Canongate Books

Guardian - Best Books of the Year

This book is about two unlikely friends. One born in 1970s Britain to Indian immigrant parents, the other arrived from Nazi Germany in 1939, fleeing persecution.

This book is about common ground. It is a story of migration, anti-Semitism, racism, family, belonging, grief and resilience.

This book is about the past and the present. It is about the state we're in now and the ways in which we carry our pasts into our futures.

This book is about homelands.

When Max Dickins started to think about proposing to his girlfriend, he realised there was no one he could call on to be his best man. This realisation sent him down a rabbit hole, examining the friendships he had had over the years, and where they had foundered.

Men are, on average, more isolated and lonelier than women. Countless studies have affirmed this peculiarity, and there is a staggering worldwide inequality consistently recorded between the sexes in respect to suicide rates. Dickins' disarmingly honest and witty interrogation of traditional masculinity is a personal quest borne of inner crisis, providing a platform to intelligently explore the connection between widespread male loneliness and isolation and the recently christened social phenomenon of toxic masculinity.

Join Max on his journey to find a best man, as he learns that perhaps what he and others like him really need is a best friend.

In Peach Village, crying is forbidden. But as a child, Binu never learnt to hide her tears. Shunned by the villagers, she faced a bleak future, until she met Qiliang, an orphan who offered her his hand in marriage.

Then one day Qiliang disappears. Binu learns that he has been transported hundreds of miles and forced to labour on a project of terrifying ambition and scale - the building of the Great Wall.

Binu is determined to find and save her husband. Inspired by her love, she sets out on an extraordinary journey towards Great Swallow Mountain, with only a blind frog for company. What follows is an unforgettable story of passion, hardship and magical adventure.

The Times 2022 Thriller of the Year and Best New Thriller

When a Jewish classmate is attacked by bullies, fifteen-year-old Nico just watches - earning him a week's suspension and a typed, yellowing manuscript from his frail Nonno Paolo. A history lesson, his grandfather says, and a secret he must keep from his father.

Reading the manuscript, Nico is transported back to the Venice of 1943, an occupied city seething under the Nazis, and to the defining moment of his grandfather's life: when Paolo's support for a murdered Jewish woman brings him into the sights of the city's underground resistance. Hooked and unsettled, Nico can't stop reading - but he soon wonders if he ever knew his beloved grandfather at all.

The pharmaceutical industry is broken. From the American hedge fund manager who hiked the price of an AIDS pill from $17.50 to $750 overnight to the children's cancer drugs left intentionally to expire in a Spanish warehouse, the signs of this dysfunction are all around. A system that was designed to drive innovation and patient care has been relentlessly distorted to drive up profits.

Medicines have become nothing more than financial assets. The focus of drug research, how drugs are priced and who has access to them is now dictated by shareholder value, not the good of the public. Drug companies fixated on ever-higher profits are being fined for bribing doctors and striking secret price-gouging deals, while patients desperate for life-saving medicines are driven to the black market in search of drugs that national health services can't afford.

Sick Money argues that the way medicines are developed and paid for is no longer working. Unless we take action we risk a dramatic decline in the pace of drug development and a future in which medicines are only available to the highest bidder. In this book investigative journalist Billy Kenber offers a diagnosis of an industry in crisis and a prescription for how we can fight back.

London, 1593.

A city on edge.

Under threat from plague and war, strangers are unwelcome, suspicion is wholesale, severed heads grin from the spikes on Tower Bridge.

Playwright, poet and spy, Christopher Marlowe walks the city's mean streets with just three days to find the murderous Tamburlaine, a killer escaped from the pages of his most violent play.

Tamburlaine Must Die is the searing adventure of a man who dares to defy both God and the state and whose murder remains a taunting mystery to the present day.

When down-at-heel Glasgow conjurer William Wilson gets booked for a string of cabaret gigs in Berlin, he's hoping his luck's on the turn. There were certain spectators from his last show who he'd rather forget. Like the one who's now a corpse.

Amongst the showgirls and tricksters of Berlin's scandalous underground Wilson can abandon his heart, his head and, more importantly, his past. But secrets have a habit of catching up with him and, as he gets sucked into certain lucrative after-hours work, the line between what's an act and what's real starts to blur.

A coming-of-age story set in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s, The Go-Between opens a window into a closed migrant community living in a red-light district on the wrong side of the tracks.

The adult world is seen through Osman's eyes as a child: his own devout Pashtun patriarchal community, with its divide between the world of men and women, living cheek-by-jowl with parallel migrant communities. The orthodox attend a mosque down the road from the prostitutes and pimps. Children balance Western school teachings with cultural traditions.

Alternative masculinities compete with strict gender roles, and female erasure and honour-based violence are committed, even as empowering female friendships prevail. The stories Osman tells, some fantastical and humorous, others melancholy and even harrowing, take us from the Birmingham of Osman's childhood to the banks of the river Kabul and the river Indus, and, eventually, to the London of his teenage years.

Osman weaves in and out of these worlds, struggling with the dual burdens of racism and community expectations, as he is forced to realise it is no longer possible to exist in the spaces in between.

Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013.

In September 1943, Nazi troops advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokaster, Albania. The very next day, the Germans vanish without a trace. As the townsfolk wonder if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night, rumours circulate of a childhood friendship between a local dignitary and the invading Nazi Colonel, a reunion in the town square and a fateful dinner party that would transform twentieth-century Europe.

A captivating novel of resistance in a dictatorship, and steeped in Albanian folklore, The Fall of the Stone City shows Kadare at the height of his powers.

1958. In a dorm room in Moscow, a young writer is woken by the sound of angry voices on the radio. Through the fog of a hangover he hears the news that a novel called Doctor Zhivago has earned its author the Nobel Prize. There is uproar. The author, Boris Pasternak, faces exile, the press hound him and demand that he refuse the award. A few days earlier the young writer found a copy of this book - could those simple pages really be so dangerous?

Based on Ismail Kadare's own experience, Twilight of the Eastern Gods is a portrait of a city, a story of youthful disenchantment and a reminder of the incredible importance of the written word.

Will Ferguson has spent the past three years criss-crossing Canada: in a helicopter above the barren-lands of the sub-arctic; in a canoe with his four-year old son; on seaplanes; and on the Underground Railroad. Ferguson's travels have taken him from Cape Spear on the coast of Newfoundland to the sun-dappled streets of Olde Victoria.

