. Clarke, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr. The “patterns of comparable beauty in the dance of electrons jumping around atoms” invariably replicate themselves in this autobiography told through letters, one that combines accounts of wanton arms development with the not-inconsiderable demands of raising six children. As we once again attempt to guide society toward a more hopeful future, these letters, with their reenactment of what, at first, seems like a distant past, reveal invaluable truths about human nature.
£22.00
Orenda Books Fault Lines
When volcanologist Surtsey finds her married lover dead, she pockets his phone and makes the fatal decision to keep her discovery secret … but someone has been watching… ‘A cracking and highly original thriller’ Mark Billingham ‘You don’t read Fault Lines so much as you white-knuckle your way through its twists and turns’ Megan Abbott ‘A superb, highly original psychological chiller’ Steve Cavanagh ____________________ In a reimagined contemporary Edinburgh, where a tectonic fault has opened up to produce a new volcano in the Firth of Forth, and where tremors are an everyday occurrence, volcanologist Surtsey makes a shocking discovery. On a clandestine trip to new volcanic island The Inch, to meet Tom, her lover and her boss, she finds his lifeless body, and makes the fatal decision to keep their affair, and her discovery, a secret. Desperate to know how he died, but also terrified she’ll be exposed, Surtsey’s life quickly spirals into a nightmare when someone makes contact – someone who claims to know what she’s done… ____________________ ‘An explosive thriller’ Daily Record ‘A cracking-good thriller with some seriously good writing and some beautifully designed characters … Here’s a writer pushing the thriller envelope, giving the reader not just a good novel, but also a unique one’ David Pitt, Booklist ‘Novel and elegant … it is the book’s thought-provoking and heart-breaking moments that carry the reader through the story and which resonate most at the end’ Scotsman ‘Both a meditation on the volatility of human nature and a gripping thriller with plenty of twists and turns … An original and addictive thriller, as intelligent as it is shocking’ Foreword Reviews ‘Richly characterised, beautifully crafted, this is a book that you truly inhabit’ Emma Kavanagh ‘Scotland’s truest exponent of noir’ Chris Brookmyre 'A subtly off-kilter speculative thriller that builds to a truly explosive ending’ Eva Dolan ‘A pacey, gripping read’ Louise Voss ‘Sexy, fearless and addictive’ Helen FitzGerald ‘Johnstone weaves his compelling and original tale with great skill and elegance from the gripping beginning to a tense and explosive ending' Amanda Jennings ‘Brilliantly unputdownable’ Martyn Waites ‘Superb’ Luca Veste ‘Blending powerful imagination and plotting, this is the work of a writer at the top of his game’ Stuart Neville ‘Plays with every single emotion’ Susi Holliday ‘This had me hooked from the first page’ Cass Green ‘Poignant, gripping and packed with seismic shocks’ Paddy Magrane ‘Incisive, intelligent and imaginative’ Michael J. Malone ‘I was completely swept away’ Caroline Mitchell ‘Hits you lie a seismic shock’ Douglas Skelton ‘Grabs you by the throat in the first chapter’ Neil Broadfoot
£8.99
Simon & Schuster Ltd The Miracle Pill
'This book is pretty life-changing – encouraging, optimistic, rich with information. It got me off the sofa.' Jeremy Vine'This is such a lovely, ambitious, fascinating book. Essential lockdown reading. It allows us to reimagine our world and our bodies: we can move more.' Dr Xand van Tulleken, TV presenter What is the 'miracle pill', the simple lifestyle change with such enormous health benefits that, if it was turned into a drug, would be the most valuable drug in the world? The answer is movement and the good news is that it's free, easy and available to everyone. Four in ten British adults, and 80% of children, are so sedentary they don’t meet even the minimum recommended levels for movement. What’s going on? The answer is simple: activity became exercise. What for centuries was universal and everyday has become the fetishised pursuit of a minority, whether the superhuman feats of elite athletes, or a chore slotted into busy schedules. Yes, most people know physical activity is good for us. And yet 1.5 billion people around the world are so inactive they are at greater risk of everything from heart disease to diabetes, cancer, arthritis and depression, even dementia. Sedentary living now kills more people than obesity, despite receiving much less attention, and is causing a pandemic of chronic ill health many experts predict could soon bankrupt the NHS. How did we get here? Daily, constant exertion was an integral part of humanity for millennia, but in just a few decades movement was virtually designed out of people’s lives through transformed workplaces, the dominance of the car, and a built environment which encourages people to be static. In a world now also infiltrated by ubiquitous screens, app-summoned taxis and shopping delivered to your door, it can be shocking to realise exactly how sedentary many of us are. A recent study found almost half of middle-aged English people don’t walk continuously for ten minutes or more in an average month. At current trends, scientists forecast, the average US adult will expend little more energy in an average week than someone who spent all their time in bed. This book is a chronicle of this very modern and largely unexplored catastrophe, and the story of the people trying to turn it around. Through interviews with experts in various fields - doctors, scientists, architects and politicians - Peter Walker explores how to bring more movement into the modern world and, most importantly, into your life. Forget the gym, introducing quick and easy lifestyle changes can slow down the ageing process and even reverse many illnesses and increase mental wellbeing.
