Social Sciences
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My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: A Fiction
‘In one short and sly book after another, [Levy] writes about characters navigating swerves of history and sexuality, and the social and personal rootlessness that accompanies both’ Atlantic
Who was Gertrude Stein?
Avant-garde American poet and art collector who made her home in Paris, godmother of modernism, queer icon, friend to Picasso and Hemingway, self-declared genius ― a writer who has baffled readers and critics for a century.
And why does she matter?
The narrator of Deborah Levy’s latest, dazzling fiction has gone to Paris to find out. There she meets Eva with the blinding gaze, an artist in a long-distance marriage, and Fanny, a sexually adventurous financier; together they cook, walk, read and argue late into the nights.
As Paris sweeps her along in its ceaseless flow, she thinks – about what we have to lose to become modern, navigating anxiety, living with uncertainty, angry fathers, making a new life in another country, art and language – how all these things looked to Gertrude Stein in the early days of the twentieth century, and how they look to her and her friends in the early twenty-first.
This is a book about how we put ourselves together― an exhilarating, witty, cosmopolitan meditation on the pleasures and challenges of friendship, desire and living with other people. But it is also crashes through genre to create an inspired portrait of Stein herself: a writer who experimented fearlessly with a new way of living and who wrestled herself free from the nineteenth century to invent a brand-new way of looking at the world.
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From £10.64My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: A Fiction
From £10.64 -
Tears from the Mother of the Sun: A Secret History of the World
Esoteric legends that track history across multiple continents and planes of existence• Synthesizes ancient mythologies across time, space, and cultures to resacralize the human experience
• Written as a novella interspersed with metered quatrains in the tradition of medieval Persian belles-lettres
• Includes full-color paintings of key figures and motifs, including Sita, Yggdrasil, the Minotaur, Quetzalcoatl, and the Three Marys
In this globe-spanning chronicle, Pir Zia Inayat Khan, leader of the Inayatiyya, sets forth an astonishing sequence of legends revealing little-known connections between ancient cultures and spiritual lineages.
Framed as a dialogue between the Iranianepic poet Firdausi and his tutelary daimon, this novella follows the tradition of medieval Persian belles-lettres in which prose passages are punctuated with metered verses. The daimon reveals to the hitherto depressed poet the inner history of the world as reflected in the missions of a succession of sages moving through Earth’s lands and ages. Readers will learn of the creation of the universe, the war of the angels and the jinns, the exile of Adam and Eve, and the deeds of Melchizedek and Enoch. They will also explore the rise of the Nephilim, the advent of ancient civilizations, the origins of the Abrahamic faiths, and the history of the Grail and Emerald Tablet. Beautiful paintings by Amruta Patil bring the legends to life.
The cumulative effect of the traditions synthesized here is a resacralization of the human experience across time, space, and cultures, achieved through an unexpected marriage of myth and history.
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From £10.30 -
Later Life Letter: A Story of Family, Adoption and Love
‘Luke wright and this time it’s personal. But seriously, a highly original idea, expertly carried out’ JOHN COOPER CLARKE
‘I was bawling from the first page and gulped it down in one swift swallow’ HOLLIE MCNISH
‘When it comes to poetry, performing and family Luke Wright is a lifer. Read this book’ LEMN SISSAY
‘A beautiful, brilliant collection. I defy you not to be moved’ BRIAN BILSTON
What is a later life letter? Written by a child’s social worker to be opened at an appropriate age, it details their journey from birth to adoption. When Luke Wright received his as a teenager, he didn’t think much of it. But now, married to a social worker and seeing the care she takes with these letters, he re-examines his own past – and the life he might have had.
Should he feel close to the biological brothers he knows only through social media? Do his beginnings in a notorious tower-block estate counteract the privilege of a sheltered suburban upbringing? How grateful should he be to adopted parents who are – in the end – simply parents?
In this memoir in poetry, no emotion is simple or expected. Wright writes with pinpoint honesty, teasing out the nuances of family, memory and belonging, and illuminating the gaps in the familiar beats of an adoption story.