Delving into Canada's history and landscape along the way, Ferguson's discoveries are fascinating and provocative. Funny, poignant and insightful, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw is a personal tribute to a quirky and enthralling country.

A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK

After a car accident Jarred discovers he'll never walk again. Confined to a 'giant roller-skate', he finds himself with neither money nor job, a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and strangers treating him like he's an idiot. Worse still, he's forced to live back home with his estranged father.

Trying to piece himself together, Jarred comes to realise that things don't have to stay broken after all. The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness, how the world treats disabled people, and how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives - and try to find a happy ending.

In which the writings of the authors Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood are gathered together.

This commonplace book includes faxes, notes, fledgling lyrics, sketches, lists of all kinds and scribblings towards nirvana, as were sent between the two authors during the period 1999 to 2000 during the creation of the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac.

This is a document of the creative process and a mirror to the fears, portents and fantasies invoked by the world as its citizens faced a brave new millennium.

A celebration of the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac, this is the first book of writing from Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood. It is publishing alongside a full-colour book of artwork, Kid A Mnesia.

A must-have for all Radiohead fans.

Fear Stalks the Land! is a pocket-sized A-format book with French flaps. The cover is printed 5 colours on uncoated stock and debossed. The book is 176 pages long and features black and white text and more than forty black and white images by the authors.

From the renowned artist, an enlightening memoir of living between worlds and learning how to find one's own

'Full of love, wisdom and yearning' Kit de Waal

A coming-of-age story set in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s, The Go-Between opens a window into a closed migrant community living in a red-light district on the wrong side of the tracks.

The adult world is seen through Osman's eyes as a child: his own devout migrant Muslim patriarchal community, with its divide between the world of men and women, living cheek-by-jowl with parallel migrant communities.

Alternative masculinities compete with strict gender roles, and female erasure and honour-based violence are committed, even as empowering female friendships prevail. The stories Osman tells, some fantastical and humorous, others melancholy and even harrowing, take us from the Birmingham of Osman's childhood to the banks of the river Kabul and the river Indus, and, eventually, to the London of his teenage years.

Osman weaves in and out of these worlds, struggling with the dual burdens of racism and community expectations, as he is forced to realise it is no longer possible to exist in the spaces in between.

'Had me giggling all the way through . . . I loved it!' – Jasbinder Bilan

'Action-packed and bursting with fun' – Sinad O'Hart

Welcome to Little Snoddington, where nothing is normal and every day is magic . . .

Nine-year-old Alfie Blackstack's parents have met a very unfortunate end. Now he's living in the super creepy Switherbroom Hall with his mad-haired Aunt Gertie and warty Aunt Zita. The thing is, Alfie's aunts aren't just weird - they're WITCHES!

When the circus arrives in town Alfie makes his first ever friend, the fearless Calypso Fagan. But when Calypso's little sister Nova disappears, they must face the terrifying Head Witch in a race to find Nova and stop the next Witch War.

What does it mean to be an explorer in the twenty-first century?

This is the story of what first led Benedict Allen to head for the farthest reaches of our planet - at a time when there were still valleys and ranges known only to the remote communities who inhabited them. It is also the story of why, thirty years later, he is still exploring. Benedict decides to journey back to a clouded mountain in New Guinea to find an old friend called Korsai, and to fulfil a promise they made as young men.

Explorer tells the story of what it means to be 'lost' and 'found'.

“What an inspiration. The future just got so much better” ― Benjamin Zephaniah

FIGHT CRIME, ACROSS TIME!

The Infinite is a mind-bending, time-twisting adventure for readers who loved TIME TRAVELLING WITH A HAMSTER and A WRINKLE IN TIME. The first book in THE LEAP CYCLE series.

Leaplings, children born on the 29th of February, are very rare. Rarer still are Leaplings with The Gift – the ability to leap through time. Elle Bíbi-Imbelé Ifíè has The Gift, but she’s never used it. Until now.

On her twelfth birthday, Elle and her best friend, Big Ben, travel to the Time Squad Centre in 2048. Elle has received a mysterious warning from the future. Other Leaplings are disappearing in time – and not everyone at the centre can be trusted.

Soon Elle’s adventure becomes more than a race through time. It’s a race against time. She must fight to save the world as she knows it – before it ceases to exist . . .

A celebration of the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac, this book showcases more than 300 color artworks. It features a dialogue between Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood about the creative process and a specially commissioned essay, Kid Alphabet by Gareth Evans about Radiohead’s body of work.

Whilst these records were being conceived, rehearsed, recorded and produced, Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood made hundreds of images. These ranged from obsessive, insomniac scrawls in biro to six-foot-square painted canvases, from scissors-and-glue collages to immense digital landscapes. They utilized every medium they could find, from sticks and knives to the emerging digital technologies.

The work chronicles their obsessions at the time: minotaurs, genocide, maps, globalization, monsters, pylons, dams, volcanoes, locusts, lightning, helicopters, Hiroshima, show homes and ring roads. What emerges is a deeply strange portrait of the years at the commencement of this century. A time that seems an age ago–but so much remains the same.

This is the first book from Radiohead of their artwork. It is publishing alongside a book of lyrics and scribblings, Fear Stalks the Land!

Kid A Mnesia is a 240 x 189mm hardback with a paper case cover printed in 5 colors on uncoated stock with debossing on the front and spine and a specially designed, peelable sticker. Inside, the endpapers are dyed black uncoated paper. 360 pages long and heavily illustrated throughout, the internal pages are printed in 5 colors on coated Italian paper with one 40-page section at the midpoint on heavy uncoated paper. A paper gatefold section ends the book folding out to reveal a spread of 3 images each side.

Venice is a city full of secrets. For hundreds of years it has been the scene of scandal, intrigue and murderous rivalries. And it remains so today.

1548, Lorenzino de Medici, himself a murderer and a man few will miss, is assassinated by two hired killers.
Today, Marmaduke Godolphin, British TV historian and a man even fewer will miss, is stabbed by a stiletto blade on the exact same spot, his body dropping into the canal.

Can the story of the first murder explain the attack on Godolphin? The Carabinieri certainly think so. They recruit retired archivist Arnold Clover to unpick the mystery and to help solve the case. But the conspiracy against Godolphin runs deeper than anyone imagined.

