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

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy and is known as @agatharoza on Wattpad.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children. Angelica is also the author of Hunt A Killer, a PERFECT SCORE novel, under the pen name A.M. Ellis, which she wrote as an IP for Scholastic in the US.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

Aaron Edwards is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He is the author and editor of several books, including Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars Since 1945, and has lectured all over the world on aspects of national and international security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Aaron Edwards

Aaron Robertson is a writer, an editor, and a translator of Italian literature. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was short-listed for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and in 2021 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Point, and Literary Hub, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Aaron Robertson

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David JP Phillips

Neurochemicals affect just about everything in our bodies, including how we think and feel. Learn to optimize your body's chemical factory and achieve lasting effects in your life. 
 
This simple account can help everybody understand how our chemistry can affect us, and how we can affect it in turn. Through understanding six key substances - Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Cortisol, Endorphin, Testosterone - we can learn to harness our mind's full potential and become our best selves. This book is about how to lead yourself towards the future you desire, for everyone who longs to feel high on life for real.

High on Life

How to naturally harness the power of six key hormones

How to naturally harness the power of six key hormones and revolutionise yourself

Charles Duhigg

From the author of the global bestseller, The Power of Habit 
 
'This is not just a riveting read about how to understand others better. It’s also a revealing look at how to be understood.' - ADAM GRANT 
 
If you want to improve your communication skills at work and in life, this book is the place the start.' - ARTHUR C. BROOKS Professor, Harvard Business School, and #1 New York Times bestselling author 
___________________________________________________________ 
 
 
Who and what are supercommunicators? They're the people who can steer a conversation to a successful conclusion. They are able to talk about difficult topics without giving offence. They know how to make others feel at ease and share what they think. They're brilliant facilitators and decision-guiders. How do they do it? 
 
In this groundbreaking new book, Charles Duhigg unravels the secrets of the supercommunicators to reveal the art – and the science – of successful communication. He unpicks the different types of everyday conversation and pinpoints why some go smoothly while others swiftly fall apart. He reveals the conversational questions and gambits that bring people together. And he shows how even the most tricky of encounters can be turned around. In the process, he shows why a CIA operative was able to win over a reluctant spy, how a member of a jury got his fellow jurors to view an open-and-shut case differently, and what a doctor found they needed to do to engage with a vaccine sceptic. 
 
Above all, he reveals the techniques we can all master to successfully connect with others, however tricky the circumstances. Packed with fascinating case studies and drawing on cutting-edge research, this book will change the way you think about what you say, and how you say it. 
 
_______________________________________________________________ 
 
'Charles Duhigg goes through a mountain of research – and some riveting stories – and unearths practical tactics to show that anyone can become a more effective listener, speaker, and even social media poster.' - DAVID EPSTEIN, bestselling author of Range and The Sports Gene

Supercommunicators

How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

Vincent Deary

What happens when our minds and bodies are pushed beyond their limits? Vincent Deary is a health psychologist who has spent years helping his patients cope with whatever life has thrown at them. In How We Break, he has written a book for all of us who sometimes feel we have reached our breaking point. 
 
Drawing on clinical case studies, cutting-edge scientific research, intimate personal stories and references from philosophy, literature and film, How We Break offers a consoling new vision of everyday human struggle. The big traumas in life, Deary points out, are relatively rare. More common is when too many things go wrong at once, or we are exposed to prolonged periods of difficulty or precarity. When the world shrinks to nothing but our daily coping, we become unhappy, worried, hopeless, exhausted. In other words, we break. Breaking, he shows us, happens when the same systems that enable us to navigate through life become dysregulated. But if we understand how the wear and tear of life affects us, then we have a better chance of navigating through times of burnout, stress, fatigue and despair. 
 
By equipping us with a better understanding of what happens to us when we're struggling to cope, and making a bold case for the power of rest and recuperation, How We Break helps chart a path through difficult times.

How We Break

Navigating the Wear and Tear of Living

Adam Phillips

To give up or not to give up? 
 
The question can feel inescapable but the answer is never simple. 
 
Giving up our supposed vices is one thing; giving up on life itself is quite another. One form of self-sacrifice feels positive, something to admire and aspire to, while the other is profoundly unsettling, if not actively undesirable. 
 
