From David Baddiel, the brightest new star of children's books and winner of the LOLLIES award, comes a laugh-out-loud adventure for every child who ever wondered what it might be like to be a bit of an animal... Malcolm doesn't like animals. Which is a problem because his family love them. Their house is full of pets. What the house is NOT full of is stuff Malcolm likes. Such as the laptop he wanted for his birthday. The only bright spot on the horizon is the Year Six school trip, which Malcolm never thought his parents would pay for. And yet there he is, on the bus, heading to... oh no. A farm. Over the next days, Malcolm changes. He learns a lot about animals. More, in many ways, than he would like. He learns what it's really like to be an animal. A whole series of animals, in fact... It does make him think differently. And speak differently. And eat differently. And, um, smell differently. But will he end up the same as before? Because sometimes the hardest thing to become is... yourself.

"Torday is a singular American writer with a big heart and a real love for the world. He has the rare gift for writing dynamic action scenes while being genuinely funny." —George Saunders Bluegrass musician, former journalist and editor, and now PhD in English, Mark Brumfeld has arrived at his thirties with significant debt and no steady prospects. His girlfriend Cassie—a punk bassist in an all-female band, who fled her Midwestern childhood for a new identity—finds work at a “new media” company. When Cassie refuses his marriage proposal, Mark leaves New York and returns to the basement of his childhood home in the Baltimore suburbs. Desperate and humiliated, Mark begins to post a series of online video monologues that critique Baby Boomers and their powerful hold on the job market. But as his videos go viral, and while Cassie starts to build her career, Mark loses control of what he began—with consequences that ensnare them in a matter of national security. Told through the perspectives of Mark, Cassie, and Mark’s mother, Julia, a child of the '60s whose life is more conventional than she ever imagined, Boomer1 is timely, suspenseful, and in every line alert to the siren song of endless opportunity that beckons and beguiles all of us.

Hailed for its searing emotional insights, and for the astonishing originality with which it weaves together personal history, cultural essay, and readings of classical texts by Sophocles, Ovid, Euripides, and Sappho, The Elusive Embrace is a profound exploration of the mysteries of identity. It is also a meditation in which the author uses his own divided life to investigate the "rich conflictedness of things," the double lives all of us lead. Daniel Mendelsohn recalls the deceptively quiet suburb where he grew up, torn between his mathematician father's pursuit of scientific truth and the exquisite lies spun by his Orthodox Jewish grandfather; the streets of manhattan's newest "gay ghetto," where "desire for love" competes with "love of desire;" and the quiet moonlit house where a close friend's small son teaches him the meaning of fatherhood. And, finally, in a neglected Jewish cemetery, the author uncovers a family secret that reveals the universal need for storytelling, for inventing myths of the self. The book that Hilton Als calls "equal to Whitman's 'Song of Myself,'" The Elusive Embrace marks a dazzling literary debut.

What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau—and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literature’s quirkiest movements. An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literature’s possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for “workshop for potential literature”) is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perec’s novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipo’s mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Becker’s love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batuman’s delight in Russian literature in The Possessed. In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives: the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something ). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconic—and iconoclastic—group.

“Cornbread? I LOVE cornbread!” For six years, that's the response Crescent Dragonwagon got when people asked her what she was writing about. Over time, she came to understand: Not only is hot, just baked cornbread delicious, it evokes—powerfully—the heart, soul, and taste of home. There is an abundance of satisfying cornbreads, as Crescent discovered when she followed the cornbread trail from the Appalachians to the Rockies to the Green Mountains. Traveling to family reunions, potlucks, tortilleras , stone-grinding mills, and the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, she heard the stories, tasted the breads, learned the secrets. Join her in this overflowing cornucopia: over 200 irresistible recipes for cornbreads, muffins, fritters, pancakes, and go-withs. Cornbreads from below the Mason-Dixon line (Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread, Truman Capote's Family's Alabama Cornbread) meet those from above (Durgin-Park Boston Cornbread, Vermont Maple-Sweetened Cornbread). Southwestern offerings—Chou-Chou's Dallas Hot Stuff Cornbread, delectable homemade tamales, and tortillas from scratch—meet internationals like India's Makki Ki Roti. A Thanksgiving with Crescent's Sweet-Savory Cornbread Dressing is rapturous. Desserts like Very Lemony Gorgeous Cornmeal Pound Cake make any meal exceptional. Along with this, Crescent gives us the greens, the beans, the salads, stews, and soups that accompany cornbread to perfection. And she tells us the stories, too. Enthusiastic and heartfelt, this thoughtful, exuberant love song to America's favorite breadstuff and all that goes with it will embrace readers and cooks everywhere.