A stylish, atmospheric detective story with shades of the Gothic – from the author of the award-winning cult classic The Cutting Room

SHORTLISTED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE

'Superb' The Times Crime Book of the Month

'A hardboiled gem' Guardian

'I doubt I'll read a better book this year' Val McDermid

Auctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable. Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when an old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance, life seems to be looking up. The next day Jojo washes up dead.

Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs – is that the reason the police won’t investigate? And if Rilke doesn’t find out what happened to Jojo, who will?

A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK

Question: What's worse than being in a wheelchair?
Answer: Being a fuck-up in a wheelchair.

After a car accident Jarred discovers he'll never walk again. Confined to a 'giant roller-skate', he finds himself with neither money nor job. Worse still, he's forced to live back home with the father he hasn't spoken to in ten years.

Add in a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and the fact that total strangers now treat him like he's an idiot, it's a recipe for self-destruction. How can he stop himself careering out of control?

As he tries to piece his life together again, he looks back over his past - the tragedy that blasted his family apart, why he ran away, the damage he's caused himself and others - and starts to wonder whether, maybe, things don't always have to stay broken after all.

The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness. It's about how the world treats disabled people. And it's about how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives - and try to find a happy ending.

'BREATHTAKING' Dolly Alderton, 'REMARKABLE' Marian Keyes, 'LIFE-CHANGING' Emma Jane Unsworth, 'COMPELLING' Amy Liptrot, 'EXTRAORDINARY' Sali Hughes

To everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream – living in New York City, with a top job editing a major magazine and named one of Folio's Top Women in US Media. In reality, she was struggling with the trauma of an abusive childhood and the demands of a difficult job in a new country, and rapidly skidding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a Manhattan psychiatric ward.

Coming Undone is Terri's documentation of her unravelling, and her precarious journey back from a life in pieces.

LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE

Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death, but until now hadn't met Death in person - a black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen.

Enthralled by her stories, Wolf becomes Mrs Death's scribe, and begins to write her memoirs. Using their desk as a vessel and conduit, Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity. As the two reflect on the losses they have experienced - or, in the case of Mrs Death, facilitated - their friendship grows into a surprising affirmation of hope, resilience and love. All the while, despite her world-weariness, Death must continue to hold humans' fates in her hands, appearing in our lives when we least expect her . . .

Waterstones - The Best Books of 2022: Baby & Toddler

This is the story of Alem, a curious little boy who realises today is his birthday. The only problem is that Alem does not know where to celebrate, and who to celebrate with. 

He goes on an adventure all on his own, meeting exciting animals along the way. He befriends a bear, a fox, a treefrog, a bulldog and more. Every new friend he makes, he asks the same question: where shall I go?

And every time he’s met with the same warning: ‘don’t ask the dragon . . . OR HE WILL EAT YOU’.

The only thing Alem never speaks to is the tiny worm who sits on each page, perhaps it’s because the worm is so small!

All alone at the top of a hill, Alem grows frustrated and helpless as he doesn’t know where to go. But someone – or something – does and Alem comes face-to-face with the dangerous dragon he was warned about. But just how dangerous is it?

Don’t Ask the Dragon is a heart-warming tale with an equally stimulating seek-and-find element. The story of Alem teaches us to never judge a book by its cover and to unabashedly ask questions in order to grow. 

A powerful debut from an Australian novelist that features one of the most likeable but contrary figures you are likely to meet in contemporary fiction.

Lou Connor, a gifted, unhappy sixteen-year-old, is desperate to escape her life of poverty in Sydney. When she is offered an exchange student placement at a school in America it seems as if her dreams will be fulfilled.

Her host family has a beautiful house in Illinois and couldn't be more welcoming . . . until she starts to be distubed by the suffocating and repressed atmosphere of their suburban mansion and things begin to go terribly wrong.

How the Light Gets In is an acutely observed story of adolescence, reminiscent of American Beauty in its dissection of engrained prejudices and middle-class hypocrisy. In Lou Connor, Hyland has created a larger-than-life protagonist who mesmerises the reader with her vivacity and vulnerability, from hopeful beginning to unexpected, haunting end.

The Times: Crime Books of the Year (BOTY)

'I doubt I'll read a better book this year' Val McDermid
'Compelling, immersive and brimming with life' Graeme Macrae Burnet

Auctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable. Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when an old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance, life seems to be looking up. The next day Jojo washes up dead.

Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs - is that the reason the police won't investigate? And if Rilke doesn't find out what happened to Jojo, who will?

Thrilling and atmospheric, The Second Cut delves into the dark side of twenty-first century Glasgow. Twenty years on from his appearance in The Cutting Room, Rilke is still walking a moral tightrope between good and bad, saint and sinner.

Two apparently harmless women reside in cottages one building apart in the idyllic English village of Little Camborne. Miss Finch and Miss Swallow, cousins, have put their pasts behind them and settled into conventional country life. But when a mysterious foreigner, Theodore Cadmus - from a Mediterranean island nobody has heard of - moves into the middle cottage, the safe monotony of their lives is shattered.

Soon, long-hidden secrets and long-held grudges threaten to surface, drawing all into a vortex of subterfuge, theft, violence, mayhem . . . and murder.

The first step on the road to change is to imagine possibility.

Imagine A Country offers visions of a new future from an astonishing array of Scottish voices, from comedians to economists, writers to musicians. Edited, curated and introduced by bestselling author Val McDermid and geographer Jo Sharp, it is a collection of ideas, dreams and ambitions, aiming to inspire change, hope and imagination.

Featuring:
Ali Smith, Phill Jupitus, A.L. Kennedy, Alan Cumming, Kerry Hudson, Greg Hemphill, Carol Ann Duffy, Chris Brookmyre, Alison Watt, Alasdair Gray, Leila Aboulela, Ian Rankin, Selina Hales, Sanjeev Kohli, Jackie Kay, Damian Barr, Elaine C. Smith, Abir Mukherjee, Anne Glover, Alan Bissett, Louise Welsh, Jo Clifford, Ricky Ross, Trishna Singh, Cameron McNeish, Alexander McCall Smith, Carla Jenkins, Don Paterson, and many more . . .

The Sunday Times - 5 Best Poetry Books of 2022

In this blistering anthology, poet, editor and DJ Kayo Chingonyi brings together a selection of exceptional Black British poets. This is his dream mixtape featuring a cross-generational span of current poets extending and inhabiting the spirits of the ancestors. Following in the tread of Lemn Sissay's The Fire People, More Fiya aims to lodge in the mind of its readers for a lifetime, radiating to touch the lives of many.

