Swift Press – serie

A Book of the Year in The Economist and Daily MailA Barack Obama 2024 Summer Reading List Pick'One of the most important non-fiction books of the year' - Sunday TimesBoys are 50% more likely than girls to fail at all three key school subjects: maths, reading and scienceIn the US, the wages of most men are lower today than they were in 1979, while women’s wages have risen across the boardIn the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45Boys are falling behind at school and college because the educational system is structed in ways that put them at a disadvantage. Men are struggling in the labour market because of an economic shift away from traditionally male jobs. And fathers are dislocated because the cultural role of family provider has been hollowed out. The male malaise is not the result of a mass psychological breakdown, but of deep structural challenges.Structural challenges require structural solutions, and this is what Richard V. Reeves proposes in Of Boys and Men – starting boys at school a year later than girls; getting more men into caring professions; rethinking the role of fatherhood outside of a nuclear family context.Feminism has done a huge amount of good in the world. We now need its corollary – a positive vision of masculinity that is compatible with gender equality.

Privilege, sex, scandal, and murder.The new novel from Sunday Times-bestselling author James Frey. 'Will be the novel on every beach towel this summer, all summer, everywhere' Esquire'A deliriously over-the-top portrait of decadence on the brink' Bustle'A Connecticut sex romp-cum-murder mystery' Vanity FairBehind every great fortune, lies a great crime - Honoré de BalzacNew Bethlehem, Connecticut. Picture-perfect lawns, manicured hedges, multi-million dollar homes. But beneath the designer yoga gear and country club memberships lies a darker reality.In this world of excess, Devon and Belle have it all – beauty, money, status. But they want something more. Something dangerous. Something that makes them feel alive. Their solution? A party – a meticulously curated gathering of New Bethlehem’s elite, from a desperate ex-NFL quarterback to a hockey coach with a penchant for married women, and a ruthless Wall Street ‘closer’ who wields his wealth like a weapon.One night. Multiple betrayals. And a murder that will shatter New Bethlehem’s carefully constructed facade.Fans of The White Lotus and Big Little Lies will be drawn into the dark underbelly of the American Dream – a world where money can buy anything, until it ruins everything.READERS ARE THRILLED, UNSETTLED AND SEDUCED‘Sharp, provocative … Captivates with its blend of dark humour and social commentary’‘Dark, disturbing and funny’‘Transcends simple categorization - part thriller, part social satire, part moral fable - and the result is both entertaining and deeply unsettling’‘A mix of wit, mystery and dark undertone … I couldn’t put it down … Perfect pool side reading’‘I deeply loved this book … the ending slaps’‘Super fun and sexy summer read! Rich people behaving badly’

'This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius' - QUESTLOVEEqual parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century.He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, and when he died at age thirty-two, he had never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod, revered as one of the most important musical figures of the past hundred years. At the core of this adulation is innovation: as the producer behind some of the most influential rap and R&B acts of his day, Dilla created a new kind of musical time-feel, an accomplishment on a par with the revolutions wrought by Louis Armstrong and James Brown. Dilla and his drum machine reinvented the way musicians play.In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted Detroit childhood to his rise as a sought-after hip-hop producer to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death. He follows the people who kept Dilla and his ideas alive. And he rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of Motown soul to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new.This is the story of a complicated man and his machines; his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators; and his undeniable legacy. Based on nearly two hundred original interviews, and filled with graphics that teach us to feel and "see" the rhythm of Dilla's beats, Dilla Time is a book as defining and unique as J Dilla's music itself.Financial Times Music Book of the Year 2022

Britain’s economy is stuck.In recent years, a succession of economic shocks has led to low growth, stagnant living standards and divided politics. As debt and taxes have risen to record levels, many worry that the UK economy is stuck in a low-growth trap with ruinous implications for future generations.Jeremy Hunt was Chancellor during one of those shocks and successfully navigated the economy out of both inflation and recession. He argues that despite widespread pessimism, Britain still has a lot going for it – the third largest technology ecosystem in the world, a huge financial services sector, globally admired universities and respected institutions. What’s more, the solutions to our economic malaise are in plain sight if we are willing to learn from what works elsewhere.Can We Be Rich Again? sets out a credible case for optimism when it comes to the future of Britain’s economy, and a roadmap of how we might get there.