When Knut was a baby his mother was unable to care for him, so Thomas Dorflein, the bear keeper at Zoo Berlin, became his foster father. This touching story tells of the controversial comments made by an animal rights activist and the subsequent outpouring of love for Knut from across the globe."

""Fridays at ten of four is when we listen to our favorite person ever, Cliff Mass. If you don't know who Cliff Mass is, well, he's this thing me and Mom have, this awesome weather geek who loves weather so much you have no choice but to love him in return." - from Maria Semple's novel, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? This is a lavishly illustrated guide to making sense of the region's unique atmospheric and geographic forces. For the new edition of this contemporary classic, Cliff Mass has extensively revised and updated, as well as expanding his coverage of British Columbia as well as considering the impact of wildfires on the region's meteorology. A fascinating read, the book is indispensable to anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of the region's is weather"--

This step-by-step program opens the door to achieving emotional power. Instructions are given on how emotional literacy -- intelligence with a heart -- can be learned through practising specific exercises that foster the awareness of emotion in oneself and others, by increasing capacities to love others and oneself while developing honesty, and by taking responsibility for one's actions. Provided are instructions on how to reverse the dangerous self-destructive emotional patterns that can rule a person's life. This program shows individuals how to open their hearts and minds to honest and effective communication, how to survey the emotional landscape, and ultimately how to take responsibility for their emotional lives.

Fans of crime noir and pulp fiction will love the sensational spin-off of the acclaimed Gun Honey comics featuring a brand new fiery heroine, Dahlia Racers. This graphic novel is written by award-winning co-founder of Hard Case Crime Charles Ardai teaming with brand new series artist Ace Continuado. Award-winning writer and co-founder of Hard Case Crime Charles Ardai returns to the Gun Honey universe in this action-packed spin-off featuring the sultry and explosive artwork of Ace Continuado! Dahlia Racers is a fiery redhead who, when someone’s gunning for you, will take the heat on herself – for a price. As a master of disguise and deception, she uses every trick to dupe those who want you captured or dead. But will a new job taking Gun Honey Joanna Tan’s place in the crosshairs turn out to be too hot to handle? Marked for death by a U.S. intelligence agency, Gun Honey Joanna Tan turns to Dahlia Racers to help her pull a vanishing act. But the killer hot on her trail, beautiful sociopath Sarah Claride, will leave bodies strewn from New York to Las Vegas to Tijuana, Mexico, if it means cornering Dahlia — and breaking her… If you’re a fan of classic pulp fiction and crime noir, and love a strong sexy heroine with flaming red hair, this is the book for you!

If you can't afford to be identified as "witchy" or you don't want to become the target of spiritual attacks, "Sneaky Tricks" will put you in control and give you the power to cast spells that they will NEVER see coming! * Are there others in your house who disapprove of magic? * Are the people in your home the ones you are working on? * Are you using magic at work, at school, or in the neighbourhood? * Are you working against a known or suspected practitioner? Learn how to effectively hide your magical tools and your work, as you access more than 140 conjure spells for Love, Money, Luck, Protection, Court Cases, Cursing, Uncrossing, Blessing, and Healing -- each one selected because it can be worked in secret. There is no other hoodoo collection like this anywhere. The spells are both authentic and up to date, ranging in age from the 1920s to the present day, and many of them require only simple ingredients that you can easily hide in your home, so that no one will ever see them.

The photographs inSTREETwere taken by Carrie Boretz in New York City from the mid-1970s through the 1990s. It is common knowledge that the city was on rocky ground for many of those years but these are not pictures filled with drama or strife. Instead Boretz was always more interested in the subtle and familiar moments of everyday life in the various neighborhoods where she lived, before much of the graffiti was scrubbed away and the city sanitized and reborn to what it has since become. For so many living in and visiting New York today, it is forgotten or altogether not known how different so many parts of the city were during that time. Many of these pictures show the reality of the streets then, where every day workers, the homeless, the affluent, and tourists all shared the common space, providing examples of how one of the greatest cities in the world was one often filled with contradictions. But there is also a timeless element to these images as children still play in the parks, streets, and schoolyards, commuters still face the elements daily as they wait, there are still regular demonstrations and parades, and the whole spectrum of the joys and pitfalls of humanity are still visible most anywhere a person looks. For Boretz nothing was scripted, it all played out right before her. As Patti Smith said, "You need no rationale, no schooling. It's love at first sight. You see something and you have to capture it. Instinctive, bang, you feel one with it." Indeed, Boretz doesn't have a philosophy about shooting other than trusting her instinct: she saw, she shot, she moved on, always looking for moments that made her heart beat faster. It was the continual rush of knowing that at any time she could come upon something real and beautiful. That is why and how she shot and why and how herSTREETis so special.

