Aeschylus

Aesop lived in the early sixth century BC on the island of Samos, which lies off the coast of modern Turkey. He originally came from Thrace which was a separate country in those days, though it now forms part of Greece and Bulgaria. Very little is known about his life except that he worked as a slave on Samos for a master called Iadmon, and that he became a very famous storyteller. He was so famous that almost any fable which could have been told by him became attributed to him.

Aesop

Afsaneh Knight

Afsaneh Moqadam

Afua Hirsch is a writer, filmmaker, and journalist. She is the author of Brit(ish), the Sunday Times bestseller that explores Britishness, identity and belonging, for which she was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction. She co-presented Enslaved, a 6-part series about the transatlantic slave trade with Samuel L Jackson. She is the presenter of the Audible podcast series We Need To Talk About the British Empire, and Africa Rising, an ongoing flagship series about art and culture for the BBC, through her production company Born in Me Productions. She is a longtime columnist for the Guardian and is a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California.

Afua Hirsch

AGAPI STASSINOPOULOS is an author, blogger and international speaker who inspires audiences around the world. She has spoken at many corporations and conferences, such as Nike Women, Starbucks,Time Inc., Virgin, Johnson &amp; Johnson and the American Heart Foundation. She was born in Athens and trained in London at RADA before gaining a Master’s in psychology at the University of Santa Monica. She has collaborated with her sister, Arianna Huffington, to develop talks and seminars, and has worked with the Oprah Winfrey network. She is currently hosting a new podcast series in collaboration with The Huffington Post, entitled ‘Sundays with Agapi’, which includes guided meditations and interviews with prominent guests. She lives in Los Angeles.

Agapi Stassinopoulos

Agatha Christie

Aggie MacKenzie

Aghnia Mardiyah is a London-based Illustrator and Character Designer with a passion for children's books and animation. She is drawn to fun, bright and vibrant colours. When she isn't disappearing under piles of work, she loves to travel! Exploring foreign places, exciting new sights and sensations is what inspires her the most!

Aghnia Mardiyah

Agnes Callard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She has written for The New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’s, Boston Review, and penned a monthly column for the Point. From 2019 to 2020, she held a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for the research that contributes to this book.

Agnes Callard

Agnes Jekyll

Agnes Bertha Marshall (24 August 1855-29 July 1905) was an English culinary entrepreneur who became a leading cookery writer, dubbed the 'Queen of Ices'. Her 1888 cookery book included a recipe for 'cornets with cream', possibly the earliest publication of the edible ice cream cone. Marshall was born in Walthamstow. She wrote four books: Ices Plain and Fancy: The Book of Ices (1885), Mrs A B Marshall's Book of Cookery (1888), Mrs A B Marshall's Larger Cookery Book of Extra Recipes (1891) and Fancy Ices (1894).

Agnes Marshall

Agnes Prus

Agri Ismaïl is a Kurdish author based in Sweden who has worked as a corporate lawyer in London, Dubai, and Iraqi Kurdistan. His work has been published in The White Review, The Rumpus, Litro, 3:AM Magazine, and Asymptote amongst other places. His piece 'Haunted Home' won the 2016 Stack award for best non-fiction for The Outpost, runner-up in the Lifted Brow &amp; RMIT non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Non-Fiction, and he was longlisted for the 2017/2018 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize. Hyper is his first novel.

Agri Ismaïl

Aharon Appelfeld authored more than 45 acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction and received many international awards including the MLA Commonwealth Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction prize, the prix Médicis étranger, the Israel prize, and the Nelly Sachs prize. Born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (now part of Ukraine) in 1932, he survived the Holocaust and passed away in Israel in 2018.

Aharon Appelfeld

Ahmadou Kourouma

Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist and human rights activist based in London. He is the co-founder and director of We Are Not Numbers and a journalist with Palestine Deep Dive. Ahmed holds a degree in English Literature from Al-Azhar university in Gaza, and an MA in International Journalism from Leeds University, where he was a Chevening Scholar. 
 
Pam Bailey is a social-justice activist and journalist based in Washington DC. She lived and worked in the Gaza Strip following the 2008/9 Israeli assault, and co-founded We Are Not Numbers. Today, in addition to her ongoing dedication to the Palestinian cause, she dedicates herself to two nonprofits that advocate for people detained in American prisons -- including one she co-founded in 2020, called More Than Our Crimes.