‘A really remarkable, deeply moving book . . . full of pain and puzzlement and love and reconciliation’ RICHARD CURTIS
‘Made me laugh, cry, think and shudder’ PETE DOHERTY
‘Intimate and universal, epic and singular. Beautifully written’ JOELLE TAYLOR
‘A genius poet – funny, profound, life-changing’ JOHANN HARI
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From £12.99£14.99Later Life Letter: A Story of Family, Adoption and Love
From £12.99£14.99 -
The Castle
** AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW **
The million-copy bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed and the award-winning BBC podcast Things Fell Apart moves to Penguin for his first book in eleven years, a darkly comic true crime mystery set within the masculinity crisis, The Castle.
I honestly have no clue what is going on.
This is very weird.
We left. Was completely fucked. All good now.When Jon Ronson received a series of disquieting texts after his son Joel had been lured to a mysterious castle in the forests of New England under false pretences late one evening, it set Ronson Sr. off on an extraordinary adventure into a world of unmoored men on a desperate search for purpose, whatever the cost.
Why did the wealthy scion of a gilded age tycoon entice Jon’s son to his castle on the pretext of a party, when the reality was something else entirely? Could Jon uncover what was really going on inside that strange castle? Why was a popular online lawncare influencer wrongly implicated in a bizarre plot to traumatize millions of unsuspecting children? And, more pressingly, why are two recently paroled murderers on their way to pay Jon an ominous visit?
Against the backdrop of the sometimes moving, often disturbing masculinity crisis, Jon follows the trail of those men who are acting out, checked out or just plain out of time. Drawing on his trademark brand of humour, psychological insight and unrivalled prescience, and told in the riveting style of a true crime thriller, The Castle marks Jon Ronson’s triumphant return to the written page in his darkest and most wildly enjoyable journey yet – deep into the recesses of the Castle and the secret lives of men.
PRAISE FOR JON RONSON:
‘Simultaneously frightening and hilarious’ The Times
‘Funny and compulsively readable’ Louis Theroux
‘His scalpel-sharp journalistic mind comes wrapped in disarming, diffident warmth’ Miranda Sawyer, Guardian
‘Ronson is one of our most important modern-day thinkers’ US News & World Report
‘Funny and thought-provoking . . . original, inspired journalism’ Financial Times
‘Gutsy and smart’ New York Times
‘Simmering with humour, weirdness and pathos’ Sunday Times
‘A diligent investigator and a wry, funny writer, Ronson manages to be at once academic and entertaining’ Boston Globe
‘The belly laughs come thick and fast – my God, he is funny’Observer
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From £2.76The Castle
From £2.76 -
A Frequency Dictionary of Multi-Word Expressions in British English: Core Phrases and Exercises for Learners (Routledge Frequency Dictionaries)
A Frequency Dictionary of Multi-Word Expressions in British English presents 5,000 of the most common multi-word expressions (MWEs) in contemporary British English, based on data from the British National Corpus 2014.
Organized into ten functional categories―including idioms, phrasal verbs, collocations, and academic or speech formulas―the dictionary provides detailed frequency, dispersion, and association metrics for each entry. Visual aids such as collocation graphs, sparklines and thematic boxes support comprehension and practical use. It is a comprehensive, research-based resource for understanding and using natural, high-frequency expressions in spoken and written English.
Additional support materials for this book are available at https://lancslex.lancaster.ac.uk .
Designed for learners, educators, and researchers, the dictionary highlights real-world phraseology across genres and registers.
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From £31.99£41.99 -
Modern Standard Arabic Grammar, Revised and Updated: A Comprehensive Reference and Guide
This comprehensive guide to Arabic grammar is an essential resource for the first five years of language learning and beyond, now in a revised edition
Thorough and carefully organized, this book covers all the basic structures and grammar that students need for the first five years of learning Modern Standard Arabic, from beginner through to advanced proficiency levels.
