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Training School is the sixth thrilling Spy Pups adventure by Andy Cope for young readers of 7+ - now a number one bestselling series!SPUDHE'S SCATTY AND ACCIDENT PRONE - BUT GOOD WITH GADGETSSTARSHE'S SUPER-SMART AND READY TO POUNCE . . . Together they're SPY PUPS, following hot in the paw prints of mum LARA (that's Licensed Assault and Rescue Animal to you).Spud and Star can't wait. They're in New York training with the FBI - America's very best spies! But a rogue secret agent has spotted the pups' amazing skills. And unless Spud and Star carry out a dastardly crime for evil Agent Brad Onkers, he'll make sure they never see their mum Lara ever again!Praise for Andy Cope:'An imaginative, creative feast' - Radio TimesAndy Cope is the author of the bestselling and mulit-award-winning Spy Dog and Spy Pups series. Spy Dog was the winner of the Richard and Judy 7+ developing reader category as well as the prestigious Red House Children's Book Award.You can find out more about the books - and the real Lara - on the offical website spydog451.co.uk

Book five of the Spy Pups' adventures also featuring Spy Dog, Lara - now a number-one bestselling series. SPUD - he's scatty and accident prone - but good with the gadgets . . .STAR - she's super smart and ready to pounce Together they're SPY PUPS, following hot in the paw prints of mum LARA (that's Licensed Assault and Rescue Animal to you).The training never stops, even where you're a qualified Spy Pup! Spud and Star are off to an outdoor survival camp where it's all hard work and no play . . . But there's something fishy going on in the lake that needs further investigating. Can the pups learn their new skills in time to sniff out another adventure? 'An imaginative, creative feast' - Radio TimesSPY DOG - winner of the Richard and Judy 7+ developing reader category, and the Red House Children's Book Award.

'You will not find a better, more balanced or up-to-date take on either the origin of life or synthetic biology. Essential reading' ObserverCreation by Adam Rutherford tells the entire spellbinding story of life in two gripping narratives.'Prepare to be astounded. There are moments when this book is so gripping it reads like a thriller' Mail on SundayThe Origin of Life is a four-billion-year detective story that uses the latest science to explain what life is and where it first came from, dealing with life's biggest questions and arriving at a thrilling answer.'A superbly written explanation' Brian CoxThe Future of Life introduces an extraordinary technological revolution: 'synthetic biology', the ability to create entirely new life forms within the lab. Adam Rutherford explains how this remarkable innovation works and presents a powerful argument for its benefit to humankind.'The reader's sense of awe at the well-nigh inconceivable nature of nature is suitably awakened. The extraordinary science and Rutherford's argument are worth every reader's scrutiny. Fascinating' Sunday Telegraph'One of the most eloquent and genuinely thoughtful books on science over the past decade. You will not find a better, more balanced or up-to-date take on the origin of life or synthetic biology. Essential reading for anyone interested in the coming revolution, which could indeed rival the Industrial Revolution or the internet' Observer'The perfect primer on the past and future of DNA' Guardian'Susenseful, erudite and thrilling' Prospect'A witty, engaging and eye-opening explanation of the basic units of life, right back to our common ancestors and on to their incredible synthetic future. The mark of a really good science book, it shows that the questions we still have are just as exciting as the answers we already know' Dara O Briain'This is a quite delightful two-books-in-one. Rutherford's lightness of touch in describing the dizzying complexity of life at the cellular level in The Origin of Life only serves to emphasise the sheer scale and ambition of the emerging field of synthetic biology' Jim Al Khalili'A fascinating glimpse into our past and future. Rutherford's illuminating book is full of optimism about what we might be able to achieve' Sunday Times'Fresh, original and excellent. An eye-opening look at how we are modifying and constructing life. Totally fascinating' PopularScience.co.uk'In this book of two halves, Rutherford tells the epic history of life on earth, and eloquently argues the case for embracing technology which allows us to become biological designers' Alice Roberts'An engaging account of both the mystery of life's origin and its impending resolution as well as a fascinating glimpse of the impending birth of a new, synthetic biology'' Matt Ridley, author of Genome'I warmly recommend Creation. Rutherford's academic background in genetics gives him a firm grasp of the intricacies of biochemistry - and he translates these superbly into clear English' Financial TimesDr Adam Rutherford is a geneticist, writer and broadcaster. He presents BBC Radio 4's weekly programme Inside Science and his documentaries include the award-winning series The Cell (BBC4), The Gene Code (BBC4), Horizon: 'Playing God' (BBC2) as well as numerous other programmes for BBC Radio 4. This is his first book.TGTCGTGAAGCTACTATTTAAAATGCCACAGTGAAAGATTAAACGCCCGAAAACGGGGTGATAAATGGACGGTAAGTTCCCGACTAAACGTGTTAAATG