Including work from: Jason Allen-Paisant, Raymond Antrobus, Malika Booker, Eric Ngalle Charles, Dzifa Benson, Inua Ellams, Samatar Elmi, Khadijah Ibrahim, Keith Jarrett, Anthony Joseph, Safiya Kinshasa Kamara, Vanessa Kisuule, Rachel Long, Adam Lowe, Nick Makoha, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Momtaza Mehri, Bridget Minamore, Selina Nwulu, Gboyega Odubanjo, Louisa Adjoa Parker, Roger Robinson, Denise Saul, Kim Squirrel, Warsan Shire, Rommi Smith, Yomi Sode, Degna Stone, Keisha Thompson, Warda Yassin, Belinda Zhawi

The Kamanga Kings, a Khartoum jazz band of yesteryear, is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime when a surprise letter arrives inviting them to perform in Washington, D.C. The only problem is . . . the band no longer exists.

Rushdy is a disaffected secondary school teacher and the son of an original Kamanga King. Determined to see a life beyond his own home, he sets out to revive the band. Aided by his unreliable best friend, all too soon an unlikely group are on their way, knowing the eyes of their country are on them.

As the group moves from the familiarity of Khartoum to the chaos of Donald Trump's America, Jamal Mahjoub weaves a gently humorous and ultimately universal tale of music, belonging and love.

What does it mean to be an explorer in the twenty-first century?

Explorer is the story of what first led Benedict Allen to head for the farthest reaches of our planet - at a time when there were still valleys and ranges known only to the remote communities who inhabited them. It is also the story of why, thirty years later, he is still exploring. It's the story of a journey back to a clouded mountain in New Guinea to find a man called Korsai who had once been a friend, and to fulfil a promise made as young men. It is also a story of what it is to be 'lost' and 'found'.

Honest, sensitive and packed with insight, in Explorer Allen considers the lessons he has learnt from his numerous expeditions - most importantly, from the communities he has encountered: there is a value in disconnecting from all that we are familiar with, particularly in today's crowded world. And there is a value in connecting with worlds unfamiliar to us, some of whom have lived in harmony, not competition, with nature for generations.

We explore not to plant a flag, or leave a mark, but to open up and allow the place and people to leave their mark on us.

'Remarkable' Robert Macfarlane
'Gorgeous' Amy Liptrot
'Urgent and nourishing' Jessica J. Lee

Nina Mingya Powles first learned to swim in Borneo - where her mother was born and her grandfather studied freshwater fish. There, the local swimming pool became her first body of water. Through her life there have been others that have meant different things, but have still been, in their own way, home: from the wild coastline of New Zealand to a pond in northwest London.

In lyrical, powerful prose, Small Bodies of Water weaves together memories, dreams and nature writing. Exploring everything from migration, food, family, earthquakes and the ancient lunisolar calendar, Nina reflects on a girlhood spent growing up between two cultures, and what it means to belong.

Waterstones - The Best books of 2022: Biography

'I loved this book' Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path
'Utterly absorbing' Lucy Jones, author of Losing Eden

Wishing to leave behind the quiet isolation of her Orkney island life, Amy Liptrot books a one-way flight to Berlin. Searching for new experiences, inspiration and love, she rents a loftbed in a shared flat and looks for work. She explores the streets, nightclubs and parks and seeks out the city's wildlife - goshawks, raccoons and hooded crows. She looks for love through the screen of her laptop.

Over the course of a year Amy makes space hoping for the unexpected. And it comes with an erotic jolt, in the form of a love affair that obsesses her.

The Instant is an unapologetic look at the addictive power of love and lust. It is also an exploration of the cycles of the moon, the flight paths of migratory birds, the mesmerising power of Neolithic stonework and the trails followed by a generation who exist online.

In 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in London, Tracey Thorn and Lindy Morrison first met. Tracey's music career was just beginning, while Lindy, drummer for The Go-Betweens, was ten years her senior. They became confidantes, comrades and best friends, a relationship cemented by gossip and feminism, books and gigs and rock 'n' roll love affairs.

Morrison - a headstrong heroine blazing her way through a male-dominated industry - came to be a kind of mentor to Thorn. They shared the joy and the struggle of being women in a band, trying to outwit and face down a chauvinist music media.

In My Rock 'n' Roll Friend Thorn takes stock of thirty-seven years of friendship, teasing out the details of connection and affection between two women who seem to be either complete opposites or mirror images of each other. This important book asks what people see, who does the looking, and ultimately who writes women out of - and back into - history.

WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE AND CONSERVATION WRITING FOR CHILDREN 2022

Meet the mega human: colossal, clueless . . . and the biggest hope for life on earth

There are eight billion of us humans.

All breathing, eating, fidgeting and thinking deep thoughts.

It's an unimaginably large number. Or is it?

The mega human is the result of smooshing all the people in the world together into one spectacular giant (don't try this at home). Even though the mega human is not the smartest of creatures, it is slowly beginning to understand the problems it has created for Planet Earth's future . . . and how it might be able to fix them.
Making use of brain-bending stats and smoosh theory, The Biggest Footprint is a journey of self-discovery suitable for anyone and everyone identifying as human.

'Strikingly beautiful' Guardian
'Tough and tender' Joanne Harris

After the Sickness has killed off her parents, and the bombs have fallen on the last safe cities, Monster emerges from the Arctic vault which has kept her alive. When she washes up on the coast of Scotland, everyone she knows is dead, and she believes she is alone in an empty world.

Slowly, piece by piece, she begins to rebuild a life. Until, one day, she finds a girl: another survivor, feral, and ready to be taught all that Monster knows. But as the lonely days pass, the lessons the girl learns are not always the ones Monster means to teach . . .

The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse is a timeless collection of Scottish poetry. It contains over three hundred poems ranging from the early medieval period to the twenty-first century, and paints a full-colour portrait of Scotland's poetic heritage and culture.

Edited and introduced by award-winning poets Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson and Peter Mackay, and including poems by Robert Burns, Carol Ann Duffy, Sorley MacLean, Violet Jacob, William Dunbar, Meg Bateman, George Mackay Brown, Màiri Mhòr nan Òran, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead and many more, The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse is a joyous celebration of Scotland's literary past, present and future.

'Subtle, chilling to the bone and very contemporary' PETER JAMES

When danger lies in the eye of the beholder, what happens when you reject its pull?