There are always, it turns out, both good and bad sacrifices, but it is not always clear beforehand which is which. We give something up because we believe we can no longer go on as we are. In this sense, giving up is a critical moment - an attempt to make a different future. 
 
In On Giving Up, acclaimed psychoanalyst Adam Phillips illuminates both the gaps and the connections between the many ways of giving up, and helps us to address the central question: what must we give up in order to feel more alive?

On Giving Up

Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt has spent his career speaking truth and wisdom in some of the most difficult spaces &ndash; communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the mental health emergency hitting teenagers today in many countries around the world. 
 
In The Anxious Generation, Haidt shows how, between 2010 and 2015, childhood and adolescence got rewired. As teens traded in their flip phones for smartphones packed with social media apps, time online soared, including time spent comparing oneself to a vast pool of others. Time engaging face-to-face with friends and family plummeted, and so did mental health. 
 
But this is not just a story about technology; this profound shift took place against a backdrop of declining childhood freedom and free-play, as parents over-supervised every aspect of their children&rsquo;s lives offline, depriving them of the experiences they most need to become strong and self-governing adults. 
 
In this book, Haidt makes a compelling argument that the loss of play-based childhood and its replacement with a phone-based childhood that is not suitable for human development is the source of increased mental distress among teenagers. The Anxious Generation delves into the latest psychological and biological research to show the four fundamental ways in which a phone-based childhood disrupts development &ndash; sleep deprivation, social deprivation, cognitive fragmentation and addiction. Haidt offers separate in-depth analyses of what has happened to girls, and what has happened to boys, offering practical advice for parents, schools, governments, and teens themselves. Drawing on ancient wisdom and cutting-edge research, this eye-opening book is a life raft and a powerful call-to-arms.

The Anxious Generation

How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Darian Leader

‘It was just sex…’It’s a familiar claim. But it’s also an impossibility, as Darian Leader shows in this delightfully thought-provoking study.Our bodies aren’t just sticks that make fire when you rub them together, and our minds don’t simply stand by – as we can see from the pain, heartache and regret that so often accompany the highs of sexual excitement.As acclaimed psychoanalyst Darian Leader argues, with his trademark clarity, energy and wit, sex is always about so much more than itself – it’s about phantasy, anxiety, guilt, revenge, violence, love. Drawing on his long analytic experience, historical research and case studies to explore their importance to every aspect of our sexual lives, Leader brilliantly reveals what we are really thinking about when we think about sex – and what we are really doing when we do it.

Is It Ever Just Sex?

Yascha Mounk

For much of their history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. It is no surprise then that many who passionately believe in social justice have come to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity if they are to resist injustice. 
 
But over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minorities has transformed into an obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology - which Yascha Mounk terms the 'identity synthesis' - seeks to put each citizen's matrix of identities at the heart of social, cultural and political life. This, he argues, is The Identity Trap. 
 
Mounk traces the intellectual origin of these ideas. He tells the story of how they were able to win tremendous power over the past decade. And he makes a nuanced case why their application to areas from education to public policy is proving to be deeply counterproductive. In his passionate plea for universalism and humanism, he argues that the proponents of identitarian ideas will, though they may be full of good intentions, make it harder to achieve progress towards genuine equality.

The Identity Trap

A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

Camilla Nord

There are many routes to mental wellbeing and award-winning neuroscientist Camilla Nord is at the forefront of finding them. In this ground-breaking book, she offers a revelatory tour of the scientific and technological developments that are revolutionizing the way we think about mental health, showing why and how events - and treatments - can affect people in such different ways. 
 
In The Balanced Brain, Nord reframes mental health as an intricate, self-regulating process, one which is different for all of us. She examines a huge diversity of treatments, from therapy to medication, to show how they work, and why they sometimes don't. In doing so, she reveals how the small things we do to lift our mood during the course of a day - a piece of chocolate, a coffee, chatting to a friend - often work on the same pathways in our brain as the latest pharmacological treatments for mental health disorders. Whether they help us to manage pain, learn from experience or expend energy on the things that are important for our survival, these conscious actions are part of a complex self-regulating process that is unique to each individual and the constant backdrop to our everyday lives. 
 
Nord shows that, with so many factors at play, there are more possibilities for recovery and resilience than we might think. This book is an invitation to discover those pathways, in order to help us identify what makes each of us feel better - and why.

