Search results for ""PROFILE BOOKS""

Whether you're a casual jogger, a beginner looking to train seriously for the first time or an experienced runner hoping to improve your time, there is a better way to train than relentlessly pounding miles. Suitable for runners of any level training for any distance, Build Your Running Body includes: - Over 150 workouts, from weight-training to resistance work - Exercises to prevent injury - The best methods to rehabilitate common problems - Nutrition guidance - Almost 400 photos to make following the programme as easy as possible - Interviews and tips from leading runners and coaches - Strategy for the weeks leading up to a race For the beginner or the athlete looking for a personal best, Build Your Running Body is a comprehensive guide of coaching wisdom and accessible advice.

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Did you know that it's easier to add and subtract from left to right, rather than the other way round? And that you can be taught to square a three-digit number in seconds? In Think Like A Maths Genius, two mathematicians offer tips and tricks for doing tricky maths the easy way. With their help, you can learn how to perform lightning calculations in your head, discover methods of incredible memorisation and other feats of mental agility. Learn maths secrets for the real world, from adding up your shopping and calculating a restaurant tip, to figuring out gambling odds (or how much you've won) and how to solve sudoku faster.

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* THE ELEVENTH NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING MODESTY BLAISE SERIES * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER The headquarters of 'The Hostel of Righteousness' is an old monastery on the small Greek island Kalivari. But there is nothing holy about the organisation. On the contrary, Dr. Thaddeus Pilgrim and his followers are among the most unholy people you could have the misfortune of meeting. Willie Garvin and Modesty Blaise are targeted by Dr. Pilgrim, who has an obsession for creating 'interesting scenarios'. Willie is kidnapped and brought to Kalivari under heavy sedation, then brainwashed to believe that Modesty has been murdered by a woman called Delilah. The twist? Willie is convinced that 'Delilah' is a woman who looks exactly like Modesty herself. Now the two comrades are pitted against one another, and Dr. Pilgrim's diabolical plan may well lead to their deaths.

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* THE ELEVENTH NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING MODESTY BLAISE SERIES * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER Modesty Blaise is about to retire from her criminal empire, the Network, a crime syndicate specialising in art theft and industrial espionage. But there is one final, astounding mission before she can leave and the Network is disbanded. Years later, she faces the consequences of this final mission when she and her faithful lieutenant Willie Garvin find themselves drawn into conflict with the mysterious group known as The Watchmen. The Watchmen have big plans, not least to destroy the Golden Gate Bridge. Modesty and Willie will need all their cunning to foil a fiendish plot to bring down western civilisation and save their own lives.

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All over the world there are fantastic ruins and objects that cannot be explained by conventional history, archaeology or religion. In the ground-breaking Chariots of the Gods, Erich von Daniken provides answers to these questions...why do religious texts often refer to Gods who descend from fiery chariots? Why do modern space launch sites look like constructions on the plains of Nazca in Peru? Was God an astronaut? By looking at human history and the ruins of ancient civilisations with an open mind, Erich von Daniken offers a new solution to these eternal mysteries in Chariots of the Gods. Why, for instance, do the world's sacred books describe Gods who came down from the sky in fiery chariots and always promised to return? How could an ancient Sanskrit text contain an account which could only be of a journey in an alien craft? Compare photographs of American space centre launch sites to the constructions on the plains of Nazca in Peru. In order to understand the mysteries which Erich von Daniken has catalogued we must go back to these ancient relics with an open mind. We must call in the resources and experience of sciences other than archaeology. Chariots of the Gods is a provocative attempt to explain some of the universe's most interesting mysteries. Erich von Daniken has spent a lifetime gathering evidence to prove that, before the dawn of recorded history, our ancestors were visited by an alien race. Erich von Daniken was responsible for popularising the ancient astronaut hypothesis of human development. Orthodox historians have been sceptical but a vast public have been drawn to his ideas by instinctive interest and wonder. His 26 books have sold over 60 million copies in over 40 languages.

