Profile Books strana 22 z 27

Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy has defined how people imagine and depict heaven and hell for over 700 years. However, outside of Italy, his other works are not well-known, and less still is generally known about the context he wrote them in. In Dante, Barbero brings the legendary author's Italy to life, describing the political intrigue, battles, city and society that shaped his life and work.

'Delivers mind-expanding revelation and glorious originality and colour ... This is my book of the year' Patrick Barkham, author of The Butterfly Isles What kind of creature is a human? If we don't know what we are, how can we know how to act? In Being a Human Charles Foster sets out to understand what a human is, inhabiting the sensory worlds of humans at three pivotal moments in our history. Foster begins his quest in a wood in Derbyshire with his son, shivering, starving and hunting, trying to find a way of experiencing the world that recognises the deep expanse of time when we understood ourselves as hunter-gatherers, indivisible from the non-human world, and when modern consciousness was first ignited. From there he travels to the Neolithic, when we tamed animals, plants and ourselves, to a way of being defined by walls, fences, farms, sky gods and slaughterhouses, and finally to the rarefied world of the Enlightenment, when we decided that the universe was a machine and we were soulless cogs within it.

The blistering non-fiction debut from the author of the critically acclaimed A Girl is a Half-formed Thing 'A fearless, interrogative work that speaks so much to structural inequality and misogyny. A fierce and fascinating manifesto in McBride's persuasive prose' Sinead Gleeson Here, Eimear McBride unpicks the contradictory forces of disgust and objectification that control and shame women. From playground taunts of 'only sluts do it' but 'virgins are frigid', to ladette culture, and the arrival of 'ironic' porn, via Debbie Harry, the Kardashians and the Catholic church - she looks at how this prejudicial messaging has played out in the past, and still surrounds us today. In this subversive essay, McBride asks - are women still damned if we do, damned if we don't? How can we give our daughters (and sons) the unbounded futures we want for them? And, in this moment of global crisis, might our gift for juggling contradiction help us to find a way forward? 'Eimear McBride is that old fashioned thing, a genius' Guardian

As plants see it, humans are not the masters of the Earth but only one of its most unpleasant and irksome residents. They have been on the planet for only about 300,000 years ago (nothing compared to the three billon years of plant evolution), yet have changed the conditions of the planet so drastically as to make it a dangerous place for their own survival. It's time for the plants to offer advice. In this playful, philosophical manifesto, Stefano Mancuso, expert on plant intelligence, presents a new constitution on which to build our future as beings respectful of the Earth and its inhabitants. These eight articles - the fundamental pillars on which plant life is based - must henceforth regulate all living beings.

Starting not with the United States, but with the Corsican constitution of 1755, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen moves through every continent, disrupting accepted narratives. Both monarchs and radicals play a role, from Catherine the Great of Russia, with her remarkable Nakaz, to Sierra Leone's James Africanus Horton, to Tunisia's Khayr-al-Din, a creator of the first modern Islamic constitution. Throughout, Colley demonstrates how constitutions evolved in tandem with warfare, and how they have functioned to advance empire as well as promote nations, and worked to exclude as well as liberate. Whether reinterpreting Japan's momentous 1889 constitution, or exploring the significance of the first constitution to enfranchise all adult women on Pitcairn Island in the Pacific in 1838, this is one of the most original global histories in decades.

In a town full of secrets... Someone was murdered. Someone went to prison. And everyone's a suspect. Can you uncover the truth? Dear Reader - enclosed are all the documents you need to solve a case. It starts with the arrival of two mysterious newcomers to the small town of Lockwood, and ends with a tragic death. Someone has already been convicted of this brutal murder and is currently in prison, but we suspect they are innocent. What's more, we believe far darker secrets have yet to be revealed. Throughout the Fairway Players' staging of All My Sons and the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick's life-saving medical treatment, the murderer hid in plain sight. Yet we believe they gave themselves away. In writing. The evidence is all here, between the lines, waiting to be discovered. Will you accept the challenge? Can you uncover the truth? The standout debut thriller of 2021 that delivers multiple brilliant twists, and will change the way you think about the modern crime novel. 'A daring debut... Hallett will soon have you laughing out loud' - THE TIMES 'A brilliantly fresh, ingenious and original whodunnit. So, so good' - INDIA KNIGHT 'Extremely addictive, it will reel you in, one piece of evidence at a time' - ALEX PAVESI 'Takes the whodunnit to a whole new level. A rare feat' - ELIZABETH HAYNES 'Fiendishly clever and totally gripping' - CASS GREEN 'A cracking book. Fresh, original and very clever' - MEL SHERRATT

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook accompanies the world's most widely used drawing instruction book by Betty Edwards. This workbook reinforces the five basic skills of drawing and includes: - 40 exercises to practice your drawing abilities - A range of subject matters from portrait drawing and still life, to landscapes and imaginative drawing - Advice for a variety of mediums such as pen and ink, charcoal and graphite - A pull-out viewfinder tool The original Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain helps artists to nurture the creative right side of the brain, dramatically improving your ability to draw, whether you are a professional, an artist in training or someone who draws for a hobby. This workbook will help you practise that knowledge with success at every step.

