Summer Reads

"Starting a new venture is like jumping off a cliff and sewing a parachute on the way down. This book is the parachute."Joe Gebbia, cofounder and chief product officer, AirbnbHow do you make your start-up a genuine success in the long term? While most...

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History**"Extraordinary...a great American biography" (The New Yorker) of the most important African-American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and...

'Stunning, timely and timeless.' -Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray LoveRenowned activist, filmmaker and civil rights lawyer Valarie Kaur made headlines when her 'Breathe and Push' speech on how to survive in a time of rage went viral with 30 million...

A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR.The story of the black male experience in America you've never read before.Kiese Laymon grew up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual...

"A gutsy, wholly original memoir of ragged grace and raw beauty." -- Kirkus Reviews (STARRED)From the memories of a childhood marked by extreme poverty, mental illness, and restrictive fundamentalist Christian rules, Janisse Ray crafted a memoir that has...

WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARDWINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2016'A thrilling adventure story' --  Bill Bryson'Dazzling' --  Literary Review 'Brilliant' --  Sunday Express'Extraordinary and gripping' --  New Scientist'A superb...

The stunning sequel to Parable of the Sower, the NEW YORK TIMES-bestselling novel.'In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time... for sheer peculiar prescience, Butler's novel may be unmatched' --  NEW...

With 18 million copies sold worldwide, The Shack is an international bestseller that explores life's toughest questions through the gripping story of one man's struggle to find answers to his suffering Mack's youngest daughter, Missy, was abducted during...

'Jennifer Eberhardt makes it clear that racism operates at all levels, and it fills me with hope to know that she is fighting it at all levels. More power to you, sister. The world needs you.' --  BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH'Poignant... striking... important and...

In this fascinating and often hilarious work - winner of the Royal Society of Science Prize 2007 - pre-eminent psychologist Daniel Gilbert shows how - and why - the majority of us have no idea how to make ourselves happy. We all want to be happy, but do...

In this fascinating and often hilarious work - winner of the Royal Society of Science Prize 2007 - pre-eminent psychologist Daniel Gilbert shows how - and why - the majority of us have no idea how to make ourselves happy. We all want to be happy, but do...

Shortlisted for The Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2018 'Eye-opening, informative and very funny!' - Chris Packham History is full of strange animal stories invented by the brightest and most influential, from Aristotle to Disney...

When it comes to chemicals and our bodies, there are no simple answers. Thanks to George Zaidan, there are beautifully clear, elegant, accurate explanations. And they're funny. Zaidan has accomplished something I would not have thought possible. He has...

Twelve-year-old Robert hates his maths teacher: he sets his class boring problems and won't let them use their calculators. Then in his dreams Robert meets the Number Devil, who brings the subject magically to life, illustrating with wit and charm a...

'I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my...

The Most Human Human by Brian Christian is a mind-blowing piece of reportage that will appeal to readers of Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test, and an inspiring riposte to John Gray's classic Straw Dogs - a book that will change your whole understanding of...

In his most extraordinary book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. These are case studies of people who have lost their...

'Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk did for raptors' -- New Statesman'Charming and moving...with extraordinary scientific research' -- Guardian'An engaging work of natural science... There is...

'Great characters, fine writing, totally engrossing' --  STEPHEN KING.It might have been the end of days. Instead it was the beginning of something shockingly new.They called the comet Cain, after the astronomer who discovered it. It passed...

Harrow the Ninth, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station. "Lesbian necromancers explore...