Granta Best Young British Novelist and Sunday Times Young Writer of the YearMick Little used to be a shipbuilder on the Glasgow yards. But as they closed one after another down the river, the search for work took him and his beloved wife, Cathy, to Australia, and back again, struggling for a living, longing for home. With devastating vision, Ross Raisin brings to life the story of an ordinary man caught in the outer reaches of modern existence, suffering the loss of a great love. Waterline paints a captivating portrait of the alienation of lives lived quietly all around us, and of one man s existence dissolved through grief, and the long journey home."e;'There are rare novels that embed themselves in your sensibility so profoundly you can imagine conversations arising between characters that never occurred on the page . . . A work of grace: a human being rendered by a triumph of ventriloquism and empathy' Alan Warner, Guardian'Spectacular' Time Out'A poignant, shocking, wry, shaming, yet profoundly generous, and cunningly crafted classic ... If you're looking for the definitive novel for our times, this is the strongest candidate I've read for ages' Scotsman'Raisin is a novelist of terrific ability and great verve' Philip Hensher, Sunday Telegraph

From the author of Pardon My French and A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi, this is the charming and hilariously funny story of one man's attempt to travel the entire length of the Seine by boatWhen Charles shows his friends the rowing boat he has spent the last six months building, he little realises the adventures that lie ahead. Several glasses of champagne later (it is New Year's Eve), he finds himself betting he will travel the entire length of the Seine from source to the sea in the next year and discover the true France. But the reality proves somewhat more difficult than he had expected. As Charles sets sail into an unvarnished France on a variety of craft from steamers to police patrol boats to inflatables, he encounters truffle-thieving terriers and obsessive fishermen, grapples with strong rapids and stubborn cattle, and is nearly destroyed by a cheese so smelly it comes with its own health warning.This is the charming and often hilarious story of Charles's Quixotic quest - and the most unique guide to the true France that you will find.Reviews:'There are new year's resolutions and then there are those rash decisions that come after the last bottle has been drunk on the last night of the year. The journey down the Seine that Charles Timoney describes in his third book about France stemmed from the latter ... a charming story of life along the river ... that lingers in the mind' Sunday Times (Books of the Month)'A wonderful view of France as seen from the water, and through the eyes of a genuinely funny writer - I laughed out loud' Philip Marsden (author of The Levelling Sea)About the author:When Charles Timoney and his French wife were both made redundant in the same week, they decided to try living in France for a year or so. It proved much harder than expected. Charles's O level in French was little help when everyone around him consistently used a wide variety of impenetrable slang and persisted in the annoying habit of talking about things he had never heard of. But they stayed. Two decades and two thoroughly French children later, An Englishman Aboard is Charles's third book on his experience of France, the French people and the French language: Pardon My French: Unleash Your Inner Gaul, A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi: The Ideal Guide to Sounding, Acting and Shrugging Like the French and now An Englishman Aboard.

Siddhartha Deb grew up in a remote town in the northeastern hills of India and made his way to the United States via a fellowship at Columbia. Six years after leaving home, he returned as an undercover reporter for The Guardian, working at a call center in Delhi in 2004, a time when globalization was fast proceeding and Thomas L. Friedman declared the world flat. Deb's experience interviewing the call-center staff led him to undertake this book and travel throughout the subcontinent.The Beautiful and the Damned examines India's many contradictions through various individual and extraordinary perspectives. With lyrical and commanding prose, Deb introduces the reader to an unforgettable group of Indians, including a Gatsby-like mogul in Delhi whose hobby is producing big-budget gangster films that no one sees; a wiry, dusty farmer named Gopeti whose village is plagued by suicides and was the epicenter of a riot; and a sad-eyed waitress named Esther who has set aside her dual degrees in biochemistry and botany to serve Coca-Cola to arms dealers at an upscale hotel called Shangri La.Like no other writer, Deb humanizes the post-globalization experience--its advantages, failures, and absurdities. India is a country where you take a nap and someone has stolen your job, where you buy a BMW but still have to idle for cows crossing your path. Available for the first time with the controversial and previously unpublished first chapter, The Beautiful and the Damned is as important and incisive today as it was when it was first published.

