Skip to main content

Blog Archives

Repeat Prescription

Ebook: July 23, 2020
Paperback: July 23, 2020

Repeat Prescription

Michael Sparrow

Category: Memoir & Biography,

Dr Sparrow is back, coping with more bizarre, macabre and hilarious situations. Following his successful debut with Country Doctor, he once more guides us through the daily rounds of the weird and wonderful in his practice on the Devon/Cornwall border.

What would you do if faced with the unsuccessful resuscitation of the wrong patient, being held at gunpoint as a suspected terrorist or confronting a blind man who refuses to stop driving? And what about the little old lady who presents you with a supermarket bag stuffed with £20 notes? Add to this, jets crashing on the runway, fleeting glimpses of the Royal Genitalia and the haunting tale of the suicidal stranger and an abducted child – and you will start to have some idea of the unpredictable life of Dr Sparrow.

The Iris Trilogy

Ebook: November 12, 2020
Hardback: November 12, 2020

The Iris Trilogy

John Bayley

Category: Memoir & Biography,

Dame Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was one of the greatest British novelists and philosophers of the twentieth century. She read philosophy at Oxford where she met and later married John Bayley, a literary critic and fellow novelist. So began a forty-year, intense and unconventional but happy marriage, detailed in the classic bestselling memoir Iris. Despite Iris’ extramarital affairs with men and women throughout their long marriage – which John always suspected – their bond was unbreakable, and his memoir beautifully captures their child-like moments of bliss: walking in forests, swimming together in streams, and sharing hot cups of coffee on crisp mornings.

These are touching but poignant stories with the knowledge that Iris and her grand intellect would eventually succumb to Alzheimer’s disease. John would care for her singlehandedly for five years, the last of which he writes about in Iris and the Friends that also describes her peaceful passing. Finally, he reflects on his bereavement and the void that is left when a soulmate departs in A Widower’s House. All three books are told by the person who knew Iris best, with gentle humour – at times unbearably moving – in his portrayal of a remarkable woman.

Reviews

  • 'The greatest love story of our age' Observer

  • 'A unique glimpse into the alchemy of marriage... a work of art’ Victoria Glendinning, Daily Telegraph

  • 'Love has everything and nothing to do with it. John Bayley has set the gold standard for a debased currency' Guardian

  • 'It is hard to do justice to the tenderness with which, in exquisite, measured prose and surprising detail, he evokes their marriage' Sunday Times

The Young Survivors

Ebook: July 23, 2020
Paperback: July 23, 2020

The Young Survivors

Debra Barnes

What if everyone you loved was suddenly taken away? Five siblings struggle to stay together as the tides of war threaten to tear them apart.

When Germany invades France in the Second World War, the five Laskowski children lose everything: their home, their Jewish community and most devastatingly their parents who are abducted in the night. There is no safe place left for them to evade the Nazis, but they cling together, never certain when the authorities will come for what is left of them.

Inspired by the poignant, true story of the author’s mother, this moving historical novel conveys the hardship, the uncertainty and the impossible choices the Laskowski children were forced to make to survive the horrors of the Holocaust.

Reviews

  • 'A poignant and gripping debut. Set against the darkest days of WWII, the novel reminds us that the bonds of family and the power of love can never be extinguished' Alyson Richman, bestselling author of The Lost Wife

  • 'A story that will make you weep, wonder and remember' Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah's Key

  • 'A haunting account... a devastating story of twins separated, of grandparents, parents and cousins, entire families, disappeared a story that had to be told' Elizabeth Fremantle, author of Queen's Gambit

  • 'A novel that is arrestingly sincere, full of touching moments and informed by careful research. The beating heart of The Young Survivors is the author's emotional connection to her characters, which is unmistakably based on longstanding and deep engagement with her own family's past' Dr Toby Simpson, Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library

The Templar’s Garden

The Templars Garden
The Templars Garden

Ebook: November 12, 2020
Paperback: November 12, 2020

The Templar’s Garden

Catherine Clover

Category: Historical Fiction,

A young woman forced to fight for her beliefs. A chaplain with a secret that could determine the fate of a kingdom.

England, 1452. Under the reign of King Henry VI the country is on the brink of civil war after the Hundred Years’ War.

Young mystic Lady Isabelle d’Albret Courteault’s family is forced to flee the Duchy of English Gascony for a new and unforeseeable life in England. While they become established in the courts, Lady Isabelle discovers dark secrets about their chaplain and tutor. As their growing relationship places her in harm’s way, can she remain steadfast in her promises to uphold the monarchy and her faith?

Set amidst a period of grave uncertainty, this is the story of a woman learning to stand up for her beliefs in a patriarchal world – a beautifully crafted narrative of faith, love and grace.

