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"A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism". Published in 1848, at a time of political upheaval in Europe, Karl Marx and Frederik Engels' Manifesto for the Communist Party was at once a powerful critique of capitalism and a radical call to arms. It remains the most incisive introduction to the ideas of Communism and the most lucid explanation of its aims. Much of what Marx and Engels' proposed - a state education system, a progressive income tax, the nationalisation of banks - would continue to be at the heart of political debate into the 21st century. It is no surprise, perhaps, that The Communist Manifesto (as it was later renamed) is the second best-selling book of all time, surpassed only by The Bible.The Guardian's editorial cartoonist Martin Rowson employs his trademark draughtsmanship and wit to this lively graphic novel adaptation of Marx and Engels' revolutionary pamphlet. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, at a time of deep mistrust in The Establishment, The Communist Manifesto is both a timely reminder of the politics of hope and a thought-provoking guide to the most influential work of political theory ever published.

In Providence, Rhode Island, a dangerous inmate disappears from a hospital for the insane. At Miskatonic University, a professor slumps into a five-year reverie. In a mysterious and vivid dreamworld, a melancholy man seeks the home of the gods. And in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica, polar explorers unearth secrets that reveal a past almost beyond comprehension-and a future too terrible to imagine. Graphic novelist I.N.J. Culbard gives terrifying form to four classic tales by H.P. Lovecraft: "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," "At The Mountains of Madness," and "The Shadow Out of Time." Expertly adapted and beautifully drawn, Culbard's lean and thrilling adaptations breathe new life into four stories that helped to reinvent the horror genre.

The dazzling, provocative work of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) would come to define the vibrant New York art scene of the late '70s and early '80s. Punk, jazz, graffiti, hip-hop: his work drew heavily on the cultural trappings of lower Manhattan, to which he fled-from Brooklyn-at the age of 15. This stunning graphic novel captures the dramatic life and exhilarating times of this archetypal New York artist, covering everything from the SAMO graffiti project to his first solo show, from his relationship with Andy Warhol to the substance abuse that would cost him his life. Today, Basquiat's influence can be seen not only in fine art but in fashion, design, and music. Now, for the first time, his remarkable story is told in graphic novel form. This playful, authoritative biography shows Basquiat's work to be more important, his themes more urgent, than ever before.

Ulysses is a 59-year-old widower who, since retiring, has been in the grip of loneliness. The former moving man is without direction or purpose. He can't even find solace in the company of his children: his daughter is dead, his son consumed by work. Mrs. Solenza is a 62-year-old former model. Once a magazine cover star, she now runs the family business: a cheese shop owned by her late mother. She, too, is alone. Two lives drift sadly by, inching ever closer to old age. Until, one day, they collide-and an emotional earthquake happens. A unique collaboration between veteran comics writer Zidrou and rising star Aimee de Jongh, Blossoms in Autumn is a masterful exploration of growing old and falling in love.

It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you'll see those brightly coloured geometric shapes everywhere. You'll see them in your dreams. Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once this alarmingly addictive game emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega - game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications and outright theft. New York Times bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world's most popular video game.

Hans Holbein's 16th-century masterpiece, The Dance of Death, reminds its readers that no one, no matter their rank or position, can escape the great leveller, Death. In a foreboding series of woodcuts, Death, depicted as a skeleton, intrudes on the lives of people from every level of society, from the sailor to the judge, the ploughman to the king. By highlighting our common fate, Holbein exposes the folly of greed and ambition, and in doing so brings a corrupt and callous elite crashing back down to earth. In this darkly satirical update, Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson sharpens and reshapes Holbein's vision for the 21st century. Death seizes the City banker by his braces and offers a light to the oligarch; it joins the surgeon in theatre and the Hollywood star on the red carpet. Filled with wit and doom-laden drama, Martin Rowson's The Dance of Death is a masterful reimagining of a book which, in its uncompromising treatment of the rich and powerful, paved the way for the great, levelling craft of political cartooning.

Some heavy reading on the ecological and climate emergency leads Cedric, a forty-something painter living in Paris, to question his life choices. In a state of vulnerability, racked with eco-anxiety, he is contacted by the spirit of Henry David Thoreau: writer, environmentalist and the author of Walden. Two centuries separate Cedric from the author who, depressed by the narrow materialism of industrialised America, retreated to a single-room cabin in the woods by Walden Pond. But as their Socratic dialogue continues, Cedric notices striking parallels between the suffocating commercialism of mid-19th-century America and the unsustainable, alienating, tech-driven consumerism of today. Both societies are shaped by a single priority - economic growth - that not only squanders the earth's resources but separates human beings from nature. Inspired by Thoreau's return to nature, Cedric begins dreaming of his own retreat from urban life: his own self-sufficient cabin in the woods. In Thoreau and Me, Cedric Taling explores the causes and consequences of today's climate emergency. Blending humour, philosophy and fiction, Taling asks how, at a time of unprecedented ecological and climate breakdown, we can learn to live with and respond to eco-anxiety.