In twenty years behind the till in The Bookshop, Wigtown, Shaun Bythell has met pretty much every kind of customer there is - from the charming, erudite and deep-pocketed to the eccentric, flatulent and possibly larcenous. In Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops he distils the essence of his experience into a warm, witty and quirky taxonomy of the book-loving public. So, step inside to meet the crafty Antiquarian, the shy and retiring Erotica Browser and gormless yet strangely likeable shop assistant Student Hugo - along with much loved bookseller favourites like the passionate Sci-Fi Fan, the voracious Railway Collector and the ever-elusive Perfect Customer.

In 1945, Europe lay in ruins - its cities and towns destroyed by conflict, its economies crippled, its societies ripped apart by war and violence. In the years that followed, Europeans tried to make sense of what had happened - and to forge a new understanding of civilisation that would bring peace and progress to a broken continent. As they wrestled with questions great and small - from the legacy of colonialism to workplace etiquette - institutions and shared ideals emerged which still shape our world today. Drawing on original sources as well as individual stories and voices, this is a gripping and authoritative account of how Europe rebuilt itself - and what we, in the twenty-first century, could lose again.

In the darkening embers of a Communist utopia, life in a desolate Hungarian town has come to a virtual standstill. Flies buzz, spiders weave, water drips and animals root desultorily in the barnyard of a collective farm. But when the charismatic Irimias - long-thought dead - returns, the villagers fall under his spell. Irimias sets about swindling the villagers out of a fortune that might allow them to escape the emptiness and futility of their existence. He soon attains a messianic aura as he plays on the fears of the townsfolk and a series of increasingly brutal events unfold.

"Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?" Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don't understand what a shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices.

'One of the most important books I've read this year. How Are We Going To Explain This? is a crystal clear treatise on where we are, and what we need to do right now. Especially recommended for those who feel hopeless.' Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for Realists 'At a time when despair, malign fabrication and partisanship are combining to prevent vital action, How Are We Going To Explain This is a much-needed, joyful, clear and practical companion. Read this - it could save your planet. Give it to your friends and colleagues - it's their planet, too.' A.L. Kennedy 'Shines a light on the path forward with clarity and determination.' Christiana Figueres Architect of the Paris climate agreement, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 2010-2016 'As more of humanity adjusts to living with crises - we need books like this, which tell us what we can do - from small steps to big ones - to find our way to a new normal.' May Boeve, Executive Director 350.org and 350 Action Fund THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'There's a new story in the making, one in which the consequences of our actions add up - and every contribution is meaningful.' If climate change is the biggest threat humanity has ever faced, then why are we doing so little? Will the corona pandemic make it worse or better? And where do we go from here? Drawing on the latest climate science, Jelmer Mommers helps you find hope in the midst of the climate crisis. He describes how we got here, what possible futures await us, and how you can help to truly make a difference. 'As a journalist, Jelmer Mommers has broken important stories about how we got in our current climate mess; as a thinker, he shows us there may still be some ways out, if we move with grace and speed. A fine account of where we stand, and where we could go if we wanted to!' Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist, activist and founder of 350.org 'Climate change is a story so often told in the future tense. But Mommers roots it firmly in the present. The problem, the consequences and the solution - right here, right now.' Leo Hickman, editor of Carbon Brief

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.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the 'why' of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. The book argues that human civilisation is a defence against the knowledge that we are mortal beings. Becker states that humans live in both the physical world and a symbolic world of meaning, which is where our 'immortality project' resides. We create in order to become immortal - to become part of something we believe will last forever. In this way we hope to give our lives meaning. In The Denial of Death, Becker sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates decades after it was written.

What is the shape of a life? Is it the things that happen to us? Or is it the stories we tell about the things that happen to us? From the coast of the Adriatic to the salt spray of Santa Barbara, the narrator of Topics of Conversation maps out her life through two decades of bad relationships, motherhood, crisis and consolation. The novel unfurls through a series of conversations - in private with friends, late at night at parties with acquaintances, with strangers in hotel rooms, in moments of revelation, shame, cynicism, envy and intimacy. Sizzling with enigmatic desire, Miranda Popkey's debut novel is a seductive exploration of life as a woman in the modern world, of the stories we tell ourselves and of the things we reveal only to strangers. 'A pleasingly unsentimental novel about attraction and repulsion and the fluid line between the two. Popkey writes about these emotional eddies with such thrilling detachment you'll wonder why you ever worried about love at all.' Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

The world is not a level playing field, but no matter where you are starting from, you already have what it takes to stand out: your Unfair Advantage We all have multiple unfair advantages in life, whether we happen to be quick, have a talent for maths, a great feel for people or even a large inheritance. An unfair advantage is simply the element that gives you an edge over your competition. This innovative book shows how to identify your own unfair advantages and apply them to any project. Drawing on over two decades of hands-on experience, including as the first Marketing Director of Just Eat (a startup now worth over GBP4 billion), the authors offer a unique framework for assessing your external circumstances in addition to your internal strengths. Hard work and grit aren't enough in a world where the odds are stacked against you, so this book explores the importance of money, intelligence, location, education, expertise, status and luck in the journey to success. From starting your company, to gaining traction, raising funds and growth hacking, The Unfair Advantage helps you look at yourself and find the ingredients you didn't realise you already had, to succeed in the cut-throat world of business.