The mesmerising new novel from Ian McEwan, the bestselling author of Atonement. The world is forever changing. But for so many of us, old wounds run deep. Lessons is an intimate yet universal story of love, regret and a restless search for answers.
'Lessons is deep and wide, ambitious and humble, wise and substantial... McEwan's best novel in 20 years' New Statesman
'Superb... A wonderful author has delivered another mesmerising, memorable novel' Independent
'Lessons triumphantly achieves its primary aim of conveying the "commonplace and wondrous" intertwining of global history and everyday life' Daily Telegraph
While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Twenty-five years later, as the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes and he is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence and look for answers in his family history.
From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means - literature, travel, friendship, drugs, politics, sex and love.
His journey raises important questions. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape us and our memories? What role do chance and contingency play in our existence? And what can we learn from the traumas of the past?
We'd like to introduce you to Elizabeth Finch.
We invite you to take her course in Culture and Civilisation.
She will change the way you see the world.
'The task of the present is to correct our understanding of the past. And that task becomes the more urgent when the past cannot be corrected.'
Elizabeth Finch was a teacher, a thinker, an inspiration - always rigorous, always thoughtful. With measured empathy, she guided her students to develop meaningful ideas and to discover their centres of seriousness.
As Neil, a former student, unpacks Elizabeth's notebooks, and remembers her uniquely inquisitive mind, her passion for reason resonates through the years. Her ideas unlock the philosophies of the past, and explore key events that show us how to make sense of our lives today. And underpinning them all is the story of J - Julian the Apostate, her historical soulmate and fellow challenger to the institutional and monotheistic thinking that has always threatened to divide us.
This is more than a novel. It's a loving tribute to philosophy, a careful evaluation of history, an invitation to think for ourselves. It's a moment to reflect and to gently explore our own theories and assumptions. It is truly a balm for our times.
And you thought your adolescence was scary.
Suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area's teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested any number of ways - from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) - but once you've got it, that's it. There's no turning back.
As we inhabit the heads of several key characters - some kids who have it, some who don't, some who are about to get it - what unfolds isn't the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness of it, or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high-school alienation itself - the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.
And then the murders start.
As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying (and, believe it or not, autobiographical), Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it - back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie any more, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.
To say nothing of sprouting horns and moulting your skin . . .
Patience is an indescribable psychedelic science-fiction love story, veering with uncanny precision from violent destruction to deeply personal tenderness in a way that is both quintessentially ‘Clowesian’, and utterly unique in the author’s body of work. This 180-page, full-colour story affords Clowes the opportunity to draw some of the most exuberant and breathtaking pages of his life, and to tell his most suspenseful, surprising and affecting story yet.
The story opens in 2012, when Jack Barlow returns home to find Patience, his pregnant girlfriend, murdered. We meet him next in 2029, still haunted by the murder. He hears of a guy who thinks he’s invented a device that enables time travel. On the next page Jack is in 2006, watching Patience on her dates with boys. Is one of them the killer?
The second volume of an epic, beautifully illustrated graphic history of humankind, based on Yuval Noah Harari's internationally bestselling phenomenon
When nomadic Homo sapiens settled to live in one place, they started working harder and harder. But why didn't they get a better life in return?
In The Pillars of Civilization, Yuval Noah Harari and his companions including Prof. Saraswati and Dr. Fiction travel the length and breadth of human history to investigate how the Agricultural Revolution changed society forever. Discover how wheat took over the world, how war, famine, disease and inequality became a part of the human condition, and why we might only have ourselves to blame.
The origins of modern farming are told through Elizabethan tragedy, the changing fortunes of domesticated plants and animals are tracked in the columns of the Daily Business News, and the history of inequality is revealed in a superhero detective story.
A radical, witty and colourful retelling of the story of humankind, adapted from Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Volume 2 can be read as a standalone or as a follow-up to Volume 1, The Birth of Humankind.
