Profile Books strana 11 z 27

America's political system isn't broken. The truth is scarier: it's working exactly as designed. In Why We're Polarized, Ezra Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America's deep political divisions, revealing how a system filled with rational, functional parts can combine into a dysfunctional whole. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump's rise to the Democratic Party's leftward shift to the politicisation of everyday culture. Klein shows how and why American politics polarised in the twentieth century, what that polarisation did to Americans' views of the world and one another, and how feedback loops between polarised political identities and polarised political institutions drive the system toward crisis. This revelatory book will change how you look at politics, and perhaps at yourself.

THE GRAPHIC NOVEL BY AWARD-WINNING CRIME WRITER VAL MCDERMID AND ILLUSTRATOR KATHRYN BRIGGS 'One of today's most accomplished crime writers' Literary Review It's the summer solstice weekend, and 150,000 people descend on a farm in the northeast of England for an open-air music festival. At first, a spot of rain seems to be the only thing dampening the fun - until a mystery bug appears. Before long, the illness is spreading at an electrifying speed and seems resistant to all antibiotics. Can journalist Zoe Meadows track the outbreak to its source, and will a cure be found before the disease becomes a pandemic? A heart-racing thriller, Resistance imagines a nightmare pandemic that seems only too credible in the wake of COVID-19. Number one bestseller and queen of crime Val McDermid has teamed up with illustrator Kathryn Briggs to create a masterful graphic novel.

IT WAS THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME: PROTECT HER Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his new wife, Hannah: protect her. Hannah knows exactly who Owen needs her to protect - his sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. And who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As her increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, his boss is arrested for fraud and the police start questioning her, Hannah realises that her husband isn't who he said he was. And that Bailey might hold the key to discovering Owen's true identity, and why he disappeared. Together they set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen's past, they soon realise that their lives will never be the same again... SOON TO BE A MAJOR TV SERIES STARRING JULIA ROBERTS, FROM THE MAKERS OF BIG LITTLE LIES 'The ultimate page turner. There's so much to love about this roller coaster of a novel' - REESE WITHERSPOON 'A master storyteller. Gripping, big-hearted and twisty' - GREER HENDRICKS 'Powerful, intense and beautifully observed. A thriller with real heart' - T.M. LOGAN

'It's a little book of wonder, it's fantastic' Chris Evans 'A fabulously sparky, wide-ranging and horizon-broadening little study ... joyously unboring' Sunday Times Friends do it, strangers do it and so do chimpanzees - and it's not just deeply embedded in our history and culture, it may even be written in our DNA. The humble handshake, it turns out, has a rich and surprising history. So let's join palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi as she embarks on a funny and fascinating voyage of discovery - from the handshake's origins (at least seven million years ago) all the way to its sudden disappearance in March 2020. Drawing on new research, anthropological insights and first-hand experience, she'll reveal how this most friendly of gestures has played a role in everything from meetings with uncontacted tribes to political assassinations - and what it tells us about the enduring power of human contact. Because the story of the handshake ... is far from over.

Did you know that walking can improve your cognitive skills? That strengthening your muscular core reduces anxiety? That light stretching can combat a whole host of mental and bodily ailments, from stress to inflammation? We all know that exercise changes the way you think and feel. But scientists are just starting to discover exactly how it works. In Move!, Caroline Williams explores the emerging science of how movement opens up a hotline to our minds. Interviewing researchers and practitioners around the world, she reveals how you can work your body to improve your mind. As lockdown throws us back on our own mental and physical resources, there is no better time to take control of how you think and feel.

What would make a society drain its public swimming baths and fill them with concrete rather than opening them to everyone? Economics researcher Heather McGhee sets out across America to learn why white voters so often act against their own interests. Why do they block changes that would help them, and even destroy their own advantages, whenever people of colour also stand to benefit? Their tragedy is that they believe they can't win unless somebody else loses. But this is a lie. McGhee marshals overwhelming economic evidence, and a profound well of empathy, to reveal the surprising truth: even racists lose out under white supremacy. And US racism is everybody's problem. As McGhee shows, it was bigoted lending policies that laid the ground for the 2008 financial crisis. There can be little prospect of tackling global climate change until America's zero-sum delusions are defeated. The Sum of Us offers a priceless insight into the workings of prejudice, and a timely invitation to solidarity among all humans, 'to piece together a new story of who we could be to one another'.

Though we might not realise it, our collective memory of the twentieth century was defined by the poets who lived and wrote in it. At every significant turning point we find them, pen in hand, fingers poised at the typewriter, ready to distil the essence of the moment, from the muddy wastes of the Western front to the vast reckoning that came with the end of empire. This is the first and only history of twentieth century poetry, by the acclaimed poet, author and academic John Burnside. Bringing together poets from times and places as diverse as Tsarist Russia, 1960's America and Ireland at the height of the Troubles, The Music of Time reveals how poets engaged with and shaped the most important issues of their times - and were in their turn affected by their context and dialogue with each other. This is a major work of scholarship, that on every page bears witness to the transformative beauty and power of poetry.

A pioneering and revolutionary book that lays the foundation for a radical new psychology, based on an expanded cartography of the human unconsciousness. Famous for his lifelong research into psychedelic drugs, Dr. Grof constructs a comprehensive and helpful framework out of the broad range of experiences triggered by LSD in patients and research subjects. Current research into the brain and ways of expanding consciousness give this seminal book, first published in 1979, new importance for the light it throws on many fundamental, but hitherto mysterious, human potentialities. Grof's theory of the human psyche transcends the personal and opens ways to a greater understanding of our inner selves.

