{"title":"Book of the week","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrowse our Book of the week collection. New Arrival.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"pale-rider-the-spanish-flu-of-1918-and-how-it-changed-the-world","title":"Pale Rider : The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World","description":"\u003cspan\u003eWith a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I. In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain, and from South Africa to Odessa.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTelling the story from the point of view of those who lived through it, she shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered; and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test. Drawing on the latest research in history, virology, epidemiology, psychology, and economics, Laura Spinney narrates a catastrophe that changed humanity for decades to come, and continues to make itself felt today. In the process she demonstrates that the Spanish flu was as significant - if not more so - as two world wars in shaping the modern world; in disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion and the arts.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":54037955346708,"sku":"sis1789764980709","price":25.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/pale-rider-the-spanish-flu-of-1918-and-how-it-changed-the-world_1.jpg?v=1789764985"},{"product_id":"hag-seed-by-margaret-atwood","title":"Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood","description":"\u003cspan\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017Selected as a Book of the Year - Observer, Sunday Times, Times, Guardian, i magazine Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt will boost his reputation. It will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eInstead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. Also brewing revenge. After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHere, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall?\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":54037955739924,"sku":"iwz1789765022631","price":8.36,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/hag-seed-by-margaret-atwood_1.jpg?v=1789765027"},{"product_id":"fire-and-fury-by-michael-wolff","title":"Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff","description":"\u003cspan\u003eWith extraordinary access to the Trump White House, Michael Wolff tells the inside story of the most controversial presidency of our time.The first nine months of Donald Trump's term were stormy, outrageous - and absolutely mesmerising. Now, thanks to his deep access to the West Wing, bestselling author Michael Wolff tells the riveting story of how Trump launched a tenure as volatile and fiery as the man himself.In this explosive book, Wolff provides a wealth of new details about the chaos in the Oval Office. Among the revelations: - What President Trump's staff really thinks of him- What inspired Trump to claim he was wire-tapped by President Obama - Why FBI director James Comey was really fired- Why chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner couldn't be in the same room - Who is really directing the Trump administration's strategy in the wake of Bannon's firing- What the secret to communicating with Trump is- What the Trump administration has in common with the movie The ProducersNever before has a presidency so divided the American people.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBrilliantly reported and astoundingly fresh, Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury shows us how and why Donald Trump has become the king of discord and disunion.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037966749972,"sku":"hks1789765269728","price":18.06,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/fire-and-fury-by-michael-wolff_1.jpg?v=1789765278"},{"product_id":"two-sisters-by-asne-seierstad","title":"Two Sisters by Asne Seierstad","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eÅsne Seierstad’s new book begins in October 2013, on a normal enough day for the Jumas, a Norwegian-Somali family, said Anthony Loyd in The Times. They sat down together for breakfast in their Oslo flat; as she hurried off to school, 16-year-old Leila whispered “I love you, Dad” to her father, Sadiq. But that night, she and her 19-year-old sister Ayan set off for Syria, where they would join the caliphate, eventually marrying Islamic State fighters. In\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eTwo Sisters\u003c\/i\u003e, Seierstad, a Norwegian journalist (and the author of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Bookseller of Kabul\u003c\/i\u003e) tells their story, sketching their childhood and “gradual radicalisation”, along with their father’s attempts to retrieve them. Seierstad’s “dispassionate” style works well: this is a tale with “no need for literary flourish”. The book reveals much about the jihadist mindset, while also being a story that will speak to every parent of teenagers, worried about what their children get up to “behind their closed doors”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eLeila and Ayan were far from unique, said Christina Lamb in The Sunday Times. An estimated 550 women and girls from Western countries travelled to join the caliphate. In the sisters’ case, there were plenty of warning signs: both became members of the conservative youth group Islam Net; they insisted on wearing full niqabs; and they grew increasingly withdrawn and argumentative. Seierstad wasn’t able to talk to the sisters and so relies instead on their “ghostly messages on Facebook to their exasperated brother, complete with emojis”. Much of the narrative centres on their father, who heroically goes in pursuit of his daughters. Within days of their disappearance, he was on the Turkish border, negotiating with people smugglers. He subsequently entered Isis-controlled Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured, and only just escaped with his life.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eWhile all this was going on, the two sisters were sending “jaunty” emails to their family, boasting of their lives as jihadi brides, said Craig Brown in The Mail on Sunday. I generally believe that “to know all is to forgive all”, but “the more one knows of Ayan and Leila, the less the impulse to forgive them”. The last we hear of the sisters, they are still in Raqqa, luxuriating in the “free housing, washing machines and Sim cards provided by Isis”, said Kate Adie in the Literary Review. Meanwhile, Sadiq has finally come to accept that he may never see his daughters again.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eTwo Sisters\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a “credible and all too common story of our times”, told with great aplomb by a “formidable” journalist.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037971435796,"sku":"ztu1789765365898","price":20.22,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/two-sisters-by-asne-seierstad_1.jpg?v=1789765393"},{"product_id":"seven-types-of-atheism-by-john-gray","title":"Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eIn this fascinating, highly readable book, the philosopher John Gray identifies a “fault line” that runs through atheism, said Richard Harries in The Observer. Atheists, he argues, profess to reject religion, but actually do nothing of the kind. Instead, they take over religion’s thought patterns and assumptions, substituting abstractions such as “progress” and “humanity” for faith in God. Gray’s “seven types of atheism” (the title is borrowed from William Empson’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eSeven Types of Ambiguity\u003c\/i\u003e) include most forms of unbelief that have existed over the past two centuries. He targets the “secular humanism” that unites John Stuart Mill and Ayn Rand, among many others; the political millenarianism of the Jacobins, communists and Nazis; and the “new atheism” of Richard Dawkins et al. What almost all forms of atheism have in common, he points out, is the eschatological idea that human history has an “ultimate purpose”. Gray is much more favourably disposed to the form of atheism he attributes to Joseph Conrad, which rejects the “assumption that human beings can be changed for the better”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eFor someone who is a “professed atheist” himself, Gray doesn’t present an “attractive bunch” of specimens, said John Carey in The Sunday Times. “His selection includes several inveterate misanthropes and one criminal lunatic, the Marquis de Sade.” But then Gray’s own views are “unflinchingly bleak”. He believes that history has no meaning, that “humanity” has no objective existence and that “the notion that everyone should obey the same morality is absurd”. Gray’s intellect and brilliance, combined with his negative take on life, makes his book “one of the most depressing I have read”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eGray may be right about most atheism being a form of repressed religion, said Jonathan Rée in the Literary Review, but so what? Given that religion is “built into the brickwork of practically every society in history”, it would be odd if our ideas didn’t bear “residues of religiosity”. Even if we could “purify our minds” of the beliefs of our ancestors, we would still be left with the same “intractable” questions. Am I my brother’s keeper? What do parents owe to children, or children to parents? Do we have obligations to the dead? In the end,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eSeven Types of Atheism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eseems “more like a series of amuse-bouches than a square meal”. Rather than following “complex lines of thought”, Gray seems “like a high-end version of the muck-raking journalist, fearlessly exposing the guilty secrets of the intellectual classes”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037972123924,"sku":"gfn1789765412031","price":15.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/seven-types-of-atheism-by-john-gray_1.jpg?v=1789765416"},{"product_id":"a-spy-named-orphan-the-enigma-of-donald-maclean-by-roland-philipps","title":"A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean by Roland Philipps","description":"","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037972844820,"sku":"jth1789765422943","price":16.71,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/a-spy-named-orphan-the-enigma-of-donald-maclean-by-roland-philipps_1.jpg?v=1789765426"},{"product_id":"the-rise-and-fall-of-the-dinosaurs-the-untold-story-of-a-lost-world-by-steve-brusatte","title":"The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: The Untold Story of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eIn the past half century, the traditional image of dinosaurs has been “decisively overturned”, said Tom Holland in The Sunday Times. Scientists have come to realise that dinosaurs weren’t “ponderous and sluggish evolutionary dead ends”; they were “fierce, fast” and clever, too. Moreover, they never actually died out: anatomical evidence has made it clear that birds are “fully fledged dinosaurs in their own right”. Aided by technologies that “would have seemed fantastical to their 19th century forebears”, today’s palaeontologists are able to map the bodies and brains of dinosaurs in unprecedented detail, and “across the globe, in rocks from Alaska to Argentina, a new species is being identified at a rate of roughly one a week”. All this has created a pressing need for a readable guide to the current state of dinosaur research. Thankfully, with this authoritative and “joyously” written book, the leading palaeontologist Steve Brusatte has “triumphantly risen to the challenge”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p2\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThe dinosaurs’ emergence, much like their eventual demise, was a product of environmental calamity, said Henry Gee in the Literary Review. Towards the end of the Permian period, some 252 million years ago, a series of “geological cataclysms” wiped out more than nine out of ten species on Earth. The dinosaurs emerged a few million years later, at the start of the Triassic, along with a “gaggle of other exotic reptiles” known as pseudosuchia (or “false crocodiles”), which were erased by a “less extreme” cataclysm. After that, the “weedy lizards grew up fast”, said Oliver Moody in The Times. Within a few tens of millions of years, they had “begun to attain outrageous sizes”, and for the next 180 million years they freely roamed the planet. But eventually, around 66 million years ago, their reign was “brought to an abrupt end by an asteroid strike in Mexico”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p2\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eisn’t simply a tour of a bygone world, said Brian Switek in The Spectator. Brusatte draws extensively on his own experiences and research interests, introducing us to his “heroes and colleagues”, and regaling us with tales of “digging up bones”. Palaeontology emerges as a “young, amped-up discipline” whose findings, moreover, are “not irrelevant” to the concerns of the present. The dinosaurs’ story, after all, is one that “frames our own”. Not only did our distant ancestors survive their reign, but their untimely demise in their “evolutionary prime” serves as a warning that “extinction can act quickly and mercilessly”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037973139732,"sku":"xkv1789765450244","price":20.