Penguin Books strana 6 z 485

In the two hundred and fifty years since its foundation, the United States of America has grown to become the world's richest and most powerful union. How did this new nation come to dominate global culture, economics, politics and warfare? Informed by years of close observation, bestselling author Simon Jenkins follows the extraordinary journey of America from before independence through revolution to Civil War, its emergence onto the international stage and the turbulence of the present day. We meet its most notable Presidents and see its most formative moments in a colourful and pacey narrative of a country often in turmoil, yet one that remains to many a land of freedom and a citadel of democracy with a story to inspire. This is an essential read for anyone who seeks to understand the country that continues to shape our world.

From the initial spark of attraction when your eyes first meet, to spontaneously dancing together in the kitchen and falling asleep side by side - how do we create those intimate moments of connection? How we see sex and intimacy portrayed on screen has profound effects on how we learn to love each other, but before Ita O'Brien, no-one was thinking about it. After a lifetime of working in film and TV and seeing its abuses first-hand, Ita decided to change how we portray intimacy for good. Now, as Intimacy Coordinator on productions including Normal People, Sex Education and I May Destroy You, Ita has transformed the way we see and talk about sex in pop-culture. Here, Ita guides us through how she helps actors create authentic sex scenes, and how we can use those techniques to rebuild a deeper and healthier connection with our bodies, create a safe space for exploration, and rethink how we navigate sex and intimacy in our own lives - at home, in our closest relationships - and in society as a whole. Full of behind-the-scenes stories from her work on set, Intimacy is a call for us to rethink how we navigate ourselves and each other, not just through our words, but through our bodies and actions, too.

The stunning follow-up to HEIR OF STORMS - an epic new YA romantasy series for fans of TWIN CROWNS, Stephanie Garber and THE HUNGER GAMES. Having survived three treacherous trials to win her crown, Blaze is soon to be Queen of the Aquatori. But first she must find the Eye of the Soul before King Balen, the usurper to the throne, claims its power for himself. Her journey will take her deep into the Wildlands and into a temporary alliance with the infuriating but undeniably compelling Fox. She can't help but feel drawn to him . . . but can she trust him? Fortune favours the brave but will it favour the Stormweaver on her most dangerous mission yet?

An American football star and a die-hard fan make an unforgettable match in this new laugh-out-loud rom-com from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lynn Painter. Will this fake date become their first-and forever-win? Duffy loves three things: her dad, her cat, and Minneapolis Coyotes football. So she's devastated to become public enemy number one after shoving the team's mascot away for getting too flirty. To clear her name, Duffy agrees to a live interview - only to discover she is sharing the screen with star player, Connor Cunningham. . . Connor thought he was coming on TV to read a statement, not argue with a fan. But when their fiery banter leaves viewers obsessed, Connor's PR team spots an opportunity, and encourages Conor to ask Duffy out. The catch? She can't know it's not the real deal. Different kinds of sparks soon fly between them. But Connor can't keep his secret forever. And if he drops the ball this time, he'll have lost more than just a game. . .

The master storyteller - author of The Day of the Jackal - returns, with his most explosive thriller yet. The Nazis were never defeated. They were just biding their time... Summer, 2025. A US senator is burned to death in his Washington townhouse. Masked gunmen massacre supporters during a football match in Berlin. And an old man is murdered while he sleeps in the dementia ward of a German hospital. Three apparently unconnected events, three steps on the countdown to apocalypse. When journalist and podcaster Georg Miller starts joining the dots between them, he finds himself the target of professional killers. His investigation soon reveals that his would-be assassins are from an organisation known as the Odessa, a menacing and powerful Nazi group intent on regaining power. The Odessa has spread its poison from a covert compound in the Bavarian countryside all the way to the halls of the American Capitol. And now, as their campaign to destabilise the Western political system accelerates, Georg must stop the next attack, before it changes the course of history…

From bestselling author John Boyne comes a gripping and profound exploration of responsibility, guilt, blame, trauma and our capacity for redemption. The Elements is a stunning kaleidoscope of storytelling, in which four interconnected lives, each representing a different perspective on crime from the points of view of the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim, combine to form one transformative narrative. Boyne's most ambitious work yet, The Elements is both an engrossing drama and a moving examination of why and how we allow crime to occur. In masterful, spellbinding prose, he navigates this complex subject with extraordinary empathy and unflinching honesty, at every step challenging us to confront our own conceptions of guilt and innocence.

