Ananya Rao-Middleton is an illustrator and disability activist who uses her work as a tool to speak truth to the voices of marginalised communities at the intersections of disability, gender, race and other oppressive systems. She is passionate about illustration as a way to 'do' activism and has created artwork for Twitter, Refinery29, Instagram and the UK Parliament. Ananya lives in Lisbon, Portugal, where the sunshine is good for her Multiple Sclerosis and Post-Concussion Syndrome. Keep in touch with Ananya on social media @AnanyaPaints.

Ananya Rao-Middleton

Ananyo Bhattacharya is a science writer who has worked at the Economist and Nature. Before journalism, he was a medical researcher at the Burnham Institute in San Diego, California. He holds a degree in physics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in protein crystallography from Imperial College London.

Ananyo Bhattacharya

Anastasia Alcock

Dr Anastasia Hronis is a clinical psychologist and founder of the Australian Institute for Human Wellness in Sydney, Australia. Her main areas of clinical work and research is in addictions, with a specific focus on gambling. Anastasia is also a lecturer and researcher at the University of Technology Sydney. She has presented at many conferences around the world and has published research in top rated journals.

Anastasia Hronis

Anastasia Kingsnorth started creating content on YouTube at just 11 years old and has continued for over a decade, building a multi-million following and taking the social media space by storm as an international influencer. She hosts the hit Spotify podcast Sex, Lies and DM Slides with Saffron Barker, which explores all aspects of modern dating, and is currently in its second series. Anastasia is based in Manchester.

Anastasia Kingsnorth

Anastasia Magloire Williams is an illustrator,  writer and graphic designer living in sunny Florida. Forever a student, she continues to grow in her preferred digital medium, combining traditional illustration techniques with the flexibility of computer software. With her rich textures, dynamic lines and vibrant colours, Anastasia uses various styles to bring her client’s stories to life, as well as her own. Above all, her mission is to be a vehicle for diversity and representation in entertainment and children’s media – to tell untold stories that reflect the beautiful world we all share. When she is not tapping away at her tablet, she enjoys gaming with her husband, reading fantasy romance novels, tending to her plants and enjoying ice in all her drinks.

Anastasia Magloire Williams

Founder of the Matriarch Eats brand, journalist and author Anastasia Miari (@anastasia_miari ) has been cooking with and interviewing the world’s grandmothers for a decade. She holds a Guild of Food Writer’s Award for ‘inspired storytelling and great journalistic integrity.’ Mediterranea is her third cookbook in a series of books dedicated to the lives and kitchens of elderly matriarchs. In her work as a food and travel writer, she freelances for Conde Nast Traveller magazine, Monocle magazine, Konfekt Magazine, Lonely Planet and a number of national newspapers in the UK. Anastasia hosts retreats on her home island of Corfu, giving people a real insight into the worlds of her books.

Anastasia Miari

Anastasia Nesvetailova is the Director of the City Political Economy Research Centre and author of numerous academic and media articles on financial crises and stability. She teaches at City University, London.

Anastasia Nesvetailova

Anastasia Tohmé is an HR specialist based in Spain and Martin Worner has worked in banking and technology at UBS and Morgan Stanley, based in Switzerland. The authors met working remotely and have been advising individuals and teams on how to work remotely successfully ever since. They wrote this book together, remotely.

Anastasia Tohmé

Anastasia Zhelezniak is a self-taught embroidery artist and founder of the Whynotstitching Academy, an online stitcher offering workshops, live meet ups, courses, and exclusive designs that inspire creativity and build skills. With no formal art background, she have built a career by making embroidery approachable and exciting for modern crafters. Her designs, often inspired by botanical elements, blend traditional techniques with contemporary aesthetics, appealing to a global audience.

Anastasia Zhelezniak

Anastasia Zolotarev is a Ukrainian recipe developer and food stylist based in Sydney. Passionate about connecting food with community, she hosts intimate supper clubs and workshops where she teaches home cooks how to make piroshky, honey cake and other signature Eastern European recipes. She also runs sell-out fundraisers and initiatives to support Ukrainian organisations and charities. In 2016 she took part in Masterchef Australia and since then has regularly worked with brands such as Harris Farm and Hello Fresh.

