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Kinky History started as a TikTok lecture series in 2020, discussing the evolution of human sexuality - from scandalous stories from the Ancient World to the saucy secrets of famous figures.
By speaking openly about these topics in a way that is educational, entertaining, and accessible, Kinky History aims to erase dangerous taboos which still exist around identity, gender, and sexuality.
It has since grown into a book, a podcast, a TEDx Talk, a spin-off series -- and most importantly, an inclusive global community.
9780593716908 / PE / Added on 29 Apr / 18 / 6
Contrary to popular belief, our predecessors had all sorts of obscene hobbies long before Christian Grey hit the scene. In this enlightening romp, learn about the first instances of homosexuality on record from the ancient world and the diverse history of nonbinary gender; encounter a thousand years’ worth of hilarious and horrifying contraceptive methods; consider the positive and negative effects of the widespread availability of pornography in the digital age—and how our relationship to it changed during the pandemic; take a sneaky riffle through centuries of bedside drawers; and discover the dirty little secrets of luminaries such as Julius Caesar, James Joyce, Albert Einstein, and Virginia Woolf. Esmé Louise James also identifies the key tipping points that directly inform current beliefs around sex to place the past in conversation with the present. By educating ourselves about the weird, wonderful, and varied spectrum of human sexuality and experience, we can normalize and destigmatize sex, write people of marginalized sexual identities back into the pages of history, and build toward a more liberated future. "A colorful study, often told in a suitably picaresque style."--Sydney Morning Herald (Hardcover / 320 pages / $52 / Banned in Malaysia) China in Seven Banquets ranges through 5,000 years of China’s food history in seven iconic meals, from the ancient Eight Treasures fête to the ‘Tail-Burning Banquet’ of the Tang Dynasty and the Qing court’s extravagant ‘Complete Manchu-Han Feast’. We also experience lavish repasts from literature and film, a New Year’s buffet from 1920s Shanghai and a delivery menu from the hyperglobal twenty-first century, even peeking into the tables of the not-too-distant future. Drawing on decades of experience eating his way around China, Beijing-based historian Thomas David DuBois explains why culinary fashions come and go, and recreates dozens of historical recipes in a modern kitchen. From fermented elk to absinthe cocktails, this is Chinese food as you’ve never seen it before.
(Hardcover / 296 pages / 40 illustrations / $39) Thomas David DuBois is Professor in the Folk Culture Research Center of Beijing Normal University. He is the author of numerous books on China’s history and religion. "Anyone who wants to understand China's food culture needs to read this book. With the eye of a historian and experience in the kitchen, DuBois strips away the myths of China's culinary history, not only showing the evolution of recipes but explaining the problems that modernization has brought to China's diet. Much more than a history of food, this book is a history of China with a seat at the dining table." -- Rongguang Zhao, author of "A History of Food Culture in China" The epic tale of the world's most sophisticated gastronomic culture, told through a banquet of thirty Chinese dishes
Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese labourers began to sojourn and settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese food has the curious distinction of being both one of the world's best-loved culinary traditions and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of its richness and sophistication - but today that is beginning to change. In this book, the James Beard Award-winning cook and writer Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy and techniques of China's rich and ancient culinary culture. Each chapter examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a singular aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it's the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. Meeting local food producers, chefs, gourmets and home cooks as she tastes her way across the country, Fuchsia invites readers to join her on an unforgettable journey into Chinese food as it is made, cooked, eaten and considered in its homeland. Weaving together historical scholarship, mouth-watering descriptions of food and on-the-ground research conducted over the course of three decades, Invitation to a Banquet is a lively, landmark tribute to the pleasures and mysteries of Chinese cuisine. (480 pages / $31) In 1937, Elias Canetti began collecting notes for the project that ‘by definition, he could never live to complete’, as translator Peter Filkins writes in his afterword.
The Book Against Death is the work of a lifetime: a collection of Canetti’s aphorisms, diatribes, musings and commentaries on and against death – published in English for the first time since his death in 1994 – interspersed with material from philosophers and writers including Goethe, Walter Benjamin and Robert Walser. This major work by the 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate is a disarming and often darkly comic reckoning with the inevitability of death and with its politicization, evoking despair at the loss of loved ones and the impossibility of facing one’s own death, while fiercely protesting the mass deaths incurred during war and the willingness of the despot to wield death as power. Infused with fervour and vitality, The Book Against Death ultimately forms a moving affirmation of the value of life itself. (424 pages / $30) This is the memoir Christopher Fowler (1953 - 2023) always wanted to write about 'writing'.
It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and motorcycle manuals became a writer - a 'word monkey' - and pursued a sort of career in popular fiction. And it's a book full of brilliant insights into the pleasures and pitfalls of his profession, dos and don'ts for would-be writers, and astute observations on favourite (and not-so-favourite) novelists. But woven into this hugely entertaining and inspiring reflection on a literary life is an altogether darker thread. In Spring 2020, just as the world went into lockdown, Chris was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And yet there is nothing of the misery memoir about Word Monkey. Past and present intermingle as, in prose as light as air, he relates with wry humour and remarkable honesty what he knows will be the final chapter in his story. Deeply moving, insightful and surprisingly funny, this is Christopher Fowler's life-affirming account of coming to terms with his own mortality. (464 pages / $25) Creatures That Eat People is an action packed deep dive on predators that turn man eater. Learn about past and present cases on human eating animals—big and small—so you can survive being hunted!
Avoid getting eaten! Do you find yourself wondering: Do bears eat humans? Do birds eat people? Do kangaroos? Could I survive people eating predators of any kind? Perfect for anyone with a fun or morbid interest in wildlife or survivalism, Creatures That Eat People is full of stories of strange animals that eat humans and the situations that lead to it. Learn which wild animals might eat you—from an expert. Cryptozoologist, former zookeeper, current zoological director, best-selling author, and animal enthusiast Richard Freeman examines all the cool man eaters in the animal kingdom—so you can be prepared on your next adventure. (212 pages / $35) About the author: Richard Freeman is a working cryptozoologist—he searches for and writes about unknown animals. He is the Zoological Director at the Centre for Fortean Zoology, the world’s only full time mystery animal research organization, based in North Devon, England. A former zookeeper, Richard has worked with over 400 species. He has lectured at the Natural History Museum in London, the Grant Museum of Zoology, and the Last Tuesday Society at Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors. He has written several books about cryptozoology, folklore, monsters, and horror. A love letter to the small shop, and shop owners everywhere, by beloved bookseller Peter Miller.