The profound, hugely influential exploration of spiritual growth and transformation, from one of the great Spanish mystics and poets 'Oh living flame of love, how tenderly you scorch me' The poetry of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, St John of the Cross, has inspired and consoled for hundreds of years, influencing writers from James Joyce to Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill to T. S. Eliot. This new edition of his essential works, in a sensitive and luminous translation by Martha Sprackland, gathers John of the Cross's complete poems and a selection of his prose, including from his extended commentary on the poem 'Dark Night'. In his immediate, sensual writing, we see a soul searching for meaning and union with the divine: both meek and bold, deserving and undeserving, oscillating between light and dark, soaring and falling, desperation and salvation. Dark Night gives us a picture of faith at once confronting and inspiriting, and of the power of words as a means of spiritual transcendence. Translated by Martha Sprackland, with an Introduction by Colin Thompson

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town, barely scraping a living from their taxidermy shop. But their mother has secretly accrued enormous debt – and the only way out is to offer her daughter up to be a sacrifice for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination event: the Lamb’s Gauntlet. Melinoë is the assassin chosen for this spectacle. The product of years of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she’s a living weapon, famous for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. But she’s also haunted by her failure in the last gauntlet, when she broke down live on screen. But as Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, each determined to claim victory, they begin to question what they’ve been taught. Could there be more to life than survival? Could they be capable of more than death? Could they, against all the odds, be falling in love?

Nestling at the bottom of a five-storey apartment block is the children's playground, Hinode Park. If you look to the side, standing on stubby legs, is a hippo. Its upturned eyes give it a teary look, yet for decades, its quiet power has sustained the hearts of one community. Meet the neighbours who will reach out to kabahiko hippo: -Kanato presses his head to the hippo's cheek, hoping to recover the stellar marks he once scored; - Sawa, a lonely new mother, strokes its mouth, hopes to connect as she once did when she was an award-winning retail assistant; - Chiharu, a wedding-planner, hopes to be able to listen for the happiness of others; - Yuya avoids sports day with a fake injury, only to find he really is in pain. - despite Kazuhiko's fading eyes from too much editorial work, he will learn to see life's everyday wonders. A quietly powerful story of hope, friendship and connection, Michiko Aoyama's beloved bestseller is a celebration of everyday encounters. Its subtle portrayal of the magic of community will lodge itself in every reader's heart.

The hotly-anticipated sequel to the unputdownable gothic contemporary fantasy The Glittering Edge. Return to a world where magic is real, witches make irresistible boyfriends, and keeping secrets is dangerous-but not as dangerous as the truth. With the feuding families of Romeo and Juliet, the dark magic of Krystal Sutherland and a love triangle to rival The Inheritance Games. Penny Emberly didn't expect to fall head over heels for Alonso De Luca last summer-or to discover that he's a witch. Together with their friend Corey Barrion, they managed to save her mother from a deadly spell. Now autumn has arrived, and Penny believes they can take on anything. But darkness is descending on the small town of Idlewood. Corey is desperate to undo the bloody legacy that made his family rich. The price, however, is steep: to unravel the magical bargain made by his grandfather, Corey must take a life. As Corey wrestles with an impossible choice, Alonso begins to change. The more he pushes the limits of his magic, the more volatile, violent, and possessive he becomes. When tragedy strikes one of their classmates, the trio is forced to confront a terrifying question: is Alonso being consumed by something that's bent on the destruction of everyone around him? As supernatural forces drive them apart, Penny, Corey, and Alonso must decide what they're willing to sacrifice before more blood is spilled-even if it means losing each other.

The joyful and life-affirming new novel from the BAFTA-winning co-writer of Gavin and Stacey and the Sunday Times bestselling and Richard and Judy Book Club author of Love Untold. After thirty-three years helping strangers at the council's Unclaimed Heirs Unit, Linda is looking forward to early retirement. But first, one last case: tracking down the relatives of the deceased Levi Norman, a Welshman who spent his final years on a remote Scottish island. As Linda delves into Levi's past, aided (and occasionally thwarted) by the residents of Storrich, she uncovers more than just his story. Bursting with heart and humour, By Your Side is about finding joy in the most unlikely connections, and the importance of holding on to friendship, love and community - especially when life gets messy.

