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From the bestselling author of Lost in Time and Quantum Radio comes a new mind-bending thriller: a group of strangers with tinnitus begins seeing numbers — numbers they soon realize are a code that will change the world. Alan Norris has lost everything. Except for his daughter. And he’s willing to do anything to protect her. The day of his wife's funeral, as he’s walking to give the eulogy, the ringing in his ears starts. His tinnitus began when he was in the Marines, the day a roadside bomb went off. Usually, it's a low whine — a tea kettle that never quite boils. But as his prosthetic and his good leg sink into the soggy grass, the ringing changes. That afternoon, the ringing only he can hear sounds like three jagged rocks dropped in a tin can and shaken. When the rattling hits a crescendo, he sees a series of numbers: 12122518914208. He assumes it’s a stress reaction. A hallucination. He’s wrong about that. And several other things. The ringing and the numbers are a mystery, but the worst part is that when that unseen hand shakes the can, Alan begins to lose time. A few minutes at first. Then longer. Until one night, he wakes up next to a dead body. He could call the police. Or run. He doesn’t do either. Because he doesn't know what happened to his daughter during the time he lost, leaving him no choice but to dig deeper. Alan soon discovers he's not the only one seeing the numbers. And that the sequence is key to a conspiracy with far-reaching consequences. For him and the entire world.

A NEW SCIENTIST NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR‘Shows us that, ultimately, the history of rats is a history of ourselves.’ THE SUNDAY TIMES‘Fascinating and prejudice-busting reading.’ NEW SCIENTIST‘An intelligent and enlightening book’ MICHAEL MORPURGOA cultural and social history of the rat, examining how one creature achieved total world domination and has inspired such love and loathing.Rats are creatures which inspire fear and fascination in equal measure. Their lives are more closely entwined with humans than any other animal, but they remain the most misunderstood of all species.In Stowaway, Joe Shute explores our complex and contradictory relationship with the rat. He travels the world from sub-Saharan Africa to the Rocky Mountains and visits some of the most rodent-infested cities on earth to unpick the myths we tell ourselves about rats and investigate the unexplored secrets of their own extraordinary lives.Joe delves into the hidden world they inhabit beneath our feet, learns about their role in natural ecosystems and how they have shaped human history. He also discovers their incredible intelligence and the bonds they form with humans when given the chance.Stowaway questions what the lives of rats reveal about our own, and whether there might be a better way to live alongside this most misunderstood species.

A photo-packed celebration of British raptors, following their fortunes as British breeding birds from historical times to the present day.RSPB British Birds of Prey is the ideal introduction to the raptors – hawks, eagles, harriers, buzzards and falcons – plus the owls that breed in or regularly visit the British Isles. Despite centuries of persecution, changing attitudes, improved legal protections and the astounding efforts of conservationists mean that many species are faring better in the UK than they have for decades.With incredible colour photography throughout, this book provides fascinating insights into the lives of these birds. Each chapter showcases an individual species, providing an engaging and informative account of their hunting habits, breeding behaviour, the migrations they undertake, and above all the challenges they continue to face as they forge their lives alongside humanity in Britain.

Joan Micklin Silver’s groundbreaking debut feature film, Hester Street (1975), vividly portrays the immigrant experience through the eyes of Gitl (Carol Kane), a young, Orthodox Jewish woman who arrives in New York City from Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. Reunited with her already-assimilated husband, Gitl finds they now have little in common and she is forced to adjust to a new way of life. Hester Street achieved international critical and commercial success, and Kane received a Best Actress nomination at the 1976 Academy Awards.Marking the film’s 50th anniversary, Julia Wagner’s landmark book is the first to focus exclusively on Micklin Silver’s film. Wagner examines how, despite the sexism and prejudice that Micklin Silver faced, a low-budget, black-and-white, female-led, independent production with Yiddish dialogue became an unexpected box-office hit. Through close analysis, Wagner highlights the importance of Hester Street as a milestone in cinema and affirms Micklin Silver’s status as a unique voice in the history of American film-making.

Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975) is simultaneously an intimate film about interpersonal connection and disconnection, and a sprawling, meandering portrait of American societal exhaustion in the wake of Vietnam, Watergate and a spate of political assassinations. Despite its pessimistic, satirical viewpoint, the film suggests a carefully guarded optimism: ‘life may be a one-way street’, but one has no choice but to ‘keep a’ goin’.Heather Hendershot places Nashville in the context of the New Hollywood of the 1970s, which offered a post-censorship anti-hero, the perennial loser. Embracing the new pessimism, Altman’s work fits with those of contemporaries such as Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich, but it also stands apart for its innovative sound design, improvisatory drive, and loose genre commitments.Through a close reading of the five days over which the film takes place, Hendershot unpacks both its political dynamics and the characters’ interrelationships and motivations. She highlights Nashville’s criticism of the suffering of its female characters, an engagement that springs from Joan Tewkesbury’s screenplay, Altman’s sensitivity to gendered exploitation (here, if not in all of his pictures), and the role the performers themselves played by improvising and scripting some of their own material.

Upon its release, John McTiernan’s Die Hard (1988) was met with immense commercial and critical success; breaking the $100 million mark at the box office in its first run, and resulting in four Academy Award nominations.Jon Lewis’s study of the action classicclosely examines the film''s novel and script adaptation, highlighting the influential role of producer Joel Silver. He delves into Silver''s ground-breaking ‘whammy theory’, which redefined script structure by organizing scripts around timed ‘beats’ rather than traditional acts or scenes, tracing its impact not only in Die Hard, but also in other iconic franchises like Lethal Weapon, Predator, and The Matrix.Lewis goes on to consider the film''s evocation of post-Vietnam male panic and its connection to the Iron John movement. He highlights Die Hard as a prime example of the ‘male rampage film’ genre, where white male protagonists express frustration with cultural antagonists like feminism, economic regulation, government bureaucracy, and political corruption. Finally, he reflects on how Die Hard resonated with its 1988 audience, looking for new antagonists in a changing world. The film''s anticipation of European radical political groups and later terrorism rooted in North Africa and the Middle East foreshadows the era-defining ‘war on terror’ that would follow.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST SERIES 2025City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring ‘Perfection’ and ‘Correctness’ to an imperfect world. But before these ruthless Tyrant Philosophers send in their legions, they despatch Outreach – the rain before the storm. Outreach is that part of the Pal machine responsible for diplomacy — converting enemies into friends, achieving through words what an army of five thousand could not, urging the oppressed to overthrow the bloody-handed priests, evil necromancers and greedy despots that subjugate them.Angilly, twelve-years-old, a child of Pal soldiers stationed in occupied Jarokir, does not know it yet, but a sequence of accidents and questionable life choices will lead her to Outreach. As she travels from Jarrokir to Bracinta, Cazarkand, Lemas, The Holy Regalate of Stouk and finally, Usmai, she’ll learn that the price of her nation’s success is paid in compromise and lost chances, and that the falling rain will always be bitter.LIVES OF BITTER RAIN is a novella in Adrian Tchaikovsky''s award-winning Tyrant Philosopher series. It is a prequel to the third novel in the sequence, DAYS OF SHATTERED FAITH.

Buckle up for the adventure of a lifetime in the hilarious first children''s book from Paddington star, Hugh BonnevilleRory Sparkes is a boy with a head full of dreams. He might become a strongman and travel the world with the circus. Or he might try to make it as a cowboy – that would be a fan-tas-tic second best. Although at the moment he’d settle for missing his maths lesson and making his torch work properly.As he plots to help his best friend, Guy, earn enough money to buy the latest top-of-the-line model boat (so they can set sail for South America), the circus rolls into town and everything spirals out of control. With Guy needing help doing odd jobs for the terrifying Madame Lowe, and with Clare, Rory’s annoying older sister, planning a dastardly prank, will Rory’s plans ever work out? Let’s see …Filled with brilliantly funny illustrations from Lorretta Schauer.

A new study of a critical period in the history of the British Army.The last half century has seen society, technology, the character of conflict and the British Army itself all change greatly. From a low point in the 1970s, the Army’s war fighting capability increased in the 1980s in the face of a prospective war with the Soviet Union. This capability was then tested on operations from Kuwait in 1991 through to Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.There followed two decades of descent from this high plateau of military achievement. Mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan led to a decline in support for military deployments. Cuts to defence funding and botched equipment procurements also meant the British Army of 2021 was only half the size of that of 1970, and with much key fighting equipment either obsolete or approaching obsolescence.Ben Barry served in the Army from 1975 to 2010, often in key staff appointments, and has worked closely with the Army in the following decade. This new study draws not only on his personal experience, but also on a very wide range of written sources complemented by interviews to provide a new interpretation of this period that challenges the existing narratives.