The Balanced Brain

The Science of Mental Health

Alain de Botton

A healthy mind knows how to hope, hanging on tenaciously to the reasons to keep going. 
 
A healthy mind resists unfair comparisons, not allowing others’ successes to throw it off course. 
 
A healthy mind avoids catastrophic imaginings, distinguishing worries of what could happen from what likely will. 
 
Just as there is no such thing as a human being who will never become physically ill, there is no human who will go their whole life without becoming mentally unwell. But recognising ourselves when we’re well can do a lot to help us identify what can go awry. Written with his signature kindness and empathy, this book is Alain de Botton’s practical guide to caring for our mental health – from the acts of self-care in which we find respite to the help which psychotherapy can bring. 
 
Mental illness is as common, and as unshameful, as its bodily counterpart. We should be no more reluctant to seek help than we are if we develop a chest infection or sore knee - and we are no less worthy of love and sympathy in those moments. This book is a reminder of that.

A Therapeutic Journey

Lessons from the School of Life

Kehinde Andrews

Take a step through the looking-glass to a strange land, one where Piers Morgan is a voice worth listening to about race, where white people buy self-help books to help them cope with their whiteness, where Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are seen by the majority of the population as 'the right (white) man for the job'. Perhaps you know it. All the inhabitants seem to be afflicted by serious delusions, like that racism doesn't exist and if it does it can be cured with a one-hour inclusion seminar, and bizarre collective hallucinations, like the widely held idea that Britain's only role in slavery was to abolish it. 
 
But there is a serious side too. Black and brown people suffer from a greater number of mental health difficulties, caused in no small part by living in a racist society. But being Black and brown has itself been pathologized by the young field of psychology. Society cannot face up to the racism at its heart and in its history, so the delusions, irrationalities and hallucinations it conjures up to avoid doing so can only best be described as a psychosis, and the costs are being borne by the sons and daughters of that racist history. 
 
Kehinde Andrews is your piercing, wry and not a little funny guide back to sanity, unpicking the absurd and outrageous lies society tells to keep up the status quo and The Psychosis of Whiteness is your lifeboat out of this topsy-turvy world.

The Psychosis of Whiteness

Surviving the Insanity of a Racist World

Chip Heath

Dan Heath

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Beautifully written, brilliantly researched' Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of GRIT 
 
'The most interesting, immediately actionable book I&rsquo;ve read in quite a while... If life is a series of moments, the Heath brothers have transformed how I plan to spend mine' Adam Grant, bestselling author of ORIGINALS and OPTION B, with Sheryl Sandberg 
 
In this latest New York Times bestseller by the authors of Switch and Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath explore why certain brief experiences can jolt, elevate and change us - and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our own life and work. 
 
What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later? What if a doctor or nurse knew how to orchestrate moments that would bring more comfort to patients? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children? Many of the defining moments in our lives are the result of accident or luck - but why leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them? 
 
In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath explore the stories of people who have created standout moments, from the owners who transformed an utterly mediocre hotel into one of the best-loved properties in Los Angeles by conjuring moments of magic for guests, to the scrappy team that turned around one of the worst elementary schools in the country by embracing an intervention that lasts less than an hour. 
 
Filled with remarkable tales and practical insights, The Power of Moments proves we all have the power to transform ordinary experiences into unforgettable ones.

The Power of Moments

Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact

Philip Gold

We are often told that depression is 'all in the mind'. So why are so many of its symptoms felt in our bodies? Why can depression have such a profound impact on physical as well as mental health - from coronary disease to stroke? Philip Gold, a world-renowned expert on this devastating illness, shows how depression is a stress response gone awry, affecting the whole body, not just the brain.Drawing on both neuroscience and endocrinology, Breaking Through Depression reveals the latest research on how depression influences every aspect of our health, from the chemical messengers that control appetite to the brain's structure and functionality. Packed with startling insights, this book transforms our understanding of different forms of depression, including related conditions such as bipolar and seasonal affective disorders, and its huge impact on global health. 
 
Timely, urgent and important, Breaking Through Depression articulates the workings of this misunderstood illness in compelling and often surprising detail, introducing the newest innovations in treatment - from low energy lasers to genetic solutions and rapidly acting antidepressants which restore damaged brain cells - that offer hope for healing.