“There is a tradition of shopkeeping, a tradition of codes, etiquette, and customs. For the most part, it is an oral history, passed along, person to person. You learn to be a retailer—not by going to college, but by going to work. You learn from people who have learned how to run a shop.” [from the Introduction] For more than four decades, Peter Miller has run a design bookshop that shares his name in Seattle. He has also written three of his own books, manuals about cooking and about food and about eating together. In this love letter to his day job, Miller writes for the first time about his other love: shopkeeping. Miller crafts stories from the bookshop floor with wry humor and skillful storytelling. Readers are taken on a shopkeeping journey and will come to understand along the way that small shops characterize our towns and cities, making them unique, special, and worth visiting and living near. This essay collection is for shop lovers everywhere and captures the art and heart of running a local shop treasured by the community that surrounds it. By the end, you can’t help wanting to own a shop. (Hardcover / 144 pages / $44) Design is central to the appeal, messaging, and usefulness of books, but to most readers, it’s mysterious or even invisible. Through interiors as well as covers, designers provide structure and information that shape the meaning and experience of books. In The Design of Books, Debbie Berne shines a light on the conventions and processes of her profession, revealing both the aesthetic and market-driven decisions designers consider to make books readable and beautiful. In clear, unstuffy language, Berne reveals how books are put together, with discussions of production considerations, typography and fonts, page layouts, use of images and color, special issues for ebooks, and the very face of each book: the cover.
The Design of Books speaks to readers and directly to books’ creators—authors, editors, and other publishing professionals—helping them to become more informed partners in the design of their projects. Berne lays out the practical steps at each stage of the design process, providing insight into who does what when and offering advice for authors on how to be effective advocates for their ideas while also letting go and trusting their manuscripts with teams of professionals. She includes guidance as well for self-publishing authors, including where to find a designer, what to expect from that relationship, and how to art direct your own book. Throughout, Berne teaches how understanding the whats, hows, and whys of book design heightens our appreciation of these cherished objects and helps everyone involved in the process to create more functional, desirable, and wonderful books. (256 pages / The University of Chicago Press / $42) Hi! I’ve been designing books for 20 years!
I’ve designed for the Big 5, medium, and really small publishers. I’ve worked on books for authors, editors, agents, poets, artists, chefs, gardeners, and musicians. (I started out designing books AND CDs but CDs have mostly gone by the wayside over the decades.)
Over COVID I decided to spend some time explaining how design interacts with all the editorial (and other) parts of making books. The result is The Design of Books: An Explainer for A
So you've written a book—now what? Your next step is to find your readers and get that book into their hands
Eleanor Whitney offers perspective, practical advice, and checklists for shepherding your new book into the wider world. Traditionally published, self-published, and hybrid authors alike will benefit from these accessible tools and frameworks. No matter what kind of book you've written or where you are in the writing or publishing process, you can always build a community of readers, strengthen your literary support system, and have fun doing it. Combining her deep marketing and community-building knowledge, Whitney also interviews a variety of authors and publicists writing in different genres about what worked for them and what they learned the hard way. She walks readers through creating and executing a plan to promote their book on their own terms, with whatever resources and time they have available. She provides a timeline of promotional activities to consider before and after publication, while reminding us that publicity is a long game that you can begin well before your book is finished and continue long after its release. Ultimately, promoting your book is about connecting with a reader through ideas that inspire you both. And that is something we can all do. (190 pages / $25) About the author: Eleanor C. Whitney is a writer, editor, and content marketer. Throughout her career she has worked to build communities, education programs, and content strategy at museums, art organizations, and tech startups, including the Brooklyn Museum and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Queens College, a master’s in public administration from Baruch College, and a BA in cultural studies from Eugene Lang College. Now revised and expanded for its first paperback publication, The Life of Crime was the winner of four major prizes for the best critical/biographical book related to crime fiction: the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and H.R.F. Keating Awards; and was shortlisted for both the Agatha and Gold Dagger Awards
In this groundbreaking history of crime fiction, acclaimed expert Martin Edwards traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering a brand-new perspective on the world's most popular form of storytelling. The Life of Crime is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of mystery fiction from around the world. Martin Edwards has drawn on his experience as an award-winning novelist to capture the breadth and complexity of crime writing, telling the story of the genre's development and evolution in a way that will fascinate and entertain anyone who delights in a good mystery. With crime fiction being read more widely than ever, The Life of Crime reveals the writers’ secrets and the ups and downs of their literary lives with insight, compassion and wit. This definitive distillation of more than two centuries of extraordinary books and authors into one coherent history is an extraordinary feat and makes compelling reading. (736 pages / $36) As writers, musicians, online content creators, and other independent workers fight for better labor terms, romance authors offer a powerful example—and a cautionary tale—about self-organization and mutual aid in the digital economy.
In Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, Christine Larson traces the forty-year history of Romancelandia, a sprawling network of romance authors, readers, editors, and others, who formed a unique community based on openness and collective support. Empowered by solidarity, American romance writers--once disparaged literary outcasts—became digital publishing’s most innovative and successful authors. Meanwhile, a new surge of social media activism called attention to Romancelandia’s historic exclusion of romance authors of color and LGBTQ+ writers, forcing a long-overdue cultural reckoning. Drawing on the largest-known survey of any literary genre as well as interviews and archival research, Larson shows how romance writers became the only authors in America to make money from the rise of ebooks—increasing their median income by 73 percent while other authors’ plunged by 40 percent. The success of romance writers, Larson argues, demonstrates the power of alternative forms of organizing influenced by gendered working patterns. It also shows how networks of relationships can amplify—or mute—certain voices. Romancelandia’s experience, Larson says, offers crucial lessons about solidarity for creators and other isolated workers in an increasingly risky employment world. Romancelandia’s rise and near-meltdown shows that gaining fair treatment from platforms depends on creator solidarity—but creator solidarity, in turn, depends on fair treatment of all members. (Hardcover / 288 pages / Princeton University Press / $55) The School of Life looks at new ways of thinking about life’s biggest questions. In this rigorous and supremely honest book Alain de Botton helps us navigate the intimate and exciting – yet often confusing and difficult – experience that is sex.