‘SUFFUSED WITH JOY’ Guardian, ‘PROPHETIC’ Daily Mail, ‘BEAUTIFUL’ Scotsman, ‘IMMERSIVE’ IMAGEPerched on a hill above a village by the sea, the high house has a mill, a vegetable garden and a barn full of supplies.Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive there one day to find it cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally. Not quite a family, they learn to live together, and care for one another.But there are limits even to what the ailing Grandy knows about how to survive, and, if the storm comes, it might not be enough.‘Deeply moving … so grounded in reality and the ordinariness of the lives of this disparate group, that I had to read parts of it through my fingers’ Good Housekeeping Books of the Year

Do you want to write a poem? This book will show you ‘how to grow your own poem’…Kate Clanchy has been teaching people to write poetry for more than twenty years. Some were old, some were young; some were fluent English speakers, some were not. None of them were confident to start with, but a surprising number went to win prizes and every one finished up with a poem they were proud of, a poem that only they could have written – their own poem.Kate’s big secret is a simple one: to share other poems. She believes poetry is like singing or dancing and the best way to learn is to follow someone else. In this book, Kate shares the poems she has found provoke the richest responses, the exercises that help to shape those responses into new poems, and the advice that most often helps new writers build their own writing practice.If you have never written a poem before, this book will get you started. If you have written poems before, this book will help you to write more fluently and confidently, more as yourself. This book not like other creative writing books. It doesn’t ask you to set out on your own, but to join in. Your invitation is inside.

Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill and writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a cult following. Two decades later, some teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor.Tom Cox’s masterful debut novel synthesises his passion for music, nature and folklore into a psychedelic and enthralling exploration of village life and the countryside that sustains it.

A Times, Express and Daily Mail Book of the Year 2022The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent returns with a riveting legal thriller in which a reckless private detective is embroiled in a fraught police scandalLucia Gomez is a female police chief in a man’s world and she’s walked a fine line to succeed at the top. Now a trio of police officers in Kindle County have accused her of soliciting sex for promotions and she’s in deep.Rik Dudek is an attorney and old friend of Lucia’s. He’s the only one she can trust, but he’s never had a headline criminal case. This ugly smear campaign is already breaking the internet and will be his biggest challenge yet.Clarice ‘Pinky’ Granum is a fearless PI who plays by her own rules. Her 4-D imagination is her biggest asset when it comes to digging up dirt for Rik but not all locks are best picked.It’s cops against cops in this hive of lies. And it will take more than honeyed words from the defence to change the punchline and save the Chief from her own cell.

'THE UNDISPUTED NUMBER ONE OF SNOOKER BOOKS' BARRY HEARN ‘Terrific’ Phil Yates, snooker broadcaster‘Must-read … Enthralling’ Neal Foulds, former world no.3 ‘Perfection!’ Alan McManus, former Masters champion ‘A truly great read’ Hazel Irvine, sports presenter‘Read this book for the story, which is spectacular; the analysis, which is surprisingly cogent; and for the deep knowledge and love of the game, which are hard to resist' SpectatorA Telegraph Book of the Year 2025Snooker is a British success story, a working-class game which became a multi-million pound professional sport, exported to the world. A sublime test of skill and nerve, it has fascinated succeeding generations of players and spectators.In this new history of the sport, David Hendon shows how the fortunes of snooker have mirrored wider changes in British society. Beginning as an upper-class pursuit invented in the British Raj, snooker was taken up in the working men’s clubs of industrial Britain. It nearly ceased to exist as an organised sport in the late 1950s, before reviving and becoming big business in the Thatcher era: 18.5m people watched the famous 1985 World Championship final. Since then, it has become a global sport, most notably in China and the Far East.Weaving the big picture with the personal stories of snooker’s big characters, from Alex Higgins and Jimmy White to Ronnie O’Sullivan, anyone who has ever wielded a cue or breathlessly watched a marathon safety exchange will love this book.