Ahmed Alnaouq

Ahmed Errachidi

Ahmed Rashid

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

Ahron Bregman is the author of four books about Israel and the Arabs: The Fifty Years War (with Jihan el Tahri), Israel's Wars, A History of Israel and Elusive Peace. He teaches at the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

Ahron Bregman

Ai Qing is regarded as one of the finest modern Chinese poets, whose free verse was influential in the development of new poetry in China.

Ai Qing

Ai Weiwei

Aidan Chambers was born in County Durham in 1934. After national service in the Royal Navy he became a teacher and then, for seven years, a monk. His young adult novels have been widely acclaimed, with POSTCARDS FROM NO-MAN'S LAND winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal and the US Michael L Printz Award. With his wife Nancy he ran Signal magazine and he has served as the president of the School Library Association. His devoted services to children's literature were recognised by his receipt of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.

Aidan Chambers

Aidan Higgins was born in 1927. Langrishe Go Down, his first novel, won the James Tait Black memorial Prize and the Irish Academy of Letters Award, and was later filmed for television with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. His second novel, Balcony of Europe, was shortlisted for the 1972 Booker Prize. The novel Lions of the Grunewald appeared in 1993 and a collection of shorter fiction, Flotsam and jetsam, in 1996. Donkey's Years and Dog Days were the first two volumes of the Higgins Bestiary which concludes with this volume.

Aidan Higgins

Aidan Mathews

Aidan Potts

Aidan Smith

Aidan Storey

Aidan Trimble is the Chief Instructor to the Federation of Shotokan Karate and a former British, European and World Karate Champion, winning the world title in Tokyo - the home of Karate. Aidan has trained with some of the world's leading teachers of 'traditional' and 'sport' karate and is now an award-winning instructor and teacher who is in demand throughout the world. He can be contacted via www.fsk-karate.com.

Aidan Trimble

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Max Arthur

After the fall of France in May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone to face Hitler's inevitable invasion attempt. 
 
For the German army to be landed across the Channel, Hitler needed mastery of the skies - the RAF would have to be broken. So every day, throughout the summer, German bombers pounded the RAF air bases in the southern counties. Greatly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, the pilots of RAF Fighter Command scrambled as many as five times a day and civilians watched skies criss-crossed with the contrails from the constant dogfights between Spitfires and Me-109s. Britain's very freedom depended on the outcome of that summer's battle. 
 
Britain's air defences were badly battered and nearly broken, but against all odds 'The Few', as they came to be known, bought Britain's freedom - many with their lives. 
 
These are the personal accounts of the pilots who fought and survived that battle. We will not see their like again.

Last of the Few

The Battle of Britain in the Words of the Pilots Who Won It

Jillian Madison

Damn You, Autocorrect! brings together some of the laugh-out-loud funny and painfully embarrassing posts from the hit website, which highlight the hilarity that often ensues when text messaging goes wrong: girlfriends getting together for 'manila penis,'(mani pedis); a husband texting his wife that he 'laid' the babysitter (paid); a friend asking if someone got tickets to the 'Lady Vagina' (Lady Gaga) concert, and the most popular image on the website so far: a father texting his daughter that he and his mother were going to divorce, when they were in fact just going to Disney. Oops. 
 
The phenomenally successful Damnyouautocorrect.com began when author Jillian Madison innocently tried to invite some friends over for gelato. Autocorrect, however, had another idea, and asked them over for a night of 'fellatio' instead. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Damn You, Autocorrect! includes 200 never before seen submissions to the website, as well as an introduction from the author and website creator, Jillian Madison.

Damn You, Autocorrect!

Tim Albone

Cool Runnings meets Joseph O'Neill's Netherland in an inspiring and feel-good story of bravery and sporting success from a country so widely known for war and extremism. This is the true story of the Afghanistan cricket team and their extraordinary attempt to join the world's elite cricketing nations. That this devastated nation should be able to field a cricket team at all, let alone one as successful as this, is an unbelievable achievement. Seven years ago, in a country which does not have a real cricket pitch even today, there was no national team. But a group of young Afghan men, exiled by war, learnt to play in the smashed concrete of refugee camps, and have risen from obscurity to the groomed grass pitches of international cricket. 
 
