The classic 1920s story of a friendship torn apart, Passing is Nella Larsen's devastating masterpiece Irene Redfield is living a life of careful balance in Harlem when a chance encounter draws her back into the orbit of Clare Kendry, a childhood friend. Passing as white, Clare moves effortlessly through a world that Irene has chosen to reject. Their renewed intimacy is charged with fascination and envy. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read ...
Sally Bowles is the dazzling centrepiece of Goodbye to Berlin, distilling Isherwood's genius into the tale of one baudy, brilliant woman. 1930s Berlin is a realm of glamour and sleaze, poverty and excess. There, a lonely young Brit working on a novel is charmed by an English runaway and want-to-be star, the delightfully decadent Sally Bowles. The intimate, fleeting connection they form will stay with him for all his days. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating...
Three supernatural tales of longing and loss from the grand-dame of Gothic fiction, Mary Shelly When a storm drives their boat towards the rocks, a group of sailors is saved by the light of a ruined tower. The locals speak of the Invisible Girl who haunts it – a lost, wandering soul. But the truth is more disturbing, and far more human, than any ghost story.Includes the stories: The Invisible Girl, The Mortal Immortal and The MournerBRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and capt...
Hemingway’s enduring story of resilience and solitude: One of the most powerful tales of courage and endurance ever writtenAn ageing fisherman sets out alone into the Gulf Stream, determined to prove that his strength and skill have not left him. When he hooks a great marlin, he begins a struggle that will test his pride and his place in the world. Simple, powerful and deeply moving, The Old Man and the Sea captures what it means to persist – even in the face of inevitable lo...
''Glamour, scholarship and superlative storytelling [...] an enthralling read.''LUCY WORSLEYAdrian Tinniswood opens the doors on the excess, intrigue and absurdities of life in the late Victorian and Edwardian country houseIn the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour. Nothing lay beyond their reach in a world where privilege and hedonism went hand-in-hand with duty and honour.This was a time ...
This ebullient, gallivanting novella encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic's best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence. An ageing man holds court, spinning a single, unbroken stream of stories about his life – loves won and lost, jobs taken and abandoned, moments of absurdity and chance. As he talks, the line between memory and invention begins to blur.
When the woman you love may be dead, or worse - unknowable - obsession takes over. A young woman is found dead in her Manhattan apartment. In the aftermath, the men who knew her begin to tell their stories: a possessive mentor, a devoted fiancé, a cynical columnist.At the centre of it all is Laura: dazzling, ambitious and impossible to pin down. As Detective Mark McPherson pieces together her life, he finds himself drawn not just to the crime, but to the woman she seemed to b...
Vivid and alive, this powerful novella about one woman's belated rebellion against the powers that be is Anita Desai at her finest. Nanda Kaul retreats to a quiet house in the hills, determined to live out her days in solitude. But the arrival of her great-granddaughter disrupts the stillness she has carefully built, bringing with it memories she would rather leave behind.
Welcome to Vermilion Sands, the fully automated desert-resort ready to fulfil your most exotic whims. Out over the towering Coral D, sky artists paint the sky with clouds. A musical statue is broken down, but finds new life in unwanted places.A mysterious new resident introduces a new way of making poetry - aided by machine. Drawing together some of the most mesmerising and mind-blowing stories from J.G. Ballard's Vermillion Sands art-infused universe, this short collection i...
ive stories of desire and discovery set in 1970s Japan, from weird fiction's most influential pioneer - Angela CarterAn Englishwoman muses on her affair with a younger Japanese man. A spurned lover seeks intimacy in another chance encounter. A boy stumbles upon a mirror world while walking in the woods.In five mesmerising, fantastical tales of 1970s Japan, Angela Carter explores what it means to arrive in a world different from one’s own, and to transform profoundly – sometim...
Masks is Enchi's elegant, seductive story of sexual deception, revenge, and the haunting legacy of the past.Ibuki loves widow Yasuko, who is young, charming and sparkling with intelligence. His friend, Mikame, desires her too but that is not the difficulty. What troubles Ibuki is the curious bond that has grown between Yasuko and her mother-in-law, a beautiful, cultivated yet jealous woman, who is manipulating the relationship between Yasuko and the two men who love her....
