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The Road to Reality is the most important and ambitious work of science for a generation. It provides nothing less than a comprehensive account of the physical universe and the essentials of its underlying mathematical theory. It assumes no particular specialist knowledge on the part of the reader, so that, for example, the early chapters give us the vital mathematical background to the physical theories explored later in the book. Roger Penrose's purpose is to describe as clearly as possible our present understanding of the universe and to convey a feeling for its deep beauty and philosophical implications, as well as its intricate logical interconnections. The Road to Reality is rarely less than challenging, but the book is leavened by vivid descriptive passages, as well as hundreds of hand-drawn diagrams. In a single work of colossal scope one of the world's greatest scientists has given us a complete and unrivalled guide to the glories of the universe that we all inhabit.

The PowerBook is twenty-first century fiction that uses past, present and future as shifting dimensions of a multiple reality. The story is simple. An e-writer called Ali or Alix will write to order anything you like, provided that you are prepared to enter the story as yourself and take the risk of leaving it as someone else. You can be the hero of your own life. You can have freedom just for one night. But there is a price to pay.

E L James revisits the world of Fifty Shades with a deeper and darker take on the love story that has enthralled millions of readers around the globe. Their scorching, sensual affair ended in heartbreak and recrimination, but Christian Grey cannot get Anastasia Steele out of his mind, or his blood. Determined to win her back, he tries to suppress his darkest desires and his need for complete control, and to love Ana on her own terms. But the horrors of his childhood still haunt him, and Ana's scheming boss, Jack Hyde, clearly wants her for himself. Can Christian's confidant and therapist, Dr. Flynn, help him face down his demons? Or will the possessiveness of Elena, his seducer, and the deranged devotion of Leila, his former submissive, drag Christian down into the past? And if Christian does win Ana back, can a man so dark and damaged ever hope to keep her?

Philip Roth is the voice of our times. In a sequence of intimate conversations with some of the most influential and insightful writers of the twentieth century, Roth explores the importance of region, politics and history in their work and that of their predecessors. What qualities helped Primo Levi survive the demented laboratory of Auschwitz? What does Milan Kundera make of being denounced as a subversive writer in communist Czechoslovakia? What does Edna O'Brien think drove generations of Irish writers into exile? Between colleagues and friends there is a startling candour seldom found in formal interviews, a sense that the guard is dropped, the ideas unbounded, as the conversations crackle with an urgency of ideas. Shop Talk is a literary symposium of the highest calibre, profoundly revelatory and consistently enlightening.

Bestselling author of Italian Ways Tim Parks follows the hair-raising journey of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, 250-miles on foot from Rome to Ravenna, to explore Italy's past and present. In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy's legendary revolutionary hero, was finally forced to abandon his defence of Rome. He and his men had held the besieged city for three long months, but now it was clear that only surrender would prevent slaughter and destruction at the hands of a much superior French army. Against all odds, Garibaldi was determined to turn defeat into moral victory. On the evening of 2 July, riding alongside his pregnant wife Anita, he led 4,000 hastily assembled volunteers out of the city to continue the struggle for national independence in the countryside. Hounded by both French and Austrian armies, the garibaldini marched hundreds of miles through Umbria and Tuscany, then across the Appenines, Italy's mountainous spine, until, after thirty-two exhausting days of skirmishes and adventures, 250 survivors boarded fishing boats on the Adriatic coast in an ill-fated attempt to reach the independent Republic of Venice. It would be ten years and much world-wandering before Garibaldi would astonish the world when his revolutionary campaign in Sicily became the catalyst to the unification of Italy. This is the lesser-known story, brought vividly to life by bestselling author Tim Parks, who in the blazing summer of 2019, together with his partner Eleonora, followed Garibaldi and Anita's arduous journey. The Hero's Way is a fascinating portrait of Italy past and present, and a celebration of determination, creativity, desperate courage and profound belief.

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.