Bestselling writer India Knight explores the inevitable panic that family and Christmas bring in her third novel Comfort and Joy. 'I'd say Christmas was about hope. Yeah. Hope. And optimism. It's like the fairy tales in the window: for families, every Christmas is a new opportunity for Happy Ever After. No pressure, then...'Oxford Street, two shopping days left to Christmas, and wife and mum Clara Dunphy is desperately, madly trying to make everything, not perfect, but just right for her extended family on the greatest day of the year. But then she gets distracted. . . 'Will make you laugh, maybe make you cry and keep you reading past bedtime' Lauren Laverne, Grazia'A hilarious, bawdy, yet touching portrait of Christmas' Jilly Cooper, Guardian'Hilarious and honest; the dialogue is sitcom-snappy and the opening scenes in Oxford Street positively Joycean' Daily MailIndia Knight is the author of four novels: My Life on a Plate, Don't You Want Me, Comfort and Joy and Mutton. Her non-fiction books include The Shops, the bestselling diet book Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet, the accompanying bestselling cookbook Neris and India's Idiot-Proof Diet Cookbook and The Thrift Book. India is a columnist for the Sunday Times and lives in London with her three children.Follow India on Twitter @indiaknight or on her blog at http://indiaknight.tumblr.com.

From Pankaj Mishra, author the successful Temptations of the West and Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, comes a provocative account of how China, India and the Muslim World are remaking the world in their own image.SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2013The Victorian period, viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire, burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, or humiliated the bankrupt rulers of the Ottoman Empire, it was clear that for Asia to recover a vast intellectual effort would be required.Pankaj Mishra's fascinating, highly entertaining new book tells the story of a remarkable group of men from across the continent who met the challenge of the West. Incessantly travelling, questioning and agonising, they both hated the West and recognised that an Asian renaissance needed to be fuelled in part by engagement with the enemy. Through many setbacks and wrong turns, a powerful, contradictory and ultimately unstoppable series of ideas were created that now lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to Al Qaeda, from Indian nationalism to the Muslim Brotherhood.Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia and created the ideas which lie behind the powerful Asian nations of the twenty-first century.

Hailed among the BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2011 by Jeanette Winterson, A.S. Byatt, Patrick Ness, Sebastian Barry, Boyd Tonkin, Erica Wagner...A sparkling satire from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED and WOMEN'S PRIZE-WINNING author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet'Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting' Guardian'Adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read' Literary Review'Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today' Daily Telegraph'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . .'As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they first appear...

Spud Milton (practically a man in most areas) is hoping for a smooth ride as he returns to boarding school as a senior. But instead he finds his vindictive arch-enemy is back to taunt him and a garrulous new boy has taken residence in his dorm, along with the regular inmates and misfits he calls friends. Spud's world has never felt more uncertain as he attempts to master Shakespeare, girls, religion and the meaning of life. Once again, armed only with his wits and his diary, Spud invites us on a hilarious journey deep into the sublime and ridiculous world of being a teenager.

According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, no-one has put all the pieces of the financial crisis together. The finger was pointed at greedy traders, cowardly legislators and clueless home buyers, but many devils helped bring hell to the economy.All The Devils Are Here goes back several decades to explore the motivations of everyone from CEOs and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers and Wall Street traders. It exposes the hidden role of companies including AIG and Goldman Sachs. It delves into the powerful mythology of homeownership. And it proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about human nature.Bethany McLean's The Smartest Guys in the Room was the best Enron book on a crowded shelf. All the Devils Are Here will be remembered for finally making sense of the meltdown.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all mothers want to see their daughters happily settled.But for Lara, mother to Maudie and stepmother to Jasmine and Eve, realizing this ambition has not been easy. With an ex-husband embarking on a new marriage, and the surprising and late blooming developments in her own love life to contend with, Lara has enough to worry about, especially with Eve's upcoming wedding. And when she begins to fear that Eve is marrying a man who will only make her unhappy, and Maudie reveals something that shocks the entire family, Lara faces the ultimate dilemma. Does she step in and risk the wrath of her daughters? Or does she stand by and watch them both make what she fears will be the biggest mistakes of their lives?