Breaking Through Depression

New Treatments and Discoveries for Healing

Paul Britton

Forensic psychologist Paul Britton can 'walk through the minds' of those who murder, rape, torture, extort and kidnap. He can see the world through their eyes and know what they're thinking. That's why the police have called him into so many high-profile criminal investigations and help them catch who is responsible. 
 
From top-security prisons and mental hospitals to ordinary outpatients' clinics, he has interviewed, assessed and treated people who were damaged or broken. Some were responsible for terrible crimes; others were stopped before it was too late. But the answers weren't always hidden at bloody crime scenes or in post-mortem photographs. Instead, they are mostly buried within someone's mind or deep in their past. 
 
How does he find the truth? In Picking Up the Pieces, Britton reveals the psychological and forensic foundations on which he has based his expertise. It is a remarkable, enlightening and, at times terrifying, journey into the dark recesses of that complex organism we call the human mind.

Picking Up The Pieces

Shane Parrish

'An indispensable guide' James Clear, author of Atomic Habits 
'A game-changer' Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money 
'A must-read' Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck 
'A masterwork' Ryan Holiday, author of The Daily Stoic 
 
We all face thousands of decisions every day. They define the trajectory of our lives. There’s just one problem: most of us have no idea how to make them. 
 
Here, Shane Parrish – ‘the former spy who helps Wall Street mavens think smarter’ (New York Times) – draws upon conversations with the world’s leading entrepreneurs and experts to offer a simple, revolutionary method to clear your head and make better decisions. It will help you unlock the life you seek. 
 
__ 
 
‘Shane Parrish doesn’t just teach clear thinking – he lives it . . . A lucid manual for overcoming cognitive biases and making better decisions.’ Adam Grant, author of Originals 
 
‘If you want results – good ones – that you can achieve confidently again and again, read this book.’ Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets 
 
‘Incisive. Practical. Full of vivid examples, and enormously fun to read.’ Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

Clear Thinking

The Art and Science of Making Better Decisions

Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

Paul Dix

&lsquo;The principle at the heart of Paul Dix&rsquo;s book is singularly powerful: that if we want to build a loving, resilient relationship with our children, we need to start with ourselves.&rsquo; Dr Tina Payne Bryson, co-author of The Whole-Brain Child 
 
The culture of any home is determined by the parents. If you can remain unflappably calm in the face of every supermarket tantrum and sarcastic eye-roll, order will soon follow. 
 
Here, bestselling author Paul Dix reveals how to turn even the most chaotic home into an oasis of calm &ndash; by focusing not on your children&rsquo;s behaviour, but on your own. You will never need to raise your voice again. 
 
&lsquo;An absolute game-changer . . . I laughed, nodded, winced a few times and most importantly felt inspired to make slow, incremental changes to how we do things in our house.&rsquo; Sarah Turner, aka The Unmumsy Mum 
 
&lsquo;How simple techniques, and a different way of thinking, can change the entire atmosphere at home.&rsquo; iNews

When the Parents Change, Everything Changes

Seismic Shifts in Children’s Behaviour

Naomi Klein

What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired a double? Someone almost like you, and yet not you at all? 
 
When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn't. She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity - all we have to meet the world - so unstable? 
 
To find out, Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre, uncanny mirror world: one of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters, where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting 'the children'). In doing so, she lifts the lid on our own culture during this surreal moment in history, as we turn ourselves into polished virtual brands, publicly shame our enemies, watch as deep fakes proliferate and whole nations flip from democracy to something far more sinister. 
 
This is a book for our age and for all of us; a deadly serious dark comedy which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It's for anyone who has lost hours down an internet rabbit hole, who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped, and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.

Doppelganger

A Trip Into the Mirror World

Amy Edmondson

Winner of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award 
 
&lsquo;Absolutely outstanding&rsquo; Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist | 'A masterclass&rsquo; Angela Duckworth, author of Grit | &lsquo;Excellent&rsquo; Andrew Hill, Financial Times 
 
We used to think of failure as a problem, to be avoided at all costs. Now, we're often told that failure is desirable - that we must &lsquo;fail fast, fail often&rsquo;. The trouble is, neither approach distinguishes the good failures from the bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well. 
 