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-dinosaurs-the-untold-story-of-a-lost-world-by-steve-bru_1.jpg?v=1789765454"},{"product_id":"conan-doyle-for-the-defence-by-margalit-fox","title":"Conan Doyle for the Defence by Margalit Fox","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThe case at the heart of Margalit Fox’s “first-class book” is “just the kind that would have roused Sherlock Holmes”, said James McConnachie in The Sunday Times. On 21 December 1908, a wealthy spinster, Marion Gilchrist, was bludgeoned to death in her Glasgow home. The motive seemed obvious – a diamond brooch was missing – and the police, under huge pressure to solve the crime, identified a petty criminal named Oscar Slater as the culprit. Despite little evidence against him, Slater was convicted and sentenced to death – but this was commuted to life imprisonment. The case attracted the interest of Arthur Conan Doyle who in 1912, applying the “methods of his best-known fictional creation”, published a “brilliantly Holmesian” book devoted to proving that Slater had been framed. In the short term this achieved little – Slater remained in the “notoriously tough Peterhead prison” – but Doyle continued to campaign on his behalf, and eventually, in 1927, the conviction was quashed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThis wasn’t Doyle’s first foray into real-life detective work, said Paula Byrne in The Times. A few years earlier he had campaigned for the release of George Edalji, a solicitor imprisoned for maiming a pony (a case that would inspire Julian Barnes’s 2005 novel\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eArthur \u0026amp; George\u003c\/i\u003e). Edalji’s background was Parsee and Doyle believed he’d been “treated unjustly in part because of his foreignness”. The same went for Slater, a German-Jewish immigrant whose real name was Oscar Leschziner. This was an age when some still believed that criminality could be deduced from a person’s appearance, said Kathryn Hughes in The Guardian. “You only had to look at a man’s shifty eyes, weak mouth and, perhaps most significant at a time of rising anti-Semitism, big nose, to know that he was on the point of doing something very bad indeed.” Yet against this, Fox shows that a new system of forensic science, based on the close reading of clues, was becoming established. Holmes, of course, was its most famous exemplar – and Fox argues that Doyle deployed the modus operandi of his creation in order to establish Slater’s innocence.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThere was an unfortunate coda to the case, said Paula Byrne. After his release, Slater and Doyle became embroiled in a “bitter rift” over the former’s £6,000 compensation, which Doyle felt he should share with those who had helped him. The public slanging match that ensued is the final twist in a “fast-paced”, enjoyable work that is written with the “panache of a Holmes short story”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037974057236,"sku":"wfn1789765492602","price":16.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/conan-doyle-for-the-defence-by-margalit-fox_1.jpg?v=1789765499"},{"product_id":"red-thread-by-charlotte-higgins","title":"Red Thread by Charlotte Higgins","description":"\u003cspan\u003e**BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK**The tale of how the hero Theseus killed the Minotaur, finding his way out of the labyrinth using Ariadne's ball of red thread, is one of the most intriguing, suggestive and persistent of all myths, and the labyrinth - the beautiful, confounding and terrifying building created for the half-man, half-bull monster - is one of the foundational symbols of human ingenuity and artistry. Charlotte Higgins, author of the Baillie Gifford-shortlisted Under Another Sky, tracks the origins of the story of the labyrinth in the poems of Homer, Catullus, Virgil and Ovid, and with them builds an ingenious edifice of her own. She follows the idea of the labyrinth through the Cretan excavations of Sir Arthur Evans, the mysterious turf labyrinths of Northern Europe, the church labyrinths of medieval French cathedrals and the hedge mazes of Renaissance gardens.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAlong the way, she traces the labyrinthine ideas of writers from Dante and Borges to George Eliot and Conan Doyle, and of artists from Titian and Velazquez to Picasso and Eva Hesse. Her intricately constructed narrative asks what it is to be lost, what it is to find one's way, and what it is to travel the confusing and circuitous path of a lived life. Red Thread is, above all, a winding and unpredictable route through the byways of the author's imagination - one that leads the reader on a strange and intriguing journey, full of unexpected connections and surprising pleasures.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037978874132,"sku":"csy1789765620800","price":22.57,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/red-thread-by-charlotte-higgins_1.jpg?v=1789765624"},{"product_id":"milk-by-mark-kurlansky","title":"Milk! by Mark Kurlansky","description":"\u003cspan\u003eMark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic, and culinary story of milk and all things dairy--with recipes throughout. According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But while mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated ever since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago, originally as a source of cheese, yogurt, kefir, and all manner of edible innovations that rendered lactose digestible, and then, when genetic mutation made some of us lactose-tolerant, milk itself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBefore the industrial revolution, it was common for families to keep dairy cows and produce their own milk. But during the nineteenth century mass production and urbanization made milk safety a leading issue of the day, with milk-borne illnesses a common cause of death. Pasteurization slowly became a legislative matter.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd today milk is a test case in the most pressing issues in food politics, from industrial farming and animal rights to GMOs, the locavore movement, and advocates for raw milk, who controversially reject pasteurization. Profoundly intertwined with human civilization, milk has a compelling and a surprisingly global story to tell, and historian Mark Kurlansky is the perfect person to tell it. Tracing the liquid's diverse history from antiquity to the present, he details its curious and crucial role in cultural evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, and economics.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037980840212,"sku":"hom1789765646803","price":17.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/milk-by-mark-kurlansky_1.jpg?v=1789765650"},{"product_id":"the-warm-south-by-robert-holland","title":"The Warm South by Robert Holland","description":"\u003cspan\u003eAn evocative exploration of the impact of the Mediterranean on British culture, ranging from the mid-eighteenth century to today Ever since the age of the Grand Tour in the eighteenth century, the Mediterranean has had a significant pull for Britons--including many painters and poets--who sought from it the inspiration, beauty, and fulfillment that evaded them at home. Referred to as \"Magick Land\" by one traveler, dreams about the Mediterranean, and responses to it, went on to shape the culture of a nation. Written by one of the world's leading historians of the Mediterranean, this book charts how a new sensibility arose from British engagement with the Mediterranean, ancient and modern.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRanging from Byron's poetry to Damien Hirst's installations, Robert Holland shows that while idealized visions and aspirations often met with disillusionment and frustration, the Mediterranean also offered a notably insular society the chance to enrich itself through an imagined world of color, carnival, and sensual self-discovery.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037980905748,"sku":"szh1789765646785","price":21.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-warm-south-by-robert-holland_1.jpg?v=1789765650"},{"product_id":"gloucester-crescent-by-william-miller","title":"Gloucester Crescent by William Miller","description":"\u003cspan\u003eGloucester Crescent is a curving, leafy street, tucked between Camden Town and Primrose Hill, filled with the sound of clacking typewriters and children playing. It's unremarkable in many ways, unless you notice the lady in the van outside one house, and the familiar-looking residents crossing the road ... Written through the eyes of a growing child, this is the story of a very particular family and their circle of brilliant, idealistic and intellectual friends in London in the 60s, 70s and 80s.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe follow William through the ups and downs of childhood, as he explores the back gardens and homes of his famous neighbours, attends dramatic rehearsals with his dad Jonathan Miller, fails exams and is bullied at school, gets drugs from the philosopher A. J. Ayer's wife, and tries to watch the moon landing with Alan Bennett and a room full of writers.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHilarious, and at times heart-breaking, this is also about how we grow up and move on - and what happens when we come back. Not only a picture of an extraordinary time in Britain's cultural history - and a hitherto unseen portrait of some of the brightest minds of a generation - this book tells the funny, tender and moving story of a young boy trying to find his own identity.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037982052628,"sku":"zqs1789765659755","price":14.34,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/gloucester-crescent-by-william-miller_1.jpg?v=1789765687"},{"product_id":"the-letters-of-sylvia-plath-volume-1-by-edited-by-peter-k-steinberg-and-karen-v-kukil","title":"The Letters of Sylvia Plath - Volume 1 by Edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil","description":"\u003cspan\u003eThe Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I: 1940-1956Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was one of the writers that defined the course of twentieth-century poetry. Her vivid, daring and complex poetry continues to captivate new generations of readers and writers. In the Letters, we discover the art of Plath's correspondence, most of which has never before been published and is here presented unabridged, without revision, so that she speaks directly in her own words.