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‘A powerful, important, unforgettable book’ Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild

In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide.

Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena – a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man – Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time.

‘Every parent needs to read this’ Helen Joyce

Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria – severe discomfort in one’s biological sex – was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively.

But today whole groups of female friends in colleges and schools across the world are coming out as ‘transgender’. These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans ‘influencers’.

Unsuspecting parents now find their daughters in thrall to YouTube stars and ‘gender-affirming’ educators and therapists, who push life-changing interventions on young girls – including medically unnecessary double mastectomies, and hormone treatments that can cause permanent infertility.

Abigail Shrier, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, has talked to the girls, their agonised parents, and the therapists and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to ‘detransitioners’ – young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves. Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back.

A bold, provocative exploration of the tension between our evolutionary history and our modern woes – and what we can do about it

We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, loneliness and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond?

For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our woes is clear: the modern world is out of sync with our ancient brains and bodies. We evolved to live in clans, but today many people don’t even know their neighbours’ names. Survival in our earliest societies depended on living in harmony with nature, but today the food we eat, the work we do – even the light we absorb – is radically different from what our minds and bodies evolved to expect.

In this book, Heying and Weinstein draw on decades of their work teaching in college classrooms and exploring earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems to confront today’s pressing social ills – from widespread sleep deprivation and dangerous diets to damaging parenting styles and backward education practices. A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century outlines a science-based worldview that will empower you to live a better, wiser life.

Born into an aristocratic German Jewish family, Ernst Baerwald is a gifted linguist, talented musician and fearless idealist. When he’s recruited in 1900 to become a spy – his cover working for a company that would become the notorious chemical conglomerate IG Farben – his life becomes an extraordinary adventure spanning two continents, two world wars and impossible choices that will haunt him forever.

From Frankfurt to Milan to Tokyo, Ernst moves through a world of intrigue and passion. He battles Japan’s Yakuza while entertaining its royalty and hosts Europe’s most brilliant performers. He falls deeply in love. He witnesses the rise of fascism in both Japan and Germany. And when the forces of fascism in Japan meet the horrors of Hitler’s Germany, this German Jew faces an impossible choice: destroy the country he loves most or become complicit in unimaginable evil.

Based on the life of author David Baerwald’s grandfather, The Fire Agent carries us from nineteenth-century German idealism to the onset of chemical warfare; from Japan’s organized crime syndicates to FDR’s spy networks; from the Nanking Massacre to the dawn of the Cold War. At its centre is the unforgettable character of Ernst – a man who has the courage to fight for what’s right, even when the cost is everything.

In this short, sharp book, Richard Lyon – electrical engineer, petroleum engineer and energy economist – strips the energy debate back to the physics. What he finds is alarming: the fossil fuels are running out, the proposed replacements can’t do the job and the people in charge don’t understand the science well enough to realise.

But this is not a counsel of despair. There is a way through – if we stop wasting what remains on systems that can’t work and start building the one that can.

For over a century, the Middle East has been riven by conflict driven by Jewish and Arab nationalism. They came about at the same point in history with claims over the same territory. 

Their encounter has evolved into one of the most enduring and divisive geopolitical issues of the modern era – one defined by its complexity and its extremism and unfolding against a backdrop of 24-hour rolling news and social-media outrage. A Forever War: Israel, Palestine and the Struggles for Statehood reflects on the key questions: How did this state of affairs come about? And will it be a forever war?

At a time when so much coverage is based on prejudice, fear and ignorance, Colin Shindler, Emeritus Professor of Israel Studies at SOAS, presents an authoritative view of this tragic conflict and dissects the current situation. Tracing the religious, political and historical motivations of both sides throughout many decades of turmoil and upheaval, A Forever War is the concise and non-partisan overview of the conflict that is so sorely needed. 

Inspired by our native landscapes, saturated by the shadows beneath trees and behind doors, listening to the run of water and half-heard voices, Tom Cox s first collection of short stories is a series of evocative and unsettling trips into worlds previously visited by the likes of M. R. James and E. F. Benson.

Railway tunnels, the lanes and hills of the Peak District, family homes, old stones, shreds fluttering on barbed wire, night drawing in, something that might be an animal shifting on the other side of a hedge: Tom has drawn on his life-long love of weird fiction, folklore and nature s unregarded corners to write a collection of stories that will delight fans old and new, and leave them very uneasy about turning the reading lamp off.

June 1948. Late one night Magdalen don and author Jack Lewis hears an urgent sound like an animal scratching at the door of his college rooms. Outside is Casper Carstairs, whom the don recognises as the nervy-looking student playing Hamlet in an open-air undergraduate production that afternoon. Claiming his stepmother is out to murder him, the youth begs Lewis – one of the more approachable dons – to help him.

Plagued by writer’s block as he tries to create a sequel to his first Narnian novel, Lewis semi-reluctantly succumbs to the distraction of detective work…

‘At every page Lawhon keeps us guessing’ The New York Times

‘A fascinating blend of love and murder, big dreams and betrayal, history and pure imagination – I could not put it down’ Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants

‘A writer to watch’ J.T. Ellison, author of What Lies Behind

A SUSPENSEFUL, HEART-WRENCHING NOVEL BASED ON A TRUE STORY FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE FROZEN RIVER

On the evening of May 3rd, 1937, ninety-seven people board the Hindenburg for its final, doomed flight. Among them are a frightened stewardess who is not what she seems; the steadfast navigator determined to win her heart; a naive cabin boy eager to earn a permanent position; an impetuous journalist who has been blacklisted in her native Germany; and an enigmatic American businessman with a score to settle. Over the course of three champagne-soaked days, their lies, fears, agendas, and hopes for the future will be revealed – and one in their party will set a plot in motion that will have devastating consequences for them all.

Flight of Dreams is a fiercely intimate portrait of the real people on board the last flight of the Hindenburg. Behind them is the gathering storm in Europe and before them is looming disaster. But for the moment they float over the Atlantic, unaware of the inexorable, tragic fate that awaits them.

Brilliantly exploring one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth century, Flight of Dreams is that rare novel with spellbinding plotting that keeps you guessing till the last page and breathtaking emotional intensity that stays with you long after.

FIVE STAR RAVE READER REVIEWS

From the award-winning author of An Everlasting Meal comes a record of daily delights from inside the kitchen and just outside it; designed to help you find joy every day.

From the pleasure of picking sun-warmed cherries to the comfort of a perfectly cooked meal, Adler’s reflections range from short, lyrical musings – a series of phrases, a list of words, a quick poem – to longer, thought-provoking meditations. All in all, they represent the kitchen (and adjacent) happinesses of one year.

Step into a world where cooking becomes a meditative, soothing retreat. Adler brings her signature warmth and poetic charm to this daily devotional of sorts. With her gentle guidance, even the most routine kitchen tasks become opportunities for reflection. Her voice is like a trusted friend’s—knowledgeable, comforting, and endlessly inspiring.