Praise for Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind:
'I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who's interested in the history and future of our species.' - Bill Gates
'Interesting and provocative... It gives you a sense of how briefly we've been on this Earth' - Barack Obama
'Jaw-dropping from the first word to the last... It may be the best book I've ever read' - Chris Evans
'Contains a remarkable piece of information on almost every page and reminds us that we should be grateful to be human.' - Matt Haig
'Sweeps the cobwebs out of your brain... Radiates power and clarity, making the world strange and new' - Sunday Times
'Provocative and fascinating and opinionated...it makes the familiar seem unfamiliar. It altered how I view our species and our world.' - Guardian
In this spellbinding new collection, Charlotte Higgins reinterprets some of the most enduring stories of all time.
Here are myths of the creation, of Heracles and Theseus and Perseus, the Trojan war and its origins and aftermaths, tales of Thebes and Argos and Athens. There are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures, resourceful witches and the origins of birds and animals.This is a world of extremes, and one that resonates deeply with our own: mysterious diseases devastate cities; environmental disasters tear lives apart; women habitually suffer violence at the hands of men.
Unlike in many previous collected myths, female characters take centre stage - Athena, Helen, Circe, Penelope and others weave these stories into elaborate imagined tapestries. In Charlotte Higgins's thrilling new interpretation, their tales combine to form a dazzling, sweeping epic of storytelling, and a magnificent work of scholarship and imagination.
With a series of original drawings by Chris Ofili.
'One of the most electrifying writers at work in America today, among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation' - Olivia Laing
So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.
Drawing on a vast range of material, from critical theory to pop culture to the intimacies and plain exchanges of daily life, Nelson explores how we might think, experience, or talk about freedom in ways responsive to the conditions of our day. Her abiding interest lies in ongoing "practices of freedom" by which we negotiate our interrelation with-indeed, our inseparability from-others, with all the care and constraint that relation entails, while accepting difference and conflict as integral to our communion.
For Nelson, thinking publicly through the knots in our culture-from recent art world debates to the turbulent legacies of sexual liberation, from the painful paradoxes of addiction to the lure of despair in the face of the climate crisis-is itself a practice of freedom, a means of forging fortitude, courage, and company. On Freedom is an invigorating, essential book for challenging times.
From the winner of the International Booker Prize and one of the finest writers at work today, an epic and deeply moving novel about the legacy of war and trauma on three generations of women
On a kibbutz in Israel in 2008, Gili, along with the entire community, is celebrating the 90th birthday of her grandmother Vera, the adored matriarch of a sprawling and tight-knit family. Onto the scene enters Nina: the iron-willed daughter who rejected Vera's care; and the absent mother who abandoned Gili when she was still a baby.
Nina's return to the family after years of silence precipitates the gripping, heart-wrenching story that unfolds, in which mother, daughter and grandmother are forced to confront the past head-on. Together with Rafael - father to Gili, lover to Nina and step-son to Vera - the three women embark on an epic journey to the desolate island of Goli Otok, formerly part of Yugoslavia. It was here, five decades earlier, that Vera was held and tortured as a political prisoner. And it is here that the three women will finally come to terms with the terrible moral dilemma that Vera faced, and that permanently altered the course of their lives.
More Than I Love My Life is a grand-scale and sweeping story about the power of love and loving with courage. A novel driven by faith in humanity even in our darkest moments, it asks us to confront our deepest held beliefs about a woman's duty to herself and to her children.
In Paris in 1934, a young and beautiful Jewish émigrée, Gerda Pohorylles, met a Hungarian political exile, André Friedmann. They reinvented themselves as the photographers Gerda Taro and Robert Capa – and he would become the most important photojournalist of his generation.
When Gerda was killed in the Spanish Civil war at the age of twenty-six, Robert Capa was her most notable mourner – his grief was beyond control. Her funeral drew crowds of thousands and she became a hero of the political left. Despite the legend that was built around her, she subsequently became a mere footnote in Capa's story. Seventy years after her death a long-lost suitcase was discovered in Mexico, containing thousands of negatives by Capa and Taro. Most astonishingly of all, the 'Mexican suitcase' showed that photographs that had been attributed previously to Capa were, in fact, the work of Taro.
Jane Rogoyska's book will trace Taro's life and reveal the depth of her relationship with Capa. Charismatic and extraordinary, they epitomised one of the most tumultuous periods of the century.