Few of us tend to feel we’re entirely normal when it comes to sex, and what we think we’re supposed to be feeling rarely matches up with the reality. How to Think More About Sex argues that 21st-century sex is ultimately fated to be a balancing act between love and desire, adventure and commitment. Covering topics that include lust, fetishism, adultery and pornography, Alain de Botton frankly articulates the dilemmas of modern sexuality, offering insights and consolation to help us think more deeply and wisely about the sex we are, or aren’t, having. (160 pages / $22) A philosopher explores the transformative role of wonder and awe in an uncertain world.
Wonder and awe lie at the heart of life’s most profound questions. Wonderstruck shows how these emotions respond to our fundamental need to make sense of ourselves and everything around us, and how they enable us to engage with the world as if we are experiencing it for the first time. Drawing on the latest psychological insights on emotions, Helen De Cruz argues that wonder and awe are emotional drives that motivate us to inquire and discover new things, and that humanity has deliberately nurtured these emotions in cultural domains such as religion, science, and magic. Tracing how wonder and awe unify philosophy, the humanities, and the sciences, De Cruz provides new perspectives on figures such as Plato, Aristotle, Adam Smith, William James, Rachel Carson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Abraham Heschel. Along the way, she explains how these singular emotions empower us to be open-minded, to experience joy and hope, and to be resilient in the face of personal troubles and global challenges. Taking inspiration from Descartes’s portrayal of wonder as “that sudden surprise of the soul,” this illuminating book reveals how wonder and awe are catalysts that can help us reclaim what makes life worth living and preserve the things we find wonderful and valuable in our lives. (Hardcover / 232 pages / Princeton University Press / $48) Over the past sixty years, Dr Gladys McGarey has pioneered a new way of thinking about disease and health that has transformed the way we imagine health care and self-care around the world.
On these pages, Dr. McGarey shares her six actionable secrets to enjoying lives that are long, happy, and purpose-driven: -Spend your energy wildly: How to embrace your life fully and feel motivated every day. -All life needs to move: How to move—spiritually, mentally, and physically—to help let go of trauma and other roadblocks. -You are here for a reason: How to find the everyday “juice” that helps you stay oriented in your life’s purpose. -You are never alone: How to build a community that’s meaningful to you. -Everything is your teacher: Discover the deep learnings that come from pain and setbacks. -Love is the most powerful medicine: Learn to love yourself—and others—into healing. In a voice that is both practical and inspiring, Dr. McGarey shares her own extraordinary stories and eternal wisdom—from her early childhood in India and a chance encounter with Mahatma Gandhi to her life as a physician and a mother of six, to her survival of both heartbreak and illness. (256 pages / $34) A searching account of the ethics and aesthetics of the home: the place that is most important in determining human happiness.
A bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom - are these rooms all that make a home? Not at all, argues Emanuele Coccia. The buildings we inhabit are of immense psychological and cultural significance. They play a decisive role in human flourishing and, for hundreds of years, their walls and walkways, windows and doorways have guided our relationships with others and with ourselves. They reflect and reinforce social inequalities; they allow us to celebrate and cherish those we love. They are the places of return that allow us to venture out into the world. In this intimate, elegantly argued account, Coccia shows how the architecture of home has shaped, and continues to shape, our psyches and our societies, before then masterfully leading us towards a more creative, ecological way of dwelling in the world. (208 pages / $25) About the author: Emanuele Coccia is a philosopher teaching at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In the autumn of 2020, Simon Barnes should have been leading a safari in Zambia, but Covid restrictions meant his plans had to be put on hold. Instead, he embarked on the only voyage of discovery that was still open to him. He walked to a folding chair at the bottom of his garden, and sat down. His itinerary: to sit in that very same spot every day for a year and to see - and hear - what happened all around him. It would be a stationary garden safari; his year of sitting dangerously had begun.
For the next twelve months, he would watch as the world around him changed day by day. Gradually, he began to see his surroundings in a new way; by restricting himself, he opened up new horizons, growing even closer to a world he thought he already knew so well.
The Year of Sitting Dangerously is a wonderfully evocative read; it inspires the reader to pay closer attention to the marvels that surround us all, and is packed with handy tips to help bring nature even closer to us. There are natural joys to be discovered on your doorstep. (Hardcover/ 352 pages / $37) |
Salem, King James VI, Malleus Maleficarum. The world of witch hunts and witch trials sounds antiquated, relics of an unenlightened and brutal age. However, 'witch hunt' is heard often in the present-day media, and the misogyny it is rooted in is all too familiar today. A woman was prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 1944.
This book uses thirteen significant trials to explore the history of witchcraft and witch hunts. As well as investigating some of the most famous trials from the middle ages to the 18th century, it takes us in new and surprising directions. It shows us how witchcraft was decriminalised in the 18th century, only to be reimagined by the 1780s Romantic radicals. We will learn how it evolved from being seen as a threat to Christianity to perceived as gendered persecution, and how trials against chieftains in Africa stoked anger against colonial rule. Significantly, the book tells the stories of the victims - women, such as Helena Scheuberin and Joan Wright - whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men, such as King James VI and I and “Witchfinder General” Matthew Hopkins, who hounded them. While this will be a history of witchcraft, the subject cannot be consigned to the history books. Hundreds of people, mostly women, are tried and killed as witches every year in Africa. ‘WITCH HUNT!’ is as common in our language today as ever it was, and witches are still on trial across the world. (298 pages / $33) A delightfully captivating journey across the medieval world, seen through the eyes of those who travelled across it
From the bustling bazaars of Tabriz, to the mysterious island of Caldihe, where sheep were said to grow on trees, Anthony Bale brings history alive in A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, inviting the reader to travel across a medieval world punctuated with miraculous wonders and long-lost landmarks. Journeying alongside scholars, spies and saints, from western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes, and the ends of the world, this is no ordinary travel guide, containing everything from profane pilgrim badges, Venetian laxatives and flying coffins to encounters with bandits and trysts with princesses. Using previously untranslated contemporary accounts from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, Armenia, north Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a living atlas that blurs the distinction between real and imagined places, offering the reader a vivid and unforgettable insight into how medieval people understood their world. (Hardcover / 448 pages / $44) Anthony Bale is Professor of Medieval Studies at Birkbeck, University of London and a former President of the New Chaucer Society. He has edited and translated several medieval texts, including The Book of Marvels & Travels by John Mandeville, The Book of Margery Kempe, and Medieval English Travel: A Critical Anthology, all with Oxford University Press. He was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize (2011) and holds a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2023-26). He has held fellowships at institutions including Harvard University, The Huntington Library and the University of Melbourne. Painted People is a beguiling and intimate look at an untold history of humanity.