Thomas Penman is the acclaimed autobiographical debut novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter Bruce Robinson, the author of "Withnail and I". This is the story of a dysfunctional family. It is about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer. It is also about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It is also about love.

Bob Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah tells the chronological story of the modern pop era, from its beginnings in the fifties with the dawn of the charts, vinyl, and the music press, to pop's digital switchover in the year 2000, from Rock Around the Clock to Crazy In Love. It was more than just music - it could be your whole life. Yeah Yeah Yeah covers the birth of rock, soul, punk, disco, hip hop, indie, house and techno. It also includes the rise and fall of the home stereo, Top Of The Pops, Smash Hits and "this week's highest new entry". Yeah Yeah Yeah is the first book to look back at the entire era: what we gained, what we lost, and the foundations we laid for future generations. There have been many books on pop but none have attempted to bring the whole story to life, from Billy Fury and Roxy Music to TLC and Britney via Led Zeppelin and Donna Summer. Audacious and addictive, Yeah Yeah Yeah is essential reading for all music lovers. It will remind you why you fell in love with pop music in the first place.

Bianca Bienenfeld was a seventeen-year-old lycee student when she was seduced both intellectually and sexually by her philosophy professor, Simone de Beauvoir, in 1938. The following year de Beauvoir passed Bianca on to her "essential partner", Jean-Paul Sartre. The three formed a menage a trois until 1940, when Bianca was suddenly abandoned by her dual mentors and lovers. Their lack of concern for Bianca's fate as a Jew in occupied France made the abrupt break even more shattering for her. She began to suffer periodic bouts of severe depression linked not only to the Nazi horrors, but to the betrayal by de Beauvoir and Sartre. After World War II, Bianca Bienenfeld (now married to Bernard Lamblin) resumed a platonic friendship with de Beauvoir that lasted more than forty years, but the pain of the old, perturbing affair flooded back when, in 1990, she read de Beauvoir's posthumously published Letters to Sartre and War Journal. The intimate content of these books referred directly to Bianca in a tone of ridicule and contempt, and she finally discovered the full extent of de Beauvoir's deception. Now Bianca explodes with the true story behind her earlier relationship with the high priests of existentialism. Published here in English for the first time, her memoir reveals what it was like to be a third party in the "contingent" affairs of de Beauvoir and Sartre. Bianca's compelling narrative is not written out of revenge or retaliation. Rather, it is an eloquent, candid account of how de Beauvoir and Sartre influenced the shape of her life and how she survived a disgraceful affair that, when broken, almost broke her. Bianca's unique perspective on de Beauvoir and Sartre is the centralfocus of the book, but not the sole one. She writes about her love for her husband Bernard, who helped her recover. She also describes life during the dark times of German occupation, and recounts witnessing the battle of Vercors during the French Resistance. Her well-crafted and poignant memoir will appeal to scholars and general readers alike.

With a new introduction by Thomas Mallon "Dubin's Lives" (1979) is a compassionate and wry commedia, a book praised by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in "The New York Times" as Malamud's "best novel since "The Assistant," Possibly, it is the best he has written of all." Its protagonist is one of Malamud's finest characters; prize-winning biographer William Dubin, who learns from lives, or thinks he does: those he writes, those he shares, the life he lives. Now in his later middle age, he seeks his own secret self, and the obsession of biography is supplanted by the obsession of love--love for a woman half is age, who has sought an understanding of her life through his books. "Dubin's Lives" is a rich, subtle book, as well as a moving tale of love and marriage.