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRefreshingly candid and offering intimate details of her personal life, Plath is playful, too, entertaining a wide range of addressees, including family, friends and professional contacts, with inimitable wit and verve. The letters document Plath's extraordinary literary development: the genesis of many poems, short and long fiction, and journalism. Her endeavour to publish in a variety of genres had mixed receptions, but she was never dissuaded.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough acceptance of her work, and rejection, Plath strove to stay true to her creative vision. Well-read and curious, she offers a fascinating commentary on contemporary culture. Leading Plath scholars Peter K.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSteinberg and Karen V. Kukil, editor of The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962, provide comprehensive footnotes and an extensive index informed by their meticulous research. Alongside a selection of photographs and Plath's own line-drawings, the editors masterfully contextualise what the pages disclose.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis selection of early correspondence marks the key moments of Plath's adolescence, including childhood hobbies and high school boyfriends; her successful but turbulent undergraduate years at Smith College; the move to England and Cambridge University; and her meeting and marrying Ted Hughes, including a trove of unseen letters post-honeymoon, revealing their extraordinary creative partnership.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037982576916,"sku":"qgt1789765706156","price":31.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-letters-of-sylvia-plath---volume-1-by-edited-by-peter-k-steinberg-and-karen-_1.jpg?v=1789765710"},{"product_id":"small-fry-by-lisa-brennan-jobs","title":"Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs","description":"\u003cspan\u003eA frank, smart and captivating memoir by the daughter of Apple founder Steve Jobs. 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The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities . .\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut, Zimmer argues, heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe say we inherit genes from our ancestors - using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates - but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving together historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037984411924,"sku":"whb1789765717304","price":25.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/she-has-her-mothers-laugh-by-carl-zimmer_1.jpg?v=1789765721"},{"product_id":"the-billionaire-raj-by-james-crabtree","title":"The Billionaire Raj by James Crabtree","description":"A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age. Over the past two decades India has grown at an unprecedented rate, rivalled only by China. Yet while the Bollygarchs revel in new riches, millions still languish in their shadows, trapped in the teeming slums of the country's megacities. From the sky terrace of the world's most expensive home to mass political rallies in the streets, James Crabtree documents the struggle between equality and privilege playing out at the heart of this emerging superpower.","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037988278548,"sku":"xdl1789765790462","price":20.22,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-billionaire-raj-by-james-crabtree_1.jpg?v=1789765793"},{"product_id":"philip-larkin-letters-home-by-phillip-larkin","title":"Philip Larkin: Letters Home by Phillip Larkin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLetters Home gives access to the last major archive of Larkin's writing to remain unpublished: the letters to members of his family. These correspondences help tell the story of how Larkin came to be the writer and the man he was: to his father Sydney, a 'conservative anarchist' and admirer of Hitler, who died relatively early in Larkin's life; to his timid, depressive mother Eva, who by contrast lived long, and whose final years were shadowed by dementia; and to his sister Kitty, the sparse surviving fragment of whose correspondence with her brother gives an enigmatic glimpse of a complex and intimate relationship. In particular, it was the years during which he and his sister looked after their mother that shaped the writer we know so well: a number of poems written over this time are for her, and the mood of pain, shadow and despondency that characterises his later verse draws its strength from his experience of the long, lonely years of her senility.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne surprising element in the volume, however, is the joie de vivre shown in the large number of witty and engaging drawings of himself and Eva, as 'Young Creature' and 'Old Creature', with which he enlivens his letters throughout the three decades of her widowhood. This important edition, meticulously edited by James Booth is a key piece of scholarship that completes the portrait of this most cherished of English poets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037988933908,"sku":"wrq1789765835785","price":32.35,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/philip-larkin-letters-home-by-phillip-larkin_1.jpg?v=1789765842"},{"product_id":"the-life-of-saul-bellow-by-zachary-leader","title":"The Life of Saul Bellow by Zachary Leader","description":"\u003cspan\u003eWhen this second volume of The Life of Saul Bellow opens, Bellow, at forty-nine, is at the pinnacle of American letters - rich, famous, critically acclaimed. The expected trajectory is one of decline: volume 1, rise; volume 2, fall. Bellow never fell, producing some of his greatest fiction (Mr Sammler's Planet, Humboldt's Gift, all his best stories), winning two more National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAt eighty, he wrote his last story; at eighty-five, he wrote Ravelstein. In this volume, his life away from the desk, including his love life, is if anything more dramatic than in volume 1. In the public sphere, he is embroiled in controversy over foreign affairs, race, religion, education, social policy, the state of culture, the fate of the novel.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBellow's relations with women were often fraught. In the 1960s he was compulsively promiscuous (even as he inveighed against sexual liberation). The women he pursued, the ones he married and those with whom he had affairs, were intelligent, attractive and strong-willed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAt eighty-five he fathered his fourth child, a daughter, with his fifth wife. His three sons, whom he loved, could be as volatile as he was, and their relations with their father were often troubled. Although an early and engaged supporter of civil rights, in the second half of his life Bellow was angered by the excesses of Black Power.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn opponent of cultural relativism, he exercised great influence in literary and intellectual circles, advising a host of institutes and foundations, helping those he approved of, hindering those of whom he disapproved. In making his case, he could be cutting and rude; he could also be charming, loyal, and funny. Bellow's heroic energy and will are clear to the very end of his life.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHis immense achievement and its cost, to himself and others, are also clear.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037995454740,"sku":"nyq1789765952791","price":35.85,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-life-of-saul-bellow-by-zachary-leader_1.jpg?v=1789765956"},{"product_id":"slowhand-by-philip-norman","title":"Slowhand by Philip Norman","description":"\u003cspan\u003eEric Clapton is acknowledged to be rock's greatest virtuoso, the unrivalled master of its most essential tool, the solid-body electric guitar. Clapton transfigured three of the 1960s' most iconic bands, the Yardbirds, Cream and Blind Faith, walking away from each when it failed to measure up to his exacting standards. He was the only outsider be an honorary member of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and the studio musician of choice for solo superstars from Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYet even as a rock god in excelsis, his true passion was always the blues. Even his own blues heroes, the likes of Muddy Waters, B. B.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eKing and Buddy Guy, would recognise the supremacy of this wispy white boy from the English county of Surrey. No life has been more rock 'n' roll than Clapton's in his epic consumption of drugs and alcohol, his insatiable appetite for expensive cars, clothes, and women - most famously revealed when he fell in love with Pattie Boyd, the wife of his best friend, George Harrison, and the inspiration for 'Layla'. With the benefit of unrestricted access to family members, close friends and fellow musicians, and his encyclopedic knowledge of sixties music and culture, Philip Norman has written the definitive portrait of the insecure, often pain-racked man.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037995651348,"sku":"jpn1789765974014","price":25.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/slowhand-by-philip-norman_1.jpg?v=1789765979"},{"product_id":"thomas-cromwell-a-life-by-diarmaid-macculloch","title":"Thomas Cromwell : A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch","description":"\u003cp\u003e'This is the biography we have been awaiting for 400 years' Hilary Mantel'A masterpiece' Dan Jones, Sunday TimesThomas Cromwell is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. 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Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography is much the most complete and persuasive life ever written of this elusive figure, a masterclass in historical detective work, making connections not previously seen.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt overturns many received interpretations, for example that Cromwell was a cynical, 'secular' politician without deep-felt religious commitment, or that he and Anne Boleyn were allies because of their common religious sympathies - in fact he destroyed her. It introduces the many different personalities of these foundational years, all conscious of the 'terrifyingly unpredictable' Henry VIII. MacCulloch allows readers to feel that they are immersed in all this, that it is going on around them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor a time, the self-made 'ruffian' (as he described himself) - ruthless, adept in the exercise of power, quietly determined in religious revolution - was master of events. 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In Nepal, she meets girls challenging the taboos surrounding menstruation; in the Canadian prairies, she visits a controversial plasma clinic; in Wales she gets a tour of the UK's only leech farm to learn about the vital role the creatures still play in modern surgery; and in a London hospital she accompanies a medical team revolutionising the way we treat trauma.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNine Pints reveals the richness and wonder of the potent red fluid that courses around our bodies, unseen but miraculous.