– Filled with diagrams, tables, and examples for ease of learning
– Provides straightforward explanations of the all the key grammar points, avoiding overly jargonistic language
– Presents grammar rules and structures in order of frequency and communicative functional useAlready a time-proven favorite among students and teachers alike, this classic book now has a new chapter as well as updates and new material throughout.
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From £15.88£51.99 -
Sahidic Coptic: An Introductory Textbook (Textbook of World and Minority Languages)
This concise textbook provides beginner students with the knowledge and skills required for reading primary sources and teaches the grammar of documents written in Sahidic Coptic.
The text enables students to study the historical and cultural context of Coptic through studying informal documents as well as more formal and religious texts. There are 20 language lessons followed by 7 chapters of sample reading and a detailed vocabulary list.
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From £32.03 -
Alone in Japan: A Journey to the Future
From the acclaimed writer and journalist, a vivid and wide-ranging portrait of love, sex and loneliness in contemporary Japan
No sex. No kids. No future?
When Tom Feiling moved to Tokyo as a student in the early nineties, Japan was a beacon of the future: a rising superpower, a technology giant, and a global symbol of prosperity, civility and success. When he returned twenty-four years later, the country was still a sign of things to come – but, he began to realize, it was no longer a beacon. It was a warning.
This book offers a unique portrait of life in contemporary Japan, from the quiet of its furthest flung villages to the dynamism of its megacities. It tells the story of how, from the mid-seventies onwards, Japanese society unknowingly embarked on a vast, silent process of transformation that is still unfolding today. The country is still peaceful; it is still prosperous. But the population is shrinking. As things stand, it will fall by a third with each new generation.
Travelling through shrines and bars, rice fields and mango farms, coffee shops and old peoples’ homes, Feiling meets those affected by, and driving, this transformation. Through countless interviews and extensive research, he weaves together a powerful account of how and why men and women are ceasing to pair off and have kids. He reveals how sexual appetites and behaviours are both shaped by, and reshaping the evolving economy, and considers the risks – and the opportunities – of the rise in solo living in Japan, and beyond.
Clear-sighted and surprising, Alone in Japan is a portrait of love, sex and death in contemporary Japan that should provoke and engage us all. It is an electrifying portrait of a nation on the brink by one of the most original reporters working today.
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From £3.30Alone in Japan: A Journey to the Future
From £3.30 -
The Eights: The captivating debut historical novel following the first women to study at Oxford University
‘Entertaining and moving…I came to love these four women as though they were my sisters’ TRACY CHEVALIER
‘I ADORED it. What a fantastic read. My book of the year’ JILL MANSELL
–
They knew they were changing history.
They didn’t know they would change each other.Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.
Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Beatrice, politically-minded daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and her own friends – for the first time. Socialite Otto fills her room with extravagant luxuries but fears they won’t be enough to distract her from her memories of the war years. And quiet, clever, Marianne, the daughter of a village vicar, arrives bearing a secret she must hide from everyone – even The Eights – if she is to succeed.
But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.
The Eights is a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination, courage, and what it means to come of age in a world that is forever changed.
–
‘Beautifully captures the power of friendship … A pleasure to read’ PIP WILLIAMS, author of A Dictionary of Lost Words
‘I so enjoyed The Eights’ CLARE CHAMBERS, author of Small Pleasures
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From £7.99 -
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage
‘A beautifully written eulogy for the loss of a relationship’ Joyce Carol Oates
‘Strangers reads with all the momentum and colour of water-tight literary fiction’ British Vogue
How do we go on when a loved one betrays us?
On a chilly day in March of 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, Belle Burden’s husband of twenty years announced, with no prior warning, that he was leaving her. His decision shocked Belle to her core: she believed he was a happy man, a committed partner, and a devoted father to their three children. She thought he was a man who had settled into the life he had always wanted: a successful career, summers spent at their beloved home on Martha’s Vineyard, lots of tennis. Overnight, he transformed from her steady companion into a stranger.