‘Brilliant, bold and beautifully articulated’ Karl J. Friston, Professor of Neuroscience, University College LondonNeuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin reveals the miracle by which consciousness evolved out of the natural world, from the birth of the cell to the majesty of our modern minds.Science says that you are nothing but a chemical reaction – a collection of atoms and molecules – like rocks, paperclips and everything else in the physical universe. But if that’s so, where is the place in this world for your consciousness? In a word, why does it feel so special to be you?Like the Zen Buddhist riddle pondering the imponderable – the sound of a single hand clapping – this book asks the seemingly unanswerable question of how the human mind came to exist within the material world. In search of an answer, neuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin takes readers on a billion-year journey through time from the roots of our existence to the advent of Homo sapiens, reimagining the story of our evolution. The result is an exhilarating book that embeds our consciousness within a single, unified story of life on Earth.A work of ambitious intellectual scope, One Hand Clapping is distinguished as much by its originality as by the breadth of its imaginative reach – drawing from neuroscience, evolution, philosophy and a rich tapestry of cultural references, all brought to life by the author’s own illustrations. Told with the drama and daring of a mythical epic, it reaches deep into our oceanic past to show for the first time how the entire course of Earth’s history, from the earliest non-living particles, ultimately led to the formation of our own minds.

A TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES, GQ, FINANCIAL TIMES AND BLOOMBERG BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025'A big, bustling novel about love, friendship, money, ambition and the 21st century, packed with humour and intelligent observations ... I finished it tear-stained' Sunday Times'Will have you hooked ... an ode to the enduring power of male friendship' The Times Best Summer Books'My book of the summer' Janice Turner'Thrilling' GuardianLonglisted for the FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025For the first time since university, James and Roland’s paths through life – one drawn in straight lines, the other squiggled and meandering – began to cross…James Drayton has always found things too easy. By the time he leaves university, he’s still waiting for a challenge worthy of his ambitions. Roland Mackenzie, on the other hand, is an impulsive risk-taker, a charismatic drifter with a knack for derailing his own attempts to get started in life.When a chance encounter in a pub reunites these old acquaintances, it sets them on an unpredictable course through the upheavals of the twenty-first century, and sparks an unlikely alliance. Sent to Aberdeen during the financial crisis to lay off hundreds of workers, James and Roland begin to wonder: what if they were made for more than this? What if together they could build something grand and lasting – something that might even change the world?

‘A sublime gem of a novel’ Hannah Kent, author of Burial RitesFifteen years after graduating from Harvard, five close friends on the cusp of middle age are still pursuing an elusive happiness and wondering if they’ve wasted their youthful opportunities. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life and starting to regret prioritising meaning over wealth in their careers. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways but won’t share what is haunting her. Eloise, now a professor who studies the psychology of happiness, is troubled by her younger wife’s radical politics. And Jomo, founder of a luxury jewellery company, has been carrying an engagement ring around for months, unsure whether his girlfriend is the one.The soul searching begins in earnest at their much-anticipated college reunion weekend on the Harvard campus, when the most infamous member of their class, Frederick – senior advisor and son of the recently elected and loathed US President – turns up dead.Old friends often think they know everything about one another, but time has a way of making us strangers to those we love – and to ourselves...

