Category Archives: Travel Guides
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
`This is the most important conversation of our time, and Tegmark`s thought-provoking book will help you join it` Stephen HawkingTHE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEARAI is the future – but what will that future look like? Will superhuman intelligence be our slave, or become our god?Taking us to the
The 24-Hour Wine Expert
This is the essential guide to wine in eighty pages. Many wine drinkers wish they knew more about it without having to understand every detail or go on a wine course. In The 24-Hour Wine Expert, Jancis Robinson shares her expertise with authority, wit and approachability. From the difference between red and white, to the
The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State
`Gripping … revelatory … unrivalled` Tom Holland, New Statesman`From Mosul to Melbourne, from Cairo to Tokyo, from London to Oslo, from Connecticut to California: Graeme Wood`s quest to understand the Islamic State is a round-the-world journey to the end of the night` Niall Ferguson `A hugely important book … Indispensable` David Aaronovitch, The TimesA radical
Where The Animals Go: Tracking Wildlife with Technology in 50 Maps and Graphics
`Turn the pages to revel in the techno-tracking that is revealing the secrets of animal lives. This is science at its best, the art of understanding truth and beauty` Chris PackhamOnce tracking animals meant following footprints. Now satellites, drones, camera traps, cellphone networks, apps and accelerometers allow us to see the natural world as never
The Apple Orchard: The Story of Our Most English Fruit
Taking us through the seasons in England`s apple-growing heartlands, this magical book uncovers the stories and folklore of our most familiar fruit.`An orchard is not a field. It`s not a forest or a copse. It couldn`t occur naturally; it`s definitely cultivated. But an orchard doesn`t override the natural order: it enhances it, dresses it up.
The Line: An Adventure into the Unknown
A deceptively simple adventure into the unknown using only paper, a pencil and a single line.Wreck This Journal had a simple premise: destroy the book in all the ways you can imagine.The Line is even simpler: find pencil, start a line.As you move through the pages of Keri Smith`s newest book, you`ll be asked to
The Wander Society
You are electing to join a secret underground movement. Membership will require you to conduct research on your immediate environment and complete a variety of assignments designed to creatively disrupt your everyday life. That is all you need to know for now. All else will be revealed in time. Society wants us to live a
The Descent of Man
Grayson Perry has been thinking about masculinity – what it is, how it operates, why little boys are thought to be made of slugs and snails – since he was a boy. Now, in this funny and necessary book, he turns round to look at men with a clear eye and ask, what sort of
Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
THE TIMES, ECONOMIST AND GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017It is accepted wisdom today that human beings have irrevocably damaged the natural world. Yet what if this narrative obscures a more hopeful truth?In Inheritors of the Earth, renowned ecologist and environmentalist Chris D. Thomas overturns the accepted story, revealing how nature is fighting back.Many animals
The Penguin Book of English Song: Seven Centuries of Poetry from Chaucer to Auden
Poetry and music have been associated with each other from the very beginning. The Penguin Book of English Song draws together a great variety of English poetry (including Irish, Scots and Welsh writers) that has reached a wider audience through the magic of music. Richard Stokes`s rich anthology of verse stretches from the 14th century
Flash Boys
Michael Lewis`s epic bestseller tells the outrageous story of the multi-millionaires and whizz kids who scammed the banking system in the blink of an eye – and the whistleblowers who tried to stop them. It`s hilarious, terrifying and it`s all true. `The greatest story of our age …Be very afraid` John Arlidge, Sunday Times `Thrilling,
English Pastoral: An Inheritance – Winner of the 2021 Wainwright Prize
Winner of the 2021 Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing”A beautifully written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape” Nigel Slater As a boy, James Rebanks`s grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a
The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914
`A scintillating, encyclopaedic history, rich in detail from the arcane to the familiar…a veritable tour de force` Richard Overy, New Statesman `Transnational history at its finest …social, political and cultural themes swirl together in one great canvas of immense detail and beauty` Gerard DeGroot, The Times `Dazzlingly erudite and entertaining` Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times
Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and Monsoons Have Shaped South Asia`s History
`An enthralling, elegantly written and, ultimately, profoundly alarming history` EconomistA bold new perspective on the history of South Asia, telling its story through its climate, and the long quest to tame its watersSouth Asia`s history has been shaped by its waters. In Unruly Waters, historian Sunil Amrith reimagines this history through the stories of its
The Kingdom
`This is a brilliant, shocking book … also witty, painfully self-critical and humane … it is a work of great literature` Tim Whitmarsh, Guardian`The Kingdom, already a huge bestseller in France, is thrilling, magnificent and strange` Bryan Appleyard, Sunday TimesThe sensational international bestseller from one of France`s most fรชted writers – an epic novel telling
Asia`s Reckoning: The Struggle for Global Dominance
For more than half a century, American power in the Pacific has successfully kept the peace. But it has also cemented the tensions in the toxic rivalry between China and Japan, consumed with endless history wars and entrenched political dynasties. Now, the combination of these forces with Donald Trump`s unpredictable impulses and disdain for America`s
The Caliphate
What is a caliphate? What is the history of the idea? How is the term used and abused today? In the first modern account of a subject of critical importance today, acclaimed historian Hugh Kennedy answers these questions by chronicling the rich history of the caliphate, from the death of Muhammad to the present. At
Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman
`An extraordinary book …exceptionally fascinating, always readable and penetratingly intelligent` David Abulafia `As rich, funny and teemingly peopled as Anthony Powell`s A Dance to the Music of Time …Dinshaw writes with wit and elegance, and the most elegiac passages of Outlandish Knight evoke a lost society London and way of life` Ben Judah, Financial Times
Lost Japan
This is an enchanting and fascinating insight into Japanese landscape, culture, history and future. Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author`s experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr brings to life the ritualized world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo`s boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, and
Germany: The Memories of a Nation
For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Twenty-five years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of