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037997977876,"sku":"hbb1789765988693","price":16.16,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/nine-pints-by-rose-george_1.jpg?v=1789765992"},{"product_id":"germaine-by-elizabeth-kleinhenz","title":"Germaine by Elizabeth Kleinhenz","description":"\u003cspan\u003eIntellectual. Feminist. Polemicist.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eProvocateur. This riveting biography of Germaine Greer traces the personal and political history of one of the most important, radical, and controversial women of twentieth and twenty-first century feminism. It reveals how her public persona has shifted with time from sixties trailblazer to present-day rabble-rouser, and why she endures as a subject of fascination.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is the first biography of Greer for two decades, drawing on unprecedented access to her extensive personal archive, opened at Melbourne University in 2016. Kleinhenz has interrogated Greer's personal and professional files, spoken to people who have known her from her school days onwards, and read every word written by and about her. 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The son of a wealthy Armenian merchant in Istanbul, for half a century he brokered top-level oil deals, concealing his mysterious web of business interests and contacts within a labyrinth of Asian and European cartels, and convincing governments and oil barons alike of his impartiality as an 'honest broker'. Today his name is known principally through the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, to which his spectacular art collection and most of his vast wealth were bequeathed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGulbenkian's private life was as labyrinthine as his business dealings. He insisted on the highest 'moral values', yet ruthlessly used his wife's charm as a hostess to further his career, and demanded complete obedience from his family, whom he monitored obsessively. 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Written with full access to the Gulbenkian Foundation's archives, this is the fascinating story of the man who more than anyone else helped shape the modern oil industry.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54037998305556,"sku":"fae1789766005318","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/mr-five-per-cent-by-jonathan-conlin_1.jpg?v=1789766010"},{"product_id":"not-working-by-josh-cohen","title":"Not Working by Josh Cohen","description":"\u003cspan\u003e'To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world.' Oscar WildeMore than ever before, we live in a culture that excoriates inactivity and demonizes idleness. Work, connectivity and a constant flow of information are the cultural norms, and a permanent busyness pervades even our quietest moments. 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Psychoanalyst Josh Cohen explores the paradoxical pleasures of inactivity, and considers four faces of inertia - the burnout, the slob, the daydreamer and the slacker.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDrawing on his personal experiences and on stories from his consulting room, while punctuating his discussions with portraits of figures associated with the different forms of inactivity - Andy Warhol, Orson Welles, Emily Dickinson and David Foster Wallace - Cohen gets to the heart of the apathy so many of us feel when faced with the demands of contemporary life, and asks how we might live a different and more fulfilled existence.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038000238868,"sku":"vjh1789766042694","price":15.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/not-working-by-josh-cohen_1.jpg?v=1789766048"},{"product_id":"eternal-boy-by-matthew-dennison","title":"Eternal Boy by Matthew Dennison","description":"\u003cspan\u003eMatthew Dennison skilfully covers the facts, producing a vivid impression of this strange, shy, awkward figure. The result is a highly readable book' Literary Review. 'A haunting new biography ...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA compelling account of Grahame's life' Daily Mail. 'A sensitively probing and nuanced portrait that makes sense of the darker character furled in the dreamer' New Statesman. During the week Kenneth Grahame sat behind a mahogany desk as Secretary of the Bank of England; at the weekend he retired to the house in the country he shared with his fanciful wife Elspeth and fragile son Alistair and took lengthy walks along the Thames in Berkshire, 'tempted [by] the treasures of hedge and ditch; the rapt surprise of the first lords-and-ladies, the rustle of a field-mouse, the splash of a frog.' The result of these pastoral wanderings was The Wind in the Willows: an enduring classic of children's literature; a cautionary tale for adult readers; a warning of the fragility of the English countryside; and an expression of fear at threatened social changes that, in the aftermath of the World War I, became reality.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLike its remarkable author, it balances maverick tendencies with conservatism. 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The heady optimism that defined the Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened inequality and stoked divisions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTech companies gather our information online and sell it to the highest bidder, whether government or retailer. Profits now depend not only on predicting our behaviour but modifying it too. How will this fusion of capitalism and the digital shape our values and define our future? Shoshana Zuboff shows that we are at a crossroads.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe still have the power to decide what kind of world we want to live in, and what we decide now will shape the rest of the century. Our choices: allow technology to enrich the few and impoverish the many, or harness it and distribute its benefits. 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Most critically, it shows how we can protect ourselves and our communities and ensure we are the masters of the digital rather than its slaves.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038003646740,"sku":"kah1789766088731","price":24.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/surveillance-capitalism-by-shoshana-zuboff_1.jpg?v=1789766092"},{"product_id":"a-scribbler-in-soho-by-naim-attallah-editor","title":"A Scribbler in Soho by Naim Attallah (editor)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"productInfo\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productContentWrap\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productContent\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productDescription\"\u003eProbably the greatest journalist since George Orwell, Auberon Waugh produced an astonishing amount of biting satire, spoof diaries and consistently riveting observation during three of the most traumatic decades in our recent history. This celebration of his work considers his time at Private Eye, and in particular, his Diaries (which he considered his masterwork); his editorship of the Literary Review and ends with an account of his co-founding the Academy Club. As is befitting in a tribute Festschrift, extensive examples of Waugh's writings have been reproduced, including liberal amounts from his autobiographical texts previously published elsewhere.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productDescription\"\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003eOf particular interest will be his monthly editorials written for the Literary Review, From the Pulpit, reprinted here in their entirety, providing a vivid commentary on the book trade, publishing and the personalities who hovered around Grub Street in the 70s and 80s. Above all else, however, readers can rediscover a unique writer whose tone, style and outlook are still sorely missed, especially in today's political climate where his genius would have enthralled the nation in an unimaginable way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"purchaseBlock\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"wrap\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"singleTitleContainer\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"pricing\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038003810580,"sku":"txa1789766100904","price":18.33,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/a-scribbler-in-soho-by-naim-attallah-editor_1.jpg?v=1789766104"},{"product_id":"heroic-failure-by-fintan-otoole","title":"Heroic Failure by Fintan O’Toole","description":"\u003cspan\u003e'There will not be much political writing in this or any other year that is carried off with such style' The Times. A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR. 'A quite brilliant dissection of the cultural roots of the Brexit narrative' David Miliband.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'Hugely entertaining and engrossing' Roddy Doyle. 'Best book about the English that I've read for ages' Billy Bragg. 'A wildly entertaining but uncomfortable read ...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePitilessly brilliant' Jonathan Coe. In exploring the answers to the question: 'why did Britain vote leave?', Fintan O'Toole finds himself discovering how trivial journalistic lies became far from trivial national obsessions; how the pose of indifference to truth and historical fact has come to define the style of an entire political elite; how a country that once had colonies is redefining itself as an oppressed nation requiring liberation; the strange gastronomic and political significance of prawn-flavoured crisps, and their role in the rise of Boris Johnson; the dreams of revolutionary deregulation and privatisation that drive Arron Banks, Nigel Farrage and Jacob Rees-Mogg; and the silent rise of English nationalism, the force that dare not speak its name. He also discusses the fatal attraction of heroic failure, once a self-deprecating cult in a hugely successful empire that could well afford the occasional disaster: the Charge of the Light Brigade, or Franklin lost in the Arctic.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow failure is no longer heroic - it is just failure, and its terrible costs will be paid by the most vulnerable of Brexit's supporters, and by those who may suffer the consequences of a hard border in Ireland and the breakdown of a fragile peace.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038004105492,"sku":"gso1789766112902","price":10.67,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/heroic-failure-by-fintan-otoole_1.jpg?v=1789766116"},{"product_id":"the-club-by-joshua-robinson-and-jonathan-clegg","title":"The Club by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg","description":"\u003cspan\u003eA fascinating book, by two witty and meticulous sports writers Sunday TimesA jaunty journey through the past quarter of a century in English football The TimesMagnificent ... Witty, pacy, thorough, this is a book hard to put down Daily MailBrilliant IndependentHow did English football - once known for its stale pies, bad book-keeping and hooligans - become a commercial powerhouse and the world's premium popular entertainment?This was a business empire built in only twenty-five years on ambition, experimentation and gambler's luck. Lead by a motley cast of executives, Russian oligarchs, Arab Sheikhs, Asian Titans, American Tycoons, battle-hardened managers, ruthless agents and the Murdoch media - the Premier League has been carved up, rebranded and exported to phenomenal 185 countries.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe United Nations only recognizes 193. But the extraordinary profit of bringing England's ageing industrial towns to a compulsive global attention has come at a cost. Today, as players are sold for hundreds of millions and clubs are valued in the billions, local fans are being priced out - and the clubs' local identities are fading.