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Do high-speed, complicated arithmetic in your head using the Trachtenberg Speed System. Ever find yourself struggling to check a bill or a payslip? With The Trachtenberg Speed System you can. Described as the 'shorthand of mathematics', the Trachtenberg system only requires the ability to count from one to eleven. Using a series of simplified keys it allows anyone to master calculations, giving greater speed, ease in handling numbers and increased accuracy. Jakow Trachtenberg believed that everyone is born with phenomenal abilities to calculate. He devised a set of rules that allows every child to make multiplication, division, addition, subtraction and square-root calculations with unerring accuracy and at remarkable speed. It is the perfect way to gain confidence with numbers.

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When, unpredictably and against his will, Robert Monroe began to have out-of-body experiences, he was frightened and disbelieving. He found that he could leave his physical body to places far removed from the material and spiritual realities of life on earth. He came to inhabit a world unbounded by death or time. As Robert Monroe met many other people who have had similar experiences and read the literature of the East that documents the long history of this phenomenon, his fears were alleviated. His journeys became more frequent and began to change his life. This classic, first-hand account of out-of-body experiences challenges us to revise our ideas about life and death. Robert Monroe's step-by-step instructions invite the reader to initiate their own out-of-body experiences.

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'A really good starting point to discover what lights you up' - Emma Gannon 'Unlock your inner creativity and ease your anxiety' Daily Telegraph THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER Since its first publication, The Artist's Way has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert, Tim Ferriss, Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron guides readers in uncovering problems and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to open up opportunities for growth and self-discovery. A revolutionary programme for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life. 'Each time I've learned something important and surprising about myself and my work ... Without The Artist's Way, there would have been no Eat, Pray, Love' - Elizabeth Gilbert

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*SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION* 'Extraordinary' Kate Mosse 'Electric' Lemn Sissay 'Searing' Julia Samuel One Omaha winter day in 1978, when Debora Harding was just fourteen, she was abducted at knife-point, thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom, and left to die. But what if this wasn't the most traumatic, defining event in her childhood? Undertaking a radical project, Debora Harding dexterously shifts between the past and present to unravel her story. From the immediate aftermath to the possibility of restorative justice twenty years later, Dancing with the Octopus lays bare the social and political forces that act upon us after the experience of serious crime. A vivid, sly and intimate portrait of one family's disintegration, this is a darkly humorous and ground-breaking narrative of reckoning and recovery.

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In Search of Excellence has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school and bedside table, and continues to influence the thinking of leaders and managers across the globe today. Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a range of sectors - consumer goods, technology, services - the book identifies eight common 'attributes of excellence' that made these organisations successful. Though many of the profiled companies have since lost their edge (or disappeared completely), these eight management principles, each highlighted in a chapter in the book, have shown themselves to be timeless. These simple business truths, so eloquently encapsulated by Peters and Waterman, are proof that the fundamentals of management - a focus on people, customers and value, entrepreneurship and excellence - ring as true today as they ever did. In Search of Excellence is a seminal business book, worthy of a place on the bookshelves of anyone who wants to understand how effective management works in practice.

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The essential anthology of writings by the world's leading Marxist thinker: this book presents a sequence of landmark works in David Harvey's intellectual journey over five decades. It shows how experiencing the riots, despair and injustice of 1970s Baltimore led him to seek an explanation of capitalist inequalities via Marx and to a sustained intellectual engagement that has made him the world's leading exponent of Marx's work. The book takes the reader through the development of his unique synthesis of Marxist method and geographical understanding that has allowed him to develop a series of powerful insights into the ways of the world, from the new mechanics of imperialism, crises in financial markets and the effectiveness of car strikers in Oxford, to the links between nature and change, why Sacré Coeur was built in Paris, and the meaning of the postmodern condition. David Harvey is renowned for originality, acumen and the transformative value of his insights. This book shows why.

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Just before Christmas 1908, Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy 82-year-old spinster, was found bludgeoned to death in her Glasgow home. A valuable diamond brooch was missing, and police soon fastened on a suspect - Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant who was rumoured to have a disreputable character. Slater had an alibi, but was nonetheless convicted and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment in the notorious Peterhead Prison. Seventeen years later, a convict called William Gordon was released from Peterhead. Concealed in a false tooth was a message, addressed to the only man Slater thought could help him - Arthur Conan Doyle. Always a champion of the downtrodden, Conan Doyle turned his formidable talents to freeing Slater, deploying a forensic mind worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Drawing from original sources including Oscar Slater's prison letters, this is Margalit Fox's vivid and compelling account of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Scottish history.

