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For the first 200,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change. As we reluctantly congregated in the first farms and cities, people began to rely on novel lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. And when more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organization. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires – with vast bureaucracies and militaries – carved up and dominated the globe. What brought them down? Whether in the early cities of Cahokia in North America or Tiwanaku in South America, or the sprawling empires of Egypt, Rome and China, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power that hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population. Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last.

FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR - WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HISHAM MATAR After an assassination attempt and in waning health, Naguib Mahfouz became more cautious in his twilight years. At the same time, in nightly dreams, his imagination began to roam his beloved city, Cairo, with a rare freedom. In this collection of vivid vignettes linked together by the author's precisely rendered nocturnal wanderings through Cairo, figures from Mahfouz's personal life blend with his anxieties about Egypt's political past and future. Each dream is layered with philosophical and spiritual musings, hopes and disappointments. Over the course of the book, they build to a rich and complex picture of Mahfouz's subconscious. A master of both detailed realism and fabulous storytelling' GUARDIAN

Music is what makes us alive, mindful and connected to each other. Music is what makes us human. This is the power of music. Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason knows and feels the transformative power of music as much as any musician alive. From winning the prestigious BBC Young Musician Award to performing at Harry and Meghan’s wedding; from Bach’s solo suites to Bob Marley’s reggae; his ferocious passion shines through in every single performance, whether in a packed-out concert hall or on record. But how was it that someone like him – a person of colour, from a state school in Nottingham – rose to the upper echelons of the classical music world? What were the obstacles that he had to overcome, what did he learn along the way, and how could a young person follow in his footsteps today? In The Power of Music, Sheku explores the experiences and values that led him here, from a childhood of football practice and family music sessions, to his work today in the world’s finest concert halls and in the less privileged communities that surround them. As his star continues to rise, he shows us the darker side of an industry ruled by exclusivity and stubborn adherence to tradition. With its power to transform our mental and physical health, to effect social change, and to make a house a home, Sheku shows us that classical music is for everyone, not just an elite few. The Power of Music is a celebration of music of all sorts and those who make it, and a rallying call to change.

The dazzling new love story and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick from the TikTok sensation and Sunday Times bestselling author of Beach Read and Funny Story. When Margaret Ives, the famously reclusive heiress, invites eternal optimist Alice Scott to the balmy Little Crescent Island, Alice knows this is it: her big break. And even more rare: a chance to impress her family with a Serious Publication. The catch? Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud, Hayden Anderson, is sure of the same thing. The proposal? A one-month trial period to unearth the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th Century, after which she'll choose who'll tell her story. The problem? Margaret is only giving each of them tantalising pieces. Pieces they can't put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they're in the same room. And it's becoming abundantly clear that their story - just like the tale Margaret's spinning - could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad … depending on who's telling it.

In the crucible of the Second World War, Saint Petersburg – then known as Leningrad – stands as a testament to human endurance. As the Nazis encircle the city, intent on annihilating its 1.5 million inhabitants, the narrative plunges into the harrowing 900 days and nights of relentless hardship and unyielding resilience. Starving residents, horrified by their own gaunt reflections, resort to bulking bread with wood shavings, consuming wallpaper paste, and even turning to their pets. Workers at the mass crematorium numb their horror with extra vodka rations. Yet, amid this suffering, the resilience of culture and hope shines through, with orchestras and theatres defiantly continuing their performances, a flicker of humanity against the backdrop of despair. This book not only chronicles the Siege of Leningrad but also traces the pivotal importance of Saint Petersburg across the centuries. From Peter the Great’s visionary founding of the city, through its revolutionary rebirth as Petrograd and its Soviet identity as Leningrad, to its renaissance as Saint Petersburg in the post-Soviet era, we explore the layers of history that shape this extraordinary place.