In the Middle Ages, surgery was performed by barbers, owing to their skill with sharp instruments. In the mid-19th century, a "grand exhibition" of the effects of laughing gas inadvertently led to the discovery of anaesthesia. Three decades later, Louis Pasteur enjoyed a crucial breakthrough in his search for vaccinations because his assistant decided, against his orders, to take a vacation. In Medicine: A Graphic History, surgeon and professor of medical history Jean-Noel Fabiani stitches together the most significant and intriguing episodes from the history of medicine, from chance breakthroughs to hard-fought scientific discoveries. Spanning centuries and crossing continents, this fast-paced and yet rigorously detailed graphic novel guides us through one of the most wondrous strands of human history, covering everything from blood-letting to organ donation, x-rays to prosthetics.

"Reinhard Kleist, master graphic novelist and myth-maker has - yet again - blown apart the conventions of the graphic novel by concocting a terrifying conflation of Cave songs, biographical half-truths and complete fabulations and creating a complex, chilling and completely bizarre journey into Cave World. Closer to the truth than any biography, that's for sure! But for the record, I never killed Elisa Day." - Nick Cave Musician, novelist, poet, actor: Nick Cave is a Renaissance man. His wide-ranging artistic output always uncompromising, hypnotic and intense is defined by an extraordinary gift for storytelling. Employing a cast of characters drawn from Cave's music and writing, Reinhard Kleist's graphic novel, Nick Cave: Mercy On Me, paints an expressive and enthralling portrait of a formidable artist and influencer. Kleist captures Cave's childhood in Australia; his early years fronting The Birthday Party; the sublime highs of his success with The Bad Seeds; and the struggles he encountered along the way to self expression. Nick Cave: Mercy on Me, like Cave's songs, is by turns electrifying, sentimental, morbid and comic but always engrossing.

The history of wine is the history of civilisation. It is the religious drink par excellence. In Greek mythology, references to wine abound. In the Bible, after the Flood, Noah plants a vineyard. In the Middle Ages, it was in the monasteries and churches that the syrupy drink of antiquity, unpalatable if not diluted, was transformed into the wine we know today. Wine expert Benoist Simmat and artist Daniel Casanave trace the story of wine from its origins in the Mediterranean to the globalised industry of the 21st century. Taking in the innovations that have punctuated wine's long history, from oak barrel aging to the invention of the bottle, Wine: A Graphic History will leave readers with a fresh view of our own drinking culture.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists tells the story of a group of working men in the fictional town of Mugsborough, and socialist journeyman-prophet Frank Owen who attempts to convince his fellow workers that capitalism is the real source of the poverty all around them. Owen's spirited attacks on the greed and dishonesty of the capitalist system, and support for a socialist society in which work is performed to satisfy the needs of all, rather than to generate profit for a few, eventually rouses his fellow men from their political passivity. Described by George Orwell as a piece of social history and a book that everyone should read, Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is often cited as one of the most authentic novels of English working class life ever written. In this faithful graphic adaptation, creators Scarlett and Sophie Rickard craft a compelling fiction that paints a comprehensive picture of social, political, economic and cultural life in early 20th Century Britain that is still acutely relevant today.

Bunuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles depicts a decisive moment in the life of the great Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel: the moment when he doubted surrealism and contemplated embracing a more social type of cinema. At this crucial turning point in his career, he wanted to change the world by showing the hidden heart of reality. Bunuel was deeply affected by the harshness of Las Hurdes and the extreme misery of the people who live in this remote region, so with his friend, the movie producer Ramon Acin, he began work on the pseudo-documentary Land Without Bread. But in the mind of the great surrealist, reality inevitably clashed with dreams and childhood memories, threatening both the film and his friendship with Acin. It is at this moment that the Bunuel of the future was born.

George Orwell's most celebrated work, 1984, and the prescient vision it contains of a society governed by Big Brother predates the constant monitoring of people and data we are familiar with today by almost 70 years. But his life was every bit as fascinating and forward-looking as his books. Orwell studied at Eton, joined the police in Burma, fought in the Spanish Civil War, fiercely opposed Stalinism, and lived in London's slums while working as a journalist. With extra illustrations by a team of artists including Annie Goetzinger, Juanjo Guarnido, Enki Bilal, Manu Larcenet, Blutch, and Andre Juillard, Pierre Christin and Sebastian Verdier's Orwell offers readers an intimate yet definitive portrait of our greatest political writer.

In 1909, while on a fundraising lecture tour in America, Sigmund Freud met Horace Frink, an early disciple of his theories of psychoanalysis, whose traumatic childhood and complicated personal life came to cast a dark shadow over Freud's professional career. Inspired by this little-known and tragic true story, artist Lionel Richerand and philosopher Pierre Peju have woven a spellbinding and thought-provoking fable of two divorces, three deaths, and a menage a quatre.

Emil Zatopek is arguably the greatest Olympic champion of all time. The Czech runner's three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics, for the 5,000 meter, 10,000 meter, and marathon is an achievement that has never been matched. His success as a runner made him a national hero, but as a public figure, outspoken and unafraid to take a stand, he was equally impressive. Even before the Helsinki Games, Zatopek had scored a remarkable victory, successfully pressuring the Communist regime to allow his colleague Stanislav Jungwirth, who until then had been excluded on political grounds, to compete. In Zatopek, Jan Novak and Jaromir 99 trace the extraordinary life and times of the great Olympian, from his first meeting with Dana, the love of his life, to the victories that would ensure his lasting legacy.