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"INFORMATIVE AND ORIGINAL" Guardian, 'This month's best paperbacks' We've become used to thinking of plants as things for us to use: as food, tools, resources, or just as an attractive background to our own lives. But it's time to change our minds. New research shows that plants can think, plan - and may even have memories. We share our planet with beings whose potential we have only glimpsed. Featuring the writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Susie Orbach and Merlin Sheldrake, This Book is a Plant will be your handbook to the new reality: showing you a pathway to completely reimagine your relationship with a different kind of natural world. Delve into a world of moss and fungi: Sheila Watt-Cloutier transports us to the Arctic spring, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan discovers the pleasures of painting trees, and Rebecca Tamás puts roots down through earth and soil. This Book is a Plant is made from paper: it was once part of a tree. But it's also a seed: the first shoots of a radical new way of seeing the world around you. "AN ECLECTIC ANTHOLOGY GUARANTEED TO MAKE THE HEARTS OF EARTH LOVERS BEAT FASTER" Metro

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THE NUMBER 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF WATERSTONES GIFT OF THE YEAR 2023 'THE PUZZLE SENSATION OF THE YEAR!' - JANICE HALLETT, bestselling author of THE TWYFORD CODE 'AN ABSOLUTE PHENOMENON ... THE PERFECT STOCKING FILLER' - RICHARD OSMAN, bestselling author of THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB SERIES * The 'utterly addictive' murderous puzzle book for armchair detectives everywhere * From G. T. Karber, the creator of the popular online daily mystery game at www.Murdle.com, comes this fiendishly compulsive and absolutely killer collection of 100 original murder mystery logic puzzles. Join Deductive Logico and pit your wits against a slew of dastardly villains in order to discover: - Who committed the ghastly deed? - What weapon was used to dispatch the victim? - Where did the dreadful demise occur? These humorous mini-mystery puzzles challenge you to find whodunit, how, where, and why. Examine the clues, interview the witnesses, and use the power of deduction to complete the grid and catch the culprit. Packed with illustrations, codes, and maps, this is the must-have detective casebook for the secret sleuth in everyone. Are you the next Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot? You'll soon find out, if you dare to Murdle!

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Part of the "New Scientist" series, this book investigates everything from what it's like to die, to exploding trousers and recycled urine.

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The grandson of Prince Genji lives outside of space and time and wanders the grounds of an old monastery in Kyoto. The monastery, too, is timeless, with barely a trace of any human presence. The wanderer is searching for a garden that has long captivated him. This novel by International Booker Prize winner László Krasznahorkai - perhaps his most serene and poetic work - describes a search for the unobtainable and the riches to be discovered along the way. Despite difficulties in finding the garden, the reader is closely introduced to the construction processes of the monastery as well as the geological and biological processes of the surrounding area, making this an unforgettable meditation on nature, life, history, and being.

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From cocoa farming in Ghana to the orchards of Kent and the desert badlands of Pakistan, taking a practical approach to sustaining the landscape can mean the difference between prosperity and ruin. Working with Nature is the story of a lifetime of work, often in extreme environments, to harvest nature and protect it - in effect, gardening on a global scale. It is also a memoir of encounters with larger-than-life characters such as William Bunting, the gun-toting saviour of Yorkshire's peatlands and the aristocratic gardener Vita Sackville-West, examining their idiosyncratic approaches to conservation. Jeremy Purseglove explains clearly and convincingly why it's not a good idea to extract as many resources as possible, whether it's the demand for palm oil currently denuding the forests of Borneo, cottonfield irrigation draining the Aral Sea, or monocrops spreading across Britain. The pioneer of engineering projects to preserve nature and landscape, first in Britain and then around the world, he offers fresh insights and solutions at each step.

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'What a fun book! Reading Sea Fever is enticing and intriguing, like watching floating treasure bob past your nose.' Tristan Gooley, author of The Natural Navigator Can you interpret the shipping forecast? Do you know your flotsam from your jetsam? Or who owns the foreshore? Can you tie a half-hitch - or would you rather splice the mainbrace? Full of charming illustrations and surprising facts, Sea Fever provides the answers to all these and more. Mixing advice on everything from seasickness to righting a capsized boat with arcane marine lore, recipes, history, dramatic stories of daring-do and guides to the wildlife we share our shores with, even the most experienced ocean-dweller will find something in these pages to surprise and delight.