With unlimited access, Tim Albone travelled alongside the team for the two years, charting the players' progress from refugees in Pakistan to the brink of international sporting stardom. Far from being bogged down in cricket jargon, this tale of a gang of dedicated, charismatic, occasionally exasperating young men seeking triumph out of disaster is one that will move and inspire everyone. 
 
Foreword by Mike Atherton.

Out of the Ashes

The Remarkable Rise and Rise of the Afghanistan cricket team

Bill Murphy

Written with the cooperation of Harvard Business School, this is an instructive and inspiring book for anyone who dreams of starting a successful business. 
 
The Intelligent Entrepreneur tells how three HBS graduates turned down six-figure salaries at big corporations, bet on themselves and launched their own new companies. By their ten-year reunion their audacity had paid huge dividends. They'd made many millions of dollars, created hundreds of jobs and left their mark on the world. 
 
Based on dozens of interviews with highly successful entrepreneurs, Harvard Business School professors and HBS alumni, The Intelligent Entrepreneur tells the compelling and instructive story of how these three young founders developed ideas, assembled teams, built ventures, and achieved their dreams. 
 
Along the way, they learned that starting great companies requires much more than a ferocious work ethic or good timing. Their hard-won insights - distilled into ten key rules - will help anyone become a successful entrepreneur.

The Intelligent Entrepreneur

How Three Harvard Business School Graduates Learned the 10 Rules of Successful Business

Linda Kaplan

Robin Koval

The authors of the national bestseller The Powe of Nice once again tackle conventional wisdom with a provocative and counterintuitive book about the importance of sweating the small stuff in our lives and in our careers. 
 
Our smallest actions and gestures often have outsized impact on our biggest goals, say Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval. Did you double-check that presentation one last time, or hold the elevator for a stranger? Going that extra inch - whether with a client, customer, family member, or friend - speaks volumes to others about our talent, personality, and motivations. After all, if we can't take care of the small details, how can we be counted on to deliver when it really matters? 
 
In today's challenging times, bigger isn't always better. In fact, it's often the baby steps that put us on the path to delivering a true competitive advantage. The real secret to getting ahead in life and in our careers is to refocus our attention on the small details that, if disregarded, can sabotage a multimillion-dollar ad campaign or undermine your most important relationships. Kaplan Thaler and Koval show how to get more of what you want with surprisingly less than you'd imagine. 
 
Written in the same entertaining, story-driven style that made The Power of Nice the go-to book for finishing first, The Power of Small demonstrates how all of us can harness the power of small to improve and reinvent our lives. It's the ultimate guide to shrinking your outlook to broaden your horizons. 
 
Get SMALL and get going!

The Power of Small

Ken Auletta

Googled is candid, authoritative and based on extensive research, including in-house at Google HQ where Ken Auletta had unprecedented access. He conducted over 150 interviews at Google with the company's founders and executives and also interviewed those in the media who are struggling to keep their heads above water. Crucially, Googled is not just a history or reportage: it's forward-looking. Auletta reveals how the media industry is being disrupted and redefined and shows how and why the worlds of 'new' and 'old' media often communicate as if residents of different planets. Googled is already being hailed as the definitive work on Google and is a crucial roadmap to how media business may be done in the future.

Googled

The End of the World as We Know It

Tony Wrighton

Do you feel stressed out? 
Want to relax quickly and let go of unhelpful tension in your life? 
 
These super-quick, easy and effective strategies based on the principles of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) will help you chill out and feel better in minutes, whether you're stressed about work, having trouble unwinding on holiday or simply want to enjoy your life more. 
 
You will discover how to: 
·Make instant changes to reduce feelings of stress and fear 
·Schedule time to worry as well as time to switch off so you can relax and let go 
·Gain perspective on stressful situations 
·Make changes to the way you deal with long-term stress, and much more. 
 
From simple physical exercises to easy-to-do mental strategies, Tony Wrighton's techniques will help you deal with specific issues in every area of your life, and will allow you to relax and feel great.