Arthur Conan Doyle’s tense, unsettlingly supernatural tale of obsession and controlAfter Austin Gilroy’s fiancée is hypnotised, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of the woman responsible – Miss Penclosa. Soon, disturbances begin to unsettle him: actions he cannot account for, thoughts that seem to come from elsewhere. As Penclosa’s hold over Gilroy tightens, he discovers how little control he has over his own mind.
A flood brings not only rising waters but the full force of a brutal, racist worldWith the Mississippi flooding, a Black farmer struggles to get his pregnant wife to safety. In the chaos, a single desperate decision sets off a chain of events that cannot be undone. Down By the Riverside is Richard Wright’s unflinching novella of race, power and consequence.Starkly told and painfully resonant, it captures how quickly the world can turn – and who is forced to pay the price. BRI...
A stunning, timeless story about race, friendship, what keeps us apart and what drives us apart, from the one and only Toni Morrison, with an introduction by Zadie Smith. Twyla and Roberta have known each other since they were eight years old, when they were thrown together in a girls' shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only to meet again later at a diner, a grocery store and then at a protest. Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguou...
Ursula k. Le Guin's beautifully realised space epic of two young friends finding their lives steer a new, and unexpected course 'Our job is to travel. A different job from arrival.'As the ship Discovery makes its slow way through space towards New Earth, two children, Hsing and Luis, born into the ship's society, come of age together. But just as their destinies seem to be unfolding as decreed, a revelation about Discovery's true course throws new light on to their shared fut...
The classic, moving tale of a man born old, destined to die young, and live at odds with his time Born in the body of a 70-year-old man, Benjamin Button is cursed to live life in reverse. As he ages backwards, he embraces life, finds love and seeks out adventure, all while getting younger and younger. But time, however skewered, waits for no man, and even youth waits to rob Benjamin Button of the one rare thing we all share: life. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captiv...
An intimate, magical novel about one enduring church in a rural Icelandic valley - an ode to a quiet way of life now lost to time forever The resting place of legendary Viking warrior Egil Skallagrímsson’s skull, Mosfell Church is a lonely, country church, fated to be destroyed. But as the plans to destroy it take shape, stories, myth and folklore abound in one magical last attempt to leave Mosfell standing. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be re...
A psychedelic post-apocalyptic vision of a world on the brink of civil war... In iDEATH, the sun shines a different colour every day. It is a happy place, made of watermelon, and its inhabitants travel the length of their dreams.But outside its sugared limits a gang of dissenters live among the trash heaps of the Forgotten Works, stewing in violence, hate – and the promise of revenge. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting o...
From one of the greatest Chinese authors of the twentieth century, these delicate stories illuminate the most intimate matters of the human heart - now available in English for the very first time. Since childhood, Ruliang has had the peculiar habit of sketching a certain profile in the margins of his books. He has mapped out this same face, over and over again, without knowing why - until he meets Cythnia. As brief and evocative as sketches themselves, these five stories o...
Graham Greene’s iconic thriller – a shocking tale of espionage and deceit, told from amongst the smouldering ruins of war-torn Europe. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless in post-war Vienna to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and the police are closing in on his associates...BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days...
At once a gripping thriller and a heartbreaking elegy, this is Toni Cade Bambara's powerful final testament, a hymn to Atlanta's missing children. Zala Spencer is barely surviving on the margins of Atlanta's booming economy when she awakens one summer’s morning in 1980 to find her teenage son, Sonny, has disappeared. As she takes to the streets to track down what happened to him, Zala is drawn into the nightmare of a city stalked by fear.
Four of Kurt Vonnegut’s best dystopian stories, Monkey Business distils his darkly comic vision of the modern world and the cost of trying to engineer a better life. In a future where everyone is forced to be equal, a gifted teenager dares to rebel. A suburban family discovers a device that delivers perfect happiness.
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The life of a poet becomes a parable of hope in Yi Mun-yol’s searching novella of art, status and selfhood. With their family condemned as traitors, two young brothers are sent away in disguise to save their lives. One grows up by his wits, accepting what has been lost.The other is set on a different path, shaped by a determination to restore the family’s place in the world. As he wanders in search of recognition as a poet, ambition and survival begin to pull him in opposing ...
A fiendishly brutal but brilliant, charming English murder mystery, from Agatha Christie's favourite writer - the criminally underrated, Margery Allingham. Private detective Albert Campion is summoned to the village of Kepesake to investigate a particularly distasteful death. The body turns out to be that of Pig Peters, freshly killed five months after his own funeral.