Here, Amy Edmondson &ndash; the world&rsquo;s most influential organisational psychologist &ndash; reveals how we get failure wrong, and how to get it right. Drawing on four decades of research into the world&rsquo;s most effective teams, she unveils the three archetypes of failure &ndash; basic, complex and intelligent - and explains how to harness the revolutionary potential of the good ones (and eliminate the bad). Along the way, she poses a simple, provocative question: What if it is only by learning to fail that we can hope to truly succeed? 
 
&lsquo;Lays out a clearer path about how to stop avoiding failure and take smarter risks.&rsquo; Books of the Year, Financial Times

Right Kind of Wrong

How the Best Teams Use Failure to Succeed

Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive

Andy Clark

For as long as we've studied the mind, we've believed that information flowing from our senses determines what our mind perceives. But as our understanding has advanced in the last few decades, a hugely powerful new view has flipped this assumption on its head. The brain is not a passive receiver, but an ever-active predictor. 
 
At the forefront of this cognitive revolution is widely acclaimed philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark, who has synthesized his ground-breaking work on the predictive brain to explore its fascinating mechanics and implications. Among the most stunning of these is the realization that experience itself, because it is guided by prior expectation, is a kind of controlled hallucination. We don't passively take in the world around us; instead our mind is constantly making and refining predictions about what we expect to see. This even applies to our bodies, as the way we experience pain and other states is shaped by our expectations, and this has broader implications for the understanding and treatment of conditions from PTSD to schizophrenia to medically unexplained symptoms. From the most mundane experiences to the most sublime, it is our predictions that sculpt our experience. 
 
A landmark study of cognitive science, The Experience Machine lays out the extraordinary explanatory power of the predictive brain for our lives, mental health and society.

The Experience Machine

How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality

Jonathan Rosen

When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle, New York in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of professors, the boys were best friends and fierce rivals who soon followed each other to Yale University. 
 
Michael blazed through Yale in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. Then one day, Jonathan received a devastating call: Michael had suffered a psychotic break and was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. 
 
Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Michael was still in hospital when he learned he'd been accepted to Yale Law School, and living in a halfway house when he decided, against all odds, to enroll. Still battling delusions, he managed to graduate, and after his triumphant story was featured in The New York Times, sold a memoir for a vast sum. Ron Howard bought film rights, completing the dream for Michael and his tirelessly supportive girlfriend Carrie, and Brad Pitt was set to star. But then Michael, in the grip of psychosis, committed a horrific act that made him a front-page story of an entirely different sort. 
 
The Best Minds is Jonathan Rosen's powerful account of an American tragedy, set in the final decades of the American century, an era that coincided with the emptying out of state mental hospitals. It is a story about the bonds of friendship, the price of delusion and the mystery of identity. Tender, funny, and harrowing by turns, The Best Minds is both a beautifully rendered coming of age story and an indictment of the profound neglect of mental illness in our society.

The Best Minds

A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

Maureen Gaffney

Middle-age is cross-roadsy - having arrived, you're looking back in wonder about how you got here, and also looking ahead, thinking: where to next? The realisation that neither time nor choices are limitless is both daunting and exciting - this is the moment to take stock and figure out how to make the best of every precious moment of your second act. 
 
Your One Wild and Precious Life is an eye-opening account of this vital and surprisingly liberating life-stage. Crucially, it sets out how you can transform your thinking to reclaim control over your life, connect with who you truly are and face the future with joy and a sense of purpose. This is both radical and reassuring - a book to fundamentally alter your relationship with time and to help you to understand that every age can be your best age.

Your One Wild and Precious Life

An Inspiring Guide to Becoming Your Best Self in Midlife and Beyond

An Inspiring Guide to Becoming Your Best Self At Any Age

Jenn Granneman

Andre Sólo

Sensitive celebrates the power of a deeper, more tuned in mind and explores the superpower that is being a 'highly sensitive person'. If you have a heightened sense of empathy, or often notice tiny details that others don't, chances are you're a highly sensitive person, along with one fifth of the population. Highly sensitive people exemplify our best and most humane traits. They embody not just emotional sensitivity - qualities like empathy, kindness, and concern for strangers - but physical sensitivity too, processing all information very deeply. 
 