Cora carries secrets her daughter can't know.
Freya is frightened by what her mother leaves unsaid.
Angel will only bury the past if it means putting her abusers into the ground.

One act of violence sets the three women on a collision course, each desperate to find the truth. In a nail-biting thriller set between the scorched red soil of South Africa, the pitiless snowfields of Canada and the chilly lochsides of western Scotland, each woman must contend with the spectres of male violence, sexual abuse and the choices we each make to keep our souls.

When two bodies are found brutally murdered at a building site in Battersea, DS Calil Drake is first to the scene. He sees an opportunity: to solve a high-profile case and to repair his reputation after a botched undercover operation almost ended his promising career in the Violent Crimes Unit.

Assigned to work with the enigmatic forensic psychologist Dr Rayhana Crane, and on the hunt for an elusive killer, Drake's investigations lead down the dark corridors of the past - to the Iraq war and the destruction both he and Crane witnessed there. With a community poised on the brink of violence, Crane and Drake must put their lives on the line to stop the killer before vengeance is unleashed.

When Peter Hill, a student at Dundee College of Art, answered an advert in The Scotsman seeking lighthouse keepers, little did he imagine that within a month he would be living with three men he didn't know in a lighthouse on Pladda, a small remote island off the west coast of Scotland.

Hill was nineteen, it was 1973 and, with his head fed by Vietnam, Zappa, Kerouac, Vonnegut, Watergate and Coronation Street, he spent six months on various lighthouses, "keeping" with all manner of unusual and fascinating people. Within thirty years this way of life was to have disappeared entirely.

The resulting book is a charming and beautifully written memoir that is not only a heartfelt lament for Hill's own youth and innocence but also for a simpler and more honest age.

If the new District Sheriff, Tristan Haraldsen, thought moving to a remote village on the island of Vagar would be the chance for a peaceful life with his wife Elsebeth, his first few weeks in office swiftly correct him of that notion.

Provoked into taking part in the village's whale hunt against his will, Haraldsen blunders badly, and in the ensuing chaos two local boys go missing. Blaming himself, Haraldsen dives into the investigation and soon learns that the boys are not the first to have gone missing on Vagar.

As Tristan and Elsebeth become increasingly ensnared by the island's past, they realise its wild beauty hides an altogether uglier and sinister truth.

The Kamanga Kings, a Khartoum jazz band of yesteryear, is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime when a surprise letter arrives inviting them to perform in Washington, D.C. The only problem is . . . the band no longer exists.

Rushdy, a disaffected secondary school teacher and the son of an original Kamanga King, sets out to revive the band. All too soon an unlikely group are on their way, knowing the eyes of their country are on them. As they move from the familiarity of Khartoum to the chaos of Donald Trump's America, Jamal Mahjoub weaves a gently humorous and ultimately universal tale of music, belonging and love.

The Secret History of Here is the story of a single place, a farm in the Scottish Borders. The site on which Alistair Moffat's farm now stands has been occupied since pre-historic times. The fields have turned up ancient arrow heads, stone spindles, silver pennies and a stone carved with the rune-like letters of Ogham. Walking this landscape you can feel the presence and see the marks of those who lived here before.

But it is also the story of everywhere. In uncovering the history of one piece of land, Moffat shows how history is all around us, if only we have the eyes to see it. Under our feet, carved into the landscape, in the layout of paths and roads, in the stories we pass down, our history leaves its trace on the land.

Taking the form of a journal of a year, The Secret History of Here is a walk through the centuries as much as the seasons. We hear the echo of battles long since fought, of lives lived quietly or scandalously, of armies, of kings, of the common folk who mostly inhabited this land, and a little of those that live here now.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE

'An incredible work of scholarship' Sathnam Sanghera

Through the story of his own family's history as slave and plantation owners, Alex Renton looks at how we owe it to the present to understand the legacy of the past. When British Caribbean slavery was abolished across most of the British Empire in 1833, it was not the newly liberated who received compensation, but the tens of thousands of enslavers who were paid millions of pounds in government money. The descendants of some of those slave owners are among the wealthiest and most powerful people in Britain today.

Blood Legacy explores what inheritance - political, economic, moral and spiritual - has been passed to the descendants of the slave owners and the descendants of the enslaved. He also asks, crucially, how the former - himself among them - can begin to make reparations for the past.

A Raven and Fisher Mystery: Book 3

Edinburgh, 1850. This city will bleed you dry.

Sarah Fisher is keeping a safe distance from her old flame Dr Will Raven. Having long worked at the side of Dr James Simpson, she has set her sights on learning to practise medicine herself. A notion everyone seems intent on dissuading her from.

Across town, Raven finds himself drawn into Edinburgh's mire when a package containing human remains washes up on the shores of Leith, and an old adversary he has long detested contacts him, pleading for Raven's help to escape the hangman.

Sarah and Raven's lives seem indelibly woven together as they discover that wealth and status cannot alter a fate written in the blood.

EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEBODY, SOMETIMES . . .

Lorenzo Cuni is a fourteen-year-old loner. His wealthy parents think he is away on a school skiing trip, but, in fact, he has stowed away in a forgotten cellar. He plans to live in perfect isolation for a week, keeping the adult world at bay.

Then a visit from his estranged half-sister, Olivia, changes everything.

'Entertaining, affectionate and righteous' Guardian
'Says so much about being a woman' Cosey Fanni Tutti

In 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in London, Tracey Thorn and Lindy Morrison first met. Tracey's music career was just beginning, while Lindy, drummer for The Go-Betweens, was ten years her senior. They became confidantes, comrades and best friends, a relationship cemented by gossip and feminism, books and gigs and rock 'n' roll love affairs.

Thorn takes stock of thirty-seven years of friendship, teasing out the details of connection and affection between two women who seem to be either complete opposites or mirror images of each other. She asks what people see, who does the looking, and ultimately who writes women out of - and back into - history.

Throughout his life Richard Holloway has turned to poets and writers for help in looking for answers to life's mysteries, and for solace and guidance in the face of life's challenges. In The Heart of Things he brings together those poems and words which have meant the most to him, whether they have been life-long guides or words which arrived just at the moment when they were needed most.