The earliest tattoos yet identified belonged to Ötzi, the ‘iceman’, whose mummy allows us a brief glimpse into the prehistory of the practice. We know that over the more than five thousand years since he was tattooed, countless cultures have performed this ancient practice, and people in every corner of the world have been tattooed. For the most part, these fascinating histories remain stubbornly untold, and the secrets of Siberian princesses, Chinese generals and Victorian socialites have been hidden on the skin, under layers of clothing and under layers of history. Now with access to a wealth of new and unreported material, this book will roll up its sleeves and reveal the artwork hidden beneath them. In Painted People, Dr Matt Lodder, one of the world’s foremost experts on tattooing, tells the stories of people like Arnaq, who was tattooed in keeping with her cultural and religious traditions in sixteenth-century Canada, and Horace Ridler, who was tattooed as a means to make money in 1930s London. And in between these two extremes, he describes tattoos inked for love, for loyalty, for sedition and espionage and for self-expression, as well as tattoos inflicted on the unwilling, to ostracise. Taken together, these twenty-one tattoos paint a portrait of humanity as both artist and canvas. (352 pages / $25) "What audience will it reach? I think this funny and enjoyable book will become required reading for psychotherapy students and would benefit anyone with even a casual interest in psychotherapy. Those who are thinking of consulting a therapist might ‘dip their toe in’ here, as might any lover of graphic fiction .." Graphic Medicine Ever wanted to know what really happens in a therapist's consultation room?
This compelling study of psychotherapy in the form of a graphic novel vividly explores a year's therapy sessions as a search for understanding and truth. Beautifully illustrated and accompanied by succinct and illuminating footnotes, this book offers a witty and thought-provoking exploration of the therapeutic journey, considering a range of skills, insights and techniques along the way. (Hardcover / 152 pages / $37) After volunteering with the Samaritans, Philippa trained as a psychotherapist. She worked in the mental health field for several years before writing her graphic novel, Couch Fiction which lays bare the process of psychotherapy, "Couch Fiction both tells and analyses the theraputic relationship between Pat Phillips, an experienced psychotherapist, and James Clarkson Smith, her client. James is a successful barrister from a priveliged background who has developed a shoplifting habit which could threaten his career if he is caught. He is sceptical about psychotherapy but has decided to give it a try after overhearing a friend recommending Pat’s services. The book chronicles James’ weekly sessions over almost a year...
This book, I feel, is an excellent advertisement for psychotherapy. I would pay money to consult Pat." www.graphicmedicine.org An exceptional new biography that shows how George Eliot wrestled with the question of marriage, in art and life
When she was in her mid-thirties, Marian Evans transformed herself into George Eliot - an author celebrated for her genius as soon as she published her debut novel. During those years she also found her life partner, George Lewes - writer, philosopher and married father of three. After 'eloping' to Berlin in 1854 they lived together for twenty-four years: Eliot asked people to call her 'Mrs Lewes' and dedicated each novel to her 'Husband'. Though they could not legally marry, she felt herself initiated into the 'great experience' of marriage - 'this double life, which helps me to feel and think with double strength'. The relationship scandalized her contemporaries yet she grew immeasurably within it. Living at once inside and outside marriage, Eliot could experience this form of life - so familiar yet also so perplexing - from both sides. In The Marriage Question Clare Carlisle reveals Eliot to be not only a great artist but a brilliant philosopher who probes the tensions and complexities of a shared life. Through the immense ambition and dark marriage plots of her novels we see Eliot wrestling - in art and in life - with themes of desire and sacrifice, motherhood and creativity, trust and disillusion, destiny and chance. Reading them afresh, Carlisle's searching new biography explores how marriage questions grow and change, and joins Eliot in her struggle to marry thought and feeling. (400 pages / $34) Each person fears death in their own way. Despite turning to the comforts of children, or wealth, or belief in a higher power, death anxiety is never completely subdued: it is always there, lurking in the hidden ravines of our minds.
In STARING AT THE SUN, master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom faces his own fear of death and examines its role in many patients' fears, stresses and depression. With characteristic wisdom and illuminating case histories, he shows how confronting and coping with death allows us to live in a richer, more compassionate way.. (320 pages / $28) Jack Zipes has spent decades as a “scholarly scavenger,” discovering forgotten fairy tales in libraries, flea markets, used bookstores, and internet searches, and he has introduced countless readers to these remarkable works and their authors. In Buried Treasures, Zipes describes his special passion for uncovering political fairy tales of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offers fascinating profiles of more than a dozen of their writers and illustrators, and shows why they deserve greater attention and appreciation.
These writers and artists used their remarkable talents to confront political oppression and economic exploitation by creating alternative, imaginative worlds that test the ethics and morals of the real world and expose hidden truths. Among the figures we meet here are Édouard Laboulaye, a jurist who wrote acute fairy tales about justice; Charles Godfrey Leland, a folklorist who found other worlds in tales of Native Americans, witches, and Roma; Kurt Schwitters, an artist who wrote satirical, antiauthoritarian stories; Mariette Lydis, a painter who depicted lost-and-found souls; Lisa Tetzner, who dramatized exploitation by elites; Felix Salten, who unveiled the real meaning of Bambi’s dangerous life in the forest; and Gianni Rodari, whose work showed just how political and insightful fantasy stories can be. Demonstrating the uncanny power of political fairy tales, Buried Treasures also shows how their fictional realities not only enrich our understanding of the world but even give us tools to help us survive. (Hardcover / 272 pages / Princeton University Press / $65) Why does Surrealism continue to fascinate us a century after André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism? How do we encounter Surrealism today? Mark Polizzotti vibrantly reframes the Surrealist movement in contemporary terms and offers insight into why it continues to inspire makers and consumers of art, literature, and culture.
Polizzotti shows how many forms of popular media can thank Surrealism for their existence, including Monty Python, Theatre of the Absurd, and trends in fashion, film, and literature. While discussing the movement’s iconic figures—including André Breton, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Dorothea Tanning—he also broadens the traditionally French and male-focused narrative, constructing a more diverse and global representation. And he addresses how the Surrealists grappled with ideas that mirror current concerns, including racial and economic injustice, sexual politics, issues of identity, labor unrest, and political activism. Why Surrealism Matters provides a concise, engaging exploration of how, a century later, the “Surrealist revolution” remains as dynamic as ever. (Hardcover / 232 pages / $37) What happened when Jane Austen’s heroines and heroes were finally wed?