A giant of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, David Hume was one of the most important philosophers ever to write in English. He was also a brilliant historian. In this succinct study, Nicholas Phillipson shows how Hume freed history from religion and politics. As a philosopher, Hume sought a way of seeing the world and pursuing happiness independently of a belief in God. His groundbreaking approach applied the same outlook to Britain's history, showing how the past was shaped solely through human choices and actions. In this analysis of Hume's life and works, from his university days in Edinburgh to the rapturous reception of his History of England, Nicholas Phillipson reveals the gradual process by which one of the greatest Western philosophers turned himself into one of the greatest historians of Britain. In doing so, he shows us how revolutionary Hume was, and why his ideas still matter today.

As late as 2007, Anglo Irish Bank was a darling of the markets, internationally recognized as one of the fastest growing financial institutions in the world. By 2008, it was bust. The Irish government's hopeless attempts to save Anglo have led the state to ruin - culminating in a punitive IMF bailout in late 2010 and threatening the future of the euro.Now, for the first time, the full story of the Anglo disaster is being told - by the journalist who has led the way in coverage of the bank and its many secrets. Drawing on his unmatched sources in and around Anglo, Simon Carswell of the Irish Times shows how the business model that brought Anglo twenty years of spectacular growth was also at the heart of its - and Ireland's - downfall. He paints a vivid and disturbing picture of life inside Anglo - the credit committee meetings, the lightning-quick negotiations with property developers, the culture of lavish entertainment for politicians and regulators - and of the men who presided over its dizzying rise and fall: Sean FitzPatrick, David Drumm, Willie McAteer and many others. This is not only the first full account of the Anglo disaster; it will also be the definitive one.

Andrew Rawnsley's bestselling book lifts the lid on the second half of New Labour's spell in office, with riveting inside accounts of all the key events from 9/11 and the Iraq War to the financial crisis and the parliamentary expenses scandal; and entertaining portraits of the main players as Rawnsley takes us through the triumphs and tribulations of New Labour as well as the astonishing feuds and reconciliations between Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson.This paperback edition contains two revealing new chapters on the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election and its aftermath.

WILL How many times do I have to say it? Yes, I see the picture. It's a body, obviously. It's a dead body.ASHELEYYou have to understand, I love my brother. I'm scared of him too, but . . . regardless of what he has or hasn't done, I feel for him, you know.WILLI don't care what happens to me, really, I don't. But Asheley . . . she had nothing to do with any of this. ASHELEYIt's not like it sounds. He had a good heart. He trusted me. And I always did the best I could to help him.WILLIt's not her fault. None of it. Okay then. The guy in the photo. I killed him . . . but I had to. I had no choice. Why? That's complicated. That'll take a while.

For fans of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, Landfall is a clear-eyed, witty and warm debut novel by former Granta editor Helen Gordon, that marks the arrival of a major new literary talent.Alice Robinson, art critic for a magazine so fashionable it's just gone out of business, finds herself agreeing to housesit for her parents. Moving back home to a suburbia she thought long behind her, she finds herself reconnecting with a different landscape, a fraught and painful past.For everywhere Alice turns she finds traces of her sister, who went missing as a teenager. Can she stop her old life intruding on the present? Should she even try? What does Alice's new future look like?'An intriguing novel . . . a hipster version of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing' Metro'A memorable novel. I loved the pace and verve of Alice's voyage from Shoreditch to suburbia, and the unexpectedness of the story as it swerves past the familiar into a dangerous and beautiful unknown' Helen Dunmore'Compulsively readable' Independent on Sunday'Fine writing . . . wrapped in an arresting evocation of timelessness' Guardian'Brooding and haunting' Tatler'Uplifting, witty, wonderfully unsettling' Psychologies'Beautifully descriptive, with a cliff-hanger finale' Easy LivingHelen Gordon was born in 1979 and grew up in Croydon. She currently lives in east London and is a former associate editor of Granta magazine. Landfall is her first novel.