Here then are some lights along life's dark path, with thoughts and reflections on life, death, sadness, regret, sin, conflict and forgiveness. All interwoven with Richard's personal and philosophical consideration of what they have meant to him, offered in the hope they will help us, too. This is a book to turn to for inspiration, guidance and comfort. It offers lessons from those who, in Richard's words, 'know best how to listen and teach us to listen', all united by 'the sensual appeal of words, the pain and pleasure they impart'. It is a book to treasure.

The first ever collection of contemporary Scottish writing on nature and landscape, Antlers of Water showcases the diversity and radicalism of new Scottish nature writing today.

Edited, curated, and introduced by the award-winning Kathleen Jamie, and featuring prose, poetry, and photography, this inspiring collection takes us from walking to wild swimming, from red deer to pigeons and wasps, from remote islands to back gardens.

With contributions from Amy Liptrot, Malachy Tallack, Chitra Ramaswamy, Jim Crumley, Amanda Thomson, Karine Polwart, and many more, Antlers of Water urges us to renegotiate our relationship with the more-than-human world, in writing which is by turns celebratory, radical, and political.

Mark Hodkinson grew up among the terrace houses of Rochdale in a house with just one book. Today, Mark is an author, journalist and publisher. He still lives in Rochdale but is now surrounded by 3,500 titles - at the last count.

No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It's about the schools, the music, the people - but pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors that led the way and shaped his life. It's about a family who didn't see the point of reading, and a troubled grandad who taught Mark the power of stories. It's also a story of how writing and reading has changed over the last five decades.

The Times: Crime Books of the Year

In London, private investigator Dr Rayhana Crane is contacted by a woman who has received an unexpected letter from her estranged son Jason, not seen since he left to become a fighter for Islamic State. When his steps are traced back to the old stamping ground of her partner, Cal Drake, the former policeman goes undercover to infiltrate the sinister network which took Jason abroad.

Meanwhile, Crane pursues a woman whose seemingly unconnected disappearance off the English coast is soon found to reveal a deadlier connection. As the two investigators delve deeper, they find themselves mired in a violent world where terror and organised crime intersect.

The Secret History of Here is the story of a single place in the Scottish Borders. The site on which Alistair Moffat's farm now stands has been occupied since prehistoric times. Walking this landscape you can feel the presence and see the marks of those who lived here before.

But it is also the story of everywhere. In uncovering the history of one piece of land, Moffat shows how history is all around us, if only we have the eyes to see it. Taking the form of a journal of a year, this is a walk through the centuries as much as the seasons, offering a glimpse into the lives of those who came before, as well as those who live here now.

One wrong move, one misstep, and the course of a life can be changed for ever.

Annie Perry is born beside the coal-muddied canals of the Black Country at the height of the industrial revolution. At nine years old she is sold for six guineas to the famous and feared bare-knuckle boxer Bill Perry, the Tipton Slasher. From that moment on, Annie will fight - for Bill and for her future.

A whole new world opens up to Annie, one of love, fortune and family, but also of great danger.

Richard Holloway is one of our most beloved public thinkers. Throughout his life he has turned to poets and writers to help answer the big questions, and for solace and guidance in the face of life's challenges. Now he shares those poems and words which have been his own guide, offered in the hope they will help us too.

This is a book to turn to for inspiration, guidance and comfort. It offers lessons from those who, in Richard's words, 'know best how to listen and teach us to listen', all united by 'the sensual appeal of words, the pain and pleasure they impart'. It is a book to treasure.

Throughout history we have told ourselves stories to try and make sense of what it all means: our place in a small corner of one of billions of galaxies, at the end of billions of years of existence. In this new book Richard Holloway takes us on a personal, scientific and philosophical journey to explore what he believes the answers to the biggest of questions are. He examines what we know about the universe into which – without any choice in the matter – we are propelled at birth and from which we are expelled at death, the stories we have told about where we come from, and the stories we tell to get through this muddling experience of life.

Thought-provoking, revelatory, compassionate and playful, Stories We Tell Ourselves is a personal reckoning with life’s mysteries by one of the most important and beloved thinkers of our time.

A Raven and Fisher Mystery: Book 3

Edinburgh. This city will bleed you dry.

Dr Will Raven is a man seldom shocked by human remains, but even he is disturbed by the contents of a package washed up at the Port of Leith. Stranger still, a man Raven has long detested is pleading for his help to escape the hangman.

Back at 52 Queen Street, Sarah Fisher has set her sights on learning to practise medicine. Almost everyone seems intent on dissuading her from this ambition, but when word reaches her that a woman has recently obtained a medical degree despite her gender, Sarah decides to seek her out.

Raven's efforts to prove his erstwhile adversary's innocence are failing and he desperately needs Sarah's help. Putting their feelings for one another aside, their investigations will take them to both extremes of Edinburgh's social divide, where they discover that wealth and status cannot alter a fate written in the blood.

In Time on Rock Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing, and the new developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber, she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape.

Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cuillin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms. Each landscape, and each type of rock, brings its own challenges and unique pleasures. She also shows us how climbing invites us into the history of a place: geologically, of course, but also culturally.

This book is Anna's journey of self-discovery, but it is also a guide to losing oneself in the greater majesty of the natural world. With great lyricism she explores how it feels to climb as a woman, the pleasures of the physical demands of climbing, fear and challenge, but more than anything, it is about a joyful connection to the mountains.

Don’t Ask the Dragon is a beautifully illustrated picture book exploring friendship, belonging and overcoming your fears

Waterstones - The Best Books of 2022: Baby & Toddler

This is the story of Alem, a curious little boy who realises today is his birthday. The only problem is that Alem does not know where to celebrate, and who to celebrate with. 

He goes on an adventure all on his own, meeting exciting animals along the way. He befriends a bear, a fox, a treefrog, a bulldog and more. Every new friend he makes, he asks the same question: where shall I go?

And every time he’s met with the same warning: ‘don’t ask the dragon . . . OR HE WILL EAT YOU’.

The only thing Alem never speaks to is the tiny worm who sits on each page, perhaps it’s because the worm is so small!

All alone at the top of a hill, Alem grows frustrated and helpless as he doesn’t know where to go. But someone – or something – does and Alem comes face-to-face with the dangerous dragon he was warned about. But just how dangerous is it?

Don’t Ask the Dragon is a heart-warming tale with an equally stimulating seek-and-find element. The story of Alem teaches us to never judge a book by its cover and to unabashedly ask questions in order to grow. 

