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‘Brave and deeply considered… Her experience, and Transsexual Apostate, shouldn’t be dismissed’ The Telegraph

In a compelling first-hand account of what it means to be a transwoman – and where she feels the impulse comes from – Hayton explains why much of gender identity ideology is, in her view, false and damaging. Once a prominent member of the TUC LGBT+ committee, she charts how her views developed and put her at odds with the majority of trans activists. She issues a compassionate call to move beyond ideological conflicts, and to acknowledge the legitimate concerns that many have with an agenda that asserts that transwomen are women.

Hayton’s honest, humane and moving book shows that by accepting reality, transwomen can live their best lives based on the truth of who they are – rather than the fantasy of who they are not.

‘Brave, unflinching, insightful’ – Professor Michael Bailey, author ofThe Man Who Would Be Queen

‘Exceptionally vivid and intense’ Sunday Times

‘A marvellously dark yarn’ The Spectator

‘A swaggering debut’ Daily Mail

Everyone expects at least a little bit of deception…

Alex is a motherless stockboy in 1830s Montreal, waiting desperately for his father to return from France. Serge, a drunken fur trader, promises food and safety in return for friendship, but an expedition into the forest quickly goes awry…

The Voyageur is a brilliantly realised novel set on the margins of British North America, where kindness is costly and the real wilderness may not be in the landscape but in the desperate hearts of men.

‘Masterpiece’ Evening Standard

‘Fascinating’ The Economist Best Titles of 2024

In this vivid coming-of-age memoir, Rob Henderson recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities – and what he learnt from seeing life from both sides of the tracks.

In this heartbreaking and thought-provoking memoir, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending Yale and Cambridge, and pioneering the concept of ‘luxury beliefs’ – ideas and opinions that confer status on the more educated while inflicting costs on the less fortunate.

Rave Reader Reviews

‘Eye-opening and heart-breaking’

‘Inspiring’

‘Incredible’

‘Wow’

‘Powerful and thought-provoking’

‘A data-rich book that takes a close look at how deeply family structure influences both children’s current well-being and their future academic and career prospects’ – Wall Street Journal, Best Books of the Year

In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes. When two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a number of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. By confronting the critical role that family makeup plays in shaping children’s lives and futures, Kearney offers an assessment of what a decline in marriage means for an economy and a society – and what we must do to change course.

‘Having two parents who are married to each other, Kearney argues, provides offspring with economic and social advantages. And by joining their particular strengths, a married couple can give their progeny more than the sum of their parts’- New Yorker, Best Books of the Year

A TIMES AND DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2024

Sharron Davies is no stranger to battling the routine sexism of the sporting world. She missed out on Olympic Gold because of doping among East German athletes in the 1980s; now, biological males are being allowed to compete directly against women under the guise of trans ‘self-ID’.

This callous indifference towards women in sport, argue Sharron and journalist Craig Lord, is merely the latest stage in a decades-long history of sexism on the part of sport’s higher-ups. Unfair Play provides the facts, science and arguments that will help women in sport get the justice they deserve.

‘A compelling account of how women in sport continue to be subjugated’ Daily Mail

‘The most important book in social science for many years’ Paul Collier, TLS Books of the Year

The Upswing is Robert D. Putnam’s brilliant analysis of economic, social, cultural and political trends from the Gilded Age to the present, showing how America went from an individualistic ‘I’ society to a more communitarian ‘We’ society and then back again, and how we can all learn from that experience.

In the late nineteenth century, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarised and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However, as the twentieth century dawned, America became – slowly, unevenly, but steadily – more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society ‘on the upswing,’ more focused on responsibilities to each other and less focused on narrow self-interest. Over the course of the 1960s, however, these trends reversed once again, leading to today’s disarray.

In a sweeping overview of more than a century of history, Putnam and Romney Garrett draw on inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, creating once again a society based on community. Engaging, revelatory and timely, this is Putnam’s most ambitious work yet, with a relevance right across the anglophone world. It is an unmissable contribution to the debate about where we want society to go.

A BARACK OBAMA FAVOURITE BOOK OF 2020

A New York Times best book of 2020

One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans.

Right after the election of 2016, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio realized the story she’d tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer’s phone number on her hand and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants – and to find the hidden key to her own.

In her incandescent, relentlessly probing voice, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. She finds the singular, effervescent characters across the nation often reduced in the media to political pawns or nameless laborers.

The stories she tells are not deferential or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak, insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her subjects. And through it all we see the author grappling with the biggest questions of love, duty, family, and survival.

Shortlisted for a National Book Award, a National Book Critics’ Circle Award and an L.A. Times Book Prize

A 2021 FT and Herald Book of the Year

A deadly flu epidemic sweeps through Moscow, killing hundreds of thousands. Anya and her husband Sergey decide they have no choice but to flee to a lake in the far north of Russia.

Joining them on their journey are her son and father-in-law; Sergey’s ex-wife and son; and their garish neighbours. But then some friends of Sergey show up to complete Anya’s list of people she’d least like to be left with at the end of the civilised world.

As the wave of infection expands from the capital, their food and fuel start to run low. Menaced both by the harsh Russian winter and by the desperate people they encounter, they must put their hatreds behind them if they’re to have a chance of reaching safety…

Inspired by a real-life flu epidemic in Moscow, To the Lake was a number one bestseller in Russia, and has now appeared in a dozen languages and been adapted into a Netflix TV series.

Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubinstein family, it could go either way.

When their beloved sister passes away, Sylvia and Helen Rubinstein are unmoored. A misunderstanding about apple cake turns into a decade of stubborn silence. Busy with their own lives – divorces, dating, career setbacks, college applications, bat mitzvahs and ballet recitals – their children do not want to get involved. As for their grandchildren? Impossible.

With This Is Not About Us, master storyteller Allegra Goodman – whose prior collection was heralded as “one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life” (The Boston Globe) – returns to the form and subject that endeared her to legions of readers. Sharply observed and laced with humor, This Is Not About Us is a story of growing up and growing old, the weight of parental expectations, and the complex connection between sisters – a big-hearted book about the love that binds a family across generations.

‘An extraordinary book. Truly important’ William Boyd

‘Outstanding … Intimate as well as epic’ Sunday Times

‘Poignant and powerful’ Daily Mail

‘Utterly gripping’ The Spectator

‘Beautiful and devastating’ Irish News

Sunday Times Best Summer Reads 2024

Longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2025

Shortlisted in the British Book Awards 2025

A STORY OF UNBREAKABLE FRIENDSHIP AND THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

Beijing in the 1970s. Lai lives with her parents, grandmother and youngerbrother in a small flat in a working-class area. Her grandmother is a formidable figure, while her ageing beauty of a mother snipes at her father, a sunken figure haunted by the Cultural Revolution.

As she grows up, Lai comes to discern the realities of the country she lives in. But she also goes through the ebbs and flows of friendships; troubles and rewards at home and at school; and the first steps and missteps in love. A gifted student, she attends the prestigious Peking University; while there she becomes involved in the student protests that have been gathering speed. It is the late 1980s, and change is in the air . . .

5 STAR READER REVIEWS