The human brain faces a set of dilemmas every day: how to achieve coherence from fragmented sensory inputs and how to attain connection with other people in an increasingly atomized and isolating world. Ideologies offer a shortcut, providing easy answers, scripts to follow, and a sense of shared identity. Whether our ideologies are far-right, far-left, nationalist, religious, or even progressive, they simplify our understanding and give us organizing frameworks through which to act and interact with others. But ideologies come at a cost: demanding conformity and suppressing individuality through rigid rules, repetitive rituals, and intolerance. Once ideologies grip our minds, they fundamentally transform us, making us less sensitive and adaptable. Drawing on her groundbreaking research, Dr Leor Zmigrod uncovers the hidden mechanisms driving our beliefs and behaviours. She uses the powerful tools of neuroscience to show that our political beliefs are not transient thoughts in our minds, divorced from our bodies – ideologies actually change our neural architecture, our cells. For instance, she demonstrates how a simple card sorting game can reveal your entire approach to life. Cognitive rigidity in such tasks – struggling to adapt to new rules – mirrors the rigidity with which you cling to social and political ideologies. While some individuals are more susceptible to dogmatic thinking than others, all of us can strive to be more flexible. The Ideological Brain is essential reading in today’s polarized and polarizing world. To foster a more informed, resilient and freer society, we need to zoom into the processes happening inside each of us and learn to spot rigid thinking in ourselves and others. We need to learn to avoid black-and-white thinking and embrace ambiguity. We need to recognize our ability to resist irrational rules and authority. Regardless of your political stance, this book will challenge you to reassess your convictions – and what they are doing to your brain.

Stunning advances in digital technology have given us a new wave of disarmingly human-like AI systems. Chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini put the knowledge of all the world's experts at our fingertips, and can generate meaningful sentences, equations and computer code. The march of this new technology is set to upturn our economies, challenge our democracies, and refashion society in unpredictable ways. We can expect these AI systems to soon be making autonomous decisions on the user's behalf, with transformative impact on everything we do. It is vital we understand how they work. Can AI systems 'think', 'know' and 'understand'? Could they manipulate or deceive you, and if so, what might they make you do? Whose interests do they ultimately represent? And when will they be able to move beyond words and take actions for themselves in the real world? To answer these questions, neuroscientist and AI researcher Christopher Summerfield explains how these strange new minds work. He charts the evolution of AI, from the earliest inklings about thinking machines in the seventeenth century to today's gargantuan deep neural networks. The resulting book is the most accessible, up-to-date and authoritative exploration of this radical new technology. Ultimately, armed with an understanding of AI's mysterious inner workings, we can begin to grapple with the existential question of our age: can we look forward to a technological utopia, or are we in the process of writing ourselves out of history?

Throughout recorded human time, few places on Earth have inspired as much fascination as the North Pole. This is an otherworldly place where the sun rises and stays aloft for six whole months before setting, plunging the expanse of ice and water into darkness for half a year. Foot-stepping alongside Erling Kagge, who ventured to the North Pole in the spring of 1990, we hear the story of the North Pole as never told before. From Herodotus who first wondered what the northernmost point of our planet might be like, to the intrepid early cartographers who mapped the world, and the legendary expeditions led by Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Peary – the first polar explorer global celebrities – who were in the grip of a dangerous obsession to get to the North Pole first. What emerges is a new history of the world, spanning thousands of years, as seen from the ‘silver-shining vacantness’ of the North Pole. Blending memories from Kagge’s own 1990 trip with this epic history, The North Pole is an adventure story, a book about enacting hidden human dreams, about difficult fathers and their difficult sons, and a psychological record of what it means to keep putting one foot in front of the other in the face of adversity. It is for anyone who’s gazed out at the horizon – and wondered what happens if you just keep walking.

It is late September in 2001 and the walls of New York are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Brady's father is there, the poster she made taped to columns and bridges. Her mother died long ago and now, orphaned on the cusp of adulthood, Cora is adrift and alone. Soon, a letter will arrive with the offer of a new life: far out on the ragged edge of Ireland, in the town where her parents were young, an estranged aunt can provide a home and fulfil a long-forgotten promise. There the story of Cora's family is hidden, and in her presence will begin to unspool… An essential, immersive debut from an astonishing new voice, Confessions traces the arc of three generations of women as they experience in their own time the irresistible gravity of the past: its love and tragedy, its mystery and redemption, and, in all things intended and accidental, the beauty and terrible shade of the things we do.

A groundbreaking narrative history of the motivations and mentalities behind the Nazis and their supporters, from the bestselling author of THE HOLOCAUST and President Zelenskyy's most-read book, HITLER AND STALIN. How could the Nazis have committed the crimes they did? Why did commandants of concentration and death camps willingly - often enthusiastically - oversee mass murder? How could ordinary Germans have tolerated the removal of the Jews? In THE NAZI MIND, bestselling author Laurence Rees combines history and the latest research in psychology to help answer some of the most perplexing questions surrounding the Second World War and the Holocaust. Ultimately, he delves into the darkness to explain how and why these people were capable of committing the worst crime in the history of the world. Rees traces the rise and eventual fall of the Nazis through the lens of 'twelve warnings' - from talk about 'them' and 'us' to the escalation of racism - whilst also highlighting signs to look out for in present day leaders. Rees uses previously unpublished testimony from former Nazis and those who grew up in the Nazi system, and in-depth psychological insights including cutting edge work on obedience, authority and the brain. THE NAZI MIND is a revelatory new way of understanding how so many people committed the most appalling crime of the 20th century.