The unique strengths of highly sensitive people make them inspiring leaders, heartfelt caretakers, careful decision-makers, and natural-born artists. Offering an exciting new way of unlocking potential, this book gives sensitives - and those who care about them - the tools to be successful in school, work, life, and love. Based on more than twenty years of research in neuroscience, psychology, and human genetics, it is the first book to explore the science and strengths behind sensitivity.

Sensitive

The Power of a Thoughtful Mind in an Overwhelming World

Thomas Curran

'This book will transform how you think about success' Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes, creators of High Performance 
 
Today, burnout and depression are at record levels, driven by a combination of intense workplace competition, the comparative world of social media, the quest for elite credentials, and helicopter parenting. Society continually broadcasts the need to want more, and that we have to be perfect to get it. Why is this a trap, and how can we escape it? 
 
Gathering a wide range of contemporary evidence, acclaimed professor at the London School of Economics Thomas Curran calls for both a mindset shift and broader, societal change. He explores the paradoxical effects of perfectionism on everything from performance to social and financial inequality, and shows what we can do as individuals to resist the modern-day pressure to be perfect - and how we can create a culture that celebrates the joys of imperfection.

The Perfection Trap

The Power Of Good Enough In A World That Always Wants More

Emma Gannon

"Highly comforting" Alain de Botton, Founder of The School of Life 
 
"This book changed how I think" Annie Macmanus, author of The Mess We're In 
 
"You will not be able to put this book down" The Independent 
 
 
 
OUR OBSESSION WITH ACHIEVEMENT IS A TRAP. THIS IS HOW TO BREAK FREE. 
 
Emma Gannon was thriving in her portfolio career, enjoying a happy personal life and to anyone looking in, she was undoubtedly a success... She was also burned out and confused at why she felt unhappy, yet was still striving for more. 
 
After taking a deep look at her own journey, and interviewing many other successful people on her podcast Ctrl, Alt, Delete, she realised that our overly celebrated and traditional version of success is making us lonely, unfulfilled and dispirited. Now she has worked out a way to do things differently, and here Emma shares her hard-won lessons, including: 
 
• how to set goals that are ambitious but not overwhelming 
• why the 'tick-box' moments in life often feel anticlimactic 
• and how to break free from comparison and the endless pursuit of more 
 
A manifesto to craft work (and life) on your own terms, The Success Myth will give you the belief and tools to walk away from 'having it all', uncovering your individual path to fulfilment.

The Success Myth

Letting go of having it all

Daniel Kahneman

Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. This book reveals how our minds are tripped up by error and prejudice (even when we think we are being logical), and gives you practical techniques for slower, smarter thinking, enabling you to make better decisions at work, at home, and in everything you do.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Maxine  Mei-Fung Chung

'Full of wisdom and insight ... I cannot recommend it enough' Julia Samuel 
 
'Brilliant' Katy Hessel 
 
'Fascinating ... a valuable contribution to a wider debate about how women are permitted to own and express their desires' Guardian 
 
From a young bride-to-be struggling to accept her sexuality, to a mother grappling with questions of identity and belonging, and a pensioner falling in love for the first time, What Women Want is an enthralling and deeply intimate examination of womanhood. 
 
With empathy and bravery, psychotherapist Maxine Mei-Fung Chung delves into what makes us who we are. Through her conversations with her patients, she lays bare our fears, our secrets, our wants, and ultimately, our capacity for healing. 
 
To desire is an action. This extraordinary book liberates and empowers us to claim what we truly want.

What Women Want

Conversations on Desire, Power, Love and Growth

Jade Angeles Fitton

'I never imagined that the wind would blow me here, to a kind of isolation I have never experienced... There is never anything out here but my shadow, that no one treads on any more' 
 
When Jade's partner leaves the barn that they moved into just weeks before, he leaves a dent in the wall and her life unravelled. Numbed from years in a destructive, abusive relationship, she faces an uncertain future and complete solitude. Slowly, with the help of Devon's salted cliffs and damp forested footpaths, Jade comes back to life and discovers the power of being alone. 
 
As Jade reacclimatizes, she considers what it means to live alone. Through conversations with other hermits across the world, Fitton sheds light on the myriad - and often misunderstood - ways of living alone: from monks to hikikomori, and the largely ignored female hermit. Jade questions whether hermitic living is possible in an era of constant communication and increased housing costs as she finds herself financially unstable and itinerant. She realises that home doesn't exist within walls, but within the landscape of her childhood home county. 
 