Today busyness has become a badge of honour. We want to say we're busy, yet at the same time we feel exhausted. Instead, we should start taking rest seriously as a method of self-care and this book can help us to work out how.

The Art of Rest draws on ground-breaking research Claudia Hammond collaborated on—‘The Rest Test’: the largest global survey into rest ever undertaken, which was completed by 18,000 people across 135 different countries. Much of value has been written about sleep, but rest is different; it is how we unwind, calm our minds, and recharge our bodies. And, as the survey revealed, how much rest you get is directly linked to your sense of well-being.

Counting down through the top ten activities which people find most restful, Hammond explains why rest matters, examines the science behind the results to establish what really works, and offers a roadmap for a new, more restful and balanced life.

This seminal collection of Black British poets ignited a movement when it was first published in 1998. It celebrated the rising stars of the time, many of whom have since become established names.

Inspired and influenced by roots, reggae and hip-hop, this anthology is edited by number one bestselling author and poet Lemn Sissay.

Including work from: Chris Abani, Patience Agbabi, Malika Booker, John Citizen, Salena Godden, Lorraine Griffiths, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, Parm Kaur, Shamshad Khan, Cheryl Martin, Raman Mundair, Bunmi Ogunsiji, Koye Oyedeji, Mallissa Read, Vanessa Richards, Khefri Cybele Riley aka KA'frique, Roger Robinson, Joy Russell, Kadija Sesay, John Siddique, Labi Siffre, Lemn Sissay, Dorothea Smartt, Andria Smith, SuAndi, Tricky, Akure Wall, Marie Guise Williams

Just who is the secret political adviser calling himself The Man in the Room Next Door? No one knows. We don’t even know his name.
But now the lid is about to be blown clean off, because the secret files of the world’s most influential* political media adviser are published in this book. Packed with letters, memos, texts, tweets, emails, journal entries, leaked documents, and crude doodles, these pages will reveal who The Man in the Room Next Door is, and, more importantly, his thoughts on those who employ his services, including Donald ‘dangerous puffin’ Trump, Boris ‘posh motorboat’ Johnson, and some of their least competent colleagues.
The Secret Political Adviser is the evidence that anyone can be a world leader. Just as long as they’re wearing the right earpiece.
*fictional

Are immigrants taking our jobs, or are they all slobs?
What does 'I'm colourblind' mean and why does it make no sense?
And just how can you spot a Karen from a mile away?

This illustrated collection of verse tackles these issues and more. This is a delightfully caustic and refreshing book that will have readers thinking deeply and laughing out loud.

Throughout history we have told ourselves stories to try and make sense of our place in the universe. Richard Holloway takes us on a personal, scientific and philosophical journey to explore what he believes the answers to the biggest of questions are. He examines what we know about the universe into which we are propelled at birth and from which we are expelled at death, the stories we have told about where we come from, and the stories we tell to get through this muddling experience of life.

Thought-provoking, revelatory, compassionate and playful, Stories We Tell Ourselves is a personal reckoning with life's mysteries by one of the most important and beloved thinkers of our time.

What is it to pursue a goal, to strive for an ideal, to follow a dream?

These are the questions explored by The Balvenie in this unique collection compiled by award-winning novelist Alex Preston. The stories - from some of the brightest and most exciting voices writing today - tell of determination, endeavour and perseverance against the odds. They range across wildly different contexts and cultures, from the epic to the intimate, in fiction and non-fiction, illustrating and illuminating the outer limits of human character and achievement.

With contributions from Max Porter, Kamila Shamsie, Daisy Johnson, Eley Williams, Michael Donkor, David Szalay, Yan Ge and many more.

There are many ways civilisation could end, even with wise, benevolent leaders like Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin watching over us. Now, in this fun interactive story of global doom, YOU decide how humanity perishes.

Will we be turned to grey goo by Elon Musk’s nanobots?

Driven collectively insane by Russia’s most potent memes?

Or smashed to atoms by someone sitting on the wrong button in North Korea?

In this book, YOU will meet the leaders with the future of civilisation in their hands. And YOUR wits and judgement will decide how we all inevitably die. Or then again, maybe, just maybe, with a little positive thinking, YOU will find a way to keep us all safe long enough to expire of old age and global warming instead. Just don’t get too hopeful. On every page of Choose Your Own Apocalypse with Kim Jong-un & Friends, the end of your choice is most definitely nigh.

‘Louis Wain invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world’. Broadcast in 1925 by H.G. Wells, these words characteristically foretold the future of the Wain cat which has, once more, become the century’s most recognizable image in cat art.

During their heyday, in the time before the First World War, Louis Wain’s cats, dressed as humans, portrayed that stylish Edwardian world having fun: at restaurants and tea parties, going to the Race and the Seaside, celebrating at Christmas and Birthdays, and disporting themselves with exuberant games of tennis, bowls, cricket and football.

This is a titillating world of cats at play, uninhibited and slightly dangerous, with most group activities likely to turn into mishap, mayhem and catastrophe. This is Wain’s world, funny, edgy and animated: a whole cat world.

The first comprehensive exhibition of Wain’s work was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1972 and, since then, Louis Wain has steadily become more fashionable, and collected worldwide. With a thoughtful introduction from award winning actor Benedict Cumberbatch, this biography contains 300 plates of richness and variety, all of which are reproduced faithfully from the original artwork.

This book is jointly published by Chris Beetles Ltd and Canongate Books.

WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE MONTH

Shortlisted for the British Psychological Society Book Award for Popular Science

Much of value has been written about sleep, but rest is different; it is how we unwind, calm our minds and recharge our bodies. The Art of Rest draws on ground-breaking research Claudia Hammond collaborated on: 'The Rest Test', the largest global survey into rest ever undertaken, completed by 18,000 people across 135 different countries. The survey revealed how people get rest and how it is directly linked to your sense of wellbeing.

Counting down through the top ten activities which people find most restful, Hammond explains why rest matters, examines the science behind the results to establish what really works and offers a roadmap for a new, more restful and balanced life.

Through the story of his own family's history as slave and plantation owners, Alex Renton looks at how we owe it to the present to understand the legacy of the past. When the transatlantic slave trade was abolished across most of the British Empire in 1833, it was not the newly liberated who received compensation, but the tens of thousands of enslavers who were paid millions of pounds in government money. The descendants of some of those slave owners are among the wealthiest and most powerful people in Britain today.