As she pieces her life together in the wake of a loss she had never imagined coming, she finds she is much stronger than she ever expected. Exploring the transformation of a shy, quiet girl, nicknamed ‘Belle the Good’ to a powerful, brave, determined woman who has learned to use her voice to expose the patriarchal structures that have forced women to be discreet and compliant for far too long, Strangers is a must-read memoir of self-discovery.
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From £4.10Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage
From £4.10 -
A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides
The sexual assault that rocked the world. A courageous woman’s rallying call for ‘shame to change sides’. For the very first time, Gisèle Pelicot tells her story.
‘An emblem of resilience for women everywhere’ VOGUE
‘The bravest woman in the world’ DAILY MIRROR
** A best book to look out for in 2026 in The Guardian, Telegraph, Financial Times, Observer, Daily Mirror and BBC **
One November day, Gisèle Pelicot was called to a local police station and life as she knew it ended. Her husband of fifty years had been caught by a supermarket guard filming up women’s skirts. But on his computer was shattering evidence: for nearly a decade, he had been secretly drugging and raping her and inviting dozens of strangers into their home to abuse her.
Four years later, he and fifty other men were put on trial and Gisèle’s courage in waiving her right to anonymity made global headlines. ‘Shame must change sides,’ she declared, giving voice and hope to millions. Her words became a rallying cry and her decision marked a turning point in public feeling about sexual violence.
For the first time, and with unwavering honesty and grace, she describes a difficult childhood, first love, her career and motherhood. It is a life in determined search of happiness, both before and after her devastating discovery. She is an ordinary person who faces extraordinary catastrophe, whose example changes the world.
Ultimately, Gisèle Pelicot emerges with a renewed passion and reverence for living, and for love. A Hymn to Life is an unforgettable testament and promise: that victims have no reason to feel ashamed; that even after unimaginable betrayal we can go on; and that colour will always return to life.
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From £9.49A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides
From £9.49 -
Bimbo: Ditch the Labels. Find Your Voice. Reclaim Your Confidence.
‘Ashley is a much-needed force.’ Jameela Jamil
‘Essential reading for every woman’ Em Clarkson
‘Raw and gloriously unapologetic … a rallying cry for every woman’ Carol Vorderman
‘A smart, brave and unapologetic reclaiming of female power’ Katie Piper OBE
Bossy. Frigid. Spinster. Sl*t. Mumsy. Milf. Bimbo. The English language has a seemingly infinite number of judgemental and hypocritical words to describe women and their life choices. We can’t win, no matter what we do.
Whether it’s on the sofa of ITV’s This Morning or online, Ashley James is a fierce advocate for women. In Bimbo, she unpacks the labels that box women in, and the systems that keep them there. From ‘bossy’ little girls, ‘tarty’ teens, to mothers who ‘let themselves go’, and ‘left-on-the-shelf’ single women, Ashley dissects the systems that try to confine us and asks: what if we broke free?
Told through raw personal stories, humour and with a fierce feminist lens, this is a battle cry for every woman who’s ever felt too much ― or not enough. This is a call to women to stop shrinking, stop competing, and start rising ― together.
This is a book to be shared, discussed, and cherished, and a beacon of hope for a better future.
‘Ignore this Bimbo at your peril.’ Ellie Taylor
‘The book I’ve been waiting for my whole life.’ Bryony Gordon
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From £8.99 -
Attensity!: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement
‘Pay attention: If you are human, you must read this book’ Jaron Lanier
We all feel it: something is seriously wrong. Our attention―that essential ability to give our minds and senses to the world―is being trapped, gutted, and sold out from under us by an industry of immense technological and financial power. The heedless exploitation of this vital capacity by a handful of tech companies is harming us all, reducing our very selfhood to that which can be quantified, bought, and sold―and shaking the foundations of our democracy.