Anastasia Zolotarev

Anatol Lieven is a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and a Fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. He was previously a professor in the War Studies Department of King's College, London. He worked for twelve years as a British foreign correspondent, reporting from South Asia, the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe for The Times and other publications. His books include Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (1998); America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (second edition 2011); Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World (with John Hulsman) (2006) and Pakistan: A Hard Country (2011, published by Penguin).

Anatol Lieven

Anatole France

Anatoly Marienhof (1897–1962) was a poet, novelist, dramatist and memoirist. Marienhof became a leading figure of the avant-garde Imaginist movement, and was the author of the novels The Novel without Lies (1926) and Cynics (1928).

Anatoly Marienhof

Anaïs Nin

Anbara Salam is half-Palestinian and half-Scottish, and grew up in London. She has a PhD in Theology and is now living and working in Oxford. She spent six months living on a small South Pacific island, and her experiences there served as the inspiration for her first novel, Things Bright and Beautiful.

Anbara Salam

Anca Sandu was born in Romania and currently lives in Portland, USA. She studied children's illustration at the prestigious Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. She works as a freelance designer. Her first book for Random House was Churchill's Tale of Tails.

Anca Sandu

Ancient & Brave

Ande Pliego began writing stories when she discovered she could actually wield her overactive imagination for good. A lover of stories with teeth, she writes books involving mind games, dark humour, general murder and mayhem, characters pushed to the edge of themselves, and most importantly, finding the hope in the dark. 
 
 
When not reading or writing, she can usually be found dabbling in art, scheming up her next trip, or making constant expeditions to the library. Born in Florida, raised in France, and having left footprints all over the globe, Ande is settled in the Pacific Northwest, USA, with her little son.

Ande Pliego

Anders Bodelsen (1937-2021) was a writer associated with the 1960s neo-realist wave in Denmark. He was especially well known for his thrillers – works of astonishing psychological veracity – which won him several Danish awards including the Golden Laurels and the Critics’ Award, as well as France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Sweden’s prestigious Martin Beck Award for Best Crime Novel.

Anders Bodelsen

Professor Anders Ericsson is the world’s reigning expert on expertise. His research into what makes ordinary people achieve the extraordinary was the inspiration for the 10,000-hours rule – the popular theory that 10,000 hours of any type of practice will allow an individual to excel in any field. In this book, he describes how a particular type of extended practice leads to exceptional performance. 
 
Anders Ericsson began his research into expertise when he conducted a memory trial on a young man. Despite having no previous aptitude for memory exercises, after several hundred sessions the young man was displaying memory powers over 10 times that of an average person. This was as a result of the system of training Ericsson had put him through – a process Ericsson has named ‘deliberate practice’. 
 
Professor Ericsson has gone on to have his research widely cited in major newspapers and magazines worldwide, and he has worked with major international organisations, as well as Oxford, Stanford and Harvard medical schools, teachers and educational researchers, professional sports teams (Manchester City Football Club, Saracens Rugby Union Club, UK Sport, England and Wales Cricket Board), and military groups.

Anders Ericsson

Anders Larsen

Anders Lustgarten is a playwright and novelist. He won the Catherine Johnson Award for A Day at the Racists and won the Harold Pinter Playwriting Award for If You Don't Let Us Dream, We Won't Let You Sleep. His play Lampedusa has been performed in forty countries. His debut novel, Three Burials, was shortlisted for the ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger 2025. 
Kill Billionaire is his second novel. 
 
Prior to becoming a writer, Anders was an international 400m runner and a teacher of people on death row in California.

Anders Lustgarten

Anders Nilsen (he/him) is the author of ten books including Big Questions, The End and Poetry is Useless. Nilsen's work has received three Ignatz awards and Big Questions was listed as a New York Times Notable Book in 2011. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Pitchfork and elsewhere, and his comics have been translated into several languages.