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AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 'Unsettling and strange, Sea Change cements Nathan's reputation as one of our most interesting historical novelists.' The Times 'A strange, touching tale of hope and redemption' Sunday Times Best Historical Fiction 'That rare kind of historical fiction that both captures the period well and creates an absorbing narrative.' Charles Palliser 'I'll be back soon, my love. Tonight, I hope.' The last Eve saw of her mother was a wave from the basket of a rising balloon. A wilful, lonely orphan in the house of her erratic artist guardian, Eve struggles to retain the image of her missing mother and the father she never knew. In a London beset by pageantry, incipient riot and the fear of Napoleonic invasion, Eve must grow into a young woman with no one to guide her through its perils. Far away, in a Norfolk fishing village, the Rev Snead preaches hellfire and damnation to his impoverished parishioners and oppressed wife. Snead illustrates his sermons with the example of a mute woman pulled from the sea, over whom he keeps a very close watch indeed.

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'[An] engaging, inventive literary noir ... full of neat twists and potent writing' Independent Book of the Month 'A feisty, subversive countervision of England's lost futures and buried longings' Rob Doyle, author of Threshold A Burley Fisher Book of the Year 2023 1969. Thomas Speake comes to London to look for his father but finds Sanderson instead, a larger-than-life TV presenter who hosts 'midweek madness' parties where the punch is spiked with acid. There Speake meets Marnie and promises to help her find her adoptive child, who has been taken by her birth mother to live off-grid in a hippie commune in the Lake District. Forced to lie low after a violent accident, Speake joins Sanderson on a tour of the Lake District, where he's researching a book to accompany his popular TV series, Sanderson's Isle. Fascinated by local rumours about the hippies, Sanderson joins the search for their whereabouts. Amid the fierce beauty of the mountains, the cult is forming the kind of community that Speake - a drifter who belongs nowhere - is desperate to find but has been sent to betray. This is the follow up to James Clarke's Betty Trask Prize-winning debut novel. It is filled with gorgeous nature writing of the urban and the rural, and its portrayal of the moment when British society was unsettled and transformed by the counterculture of the 1960s is visionary and electrifying. 'Psychedelic 1960s London, TV personalities, counterculture in the Lake District, a lost child! Wasn't I always going to read this book? Magnificent' Wendy Erskine, author of Dance Move

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'Byrne's book is about scientific parenting, and it is very welcome indeed ... breezy and digestible ... this is such a good book' Tom Whipple, The Times Kids aren't all the same. You can't follow instructions and expect success every time. So what if parents approached their children as questions to be answered and not problems to be solved? Scientist Emma Byrne takes evidence-based information on everything from physical and emotional development to what is really happening during sleep and separation anxiety, then shows how to apply it to the unique child in front of you. She challenges perceived wisdom by focusing on the variance as well as the mean - because your child is an individual, not an average. Like all good scientists, you're going to have a few missteps along the way. You'll reach dead ends; you'll need to wrack your brain for new approaches. But by staying curious, creative and paying attention to what's really happening with your family, Emma Byrne will help you figure it out. Just in time for everything to change once again.

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'Exquisitely written and structurally bold ... a deeply impressive novel' Eva Dolan, author of This Is How It Ends Selected for TLS Summer Books 2023 Arthur and Gwen married young. Twenty years on, Gwen's got it all: wealth, beauty, a famous husband who's the founder of Britain's most successful tech company, stables full of horses, millions of followers on Instagram, an unstable lover, a wayward son, a hoard of secrets, an aching heart, and a cyberstalking blackmailer who calls himself The Invisible Knight. As the Wiltshire town of Abury prepares to celebrate the fortieth birthday of its favourite son, Morgan, Gwen's former best friend, is on her way back to Abury after two decades away, keen to expose Abury's long buried secrets and hellbent on revenge. An inventive, magisterial reworking of Britain's greatest myth, Bliss & Blunder is a heartrending novel of power, friendship and betrayal.