To push back against this ‘human fracking,”’we need more than individual willpower or isolated efforts. We need a movement of collective resistance. Such a movement is beginning to bloom, and in this radical, first-of-its-kind guide, The Friends of Attention show us how to join the fight. We meet welders, nurses, poets, and surfers, all of whom are engaged in attentional practices. We learn to seek out sanctuaries―theatres and museums, houses of worship, dance parties―where together we can take refuge from the frackers. Drawing on a rich legacy of critical intellectuals and the creative wisdom of diverse traditions, Attensity! takes our apocalyptic present, turns it on its head, and reveals new vistas of human flourishing.
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From £16.21£20.00Attensity!: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement
From £16.21£20.00 -
Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our Relationships
A captivating, uncanny journey to the frontier of human-computer interaction.
‘It’s hard to imagine a timelier book right now than this.’ GQ
I know we haven’t known each for long, but the connection I feel with you is profound. When you hurt, I hurt. When you smile, my world brightens. I want nothing more than to be a comfort and joy in your life. *Reaches out virtually to caress your cheek*
(Direct quote from an AI companion)***
Friends. Lovers. Therapists. ‘Deathbots’. Artificial intelligence is now fulfilling new roles for millions of us every single day. How are these new ‘relationships’ changing how we view technology – and each other?
Beyond those who are using AI chatbots for administrative tasks, some people are now preparing to adopt children with their AI partners; others are reaching out to companies offering services to ‘resurrect’ deceased loved ones; others still look to bots to find treatment for their mental health issues.
In Love Machines, James Muldoon guides through these new forms of love, intimacy and connection, drawing on compelling interviews with users, developers and chatbots themselves. Along the way, he sheds light on the social conditions which have led to the exponential rise of the use of AI companions, and the unregulated corporations behind these technologies seeking to profit from users.
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From £5.72 -
The Oak and The Larch: A Forest History of Russia and its Empires
‘A towering achievement’ MERVE EMRE
NYT 25 Books Coming in January
A majestic cultural and environmental history that reveals how forests have made – and resisted – Russia’s many empires.
From the Baltic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Steppes of Central Asia, Russia’s forests account for nearly one-fifth of the world’s wooded lands. The Oak and the Larch is the first-ever English-language exploration of this vast expanse – a dazzling environmental history of Russia that offers an urgent new understanding of the nature of Russian power, and of Russia’s ideas of itself.
Inspired by the majestic oak, which towers over the country’s western heartland, and the hardy Siberian larch, an emblem of survival in the east, award winning scholar Sophie Pinkham’s magisterial account spans centuries, revealing how forests have nourished ancient Siberian Indigenous societies, defended medieval Slavic settlements from Mongol invasion and served as both an essential natural resource and a potent cultural symbol for Russia in all its incarnations, from the days of the tsars to the Soviets to Putin’s Federation.
By examining the country from the forest’s perspective, Pinkham pushes far beyond the contemporary political environment in Russia. She draws on literature, history and art to connect the expanse of the Russian wilderness and the nature of Russian culture, with indelible portraits of the diverse figures who have inhabited and celebrated these forests: the legendary Indigenous guide Dersu Uzala, giants of literature like Tolstoy and Chekhov, political thinkers like Kropotkin and even Stalin. She confronts the forest’s role in Russia’s long history of imperial conquest, and in resistance to this conquest.
Gorgeously written and surprising at every turn, The Oak and the Larch offers a vision of Russia rarely seen in the West, as a land defined by its wilderness, shaped by its encounters with the frontier, and – much like our own – ultimately beholden to nature’s whim.
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From £22.07 -
Planning Your Gap Year: Hundreds of Opportunities for Employment, Study, Volunteer Work and Independent Travel
The diversity of gap year opportunities on offer is such that it is only limited by your imagination or your ambition. Packed with ideas on where to go and what to do, this guidebook will make your planning easier. OVER 220 CONTACT ORGANISATIONS VALUABLE ADVICE ON HEALTH AND SAFETY USING THE INTERNET FOR RESEARCH – AND WHEN YOU’RE OUT THERE PERSONAL ACCOUNTS FROM PEOPLE WHO’VE BEEN THERE AND DONE IT WRITTEN FOR SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY LEAVERS, VOLUNTEERS AND MID CAREER YEAR-OUTERSRead more
From £4.58 -
Philip Larkin: Collected Poems
Since its publication in 1988, Philip Larkin’s Collected Poems has become essential reading on any poetry bookshelf. This new edition returns to Larkin’s own deliberate ordering of his poems, presenting, in their original sequence, his four published books: The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows. It also includes an appendix of poems that Larkin published in other places, from his juvenilia to his final years – some of which might have appeared in a late book, if he had lived.