Anders Nilsen

Anders Roslund is an award-winning journalist and one of the most successful and critically acclaimed Scandinavian crime writers of our time. His books have been read by millions and he is the recipient of the CWA International Dagger and the Glass Key award among many others. His work is published in 36 languages and regularly tops international bestseller lists.

Anders Roslund

Anders Røyneberg

Andre Amstutz studied art and design at Brighton School of Art and worked in animation as well as advertising. He illustrated several children's books including the Fast Fox, Slow Dog series, some of the Happy Families titles and Monkey Do (Walker).

Andre Amstutz

Andre Breton

André Cabannes taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and translated the Theoretical Minimum series into French. He lives in France.

Andre Cabannes

Andre Comte-Sponville

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Catherine Bailey

Wentworth is in Yorkshire and was surrounded by 70 collieries employing tens of thousands of men. It is the finest and largest Georgian house in Britain andbelonged to the Fitzwilliam family. 
 
It is England's forgotten palace which belonged to Britain's richest aristocrats. Black Diamonds tells the story of its demise: family feuds, forbidden love, class war, and a tragic and violent death played their part. But coal, one of the most emotive issues in twentieth century British politics, lies at its heart. 
 
This is the extraordinary story of how the fabric of English society shifted beyond recognition in fifty turbulent years in the twentieth century.

Black Diamonds

The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty

Simon Briscoe

Hugh Aldersey-Williams

What exactly are your chances of being struck by a meteorite? 
Think you're having less sex than the French? 
How high will sea levels actually rise? 
 
We live in an increasingly uncertain world. There's so much to worry about it is often hard to know what to really panic about. But stay calm! For Panicology is the perfect answer to the conundrums and questions that bedevil modern life. Putting a lit match to the lies, headlines and statistical twaddle that seeks to frighten us, it explores 40 reasons for worry: from binge-drinking to Frankenstein foods, bird flu to alien abductions - and explores what, if any, effect they will have on your life. 
 
Why worry in ignorance when you can be a happy, informed sceptic?

Panicology

Steve Roud

This enthralling book will take you, month-by-month, day-by-day, through all the festivities of English life. From national celebrations such as New Year&rsquo;s Eve to regional customs such as the Padstow Hobby Horse procession, cheese rolling in Gloucestershire and Easter Monday bottle kicking in Leeds, it explains how they originated, what they mean and when they occur. 
 
A fascinating guide to the richness of our heritage and the sometimes eccentric nature of life in England, The English Year offers a unique chronological view of our social customs and attitudes

The English Year

Steven Johnson

In Ghost Map Steven Johnson tells the story of the terrifying cholera epidemic that engulfed London in 1854, and the two unlikely heroes &ndash; anaesthetist Doctor John Snow and affable clergyman Reverend Henry Whitehead &ndash; who defeated the disease through a combination of local knowledge, scientific research and map-making. 
 
In telling their extraordinary story, Johnson also explores a whole world of ideas and connections, from urban terror to microbes, ecosystems to the Great Stink, cultural phenomena to street life. Re-creating a London full of dirt, dust heaps, slaughterhouses and scavengers, Ghost Map is about how huge populations live together, how cities can kill &ndash; and how they can save us.

The Ghost Map

A Street, an Epidemic and the Hidden Power of Urban Networks.

Jonny Geller

What do google, guilt, musicals and Scarlet Johansson have in common? Answer: they&rsquo;re all Good for the Jews! But what about Christmas? Or Jordan (the celebrity, naturally)? or Scientology? . Luckily the Judological Institute of Spiritual Mathematics (JISM) are pleased to reveal to the outside world &ndash; yes, Non-Jews are allowed to buy this book &ndash; the ancient mystical formula for calculating which people, products and places is, in fact, Good for the Jews. 
 
Here the secret art of Judology (think of it as a third cousin of Kabbalah) will reveal: &bull; Big Brother is , in fact, Good for the Jews . since when has someone watching your every move, listening to all your conversations, NOT been a Jewish experience? 
 