Oscar Wilde said, 'Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.' Was he right? In Cult of Progress, David Olusoga travels the world to piece together the shared histories that link nations. We discover what happened to art in the great Age of Discovery, when civilisations encountered each other for the first time. Although undoubtedly a period of conquest and destruction, it was also one of mutual curiosity, global trade and the exchange of ideas. A few hundred years on, we see how the Industrial Revolution transformed the world, impacting every corner and every civilisation from the cotton mills of the Midlands to Napoleon's conquest of Egypt, the decimation of both Native American and Maori populations, and the advent of photography in Paris in 1839. Incredible art - both looted and created - relays the key events and their outcomes throughout the world.

What if the ancient Greeks were right, and the universe really did spring into being out of chaos and the void? How could we know? And what must its first moments have been like? To answer these questions, scientists are delving into all the hidden crevices of creation. Armed with giant telescopes and powerful particle accelerators, they probe the subtle mechanisms by which our familiar world came to be, and try to foretell the manner in which it will end. The result of all this collective effort is a complex tale, stranger at times than even our most ancient creation myths. Yet its building blocks give us the power to work marvels our predecessors could scarcely comprehend. In Genesis, the CERN physicist and bestselling author Guido Tonelli does poetic justice to that great story, the accomplishment of countless minds working together across the ages.

The UK has declared a 'climate emergency' and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050. So how do we get there? Drawing on actions, policies and technologies already emerging around the world, Chris Goodall sets out the ways to achieve this. His proposals include: -Building a huge over-capacity of wind and solar energy, storing the excess as hydrogen. -Using hydrogen to fuel our trains, shipping, boilers and heavy industry, while electrifying buses, trucks and cars. -Farming - and eating - differently, encouraging plant-based alternatives to meat -paying farmers to plant and maintain woodlands. -Making fashion sustainable and aviation pay its way, funding synthetic fuels and genuine offsets. -Using technical solutions to capture CO2 from the air, and biochar to lock carbon in the soil. What We Need To Do Now is an urgent, practical and inspiring book that signals a green new deal for Britain.

A six week Artist's Way Programme from legendary author Julia Cameron From the bestselling author of The Artist's Way comes a new, transformative guide to deeper, more profound listening and creativity. Over six weeks, readers will be given the tools to become better listeners-to their environment, the people around them, and themselves. The reward for learning to truly listen is immense. As we learn to listen, our attention is heightened and we gain healing, insight, clarity. But above all, listening creates connections and ignites a creativity that will resonate through every aspect of our lives. Each week, readers will be challenged to expand their ability to listen in a new way, beginning by listening to their environment and culminating in learning to listen to silence. These weekly practices open up a new world of connection and fulfilment. The Listening Path is a deeply necessary reminder of the power of truly hearing. In a time of unnecessary noise, listening is the artist's way forward.

There are 17 ingredients in a typical tube of toothpaste, from titanium dioxide to xanthum gum, and that's not counting the tube. Everything had to come from somewhere and someone had to bring it all together. The humblest household product reveals a web of enterprise that stretches around the globe. More is the story of how we spun that web. It begins with the earliest glimmerings of long-distance trade - obsidian blades that made their way from what is now Turkey to the Iran-Iraq border 7,000 years before Christ - and ends with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. On such a grand scale, quirks of historical perspective leap out: futures contracts and commercial branding are among the many seemingly modern components of the global economy have existed since ancient times. Yet it was only in the 18th century that a cascade of innovations began to drive up prosperity in a lasting way around the world. To piece this fascinating saga together, Philip Coggan takes the reader inside medieval cottages and hi-tech hydroponic farms, prehistoric Chinese burial mounds and modern central banks. At every step of our journey, he finds that it was connections between people that created our wealth. Will the same openness continue to serve us in the 21st century?

Turn your barriers into a routemap for success. This ground-breaking book exposes the myths behind startup success, illuminates the real forces at work and shows how they can be harnessed in your favour. The world isn't a level playing field. Meritocracy is a myth. And if you look at those at the top, you realise that behind every success story is an Unfair Advantage. But that doesn't just mean your parents' wealth or who you know. An Unfair Advantage is any element that gives you an edge over your competition. And we all have one. Drawing on over two decades of hands-on experience, including as the first Marketing Director of Just Eat (a startup now worth over GBP5 billion), the authors show how to identify your own unfair advantages and apply them to any project. Hard work and grit aren't enough, so they explore the importance of money, intelligence, insight, location, education, expertise, status and luck in the journey to success. From Snapchat to Spanx, Oprah to Elon Musk, unfair advantages have shaped the journeys of some of the most successful brands in the world. This book helps you too find the external circumstances and internal strengths to succeed in the world of business and beyond.

Since its first publication, The Artist's Way has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert, Tim Ferriss, Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron guides readers in uncovering problems and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to open up opportunities for growth and self-discovery. A revolutionary programme for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.

Throughout history, there has been one quality that great leaders, makers, artists and fighters have shared. The Zen Buddhists described it as inner peace, the Stoics called it ataraxia and Ryan Holiday calls it stillness: the ability to be steady, focused and calm in a constantly busy world. Drawing on a wide range of history's greatest thinkers, Holiday shows us how crucial stillness is, and how it can be cultivated in our own lives today. Just as Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey and baseball player Sadaharu Oh have done, we can all benefit from stillness to feed into our greater ambitions - whether building a business or simply finding happiness, peace and self-direction. Stillness is the key to the self-mastery, discipline and focus necessary to succeed in this competitive, noisy world.