Sam Wren gets on a Tube train . . . And never gets off again.Six months later, he's still missing.There's no trace of him - or so it seems.The lies go deeper than anyone imagined.And someone is watching.Someone who knows what happened on the tube that day.'Weaver's books get better each time - tense, complex, written with flair' Guardian

Shadows is a compelling and inventive novel set in a world where science and magic are at odds, by Robin McKinley, the Newbery-winning author of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, as well as the classic titles Beauty, Chalice, Spindle's End, Pegasus and SunshineMaggie knows something's off about Val, her mom's new husband. Val is from Oldworld, where they still use magic, and he won't have any tech in his office-shed behind the house. But-more importantly-what are the huge, horrible, jagged, jumpy shadows following him around? Magic is illegal in Newworld, which is all about science. The magic-carrying gene was disabled two generations ago, back when Maggie's great-grandmother was a notable magician. But that was a long time ago.Then Maggie meets Casimir, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. He's from Oldworld too-and he's heard of Maggie's stepfather, and has a guess about Val's shadows. Maggie doesn't want to know . . . until earth-shattering events force her to depend on Val and his shadows. And perhaps on her own heritage.In this dangerously unstable world, neither science nor magic has the necessary answers, but a truce between them is impossible. And although the two are supposed to be incompatible, Maggie's discovering the world will need both to survive.About the author:Robin McKinley has won many awards, including the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown, a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword, and the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature for Sunshine. She lives in Hampshire, England with her husband, author Peter DickinsonCheck out her blog at robinmckinleysblog.com.

Meade is nineteen and living in Paris with her twin brother, Ben Ho, far from their privileged upbringing in Nashville, Tennessee. Hers is a restless quest of balancing addictions: to her brother, her pills and her purging. But when Ben Ho falls for a girl at art school, Meade's precarious equilibrium is shaken.Meade descends into a vortex of glamour and passion with the fashion photographer who becomes her lover. As her sexual obsession shifts from her brother to her troubled Iranian lover, Meade cannot know she has made a tragic match with someone whose secrets go further, deeper and darker than anything she can fathom. A stark, unflinching novel with a dark heart, Comes the Night chronicles a fevered and tormented journey through the frothy, glossy world of fashion and the shadowy recesses of love.

Gods Without Men is Hari Kunzru's epic novel of intertwined lives and a vast expanse of American desert.In the Californian desert . . .A four-year-old boy goes missing.A British rock star goes quietly mad.An alien-worshipping cult is born.An Iraqi teenager takes part in a war game.In a remote town, near a rock formation known as The Pinnacles, lives intertwine, stories echo, and the universal search for meaning and connection continues.'Kunzru's great American novel' Independent'Readers speak of it in hushed tones as conveying the secrets of the universe' Newsday'Extraordinary, smart, innovative, a revelation. Has the counterculture feel of a late-1960s US campus hit - something by Vonnegut or Pynchon or Wolfe. Genuinely interesting and exhilarating. Extremely enjoyable' Guardian'Astonishing, mind-blowing. One of the most original novels I've read in years' Counterpunch'One of the most socially observant and skilful novelists around. Consistently gripping and entertaining' Literary Review'A great sprawling narrative, as vast as the canvas on which it is written' Washington Post'Reverberates long after you finish reading it' New YorkerHari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods Without Men, and the story collection Noise. He lives in New York.

In what is one of the finest autobiographies to come out of the First World War, the distinguished poet Edmund Blunden records his experiences as an infantry subaltern in France and Flanders. Blunden took part in the disastrous battles of the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele, describing the latter as 'murder, not only to the troops, but to their singing faiths and hopes'. In his compassionate yet unsentimental prose, he tells of the heroism and despair found among the officers. Blunden's poems show how he found hope in the natural landscape; the only thing that survives the terrible betrayal enacted in the Flanders fields.

The first book in a magical tale of fantasy and friendship . . . On her twelfth birthday, Princess Sylviianel is ceremonially bound to her own Pegasus, Ebon.For a thousand years humans and pegasi have lived peacefully in the beautiful green country beyond the wild lands. They rely on human magicians and pegasi shamans as their only means of real communication - but not Sylvi and Ebon. Their friendship is like no other . . . They can understand each other.But as their bond grows more powerful, it becomes dangerous - could their friendship threaten to destroy the peace and safety of their two worlds?

London, 1976: a summer of chaos, punk, love . . . and the boy they called Billy the Kid.It was the summer of so many things. Heat and violence, love and hate, heaven and hell. It was the time I met William Bonney - the boy from Belfast known as Billy the Kid. I've kept William's secrets for a long time, but now things have changed and I have to tell the truth. But I can't begin until I've told you about Curtis Ray. Hip, cool, rebellious Curtis Ray. Without Curtis, there wouldn't be a story to tell. It's the story of our band, of life and death . . . and everything in between.This characteristically gripping novel from award-winning author Kevin Brooks will rock you to the core.