&bull; eBay , of course, is Not . Where else can one happily buy Hitler's nasal trimmer or mint conditioned first editions of Mein Kampf?. 
 
Additional help in getting the J factor comes with handy lists of who to marry, which Jews changed their names, and the essential Vacation Spots that are good for the Jews 
 
One final note. Please do not borrow this book from a friend or library as borrowing is not Good for the Jews. Buying is. Heimische.

Yes, But is it Good for the Jews?

How to Bring Out the Jew in You

In February 2007, we asked people from any background to send us their true personal accounts of immigration to Britain. The response was significant, and the range of entries overwhelming. Six judges - including Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty and the novelist Kate Mosse - selected the best, most illuminating and most powerful entries to be published in this book. 
 
The result is the widest-reaching contemporary survey of the immigrant experience published in many years. In these pages you'll discover sixteen very different voices, each one presenting a very different point of view. In taking us around the world, each account shows a new side to the most complicated journey of all: finding a place to call home.

From There to Here

16 True Tales of Immigration to Britain

Kwame Anthony Appiah

This landmark work challenges the separatist doctrines which have come to dominate our understanding of the world. Appiah revives the ancient philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, which dates back to the Cynics of the 4th century, as a means of understanding the complex world of today. Arguing that we concentrate too much on what makes us different rather than recognising our common humanity, Appiah explores how we can act ethically in a globalised world.

Cosmopolitanism

Ethics in a World of Strangers

Shane Dunphy

Four extraordinary true stories ... 
 
Bobby and Micky, six and four, controlled from beyond the grave by their evil father ... 
 
Mina, seventeen, who has Downs Syndrome, desperate to be like everyone else, falling into the hands of men who abuse her trust ... 
 
Sylvie, a fourteen-year-old mother being pimped by her father ... 
 
Twins Larry and Francey, ten, scarcely human after an upbringing of savage and unimaginable cruelty ... 
 
One inspiring account of how one man got to know these wounded children and tried to give them hope - and a future.

Crying in the Dark

Albert Jack

Albert Jack now turns his attention to the mysteries that have haunted us throughout history. Albert Jack's Ten Minute Mysteries cleverly combines his research with riveting stories and hilarious observations. 
 
All life's most perplexing questions answered: UFOs, Crop Circles and Alien invasions ? Where is the Mona Lisa? (clue: it's not in the Louvre) ? Is the Loch Ness Monster really a circus elephant? ? Will the real Paul McCartney please stand up? ? What happened to the Mary Celeste? ? Who killed Marilyn Monroe? ? What was Agatha Christie's own mystery? ? Who was Jack the Ripper? and many, many more... 
 
With enough entertaining information to fuel hundreds of pub conversations, fascinating illustrations and all kinds of discoveries to surprise even the most expert conspiracy theorist , Albert Jack's Ten Minute Mysteries is the perfect present for anybody who's ever wondered why...

Albert Jack's Ten-minute Mysteries

The World's Secrets Explained, from the Real Loch Ness Monster to Who Killed Marilyn Monroe

Amartya Sen

The world may be more riven by murderous violence than ever before, yet Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen argues in this sweeping philosophical work that its brutalities are driven as much by confusion as by inescapable hatred. 
 
Sen argues in his new book that conflict and violence are sustained today, no less than the past, by the illusion of a unique identity. Indeed, the world is increasingly taken to be divided between religions (or 'cultures' or 'civilizations'), ignoring the relevance of other ways in which people see themselves through class, gender, profession, language, literature, science, music, morals or politics, and denying the real possibilities of reasoned choices. In Identity and Violence he overturns such stereotypes as the 'the monolithic Middle East' or 'the Western Mind'. Through his penetrating investigation of such subjects as multiculturalism, fundamentalism, terrorism and globalization, he brings out the need for a clear-headed understanding of human freedom and a constructive public voice in Global civil society. The world, Sen shows, can be made to move towards peace as firmly as it has recently spiralled towards war.