£9.99
John Wiley & Sons Inc Sell More Faster: The Ultimate Sales Playbook for Startups
From Amos Schwartzfarb, serial entrepreneur and veteran Managing Director of Techstars Austin comes the elemental, essential, and effective strategy that will help any startup identify, build, and grow their customers from day 1 Most startups fail because they can’t grow revenue early or quickly enough. Startup CEOs will tell you their early missteps can be attributed to not finding their product market fit early enough, or at all. Founders overspend time and money trying to find product-market fit and make false starts, follow the wrong signals, and struggle to generate enough revenue to scale and raise funding. And all the while they never really knew who their customers were, what product they really needed, and why they needed it. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and founders don’t need to face it alone. Through expert guidance and experienced mentorship, every startup can avoid these pitfalls. The ultimate guide for building and scaling any startup sales organization, Sell More Faster shares the proven systems, methods, and lessons from Managing Director of Techstars Austin and sales expert Amos Schwartzfarb. Hear from founders of multi-million-dollar companies and CEOs who learned firsthand with Techstars, the leading mentorship-driven startup accelerator and venture capital firm that has invested in and mentored thousands of companies, collectively representing billions of dollars in funding and market cap. Schwartzfarb, and the Techstars Worldwide Network of more than 10,000 mentors do one thing better than anyone: help startup entrepreneurs succeed. They know how to sell, how to hire people who know how to sell, and how to use sales to gain venture funding—and now you can, too. Sell More Faster delivers the critical strategies and guidance necessary to avoid and manage the hazards all startups face and beat the odds. This valuable resource delivers: A comprehensive playbook to identify product market direction and product market fit Expert advice on building a diverse sales team and how to identify, recruit, and train the kinds of team members you need Models and best practices for sales funnels, pricing, compensation, and scaling A roadmap to create a repeatable and measurable path to find product-market fit Aggregated knowledge from Techstars leaders and industry experts Sell More Faster is an indispensable guide for entrepreneurs seeking product-market fit, building their sales team, developing a growth strategy, and chasing accelerated, sustained selling success.
£18.90
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Geographies of the Super-Rich
Globalization, it seems, has propelled the world's uber-wealthy to new heights of power and money, with tremendous repercussions for the other 99.9 percent of us. At a time when neoliberalism has propelled the world into a new Gilded Age, with rising inequality everywhere, an aggressive class war being waged by the wealthy, and billionaires inserting themselves bluntly into the political arena, understanding the behavior and spatiality of the super-rich has acquired a pressing urgency. This volume offers a richly textured suite of essays concerning how the super-rich have restructured local places, transforming landscapes as varied as London and Kentucky, Ireland and St. Barts, as well as domains as varied as art, thoroughbred horses, and housing.'- Barney Warf, University of Kansas, US'The world's super-rich, made up of just 11 million people, have access to about US$42.0 trillion of wealth. These are people who each have a spare million of 'liquid' wealth. Their wealth is roughly equal to two thirds of global GDP. They own most of everything. As the editor of this books states '. . . library shelves and the pages of journals remain largely devoid of geographical work on the super-rich a startling lacuna this volume sets out to fill'. The super-rich now own most of the planet. During the last year their share fell slightly. Times may be changing. Now is the time to begin to study the super-rich in detail, especially if you are worried about where all the wealth has gone.'- Danny Dorling, University of Sheffield, UKThis timely and path-breaking book brings together a group of distinguished and emerging international scholars to critically consider the geographical implications of the world's super-rich, a privileged yet remarkably overlooked group.Emerging from this unique collection is an enlightening picture of the influence of the super-rich over a diverse range of affairs, extending from the shape of urban and rural landscapes to the future of art history. By concentrating on those at the apex of the economic pyramid, this book provides valuable insights to the institutions, practices and cultural values of our society, as well as allowing us a more comprehensive view of the consequences of global capitalism. Presenting case studies from across the globe from Singapore to St Barts, London to Lexington - the spatial and cultural span of the book is wide-ranging and diverse.This truly unique book will prove a fascinating read for academics, researchers and students in the fields of geography, regional and urban studies, sociology, political science and development studies.Contributors: J.V. Beaverstock, S. Chauvin, B. Cousin, M. Fasche, S.J.E. Hall, I. Hay, P. McGuirk, P. McManus, L. Murphy, C. Paris, C.-P. Pow, S.M. Roberts, R.H. Schein, J.R. Short, T. Wainwright, K. Wilkins, M. Woods
£95.00
John Wiley & Sons Inc Lasting Value: Lessons from a Century of Agility at Lincoln Electric