Relax in a Minute

Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval have moved to the top of the advertising industry by following a simple but powerful philosophy: it pays to be nice. Where so many companies encourage a dog-eat-dog mentality, The Kaplan Thaler Group has succeeded through chocolate and flowers. In The Power of Nice, through their own experiences and the stories of other people and businesses, they demonstrate why, contrary to conventional wisdom, nice people finish first. 
The Power of Nice shows that 'nice' companies have lower employee turnover, lower recruitment costs and higher productivity. Nice people live longer, are healthier and make more money. In today's interconnected word, companies and people with a reputation for cooperation and fair play forge the kind of relationships that lead to bigger and better opportunities, both in business and in life. 
But being nice doesn't mean being a push-over. In fact, nice may be the toughest four-letter word you'll ever encounter. 
Kaplan Thaler and Koval illustrate the surprising power of nice with an array of real-life examples from the business arena as well as from their personal lives. Most important, they present a plan of action covering everything from creating a positive impression to sweetening the pot to turning enemies to allies. Filled with inspiration and suggestions on how to supercharge your career and expand your reach in the workplace, The Power of Nice will transform how you live and work.

The Power of Nice

R M Bennett

The invincible reputation of specialist military units such as the USA's Delta Force, Israel's IDP, and of course, Britian's SAS has grown steadily in recent years. Thanks to a number of successful campaigns and anti-terror operations, from London's Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 to the second Gulf War, in which they played a crucial role, it's now assumed that special forces are ideal for our world of small, localised conflicts - and especially George W Bush's war on terror. 
Elite Forces: The World's Most Formidable Secret Armies: 
- Contains over 500 compelling entries that cut through myth and secrecy. 
- Details the history, selection and training procedures and orders of battle of every major elite fighting force in the world today. 
- Is packed with hair-raising examples of individual heroism, endurance and courage in adversity. 
- Is fully up to date and includes recent coalition operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
- Takes an objective look at what happens when things go wrong, as they did most famously during the Gulf War of 1991 and in America's intervention in Somalia in 1993. 
- Explores the hidden links between elite forces and governments, intelligence organisations and business, and their controversial lack of accountability. 
- Examines how new technologies have come to the aid of the elite soldier. 
This is the first book of its kind to examine all aspects of the overlap between elite forces and the hidden worlds of intelligence and counter-terrorism, and takes an objective look at the secret, controversial role of special forces and 'Freelancers' in covert, deadly operations around the world. Elite Forces is a compelling, revealing - and occasionally shocking - read, and an authoritive and easy-to-use reference resource.

Elite Forces

Charles Higham

Howard Hughes was America's most famous playboy and rogue operator, an outlaw eccentric millionaire and hellraiser, 'I can buy any man' he once bragged, 'and have any woman.' And it was almost true. 
He stormed from bedroom to boardroom, from corporate bribary to Capitol Hill; his affairs with Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Bette Davis and many others were as brief as they were stormy. he was a deeply involved in Watergate and in the Cuban missile crisis. He burgled his own office records when tax authorities were after him. And, despite a mystrious illness, he wheeled and dealed to the last days of his life.

Howard Hughes

Dale Concannon

Faldo has been branded one of the coldest men in British sport - at times better known for being aloof, arrogant and self-obsessed than for winning three Open Championships and three US Masters. But after thirty years as a professional golf player, his career continues to reach highs and his influence is even stronger than it was in the 1980s. 
 
What has driven Britain's most successful and most complex player to remarkable success? From golf superstardom to failed marriages and inexplicable losses in form, the updated edition of Nick Faldo: Driven analyses exactly what motivates this seemingly inscrutable man.

Nick Faldo

Driven - The Definitive Biography

David Kirkpatrick

Today - six years after it was created in a Harvard dorm room - over 500 million people use Facebook regularly, in just about every country on earth. That a company this powerful and influential was started as a lark by a couple of 19-year-olds makes it a fascinating and surprising tale. That one of them, the visionary Mark Zuckerberg, had the maturity, strategic smarts and luck to keep his company ahead of its rivals anchors the tale. 
 
With exclusive inside access to all the company's leaders David Kirkpatrick tells of the vision, the tenacity, the refusal to compromise, and the vision Zuckerberg has to remake the internet. A brilliant and fascinating cast of characters created Facebook and Kirkpatrick has interviewed all of them. Never before have Zuckerberg and his closest colleagues told what really happened as they built their dynamo while eating fast food, staying up all night, and thumbing their noses at how things are usually done.