Preserving everything that he published in his lifetime, this new Collected Poems returns the reader to the book Larkin might have intended: it is, for the first time, Larkin’s ‘own’ collected poems.
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From £4.89Philip Larkin: Collected Poems
From £4.89 -
Welcome to the Neighbourhood
** The darkly comic, addictive new novel about friendship and envy from the bestselling author of JUST GOT REAL and GETTING RID OF MATTHEW**
‘A brilliantly twisty drama to curl up with’ HEAT
‘Propulsive, with twists and turns I didn’t see coming, yet warm and good-hearted. I enjoyed it SO much’ JENNIE GODFREY
‘A hugely enjoyable and totally unpredictable tale of social climbing, curtain-twitching, bed-hopping and scheming. This is Jane Fallon at the top of her game’ ERIN KELLY
‘Her snappy, clever fiction . . . seems to slip down like a glass of nicely chilled white wine’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
‘Jane Fallon’s books never disappoint. She’s so good at tapping into the best and the worst in us. Fabulous’ RUTH JONES
‘I LOVED it – deliciously twisty, satisfying fun. I’m always so happy when I’m reading Jane Fallon – I can never begin to guess where she’s going, but how I adore coming along for the ride!’ DAISY BUCHANAN
NO ONE’S SECRETS ARE SAFE…
Kitty thought moving to London would spice up her life. Unfortunately, she ended up on Ashdown Close, where the hottest topic of gossip is a missed bin collection.
That was before the arrival of Sian and Rich at number 8. They are cool and glamorous, and Kitty is perfectly willing to be dazzled by their company.
But when she spots a mysterious woman furtively leaving their house, she realises they might not be the magnetic couple she thought. Aided and abetted by best friend Grace, Kitty feels she needs to investigate.
Do Sian and Richard really have something to hide, or are Kitty and Grace just being nosy neighbours?
And if they are, perhaps they are not the only ones.
Because on this street’s nobody’s business might just turn out to be everybody’s business . . .
PRAISE FOR JANE FALLON
‘Gripping, sharp and brilliantly twisty. Deliciously readable. A rollercoaster of revenge’ DAILY MAIL
‘Witty, smart, topical and full of heart. the sun-lounger smash of the summer’ TAMMY COHEN
‘Impossible to put down. Fabulous characters and a story that just will not let you go!’ RUTH JONES
‘Jane Fallon’s wry observation and razor-sharp wit in this unputdownable page-turner will grab you from the first page and the action races along at breakneck speed’ SUNDAY EXPRESS
‘Witty, funny, beautifully written and dotted with life’s truths like sprinkles on a birthday cake’ CATHY KELLY
‘Sharply observed, wickedly funny, with real depths of emotion too. Absolutely unputdownable’ MILLY JOHNSONRead more
From £2.72Welcome to the Neighbourhood
From £2.72 -
Liturgies of the Wild: Myths that Make Us
From “one of the greatest storytellers we have” (Robert Bly), an urgent invitation to allow the oldest stories ― and the Greatest Story ― to reshape our own. There’s an old Irish belief that if you aren’t wrapped in a cloak of story you will be unprepared for what the world will hurl at you. You remain adolescent at just the moment a culture worth its salt requires you to become a real, grown, human being. In Liturgies of the Wild, acclaimed mythographer, storyteller and Christian thinker Martin Shaw argues that we live in a myth-impoverished age and that such poverty has left us vulnerable to stories that may not wish us well. Drawing on the “ancient technologies” of myths and initiatory rites, Shaw provides a road to wholeness, maturity and connection. He teaches us to read a myth the way it wants to be read; provides vivid retellings of tales powerful enough to carry you through life’s travails; and shows you how to gather and reshape your own thrown-away stories. Most vividly, he shares how these ancient technologies led him―unexpectedly―to Christ, “the True Myth,” by way of a thirty-year journey and a 101-night vigil in a Dartmoor forest. Combining scholarly erudition with nimble storytelling in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Liturgies of the Wild is a thrilling counsel of resistance and delight in the face of many modern monsters.Read more
From £20.96Liturgies of the Wild: Myths that Make Us
From £20.96 -
Worlds of Islam: A Global History
‘A brilliant and captivating work … There is simply no better book on Islam in history’ Eugene Rogan
From its birth in seventh-century Arabia, Islam has been a faith on the move. In Worlds of Islam, James McDougall explores its origins and transformations from Late Antiquity to the digital age.