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Premier League has become the classic business fable for our globalised world. Drawing on dozens of exclusive and revelatory interviews from the Boardrooms - including Liverpool's John W. Henry, Tottenham's Daniel Levy, Martin Edwards and David Gill at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger and Stan Kroenke at Arsenal, Manchester City's sporting director Txiki Begiristain, and executives at Chelsea, West Ham, Leicester City and Aston Villa - this is the definitive bustand boom account of how the Premier League product took over the world.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038006497556,"sku":"tfq1789766132899","price":18.33,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-club-by-joshua-robinson-and-jonathan-clegg_1.jpg?v=1789766137"},{"product_id":"in-the-closet-of-the-vatican-by-frederic-martel","title":"In the Closet of the Vatican by Frédéric Martel","description":"\u003cspan\u003e'[An] earth-shaking expose of clerical corruption' - National Catholic ReporterIn the Closet of the Vatican exposes the rot at the heart of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church today. This brilliant piece of investigative writing is based on four years' authoritative research, including extensive interviews with those in power. The celibacy of priests, the condemnation of the use of contraceptives, the cover up of countless cases of sexual abuse, the resignation of Benedict XVI, misogyny among the clergy, the dramatic fall in Europe of the number of vocations to the priesthood, the plotting against Pope Francis - all these issues are clouded in mystery and secrecy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the Closet of the Vatican is a book that reveals these secrets and penetrates this enigma. It derives from a system founded on a clerical culture of secrecy which starts in junior seminaries and continues right up to the Vatican itself. It is based on the double lives of priests and on extreme homophobia.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe resulting schizophrenia in the Church is hard to fathom. But the more a prelate is homophobic, the more likely it is that he is himself gay. `Behind rigidity there is always something hidden, in many cases a double life'.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThese are the words of Pope Francis himself and with them the Pope has unlocked the Closet. No one can claim to really understand the Catholic Church today until they have read this book. It reveals a truth that is extraordinary and disturbing.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038011511060,"sku":"msy1789766238622","price":23.25,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/in-the-closet-of-the-vatican-by-frederic-martel_1.jpg?v=1789766243"},{"product_id":"zucked-by-roger-mcnamee","title":"Zucked by Roger McNamee","description":"\u003cspan\u003eThis is the dramatic story of how a noted tech venture capitalist, an early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg and investor in his company, woke up to the serious damage Facebook was doing to our society and set out to try to stop it. If you had told Roger McNamee three years ago that he would soon be devoting himself to stopping Facebook from destroying democracy, he would have howled with laughter. He had mentored many tech leaders in his illustrious career as an investor, but few things had made him prouder, or been better for his fund's bottom line, than his early service to Mark Zuckerberg.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStill a large shareholder in Facebook, he had every good reason to stay on the bright side. Until he simply couldn't. Zucked is McNamee's intimate reckoning with the catastrophic failure of the head of one of the world's most powerful companies to face up to the damage he is doing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt's a story that begins with a series of rude awakenings. First there is the author's dawning realization that the platform is being manipulated by some very bad actors. Then there is the even more unsettling realization that Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are unable or unwilling to share his concerns, polite as they may be to his face.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd then comes Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, and the emergence of one horrific piece of news after another about the malign ends to which the Facebook platform has been put. To McNamee's shock, Facebook's leaders still duck and dissemble, viewing the matter as a public relations problem. Now thoroughly alienated, McNamee digs into the issue, and fortuitously meets up with some fellow travellers who share his concerns, and help him sharpen its focus.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSoon he and a dream team of Silicon Valley technologists are charging into the fray, to raise consciousness about the existential threat of Facebook, and the persuasion architecture of the attention economy more broadly - to our public health and to our political order. Zucked is both an enthralling personal narrative and a masterful explication of the forces that have conspired to place us all on the horns of this dilemma. This is the story of a company and its leadership, but it's also a larger tale of a business sector unmoored from normal constraints, at a moment of political and cultural crisis, the worst possible time to be given new tools for summoning the darker angels of our nature and whipping them into a frenzy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is a wise, hard-hitting, and urgently necessary account that crystallizes the issue definitively for the rest of us.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038012592404,"sku":"xph1789766247644","price":14.43,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/zucked-by-roger-mcnamee_1.jpg?v=1789766252"},{"product_id":"mamas-last-hug-animal-emotions-and-what-they-teach-us-about-ourselves-by-frans-de-waal","title":"Mama's Last Hug : Animal Emotions and What They Teach Us about Ourselves by Frans de Waal","description":"\u003cspan\u003eMama's Last Hug is a whirlwind tour of new ideas and findings about animal emotions, based on Frans de Waal's renowned studies of the social and emotional lives of chimpanzees, bonobos and other primates. It opens with the moving farewell between Mama, a dying 59-year-old chimpanzee matriarch, and Jan Van Hoof, who was Frans de Waal's mentor and thesis advisor. The filmed event has since gone viral (over 9.5 million views on YouTube).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDe Waal discusses facial expressions, animal sentience and consciousness, the emotional side of human politics, and the illusion of free will. He distinguishes between emotions and feelings, all the while emphasizing the continuity between our species and other species. And he makes the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we haven't a single organ that other animals don't have, and the same is true for our emotions.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038016000276,"sku":"tag1789766300450","price":12.52,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/mamas-last-hug-animal-emotions-and-what-they-teach-us-about-ourselves-by-frans-d_1.jpg?v=1789766305"},{"product_id":"what-dementia-teaches-us-about-love-by-nicci-gerrard","title":"What Dementia Teaches Us About Love by Nicci Gerrard","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eFor ten years after Nicci Gerrard’s father, John, was diagnosed with dementia, the writer and crime novelist watched him “gradually disappearing, memories falling away, words going, recognition fading”, said P.D. Smith in The Guardian. While he died at home in 2014, his final decline was precipitated by a period in hospital during which he was separated from his family. Gerrard was so angered by the inadequacy of the treatment that she co-founded a charity, John’s Campaign, to fight for more compassionate hospital care. Now, in this “beautifully written book” – a blend of memoir, journalistic investigation and philosophical enquiry – Gerrard considers dementia in broader terms. The condition affects more than 850,000 people in the UK, and globally it costs more to treat than “cancer, stroke and heart disease combined”. It has become, she suggests, the illness we “fear the most”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThere are sure to be many other books written on dementia, said Helen Davies in The Sunday Times. But few will be as “powerful” as this one. In homes and hospitals across the UK, Gerrard confronts the “hell” into which people are plunged by the disease. “She meets men and women who are old but who every day lift their partner out of bed”; children whose lives have been “turned upside down” by taking parents into their homes; people “caring for parents who never really cared for them”. And yet the story she tells isn’t simply one of unrelieved “horror”, said Cathy Rentzenbrink in The Times. She also meets people who are “living well” with the condition; there are “lovely sections” on the “transformative powers” of the arts. Such moments prevent the reader from “sinking under the misery”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThe book’s real strength lies in its combination of the “intensely personal with the universal”, said Jane O’Grady in the Literary Review. Gerrard’s reflections on dementia lead her to consider death, ageing, memory and identity. If the disease teaches us anything, the author writes, it is that vulnerability and dependence are “necessary conditions of being alive”; to be human is not essentially to be “vigorous and healthy”. And while “individualism” may encourage us to see dementia as a loss of self – and hence as a loss of “any reason to live” – Gerrard’s research leads her to a different conclusion: she believes that within each dementia sufferer, some “indelible essence” of self remains. Her book, as a result, has a partly uplifting message – and will offer comfort to many.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038026158356,"sku":"cgj1789766406070","price":17.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/what-dementia-teaches-us-about-love-by-nicci-gerrard_1.jpg?v=1789766410"},{"product_id":"the-way-we-eat-now-by-bee-wilson","title":"The Way We Eat Now by Bee Wilson","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eIn this rigorous and wide-ranging book, the food writer Bee Wilson addresses one of the paradoxes of our age, said Tony Turnbull in The Times: why have our diets got so much poorer, even as we have become wealthier? Wilson points out that the healthiest diets today tend to be found in less developed nations, whose inhabitants still subsist mainly on staples such as pulses, grains and vegetables. Yet in richer countries people consume ever greater quantities of meat, sugar and oil: “nutrient-dense foodstuffs” we were conditioned to seek out in times of scarcity, and which, in consequence, we now struggle to resist. Our failure to adapt to the “new realities of plenty” is proving disastrous: one in five British children are overweight by the age of 11; millions are affected by obesity and type-2 diabetes. “Our food is killing us,” Wilson writes, “not through its lack, but through its abundance.