A group of Caribbean countries is calling on ten European nations to discuss the payment of trillions of dollars for the damage done by transatlantic slavery and its continuing legacy. Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter and other activist groups are causing increasing numbers of white people to reflect on how this history of abuse and exploitation has benefited them.

Blood Legacy explores what inheritance - political, economic, moral and spiritual - has been passed to the descendants of the slave owners and the descendants of the enslaved. It travels through eighteenth-century Tobago and Trinidad, and nineteenth-century Jamaica, and Renton interviews people living in the Caribbean today.

He also asks, crucially, how the descendants of those slave owners – himself among them – can begin to make reparations for the past.

Two apparently harmless women reside in cottages one building apart in the idyllic English village of Little Camborne. Miss Finch and Miss Swallow, cousins, have put their pasts behind them and settled into conventional country life. But when a mysterious foreigner, Theodore Cadmus - from a Mediterranean island nobody has heard of - moves into the middle cottage, the safe monotony of their lives is shattered.

Soon, long-hidden secrets and long-held grudges threaten to surface, drawing all into a vortex of subterfuge, theft, violence, mayhem . . . and murder.

From number one bestselling author Matt Haig comes a hilarious and heartwarming story, brilliantly illustrated throughout by Chris Mould

“Wherever she is, whatever the day, She only has one kind of thing to say. Just as cats go miaow and cows go moo, The Truth Pixie can only say things that are true.”

A very funny and lovable tale of how one special pixie learned to love herself. The Truth Pixie is an enchanting, rhyming story that will delight younger readers – with words by the bestselling mastermind Matt Haig and pictures by the inky genius Chris Mould.

In To the Island of Tides, Alistair Moffat travels to—and through the history of—the fated island of Lindisfarne. Walking from his home in the Borders, through the historical landscape of Scotland and northern England, he takes us on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints and scholars, before arriving for a secular retreat on the Holy Isle.

Lindisfarne, famous for its monastery, home to Saints Aidan and Cuthbert and the place where the celebrated Lindisfarne Gospels were written, has long been a place of sanctuary. It is an island rich in history: the Romans knew it as Insula Medicata; it reached the height of its fame in the dark ages; even survived Viking raids; before ultimately being abandoned after Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monastery. Today the isle maintains its position as a space for retreat and spiritual renewal.

To the Island of Tides is a walk through history, a meditation on the power of place, but also a more personal journey; a chance for stock-taking and reflection on where life leads us.

Mark Hodkinson grew up among dark satanic mills in a house with just one book: Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain. His dad kept it on top of a wardrobe with other items of great worth - wedding photographs and Mark's National Cycling Proficiency certificate. If Mark wanted to read it, he was warned not to crease the pages or slam shut the covers.

Fast forward to today, and Mark still lives in Rochdale snugly ensconced (or is that buried?) in a 'book cave' surrounded by 3,500 titles - at the last count. He is an author, journalist and publisher.

So this is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It's about schools (bad), music (good) and the people (some mad, a few sane), and pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors (some bad, mostly good) that led the way, shaped a life. If only coincidentally, it relates how writing and reading has changed, as the Manor House novel gave way to the kitchen sink drama and working-class writers found the spotlight (if only briefly).

Mark also writes movingly about his troubled grandad who, much the same as books, taught him to wander, and wonder.

Negotiating is something that we all do, whether at work or at home. But what if we come across someone who just won’t give in? How can we defend ourselves against manipulation? And how do we say “no” without compromising a deal?

Using the official Kremlin method, Igor Ryzov guides us through the most effective techniques in negotiating terms that satisfy both parties. From knowing how to get the most information about a potential deal, to how to read your counterpart, and to advice on defusing tension, this comprehensive handbook ensures a mutually acceptable resolution that leaves you walking away successful, while also avoiding strained relationships.

With practical examples, and exercises to practise your negotiating skills, The Kremlin School of Negotiation will offer the tools you need to master any deal.

Annie Perry is born beside the coal-muddied canals of the Black Country, at the height of the industrial revolution. The youngest in a large Romani family who cannot afford to keep her, when she is eight years old Annie is sold as a servant to the famous and feared bare-knuckle boxer Bill Perry, The Tipton Slasher.

Bill is starting to lose his strength, but refuses to give up his crown. When it looks like a fight might become Bill's last, Annie steps into the ring, fists raised in his defence. From that moment she is determined to train and follow in Bill's footsteps, to learn to fight for herself. But Annie has been doing this all along.

A whole new world opens up for Annie, one of love, fortune, family and education, but also of danger. One wrong move, one misstep, and the course of her life will be changed forever.

In 1987 a massive snowstorm hits New York as Peter Kaldheim flees the city, owing drug debts to a dealer who is no stranger to casual violence.

Leaving behind his chaotic past, Kaldheim hits the road, living hand-to-mouth in flop-houses, pan-handling with his fellow itinerants. As he makes his way across America in search of a new life, the harsh reality of vagrancy forces him to face up to his past, from his time in Rikers prison to relationships lost and lamented.

Kaldheim hikes and buses through an America rarely seen, and his encounters with a disparate collection of characters instills in him a new empathy and wisdom, as he journeys on a road less traveled.

'Insightful, wise and life-affirming' Observer
'Turns death into life, despair into hope, sorrow into joy' Stephen Fry

In Radical Acts of Love, Janie Brown, oncology nurse and counsellor, offers a sensitive and wise insight into our final moments by recounting twenty conversations she has had with people who were dying.

How does a government steal a child and then imprison him?
How does it keep it a secret?
This story is how.

In To the Island of Tides, Alistair Moffat travels to - and through the history of - the fated island of Lindisfarne. Known by the Romans as Insula Medicata and famous for its monastery, it even survived Viking raids. Today the isle maintains its position as a space for retreat and spiritual renewal.

Walking from his home in the Borders, through the historical landscape of Scotland and northern England, Moffat takes us on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints and scholars, before arriving for a secular retreat on the Holy Isle. To the Island of Tides is a walk through history, a meditation on the power of place, but also a more personal journey; and a reflection on where life leads us.

Dante, now guided by Beatrice, faces the final third of his epic journey through the wheels of divine justice. Yet as he passes through the spheres of Heaven, he struggles with his faith, striving to understand the scales of good and evil that determine the fate of a human soul.

The final book from Alasdair Gray, Paradise is a fitting conclusion to his own irreplaceable body of work, as well as to his masterful retelling of Dante's trilogy.