Reviews

  • 'Clover’s world is so vivid, nuanced and historically well-informed... This is a great debut' Benedict Warren, BBC Symphony Orchestra

The Edge of Physics

Ebook: June 22, 2010
Hardback: April 22, 2010
Paperback: May 14, 2020

The Edge of Physics

Anil Ananthaswamy

Category: Popular Science,

A scientific and globetrotting exploration of the physics experiments changing the ways we understand our universe.

Why is the universe expanding? What is the nature of dark matter? Do other universes exist? In this timely and original book, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy embarks on a global journey to some of the world’s most inhospitable and dramatic research sites to witness first-hand the audacious physics experiments conducted to answer profound questions about the nature of the universe.

From the Atacama Desert in the Chilean Andes to the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope on Mount Paranal to deep inside an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota and to the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, Ananthaswamy weaves together stories about the people and places at the heart of this cosmological research.

While explaining the immense questions that scientists are trying to answer, Ananthaswamy provides an accessible and unique portrait of the universe and our quest to understand it. An atmospheric, engaging and illuminating read, The Edge of Physics depicts science as a human process and brings cosmology with all its rarefied concepts down to earth.

Reviews

  • 'A remarkable narrative that combines fundamental physics with high adventure' New Scientist

  • 'A travelogue that celebrates the blood, sweat and tears that drive our understanding of the universe' Guardian

  • 'Clean, elegant prose, humming with interest' Robert MacFarlane, author of The Wild Places

  • 'An accomplished and timely overview of modern cosmology and particle astrophysics' Nature

  • 'An excellent book. The author has a great knack of making difficult subjects comprehensible. I thoroughly enjoyed it' Sir Patrick Moore

  • 'Ananthaswamy displays a writer's touch for the fascinating detail... whether he is in an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota's Mesabi Range or the frigid Siberian expanse of Lake Baikal, he finds intrepid physicists and explains to us why these weird places are the only locations on the planet where these experiments could be done' Washington Post

  • 'Quite simply, the ultimate physics-adventure travelogue... as an adventure story and a fly-on-the-wall account of remote places that most of us will never visit, The Edge of Physics is brilliant' Physics World

  • 'A grand tour of modern day cosmology's sacred places... evocative... engaging... refreshing... a taste of science in the heroic mode' Sky At Night magazine

  • 'Smoothly weaves together the stories of people who help push science forward, from principal investigators to research institute gardeners, with exquisitely clear explanations of the questions they hope to solve - and why some research can be done only at the edge of the world' Science News

  • 'While Ananthaswamy... focuses heavily on the science, The Edge of Physics reads like a travel-adventure story or a work of fiction' Failure Magazine

  • 'From the top of Hawaii's Mauna Kea to Switzerland's Large Hadron Collider and more, Ananthaswamy paints a vivid picture of scientific investigations in harsh working conditions... even for readers who don't know a neutrino from Adam, these interesting tales of human endeavor make The Edge of Physics a trip worth taking' The BookPage

  • 'A stirring, scenic narrative... Ananthaswamy journeys to several geographically and scientifically extreme outposts, and returns not only with engaging portraits of the men and women who work there, but also a vibrant glimpse of how cutting-edge research is actually performed. Part history lesson, part travelogue, part adventure story, The Edge of Physics is a wonder-steeped page-turner' Seed Magazine

  • 'Physicists are trying to understand the furthest reaches of space and the furthest extremes of matter and energy. To do it, they have to trek to some of the furthest places on Earth from deep underground, to forbidding mountains, to the cold of Antarctica. Anil Anathaswamy takes us on a thrilling ride around the globe and around the cosmos, to reveal the real work that goes into understanding our universe' Sean Carroll, Caltech physicist and author of From Eternity to Here

  • 'Ananthaswamy's juxtaposition of extreme travel and extreme science offers a genuinely novel route into the story of modern cosmology... A well written and genuinely accessible tale of what it takes to push past the edge of human knowledge' Thomas Levenson, author of Newton and the Counterfeiter

The Man Who Wasn’t There

Ebook: March 5, 2020
Paperback: March 5, 2020

The Man Who Wasn’t There

Anil Ananthaswamy

Category: Popular Science,

Reveals the mind boggling neuroscience connecting brain, body, mind, and society, by examining a range of brain disorders, in the tradition of Oliver Sacks.

Identifying what makes up the nature of the human mind has long been neuroscience’s greatest challenge – a mystery perhaps never to be fully understood. Award-winning author and master of science journalism Anil Ananthaswamy smartly explores the concept of self by way of several mental conditions that alter patients’ identities, showing how we learn a lot about being human from people with a fragmented or altered sense of self.

