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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

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Jack Fairweather

‘FIVE STARS … Magnificent’ Telegraph 
‘Compulsively readable’ Financial Times 
‘Gripping and timely’ The Times 
'Crackingly told' Philippe Sands 
'A kind of masterclass' Sebastian Junger 
 
 
THE NEW BOOK FROM THE BESTSELLING, COSTA PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE VOLUNTEER 
 
The true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after WWII to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past. 
 
At the end of the Nuremberg trial in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the horrors of the Holocaust were in danger of being forgotten. 
 
In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the remarkable story of Fritz Bauer, a gay German Jew who survived the Nazis and made it his mission to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide. In this deeply researched book, Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the dark, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring in the east, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced. But once Bauer lands on the trail of Adolf Eichmann, he won’t be intimidated. His journey takes him deep into the rotten heart of West Germany, where his fight for justice will set him against his own government and a network of former Nazis and spies determined to silence him. 
 
In a time when the history of the Holocaust is taken for granted, The Prosecutor reveals the courtroom battles that were fought to establish its legacy and the personal cost of speaking out. The result is a searing portrait of a nation emerging from the ruins of fascism and one man’s courage in forcing his people––and the world––to face the truth.

The Prosecutor

One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice

Nick Chater

George Loewenstein

‘A stirring call to action’ – TIM HARFORD 
‘A masterclass’ – DARON ACEMOGLU 
'An excellent book' – NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB 
 
Two decades ago, behavioral economics burst from academia to the halls of power, on both sides of the Atlantic, with the promise that correcting individual biases could help transform society. The hope was that governments could deploy a new approach to addressing society’s deepest challenges, from inadequate retirement planning to climate change—gently, but cleverly, nudging people to make choices for their own good and the good of the planet. 
 
It was all very convenient, and false. As behavioral scientists Nick Chater and George Loewenstein show in It’s On You, nudges rarely work, and divert us from policies that do. For example, being nudged to switch to green energy doesn’t cut carbon, and it distracts from the real challenge of building a low-carbon economy. 
 
It’s on You shows how the rich and powerful have repeatedly used a clever sleight of hand: blaming individuals for social problems, with behavioral economics an unwitting accomplice, while lobbying against the systemic changes that could actually help. As two original proponents of the nudge principle, Nick and George now argue that rather than trying to “fix” the victims of bad policies, real progress requires rewriting the social and economic rulebook for the common good.

It's On You

How the Rich and Powerful Have Convinced Us that We're to Blame for Society's Deepest Problems

Ulrik Skotte

Discover the page-turning true story of the most iconic Cold War spy killing of all time, perfect for fans of Ben Macintyre, Henry Hemming and the novels of John Le Carre. 
 
London, 1978: exiled Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is murdered on Waterloo Bridge with what appears to be a poison-tipped umbrella. It would become the most infamous unsolved killing of the Cold War. 
 
Many years later, young journalist Ulrik Skotte is approached with explosive new information about a man alleged to be responsible for Markov’s death – a spy code-named Piccadilly who worked for the Bulgarian secret service. This meeting launched Skotte into a hunt for the killer lasting more than a quarter of a century, bringing him face to face with eccentric conspiracy theorists, a washed-up former dictator, ageing Danish spooks – and, ultimately, with Agent Piccadilly himself. 
 
Drawing on an incredible cache of original documents, interviews and archive material, The Umbrella Murder provides jaw-dropping answers to questions that have persisted for nearly five decades: who killed Georgi Markov? And who has been protecting the assassin ever since?

The Umbrella Murder

The Hunt for the Notorious Cold War Killer

The Hunt for the Cold War's Most Notorious Killer

Harald Jähner

*An Observer Book of the Year* 
'One of the most gripping accounts... of the Nazis' rise to power. It contains many lessons for the world now.' - John Kampfner, bestselling author of Why The Germans Do It Better 
'Outstanding... This is history at its very best.' - Julia Boyd, bestselling author of Travellers in the Third Reich 
 
Germany, 1918: a country in flux. The First World War is over, the nation defeated. Revolution is afoot, the monarchy has fallen and the victory of democracy beckons. Everything must change with the times. 
 
Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launches an unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The Weimar Republic is established. The years that follow see political extremism, economic upheaval, revolutionary violence and the transformation of Germany. Tradition is shaken to its core as a triumphant procession of liberated lifestyles emerges. Women conquer the racetracks and tennis courts, go out alone in the evenings, cut their hair short and cast the idea of marriage aside. Unisex style comes into fashion, androgynous and experimental. People revel in the discovery of leisure, filling up boxing halls, dance palaces and the hotspots of the New Age, embracing the department stores’ promise of happiness and accepting the streets as a place of fierce political battles. 
 
In this short burst of life between the wars, amidst a frenzy of change, comes a backlash from those who do not see themselves reflected in the new Republic. Little by little, deep divisions begin to emerge. Divisions that would bring devastating consequences, altering the course of the twentieth century and the lives of millions around the world. Vertigo is a vital, kaleidoscopic portrait of a pivotal moment in German history.

Vertigo

The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany

Terry Stiastny

The true story of the the misfits and mavericks who waged psychological warfare against the Nazis 
 
September, 1939. While Britain hovered on the brink of the Second World War, a team of unlikely and ill-assorted characters assembled in their secret headquarters. They had left their civilian roles as politicians, journalists, novelists and spies, advertisers, artists and even forgers, to work for a covert government organisation. Their goals: to weaken enemy morale, sow confusion and encourage resistance. In the ‘hush-hush’ village of Aspley Guise near Woburn Abbey (8 miles from the codebreakers at Bletchley Park), they set to work. 
 
The once top-secret wartime efforts of the Political Warfare Executive were remarkable in their variety and inventiveness – from pornographic leaflet drops to rumour campaigns, underground publications and fake French and German radio shows. But to break Nazi morale, these men and women found themselves skirting the edges of their own morality. What do you lose when you deploy lies – even brilliant, believable lies – to achieve your ends?

Believable Lies

The Misfits Who Fought Churchill's Secret Propaganda War

Robert Kagan

'The transformation of the US into an autocracy has advanced...Nobody has outlined this danger more compellingly than Robert Kagan.' - Martin Wolf, Financial Times 
 
A chilling and clear-eyed warning about the threats to our democracy posed by the increasing radicalization of the Republican Party, from a leading historian and intellectual 
 
The 2024 election could be the last free election held in a unified America. So warns Robert Kagan in this brilliant and terrifying analysis of the perilous state of democracy in the United States today. If Donald Trump loses the upcoming election, as he did in 2020, but refuses to accept the result, as he also did in the last election, he is likely to call on his millions of followers to repudiate the election results. It will be a short step from there to Republican-dominated states rejecting the legitimacy of the federal government and effectively seceding. The United States at that point will cease to be united, with grave consequences for both Americans and the world. 
 
In Rebellion, Kagan dives deeper than the op-eds and think pieces to explore the historical forces that have brought us to this moment—in particular the long history of opposition to liberalism, and to government, that has shaped America’s character from the time of the Revolution to today. Trump’s unique capacity to tap into that tradition of dissent and circumvent the American system has brought us to the edge of dissolution—not for the first time in our history but possibly the last. This is an elegant and deeply informed synthesis of history, contemporary politics, and ideas that sheds light on this crucial moment.

Rebellion

How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart Again

David A. Graham

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Essential and authoritative. Sheds serious light on the dark money, dark ideas & dark souls propelling Trump’s cruelty and betrayal of the USA' - James O'Brien 
 
 
In the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, news spread about Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page document published by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The debates—and anxiety—surrounding this initiative have only increased as authors of the Project assume positions of power in the second Trump administration. 
 
So, what is Project 2025, exactly? Who wrote it, what does it actually say, and what does it mean for everyday people around the world, across the political spectrum, in the years to come? 
In The Project, award-winning journalist David A. Graham offers much-needed context and distills the essential elements of this sprawling document. Breaking down the Project’s strategy for transforming—and radically empowering—the executive branch, Graham then explains what the architects behind Project 2025 would do with that power: restoring traditional gender norms and the supremacy of the nuclear family, decimating the civil service, performing mass deportations, reducing corporate regulation and worker protections, and more. 
 
Project 2025 is the intellectual blueprint for the new administration, Graham argues, and its tenets should not be legible only to policy wonks. Authoritative yet highly accessible, The Project demystifies it for those whose lives it will impact most.

The Project

How Project 2025 is Reshaping America and the World

Michael Meyer

‘Makes the case for Annie Besant as a truly eminent Victorian, as brilliant and fearless as she was beautiful’ The Times 
_________ 
 
London, 1877. A petite young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. 
 
Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the crime of publishing a birth control pamphlet. Remarkably, Annie is defending herself against obscenity charges 45 years before women can practice law in England. At a time when women were expected to be obedient, Annie’s fearless voice was a sensation and spotlighted issues of sex, censorship and morality. 
 
A Dirty, Filthy Book tells the gripping story of a little-known pioneer who refused to accept the role that the establishment assigned her, and chose instead to resist.

A Dirty, Filthy Book

Annie Besant’s Fight for Reproductive Rights

Sex, Scandal, and One Woman’s Fight in the Victorian Trial of the Century

Nikole Hannah-Jones

The New York Times Magazine

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. 
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist 
 
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country's original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. 
 
The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. 
 
This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation's founding and construction-and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life. 
 
Featuring contributions from: Leslie Alexander Michelle Alexander Carol Anderson Joshua Bennett Reginald Dwayne Betts Jamelle Bouie Anthea Butler Matthew Desmond Rita Dove Camille Dungy Cornelius Eady Eve L. Ewing Nikky Finney Vievee Francis Yaa Gyasi Forrest Hamer Terrance Hayes Kimberly Annece Henderson Jeneen Interlandi Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Barry Jenkins Tyehimba Jess Martha S. Jones Robert Jones, Jr. A. Van Jordan Ibram X. Kendi Eddie Kendricks Yusef Komunyakaa Kevin Kruse Kiese Laymon Trymaine Lee Jasmine Mans Terry McMillan Tiya Miles Wesley Morris Khalil Gibran Muhammad Lynn Nottage ZZ Packer Gregory Pardlo Darryl Pinckney Claudia Rankine Jason Reynolds Dorothy Roberts Sonia Sanchez Tim Seibles Evie Shockley Clint Smith Danez Smith Patricia Smith Tracy K. Smith Bryan Stevenson Nafissa Thompson-Spires Natasha Trethewey Linda Villarosa Jesmyn Ward

The 1619 Project

A New American Origin Story

James O'Brien

***THE RUNAWAY BESTSELLER, WITH NEW MATERIAL FOR THE PAPERBACK*** 
 
THE REVEALING, DEFINING ACCOUNT OF THE DARK NETWORK THAT BROKE OUR COUNTRY. 
 
Something has gone really wrong in Britain. 
 
Our economy has tanked, our freedoms are shrinking, and social divisions are growing. Our politicians seem most interested in their own careers, and much of the media only make things worse. We are living in a country almost unrecognisable from the one that existed a decade ago. But whose fault is it really? Who broke Britain and how did they do it? 
 
Bold and incisive as ever, James O'Brien reveals the shady network of influence that has created a broken Britain of strikes, shortages and scandals. He maps the web connecting dark think tanks to Downing Street, the journalists involved in selling it to the public and the media bosses pushing their own agendas. Over ten chapters, each focusing on a particular person complicit in the downfall, James O'Brien reveals how a select few have conspired - sometimes by incompetence, sometimes by design - to bring Britain to its knees.

How They Broke Britain

Jolyon Maugham

*The Sunday Times Bestseller* 
 
'Inspiring and illuminating' JAMES O'BRIEN 
 
Picked as a 2023 highlight by the Guardian 
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Our legal system often feels like it only works for the rich and powerful. But we can fight back. 
 
Jolyon Maugham KC founded Good Law Project in 2017 with the belief that the law can also put power into the hands of ordinary people. Already the largest legal campaign group in the UK, Good Law Project is shining light into corners the establishment would rather keep dark – from the failures of Brexit to the still-developing PPE scandal, to the tax arrangements of business giants like Uber. 
 
In Bringing Down Goliath, Jolyon Maugham KC reveals the story behind these landmark cases and the hidden fault lines of our judicial system. He offers an empowering, bold new vision for how the law can work better for all of us in the fight against injustice.

Bringing Down Goliath

How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful

Naoíse Mac Sweeney

*A BBC RADIO 4 Book of the Week* 
'A fantastic achievement' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads 
'Bright, expansive, and iconoclastic, this deliciously witty book has the potential to upset the applecart of "Western Civilisation" itself... Magnificent' Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb 
_________________ 
 
A radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating lives. 
 