Lyrically written, this is an inspirational story of recovery, of finding home, and of celebrating solitude in the natural world.

Hermit

A memoir of finding freedom in a wild place

Tracey Camilleri

Samantha Rockey

Robin Dunbar

'A remarkable and important book . . . a highly accessible, timely and invaluable guide to anybody working in groups.' Prof Paul Gilbert OBE 
___________________________________________________ 
 
 
How can we work more successfully with others? 
How can we form better relationships and build trust? 
How do we create great, high-performing teams? 
 
In this groundbreaking new book, world-leading experts in evolutionary psychology and strategic leadership come together to offer a primer on how to build groups that succeed and thrive together. They show how an understanding of our 'social brain' can help us build productive relationships. They explain the science of group dynamics and what size group is most suited to the task at hand. They offer practical hints on how to diffuse tensions and encourage cohesion. And they demonstrate the vital importance of balancing a sense of unity with the need to encourage different outlooks and strengths 
 
This is a brilliant guide to how our social brains work – and how to make the best use of them. 
 
_________________________________________________________________________ 
'This wonderful book reminds us that businesses are also biological and social . . . It could not be more timely, wise and useful.' Margaret Heffernan, author of Wilful Blindness

The Social Brain

The Psychology of Successful Groups

Ken Duckworth

'Powerful and poignant, this book is for anyone who has struggled with mental health challenges' Lori Gottlieb 
'[An] invaluable book' Andrew Solomon 
'A unique, hopeful, essential guide. You Are Not Alone is a treasure' Bruce D. Perry 
 
This singular book is a powerful reminder that help is here, and you are never alone. 
 
Millions of people across the world are affected by mental illness every year. Yet the mental healthcare industry remains chaotic, underfunded and often inaccessible, with many people asking themselves the same questions: What does it mean when different doctors give me different diagnoses? Will I be on medication my whole life? Will I ever feel better? 
 
You Are Not Alone is here to offer help and compassion. Written by Dr Ken Duckworth, whose own entry into psychiatry was inspired by his father's lifelong battle with bipolar disorder, this comprehensive guide pairs medical expertise with the empathy of someone who gets it.

You Are Not Alone

Navigating Mental Illness and the Journey to Recovery

Richard Hogan

In our early years we lay down the blueprint for being a partner, parent, sibling, friend, colleague, neighbour and citizen. But even the best childhood is imperfect and leaves many of us struggling to manage our moods and emotions as adults. 
 
Experienced family therapist Richard Hogan has seen it all. And he has worked with countless people to help them overcome an uncertain start. 
 
In Home is Where the Start Is Richard reveals stories from the therapy room and from his own childhood. And he shares failsafe techniques to get over the legacy of early challenges. 
 
Home is Where the Start Is will help you become the best version of yourself you can be. And if you are a parent, it will support you in giving your child the best possible start.

Home is Where the Start Is

How Your Family Made You, and How You Can Make Yourself Even Better

Satya Doyle Byock

'I wish I had this guide when I was in my 20s and 30s but even now, it offers me a nuanced perspective on how I am built, how I operate in the world' Avni Doshi, author of Burnt Sugar 
 
Why do I feel lost? What's wrong with me? Is this all there is? 
 
Satya Doyle Byock hears these questions regularly in her psychotherapy practice, where she works with Quarterlifers - people between the ages of twenty to forty - who are searching for meaning and direction in their lives. She understands their frustration. Some clients have done everything 'right': graduate, get a job, meet a partner - yet they are unfulfilled. Others are still struggling to find their way in the world, and are unclear on what to do next. 
 
Quarterlife offers a compassionate roadmap for finding understanding, happiness, and wholeness in early adulthood. While society is quick to label the struggles of young people as generational traits, Byock sees things differently. She believes these emotions are part of the developmental journey of Quarterlife, a distinct stage that every person goes through, and which has been virtually ignored by psychology and popular culture. 
 
Through the stories of four of her clients, Byock shows us how this search can start with the right questions. Blending personal storytelling with mythology, Jungian psychology with pop culture and literature, Quarterlife pioneers a new way of thinking about adult life, to help us navigate our futures and ourselves.

Quarterlife

The Search for Self in Early Adulthood

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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