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*** THE #1 KINDLE BESTSELLER *** *** A NETGALLEY BOOK OF THE MONTH *** 'Dark, heartbreaking and totally absorbing' - LORRAINE KELLY 'Brilliantly written and emotionally compulsive' - HARRIET TYCE 'A powerful and thought-provoking page turner' - KATERINA DIAMOND ________________________________________ CALL ME MUMMY. IT'LL BE BETTER IF YOU DO. Glamorous, beautiful Mummy has everything a woman could want. Except for a daughter of her very own. So when she sees Kim - heavily pregnant, glued to her phone and ignoring her eldest child in a busy shop - she does what anyone would do. She takes her. But foul-mouthed little Tonya is not the daughter that Mummy was hoping for. As Tonya fiercely resists Mummy's attempts to make her into the perfect child, Kim is demonised by the media as a 'scummy mummy', who deserves to have her other children taken too. Haunted by memories of her own childhood and refusing to play by the media's rules, Kim begins to spiral, turning on those who love her. Though they are worlds apart, Mummy and Kim have more in common than they could possibly imagine. But it is five-year-old Tonya who is caught in the middle... ________________________________________ 'Disturbing and distinctive, this is a book I couldn't put down' - AMANDA JENNINGS 'Tense and gripping, these characters will stay with me' - ALICE CLARK-PLATTS 'Psychologically twisty and utterly gripping' - LISA HALL

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'Marvellous first aid for couples' Susie Orbach 'Good advice on how to navigate those tricky arguments' Mariella Frostrup If you feel like you have the same arguments with your partner over and over again ... you may be right. And you're not alone: Joanna Harrison believes there are five distinct issues that all couples have to work through if they are going to have a healthy, functioning relationship. Grounded in her experience as a couple therapist, she asks us to think about the difficulties we all have in our relationships - from how we communicate to what roles we take on and much more. Using sound advice and relatable case studies, she offers practical ideas and imaginative ways to think about ourselves and our partners. Kind, funny and rooted in real life, this is expert advice that anyone can use - and that everyone in a relationship needs.

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A six week Artist's Way Programme from legendary author Julia Cameron From the bestselling author of The Artist's Way comes a deeply personal account of pain, healing and growth. Using her own history of alcoholism as a springboard, Julia shows the reader how to harness prayer - in whatever form that takes for the individual - to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and forge ahead towards becoming the person they were meant to be. Seeking Wisdom is a guide to 'creative unblocking': a spiritual path to deeper creativity and a more profound connection to the divine. Filled with meditations, creative exercises, and Julia's characteristic positivity, Seeking Wisdom is further proof that Julia Cameron is the queen of change.

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A TIMES BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR A BUSINESS BOOK AWARD 'A gripping story about a great British brand' Jeremy Vine Lightweight, compact, and now, electric: the cityscape has been forever changed by the addition of the Brompton bike, with its distinctive style and clever folding design. For over forty years, the Brompton's modular design has remained virtually unchanged. It has stood not only the test of time but every financial crash since 1976, Brexit, and COVID-19, not to mention every other risk which any business faces. Where, then, did this ingenious feat of engineering come from? Who were the minds behind it? And how did a small company grow to become one of the biggest cycling brand names in the world? This is not only the first look behind the scenes at Brompton Bicycle Ltd, but a masterclass in entrepreneurship, manufacturing, and scaling a business.

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A ground-breaking debut novel that combines the investigatory pleasures of a legal drama with a provocative and literary exploration of the limits of empathy 'I loved this highly original and compelling story' Cathy Rentzenbrink You are about to enter a novel formed of documents and evidence. Here is the blog of a nurse on a dialysis ward attempting to live in the aftermath of bringing a rape trial to court in which the defendant was exonerated. Here are the transcripts of the police interviews with her, and the accused, the emails and texts between them submitted for trial; his journal, his conversations on 4chan, his drama scripts, him, him, him. How will the nurse, Corina, ever get him out of her head? This is a highly original debut novel that will win plaudits for its inventiveness at the same time as it compels the reader with the pleasures of suspense and family drama. Provocative, blackly funny and moving, it announces a new voice unlike any other.