We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread stretching from classical antiquity to the countries of the modern Western world. But what if this is wrong? 
 
Told through the lives of fourteen fascinating historical figures - including a formidable Roman matriarch, an unconventional Islamic scholar, an enslaved African American poetess and a British prime minister with Homeric aspirations – archaeologist and historian Naoíse Mac Sweeney charts how the idea of the West was invented, how it has been used to justify imperialism and racism, and why it is no longer ideologically fit for purpose today. 
 
The result is a bold and empowering new story of the people and ideas who made us who we are today.

The West

A New History of an Old Idea

Heather Cox Richardson

** #4 New York Times bestseller ** 
 
In Democracy Awakening, American historian Heather Cox Richardson examines how, over the decades, an elite minority have made war on American ideals. By weaponising language and promoting false history, they are leading Americans into authoritarianism and creating a disaffected population. 
 
Many books tell us what has happened over the last five years. In Democracy Awakening, Richardson wrangles America's meandering and confusing news feed into a coherent story to explain how America got to this perilous point, what we should pay attention to, and what the future of democracy holds.

Democracy Awakening

Notes on the State of America

Maria Ressa

**THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** 
 
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2021 
 
What will you sacrifice for the truth? 
 
Maria Ressa has spent decades speaking truth to power. But her work tracking disinformation networks seeded by her own government, spreading lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate, has landed her in trouble with the most powerful man in the country: President Duterte. 
 
Now, hounded by the state, she has multiple arrest warrants against her name, and a potential 100+ years behind bars to prepare for - while she stands trial for speaking the truth. 
 
How to Stand Up to a Dictator is the story of how democracy dies by a thousand cuts, and how an invisible atom bomb has exploded online that is killing our freedoms. It maps a network of disinformation - a heinous web of cause and effect - that has netted the globe: from Duterte's drug wars, to America's Capitol Hill, to Britain's Brexit, to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare, to Facebook and Silicon Valley, to our own clicks and our own votes. 
 
Told from the frontline of the digital war, this is Maria Ressa's urgent cry for us to wake up and hold the line, before it is too late. 
 
Praise for Maria Ressa: 
Winner of the UNESCO Press Freedom Award 2021 
'A personal hero of mine ... she's an important warning for the rest of us' 
Hillary Clinton 
'Maria Ressa is 5ft 2in, but she stands taller than most in her pursuit of the truth' 
Amal Clooney 
'Maria is a key voice ... she is so incredible in so many ways' 
Carole Cadwalladr

How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Radio 4 Book of the Week

Jamie Bartlett

'An astonishing read, plunging you into a toxic world of Insta-wealth, betrayal and ruthless ambition... A con that made Theranos look like small fry' - The Telegraph 
 
'The largest financial scam ever' - Fortune 
 
'The story of OneCoin stands out even among the outlandish capers of the cryptocurrency era' - Wall Street Journal 
____________________________________________________ 
 
In 2014, a brilliant Oxford graduate called Dr Ruja Ignatova vowed to revolutionise money. The self-styled Cryptoqueen launched OneCoin, a bold new cryptocurrency that she promised would earn its investors untold fortunes and change the world. But by the end of 2017, with billions of dollars invested from every country on earth, Ruja Ignatova had disappeared - along with the money. 
 
The Missing Cryptoqueen tells the outrageous true story of the world's most wanted woman and the author's five-year hunt for the truth. It is a modern tale of greed, rivalry and herd madness that reveals how OneCoin became the biggest scam of the 21st Century.

The Missing Cryptoqueen

The Crypto Con That Fooled the World

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Martin Sixsmith

'I'm a fairly calm fellow; I don't usually get het up about things. But I was, let's say, concerned when I tuned into the Moscow Echo radio station and heard that the Kremlin had put a price on my head. The announcement didn't quite say 'dead or alive'. But it came close...' Mikhail Khodorkovsky, March 2021 
 
 Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime - and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. 
 
 Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey, from Soviet youth to international oil executive, powerful insider to political dissident, and now a high-profile voice seeking to reconcile East and West. 
 
 With unparalleled insight, written with Sunday Times bestselling author Martin Sixsmith, The Russia Conundrum exposes the desires and damning truths of Putin's Russia, and provides an answer to the West on how it must challenge the Kremlin - in order to pave the way for a better future.

