Quartet Books – förlag

Written with verve and a mordant wit, 'The Wheels of Society' is a vivid, cogent, ground-breaking proposal for us to re-think ourselves in order to steer civilisation back to safety. As a species we seem to cling on to the power and influence of 'the old normal'. Forests and valleys are decimated so that businessmen can be in Manchester 30 minutes faster; thousands of airline seats are sold for the price of a free-range chicken so that hundreds of short-haul planes can devastate the atmosphere and enable drunken escapades in Barcelona rather than Soho; the rich get even richer and the poor get Covid 19. Bankers conspire in the fraudulent abuse of people's savings, yet can keep their loot, saved by governments supposed to protect their citizens but who fail to hold a single perpetrator to account. Is this how we are supposed to be? The biology of society becomes visible when hubris is side-stepped. First, natural selfishness must be overcome before individuals can assemble altruistically into a working group - a rather wonderful achievement. Our cooperating groups, which make up the hierarchy of society, are living things in their own right. Then, once assembled, the group must perform trial-and-error cycles to do life's vital functions. Wilson's 'assembly-and-performance thinking' combines these two mechanisms into a simple scientific theory of society which applies, with variations, to all cooperating creatures - not just to humans.

In 1979, Jonathan Dimbleby wrote a seminal book on the plight of the Palestinian people from the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 onwards. It chronicled their struggles and their dreams of a homeland. Through extensive interviews, along with peerless intimate Photographs from Don Mccullin it gave a voice to the people: to the old men who were children when the Balfour Declaration prepared the way for the exodus from Palestine; to the children who were born in the diaspora and who were then willing to contemplate certain death in a guerilla war rather than surrender the right to their homeland. The Palestinians is about individuals - lawyers, doctors, diplomats, craftsmen, students, labourers, businessmen, politicians, soldiers, fighters and peasants. Through them the book explores the crisis of a people without a land, demonstrating that the 'Palestinian problem' is not an abstract issue but an urgent human tragedy. Until this is recognized, Jonathan Dimbleby argues, in an updated foreword, there can be no just or lasting peace in the Middle East.

What does it take to build a high-growth business while navigating regulatory minefields, economic volatility and cultural barriers in some of the world's most complex markets? In this fast-paced, eye-opening account, Charlie Barlow - entrepreneur and founder of pioneering telehealth company Health at Hand - takes you from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and even Iran, as he battles to scale his startup and build the business of his dreams. From venture-capital struggles to legal threats, demoralising setbacks to hard-won breakthroughs, this is not a polished tale of effortless success, but the unfiltered reality of entrepreneurship. Barlow relates his story with a refreshing honesty, wit and self-reflection and lays bare painful lessons he had to learn, along with the resilience needed to survive in the high-stakes startup world. Unlike books that paint founders as infallible geniuses, this story embraces failure as part of the journey - and, ultimately, its teller falls short of his stratospheric ambitions. But if you're an entrepreneur - or thinking of becoming one - this is the handbook you never knew you needed. Learn from his achievements and mistakes, accelerate your journey towards success and discover what it truly takes to snag that most elusive of beasts - the unicorn.

Leaving Russia follows Jason Corcoran as he and his family flee Moscow after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, joining a historic exodus of Russians escaping repression, fear, and moral collapse. As they struggle to rebuild their lives in Ireland, Corcoran becomes entangled in a chilling investigation into two powerful oligarchs seeking EU 'golden passports.' The book chronicles the experiences of a director, a musician, an investment banker, a billionaire entrepreneur, an opposition leader, and a tech founder, all swept up in the mass flight from Russia. As they flee, these individuals face the personal and professional consequences of a society in moral and political freefall, while elites scramble to secure EU residency in an attempt to straddle both worlds. Corcoran provides an insider's view of a nation unravelling. War, corruption, and state propaganda have emptied Russia of dissidents, artists, and entrepreneurs, while compelling once-powerful oligarchs to return to a country they scarcely recognise. Through vivid storytelling and incisive analysis, Leaving Russia exposes the human cost of Putin's regime and examines what it means to lose - and to search for - a homeland in a fractured world.

Jeremy Clarke was first diagnosed with cancer in 2013. These columns cover the period from that shock diagnosis up until his death in May 2023. He chronicled his battle with the disease with humour and defiance, but never self-pity. He also met Catriona Olding in 2013. They would fall in love and eventually marry shortly before his death. He recounts this journey with tenderness and honesty. His columns cover life in Devon and then France, as well as drinking and occasional drug taking, his love of literature, and life itself, and are imbued with bathos, insight, and a finely honed sense of the absurd.