‘Fascinating’ Margaret AtwoodCan taking the law into your own hands be the right thing to do?In June 2013, three upstanding citizens of a small town in Nova Scotia murdered their neighbour, Phillip Boudreau, while out fishing.Boudreau was an inventive small-time criminal who had terrorised and entertained Petit de Grat for two decades. He had been in prison for nearly half his adult life. He was funny and frightening, loathed, loved and feared. Boudreau seemed invincible, a miscreant who would plague the village forever. As many people said, if those fellows hadn't killed him, someone else would have.Blood in the Water is a gripping story in a brilliantly drawn setting, about power and law, security and self-respect, and the nature of community. And at its heart is a disturbing question: are there times when taking the law into your own hands is not only understandable but the responsible thing to do?

BOOK OF THE YEAR in The Times, the Sunday Times and the Financial TimesHave you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only white people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed so quickly to challenge the very logic of Western society?Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma behind these ideas, from its origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Today this dogma is recognisable as much by its effects, such as cancel culture and social-media pile-ons, as by its assertions, which are all too often taken as read: knowledge is a social construct; science and reason are tools of oppression; all human interactions are sites of oppressive power play; and language is dangerous. As they warn, the unchecked proliferation of these beliefs present a threat to liberal democracy.While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how often-radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalised communities it claims to champion.

For centuries the sailors of the Royal Navy have been famous for their colourful language. Trapped aboard leaky ships and creaking vessels for months, sometimes years, on end, the crews developed a peculiar language all of their own.Veteran sailor Gerald O’Driscoll celebrated the Royal Navy's heydey and preserved its unique language in this hilarious and fascinating collection.Taking the reader from 'Acting green' all the way to 'Water-rat', A Dictionary of Naval Slang is a treasury of naval argot, jargon, lingo and cant, and a window on the lost world of living on the high seas.First published in 1943, this modern gift edition comes with a foreword by author and former Royal Navy submariner Richard Humphreys.Clampy - Nickname for the owner of very large feet.Gutzkrieg - A pain in the stomach.Rum-fiend - As the term implies, a man who is a glutton for rum.Scaly-back - A veteran; one who has been too long in the navy.Tin-eye - Nickname given to anyone who sports a monocle.Wall-flower - Scathing reference to any ship which remains moored to a dockyard wall for a long period.

Diversity, equity and inclusion programmes have the admirable goal of creating a welcoming environment for everyone. Increasingly, however, people are realising that the way they are commonly practised isn’t simply an extension of past civil rights movements. Instead, they’re often intertwined with Critical Social Justice ideology, which imposes its principles and punishes any disagreement.Mild questions about Critical Social Justice claims – like all white people being racists or all minorities being oppressed, or sex differences having no biological basis – are met with curt commands by DEI trainers and HR officers: ‘Educate yourself,’ ‘Do the work,’ ‘Listen and learn.’ Advancements at work and school often depend on agreeing with these beliefs. Critical Social Justice ideology poses a real threat to rights and democracy, yet speaking out risks social backlash. When choosing between compliance and ethical opposition, what’s the right path?Based on the author’s years of experience studying, exposing and fighting Critical Social Justice ideology and advising people and organisations struggling with it, The Counterweight Handbook is designed to help people address Critical Social Justice problems in the most ethical and effective way possible.

Many of us are drawn to a life in the arts but daunted by the realities of how to afford it. It is impossible to become an accomplished painter, composer or novelist without spending time experimenting, reading, talking and moping about the house. All this time must be purchased, one way or another. Is the history of art and ideas just a history of rich kids?The answer, of course, is no. William Carlos Williams was a family doctor. Franz Kafka was an insurance man. James Joyce mooched off his brother and Virginia Woolf was determined to make her writing pay no matter what. From family money to colourful schemes, Mason Currey, author of the acclaimed Daily Rituals, explores the well-worn and unlikely paths forward for the up-and-coming artist. Making Art and Making a Living is an entertaining examination of the collision of creative ambitions with real-world necessities, and of the messy compromises that gifted individuals have patched together to pursue an artistic life.