Marriage is at the centre of Jane Austen’s novels. The pursuit of husbands and wives, advantageous matches, and, of course, love itself, motivate her characters and continue to fascinate readers today. But what were love and marriage like in reality for ladies and gentlemen in Regency England? Rory Muir uncovers the excitements and disappointments of courtship and the pains and pleasures of marriage, drawing on fascinating first-hand accounts as well as novels of the period. From the glamour of the ballroom to the pressures of careers, children, managing money, and difficult in-laws, love and marriage came in many guises: some wed happily, some dared to elope, and other relationships ended with acrimony, adultery, domestic abuse, or divorce. Muir illuminates the position of both men and women in marriage, as well as those spinsters and bachelors who chose not to marry at all. This is a richly textured account of how love and marriage felt for people at the time—revealing their unspoken assumptions, fears, pleasures, and delights. (Hardcover / 432 pages / Yale University Press / $55) Not Your China Doll showcases the vibrant, radical life of a groundbreaking artist. This debut book celebrates Anna Ma Wong, the first Asian American movie star, to bring an unsung heroine to light and reclaim her place in cinema history.
Before Constance Wu, Sandra Oh, Awkwafina, or Lucy Liu, there was Anna May Wong. In her time, she was a legendary beauty, witty conversationalist, and fashion icon. Plucked from her family’s laundry business in Los Angeles, Anna May Wong rose to stardom in Douglas Fairbanks’s blockbuster The Thief of Bagdad. Fans and the press clamored to see more of this unlikely actress, but when Hollywood repeatedly cast her in stereotypical roles, she headed abroad in protest. Anna May starred in acclaimed films in Berlin, Paris, and London. She dazzled royalty and heads of state across several nations, leaving trails of suitors in her wake. She returned to challenge Hollywood at its own game by speaking out about the industry’s blatant racism. She used her new stature to move away from her typecasting as the China doll or dragon lady, and worked to reshape Asian American representation in film.
(Hardcover / 480 pages / $56) Fans takes the reader on a journey through a constellation of fandoms, and along the way demonstrates some fundamental truths about the human condition.
Fascinating and thought-provoking, Fans is a story of communities, of what happens to us when we interact with people who share our passions. The human brain is wired to reach out, and while our groupish tendencies can bring much strife (religious intolerance, racism, war, etc.), they are also the source of some of our greatest satisfactions. Fandoms offer much of the pleasure of tribalism with little of the harm: a feeling of belonging and of shared culture, a sense of meaning and purpose, improved mental well-being, reassurance that our most outlandish convictions will be taken seriously, and the freedom to try to emulate (and dress like) our hero. But Bond shows that despite these benefits, the world of fandoms is not without its dark underside, from the “copycat effect” fuelling mass shootings to the delusions that can accompany the parasocial relationships that fans feel they have with their heroes. In Fans, Michael Bond draws on the work of social psychologists and anthropologists to understand how people behave in groups and why such groups have such a profound effect on human culture. (256 pages / $25) Michael Bond is a writer specializing in human behaviour and a former editor and reporter at New Scientist. He won the 2015 British Psychological Society Prize for The Power of Others and is currently teaching writing as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. Drawing on her own varied and successful years of freelance copywriting experience, Jessie Kwak (author of From Chaos to Creativity and From Big Idea to Book) offers valuable insights on how to figure out if this fast-paced, ever-evolving career is for you—and how to make it work if you decide to go for it.
Starting with the most important factor for a successful freelancer—mindset—Kwak walks you through everything you need to know about choosing your niche, setting up your business, building a portfolio and website, finding work, setting your rates, billing, firing clients, and growing your freelance career intentionally in a rapidly changing market. The book's special focus is on business writing for hire, with valuable lessons for writers of all stripes. Freelancing isn't for everyone, but if you're the sort of mercenary chaotic good soul who would find your happy place in freelancing, you'll find all the encouragement and tools you could need in this book. (159 pages / $23) To be a bookseller or librarian . . .
You have to play detective. Be a treasure hunter. A matchmaker. A brilliant listener. A person who creates a kind of magic by pulling a book from a shelf, handing it to someone and saying, 'You've got to read this. You're going to love it'. In this love letter to the heroes of literacy, James Patterson uncovers true stories from booksellers and librarians. Prepare to enter a world where you can feed your curiosities, discover new voices, and find whatever you need. Meet the smart and talented people who live between the shelves - and who can't wait to help you find your next great read. (352 pages / $37) The captivating true story of an underdog business – a feminist bookshop founded in Thatcher’s Britain – from a woman at the heart of the women’s liberation movement.
Silver Moon was the dream of three women – a bookshop with the mission to promote the work of female writers and create a much-needed safe space for any woman. Founded in 1980s London against a backdrop of homophobia and misogyny, it was a testament to the power of community, growing into Europe’s biggest women’s bookshop and hosting a constellation of literary stars from Margaret Atwood and Maya Angelou to Angela Carter. While contending with day-to-day struggles common to other booksellers, plus the additional burdens of misogyny and the occasional hate crime, Jane Cholmeley and her booksellers created a thriving business. But they also played a crucial and relatively unsung part in one the biggest social movements of our time. A Bookshop of One’s Own is a fascinating slice of social history from the heart of the women’s liberation movement, from a true feminist and lesbian icon. Written with heart and humour, it reveals the struggle and joy that comes with starting an underdog business, while being a celebration of the power women have to change the narrative when they are the ones holding the pen. (Hardcover / 384 pages / $39) A humanist manifesto for the age of AI
Artificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our time. As AI’s power grows, so does the need to figure out what―and who―this technology is really for. AI Needs You argues that it is critical for society to take the lead in answering this urgent question and ensuring that AI fulfills its promise. Verity Harding draws inspiring lessons from the histories of three twentieth-century tech revolutions―the space race, in vitro fertilization, and the internet―to empower each of us to join the conversation about AI and its possible futures. Sharing her perspective as a leading insider in technology and politics, she rejects the dominant narrative, which often likens AI’s advent to that of the atomic bomb. History points the way to an achievable future in which democratically determined values guide AI to be peaceful in its intent; to embrace limitations; to serve purpose, not profit; and to be firmly rooted in societal trust. AI Needs You gives us hope that we, the people, can imbue AI with a deep intentionality that reflects our best values, ideals, and interests, and that serves the public good. AI will permeate our lives in unforeseeable ways, but it is clear that the shape of AI’s future―and of our own―cannot be left only to those building it. It is up to us to guide this technology away from our worst fears and toward a future that we can trust and believe in. (Hardcover / 288 pages / Princeton University Press / $44) About the author: One of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI, Verity Harding is Director of the AI & Geopolitics Project at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and founder of Formation Advisory, a consultancy firm that advises on the future of technology and society. She was Google DeepMind's first Global Head of Policy and is a former political adviser to Britain’s deputy prime minister. In the industrial age, automation came for the shoemaker and the seamstress. Today, it has come for the writer, physician, programmer, and attorney.