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThis book superbly captures just how “unhinged” modern eating has become, said Catherine Cleary in The Irish Times. Wilson highlights, for example, the South Korean internet phenomenon of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003emukbang\u003c\/i\u003e, which involves slender women “eating unfeasible quantities of fast food” while chatting to a camera. She considers dietary fads such as clean eating and the adoption of “food substitutes” like Soylent. “The way we grasp at novelties as the solutions to our diet ills,” she comments, “feels somewhat unmoored and manic.” Instead, she advocates a return to basics: eating from old plates (they’re smaller); learning to appreciate the simple pleasures of cooking; educating our children in taste and nutrition. This is, above all, a “thoughtful” book, said Olivia Potts in The Spectator. And I mean that “as the highest compliment”. Wilson embraces the “complexity of modern eating without shelving it as an intractable problem”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038027403540,"sku":"jzb1789766410406","price":12.43,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-way-we-eat-now-by-bee-wilson_1.jpg?v=1789766418"},{"product_id":"upheaval-by-jared-diamond","title":"Upheaval by Jared Diamond","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThe conceit behind Jared Diamond’s new book is that personal crises such as relationship breakdowns and bereavements are not so very different from the political crises faced by nations. At first, I thought this sounded a “little glib”, said Andrew Marr in The Sunday Times, but in the event it worked “surprisingly well”. Patients visiting a therapist, Diamond points out, are likely to be told to face up to a problem and accept help from others, while being encouraged to build a secure sense of self. Much the same advice, he says, applies to nations in crisis, which must accept responsibility for their failures, look to rivals for help and establish a “strong national identity”. Diamond advances his thesis by analysing six countries – Finland, Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Australia – all of which he has either lived in or regularly visited. The resulting book provides “much food for thought”; certainly, Brexit-torn Britain could profit from its lessons.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eIn past works, such as\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eGuns, Germs \u0026amp; Steel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(1997) and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eCollapse\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(2005), Diamond displayed an impressive “willingness to stick his head above the parapet”, said Gerard DeGroot in The Times. But here, he lets himself down with “facile analysis” and “simplistic assumptions”. His discussions of individual countries can be “shockingly naive”: with Chile, for example, he fundamentally misunderstands the role the US played in bolstering the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. A work such as this is easy to criticise, said Vernon Bogdanor in The Daily Telegraph, and the “shop stewards of the historical profession” haven’t lost time in doing so. But it raises important questions, and even its errors force one to think about history in a new way. Diamond is an “invigorating” stylist. His book deserves to be “widely read”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038033039636,"sku":"atc1789766661521","price":26.28,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/upheaval-by-jared-diamond_1.jpg?v=1789766667"},{"product_id":"lel-by-lucasta-miller","title":"L.E.L. by Lucasta Miller","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eOne morning in October 1838, a 36-year-old Englishwoman was found dead in her bedroom in Cape Coast Castle, West Africa. She was the newly married wife of George Maclean, governor of the region – part of present-day Ghana – and had moved there only weeks earlier. Her name was Letitia Elizabeth Landon, but she was better known by her initials, L.E.L., under which she wrote poetry. Landon wasn’t just any poet, said Jane Ridley in The Daily Telegraph. Her “lovesick verses”, published from her late teens on, had turned her into a sensation, a figure known as the “female Byron”. And yet her life – in keeping with its abysmal end – was tragic. As Lucasta Miller shows in this terrific biography, Landon was a woman destroyed by the hypocrisy and sexism of early 19th century British society.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eA “precociously talented child”, Landon grew up in a prosperous middle-class household in west London, said John Carey in The Sunday Times. But when she was 18, her father went bankrupt and abandoned the family. Desperate for money, her mother sought to exploit her daughter’s facility for verse, and dispatched her poems to William Jerdan, the influential editor of The Literary Gazette. Seeing the young poet as the “answer to the gaping absence left by Byron’s sudden death in 1824”, Jerdan became her “mentor and Svengali”, said Paula Byrne in The Times. Under his patronage, her confessional verse acquired a huge readership, and she was soon the “most famous female poet in England”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eNot that she benefited much from that, said Kathryn Hughes in The Guardian. Not only did Jerdan commandeer the profits from her work, but the married publisher, who “had a thing for lisping poetesses barely out of childhood”, also became his protégée’s lover. The affair lasted years, and Landon bore him three children (all sent to foster homes), but eventually it became public when Jerdan’s charwoman spied on the couple making love and told a newspaper. Left with little choice but to try and “launder her reputation by finding a respectable husband”, Landon married George Maclean, a “third-rate colonial administrator” who seems not to have been aware of her history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s2\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eIt isn’t quite clear what happened at the end, said Jane Ridley. Some have speculated that Landon was murdered, but Miller makes a “convincing case” that she poisoned herself with prussic acid. A “rich mix of literary criticism and impeccable research”, this is a compelling book about the victim of a misogynist culture.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038033826068,"sku":"nqv1789766678384","price":20.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/lel-by-lucasta-miller_1.jpg?v=1789766704"},{"product_id":"then-it-fell-apart-by-moby","title":"Then It Fell Apart by Moby","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eIf you publish a memoir detailing affairs with famous women, you need to get your facts right, said Kevin FitzPatrick in Vanity Fair. That, alas, is something the DJ and musician Moby drastically failed to do in this autobiography. In it, he claims to have dated Natalie Portman when she was 20; the actress has contested that account, saying that all she could recall was an “older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school”. Moby, having tried to brazen it out, has now apologised. Yet this is still a “compelling” memoir, said Victoria Segal in The Sunday Times. Moby grew up dirt poor in Connecticut dreaming of wealth and fame; thanks to the “monstrous global success” of his album\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003ePlay\u003c\/i\u003e, he got both at the age of 33. Suddenly, he could afford a $6m “sky castle” in Manhattan, and was being invited to dinner parties hosted by Bono and David Bowie. But it wasn’t long before he began bingeing on drink and drugs and grew “wildly promiscuous”. His downward spiral reached its nadir in 2008, when he “tied a bin bag over his head and waited to die”. The relentless debauchery depicted isn’t always easy to read about, but the book is redeemed by its author’s hard-won wisdom and his “willingness to show himself in the harshest of lights”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eNot exactly, said Joe Clay in The Times. Moby devotes much of the memoir to reminding us how “staggeringly famous” he was. Nor do the endless one-night stands with beautiful women sit easily with his self-depiction as someone racked with self-doubt. Equally off-putting are his boastful “frat-boy antics”: he accepted a dare at a party to brush the “real estate developer” Donald Trump with his exposed penis. In the end, this memoir is “like a self-indulgent double album – bloated and overlong, but with the odd corking anecdote”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038034252052,"sku":"ekd1789766752143","price":12.52,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/then-it-fell-apart-by-moby_1.jpg?v=1789766756"},{"product_id":"the-adventures-of-maud-west-lady-detective-by-susannah-stapleton","title":"The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective by Susannah Stapleton","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eSusannah Stapleton is a historian by trade who also happens to be a fan of golden age crime fiction, said James Walton in The Spectator. One day, while reading a 1930s novel about a female detective, the thought struck her: were there any actual female private eyes around at the time? A Google search led her to Maud West (pictured), who ran a sleuthing agency between 1905 and 1939, and billed herself as “London’s only lady detective”. Stapleton discovered that as well as being a private investigator, West was a “bona fide tabloid celebrity” who penned articles presenting herself as a “gun-toting mistress of disguise” pursuing “dastardly villains across the globe”. The press knew her as “Miss Sherlock Holmes”. The reality was more prosaic: West’s activities were largely confined to England, and while she did deploy a variety of disguises (many male), her regular work was catching petty thieves and adulterers. Stapleton’s biography is nonetheless “hugely entertaining” – all the more so for her “indefatigable” detective work in exposing her subject’s frequent “whoppers”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eWith her magnifying glass and box of costumes, West was both a “splendid one-off and yet somehow entirely of her age”, said Lucy Lethbridge in the Literary Review. She could pose as a “monocled dandy, a bearded old buffer or a washerwoman” – and once even impersonated Charlie Chaplin. Interweaving tales of her adventures with “fascinating” details about the era in which she operated, this is a “jaunty, engaging and witty” read.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eDespite West’s claim to be London’s only lady detective, the capital at that time was positively teeming with female sleuths, said Rosamund Urwin in The Sunday Times. Women aroused less suspicion than men, and could “go places where men could not”. Department stores employed them to spy on shoppers; they were installed as cooks in well-off houses; the police used them to infiltrate fortune-telling rings. While Stapleton’s own sleuthing is “impressive” (she discovers, for example, that West’s real name was Edith Maria Elliott and that she had a gonorrhoea-ridden husband and six children), she also goes into too much detail about these investigative efforts. Do we really need to know that, thanks to a tarpaulin covering, she cannot see the building where West’s office once stood on Google Street View? Stapleton does have a “slight tendency to pad”, said Ysenda Maxtone Graham in The Times. Overall, however, this story of “Miss Marple on the trail of Miss Marple” is a “charming, lighthearted” confection.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038034710804,"sku":"wzh1789766768257","price":17.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-adventures-of-maud-west-lady-detective-by-susannah-stapleton_1.jpg?v=1789766772"},{"product_id":"on-chapel-sands-by-laura-cumming","title":"On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming","description":"\u003cp\u003eLaura Cumming’s last book,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Vanishing Man\u003c\/i\u003e, was a “fascinating art-history-cum-thriller” about a lost Velázquez portrait, said Catherine Taylor in The Daily Telegraph. Her new one is also a detective story of sorts, but this time it centres on a “90-year family mystery”. One autumn day in 1929, Cumming’s mother, Betty, then aged three, was abducted from a beach near her home in Lincolnshire. For five days, her parents, George and Veda, had no idea where she was; then she turned up in a neighbouring village, seemingly unharmed, but wearing a different dress. Betty herself had no memory of the abduction – but ten years later, she was approached by a middle-aged woman on a bus, who said: “Your grandmother wants to see you.