Identity and Violence

The Illusion of Destiny

Joseph E. Stiglitz

Why isn't globalization benefitting as many people as it should? Joe Stiglitz shows us that things can change and that an optimistic world can exist where globalization really does work. 
 
Stiglitz examines how change has occurred rapidly over the past four years, proposing solutions and looking to the future. He puts forward radical new ways of dealing with the crippling indebtedness of developing countries, a new system of global reserves to overcome international financial instability and a new framework, combining economic incentives and principles of equity, for dealing with the greatest threat to our planet, global warming &ndash; one which is more likely to be accepted both by the US and the developing world than previous proposals. He argues convincingly for the reform of global institutions such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank to make them truly capable of responding to the problems of our age and shows why treating developing countries more fairly is not only morally right, but ultimately will be to the benefit of the developed countries as well.

Making Globalization Work

The Next Steps to Global Justice

Jeremy Paxman

What is the point of Kings and Queens? What do they do all day? And what does it mean to be one of them? 
 
Jeremy Paxman is used to making politicians explain themselves &ndash; but royalty has always been off limits. Until now. In On Royalty he delves deep into the past and takes a long hard look at our present incumbents to find out just what makes them tick. Along the way he discovers some fascinating and little-known details. Such as: 
 
 &bull; how Albania came to advertise in England for a king 
 
&bull; which English queen gave birth in front of 67 people 
 
&bull; how easy it is to beat up future kings of England 
 
&bull; and how meeting the Queen is a bit scary &ndash; whoever you are &hellip; 
 
No other book will tell you quite as much about our kings, queens, princes and princesses: who they are and what they&rsquo;re for.

On Royalty

Jeremy Paxman is to many the embodiment of Englishness yet even he is sometimes forced to ask: who or what exactly are the English? And in setting about addressing this most vexing of questions, Paxman discovers answers to a few others. Like: 
 
 &bull; Why do the English actually enjoy feeling persecuted? 
 
&bull; What is behind the English obsession with games? 
 
&bull; How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and to food? 
 
&bull; Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy? 
 
Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypyes, language and much, much more, The English brims over with stories and anecdotes that provide a fascinating portrait of a nation and its people.

The English

Peter Roche

This story begins and ends with a photograph taken when I was two years old. Finding it was like discovering that I really did exist after all . It was as if someone was saying &lsquo;No, it wasn&rsquo;t all in your imagination, that childhood really did happen, and it happened to you.&rsquo; 
 
Brought up in South London by violent and abusive parents, the Roche children knew only cruelty, neglect, starvation and squalor. As one of ten and regularly beaten, Peter searched dustbins for food and slept rough when he couldn't face going home. It was survival at all costs, every child for itself. 
 
Expelled from school at the age of 14, Peter&rsquo;s life of petty crime landed him in 
 
borstal &ndash; and exposed him to yet more sickening abuse. 
 
Then, years later, a chance meeting with a social worker led to his discovery of a photograph - a portrait, taken by Lord Snowdon, of a toddler dressed in rags. It was an image that had shocked the world. The boy in the picture was Peter. 
 
 
 
 
 
Unloved is a harrowing account of a shattered childhood, told by a man who has finally found the courage to speak out. 
 
This is his story.

Unloved

The True Story of a Stolen Childhood

Leonard Cohen

Book of Longing is Leonard Cohen's first book of new poetry since Book of Mercy was published two decades ago. It collects Cohen's poetry written between the 1980s and the present, and also includes his wonderfully witty and sensuous illustrations, including numerous playful self-portraits. The illustrations interact with, and complement, the poetry in unexpected and fascinating ways. Book of Longing demonstrates the range and depth of Cohen's work, revealing an extraordinary gift of language and visual art that speak with rare clarity, passion and timelessness.