'A thoughtful, serious and well-written book that tackles an immensely important subject' - ObserverHow many avoidable deaths are there in the NHS every week?150.What figure should we aim for?Zero.The NHS is the pride of Britain. It’s an army of highly skilled and talented healthcare professionals, armed with the most cutting-edge therapies and medicines, and a budget bigger than the GDP of most countries in the world.Yet avoidable failures are common. And the result is tragic deaths up and down the country every day.Jeremy Hunt, the longest-serving Health Secretary in history, knows exactly what the cost is. In the letters he received from bereaved family members, he was constantly confronted by the heart-breaking reality of slip-ups and mistakes.There is increasing conflict between public pride in the NHS and the exhausted daily reality for many doctors and nurses, now experiencing burnout in record numbers. Waiting lists are up, staffing numbers inadequate, and all the while an ageing population and medical advances increase both demand and expectations. With pressures like these, is it surprising that mistakes start to creep in?This great British institution is crying out for renewal. In Zero, taking the broadest approach, thinking through everything from staffing to technology, budgets to culture, Hunt presents a manifesto for that renewal.Mistakes happen. But nobody deserves to become a statistic in an NHS hospital. That’s why we need to aim for zero.

The House Next to the Factory shows a changing India over three decades through the lens of one family and the house that they live in.Life in the house is humdrum and confining, but on a rare evening out, Kavya sets off in search of a nun; a beloved teacher is caught in the aftermath of the anti-Sikh riots; a loyal servant worries over his relationship with a low caste woman; while in England, an aunt reads William Trevor and pines for all that she has left behind. Over the years, the family's steel utensil business blossoms, and amid the clanging of metal and the churning of machines, the household transitions from bourgeois to elite. Yet at thirty, Kavya finds herself in Paris, hoping to get past the sorrows of her young life…Delicate and finely textured, Sonal Kohli's extraordinary debut lays bare the complexities of class and culture and the difficulties as well as excitements of change, even as it evokes loves and triumphs, the pull of incongruous desires and the tragedies of everyday life.

We did not stay in our houses. Not in the way our grandmothers had, or our mothers. We went out a little more and veiled ourselves a little less. Some of us longed for more learning and dreamed about leaving home to get it. The elders shook their heads and cautioned: too much education could ruin a girl’s future.To be a Muslim girl in the Sri Lanka of the 50s and 60s was to have to stay inside once you hit puberty; where even a glimpse of flesh was forbidden; and where things were done the way they’d always been done.But Yasmin Azad’s family is full of love, humour and larger-than-life characters, despite the strictures half of them were under. And almost despite himself, Yasmin’s father allows her an education – an education that would open the whole world to her, even as it risked closing her off from those she was closest to.An extraordinary portrait of a time and a community in the midst of profound change, Stay, Daughter vividly evokes a now-vanished world, but its central clash – that of tradition and modernity – is one that will always be with us.

'Quietly magical ... a book that draws you in and then refuses to let you go' - Stephen May, author of Sell Us the RopeSummer Dawidowitz has spent the past year caring for her grandmother, Josie — a lifelong Communist, a dedicated teacher, and the founder of an organization that tutors schoolchildren. When Josie dies, everything that seemed solid in Summer’s life comes into question. What sort of relationship will she have with the mother who abandoned her? Will she meet with the brother Josie exiled from the family? Does she really want to go back to the non-monogamous household she was part of before she moved in to take care of Josie?Finally, does she still believe a small, committed group of citizens can change the world, and if so - how?Reader Reviews‘A compassionate and well-observed exploration of troubled families and relationships … perceptive and quietly moving’‘An intriguing family saga’‘Excellent, deep and very funny’

‘The most beautifully written description of what cooking is all about, and what it actually is, with recipes' Nigella LawsonThrough the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks.In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs know: that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them.She explains how to smarten up simple food and gives advice for fixing dishes gone awry. She recommends turning to neglected onions, celery and potatoes for inexpensive meals that taste full of fresh vegetables, and cooking meat and fish resourcefully.By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.The Times/Sunday Times Food Book of the Year 2022