The forgotten story of a group of British mavericks who took on an impossible mission with a daring and fearless approach.As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted a daring campaign to send an unlikely band of maverick soldiers, diplomats and spies to the chaotic region around the Caspian Sea. Their mission: to block the advance of the Turks, to hold back the rising Bolsheviks and prevent a Turkish-inspired jihad overwhelming India, and to secure the vital supply of oil from Baku. It was an almost impossible task, but Mavericks tells the gripping stories of the remarkable and enterprising characters at the centre of it all, who would be tested to the limit. There was Lionel Dunsterville, the inspiration for Kipling’s Stalky and commander of the expedition; Ranald MacDonell, a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort; Edward Noel, a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for sixty-five days in horrific conditions; Toby Rawlinson, the younger brother of one of Britain’s most senior generals and a brilliant inventor; and Reginald Teague-Jones, a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine. Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs and once-secret government archives, Mavericks brings to life a cast of eccentric heroes who survived against all odds to tell their extraordinary tales. This is a propulsive story of boldness and intrigue, set in a forgotten corner of the Great War where the rules were made to be broken.

London, 1914. Fred Müller’s life is turned upside down when his dad is taken away by the police - suddenly his family are the enemy because of where they come from. A thrilling coming of age tale about World War One, perfect for fans of Emma Carroll and Hilary McKay. Fred Müller is very popular at school – his mum and dad have a baker’s shop, so he always has lots of great cakes and sweet treats to share amongst his friends! But it’s 1914 and war with Germany is looming. The newspapers are crammed full of stories about German citizens being spies. Out of the blue, the baker’s shop window is smashed and suddenly Fred''s family are being treated as the enemy.Things soon move from bad to worse, when Fred''s father is taken and interned in the nearby Alexandra Palace. Money is running out, and people of German heritage are told they should be “sent home”. But Britain is home to Fred and his family. Is everyone against them, or can Fred and his mother find glimmers of kindness and hope in these terrible times?Based on historical events, this beautiful tale is perfect to explore themes of refuge, kindness and empathy with children aged 9+, from one of the UK''s most beloved children''s authors, Karen McCombie.

An in-depth, authoritative account of the autumn of 1914 on the Western Front and the First Battle of Ypres, a true turning point in modern warfare.The final months of 1914 were the bloodiest interval in a famously bloody war, a killing season. They ended with the First Battle of Ypres, a struggle in West Flanders, Belgium, the importance of which has been too long over-looked – until now.Robert Cowley’s account of this crucial period describes how German armies in France were poised to sweep north to capture the Channel ports and knock England out of the war – and were only held back by a brilliant improvisation from a cobbled-together handful of desperate British, French and Belgium troops.In a re-examination of events that have too long seemed set in stone, Cowley combines a wide array of source materials with sharp portrayals both of military leaders and the men they lead. We follow Albert of Belgium, the world’s last warrior king; French General Ferdinand Foch, a former professor of military science; and Hendrik Geeraert, an alcoholic barge keeper, who pulled off Albert’s literal last-ditch effort. Many other memorable characters emerge, including Sir John French along with both a young Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill.The vast brawl of four armies in Flanders was a turning point that irrevocably changed the nature of modern warfare. In this visceral account, based on 30 years of research and picking up where Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August left off, Cowley details the crucial decisions that determined the outcome of the Great War – which may have been decided by a single, extraordinary afternoon.