Book of Longing

Aesop

Sardonic, wry and wise, Aesop&rsquo;s Fables are some of the most enduring and well-loved literary creations in history. In a series of pithy, amusing vignettes, Aesop created a vivid cast of characters to demonstrate different aspects of human nature. Here we see a wily fox outwitted by a quick-thinking cicada, a tortoise triumphing over a self-confident hare and a fable-teller named Aesop silencing those who mock him. Each jewel-like fable provides a warning about the consequences of wrong-doing, as well as offering a glimpse into the everyday lives of Ancient Greeks.

Aesop's Fables

Thomas L. Friedman

The beginning of the twenty-first century will be remembered, Friedman argues, not for military conflicts or political events, but for a whole new age of globalization &ndash; a &lsquo;flattening&rsquo; of the world. The explosion of advanced technologies now means that suddenly knowledge pools and resources have connected all over the planet, levelling the playing field as never before, so that each of us is potentially an equal &ndash; and competitor &ndash; of the other. The rules of the game have changed forever &ndash; but does this &lsquo;death of distance&rsquo;, which requires us all to run faster in order to stay in the same place, mean the world has got too small and too flat too fast for us to adjust? Friedman brilliantly demystifies the exciting, often bewildering, global scene unfolding before our eyes, one which we sense but barely yet understand. The World is Flat is the most timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and its discontents, powerfully illuminated by a world-class writer. 
 
In his new chapters: 'If It's Not Happening, It's Because You're Not Doing It' and 'What Happens When We All Have Dog's Hearing?' the author explores both the benefits and disadvantages of the very latest developments in global communication. The emergent popularity of blogging, pod-casting, YouTube and MySpace enable the modern world citizen to broadcast their views to a potential audience of billions, and the proliferation of Internet access to even the poorest communities gives everyone who wants to the tools to address issues of social injustice and inequality. On the other hand the technology that seems to improve communication on a global scale causes it to deteriorate on a local scale. Identifying ours as 'The Age of Interruption', Friedman discusses the annoyance and dangers of BlackBerrys in meeting rooms, hands-free kits in conversation and using a phone or iPod whilst driving. In an age when we are always 'connected' via email or mobile phone how can we hope to concentrate on one thing without interruption? As expected the author has revitalised this new edition of The World Is Flat with timely insights into the nature of our flat world.

The World is Flat

The Globalized World in the Twenty-first Century

X Malcolm

They called him the 'angriest black man in America' . . . 
 
Celebrated and vilified the world over for his courageous but bitter fight to gain for millions of black men and women the equality and respect denied them by their white neighbours, Malcolm X inspired as many people in the United States as he caused to fear him. 
 
His remarkable autobiography, completed just before his murder in 1965, ranges from Omaha and Michigan to Harlem and Mecca, and tells of a young, disenfranchised man whose descent into drug addition, robbery and prison was only reversed by his belief in the rights struggle for black America, and his conversion to the Nation of Islam. 
 
Not only is this an enormously important record of the Civil Rights Movement in America, but also the scintillating story of a man who refused to allow anyone to tell him who or what he was.

Autobiography of Malcolm X

Chris Stringer

Chris Stringer's Homo Britannicus is the epic history of life in Britain, from man's very first footsteps through to the present day. 
 
 When did the first people arrive here? What did they look like? How did they survive? Who were the Neanderthals? 
 
 Chris Stringer takes us back to when it was so tropical we lived here alongside hippos, elephants and sabre-toothed tigers or to times so cold we hunted reindeer and mammoth, and to others even colder when we were forced to flee a wall of ice. Here is the incredible truth about our ancestors' journey over millennia - and a glimpse of the future to see how it might continue. 
 
 'A beautiful book on a fascinating subject, written by a world authority' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Richard Dawkins 
 
 'Superlative ... Pure stimulation from beginning to end' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Bill Bryson 
 
 'Every chapter contains something new, and throws up a fresh location that deserves to become famous' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Sunday Times 
 
 'This important and eminently readable book pulls together all the best scientific work on the first humans to inhabit Britain' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Tony Robinson 
 
 Chris Stringer is Britain's foremost expert on human origins and works in the Department of Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum. He also currently directs the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project, aimed at reconstructing the first detailed history of how and when Britain was occupied by early humans. His previous books include African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity, The Complete World of Human Evolution and most recently, Homo Britannicus, which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book of the Year in 2007.