The Facebook Effect

The Real Inside Story of Mark Zuckerberg and the World's Fastest Growing Company

Elizabeth Grahamslaw

Education is an obsession for parents and children alike and parents will worry about anything to do with their children's schooling, from which school to choose and when their child should start to what they need to learn and how they'll cope in the playground. 
Schools are crying out for parents to become more involved in their children's education. A Parents' Guide to Primary School contains indispensable advice on: 
- Pre-school and choosing the right primary school 
- Getting ready for school and the first day 
- The curriculum, SATs, homework and the importance of parents' involvement in their children's learning 
- Discipline and bullying 
- Governors and the PTA - how to get involved 
- Parents' evenings and reports 
- Extracurricular activities 
- Special needs 
- Moving on - preparing for secondary school

A Parents' Guide to Primary School

From pre-school to preparing for secondary shool

Eleni Kyriacou

The complete guide to organising fantastic parties and dinners. 
 
Is it OK to serve ready meals at a romantic dinner for two? 
How can you throw a cool cocktail party without breaking the bank? 
Can you turn a family lunch into a special event without getting up at 5 a.m. to start preparing? 
 
Find the answers in this hip, no-nonsense guide to entertaining. With realistic, down-to-earth advice and tips from the best experts in the field, this book brings entertaining into the twenty-first century. It covers all the basics you need to think through, whether you're planning an informal housewarming bash or a big work do, and also shows you how to tackle specific events. It's ideal for anyone who wants to enjoy themselves at their own parties and create the kind of occasions that'll be remembered (for all the right reasons). 
 
Whether you are planning an intimate dinner with friends or a full-scale birthday bash in a hired hall, this book is for you. And we promise there won't be a vol-au-vent in sight.

Entertaining: The Virgin Guide

Paul Dickinson

As one of Britain's best-loved brands, Virgin is synonymous with enterprise and business know-how. This series of inspiring and practical business guides has been created with the help of Warwick Business School, one of the world's leading teaching and research instituions in the field of business and management. Warwick's Centre for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises has internationally acclaimed expertise in the subject of entrepreneurship, gained by working closely with start-up and growth-seeking companies, focusing on their practical needs. 
 
Branding is one of the most important aspects of marketing for any enterprise. In this straightforward and captivating guide, Paul Dickinson who has worked to define some of the biggest brands in the world, shows how an eye for detail and design can help to re-energise any company or organisation. 
 
In this book, you'll find out how simple brand identifiers like colour and 'feel' can make powerful statements about your company, no matter what its size. Paul Dickinson shows how to change the way you think about your company's identity, and how to take simple steps to increase your sales and profits through effective branding and enhanced customer satisfaction. Fascinating case studies demonstrate how the theory has been turned into practical steps - and checklists and action plans will enable you to do the same.

It's Not About Size

Bigger Brands for Smaller Businesses

Timothy Cumming

Are you looking to move your business online? Do you want advice on making money on the internet? Little E, Big Commerce arms you with all the business expertise and net know-how to take the plunge into the fast and competitive world of e-commerce. It has simple guidance and easy to implement strategies. E-commerce doesn't change everything, but it does change a lot. So an important skill in e-business is knowing how to change business methods. This book familiarises you with e-customers, e-competitors and e-suppliers. It takes you through practical steps to getting on-line and to staying there, profitably.

Little E, Big Commerce

How to Make a Profit Online

David Buckley

R.E.M.'s public image has always been tightly controlled. Icons of anti-celebrity rock, who bacame huge celebrity rock stars, they were, according to the story, the first U.S. post new-wave band who were both commercially successful and cool. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Mike Mills, Peter Buck and other members of R.E.M.'s nuclear family, Fiction re-evaluates the music and career of a group who sold almost no records for the first half of their existence, then became 'the biggest rock group in the world' in the second half.