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's stories of rebellion and sacrifice, where ordinary lives burn with extraordinary courageIn these tales of rebellion and sacrifice, ordinary lives burn with extraordinary courage. From fighters taking up arms against colonial rule to martyrs confronting impossible choices, these stories of struggle and resilience explore the cost of freedom and the endurance of the human spirit. Includes the stories: The Village Priest, The Black Bird, The Martyr, The Retur...
Herman Melville's enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to extreme limitsA new office clerk in a Wall Street lawyer's office is the cause for quiet dismay when he refuses to do his job. But how to deal with Bartleby, The Scrivener, especially when he refuses to leave the office altogether.... BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Two literary giants take to the road on a comic journey - both chaotic, and completely unforgettableTired of the grind of work, two apprentices set out on a walking tour with no fixed plan, determined to do as little as possible. As they drift from town to town, they encounter curious characters, regale strange stories and witness moments of quiet absurdity that disrupt their idleness. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting ...
A magical portrait of the mundane and everyday, made otherworldly in Gertrude Stein's one-of-a-kind prose poetry. Objects. Food.
And, Rooms. Together these three subjects make up Tender Buttons, Gerturde Stein's beautifully strange, everyday poetic observations about the world and home around her. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
In the decaying hills of Dunwich, something monstrous stirs Wilbur Whateley is a strange child – of uncertain parentage, growing to abnormal size at abnormal speed. Shunned by the villagers of Dunwich, Wilbur and his grandfather set out on tending to their own plan. But the otherworldly can’t be kept tame forever.The Dunwich Horror is H. P. Lovecraft’s terrifying tale of strange beings, forbidden knowledge and the power of unseen forces – and what follows when the wrong thing...
At a Christmas party, a revelation shatters a man's complacency foreverAt a winter gathering in Dublin, friends and family come together for an evening of music, conversation and ritual. As the night unfolds, small tensions surface, and a chance revelation alters one man’s understanding of his life and his marriage. The Dead is James Joyce’s masterful story of memory, loss and awakening.Quietly devastating, it captures an essential realisation of life that lingers long after ...
Georges Perec’s cool, exacting portrait of a couple torn apart by consumer desireA young couple build their lives around the objects they long to own. From furniture to clothes to carefully imagined interiors, their desires shape their sense of who they are – and who they might become. Yet satisfaction always seems just out of reach..Precise and quietly ironic, Things explores the promises of material life – and the emptiness that can follow. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novella...
Five of Franz Kafka’s most compelling short animal stories, where fable, dark humour and unease collideA community gathers to listen to the singing of a mouse. An ape addresses an academy to explain how he became human. A creature digs ever deeper into its burrow, gripped by fear of what might be lurking outside.In these strange and unsettling stories, animals speak plainly about their hopes, fears and fixations. Includes the stories: Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk, ...
A dazzling catalogue of be creatures drawn from the dreamworlds of myth, folklore, and imaginationFrom ancient myths to obscure legends, a strange menagerie takes shape: creatures part real, part invented, drawn from cultures across the world. Each is described with care, as if it might exist just beyond the edge of belief. The Book of Imaginary Beings is Jorge Luis Borges’s playful, erudite bestiary of the fantastic.Curious and endlessly inventive, it explores the power of i...
Two sisters must find their way in a world designed to confine them. Marcelle is the elder sister, a woman whose ambitions focus on becoming the companion of a 'man of genius'. Marguerite is the younger sister, a girl whose sanity depends on breaking free of the oppressive expectations of society. Both end up focusing their attentions on the same disappointing man. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over da...
Edith Wharton's ghost stories whisper of passion, exile, and the things we cannot forgetIn an old Dorset house, a couple settle into a life of quiet comfort – until a presence makes itself felt. At a country gathering, a man is forced to confront a long-buried secret he has tried to outrun. In a small New England community, suspicion gathers around a widower believed to be under the spell of a dead woman.Bewitched brings together three of Edith Wharton’s most unsettling ghost...
A magical, mystical novella about the art and power of storytelling, this is Italo Calvino's miniature masterpiece. A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then in a tavern. Having mysteriously lost their powers of speech, they must tell their tales using only a deck of tarot cards.