The Russia Conundrum

One man’s fight to save his country’s soul

How the West Fell For Putin’s Power Gambit – and How to Fix It

Hannah Rose Woods

** A FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR ** 
 
'A must read' - Janina Ramirez, bestselling author of Femina 
 
'An eye-opening history of Britain's enduring fixation with its own past' - Jeremy Paxman 
 
'Rule, Nostalgia announces Woods as one of the most interesting new historians of her generation' - Dan Snow 
 
 
Longing to go back to the 'good old days' is nothing new. For hundreds of years, the British have mourned the loss of tradition and called for a revival of 'simpler', 'better' ways of life, from modern politicians indulging in fantasies of an imperial past, to Victorian artists yearning to retreat into a medieval dream of Merry England. But were the 'good old days' ever quite how we remember them? 
 
Rule, Nostalgia is a surprising, timely new history of Britain that separates the history from the fantasy and traces back to its origins the powerful influence that nostalgia's perpetual backwards glance has had on British history, politics and society.

Rule, Nostalgia

A Backwards History of Britain

Tom Bower

Guardian 'literary highlights of 2020' 
Sunday Times 'books to watch out for in 2020' 
New Statesman 'books to read in 2020' 
Evening Standard 'thirteen titles to look for in 2020' 
 
As divisive as he is beguiling, as misunderstood as he is scrutinised, Boris Johnson is a singular figure. 
 
Many of us think we know his story well. His ruthless ambition was evident from his insistence, as a three-year-old, that he would one day be 'world king'. Eton and Oxford prepared him well for a frantic career straddling the dog-eat-dog worlds of journalism and politics. His transformation from bumbling stooge on Have I Got New for You to a triumphant Mayor of London was overshadowed only by his colourful personal life, brimming with affairs, scandals and transgressions. His ascent to Number 10 in the wake of the acrimonious, era-defining Brexit referendum would prove to be only the first act in an epic drama that saw him play both hero and villain - from proroguing parliament to his controversial leadership of the Covid-19 Crisis, all against the backdrop of divorce, marriage, the birth of his sixth child, revolts among Tory MPs and the countdown to Brexit. 
 
Yet despite his celebrity, decades of media scrutiny, the endless vitriol of his critics and the enduring adoration of his supporters, there is so much we've never understood about Boris - until now. Previous biographies have either dismissed him as a lazy, deceitful opportunist or been transfixed by his charm, wit and drive. Both approaches fall short, and so many questions about Boris remain unanswered. 
 
What seismic events of his childhood have evaded scrutiny? How has he so consistently defied the odds, proved his critics wrong, and got away with increasingly reckless gambles? What were his real achievements and failures as Mayor of London, what was really going on during his time as Foreign Secretary, and why did he write two articles for the Telegraph, one in favour of Leave and the other for Remain? How have the women in his life exerted more influence than any of us realise, and why is his story ultimately one overshadowed by family secrets? 
 
Based on a wealth of new interviews and research, this is the deepest, most rounded and most comprehensive portrait to date of the man, the mind, the politics, the affairs, the family - of a loner, a lover, a leader. 
 
Revelatory, unsettling and compulsively readable, it is the most timely and indispensable book yet from Britain's leading investigative biographer.

Boris Johnson

The Gambler

Grigory Rodchenkov

***Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, 2020 - the inside story of the Russian doping programme by the man behind it all*** 
 
One of the Financial Times's 'Fifty people who shaped the decade' 
 
 'The biggest sports scandal the world has ever seen' 
 
In 2015, Russia's Anti-Doping Centre was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) following revelations of an elaborate state-sponsored doping programme at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Involving a nearly undetectable steroid delivery system known as 'Duchesse cocktail', tampering and switching of urine samples, and a complex state-sanctioned cover-up, the programme was masterminded by Grigory Rodchenkov. 
 
The Rodchenkov Affair tells the full, unadulterated story that was first glimpsed in Bryan Fogel's award-winning documentary and still continues to captivate and shock the world. Charting the author's childhood growing up under the Iron Curtain, his first encounter with doping as a 22-year-old student athlete at Moscow State University, and his subsequent career working for the Soviet Olympic Committee, this breathtakingly candid journey reveals a rigged system of flawed individuals, brazen deceit and impossible moral choices.