R.E.M. Fiction

An Alternative Biography

Dave Thompson

Twenty eventful years have passed since the Chili Peppers first blazed; years during which the band have achieved global recongnition, thanks to huge hits like 'Under The Bridge', 'Californication', and 'By The Way' accepted every reward and sustained every blow that rock'n'roll could throw at them: from linup changes to drug overdoses. Fully revised and updated, Red Hot Chili Peppers tells the full, true story of the band that dare to play and say it all.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers: By the Way

Charles Bukowski

'I wrote letters to many in those days ... it was rather my way of screaming from my cage.' 
The 1960's saw Charles Bukowski struggle for recognition and slowly emerge as a unique, talented and prolific poet and writer, whilst holding down a day job at the Post Office. During the 1970's and 80's Bukowski writes about his own fame, his contemporaries and his good fortunes; at the end of the 70's we see him beginning to enjoy the fruits of his labour. 
These letters to various literary contacts, friends and lovers provide an intimate and fascinating look at Bukowski's mind, his emotions, his attitude towards his own creativity and the comings and goings of his daily life.

Selected Letters Volume 3: 1971 - 1986

Charles Bukowski was a uniguely talented and prolific writer, best known for his Beat Generation writing that reflected his experience of low life urban America. 
Selected Letters Volume 4 collects together correspondence with various friends, lovers and literary contacts, providing an intimate and fascinating insight into Bolowski's mind, his emotions and his attitude towards his own creativity, right up until his death in 1994.

Selected Letters Volume 4: 1987 - 1994

Joe Layden

Sean Astin

When Sean Astin, veteran Hollywood actor of over 30 movies including The Goonies, and Rudy, landed the part of Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings, he knew it was going to be different to anything he'd ever worked on before. Here he shares his heartfelt opinions on his early movies, how he got the part of Sam at that point in his career, and what it was like to be on set for nearly two years of his life. How did he and the other cast members get along? What were the excitements and the dangers they faced during filming? What happened the evening that Elijah Wood lost the keys to his room? How did Sir Ian McKellen cope when he didn't like the music the hobbits listened to during make-up and what happened when the crew considered striking? 
Revealing and immensely readable, There and Back Again is the behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to be involved in the making of one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.

There And Back Again: An Actor's Tale

Spike Milligan

In this last of Spike's hilarious reinterpretations of the classic works of litarature, all the familiar faces of Robert Louis Stevenson's original version appear: Squire Trelawney, Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver. But they are joined by Groucho Marx - and Long John's parrot plays a starring role. This rip-roaring adventure of the hunt for buried treasure unravels faster than Ben Gunn's pants, with plenty of laughs along the way. Rude and irreverent as ever, Spike's rendering of this classic tale is as chock-full of gems as Cap'n Flint's treasure chest.

Treasure Island According To Spike Milligan

Mark Roeder

News cycles move faster now than ever before, technology allows us to connect with others in seconds and markets crumble faster than ever. Amidst it all we've come to accept - even expect - that events will continue to accelerate and have an ever greater impact: that the next disaster will always be bigger than the last, that more money than ever will be made in business. 
 
Welcome to the new world, in which momentum is the driving force behind everything. 
 
Drawing on the latest research by economists and scientists as well as real-life examples, Mark Roeder charts the unstoppable rise of the Big Mo. He reveals why momentum was the real driver of the global financial crisis and how this mysterious force is also at work in spheres as diverse as the media, politics and the environment. 
 
This provocative book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the dangers of 'going with the flow' and harness the power of positive momentum.

The Big Mo

Rebecca D Costa

Why does it feel as if our most challenging problems today- the worldwide recession, global warming, fast-spreading viruses, terrorism and poverty- aren't getting solved? What if our brain has limits that prevent it from solving such complex problems? If ancient civilisations collapsed because they, too, hit a cognitive limitation, are we headed for a similar collapse, and if so, can it be prevented? 
Using historical and modern-day examples, The Watchman's Rattle describes the cognitive gridlock that sets in when complexity races ahead of the brain's ability to manage it. Beginning with the Mayans, Khmer and Roman Empires, Costa shows how the tendency to find a quick fix to problems by focusing on symptoms instead of searching for permanent solutions, leads to frightening long-term consequences: Society's ability to solve its most challenging, intractable problems becomes gridlocked, progress slows and collapse ensues. But, as Costa reveals, there is a growing body of scientific evidence that the human brain can be retrained to comprehend, analyse and resolve massively complex problems. A process of intuitive thinking, which Neuroscientists refer to as 'insight'. 
Part history, part social science, part biology, The Watchman's Rattle is sure to provoke, engage and incite change.