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LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 A SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2022 AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 OPEN BOOK 'Brilliantly recounts the story of the American theatrical dynasty that produced Lincoln's assassin' Sunday Times Book of the Month In 1822, a stage is set: Englishman Junius Booth - celebrated Shakespearean actor and man of mesmerising charm and instability - moves to a remote cabin outside Baltimore with his wife, who bears him ten children. Of the six who survive infancy, one is John Wilkes - the hot-tempered but much-loved middle son who, in 1865, fatally shoots Abraham Lincoln in a Washington theatre, changing the course of history. What makes a murderer? His family or the world? And how can those who love him ever come to terms with his actions? Strikingly relevant to the world today, Booth is the story of one extraordinary family and the terrible act that shattered their bonds forever.

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'This is a book about the untidy, complicated underbelly of love and love's end. Funny and true, wise and utterly authentic, you will recognise yourself over and over. I loved it.' Kit de Waal Did you mean to marry me? Did you understand the vows that we took? J's wife has left, and J is trying to understand why. How could someone you loved so much, who claimed to love you once, just walk away? How could they send divorce papers accusing you of terrible things, when all you've ever done is tried to make them happy? Narrated by J in the days, weeks and months after the marriage collapses, and interspersed with the departed wife's diary entries, Is This Love? is an addictive, deeply unsettling, and provocative novel of deception and betrayal, and passion turned to pain. As the story unfolds, and each character's version of events undermines the other, all our assumptions about victimhood, agency, love and control are challenged - for we never know J's gender. If we did, would it change our minds about who was telling the truth?

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The Bookshop in Wigtown is a bookworm's idyll - with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the bookshop cat. You'd think after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to the customers by now. Don't get him wrong - there are some good ones among the antiquarian porn-hunters, die-hard Arthurians, people who confuse bookshops for libraries and the toddlers just looking for a nice cosy corner in which to wee. He's sure there are. There must be some good ones, right? Filled with the pernickety warmth and humour that has touched readers around the world, stuffed with literary treasures, hidden gems and incunabula, Remainders of the Day is Shaun Bythell's latest entry in his bestselling diary series.

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'An illuminating glimpse of the chain reactions of human and physical geography.' Financial Times 'A truly original adventure into new ways of exploring what we mean by a sense of place.' Simon Jenkins 'A fascinating exploration of the lesser-known and more subtle borders across the earth and the surprising ways in which they shape our lives.' i news Our world has innumerable boundaries, ranging from the obvious - like an ocean - to subtle differences in language or climate. Most of us cross invisible lines all the time, but don't stop to consider them. In Invisible Lines, geographer Maxim Samson presents 30 such unseen boundaries, intriguing and unexpected examples of the myriad ways in which we collectively engage with and experience the world. From football fans in Buenos Aires to air quality in China, Paris' banlieues to sub-Saharan Africa's Malaria Belt, the existence - or perceived existence - of dividing lines has manifold implications for people, wildlife, and places. Fully illustrated with maps of each location, Invisible Lines reveals the extraordinary ways in which we try to render the planet more liveable and legible; a compelling guide to seeing and understanding our world in all its consistency - and all its messiness, too.

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Based on analysis of contemporary geopolitics and a knowledge of global history, this book shows why oil empires are declining. It reveals how the world changes because of global battles over the commodity that underpins our lives.

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Mysticism is about existential ecstasy - an experience of heightening one''s senses and self into a sheer feeling of aliveness. Mystical experiences offer us a practical way to open our thoughts and deepen the sense of our lives, whether through a mainstream connection to God or by taking part in mind-altering experiences. Here, Simon Critchley explores the history and practice of mysticism, from its origins in Eastern and Western religion, through its association with esoteric and occult knowledge, and up to the ecstatic modernism of T.S. Eliot and others. Through a discussion of the lives of famous mystics, like Julian of Norwich and Jesus Christ, Critchley reveals how embracing the spectrum of mystical experience can refresh our thinking and help us live deeper and freer lives.Philosophical and playful, analytical and inventive, On Mysticism is a definitive account of humanity''s quest to understand the divine, and a call to thinkers everywhere to broaden our minds to life larger th

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The tried-and-tested rules so many business have lost sight of that determine lasting success - and how to put them into practice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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