Literary Theory for Robots reveals the hidden history of modern machine intelligence, taking readers on a spellbinding journey from medieval Arabic philosophy to visions of a universal language, past Hollywood fiction factories and missile defense systems trained on Russian folktales. In this provocative reflection on the shared pasts of literature and computer science, former Microsoft engineer and professor of comparative literature Dennis Yi Tenen provides crucial context for recent developments in AI, which holds important lessons for the future of humans living with smart technology. Intelligence expressed through technology should not be mistaken for a magical genie, capable of self-directed thought or action. Rather, in highly original and effervescent prose with a generous dose of wit, Yi Tenen asks us to read past the artifice—to better perceive the mechanics of collaborative work. Something as simple as a spell-checker or a grammar-correction tool, embedded in every word-processor, represents the culmination of a shared human effort, spanning centuries. Smart tools, like dictionaries and grammar books, have always accompanied the act of writing, thinking, and communicating. That these paper machines are now automated does not bring them to life. Nor can we cede agency over the creative process. With its masterful blend of history, technology, and philosophy, Yi Tenen’s work ultimately urges us to view AI as a matter of labor history, celebrating the long-standing cooperation between authors and engineers. (Hardcover / 176 pages / $42) |
In this delicious history of Britain’s food traditions, Diane Purkiss invites readers on a unique journey through the centuries, exploring the development of recipes and rituals for mealtimes such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to show how food has been both a reflection of and inspiration for social continuity and change.
Purkiss uses the story of food as a revelatory device to chart changing views on class, gender, and tradition through the ages. Sprinkled throughout with glorious details of historical quirks – trial by ordeal of bread, a fondness for ‘small beer’ and a war-time ice-cream substitute called ‘hokey pokey’ made from parsnips – this book is both an education and an entertainment. English Food explores the development of the coffee trade and the birth of London’s coffee houses, where views were exchanged on politics, art, and literature. Purkiss introduces the first breeders of British beef and reveals how cattle triggered the terrible Glencoe Massacre. We are taken for tea, to the icehouse, the pantry, and the beehive. We learn that toast is as English as the chalk cliffs. We bite into chicken, plainly poached or exotically spiced. We join bacon curers and fishermen at work. We follow the scent of apples into ancient orchards. (560 pages / $31) A rich and indulgent history, English Food will change the way you view your food and understand your past. Purkiss is a professor of English literature at the University of Oxford with interests in the English Civil War, Milton, the supernatural, food and food history, children’s literature, and folklore. She is author of The English Civil War: A People’s History.
The voyage of Rose de Freycinet, the stowaway who defied the French for love.
In 1814, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, nineteen-year-old Rose Pinon married handsome naval officer Louis de Freycinet, fifteen years her senior. Three years later, unable to bear parting from her husband, she dressed in men's clothing and slipped secretly aboard his ship the day before it sailed on a voyage of scientific discovery to the South Seas. Living for three years as the sole female among 120 men, Rose de Freycinet defied not only bourgeois society's expectations of a woman in 1817, but also a strict prohibition against women sailing on French naval ships. Whether dancing at governors' balls in distant colonies, or evading pirates and meeting armed Indigenous warriors on remote Australian shores, or surviving shipwreck in the wintry Falkland Islands, Rose used her quick pen to record her daily experiences, becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the world and leave a record of her journey.' Suzanne Falkiner tells this story of courage, enduring love, curiosity and a spirit of adventure - and of the pivotal voyages that led to it - while revealing a uniquely female view into the hitherto largely male world of 19th-century life at sea. (416 pages / $31) Women are an essential part of the history of the piano—but how many women pianists can you name?
Throughout most of the piano’s history, women pianists lacked access to formal training and were excluded from male-dominated performance spaces. Even the modern piano’s keys were designed without consideration of women’s typically smaller hands. Yet despite their music being largely confined to the domestic sphere, women continued to play, perform, and compose on their own terms. Celebrated pianist and author Susan Tomes traces fifty such women across the piano’s history. Including now-famous names such as Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, Tomes also highlights overlooked women: from Hélène de Montgeroult, whose playing saved her life during the French Revolution, to Leopoldine Wittgenstein, influential Viennese salonnière, and Hazel Scott, the first Black performer in the United States to have a nationally syndicated TV show. From Maria Szymanowska to Nina Simone, and including interviews with women performing today, this is a much-needed corrective to our understanding of the piano—and a timely testament to women’s musical lives. (Hardcover / 304 pages / Yale University Press / $55) The first Christians were weird. Just how weird is often lost on today's believers.
Within Roman society, the earliest Christians stood out for the oddness of their beliefs and practices. They believed unusual things, worshiped God in strange ways, and lived a unique lifestyle. They practiced a whole new way of thinking about and doing religion that would have been seen as bizarre and dangerous when compared to Roman religion and most other religions of the ancient world. In this accessible and engaging book, New Testament scholar and prolific author Nijay Gupta traces the emerging Christian faith in its Roman context. Christianity would have been seen as radical in the Roman world, but some found this new religion attractive and compelling. The first Christians dared to be different, pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable, transformed how people thought about religion, and started a movement that grew like wildfire. Brought to life with numerous images, this book shows how the example of the earliest Christians can offer today's believers encouragement and hope. (240 pages / $33) Infuse your personal divination practice with spiritual insight and feminist guidance from icons such as Octavia Butler, Shirley Jackson, Gertrude Stein, Joy Harjo and more.