"I've never come across a fictional world as fully-realised as Bryan Talbot's Grandville... It's a world you'll never tire of exploring' IAN RANKIN
Beware the Badger! The acclaimed steampunk series from graphic-novel pioneer Bryan Talbot explores an alternate art-nouveau world populated by intelligent animals, a human underclass, and wondrous technology. Within this rich fantastical milieu, the relentless Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard pursues shadowy death squads, psychotic killers, dark political conspiracies, ruthless crime lords, and bloodthirsty cults through the streets of London and the center of the greatest empire on earth, the Belle Epoque Paris known as Grandville.
Grandville L'Intégrale collects all five Grandville novels in one deluxe hardcover volume accompanied by voluminous author notes never before in print.
*WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY IAN RANKIN*
'I have greatly enjoyed the Grandville books. I think they're superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific' PHILIP PULLMAN
'These ingeniously plotted fantasies will make you bark with laughter' METRO
'Utterly delightful' THE TIMES
'Bryan Talbot is a genius' OBSERVER
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The extraordinary new story collection from one of Ireland's greatest writers and bestselling author of Mindwinter Break.
Bernard MacLaverty is a consummately gifted short-story writer and novelist whose work - like that of John McGahern, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien or Colm Tóibín - is deceptively simple on the surface, but carries a turbulent undertow. Everywhere, the dark currents of violence, persecution and regret pull at his subject matter: family love, the making of art, Catholicism, the Troubles and, latterly, ageing.
Blank Pages is a collection of twelve extraordinary new stories that show the emotional range of a master. 'Blackthorns', for instance, tells of a poor out-of-work Catholic man who falls gravely ill in the sectarian Northern Ireland of 1942 but is brought back from the brink by an unlikely saviour. The most recently written story here is the harrowing but transcendent 'The End of Days', which imagines the last moments in the life of painter Egon Schiele, watching his wife dying of Spanish flu - the world's worst pandemic, until now.
Much of what MacLaverty writes is an amalgam of sadness and joy, of circumlocution and directness. He never wastes words but neither does he ever forget to make them sing. Each story he writes creates a universe.
A=-A is a beautiful, dark and surreal story, about a man called Alpha whose world is quite literally turned upside down for a day. As he wanders the streets of his hometown, reality flips on its axis, sending him and the reader on a wild and extraordinary journey.
This wholly immersive, escapist, psychedelic mystery centres around two profound philosophical questions: in a strange and unreliable world, can we be certain of anything? And if we stop craving certainty - and entertain doubt - what new possibilities become available to us?
'Gloriously odd, deeply moving . . . In short: a trip.' - Niall Griffiths, winner of the Wales Book of the Year 2020
Why cooperate? This may be the most important scientific question we have ever, and will ever, face.
The science of cooperation tells us not only how we got here, but also where we might end up. Cooperation explains how strands of DNA gave rise to modern-day nation states. It defines our extraordinary ecological success as well as many of the most surprising features of what make us human: not only why we live in families, why we have grandmothers and why women experience the menopause, but also why we become paranoid and jealous, and why we cheat.
Nichola Raihani also introduces us to other species who, like us, live and work together. From the pied babblers of the Kalahari to the cleaner fish of the Great Barrier Reef, they happen to be some of the most fascinating and extraordinarily successful species on this planet. What do we have in common with these other species, and what is it that sets us apart?
Written at a time of global pandemic, when the challenges and importance of cooperation have never been greater, The Social Instinct is an exhilarating, far-reaching and thought-provoking journey through all life on Earth, with profound insights into what makes us human and how our societies work.
A far-reaching, urgent, and thoroughly engaging exploration of our relationship with animals - from the acclaimed Financial Times journalist.
*A GUARDIAN 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK*
We all love animals, but does that make their lives happier?
With factory farms, climate change and deforestation, this might be the worst time in history to be an animal. In an age of extinction and pandemics, our relationship with the other species on our planet has become unsustainable. What if we took animals' experiences seriously - how would we eat, think and live differently?