How games are being harnessed as instruments of exploitation – and what we can do about itWarehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving. China scores its citizens so they behave well, and games with in-app purchases use achievements to empty your wallet.Points, badges and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life. In You’ve Been Played, game designer Adrian Hon delivers a blistering takedown of how corporations, schools and governments use games and gamification as tools for profit and coercion. These are games that we often have no choice but to play, where losing has heavy penalties. You’ve Been Played is a scathing indictment of a tech-driven world that wants to convince us that misery is fun, and a call to arms for anyone who hopes to preserve their dignity and autonomy.

The Empress is a dazzling reimagining of the courtship between one of history's most iconic and beloved couples: Sisi and Franz of Austria.The year is 1853, and sixteen-year-old Elisabeth "Sisi" of Bavaria has been very clear: she will wait for the sweeping, head-over-heels kind of love the poets speak of, or she will have no love at all. It is not her fault Mother refuses to listen. After all, just because her older sister Helene has chosen the line of duty, and is preparing to marry Emperor Franz of Austria, does not mean Sisi also needs to subject herself to such a passionless, regimented existence. Sisi knows there is more to life than corsets, luncheons, and woefully unfashionable dukes … if only someone would give her the chance to experience it firsthand.Meanwhile, in Austria, the Emperor is recovering from an assassination attempt that left him wounded and scared. In a bid to keep the peace, Franz has recommitted himself to his imperial duties-and promised to romance the pliant Bavarian princess, Helene, at his upcoming birthday celebration. How better to unite the country than with the announcement of a new Empress?But when Sisi and Franz meet unexpectedly in the palace gardens, away from the prying eyes and relentless critique of their families, their connection cannot be denied. And as their illicit conversations turn into something more, they must soon choose between the expectations of the court, and the burning desires of their hearts…Epic, captivating, and deliciously steamy, The Empress is a remarkably contemporary tale of falling in love and finding one's voice.

‘The Wicker Man meets Rebecca, with darkly beautiful surroundings and mysterious, brooding locals - this is the perfect summer holiday read' Fiona Leitch, bestselling author of the Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker cozy crime series‘Intriguing contemporary whodunnit … profoundly unsettling' Crime Fiction Lover‘The Gothic environment, at times evocative of some of the tales of Daphne du Maurier, is powerfully etched’ Crime TimeIN THE HEART OF CORNWALL, A MURDEROUS MIDSUMMER BEGINS ...At midsummer the Cornish villagers of Trevennick dance around bonfires and make offerings to the river. It’s not the sort of thing that appeals to Audrey Delaney, who is very much a city mouse. But when her (sort of) boyfriend Noah whisks her away on a surprise trip to the West Country, she’s determined to do the best she can to enjoy herself, if that’s what it takes to remove the question mark from their relationship.Then their first night ends in tragedy, and Audrey finds herself embroiled in a police enquiry and unsure who to trust. She’ll have to untangle the mysteries of this insular community quickly, though, because people are dying fast. THE RIVER WILL HAVE ITS DUE ...READERS WHO JOINED THE DANCE‘I loved the mix of old folklore/rituals, (giving off The Wicker Man vibes), with a locked door mystery, that I didn’t expect … phenomenal’‘One of my favourite books of the summer … really excellent’‘Perfect midsummer read’‘This book had me quickly turning the pages, eager to know what might happen next’‘I was instantly hooked … Add this to your TBR!’’An atmospheric tale that kept my attention from start to finish’

‘This complex, compelling tale is told with simplicity and grace' - The TimesA story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.For millennia the location of the Nile River's headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the mid-19th century, Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for Britain. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, Burton’s opposite in temperament and beliefs.From the start the two men clashed. They would endure tremendous hardship, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, the two became sworn enemies.Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan’s army, and eventually travelled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without Bombay and men like him, who led, carried, and protected the expedition, neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived.