He travels the world to meet those who suffer from “maladies of the self” interviewing patients, psychiatrists, philosophers and neuroscientists along the way. He charts how the self is affected by Asperger’s, autism, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, schizophrenia, among many other mental conditions, revealing how the brain constructs our sense of self. Each chapter is anchored with stories of people who experience themselves differently from the norm.

The Man Who Wasn’t There is a magical mystery tour of scientific analysis and philosophical pondering, now utterly transformed by recent advances in cutting-edge neuroscience.

I, Hogarth

Ebook: September 27, 2012
Hardback: September 27, 2012
Paperback: June 19, 2014

I, Hogarth

Michael Dean

Hogarth’s epoch-defining paintings and engravings, such as Gin Lane and The Rake’s Progress, are renowned. He was London’s painter par excellence, and supplies the most enduring vision of the eighteenth century’s ebullience, enjoyments and social iniquities. From his lifelong marriage to Jane Thornhill, his inability to have children, his time as one of England’s best portrait painters, his old age and unfortunate dip into politics, and ultimately his death, I, Hogarth is the artist’s life through his very own eyes.

Recommended for readers of Peter Ackroyd and Hilary Mantel, this novel charts Hogarth’s personal story in four parts carefully blending the facts of his life with fiction, beginning with a childhood spent in a debtor’s prison and ending with his death in the arms of his wife.

Reviews

  • 'Rich and persuasive. Gritty, bawdy and funny, Dean paints with words as Hogarth did with his brush' New York Times Book Review

  • 'If the BBC hasn't already optioned this, it should get a move on: Hogarth's life, as Dean portrays it, is an educational but sexily pleasurable costume drama waiting to happen' Publishers Weekly

Rules for Ageing

Ebook: November 4, 2011

Rules for Ageing

Roger Rosenblatt

People never learn. They make the same mistakes generation after generation. So here are the things that everyone should learn about life, then hope to remember.

With a wry sense of humour, Rules for Ageing presents the most realistic, practical, pleasurable and, most importantly, painless advice you will ever receive. This book offers timeless advice for anyone still young enough to learn, and richly amusing reflections on life for those who have seen it all before.

Reviews

  • 'Wise, funny and insightful. I will happily carry Rules for Ageing into my sunset years and trust them to chart my course to geezerhood.'

    Tom Brokaw

  • 'I like this book and am thinking it over. Especially rules 1,3,15- I wish I d known about that 15 years ago- and now 34, 'It's not about you' , that's worth the price of the book.'

    Garrison Keiller

  • 'A hilarious guide to life, smart and to the point.'

    People

The Sayings of Benjamin Disraeli

Paperback: September 30, 2019

The Sayings of Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Blake, Alistair Lexden

Category: Memoir & Biography,

The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, British statesman and twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – with a new foreword by Lord Lexden.

Disraeli was one of the least orthodox of Prime Ministers. He was an adventurer who fought his way to ‘the top of the greasy pole’ in a blaze of controversy, and became Queen Victoria’s favourite statesman. He was a novelist and a wit as well as politician. He was a brilliant orator. Like Byron he was both a romantic and a cynic. His aphorisms have become part of the discourse of political life.

This collection is based on his novels, letters and speeches. He was never dull, but he was fundamentally serious behind the firework display, and he had a lasting influence on the course of party history.

Seen by some of the founder of ‘one-nation’ conservatism, Disraeli is today one of the most co-opted political figures of history. For those seeking clarity on Disraeli’s views, this collection will confound and surprise.

 

The Great Cave Rescue

Ebook: October 3, 2019
Paperback: October 3, 2019

The Great Cave Rescue

James Massola

Category: Memoir & Biography,

First came the awful news that 12 boys and their football coach were missing. Then came the flickering video of the boys found by a pair of British divers nine days later.

Monsoon rains had raised the water level in the cave system, and they were trapped in an air pocket, surrounded by rising muddy water, over two kilometres from the cave entrance. Expert British, Australian, American, Chinese, and other international divers joined the Thai Navy SEALs and hundreds of local volunteers to mount one of the most risky and complex rescue operations the world has ever seen.

South-east Asia correspondent James Massola recreates the drama, tension, and inspiration of the days in July 2018 when the eyes of the whole world were trained on a remote Thai mountain. Very little information about what happened inside the cave was released by the Thai authorities at the time, but through interviews Massola has managed to obtain extensive details of the nine long days the Wild Boars were on their own and during the rescue operation itself as well as background information about the boys and coach.

He writes about the pivotal role of the British Cave Rescue Council in leading the international effort, and determining the technical aspects of the rescue. He reveals how the Thai, British, US, Australian and other international divers worked together so smoothly, when even a minor miscommunication could have resulted in death or serious injury. And, most dramatically, he discloses the number of instances in which the rescue operation nearly went wrong.

Sign up to hear more

Sign up to get the latest news and events from Duckworth.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn
    Continue Shopping