Uncooperative animals, underperforming crops, and rather less than best-laid plans pursued with unbridled enthusiasm. Clarkson's farm is the gift that keeps on giving. But, as one overseas visitor* admitted, he only came to Diddly Squat because he just didn't believe that Jeremy could be so incompetent. Not one to be discouraged, however, our hero decides to bring his misunderstood entrepreneurial flair to bear on a new venture: a pub. And just a few short weeks later, the doors open on The Farmer's Dog. All British produce, Hawkstone beer on tap, a private bar for farmers and a vintage tractor hanging from the ceiling. The perfect country pub. A welcome distraction from sustainable farming initiatives, psychedelic wheat, angry protests in central London and a headbutting goat. What, you may be asking, could possibly go wrong? On top of the lavatories packing up and the electricity running out, you mean? As the Cotwolds' newest publican quickly discovers, there's a lot more to landlording than pulling pints. Just as well, then, that he still has Lisa, Kaleb, Cheerful Charlie and Gerald to help him through. Especially now his doctor's told him he's got to become a vegetablist … *along with the whole of the rest of China, apparently

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2025 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 IN THE Financial Times, Economist, New Statesman, Bloomberg, TIME, Washington Post and The New York Times 'Superb... brings the great drama to life' Martin Wolf, Financial Times From the bestselling author of Too Big to Fail, "the definitive history of the 2008 banking crisis,"* comes a spellbinding narrative of the most infamous stock market crash in history one with ripple effects that still shape our society today In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation. But behind the flashing ticker tapes and panicked traders, another drama unfolded-one of visionaries and fraudsters, titans and dreamers, euphoria and ruin. With unparalleled access to historical records and newly uncovered documents, New York Times bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin takes readers inside the chaos of the crash, behind the scenes of a raging battle between Wall Street and Washington and the larger-than-life characters whose ambition and naivety in an endless boom led to wreckage. The dizzying highs and brutal lows of this era eerily mirror today's world-where markets soar, political tensions mount, and the fight over financial influence plays out once again. This is not just a story about money. 1929 is a tale of power, psychology, and the seductive illusion that "this time is different." It's about disregarded alarm bells, financiers who fell from grace, and skeptics who saw the crash coming-only to be dismissed until it was too late. Hailed as a landmark book, Too Big to Fail reimagined how financial crises are told. Now, with 1929, Sorkin delivers an immersive, electrifying account of the most pivotal market collapse of all time-with lessons that remain as urgent as ever. More than just a history, 1929 is a crucial blueprint for understanding the cycles of speculation, the forces that drive financial upheaval, and the warning signs we ignore at our peril. *The Atlantic Monthly

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1,000-year history, the world's most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight and find themselves thrust into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship. They have come here from all walks of life, but Dora, Beatrice, Otto and Marianne all long to move on from the Great War, whose ghosts, grief, and secrets still feel very real indeed. But Oxford is a place caught between tradition and change, where centuries of misogyny and exclusion clash with the promise of new freedoms. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time under the city's dreaming spires, their friendship will become more important than ever. The Eights is a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination, courage, and what it means to come of age in a world that is forever changed.

The year is 2050. In the teeth of a climate catastrophe, the world is left with a drastic solution: one global leader to steer it through the coming apocalypse. The final two candidates are ex-US President Lockwood, and Solomon, the world’s first political artificial intelligence. As whispers of a global conspiracy emerge, investigative journalist Marcus Tully find himself at the centre of it – when Solomon’s creator turns up murdered. Overnight, one investigation becomes two, and it’s not just the result of the election that’s at stake but the future of the species. Suddenly humanity must make an impossible choice – between salvation, or freedom.

'Trees are not just living things, but feeling beings, like us. Better keep a watchful eye over them…' Ezo spruce, hinoki, cherry blossoms. Persimmon, maple, cypress. The trees of Japan cast a spell on those who visit its landscape. But as a child, writer Aya Koda realized they were more than objects of beauty. Gifted a sapling by her father, she learned that we depend on trees as much as they do on us - and spent a lifetime trying to understand them. Mesmerising and poignant, Tree is written in a Japanese genre called zuihitsu which means 'following the brush'. Here we follow Aya Koda on a journey to discover Japan's most remarkable trees. As she witnesses landslides and forests of falling ash, she encounters fresh saplings and ancient, ungovernable roots, learning how each tree contains its own unique story. Now translated into English for the first time, Koda's work echoes down the generations, reminding us that trees hold a mirror to who we are, and what we leave behind.