'Essential reading for all parents and professionals supporting young people struggling with the issue of gender identity’ Louise PerryBeing the parent of a gender-questioning child is confusing. There is a lot of advice out there, but much of it goes against what many parents feel instinctively is the right approach. And the stakes are very high if you get it wrong.There have been many books written for parents who are facilitating a child’s gender transition, but almost none for parents who decide that social or medical transition is not the best option for their child.Written by three professionals working in the field – Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano and Stella O’Malley – When Kids Say They're Trans is explicitly a resource for parents who want their children to flourish, but do not believe that hasty medicalisation is the best way to ensure long-term health and well-being.Parents who have successfully helped their children navigate gender distress without resorting to surgery and hormones have done so by actively taking the reins, not waiting until they found the right therapist or doctor. When Kids Say They're Trans will tell you all you need to know, and will give you the confidence to trust your own instincts.

'Not since Joan Didion in her prime has a writer reported from inside inside a system gone mad with this much style, intelligence and wit ... A perfect book' Caitlin FlanaganFrom former New York Times reporter Nellie Bowles comes an irreverent romp through the sacred spaces of the new left.As a Hillary voter, a New York Times reporter, and a frequent attendee at her local gay bars, Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco neighbors and friends - until she started questioning whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people.When her colleagues suggested that asking these questions meant she was 'on the wrong side of history,' Bowles did what any reporter worth her salt would do: she started investigating for herself. The answers she found were stranger - and funnier - than she’d expected.In Morning After the Revolution, Bowles gives readers a front-row seat to the absurd drama of a political movement gone mad. With irreverent accounts of attending a multi-day course on 'The Toxic Trends of Whiteness,' following the social justice activists who run 'Abolitionist Entertainment, LLC,' and trying to please the New York Times's 'disinformation czar,' she deftly exposes the more comic excesses of a movement that went from a sideshow to the very centre of Western life.Deliciously funny and painfully insightful, Morning After the Revolution is a moment of collective psychosis preserved in amber.

The music that would come to be known as hip-hop was born at a party in the Bronx in the summer of 1973. Now, fifty years later, it’s the most popular music genre in America. Just as jazz did in the first half of the twentieth century, hip-hop and its groundbreaking DJs and artists—nearly all of them people of colour from some of America’s most overlooked communities—pushed the boundaries of music to new frontiers, while transfixing the country’s youth and reshaping fashion, art, and even language.And yet, the stories of many hip-hop pioneers and their individual contributions in the pre-Internet days of mixtapes and word of mouth are rarely heard—and some are at risk of being lost forever. Now, in The Come Up, the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Abrams offers the most comprehensive account so far of hip-hop’s rise, a multi-decade chronicle told in the voices of the people who made it happen.In more than three hundred interviews conducted over three years, Abrams has captured the stories of the DJs, executives, producers, and artists who both witnessed and themselves forged the history of hip-hop. Masterfully combining these voices into a seamless symphonic narrative, Abrams traces how the genre grew out of the resourcefulness of a neglected population in the South Bronx, and from there how it flowed into New York City’s other boroughs, and beyond—from electrifying live gatherings, then on to radio and vinyl, below to the Mason-Dixon Line, west to Los Angeles through gangster rap and G-funk, and then across generations.Abrams has on record Grandmaster Caz detailing hip-hop’s infancy, Edward “Duke Bootee” Fletcher describing the origins of “The Message,” DMC narrating his role in introducing hip-hop to the mainstream, Ice Cube recounting N.W.A’s breakthrough and breakup, Kool Moe Dee recalling his Grammys boycott, and countless more key players. Throughout, Abrams conveys with singular vividness the drive, the stakes, and the relentless creativity that ignited one of the greatest revolutions in modern music.The Come Up is an exhilarating behind-the-scenes account of how hip-hop came to rule the world—and an essential contribution to music history.