Dylan Thomas’s vivid, affectionate portrait of youth - and the journey towards finding one’s own artistic voiceA boy grows up in a small Welsh town, moving through school, family life and first encounters with the wider world in moments of mischief and self-discovery. Along the way, a sensibility begins to take shape – playful, observant and alive to the strangeness of the everyday. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or ...
Colette’s elegant, unsettling study of love turned hostile - and all because of a cat.
A young marriage begins to sour, poisoned by rivalry and resentment. At its centre is a cat – adored by the husband, despised by the wife – whose presence exposes the quiet cruelty and emotional imbalance of the household.
This is Alcott as you have never seen her before, sharp, gothic, and gloriously unsettlingJean Muir arrives at the wealthy Coventry household as a humble governess. But beneath her meek exterior lies a woman of steely ambition and dangerous cunning. What begins as a tale of domestic harmony turns swiftly into a drama of seduction, betrayal, and psychological gamesmanship. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured ...
Two of Dostoevsky's most powerful novellas of obsession, cruelty, and the fragility of the heartA pawnbroker paces beside his young wife’s body, attempting to piece together the circumstances that led to her suicide. A young man is overwhelmed by his own contentment and sows his ruin in a fierce attempt to protect it. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Step into the night where tombs lie open and wolves prowl under a cursed moonA solitary traveller strays from the road on the eve of Walpurgis Night. Snow closes in, strange figures emerge, and an abandoned tomb offers shelter. But what begins as a detour becomes a brush with something far older and more deadly.Dracula’s Guest gathers Bram Stoker’s eerie short fiction, steeped in dread and foreboding – four tales that explore the thin line between the rational world and the s...
Outrageous, and wickedly funny, Lady Susan introduces Jane Austen at her most scandalousRecently widowed and dangerously charming, Lady Susan Vernon arrives among her relatives determined to secure her own advantage. Through a flurry of letters, alliances shift, affections are tested, and reputations quietly unravel. Lady Susan is Jane Austen’s sharp, mischievous portrait of a woman who refuses to behave.Bold, manipulative and irresistibly alive, it reveals Austen at her most...
What begins as a miracle of science soon turns into a nightmare... After a plague wipes out all of Russia’s chickens, eyes fall on zoologist Periskov and his strange discovery that promises to revive their population. But quickly, the state’s attempt to control nature spirals rapidly out of control, and soon all of Moscow is under siege by creatures they hadn’t bargained for.The Fatal Eggs is Mikhail Bulgakov’s savage, darkly comic tale of progress gone wrong. Blending satire...
Huxley's dystopian classic is a nightmare vision of the fate of humanity in a post-nuclear world. After a devastating global catastrophe, a group of scientists arrives in a ruined future shaped by fear, ritual and violence. Humanity has survived – but at a terrible cost, and not in any form they recognise. Ape and Essence is Aldous Huxley’s bleak, satirical vision of civilisation after collapse. Fierce, strange and provocative, it confronts the destructive impulses that per...
When Rika Horauchi accepts an unusual new part-time job, she never expects to fall in love.Rika has been tasked with talking to Venus, to keep her company when the museum is closed on Mondays. As Venus comes to life in the quiet of their surroundings, she opens up new worlds for Rika, and they speak about everything. But when the museum’s curator, Hashibami, makes it clear he wants to keep Venus for himself, what will Rika do?When the Museum is Closed is by turns charming, fu...
Today’s dominant tech platforms are the most effective tools ever created for extracting wealth, destabilising the societies they plunder by creating vast inequality. One of the world's pre-eminent anti-monopoly experts explains how and why we must take back control.Our world is ruled by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amo...
These intimate love letters reveal the open relationship between de Beauvoir and Sartre, two of the twentieth century’s groundbreaking thinkers.Simone de Beauvoir lived her feminist philosophy. She never married or had children, she had affairs with both men and women, and she actively defied the norms for women of her era. At the same time, she conducted an intense, long-term relationship with the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, whom she referred to as her husband.De Beauvoir ...
She’s living a perfect life – so why does Laurence feel so torn?Weekends in the country, weekdays in Paris – Laurence’s life features all the trappings of 1960s French bourgeoisie. She has money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind writes copy while she’s at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office.All her life she has strived to meet the expectations of others. But when her 10-year...