Homo Britannicus

The Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain

Susan Williams

Sir Seretse Khama, the first President of Botswana and heir apparent to the kingship of the Bangwato people, brought independence and great prosperity to his nation after colonial rule.  But for six long years from 1950, Seretse had been forced into exile in England, banned from his own country.  His crime?  To fall in love and marry a young, white English girl, Ruth Williams.  Delving into newly released records, Susan Williams tells Seretse and Ruth's story - a shocking account of how the British Government conspired with apartheid South Africa to prevent the mixed-race royal couple returning home.  But it is also an inspiring, triumphant tale of hope, courage and true love as with tenacity and great dignity Seretse and Ruth and the Bangwato people ovecome prejudice in their fight for justice.

Colour Bar

The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation

Ed Husain

When I was sixteen I became an Islamic fundamentalist. Five years later, after much emotional turmoil, I rejected fundamentalist teachings and returned to normal life and my family. I tried to put my experiences behind me, but as the events of 7/7 unfolded it became clear to me that Islamist groups pose a threat to this country that we &mdash; Muslims and non-Muslims alike &mdash; do not yet understand. 
 
Why are young British Muslims becoming extremists? What are the risks of another home-grown terrorist attack on British soil? By describing my experiences inside these groups, the reasons I joined them and how, after leaving I recovered my faith and mind, I hope to explain the appeal of extremist thought, how fanatics penetrate Muslim communities and the truth behind their agenda of subverting the West and moderate Islam. Writing candidly about life after extremism, I illustrate the depth of the problem that now grips Muslim hearts and minds. I will lay bare what politicians and Muslim 'community leaders' do not want you to know. 
 
This is the first time an ex-member openly discusses life within radical Islamic organisations. This is my story.

The Islamist

Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left

Richard Vinen

In the summer of 1940 the French army was one of the largest and best in the world, confident of victory. In the space of a few nightmarish weeks that all changed as the French and their British allies were crushed and eight million people fled their homes. Richard Vinen's new book describes the consequences of that defeat. It does so not by looking at political leaders in Vichy or Paris or London but rather at those who were caught up in daily horrors of war. It describes the fate of a French prisoner of war who was punished because he wrote a love letter to a German woman, and the fate of a French woman who gave birth to a German-fathered child as the Americans landed in Normandy. It describes the 'false policemen' who proliferated in occupied Paris as desperate men on the run seeking to feed themselves by blackmailing those who were even more vulnerable than themselves. It asks why some gentile French people chose to risk imprisonment by wearing yellow stars. It recounts the fate of a couple of estranged middle-aged Jews, separated by the mobilisation of 1939, who found themselves (in July 1942) on the same train to Auschwitz. Extremely moving and brilliantly readable, The Unfree French is a remarkable addition to the literature of the Second World War.

The Unfree French

Life Under the Occupation

Jason Burke

A brilliant, fearless journalist who knows huge areas of the Islamic world intimately, Burke now turns to the wider question of how we are to get to grips with radical Islam and what it really means. Burke has travelled all over the great arc of Islamic land, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, and he uses this in his new book to great effect to show how various and completely unmonolithic Islam really is and how the sort of standard Western generalizations about it are both stupid and dangerous.

On the Road to Kandahar

Travels through conflict in the Islamic world

In three amazing stories childcare worker Shane Dunphy reveals a world of hidden heartbreak and survival against the odds. 
 
When Shane meets her, Gillian is starving herself to death and in thrall to a mother more interested in abusing and manipulating her daughter than cherishing and protecting her. Though he tries to help, it seems Shane is just another adult destined to fail Gillian ... 
 
For the daughter of disturbed violent parents, Connie is an amazingly well-adjusted A-grade student. But when Shane finally gets behind the facade, he unearths a shattering truth behind her apparent normality ... 
 