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eConfused (she thought both her grandmothers were dead), Betty confronted her parents, who informed her that she’d been adopted. However, they refused to reveal who her biological parents were. A shutter went down, and the matter was never spoken of again. Betty (who is now in her 90s) resigned herself long ago to never discovering her parents’ true identity, said John Carey in The Sunday Times. But her daughter has not been so easily deterred. In\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eOn Chapel Sands\u003c\/i\u003e, Cumming sets out to solve the mystery of her mother’s parentage – and succeeds in “enthralling” fashion. This “moving” book is about many things: the constrictions of family life; rural Lincolnshire in the early 20th century; the relationship between mothers and daughters. But it returns to one theme repeatedly: the importance of visual art. Betty studied art at university, and married an artist, James Cumming. Their daughter is The Observer’s art critic. And the journalistic and critical skills she has acquired help her to unravel the mystery: she hunts for clues in old family photos, and uses the paintings her mother loved to gain a better understanding of her story.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eAnother reason that this book succeeds is Cumming’s skill at withholding information, said Blake Morrison in The Guardian. The revelations keep coming right to the end, and many modify our view of the protagonists: Betty’s father, George, who at first is the “villain of the piece”, ends up appearing more sympathetic. The book would have benefited from a few “more jokes and madcap characters”, said Leaf Arbuthnot in The Times. And the narrative, at times, has a “meandering” quality. But it’s still a “beautifully written” account of events that “often seem stranger than fiction”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038034972948,"sku":"kdi1789766783322","price":15.11,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/on-chapel-sands-by-laura-cumming_1.jpg?v=1789766791"},{"product_id":"the-heartland-by-nathan-filer","title":"The Heartland by Nathan Filer","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*This book is available in four different colour combinations. We cannot guarantee which colour you will receive with your order.* \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eNathan Filer’s first novel, the Costa Prize-winning\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Shock of the Fall\u003c\/i\u003e, centred on a psychiatric patient, said Hannah Jane Parkinson in The Guardian. The former mental-health nurse again draws on his professional experience for his “absorbing” second book, a non-fictional exploration of schizophrenia. Often described as the “heartland” of psychiatry (hence the book’s title), schizophrenia is also among its most contested afflictions. There is precious little agreement as to what causes the condition, and how best to treat it; and some even question whether it truly exists. The term schizophrenia (meaning “split mind”) was coined in the early 20th century by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, said Paul Broks in the Literary Review. He saw it as being characterised by a “splitting of cognitive and emotional functions”, leading to symptoms such as paranoia and disordered thinking. But the name has also fuelled the “enduring misconception” that schizophrenics have “split personalities”. Today, Filer writes, schizophrenia is a “battleground upon which the fiercest ideological disputes about madness and its meanings are fought”. In\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Heartland\u003c\/i\u003e, he does a “brilliant job” of picking his way through this “chaotic scene”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eFiler elucidates the debates surrounding schizophrenia as well as taking us into the world of those who suffer from it, said Cathy Rentzenbrink in The Times. Among others, he introduces us to Erica, a journalist who drinks bleach because she is convinced she has committed unforgivable crimes; to Jasper, a senior nurse who “runs a patient-led support group where he too admits that he has always heard voices”; and to Clare, who lost her son, Joe, to the condition. Mental illness is a “difficult terrain”, but Filer navigates it with wisdom and humanity.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038036414740,"sku":"zer1789766811599","price":12.32,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-heartland-by-nathan-filer_1.jpg?v=1789766815"},{"product_id":"novacene-by-james-lovelock","title":"Novacene by James Lovelock","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eMany people believe that super-intelligent robots pose a serious threat to humanity. Not James Lovelock, said Steven Poole in The Guardian: in his new book, the 99-year-old scientist and inventor displays a remarkably sanguine attitude to the “coming machine takeover”. Lovelock’s term for the AI-dominated future is the\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e“Novacene”: soon, he argues, this will replace the “Anthropocene”, in which humans have been the dominant influence on the environment. In the new era, cyborgs will emerge that can “think 10,000 times faster than we do” and they will change the planet in unimaginable ways. But crucially, they won’t do away with humans, because they will “realise that they need organic life to keep the planet at a habitable temperature” (even robots, it seems, won’t survive runaway global warming). Although Lovelock’s speculations sound far-fetched, the underlying science is explained with “beautiful clarity”, and the book is a “bracing corrective to the crypto-Christian guilt and self-loathing of much traditional environmentalism”.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eIt is tempting to dismiss some of the claims made in this book as crazy, said Martha Gill in The Times. In the future, Lovelock suggests, we may “provide the decoration” for our robot overlords just as, at present, “flowers delight us”. We should, he says, feel proud about passing on the gift of intelligence to a “race of robot geniuses”. And yet throughout his “long and decorated career”, Lovelock has made a habit of coming up with “mad ideas” that are proved right. Most famous is his “Gaia theory”, which holds that the planet regulates itself much as single organisms do. In the 1970s, when he first proposed it, it seemed “bonkers”; now it “forms the basis of much climate science”. Who’s to say his latest theory won’t seem similarly prescient?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038036513044,"sku":"juj1789766819317","price":14.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/novacene-by-james-lovelock_1.jpg?v=1789766822"},{"product_id":"mother-ship-by-francesca-segal","title":"Mother Ship by Francesca Segal","description":"\u003cspan\u003eHeart-wrenching, heart-warming and heartfelt - Mother Ship is a beautifully crafted, warts-and-all love letter to our wonderful NHS' Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt`Our greatest gift to one another is this: each woman here has been swept out by a riptide, pulled far from the current of normal motherhood. Apart and all together in this space, our odd craft, we are drawn back into the folds of the unremarkable.' After her identical twin girls are born ten weeks prematurely, Francesca Segal finds herself sitting vigil in the `mother ship' of neonatal intensive care, all romantic expectations of new parenthood obliterated. Her gripping diary of those months combines the tenderness of a love poem with the compulsive pace of a thriller.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs each day brings a fresh challenge for her and her babies, Francesca makes a temporary life among a band of mothers who are vivid, fearless, and inspiring, taking care not only of their children but of one another. MOTHER SHIP is an intimate, raucous, sublime and electrifying memoir. It is a hymn to the sustaining power of women's friendships, and a loving celebration of the two small girls - and their mother - who defy the odds.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'If there was ever a book that perfectly depicted the emotional highs, and dark dark lows of having a baby in NICU, Mother Ship is it. This beautiful book is as empowering as it is fragile and precious' Clemmie Hooper'Mother Ship is a masterclass in style. A beautiful, lyrical memoir that navigates the unpredictable landscape of NICU and the will to survive' Christie Watson, author of The Language of Kindness'Segal writes with delicate eloquence, combining passion and comic understatement so deftly that this feels the only way the book could have been written...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI don't think I've turned the pages so urgently in a book about motherhood before' Lara Feigal, Guardian\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038037299476,"sku":"zwt1789766846512","price":12.12,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/mother-ship-by-francesca-segal_1.jpg?v=1789766851"},{"product_id":"passionate-spirit-by-cate-haste","title":"Passionate Spirit by Cate Haste","description":"\u003cspan\u003eThe life of an extraordinary artist and intellect: the composer, author and socialite Alma Mahler, whose life spanned one of the most captivating and dramatic periods in historyBorn into the dying days of the Habsburg Empire, Alma Mahler was at the epicentre of fin de siecle Vienna's artistic and intellectual life. A talented composer in her own right, she was open, generous, remarkably creative, curious, challenging and zealous in her pursuit of love. Artists, architects, musicians and writers jostled to join her coterie.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGustav Mahler was her first husband; Gustav Klimt her first kiss. The great men who were drawn into Alma's wake would be indelibly touched by her power and brilliance: from her second husband Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus and modernist architecture, to the Expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka and her last husband, writer Franz Werfel. But her life was inflected by tragedy, and the love, support and inspiration that Alma gave to the men she loved came at the heavy price of her own artistic fulfilment.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs the turmoil of her century uprooted her from her homeland and she fled Austria first for occupied France and then America, it would be her love of music alone that sustained her through a series of great losses. Drawing extensively on hitherto unpublished diaries and letters, Cate Haste illuminates the passionate spirit of one of history's most complex and charismatic muses, a modern woman with an elemental vitality that could scarcely be contained by her century - who will live forever in the art she created and inspired.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038037397780,"sku":"xup1789766849702","price":26.