'Beginners belongs on the list of books that have changed the way I understand my own limitations.'Malcolm GladwellFor many of us, the last time we learned a new skill was during childhood. We live in an age which reveres expertise but looks down on the beginner.
Almost nine million people from all over the world flock to the Louvre in Paris every year to see its incomparable art collection. Yet few, if any, are aware of the remarkable history of that location and of the buildings themselves, and how they chronicle the history of Paris itself-a fascinating story that historian James Gardner elegantly tells for the first time.
When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too.
An intensely beautiful, profound and poetic biography of the formative years of the dark prince of rock 'n' roll, Boy on Fire is Nick Cave's creation story, a portrait of the artist first as a boy, then as a young man.
America is suffering from PTSD. The Reckoning diagnoses its core causes and helps begin the healing process.For four years, Donald J Trump inflicted an onslaught of overlapping and interconnected traumas upon the American people, targeting anyone he perceived as being an 'other' or an enemy.
Meet the mega human: colossal, clueless . . .and the biggest hope for life on earthThere are eight billion of us humans. All breathing, eating, fidgeting and thinking deep thoughts. It's an unimaginably large number.Or is it?
'Fantastic' Lee Child'Absolutely brilliant' Mick HerronIf the truth's in the shadows, get out of the light . . .Lawyer Bobby Carter did a lot of work for the wrong type of people. Now he's dead and it was no accident. Besides a distraught family and a heap of powerful friends, Carter's left behind his share of enemies.So, who dealt the fatal blow?
Born and raised in America, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD programme in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment-a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin.
What does it mean to be an explorer in the twenty-first century?
In his sharply crafted, unnerving first collection of speculative fiction shorts, Courttia Newland envisages an alternate future as lived by the African diaspora.
Hanif Kureishi's cinematic storytelling embraces a wide spectrum of characters from all classes and nationalities, depicting them with compassion, humour and relish, though never fighting shy of controversy. This volume comprises four of Kureishi's screenplays.
BERLIN, NOVEMBER 1938. With storm troopers battering against his door, Otto Silbermann must flee out the back of his own home. He emerges onto streets thrumming with violence: it is Kristallnacht, and synagogues are being burnt, Jews rounded up and their businesses destroyed.
When We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schroedinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled minds we are thrust as they grapple with the most profound questions of existence.
The fourth adventure in the enchanted Mirrorworld leads to the Far East, where Jacob and Fox finally track down Will, who is travelling with a one of Jacob's worst enemies. Putting his feelings aside, Jacob agrees to travel with them to the beautiful Island of the Foxes in quest of another magical Mirror.
Pip never wants to be at home nowadays. There's no laughter anymore and her mum isn't happy. She spends most of her time alone, daydreaming and digging for treasure by the dirty creek.But one night, Pip finds something incredible - a dragon. Tiny, possibly dying, but definitely a dragon. She quickly realises that dragons don't come with instructions: what do you feed a dragon?
Jacob has uncovered the doorway to another world, hidden behind a mirror. It is a place of dark magic and enchanted objects, scheming dwarves and fearsome ogres, fairies born from water and men born from stone. Here, he hunts for treasure and seeks adventure in the company of Fox - a beautiful, shape shifting girl, who guides and guards him.
Jacob has saved his brother from the Mirrorworld, but now he will pay a terrible price. A fairy's curse is burning in his heart, and to break the spell he must embark upon a perilous journey - with his trusty friend Fox by his side - to seek out the only treasure that could save him.
A glimpse of post-war France through the eyes and words of 14 (mostly) expatriate journalists including Mavis Gallant, James Baldwin, A.J. Liebling, S.N. Behrman, Luc Sante, Joseph Mitchell, and Lillian Ross; plus, portraits of their editors William Shawn and New Yorker founder Harold Ross.Together: they invented modern magazine journalism.
1930s Leningrad. As a mood of fear cloaks the city, Investigator Vasily Zaitsev is called on to investigate a series of bizarre and seemingly motiveless murders. In each case, the victim is curiously dressed and posed in extravagantly arranged settings.At the same time, one by one precious old master paintings are going missing from the Hermitage collection.
'This is Rayner at his rambunctious best: upfront, full-fat, and always deliciously written.' Nigella Lawson'A sophisticated palate and a fiery, comic tongue. Jay Rayner's food writing is brilliant.' Stanley TucciWhy are gravy stains on your shirt at the dinner table to be admired? Does bacon improve everything? And is gin really the devil's work?