Henry Mance sets out on a personal quest to see if there is a fairer way to live alongside other species. He goes to work in an abattoir and on a farm to investigate the reality of eating meat and dairy. He explores our dilemmas around hunting wild animals, over-fishing the seas, visiting zoos, saving wild spaces and owning pets. He meets the chefs, farmers, activists, philosophers, scientists and tech visionaries who are redefining how we think about animals.
This is not a book about what animals can do for us, but what we can do for animals.
Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries the fates of three women are linked: to this place, to each other.
In the early 1700s, Sarah, accused of being a witch, flees for her life.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Ruth navigates a new house, a new husband and the strange waters of the local community.
Six decades later, the house stands empty. Viv, mourning the death of her father, catalogues Ruth's belongings and discovers her place in the past - and perhaps a way forward.
Each woman's choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men in their lives. But in sisterhood there is the hope of survival and new life. Intricately crafted and compulsively readable, The Bass Rock burns bright with anger and love.
The groundbreaking new book from Tim Spector, bestselling author of The Diet Myth and creator of the COVID Symptom Study app.
'Illuminating and so incredibly timely.' Yotam Ottolenghi
'One of the clearest and most accessible short nutrition books I have read: refreshingly open-minded, deeply informative and free of faddish diet rules.' Bee Wilson, Guardian
'This book should be available on prescription.' Felicity Cloake, Literary Review
We are all bombarded with advice about what we should and shouldn't eat, and new scientific discoveries are announced every day. Yet the more we are told about nutrition, the less we seem to understand.
Through his pioneering scientific research, Tim Spector has been shocked to discover how little good evidence there is for many of our most deep-rooted ideas about food. In a series of short, myth-busting chapters, Spoon-Fed reveals why almost everything we've been told about food is wrong. Spector explores the scandalous lack of good science behind many medical and government food recommendations, and how the food industry holds sway over these policies and our choices.
Spoon-Fed is a groundbreaking book that forces us to question every diet plan, official recommendation, miracle cure or food label we encounter, and encourages us to rethink our whole relationship with food. Diet may be the most important medicine we all possess. We urgently need to learn how best to use it, not just for our health as individuals but for the future of the planet.
Kafka meets The Thick Of It in a bitingly funny new political satire from Ian McEwan
That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.
Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain – and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way: not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy.
With trademark intelligence, insight and scabrous humour, Ian McEwan pays tribute to Franz Kafka’s most famous work to engage with a world turned on its head.
They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled seismic transformations these three women left an indelible mark on history.
Red Sister rose to be Mao's vice-chair.
Little Sister became first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China.
Big Sister made herself one of country's richest women.
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister takes us on a sweeping journey from exiles' quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. By turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China.
Can trauma be inherited? It is this question that sets Alex Halberstadt off on a quest to name and acknowledge a legacy of family trauma, and to end a cycle of estrangement that had endured for nearly a century.
His search takes him across the troubled, enigmatic land of his birth. In Ukraine he tracks down his paternal grandfather - most likely the last living bodyguard of Joseph Stalin - to reckon with the ways in which decades of Soviet totalitarianism shaped and fractured three generations of his family. He returns to Lithuania, his Jewish mother’s home, to revisit the legacy of the Holocaust and the pernicious anti-Semitism that remains largely unaccounted for, learning that the boundary between history and biography is often fragile and indistinct. And he visits his birthplace, Moscow, where his glamorous grandmother designed homespun couture for Soviet ministers’ wives, his mother dosed dissidents at a psychiatric hospital, and his father made a living by selling black-market jazz and rock records.
Finally, Halberstadt explores his own story: that of a fatherless immigrant who arrived in America, to a housing project in Queens, New York, as a ten-year-old boy struggling with identity, feelings of rootlessness and a yearning for home. He comes to learn that he was merely the latest in a lineage of sons who grew up alone, separated from their fathers by the tides of politics and history.
As Halberstadt revisits the sites of his family’s formative traumas, he uncovers a multigenerational transmission of fear, suspicion, melancholy, and rage. And he comes to realize something more: nations, like people, possess formative traumas that penetrate into the most private recesses of their citizens’ lives.
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