The Rodchenkov Affair

How I Brought Down Russia’s Secret Doping Empire – Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2020

Judith Heumann

Kristen Joiner

A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism--from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington--Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. 
 
 Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy Heumann began her struggle for equality early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license, to leading the section 504 sit-in that led to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Judy's actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people around the globe. 
 
Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann's memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

Being Heumann

The Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist

There's no point having a mind if you're not willing to change it 
 
James O'Brien has built well over a million loyal listeners to his radio show by dissecting the opinions of callers live on air, every day. But winning the argument doesn't necessarily mean you're right. 
 
In this deeply personal book, James turns the mirror on himself to reveal what he has changed his mind about and why, and explore how examining and changing our own views is our new civic duty in a world of outrage, disagreement and echo chambers. He writes candidly about the stiff upper lip attitudes and toxic masculinity that coloured his childhood, and the therapy and personal growth that have led him question his assumptions and explore new perspectives. Laying open his personal views on everything from racial prejudice to emotional vulnerability, from fat-shaming to tattoos, he then delves into the real reasons - often irrational or unconscious - he holds them. 
 
Unflinchingly honest, revealing and funny, How Not to Be Wrong is a tonic for a world more divided than ever and a personal manifesto for a better way of thinking and living. 
 
Because after all, if we can't change our own minds we'll never really be able to change anyone else's.

How Not To Be Wrong

The Art of Changing Your Mind

Joshua Wong

Jason Y. Ng

'Joshua Wong is a brave and inspiring young leader.' - GRETA THUNBERG 
 
 Imprisoned on 2 December 2020 for the third time, read Joshua Wong's urgent and powerful story - the Hong Konger fighting for democracy. 
 
INTRODUCTION BY AI WEIWEI, FOREWORD BY CHRIS PATTEN 
 
 Unfree Speech is Joshua's urgent call for us to defend our democratic values, whoever we are. 
 
It chronicles Joshua's path to activism, collects the letters he wrote as a political prisoner, and closes with a powerful and urgent manifesto for us to defend our democracies at time of global flux and change. 
 
Joshua Wong made history when he was 14. While the adults stayed silent, Joshua staged the first ever student protest in Hong Kong to oppose National Education - and won. 
 
 Since then, he led the Umbrella Movement, founded a political party, and rallied the international community around the Hong Kong protests, which saw 2 million people take to the streets. Now, he is in jail again. His actions have sparked worldwide attention and earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, as he continues to fight for what he believes in. 
 
 His message is clear: when we stay silent, no one is safe. When we free our speech, our voice becomes one. 
 
 'If we want freedom, we need to learn from Hong Kong. With values, tactics, and courage, Joshua Wong shows us the way.' - Timothy Snyder, bestselling author of On Tyranny 
 
'A guide to mobilising for democracy and representation in and far beyond Hong Kong.' - Julia Lovell, award-winning author of Maoism 
 
- The Times Book of the Week - 
 - Observer Book of the Week - 
 - Named by the Financial Times as one of the 50 people who shaped the decade -

Unfree Speech

The Threat to Global Democracy and Why We Must Act, Now

Yancey Strickler

Break free from a wealth-obsessed world 
 
Western society is trapped by three assumptions: 1) the point of life is to maximize your self-interest and wealth, 2) we're individuals trapped in an adversarial world, and 3) that this path is inevitable. 
 
These ideas separate us, keep us powerless, and limit our imagination for the future. We see them as the truth, but they are just a point of view that previous generations accepted as inevitable. It's time we replace them with something new. 
 
In this bold, powerful book, Yancey Strickler – co-founder of Kickstarter – lays out an inspiring vision for a new world we have the power to create and how we can change course. While the pursuit of wealth has produced innovation and prosperity, it's also produced dire consequences: environmental collapse, corruption, exploitation, and unhappiness around the world. We don't have to get rid of money entirely, though: we can co-opt the tools we have used toward better measurement of what matters, technology, and specificity of goals--and refocus them to build a more generous, fair, and future-prepared society. By re-calibrating our definition of value, a world of scarcity can blossom into a world of abundance. 
 
Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete examples and bursting with creativity, This Could Be Our Future brilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.

This Could Be Our Future

A Manifesto for a More Generous World

Carlo M. Cipolla

'A classic' - Simon Kuper, Financial Times 
 
'Brilliant' - James O'Brien, author of How to be Right 
 
The five laws that confirm our worst fears: stupid people can and do rule the world. 
 