Welcome to Soyangri Book KitchenIn a peaceful village in the countryside, Yoojin has left behind the stresses of her city life in Seoul and created a book lovers’ paradise, a sanctuary for weary souls just like herself. With its book-filled shelves and wafts of delicious food from the café, Soyangri Book Kitchen offers its guests a true escape: the warm embrace of an overnight bookstay.Over one year, as the seasons change, seven people at a turning point in their lives find t...
What if climate change isn’t an environmental challenge, but an energy challenge?'Fascinating' JAMES O'BRIEN'Thrilling...vividly written, filled with fascinating facts, and inspiring' STEVEN PINKERSunday Times, i Paper and Nature Book of the YearThis visionary book urges us to rethink the path to net zero, arguing that the solution to climate change lies not simply in replacing fossil fuels with renewables, but in fully embracing another energy source that emits zero carbon d...
Immersive, globe-spanning and full of detail and drama, The Revolutionists is an unprecedented account of a seismic decade that transformed the modern world.In the 1970s, a network of radical extremists terrorised the West with intricately planned plane hijackings and hostage-takings. Among them were the glamorous young Leila Khaled with her jewellery made from grenade rings, the hard-drinking Carlos the Jackal in shades and designer suits, and the radical leftists of the Baa...
In summer, and particularly when the wind blows south-west across the lawn, the sceptic tank gives out a strong stench… ‘Oh, it is a body,’ the girls say. ‘We have a body in there. No one you know. It decomposes, of course, but so slowly one quite despairs.’In their lovely, quiet Cotswolds village, Janet and Susan are known to the villagers simply as ‘the girls’. Partners in love and work, co-proprietors of a picturesque shop, they lead an enviable, enviably settled life.But ...
What if your mother knows you better than you know yourself?'Absolutely blissful... Get both books in the series: I’ll eat my hat if you don’t love them' India Knight, Sunday TimesREADERS LOVE ISLAND CALLING:‘An enchanting, funny novel full of beguiling characters!’‘Thoroughly enjoyable’‘A fabulous return to the wonderful Island of Tuga’‘I adore all the characters’On the remote island of Tuga de Oro, vet Charlotte Walker has been taken to the islanders’ hearts and, between da...
Tim Spector is on a mission to bring fermenting into our lives and kitchens. Drawing on cutting-edge science and his own experiments, with practical tips and recipes, Ferment is an accessible introduction and guide for beginners and fermenting enthusiasts alike.Fermenting is one of the most ancient techniques for preparing and preserving foods and drinks, requiring no more than a little knowledge, time, patience and basic materials to turn the humblest of ingredients into the...
Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Goldsmiths PrizeLonglisted for the Gordon Burn PrizeFrom the winner of the BBC National Short Story AwardThe lives of three teenage girls are torn apart by a secret in this gut-punch of a novel – for fans of Eliza Clark and Megan Nolan'It feels essential. You will read nothing else like it this year' GUARDIAN'Blistering, brilliant, savage and smart' EIMEAR McBRIDEAsk anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punch line of a...
It’s the late 1980s. Separated after a drug deal gone wrong, Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie each want to feel alive. They fill their days with sex and romance and trying to get ahead; they follow the call of the dance floor, with its promise of joy and redemption.Sick Boy begins an intense relationship with Amanda – rich, connected, his ‘princess’. When the pair set a date for their wedding, he sees a chance for his generation to take control at last.But as the 1990s dawn,...
A nostalgic tale of two lovers' journey through post-war France, from the author of SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW It is 1948 and a young American couple arrive in war-torn France for a long holiday. Full of anticipation and enthusiasm, Harold and Barbara Rhodes find themselves enchanted by the glamour and charm of Paris. But as they travel further into the countryside they meet a people still overcoming devastation, and their reception at the Château Beaumesnil is not all the op...
‘Astounding. Will change how you think about your body and live your life’ CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN‘A great book from a world expert’ TIM SPECTOR‘The best book on immune health I have ever read’ ALICE ROBERTS** A DAILY MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 **Is it true that orange juice wards off colds? Are mental health and inflammation really connected? How do we distinguish bogus claims from useful advice – and what can we actually do to support our immune system and stay healthy?Worl...