The ground-breaking, intimate, and inspiring memoir from Pope Francis. Pope Francis originally intended this exceptional book to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope have moved him to make this precious legacy available now. Hope is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope. Written over six years, this complete autobiography starts in the early years of the twentieth century, with Pope Francis’s Italian roots and his ancestors’ courageous migration to Latin America, continuing through his childhood, the enthusiasms and preoccupations of his youth, his vocation, adult life, and the whole of his papacy up to the present day. In recounting his memories with intimate narrative force (not forgetting his own personal passions), Pope Francis deals unsparingly with some of the crucial moments of his papacy and writes candidly, fearlessly and prophetically about some of the most important and controversial questions of our present times: war and peace (including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East), migration, environmental crisis, social policy, the position of women, sexuality, technological developments, the future of the Church and of religion in general. Hope includes a wealth of revelations, anecdotes, and illuminating thoughts. It is a thrilling and very human memoir, moving and sometimes funny, which represents the ‘story of a life’ and, at the same time, a touching moral and spiritual testament that will fascinate readers throughout the world and will be Pope Francis’s legacy of hope for future generations.

A thrilling illustrated history of Formula 1 racing, from its fascinating origins and inner workings to the top drivers of the twentieth century and today, by a celebrated motorsports broadcaster and star of Netflix’s breakout series Formula 1: Drive to Survive. With just twenty drivers competing at speeds of over 220 miles per hour on the world’s most challenging racetracks, Formula 1 is the ultimate test for any driver. To become a champion is to be counted among the world’s greatest athletes. In Grand Prix, Will Buxton pulls back the curtain on the cars, teams, tracks, records, and rivalries that have defined F1 since its very first world champion in 1950, Giuseppe Farina, to modern-day icons like Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Join the teams revolutionising car design on the factory floor, become a fly on the pit wall and learn the art of the pitstop, and discover what it really takes to compete in the fast lane with this definitive introduction to the world’s most exhilarating sport.

An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see the stakes: what has been, and what might be lost. Evan Friss's history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin's first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including the Strand, Chicago's Marshall Field & Company, the Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over the course of more than two centuries-including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who signed books at Marshall Field's in 1944. The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life-and why we still need them.

It's a blazing summer when two men arrive in the village. They're coming for gold. What they bring is trouble. Cal Hooper was a Chicago detective, till he moved to the West of Ireland looking for peace. He's found it, more or less - in his relationship with local woman Lena, and the bond he's formed with half-wild teenager Trey. So when two men turn up with a money-making scheme to find gold in the townland, Cal gets ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey. Because one of the men is no stranger: he's Trey's father. But Trey doesn't want protecting. What she wants is revenge. Crackling with tension and slow-burn suspense, The Hunter explores what we'll do for our loved ones, what we'll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide, from the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller Tana French.

Our world is losing its humanity. Too many developers care more about their shareholders than society. Too many politicians care more about power than the people who vote for them. And too many cities feel soulless and depressing, with buildings designed for business, not for us. So where do we find hope? Thomas Heatherwick has an alternative. By changing the world around us, we can improve our health, restore our happiness, and save our planet. The time has come to put human emotion back at the heart of the design process. Drawing on thirty years of making bold, beautiful buildings, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Heatherwick brings together vivid stories and hundreds of beautiful images into a visual masterpiece. Humanise will inspire us to do nothing less than remake our world.

I had no clue when I came back to life, or how it happened. I just know there was a terrible storm outside the house . . . It's the middle of the night at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, when a thunderbolt shatters the glass case holding history’s most famous diary. Magically, Anne's imaginary friend, Kitty, comes to life. But when Kitty learns that Anne and her beloved sister Margot died in the war 75 years earlier, she decides to run away, taking the diary with her. Following the path of the sisters all the way to where they met their fatal end, Kitty encounters the European refugee crisis and Anne’s legacy. Join Kitty on her journey of discovery in Where Is Anne Frank . . .