• Receive answers to questions about your creative life and spiritual journey, guided by insights from the strong, creative women featured in this deck. • Includes 30 cards featuring prominent female writers and trailblazers as well as 40 symbol cards bearing illustrations of potent spiritual icons to enhance your reading. • Find inspiration from literary heroes, such as Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison, and discover the wisdom of lesser-known trailblazers, such as Yumiko Kurahashi and Mirabai. • Use the included guidebook as an interpreter to help you interpret the cards based on your specific intentions, the writers’ dominant traits, and the spiritual symbols at play. ($38) From historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of the Summer Moon comes a tale of the rise and fall of the world’s largest airship—and the doomed love story between an ambitious British officer and a married Romanian princess at its heart.
The tragic fate of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. In His Majesty’s Airship, S.C. Gwynne resurrects it in vivid detail, telling the epic story of great ambition gone terribly wrong. Airships, those airborne leviathans that occupied center stage in the world in the first half of the 20th century, were a symbol of the future. R101 was not just the largest aircraft ever to have flown and the product of the world’s most advanced engineering—she was also the lynchpin of an imperial British scheme to link by air the far-flung areas of its empire, from Australia to India, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, and Singapore. No one had ever conceived of anything like this, and R101 captivated the world. There was just one problem: beyond the hype and technological wonders, these big, steel-framed, hydrogen-filled airships were a dangerously bad idea. Gwynne’s chronicle features a cast of remarkable—and tragically flawed—characters, including Lord Christopher Thomson, the man who dreamed up the Imperial Airship Scheme and then relentlessly pushed R101 to her destruction; Princess Marthe Bibesco, the celebrated writer and glamorous socialite with whom he had a long affair; and George Herbert Scott, a national hero who was the first person to cross the Atlantic twice in any aircraft, in 1919—eight years before Lindbergh’s famous flight—but who devolved into drink and ruin. These historical figures—and the ship they built, flew, and crashed—come together in “a Promethean tale of unlimited ambitions and technical limitations, airy dreams and explosive endings” (The Wall Street Journal).
(Hardcover / 320 pages / $61) Julia Cameron has been teaching the world about creativity since her seminal book, The Artist’s Way, first broke open the conversation around art.
Now, in Write for Life, she turns to one of the subjects closest to her heart: the art and practice of writing. Over the course of six weeks, Cameron carefully guides readers step by step through the creative process. This latest guide in the Artist’s Way Series: - Introduces a new tool and expands on powerful tried and true methods. - Gently guides readers through many common creative issues ― from procrastinating and getting started, to dealing with doubt, deadlines, and “crazymakers.” - Will help you reach your goals, whether your project is a novel, poetry, screenplay, standup, or songwriting. With the learned experience of a lifetime of writing, Cameron gives readers practical tools to start, pursue, and finish their writing project. (208 pages / $36) In Grief is Love, author Marisa Renee Lee reveals that healing does not mean moving on after losing a loved one—healing means learning to acknowledge and create space for your grief. It is about learning to love the one you lost with the same depth, passion, joy, and commitment you did when they were alive, perhaps even more. She guides you through the pain of grief—whether you’ve lost the person recently or long ago—and shows you what it looks like to honor your loss on your unique terms, and debunks the idea of a grief stages or timelines. Grief is Love is about making space for the transformation that a significant loss requires. In beautiful, compassionate prose, Lee elegantly offers wisdom about what it means to authentically and defiantly claim space for grief’s complicated feelings and emotions.
The transformation we each undergo after loss is the indelible imprint of the people we love on our lives, which is the true definition of legacy. At its core, Grief is Love explores what comes after death, and shows us that if we are able to own and honor what we’ve lost, we can experience a beautiful and joyful life in the midst of grief. (192 pages /$33) More titles that celebrate life in our Live. Love. Read catalogue Marisa Renee Lee is a called-upon advocate, writer, and speaker on coping with grief. Her personal losses transformed her life and led her to question what grief really is and what healing truly requires. As a leading grief advocate, Marisa offers incisive and compassionate advice on managing life after loss with unique insights for women and African American communities. As a former appointee in the Obama White House, Marisa previously served as the Deputy Director of Private Sector Engagement, a Senior Advisor on the Domestic Policy Council, and as the Managing Director of the MBK Alliance, the nonprofit born out of President Obama's call to action to address the barriers to success that boys and young men of color disproportionately face in their lives. Lee is a public speaker and regular contributor to Glamour, Vogue, MSNBC, and The Atlantic. She is a graduate of Harvard College. An interactive guide to help readers connect with, learn, and process their emotions creatively.
Our emotions add color to our lives. Happiness can feel like bright sunshine. Anxiety can feel like a gray cloud. Even though it may be uncomfortable at first, it’s clear that sitting with your emotions, feeling them fully, and exploring their depths can teach you more about yourself and help you better anticipate and process big feelings when they come. In this mind-opening and beautifully illustrated guide, popular artist Rukmini Poddar guides you through the steps to creative self-reflection, giving your emotions a physical representation through lines, shapes, colors, and more. With exercises tailored to beginners and experts alike, readers will learn basic drawing skills and take them all the way to mapping their emotional landscape.
Draw Your Feelings will stretch creative muscles you didn’t know you had. At the end of the journey, you will transform the way you interact with yourself and the world. (224 pages / $32) Rukmini Poddar is an artist, designer, and illustrator. Her creative passion lies at the intersection of emotional wellness and creative storytelling. The Doctor of Hiroshima is the extraordinary true story of Dr Michihiko Hachiya, whose hospital was less than a mile from the centre of the atomic bomb that hit on that warm August day. In immense shock and pain, he and his wife Yaeko dragged themselves to the devastated hospital building and what colleagues they could find.
In time, they begin to heal, and start to treat the impossible numbers of patients – a small girl covered in burns, an elderly man with pneumonia, a young boy and his little sister looking for their parents. They also began to investigate the strange unexplainable symptoms afflicting his patients – things he never dreamed he would see… Told simply and poignantly in Dr Hachiya’s own words, The Doctor of Hiroshima is a unique and deeply moving human story of survival about a small, committed band of hospital staff in the face of unthinkable destruction and loss. As well as covering the horrific circumstances of the bomb itself and the injuries to the patients immediately following it, Dr Hachiya describes how he and his colleagues became the first team in the world to understand the signs, patterns and outcomes of radiation sickness. (288 pages / $20 / with quotes from Robert Oppenheimer, Pearl buck, and Norman Cousins. Claudia de Rham has been playing with gravity her entire life. As a diver, experimenting with her body’s buoyancy in the Indian Ocean. As a pilot, soaring over Canadian waterfalls on dark mornings before beginning her daily scientific research. As an astronaut candidate, dreaming of the experience of flying free from Earth’s pull. And as a physicist, discovering new sides to gravity’s irresistible personality by exploring the limits of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In The Beauty of Falling, de Rham shares captivating stories about her quest to gain intimacy with gravity, to understand both its feeling and fundamental nature. Her life’s pursuit led her from a twist of fate that snatched away her dream of becoming an astronaut to an exhilarating breakthrough at the very frontiers of gravitational physics.