Since time immemorial, a powerful dark force has hindered the growth of human welfare and happiness. It is more powerful than the Mafia or the military. It has global catastrophic effects and can be found anywhere from the world's most powerful boardrooms to your local pub. This is the immensely powerful force of human stupidity. 
 
Seeing the shambolic state of human affairs, and sensing the dark force at work behind it, Carlo M. Cipolla, the late, noted professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley, created a vitally important economic model that would allow us to detect, know and neutralise this threat: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity. 
 
If you've ever found yourself despairing at the ubiquity of stupidity among even the most 'intellectual' of people, then this hilarious, timely and slightly alarming little book is for you. Arm yourself in the face of baffling political realities, unreasonable colleagues or the unbridled misery of dinner with the in-laws with the first and only economic model for stupidity.

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

The International Bestseller

Jake Bernstein

Now a Major Motion Picture The Laundromat from Director Steven Soderbergh, starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, and Antonio Banderas. 
 
The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Bernstein takes us inside the world revealed by the Panama Papers, illicit money, political corruption, and fraud on a global scale. 
 
A hidden circulatory system flows beneath the surface of global finance, carrying trillions of dollars from drug trafficking, tax evasion, bribery, and other illegal enterprises. This network masks the identities of the individuals who benefit, aided by bankers, lawyers, and auditors who get paid to look the other way. 
 
In The Laundromat, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jake Bernstein explores this shadow economy and how it evolved, drawing on millions of leaked documents from the files of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca – a trove now known as the Panama Papers – as well as other journalistic and government investigations. Bernstein shows how shell companies operate, how they allow the superwealthy and celebrities to escape taxes, and how they provide cover for illicit activities on a massive scale by crime bosses and corrupt politicians across the globe. 
 
The Laundromat offers a disturbing and sobering view of how the world really works and raises critical questions about financial and legal institutions we may once have trusted.

The Laundromat

Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite

Ziauddin Yousafzai

Louise Carpenter

In this intimate and extraordinary memoir, Ziauddin Yousafzai, the father of Malala, gives a moving account of fatherhood and his lifelong fight for equality – proving there are many faces of feminism. 
 
“Whenever anybody has asked me how Malala became who she is, I have often used the phrase. ‘Ask me not what I did but what I did not do. I did not clip her wings’” 
 
For over twenty years, Ziauddin Yousafzai has been fighting for equality – first for Malala, his daughter – and then for all girls throughout the world living in patriarchal societies. Taught as a young boy in Pakistan to believe that he was inherently better than his sisters, Ziauddin rebelled against inequality at a young age. And when he had a daughter himself he vowed that Malala would have an education, something usually only given to boys, and he founded a school that Malala could attend. 
 
Then in 2012, Malala was shot for standing up to the Taliban by continuing to go to her father's school, and Ziauddin almost lost the very person for whom his fight for equality began. 
 
Let Her Fly is Ziauddin’s journey from a stammering boy growing up in a tiny village high in the mountains of Pakistan, through to being an activist for equality and the father of the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and now one of the most influential and inspiring young women on the planet. 
 
Told through intimate portraits of each of Ziauddin’s closest relationships – as a son to a traditional father; as a father to Malala and her brothers, educated and growing up in the West; as a husband to a wife finally learning to read and write; as a brother to five sisters still living in the patriarchy – Let Her Fly looks at what it means to love, to have courage and fight for what is inherently right. Personal in its detail and universal in its themes, this landmark book shows why we must all keep fighting for the rights of girls and women everywhere.

Let Her Fly

A Father’s Journey and the Fight for Equality

The voice of reason in a world that won’t shut up. 
 
The Sunday Times Bestseller 
Winner of the Parliamentary Book Awards 
 
Every day, James O’Brien listens to people blaming hard-working immigrants for stealing their jobs while scrounging benefits, and pointing their fingers at the EU and feminists for destroying Britain. But what makes James’s daily LBC show such essential listening – and has made James a standout social media star – is the incisive way he punctures their assumptions and dismantles their arguments live on air, every single morning. 
 
In the bestselling How To Be Right, James provides a hilarious and invigorating guide to talking to people with unchallenged opinions. With chapters on every lightning-rod issue, James shows how people have been fooled into thinking the way they do, and in each case outlines the key questions to ask to reveal fallacies, inconsistencies and double standards. 
 