In its 104-year history, Lincoln Electric Company has managed to sustain its status as the world's leader in welding technology despite intense domestic and foreign competition. The company's success can be attributed to founder James Lincoln, who began adopting principles of management that empowered workers and allowed the company to change rapidly to take advantage of new opportunities. This book shows you how to duplicate these pioneering ideas and follow the brilliance of the Lincoln management system. The results of this system include happier customers, more prosperous workers, and richly rewarded shareholders. Joseph Maciariello uncovers Lincoln's approach to management in a systematic manner and demonstrates why the company has been so effective for over a century. You'll discover how Lincoln employs a mutually reinforcing set of management systems that creates a boost in overall performance. When these systems are described and understood in their entirety, you'll see how the company's sustained success is due to its natural development of agility. You'll findout how this agility is connected to its executive leadership, management systems, and cultural environment. And you'll learn how to utilize these principles and techniques in your own company to obtain similar results. The management system detailed in this book has helped Lincoln Electric: * Obtain net sales of over $1.1 billion in 1998 * Grab 40% of the U.S. market for welding machines and products * Double the average return on stock- holder equity in the metals industry * Provide production workers with an average salary that is twice as much as the industry median By implementing this system, you can also experience these strong financial returns for shareholders, an increase in wages for workers, higher productivity, and much more! "Lasting Value is that rarest of books: a "why to" book, a "what to" book, and a "how to" book- its examples deal with manufacturing companies and blue-collar workers. But the lessons have particular force for the new job facing management: building organizations of knowledge workers who perform and who create lasting value." -Peter F. Drucker "In today's world of quarterly expectations and Wall Street's praise for major restructuring, Lasting Value successfully illustrates that long-term shareholder value can occur when corporations are truly customer and employee driven with the highest of motives." -Donald F. Hastings Chairman Emeritus, Lincoln Electric Company "Worthington was founded on the lifelong principles rooted in the Golden Rule and today it represents one of the strongest employee-employer partnerships in American business. We are proud of this important foundation for our company, as it has provided us with lasting value." -John H. McConnell Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Worthington Industries "This book should be on every manager's bookshelf and be required reading at everybusiness school." -F. Kenneth Iverson Chairman Emeritus, NUCOR Corporation "Joe Maciariello's in-depth description and detailed analysis of the Lincoln Electric Company will allow managers (and others) to revisit the powerful lessons this company has offered. Lasting Value is a valuable and practical contribution that should be welcomed by managers everywhere." -Christopher A. Bartlett Daewoo Professor of International Business and Chair, Program for Global Leadership Harvard University "Managers should consider the application of this novel approach to managing their companies. Lincoln Electric has used it successfully for almost 100 years." -Robert N. Anthony Walker Professor of Management Control, Emeritus The Harvard Business School
£70.00
HarperCollins Publishers Inc A Brief History of Intelligence: Humans, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
Equal parts Sapiens, Behave, and Superintelligence, but wholly original in scope, A Brief History of Intelligence offers a paradigm shift for how we understand neuroscience and AI. Artificial intelligence entrepreneur Max Bennett chronicles the five “breakthroughs” in the evolution of human intelligence and reveals what brains of the past can tell us about the AI of tomorrow. In the last decade, capabilities of artificial intelligence that had long been the realm of science fiction have, for the first time, become our reality. AI is now able to produce original art, identify tumors in pictures, and even steer our cars. And yet, large gaps remain in what modern AI systems can achieve—indeed, human brains still easily perform intellectual feats that we can’t replicate in AI systems. How is it possible that AI can beat a grandmaster at chess but can’t effectively load a dishwasher? As Max Bennett compellingly argues, finding the answer requires diving into the billion-year history of how the human brain evolved; a history filled with countless half-starts, calamities, and clever innovations. Not only do our brains have a story to tell—the future of AI may depend on it.Now, in A Brief History of Intelligence, Bennett bridges the gap between neuroscience and AI to tell the brain’s evolutionary story, revealing how understanding that story can help shape the next generation of AI breakthroughs. Deploying a fresh perspective and working with the support of many top minds in neuroscience, Bennett consolidates this immense history into an approachable new framework, identifying the “Five Breakthroughs” that mark the brain’s most important evolutionary leaps forward. Each breakthrough brings new insight into the biggest mysteries of human intelligence. Containing fascinating corollaries to developments in AI, A Brief History of Intelligence shows where current AI systems have matched or surpassed our brains, as well as where AI systems still fall short. Simply put, until AI systems successfully replicate each part of our brain’s long journey, AI systems will fail to exhibit human-like intelligence.Endorsed and lauded by many of the top neuroscientists in the field today, Bennett’s work synthesizes the most relevant scientific knowledge and cutting-edge research into an easy-to-understand and riveting evolutionary story. With sweeping scope and stunning insights, A Brief History of Intelligence proves that understanding the arc of our brain’s history can unlock the tools for successfully navigating our technological future.
£26.00