From before the days of Moses up through the 1960s, slavery was a fact of life in the Middle East. Pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims bought and sold at the slave markets for millennia, trading the human plunder of wars and slave raids that reached from the Russian steppes to the African jungles. But if the Middle East was one of the last regions to renounce slavery, how do we account for its--and especially Islam's--image of racial harmony? How did these long years of slavery affect racial relations? In Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis explores these questions and others, examining the history of slavery in law, social thought, and practice over the last two millennia. With 24 rare and intriguing full-color illustrations, this fascinating study describes the Middle East's culture of slavery and the evolution of racial prejudice. Lewis demonstrates how nineteenth century Europeans mythologized the region as a racial utopia in debating American slavery. Islam, in fact, clearly teaches non-discrimination, but Lewis shows that prejudice often won out over pious sentiments, as he examines how Africans were treated, depicted, and thought of from antiquity to the twentieth century. "If my color were pink, women would love me/But the Lord has marred me with blackness," lamented a black slave poet in Arabia over a millennium ago--and Lewis deftly draws from these lines and others the nuances of racial relations over time. Islam, he finds, restricted enslavement and greatly improved the lot of slaves--who included, until the early twentieth century, some whites--while blacks occasionally rose to power and renown. But abuses ring throughout the written and visual record, from the horrors of capture to the castration and high mortality which, along with other causes, have left few blacks in many Middle Eastern lands, despite centuries of importing African slaves. Race and Slavery in the Middle East illuminates the legacy of slavery in the region where it lasted longest, from the days of warrior slaves and palace eunuchs and concubines to the final drive for abolition. Illustrated with outstanding reproductions of striking artwork, it casts a new light on this critical part of the world, and on the nature and interrelation of slavery and racial prejudice.

What a century of life experience can teach us about happiness, ambition, courage, love and how to make the most of the lives we've been given. How many people do you know grew up as a poor immigrant in America during the Great Depression, won a scholarship to Harvard Law School, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D Day, were present at the liberation of concentration camps including Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Flossenburg, held leading Nazis to account at the Nuremberg trials and have fought for an International Criminal Court to hold war criminals to account the world over? Now you know one. Benjamin Ferencz turned 100 in 2020. In this extraordinary book, he shares his remarkable life story and the nine humble, compelling and life-affirming lessons he's learned along the way that we can all harness for ourselves.

What makes the English English? Is it their eccentricity, their passionate love (or, indeed, hatred) of Marmite - or is it something less easily defined? Beginning at the top of a muddy Gloucestershire slope at the Coopers Hill cheese-rolling contest and traversing a landscape of lawns and queues, coastlines and sporting arenas, Ben Fogle takes us on a journey through the peculiarly English: a country of wax jackets, cricket, boat races and jellied eels, by way of national treasures such as the shipping forecast, fish and chips and the Wellington boot. Not to mention the Dunkirk spirit of relentless optimism in the face of adversity, be it the heroic failure of Captain Scott's doomed Antarctic expedition, or simply the perennial hope for better weather. The archetypal Englishman - lover of labradors and Land Rovers yet holder of two passports - Ben applauds all things quintessentially English while also paying tribute to the history, culture and ideas adopted with such gusto that they have become part of the fabric of the country. Written with Ben's trademark warmth and wit, this is a light-hearted yet touching tribute to all things English.

"1950. Thousands of Yemeni Jews have immigrated to the newly founded Israel in search of a better life. In an overcrowded immigrant camp in Rosh Ha'ayin, Yaqub, a shy young man, happens upon Saida, a beautiful girl singing by the river. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, they fall in love. But they weren't supposed to; Saida is married and has a child, and a married woman has no place befriending another man. 1995. Thirty-something Zohara, Saida's daughter, has been living in New York City-a city that feels much less complicated than Israel, where she grew up wishing her skin were lighter, her illiterate mother's Yemeni music quieter, and that the father who always favored her was alive. She hasn't looked back since leaving home, rarely in touch with her mother or sister, Lizzie, and missing out on her nephew Yoni's childhood. But when Lizzie calls to tell her their mother has died, she gets on a plane to Israel with no return ticket. Soon Zohara finds herself on an unexpected path that leads to shocking truths about her family-including dangers that lurk for impressionable young men and secrets that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, her heritage, and her own future"--

The doomed hero of The Tragedy of Arthur is Arthur Phillips, a young man struggling with a larger than life father, a con artist who works wonders of deception but is a very unreliable parent. Arthur is raised in an enchanted world of smoke and mirrors where the only certain fact is his father's and beloved sister's shared love for the works of William Shakespeare, a love so pervasive that Arthur becomes a writer in a misguided bid to win their approval. Near the end of his life, Arthur's father shares with him a treasure that he has kept for half a century: a previously unknown play by Shakespeare, titled The Tragedy of Arthur. Arthur and his sister also inherit their father's mission, to see the play published and acknowledged as the Bard's last great gift to humanity. Unless, of course, it's their father's last and greatest deception.