If you ever get cornered by ardent Brexiteers, Daily Mail disciples or corporate cronies, this book is your conversation survival guide.

How To Be Right

… in a world gone wrong

Annie Lowrey

Shortlisted for the 2018 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award! 
 
Surely just giving people money couldn't work. Or could it? 
 
Imagine if every month the government deposited £1000 in your bank account, with no strings attached and nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy, but Universal Basic Income (UBI) has become one of the most influential policy ideas of our time, backed by thinkers on both the left and the right. The founder of Facebook, Obama's chief economist, governments from Canada to Finland are all seriously debating some form of UBI. 
 
In this sparkling and provocative book, economics writer Annie Lowrey looks at the global UBI movement. She travels to Kenya to see how UBI is lifting the poorest people on earth out of destitution, and India to see how inefficient government programs are failing the poor. She visits South Korea to interrogate UBI’s intellectual pedigree, and Silicon Valley to meet the tech titans financing UBI pilots in the face of advanced artificial intelligence and little need for human labour. She also examines at the challenges the movement faces: contradictory aims, uncomfortable costs, and most powerfully, the entrenched belief that no one should get something for nothing. 
 
The UBI movement is not just an economic policy -- it also calls into question our deepest intuitions about what we owe each other and what activities we should reward and value as a society.

Give People Money

The simple idea to solve inequality and revolutionise our lives

Matt Taibbi

One of the most important voices in contemporary American journalism - Independent 
 
Matt Taibbi is one of the few journalists in America who speaks truth to power - Bernie Sanders 
 
Matt Taibbi is the best polemic journalist in America - Felix Salmon 
 
 
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
"The thing is, when you actually think about it, it's not funny. Given what's at stake, it's more like the opposite, like the first sign of the collapse of the United States as a global superpower. Twenty years from now, when we're all living like prehistory hominids and hunting rats with sticks, we'll probably look back at this moment as the beginning of the end." 
 
 
In this groundbreaking battery of dispatches from the heartland of America, Matt Taibbi tells the full story of the Trump phenomenon, from its tragi-comic beginnings to the apocalyptic election. Full of sharp, on-the-ground reporting and gallows humour, his incisive analysis goes beyond the bizarre and disturbing election to tell a wider story of the apparent collapse of American democracy. Taibbi saw the essential themes right from the start: the power of spectacle over truth; the end of a shared reality on the left and right; the nihilistic rebellion of the white working class; the death of the political establishment; and the emergence of a new, explicit form of white nationalism. 
 
From the thwarted Bernie Sanders insurgency to the aimless Hillary Clinton campaign, across the flailing media coverage and the trampled legacy of Obama, this is the story of ordinary voters forced to bear witness to the whole charade. At the centre of it all, "a bumbling train wreck of a candidate who belched and preened his way past a historically weak field" who, improbably, has taken control of the world's most powerful nation. 
 
This is essential and hilarious reading that explores how the new America understands itself, and about the future of the world just beyond the horizon.

Insane Clown President

Dispatches from the American Circus

Mark Landler

A Financial Times book of the year 
 
'a first draft of the history of the Obama years' Financial Times 
‘full of compelling narrative and telling anecdotes’ Sunday Times 
'well-researched and engaging' The Financial Times 
‘outstanding’ Washington Post 
‘one of the best reporters working in Washington today’ Jane Mayer 
‘incredibly important… timely and deeply revelatory’ Kai Bird 
‘vivid, page-turning’ Michael Beschloss 
 
As Donald Trump becomes the new American president, we are on the point of a major debate about America’s role in the world. 
 
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were rivals who became partners for a time, trailblazers who shared a common sense of their historic destiny but different instincts about how to project power. While Obama and Hillary tussled over foreign policy questions, their relationship has created the context that Trump will inherit. 
 
Mark Landler, White House correspondent for the New York Times, offers a deeply reported, first-hand account of the Obama administration and gives us a different way to think about the relationship between Obama and Hillary that shaped the US over the last eight years. With all the sweep of a grand history, enlivened by an insider’s access, dozens of interviews, and breaking news, ALTER EGOS is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand these two supremely ambitious figures, and the storm-tossed world of modern politics.

Alter Egos

Obama’s Legacy, Hillary’s Promise and the Struggle over American Power

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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