Shiva Naipaul was the brother of V. S. Naipaul and author of Firefles and The Chip-Chip Gatherers. Fireflies, his first novel, published in 1970 and longlisted for the 'Lost Man Booker Award' in 2010, is set in Naipaul's native Trinidad. It includes a new foreword by Amit Chaudhuri. The Khojas are Trinidad's most venerated Hindu family. Rigidly orthodox, presiding over acres of ill-kept sugarcane and hoards of jewellery enthusiastically guarded by old Mrs Khoja, they seem to have triumphed more by default than by anything else. Only 'Baby' Khoja, who is parcelled off into an arranged marriage with a blustering bus driver, proves an exception to this rule. Her heroic story - of resourcefulness, strength and survival - is the gleaming thread in Shiva Naipaul's ferociously comic and profoundly sad first novel.

Shiva Naipaul was the brother of V. S. Naipaul and author of Firefles and The Chip-Chip Gatherers. The Chip-Chip Gatherers, his second novel, was winner of the Whitbread Literary Award in 1973 and is set in Naipaul's native Trinidad. It includes a new foreword by Amit Chaudhuri.The crowded, ramshackle community of the Settlement in Trinidad is at the mercy of a tyrant. Egbert Ramsaran, the proud owner of the Ramsaran Transport Company, who has become the richest man in town through sheer strength of will, is a capricious, eccentric despot who loves nobody and whom nobody can afford to ignore. There is his son Wilbert, bullied into passivity and failure; Vishnu the downtrodden grocer without grace or hope; the beautiful, unpredictable Sushila, who tries to wield her seductive powers over Ramsaran; and her daughter, Sita, intelligent enough to know that escape is possible. Their intricately woven lives are perfectly captured in all their pathos, comedy and humanity.

A vivid chronicle of the first blow in the Irish revolution - by the people who were thereIn 1947 the Bureau of Military History was established by the Irish government to record the experiences of those who took part in the fight for independence. In 1959, the results of this research - including 1,773 'witness statements' - were placed in 83 steel boxes and locked into a strongroom in Government Buildings. Rebels, edited by one of Ireland's top young historians, brings the best of the surviving accounts of the Easter Rising together into a comprehensive, accessible and thrillingly readable telling of that much-debated insurrection, the first in a series of events that brought about Irish independence. From the witnesses' recollections of their schooling and other childhood influences to their accounts of what happened at Easter 1916, Rebels tells this famous story in a new and exhilarating way.'A remarkable book' Pat Kenny, RTE'If you want to know what [the Rising] was actually like, then Rebels is a good place to start' Sunday Business Post'The most moving material concerns the surrender and the aftermath, including imprisonment and the identification and interrogation of key figures in the Rising' Irish Times

GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEARThe familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests and sitting at the heart of a global production system.The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat by less well equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Britain's War Machine, by putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, demolishes some of the most cherished myths about wartime Britain and gives us a very different and often unsettling picture of a great power in action

The Edifice Complex explores the intimate and inextricable relationship between power, money and architecture in the twentieth century. How and why have presidents, prime ministers, mayors, millionaires and bishops come to share such a fascination with grand designs? From Blair to Mitterrand, from Hitler to Stalin to Saddam Hussein, architecture has become an end in itself, as well as a means to an end. This is a book of genuine timeliness, throwing new light on the motivations of the rich and powerful around the world - and on the ways they seek to affect us.

Why did Western countries become so much wealthier than the rest of the world? What explains the huge rise in incomes during the Industrial Revolution - and why did Britain lead the way?In the years between the Glorious Revolution and the Great Exhibition, the British economy was transformed. Joel Mokyr's landmark history offers a wholly new perspective for understanding Britain's extraordinary rise during the Industrial Revolution, showing how intellectual, rather than material, forces were the driving force behind it. While empire, trade, resources and other factors all played a part, above all it was the creative ferment of the Enlightenment - with its belief in progress and scientific advancement - that affected the economic behaviour of thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs and artisans, taking Britain into the modern era.Linking ideas and beliefs to the heart of modern economic growth, The Enlightened Economy will transform the way we view the Industrial Revolution.