The Watchman's Rattle

Thinking our Way out of Extinction

Tom Chatfield

'Tom Chatfield's Fun Inc. is the most elegant and comprehensive defence of the status of computer games in our culture I have read, as well as a helpful compendium of research ... The numbers surrounding the sector are certainly thudding. By the end of 2008, annual sales of video games - not including consoles or devices - was $40 billion, comfortably outstripping the movie business. In the same year, Nintendo's employees were more profitable per head than Google's. The sheer pervasiveness of game experience - 99 per cent of teenage boys and 94 per cent of teenage girls having played a video game - means that instant naffness falls upon those who express a musty disdain for the medium. In fact, as Fun Inc. elegantly explains, computer game-playing has a very strong claim to be one of the most vital test-beds for intellectual enquiry.' 
Independent

Fun Inc.

Why games are the 21st Century's most serious business

The second in this new series, The Virgin Book of Hit Singles is the most-up-to-date and comprehensive record of the music charts available today and a perfect, collectable complement to The Virgin Book of Hit Albums and The Virgin Book of Top 75 Charts. 
Now improved and fine-tuned, and drawn from the Official Charts Company Data since 1952, The Virgin Book of Hit Singles features the most comprehensive, easy to read and accessible music chart data and information. It's all here -- expanded artist biographies, side notes of interest, label and catalogue numbers, peak positions, number of weeks on chart and weeks at number one. Also includes EP charts. 
The Virgin Book of Hit Singles is essential reading, and reference, for any music lover.

The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles: Volume 2

Jane Plant

Gillian Tidey

This informative, accessible guide to eating for better health will help you regain control of your health whether you're fighting a chronic condition or want to prevent problems in the future. Bestselling author Jane Plant and dietician Gill Tidey show how eating the right foods can help you manage - and even prevent - a range of other common health problems, including: 
 
-allergies 
-heart disease 
-high blood pressure 
-digestive problems 
-diabetes 
-skin problems, and many more. 
 
With clear advice on what to eat - and what to avoid - for each of the conditions, and featuring over 200 easy-to-make, delicious recipes to get you on the road to optimum well-being, this is a book for everyone who wants to live a healthier life. 
 
Including a new foreword by Dr Michael Dixon, Medical Director of the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health and Chair of the NHS Alliance.

Eating for Better Health

You're about to discover the key to instant confidence. Offering quick-fix confidence boosts based on the principles of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), this easy-to-use, down-to-earth guide will enable you to overcome the key barriers to confidence that can affect all areas of your work and personal life, from big presentations to awkward social situations. 
 
You'll discover how to: 
 
-visualise success (rather than failure) 
-master body language 
-prepare effectively (rather than exhaustively) 
-harness your nerves, and much, much more. 
 
With Tony Wrighton's help you'll feel more confident in minutes, not weeks or months.

Confidence in a Minute

Terry Charman

11:15 am, 3 September 1939. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain confirms the nation's fears by announcing that Britain is at war with Germany. Outbreak is the definitive history of the build-up to, outbreak and first few months of the Second World War. Drawing on the Imperial War Museum's extensive archives, this book features the personal stories of real men and women who lived through the startling events of that year, as well as those who were actively involved in the political negotiations and their aftermath. Featuring numerous photographs and the voices of key players, as well as contributions from well-known figures who were directly affected by the build up to war, Outbreak is a gripping record of an extraordinary year in British history.

The Day We Went to War

Clive Couldwell

Formula One: Made in Britain is one of Formula One's last untold stories. 
As a centre of technical excellence for over thirty years. Britain is at the sharp end of the worldwide motor sport industry, and playing ever harder to win. Most of the sport's Grand Prix teams are based in the UK and many of them have British managers and designers who act as a showcase for the UK's skill base - past, present and future. 
The success of Britain's Formula One industry has gone largley unrecognised outside the close-knit world of the racing aficionado. Now, with Formula One: Made in Britain, Clive Couldwell reveals what makes this industry tick and why many of the world's players choose to come here. 
He explores Motorsport Valley, an area which covers the south and Midlands of the UK, where 75 per cent of the world's single-seater racing cars are designed and built, and talks to many of F1's leading lights. 
Winning in F1 depends on innovation and performance-critical engineering, and in this fascinating and insightful book, Clive Couldwell show how UK research and development are leading the world.

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