While many of us presume to know gravity quite well, the brightest scientists in history have yet to fully answer the simple question: what exactly is gravity? De Rham reveals how great minds—from Newton and Einstein to Stephen Hawking, Andrea Ghez, and Roger Penrose—led her to the edge of knowledge about this fundamental force. She found hints of a hidden side to gravity at the particle level where Einstein’s theory breaks down, leading her to develop a new theory of “massive gravity.” De Rham shares how her life’s path turned from a precipitous fall to an exquisite flight toward the discovery of something entirely new about our surprising, gravity-driven universe. (Hardcover / 232 pages / Princeton University Press / $48) About the author: Claudia de Rham is professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College London and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She researches gravity, particle physics, and cosmology, in pursuit of a more fundamental description of the nature of our Universe and the laws that govern it. Her work has provided new perspectives to understand the origin of the Universe, its accelerated expansion, and the fundamental nature of gravity. Sharing his more than three decades of research into the afterlife and paranormal phenomena, award-winning documentary filmmaker Daniel Drasin shows that the continuity of human consciousness beyond the physical body and after death constitutes a legitimate area of scientific inquiry and that it can be objectively demonstrated.
Drasin begins by revealing how our belief in materialism—through its effects on our social norms, taboos, and even language--has deeply constrained our civilization’s understanding of the nature of space, time, life, death, and consciousness. However, as Drasin explains, our deeply ingrained cultural habits tied to materialism have begun to change. He explores 15 promising post-materialist scientific investigations currently underway, focusing in depth on three examples that offer the most objectively irrefutable evidence for the survival of consciousness, including electronic audio and visual communications from the other side, the groundbreaking five-year Scole Experiment in physical mediumship, and the profoundly evidential reincarnation case of James Leininger. Looking at how language frames our perceptions about life and death, the author presents thought experiments and simple exercises to help us see through materialist ideology and perceive a broader landscape of reality. He provides a succinct account of the experience of transition to the “next life” and explores what the afterlife is made of, where it’s located, how it works, and what it’s for. Drasin shows how, by thinking and speaking about death and the survival of consciousness in new ways, we can facilitate a clearer, more relaxed, comfortable, and rational conversation about what awaits us all sooner or later on the other side of life. (128 pages / $32) An intimate portrait of loneliness, All the Lonely People sees psychologist Dr Sam Carr collect hours of conversations with people young and old, including single parents, carers, teenagers and the bereaved – all shared over countless cups of tea.
In stories of love and loss, of trauma and hope, told from care homes, living rooms, classrooms and kitchens, Carr discovers that while each of their stories is utterly unique, they are all born out of the same desire for human connection. As Carr interweaves these touching and powerful tales with his own personal narrative, he opens a window onto the inner lives of regular people – the forgotten, misplaced or misjudged – who all feel isolated in some way. Sparking a profound conversation about a universal emotion, which may simply be an inevitable part of life in an increasingly disjointed world, he questions what we can do to build stronger human relationships, and to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. (256 pages / $33) "In this elegant and fascinating book the taboo of loneliness is lifted. Sam Carr invites us into the lives of the lonely, and also into his own. His encounters — empathetic, enlightening, deeply human — help us to look deeply at a state of being that so many have come to fear." In ecological terms, it is not a human that is remarkable, but humanity. This urgent and eye-opening book makes the case that protecting humanity's future is the central challenge of our time.
If all goes well, human history is just beginning. Our species could survive for billions of years - enough time to end disease, poverty, and injustice, and to flourish in ways unimaginable today. But this vast future is at risk. With the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, where we face existential catastrophes - those from which we could never come back. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pathogens and artificial intelligence. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it will soon be too late. Drawing on over a decade of research, The Precipice explores the cutting-edge science behind the risks we face. It puts them in the context of the greater story of humanity: showing how ending these risks is among the most pressing moral issues of our time. And it points the way forward, to the actions and strategies that can safeguard humanity. (Hardcover / illustrated edition / 480 pages / $52) About the author: Toby Ord is a philosopher at Oxford University, working on the big picture questions facing humanity. His earlier work explored the ethics of global poverty, leading him to make a lifelong pledge to donate 10% of his income to the most effective charities helping improve the world. He created a society, Giving What We Can, for people to join this mission. He then broadened these ideas by co-founding the Effective Altruism movement in which thousands of people are using reason and evidence to help the lives of others as much as possible. His current research is on risks that threaten human extinction or the permanent collapse of civilization, and on how to safeguard humanity through these dangers, which he considers to be among the most pressing and neglected issues we face. Toby has advised the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council, and the UK Prime Minister's Office. Expressive arts educator Rachel Rose weaves together mindfulness practice and art therapy to demonstrate how tapping into your own innate creativity can help you find peace in a stressful world
This self-directed guide teaches ten key principles of mindfulness through ten creative invitations, along with a series of simple exercises and guided prompts to help you start noticing and flexing your creative mindfulness muscles: Anchoring your practice with ritual Setting intentions Honoring your impulses Trusting the process Non-striving Letting go Requiring no prior experience of the arts or mindfulness meditation, Creating Stillness provides tools to explore difficult emotions and find insight into personal struggles and traumatic wounds. In each chapter, Rose draws from her personal experience as a teacher and facilitator of creative mindfulness to share stories and examples that help ground exercises like sketching, creative writing prompts, and more. Rose carefully walks through the process each time, explaining how to set intention and arrive in the present moment before embarking on your mindful art session; how to use objects and thoughts as creative prompts; how to return your attention to your work as you move forward; and how to distill the wisdom you have found in the process. For seasoned artists, creative mindfulness offers a chance to slow down and rediscover the transformative power that art can offer when it is detached from the need to produce something beautiful or useful. For those coming to expressive arts with existing mindfulness practices or engaged in a therapeutic process, a mindful arts practice may reveal a passion for creation you didn’t know existed. (256 pages / $32) |