Drawing on unpublished first-hand accounts, this is a gripping history of the experiences of the Commandos and their unsung allies in one of the bloodiest battles of the Burma Campaign.Following the battles of Kohima and Imphal in mid-1944, the tide was turning against the Imperial Japanese Army. By the end of that fateful year, the Allies were preparing to launch an offensive in the Arakan region of Burma, to deliver a knockout blow to the increasingly desperate Japanese 28th Army. This fascinating new history details the actions of 3 Commando Brigade, who would spearhead this attack in a series of daring amphibious landings into the depths of the Burmese jungle, culminating in the brutal fight for Hill 170.They would be the only Commando Brigade to serve in the Far East, yet their story has never before been told in detail. With access to previously unseen primary sources, this book is the story of the men who volunteered for a fight against a fearless enemy, 5000 miles away from home in one of the most unforgiving environments in the world. Thrown into combat with limited jungle training and scant resources, it would be a baptism of fire, but the Commandos, alongside the brave men of the Indian and West African Divisions of XV Corps, would inflict a terrible defeat on an enemy once thought to be unbeatable.Written by a granddaughter of a Commando veteran who fought at Arakan, this new book shines a light on a largely forgotten yet crucial battle of World War II.

''Bruen is the godfather of the modern Irish crime novel'' Irish IndependentThe thrilling new crime novel set in Galway, Ireland from Ken Bruen. When Jack Taylor wakes up from a coma, he finds himself in a different world... yet it hasn''t changed at all.When Jack Taylor awakes from a coma following an attack that left him in hospital, much of the world has changed. The Covid pandemic has devastated the lives of many in his beloved city of Galway and beyond. As Jack tries to absorb the incredible changes, a woman approaches him with a particularly distressing case. Two local nuns have been bludgeoned by a mysterious man wielding a hammer. As the police fail to act while the violence against the Sisters escalates, Jack seems like their only hope.Initially wary of getting involved, Jack finds he cannot stay away from the mystery surrounding these vicious attacks. He also cannot shake a feeling of darkness that has haunted him since he awoke from his coma: a darkness that is far too close for comfort...''The raffish hero''s world feels like an unusually sordid theme park attraction. Just be sure to wipe your hands when you exit'' Kirkus''Satisfyingly complex'' Publishers Weekly''Hard-hitting'' Shelf Awareness

A dramatic retelling of the desperate battle of the Rhineland during World War II from the German perspective.The Rhineland was where Adolf Hitler sowed the seeds for the Second World War when he remilitarized it in breach of the Treaty of Versailles in 1936, and by late 1944 the Rhine provided the last major obstacle to the advancing Allied armies that were threatening the Fatherland itself.In this new history of this vital campaign, respected military historian Anthony Tucker-Jones describes the race against time as the Germans fought to stave off the inevitable. It was essential that the Germans held the west bank in order to protect the Rhine crossings at Cologne, Bonn, Koblenz and Remagen, but Hitler was intent on counter-attacking in the Ardennes in the winter of 1944 and this meant there was little left to bolster the defences of the Rhine.Rhineland relates the course of this desperate defence, describing the build-up of forces and operational plans before going on to tell the story of the campaign from the point of view of the forces involved, from the ordinary German soldier through to the high command.

"The embodied and tender guide that every Black woman needs" Kelechi Okafor"A deeply moving love letter to all our curls" Fola Evans-Akingbola"More than a hair manual - it''s a mindset shift" Zeze MillzAt fourteen years old, Paige Lewin begged her mum for her first relaxer, convinced that straight hair was her ticket to beauty and acceptance. But what followed were years of damage, frustration, and a deep disconnect from her natural texture. Wigs, weaves, and chemical treatments became her armour — until she finally realised she was hiding from her true self.Now, as the host of Texture Talks, Paige has not only reclaimed her Afro hair but uncovered the deeper truths about self-worth, identity, and healing. How to Love Your Afro is more than a hair care guide—it’s a journey to unlearning mistruths and embracing your authentic self.With expert insights from integrative psychotherapist Tasha Bailey, dermatologist Dr. Yvonne Abimbola, and colour and curl specialist for Revlon Professional, Rio Agor Watts, this book offers a holistic approach to natural hair, addressing both the emotional and practical challenges.Inside, you’ll learn:- How language and mindset shape your relationship with your hair- Actionable advice on self-acceptance and how to break free from Eurocentric beauty standards- The best products, tools, and techniques to nourish your Afro- The crucial link between hair health and diet and nutrition- The importance of partnering with professionals, including dermatologists and trichologists on your journey- And how to turn your hair care into self careIf you’ve ever struggled to love your curls, felt lost in a sea of products, or wondered if your natural hair was “enough,” this book is your guide. No matter where you are on your journey, How to Love Your Afro is your holistic, natural hair care companion to help you along the way.