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/passionate-spirit-by-cate-haste_1.jpg?v=1789766854"},{"product_id":"the-great-successor-by-anna-fifield","title":"The Great Successor by Anna Fifield","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Astonishing and insightful - the inside story of the mercurial man now making headlines, and history. Essential reading' Lyse Doucet'By far the most complete insight into the Hermit Kingdom I have ever seen' Christina LambThe Great Successor is an irreverent yet insightful quest to understand the life of Kim Jong Un, one of the world's most secretive dictators. Kim's life is swathed in myth and propaganda, from the plainly silly--he supposedly ate so much Swiss cheese that his ankles gave way--to the grimly bloody stories of the ways his enemies and rival family members have perished at his command.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne of the most knowledgeable journalists on modern Korea, Anna Fifield has exclusive access to Kim's aunt and uncle who posed as his parents while he was growing up in Switzerland, members of the entourage that accompanied Dennis Rodman on his quasi-ambassadorial visits with Kim, and the Japanese sushi chef whom Kim befriended and who was the first outsider to identify him as the inevitable successor to his father as supreme ruler. She has been able to create a captivating portrait of the oddest and most isolated political regime in the world, one that is broken yet able to summon a US president for peace talks, bankrupt yet in possession of nuclear weapons. Kim Jong Un; ridiculous but deadly, and a man of our times.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038038315284,"sku":"lab1789766900469","price":19.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-great-successor-by-anna-fifield_1.jpg?v=1789766905"},{"product_id":"crosby-stills-nash-young-by-peter-doggett","title":"Crosby, Stills, Nash \u0026 Young by Peter Doggett","description":"\u003cspan\u003ePeter Dogett's book is a fascinating, rip-roaring and timely re-telling of a corner of music history that was hugely important but is all too often forgotten. The rehabilitation of Crosby, Stills and Nash's reputation (and of Young's contributions here) is long overdue' - FRANK TURNERAt 3 a.m. on Monday, 18 August 1969, the final night of the Woodstock Music \u0026amp; Art Fair, four men armed only with acoustic guitars faced the gaping darkness of a vast open-air audience.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn hour later, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had confounded and convinced their peers, and cemented their place in rock history. They had also made themselves, for better or worse, synonymous with Woodstock, and with the nebulous Woodstock generation which it inspired. Between 1969 and 1974, CSNY were the most successful, influential and politically potent rock band in America.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMore than any of their peers, they channelled and broadcast all the radical anger, romantic idealism and generational angst of their era. The vast emotional range of their music, from delicate acoustic confessionals to raucous counter-culture anthems, was mirrored in the turbulence of their personal lives. Their trademark may have been vocal harmony, but few if any of their contemporaries could match the recklessness of their hedonistic and often warring lifestyles, as four stubborn, driven songwriters pursued chemical and sexual pleasure to life-threatening extremes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCrosby, Stills, Nash \u0026amp; Young is the first major biography of a band whose first two albums are undisputed rock classics, and which continues to attract a large and loyal following to their sporadic reunions. At the same time, Peter Doggett illuminates the pivotal years of 1960s counterculture through the story of four of its key protagonists, whose music, beliefs and relationships with each other chronicle both its trajectory and its legacy.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038038413588,"sku":"bcm1789766914103","price":21.22,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/crosby-stills-nash-young-by-peter-doggett_1.jpg?v=1789766919"},{"product_id":"the-fatal-passion-of-alma-rattenbury-by-sean-oconnor","title":"The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury by Sean O’Connor","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eIn 1935, as Agatha Christie’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eMurder on the Orient Express\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003ewas flying off the shelves, the British public became gripped by a “real-life shocker”, said Sinclair McKay in The Spectator. Francis Rattenbury, a distinguished architect in his late 60s, was sitting in the living room of his Bournemouth villa when an intruder bashed his skull in with a mallet. It emerged that the culprit was Rattenbury’s 18-year-old chauffeur, George Stoner, who apparently killed his boss in a “spasm of confused jealousy”: for months, he’d been having an affair with the architect’s wife, Alma, 42. To protect her lover, Alma initially claimed responsibility, and “what followed was an extraordinary double murder trial” at the Old Bailey, culminating in Stoner’s conviction and Alma’s acquittal (followed, immediately afterwards, by her suicide). Written in “sensitive and affecting prose”, Sean O’Connor’s account of this “weird and savage killing” is both gripping and powerful.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eThe case certainly bore all the hallmarks of the “great English murder”, said Thomas Grant in The Times – including a “loveless marriage” and a “suburban mise en scène”. But it also transcended the backdrop of 1930s England, being a “case study in human frailty, jealousy and desire”. No wonder, then, that it so captivated the public, who thrilled to the sensational details: the fact that in an attempt to revive her husband, Alma had jammed his false teeth (which were knocked out by the mallet blow) back into his mouth; or that after committing the murder, Stoner had changed into a pair of silk pyjamas and got into his lover’s bed. While O’Connor isn’t the first writer to chronicle the murder, his account stands out for its meticulous “psychological perspicacity”.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"s1\"\u003eO’Connor’s decision to make Alma the lead character is also wise for she was, in many ways, a “brilliant” woman, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Sunday Times. Originally from Canada, she was a precocious violinist who performed to large audiences as a teenager and was subsequently decorated for her work with an ambulance unit in the First World War. Ultimately, O’Connor argues, she became a victim of misogyny, and was tried as much for “immorality” as for “criminality”. Yet for all that the author strives to analyse the wider politics of the case, he can’t get away from the fact that its appeal is “primarily voyeuristic”. What lingers most in the mind is the “harrowing comedy: the false teeth and the crêpe de Chine pyjamas”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038038741268,"sku":"agk1789766939476","price":16.71,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/the-fatal-passion-of-alma-rattenbury-by-sean-oconnor_1.jpg?v=1789766944"},{"product_id":"home-grown-by-joan-smith","title":"Home Grown by Joan Smith","description":"\u003cspan\u003eWhat do the attacks in London Bridge, Manchester and Westminster have in common with those at the Charlie Hebdo offices, the Finsbury Park Mosque attack and multiple US shootings? They were all carried out by men with histories of domestic violence. 'Revelation' Sunday Times: Best Book of 2019'Achieves the rare feat of saying something new' John Bew'Powerfully written' The TimesTERRORISM BEGINS AT HOME. Terrorism is seen as a special category of crime that has blinded us to the obvious - that it is, almost always, male violence.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe extraordinary link between so many tragic recent attacks is that the perpetrators have practised in private before their public outbursts. In these searing case studies, Joan Smith, feminist and human rights campaigner, makes a compelling and persuasive argument for a radical shift in perspective. Incomprehensible ideology is transformed through her clear-eyed research into a disturbing but familiar pattern.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the Manchester bomber to the Charlie Hebdo attackers, from angry white men to the Bethnal Green girls, from US school shootings to the London gang members who joined ISIS, Joan Smith shows that, time and time again, misogyny, trauma and abuse lurk beneath the 'justifications' of religion or politics. Until Smith pointed it out in 2017, criminal authorities missed this connection because violence against women is dangerously normalised. Yet, since domestic abuse often comes before a public attack, it's here a solution to the scourge of our age might be found.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThought-provoking and essential, Home-Grown will lift the veil on a revelatory truth. For fans of Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez and Misogynation by Laura Bates.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"The Week Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54038039298324,"sku":"lbo1789766973942","price":14.88,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1011\/7627\/9316\/files\/home-grown-by-joan-smith_1.jpg?v=1789766978"},{"product_id":"i-never-said-i-loved-you-by-rhik-samadder","title":"I Never Said I Loved You by Rhik Samadder","description":"\u003cp\u003eI Never Said I Love You is one of the most electric, enchanting, engrossing and energising memoirs of self-harm, self-loathing, grief, eating disorders, suicide - and sex - that you will read.' The Sunday Times'Indecently entertaining... one of the most uplifting and eccentric memoirs I have ever read.' Observer'Brutally honest and relentlessly funny.' Adam Kay, author of 'This is Going to Hurt''A brilliant memoir full of gasp-inducing honesty about depression and family and taking control of your own pain. Funny, sad, hopeful, I Never Said I Loved You is an irresistible, strangely empowering read.' Matt Haig'This mind-blowingly wonderful memoir had me convulsing with laughter even while my heart was breaking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's utterly effing BEAUTIFUL.' Marian Keyes'I found myself blindsided by this extraordinary book ... I was deeply moved by its capacity both to depict pain, and offer consolation. I loved it, and won't ever forget it.' 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With unique humour and honesty, he has created a powerfully rich, funny and poignant exploration of the light and dark in all of us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA vital, moving and darkly funny memoir by a powerful new voice in non-fiction. 'Both unputdownable and beautifully-written, bracing and consoling. A book that tackles mental health and the darkest things with razor-sharp wit and mordant laughs aplenty ...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eread this.' Sharlene Teo'Touching, funny, wildly readable ... Look out for it.' Sathnam Sanghera'No one writes better, or more sweetly, about how it feels to feel. Even the darkest times are shot through with glorious, bright beams of wit.' Janet Ellis'It's honest and funny (and beautifully painful and brutal at times), but also - oh goodness - it's so elegant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe writing is graceful and kind, even when it hurts a little to remember it's a memoir.' Joanna Cannon 'Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking. What an absolutely riveting read.' Nikita Gill'Heartbreaking, funny, raw, brave and - yes! - even better than the egg thing.' Erin Kelly'I have always loved Rhik Samadder's writing. And now there's a whole book!' Jessie Burton'A sparkling, thoughtful memoir.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt manages to be witty, charming, brooding and devastating all the same time.' 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