I cannot recommend it highly enough' INDIA KNIGHT * 'I was riveted by every single page' ELIZABETH DAY * 'Dazzling and surprising' CLOVER STROUD * 'I loved this book' JULIA SAMUEL**AN iNEWS BOOK OF THE YEAR**A beautifully written blend of memoir, first-person stories and social history that uncovers the most enigmatic yet revealing aspect of human behaviour: secrecyThe average person is keeping thirteen secrets at any one time, five of which they’ve never shared with a soul. ...
The global, open internet is fragmenting.As democracies seek to rein in the power of Big Tech, as Silicon Valley pivots to an America-first agenda, as authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia segregate their populations from the rest of the internet, the most powerful tool ever created for bringing the world together risks being dismantled.Taking us behind the scenes at Meta and his interactions with world leaders, Nick Clegg, Meta’s former President, Global Affairs, se...
Reality bends all the more acutely with lack of sleep in this stunning novel from the master of the surreal.Eyes mark the shape of the cityThe midnight hour approaches in an almost-empty diner. Mari sips her coffee and reads a book, but soon her solitude is disturbed: a girl has been beaten up at the Alphaville hotel, and needs Mari's help.Meanwhile Mari's beautiful sister Eri lies in a deep, heavy sleep that is 'too perfect, too pure' to be normal; it has lasted for two mont...
** A NATURE, WALL STREET JOURNAL AND THE TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR **A wondrous, mind-expanding journey into our planet’s least explored and most critical frontier: the ocean – and the astonishing, ancient creatures who call it home. For hundreds of millions of years, the seas’ spineless creatures were the only animals on Earth. Hidden in the ocean’s vast depths, they have adapted to thrive in an evolving world, and only now are we beginning to discover their superpowers.Th...
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES, BBC, TIME, VOGUE, MARIE CLAIRE, ESQUIRE and ROLLING STONE BOOK TO READ IN 2025Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool...
The Sunday Times bestselling landmark history of the alliance that won the war and made the peace from the author of the acclaimed Appeasing HitlerAfter the fall of France in June 1940, only Britain stood between Hitler and total victory. Desperate for allies, Winston Churchill did everything he could to bring the United States into the conflict, drive the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany apart and persuade neutral countries to resist German domination.By 1942, after the German ...
Enchanting and fascinating, discover the extraordinary world of Britain's ordinary garden birds, related by the brilliant, unconventional woman who opened her doors to them.In the late 1930s, Len Howard packed up her life in London, bought a plot of land in Sussex and built herself a little house there. This was to be Bird Cottage, a place where the doors of the house were open to the birds of the garden – great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds, willow warblers and many ot...
** WINNER OF THE FT SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 ****A SUNDAY TIMES, ECONOMIST AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025**This is the story of the company that is inventing the future.Nvidia is the world’s first $5-trillion company and the most important corporation on Earth. Led by its charismatic CEO, Jensen Huang, it has gone from video game equipment manufacturer to conquering the global market for AI hardware, reinventing the computer and shaping life as we k...
'Many authors know how to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Jo Nesbo's one of the few who keeps them there' Linwood Barclay'A series of spectacular plot twists leads to a thrilling finale. Highly recommended' GuardianTHE MARK OF THE DEVIL.A young woman is murdered in her flat and a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star is found behind her eyelid.THE SIGN OF A KILLER.Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case, alongside his long-time adversary ...
A Sunday Times Best Book of 2025More and more people are being diagnosed with ADHD and autism.More and more people are being diagnosed with mental disorders.Young people are being medicalised for behaviours that might be explained as entirely normal in other parts of the world.Distress has been commodified over many decades by pharmaceutical companies, the media and the psychiatric establishment.So how can we know when distress is normal and when it is something that needs to...
A revelatory account of the racist conspiracy theory that now pervades global politics – from the prize-winning author of the million-copy bestseller How To Be an AntiracistThroughout the world, authoritarian movements are radically reshaping our politics and our lives. At the heart of them all lies ‘great replacement theory’, which insists that peoples of colour, migrants and minorities are being deliberately empowered to displace white majorities.In Chain of Ideas, Ibram X....
The Genius of Trees tells the mind-expanding global story of the inventive and astonishing ways trees learned to shape our natural world.Over hundreds of millions of years, from prehistoric forests to the trees around us today, we see trees using fire as a reproductive tool, harnessing large mammals to spread their seeds (but poisoning smaller, less useful mammals), and splitting rock to create fertile ground in barren landscapes.Because trees, we discover, manipulate fundame...