Cordelia, Victor and Ibar are three loving siblings left with a hopelessly alcoholic neglectful father. It&rsquo;s a race against time to see if their father can ever become the kind of Dad he wants to be, or if they are destined to be split up and sucked into the childcare merry-go-round &hellip;

Wednesday's Child

James Walvin

As we approach the bicentenary of the abolition of the Atlantic trade, Walvin has selected the historical texts that recreate the mindset that made such a savage institution possible - morally acceptable even. Setting these historical documents against Walvin's own incisive historical narrative, the two layers of this extraordinary, definitive account of the Atlantic slave trade enable us to understand the rise and fall of one of the most shameful chapters in British history, the repercussions of which the modern world is still living with.

A Short History of Slavery

Andrew Hussey

Paris is the city of light and the city of darkness - a place of ceaseless revolution and reinvention that for two thousand years has drawn those with the highest ideals and the lowest morals to its teeming streets. 
 
In Andrew Hussey's wonderful book we encounter the myriad citizens whose stories have shaped Paris: the nineteenth-century flaneurs aimlessly wandering Haussman's new streets; survivors and victims of ravaging plagues; the builders of Notre Dame Cathedral; those who turned the River Seine red with blood on St Bartholomew's Day; and the many others whose lives have imprinted themselves on a city that has always aroused strong emotions.

Paris

The Secret History

Geraldine Brooks

When her poised and sophisticated yuppie assistant at the Cairo bureau of the Wall Street Journal suddenly 'adopted the uniform of a Muslim fundamentalist', Geraldine Brooks set out to discover the truth about women and Islam. 
 
Sometimes adopting a chador as camouflage, she was granted meetings (and often astonishingly intimate insights) by everyone from Queen Noor of Jordan to former Iranian President Rafsanjani's daughter. She met with Palestinians protesting about 'honour killings' for adultery and sheltered girls transformed into warriors by the Emirates' armed forces. Throughout the Middle East, Brooks was invited into the homes and lives of these women where she found real stories that overturn western stereotypes. 
 
Fair-minded and often revelatory, Nine Parts of Desire is an extraordinarily rich tapestry of the different lives women lead under Islam, and a captivating and diverse portrait of a little known world.

Nine Parts of Desire

The Hidden World of Islamic Women

Robert Irwin

Robert Irwin&rsquo;s history of Orientalism leads from Ancient Greece to the present. He shows that, whether making philological comparisons between Arabic and Hebrew, cataloguing the coins of Fatimid Egypt or establishing the basic chronology of Harun al-Rashid&rsquo;s military campaigns against Byzantium, scholars have been unified not by politics or ideology but by their shared obsession. For Lust of Knowing is an extraordinary, passionate book, both a sustained argument and a brilliant work of original scholarship.

For Lust of Knowing

The Orientalists and Their Enemies

India is a very diverse country with many distinct pursuits, vastly different convictions, widely divergent customs, and a veritable feast of viewpoints. The Argumentative Indian brings together an illuminating selection of writings from Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen that outline the need to understand contemporary India in the light of its long argumentative tradition. 
 
The understanding and use of this rich argumentative tradition are critically important, Sen argues, for the success of India's democracy, the defence of its secular politics, the removal of inequalities related to class, caste, gender and community, and the pursuit of sub-continental peace.

The Argumentative Indian

Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity

Ekow Eshun

'Where are you from?'  'No, where are you really from?'  These questions, which he has been asked since boyhood, drive Ekow Eshun to travel through Ghana in search of his roots, and lead him on an exploration of history and belonging, from slavery in Africa and the West to the present day and what it means to be black.  In search of answers, Ekow unearths yet more questions, some shocking contradictions and some long-forgotten truths about his family past...

Black Gold of the Sun

Searching for Home in England and Africa

Sora & Haena!

Sparrow Xia

He marches to freedom - or to bloody war. The epic story of Spartacus, the gladiator slave who took on the might of Rome.

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