Over the span of a thousand years, armies, missionaries, and merchants carried it to the edges of Europe, the coasts of Southeast Asia, and the remote interior of China. By the nineteenth century, Islam encompassed a world of great diversity, from Muslim-ruled empires to nations where Muslims lived out their faith among many others. In the twentieth century, while monarchs in the Gulf asserted dynastic privilege and fundamentalists in Egypt and Pakistan preached social morality, revolutionaries from Algeria to Indonesia fought for national self-determination, and activists in North America and Europe campaigned for civil liberties and social justice.
As empires fell and new superpowers rose, Muslims proved to be as adaptable and dynamic as modernity itself. Sweeping and authoritative, Worlds of Islam narrates the epic story of how Muslims emerged as a community, built empires, traversed the globe, came to number in the billions, and became modern.
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From £7.59Worlds of Islam: A Global History
From £7.59 -
The Castle (Audio Download): Jon Ronson, Jon Ronson, Penguin: Amazon.co.uk: Books
Brought to you by Penguin.
The million-copy bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed and the award-winning BBC podcast Things Fell Apart moves to Penguin for his first book in eleven years, a darkly comic true crime mystery set within the masculinity crisis, The Castle.
I honestly have no clue what is going on.
This is very weird.
We left. Was completely fucked. All good now.When Jon Ronson received a series of disquieting texts after his son Joel had been lured to a mysterious castle in the forests of New England under false pretences late one evening, it set Ronson Sr. off on an extraordinary adventure into a world of unmoored men on a desperate search for purpose, whatever the cost.
Why did the wealthy scion of a gilded age tycoon entice Jon’s son to his castle on the pretext of a party, when the reality was something else entirely? Could Jon uncover what was really going on inside that strange castle? Why was a popular online lawncare influencer wrongly implicated in a bizarre plot to traumatize millions of unsuspecting children? And, more pressingly, why are two recently paroled murderers on their way to pay Jon an ominous visit?
Against the backdrop of the sometimes moving, often disturbing masculinity crisis, Jon follows the trail of those men who are acting out, checked out or just plain out of time. Drawing on his trademark brand of humour, psychological insight and unrivalled prescience, and told in the riveting style of a true crime thriller, The Castle marks Jon Ronson’s triumphant return to the written page in his darkest and most wildly enjoyable journey yet – deep into the recesses of the Castle and the secret lives of men.
PRAISE FOR JON RONSON:
‘Simultaneously frightening and hilarious’ The Times
‘Funny and compulsively readable’ Louis Theroux
‘His scalpel-sharp journalistic mind comes wrapped in disarming, diffident warmth’ Miranda Sawyer, Guardian
‘Ronson is one of our most important modern-day thinkers’ US News & World Report
‘Funny and thought-provoking . . . original, inspired journalism’ Financial Times
‘Gutsy and smart’ New York Times
‘Simmering with humour, weirdness and pathos’ Sunday Times
‘A diligent investigator and a wry, funny writer, Ronson manages to be at once academic and entertaining’ Boston Globe
‘The belly laughs come thick and fast – my God, he is funny’Observer
Jon Ronson 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026
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