A must read. Colm Toibin has not only written a spectacular novel he has found a way to pay tribute to Henry James. We should all be so gifted and so lucky.>
''De Botton is a national treasure.'' - Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black
A unique love story and a classic work of philosophy, rooted in the mysterious workings of the human heart and mind.
Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
A man and woman on a flight from Paris to London, and so begins their love story. From first kiss to first argument, infatuation to heartbreak, de Botton illuminates each stage of their relationship with a clarity both startling and tender.
With the verve of a novelist and the insight of a philosopher, Essays in Love unveils the mysteries of the human heart. It is essential reading for anyone seeking instruction in the art of love.
Two weeks before his death, Oliver Sacks outlined the contents of The River of Consciousness, the last book he would oversee. The best-selling author of On the Move, Musicophilia, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Sacks is known for his illuminating case histories about people living with neurological conditions at the far borderlands of human experience. But his grasp of science was not restricted to neuroscience or medicine; he was fascinated by the issues, ideas, and questions of all the sciences. That wide-ranging expertise and passion informs the perspective of this book, in which he interrogates the nature not only of human experience but of all life.In The River of Consciousness, Dr. Sacks takes on evolution, botany, chemistry, medicine, neuroscience, and the arts, and calls upon his great scientific and creative heroes--above all, Darwin, Freud, and William James. For Sacks, these thinkers were constant companions from an early age; the questions they explored--the meaning of evolution, the roots of creativity, and the nature of consciousness--lie at the heart of science and of this book. The River of Consciousness demonstrates Sacks's unparalleled ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless endeavor to understand what makes us human.
From the best-selling author of Gratitude and On the Move, a final volume of essays that showcase Sacks's broad range of interests-from his passion for ferns, swimming, and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer's.Oliver Sacks, scientist and storyteller, is beloved by readers for his neurological case histories and his fascination and familiarity with human behavior at its most unexpected and unfamiliar. Everything in Its Place is a celebration of Sacks's myriad interests, told with his characteristic compassion and erudition, and in his luminous prose.
B>'Fascinating' Guardian/b>br>b>'Brilliant' Evening Standard/b>br>b>'Electrifying' Financial Times/b>br>b>'So interesting I literally couldn't put it down' Sunday Times/b>We are living in an age of heightened individualism. Success is a personal responsibility. Our culture tells us that to succeed is to be slim, rich, happy, extroverted, popular - flawless.The pressure to conform to this ideal has changed who we are. We have become self-obsessed. And our expectation of perfection comes at a cost. Millions are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy.It was not always like this. To explain how we got here, Will Storr takes us on a journey across continents and centuries. Full of thrilling and unexpected connections between history, psychology, economics, neuroscience and more, Selfie is an unforgettable book that makes sense of who we have become.As featured on Russell Brand's Under The Skin podcast.
Often funny, sometimes chilling and always thought-provoking, journalist Jon Ronson''s Sunday Times bestseller The Men Who Stare at Goats is a story so unbelievable it has to be true. In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known military practice - and indeed the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt a cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. They were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren''t joking. What''s more, they''re back and fighting George Bush''s War on Terror. Inspired the film starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor.
The number one Sunday Times bestseller - with a new, fantastically festive front cover! Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas is a short gift book of festive diaries from the author of multi-million-copy bestseller This is Going to Hurt . Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . . but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital, Adam Kay delves back into his diaries for a hilarious, horrifying and sometimes heartbreaking peek behind the blue curtain at Christmastime. This is a love letter to all those who spend their festive season on the front line, removing babies and baubles from the various places they get stuck, at the most wonderful time of the year. ''The perfect surgical stocking-filler'' - The Times Two different covers of Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas have been printed: one has a special festive design, and the other is our original hardback design. You will either receive the festive design or the original (as shown here) in your order. Specific covers cannot be requested.
For fans of David Sedaris, Tina Fey and Caitlin Moran comes the new book from Jenny Lawson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Let's Pretend This Never Happened...In Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson regaled readers with uproarious stories of her bizarre childhood. In her new book, Furiously Happy, she explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.As Jenny says: 'You can't experience pain without also experiencing the baffling and ridiculous moments of being fiercely, unapologetically, intensely and (above all) furiously happy.' It's a philosophy that has - quite literally - saved her life.Jenny's first book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness. Furiously Happy is a book about mental illness, but under the surface it's about embracing joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. And who doesn't need a bit more of that?
Why are Iraqi prisoners of war forced to listen to Barney the Purple Dinosaur's theme tune repeatedly, at top volume? Why have a hundred de-bleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces command centre at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? This title reveals some of the extraordinary beliefs at the core of the War on Terror.
Science. Does the word fill you with excitement, or dread, or something in between? Science – and the art of science writing – can, and should, be something to get excited about. The extracts featured in this anthology span centuries and continents, but are connected by their authors’ desire to understand, explain and enrich the world. The Art of Science is not a book about great scientific theories, complicated equations or grand old men and women in their laboratories; instead, it’s about the places we draw our inspiration from; about daily routines and sudden flashes of insight; about dedication, and – sometimes – desperation; and the small moments, questions, quests, clashes, doubts and delights that ultimately make us human. From Galileo to Lewis Carroll, from Humphry Davy to Charles Darwin, from Marie Curie to Stephen Jay Gould, from rust to snowflakes, from the first use of the word ‘scientist’ to the first computer, from why the sea is salty to Newtonian physics ‘for the ladies’, The Art of Science is a book about people, which is to say it’s a book about passion, politics, and poetry. Above all, though, it’s a book about the good that science, nd scientific thinking, can – and does – do.
Willie Chandran's father stood at odds with the world - aspiring to greatness while living the dreary life marked out for him by his ancestors. Willie is drawn to England, its dingy West End clubs and sexual encounters. But it is his first experience of love that may bring him the fulfillment he so desperately seeks.
For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world's most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal.Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time has gone on, David Nott began to realize that flying into to a catastrophe - whether war or natural disaster - was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the Foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets.War Doctor is his extraordinary story,
B>The International Bestseller/b>b>'/b>b>I love it! Hilarious and thought-provoking!/b>b>'/b>b> - Fearne Cotton/b>br>b>'The Bridget Jones of self-improvement' - Sunday Times/b>Marianne Power was stuck in a rut. Then one day she wondered: could self-help books help her find the elusive perfect life?She decided to test one book a month for a year, following their advice to the letter. What would happen if she followed the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? Really felt The Power of Now? Could she unearth The Secret to making her dreams come true?What begins as a clever experiment becomes an achingly poignant story. Because self-help can change your life - but not necessarily for the better . . .Help Me! is an irresistibly funny and incredibly moving book about a wild and ultimately redemptive journey that will resonate with anyone who's ever dreamed of finding happiness.
