Skip to main content

Blog Archives

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.

The Killing Gene

Ebook: June 27, 2019
Paperback: June 27, 2019

The Killing Gene

E.M. Davey

Category: Historical Fiction,

OUT OF AFRICA, INTO DARKNESS…

When an archaeologist goes missing in the Congo basin, Professor Randolph Harkness and young tearaway Ross McCartney go in search of her – only to stumble upon a conspiracy to conceal ancient horrors lost to the passage of time. Evading spies and trained killers, can they expose this cover-up? Or will they be buried with it?

An unputdownable thriller, The Killing Gene reveals the story of our species, the paradox of the modern mind and our innate predilection for murder…

Reviews

  • 'With all the twists of a double helix, The Killing Gene is as thought-provoking as it is action-packed. Davey’s writing is punchy, yet lyrical, delving deep into the distant past of humankind, questioning what makes Homo sapiens unique and what the future might hold for the one race on earth that has inherited The Killing Gene’ Matthew Harffy, author of The Bernicia Chronicles series

  • ‘Gripping, shocking and thought-provoking: a dispatch from the front line where ancient history meets modern nightmares.  E.M. Davey has been to some of the wildest places on Earth, and it shows.  This will keep its hooks in you long past the final page’ Tom Harper, author of The Lost Temple

  • ‘In an epic adventure stretching from the jungles of the Congo to the valleys of Tajikistan and beyond, The Killing Gene blends exceptional research and a keen observation of human nature to create a captivating and intelligent adventure novel. Featuring a tenacious hero who must unravel a menacing conspiracy if he is to reveal the truth to the world, this is another stunning thriller from E. M. Davey’ Rob Jones, author of the international bestselling Joe Hawke series

  • 'A thriller with a truly thought-provoking premise. A real page-turner' Rob Sinclair, author of the bestselling Enemy series

The Royal Art of Poison

Ebook: November 1, 2018
Hardback: November 1, 2018
Paperback: August 22, 2019

The Royal Art of Poison

Eleanor Herman

Category: History,

The story of poison is the story of power…

For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots.

Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with lead. Men rubbed feces on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines.

The Royal Art of Poison is a hugely entertaining work of popular history that traces the use of poison as a political – and cosmetic – tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today.

Reviews

  • 'In her gruesome book… Herman explores assassinations and stories of poison… and questions if some stories of death by poison could be inaccurate… truly scary' Daily Mail, Book of the Week

  • 'The Royal Art of Poison by Eleanor Herman will, for once in your life, make you happy you are not a princess or a queen or someone who lives in a palace. The book is amazing and really makes me wonder how we've managed to survive. It will make you glad to be in your own home' Forbes 'Books to Travel With for the Holidays'

  • 'Reads like juicy historical gossip, looking at the ways royals throughout history have been poisoned — not only by others, but often, unwittingly, by themselves' BuzzFeed 'The Ultimate Book Gift Guide'

  • 'Agatha Christie's spirit must be loving this poisonous new historical entertainment' Spectator

  • 'This fantastic work combines morbid curiosity and royal gossip. In it, readers will not only find out about who could've poisoned whom, but also why and with what. Lovers of Tudor history, costume dramas, and high fantasy will rejoice' Washington Independent Review of Books, 50 Favourite Books of 2018

  • 'Herman has a delightful appreciation for all things beautiful and terrible. With her dishy signature style and a dazzling command of the facts, she brews up a heady mix of erudite history and delicious gossip' Aja Raden, New York Times bestselling author of Stoned

  • 'Whether deliberate, accidental or the result of an antidote, the gruesome outcome of ingestion of toxins is deftly described in The Royal Art of Poison. Add political intrigue, disgusting sanitation, ubiquitous filth, horrendous medical procedures, and every sort of vermin and you get a very different picture to what we romantically assume to be the 'good old days' Penny Le Couteur, author of Napoleon's Button

Empire of Guns

Ebook: November 3, 2018
Hardback: June 14, 2018
Paperback: November 14, 2019

Empire of Guns

Priya Satia

Category: History,

Winner of the Jerry Bentley Prize in World History (American Historical Association).

Award-winning historian Priya Satia presents a new history of the Industrial Revolution that positions war and the gun trade squarely at the heart of the rapid growth of technology and Britain’s imperial expansion. Satia’s thorough examination advances a radical new understanding of the historical roots of the violent partnership between the government, military and the economy. Sweeping in its scope and entirely original in its approach, Empire of Guns illuminates Britain’s emergence as a global superpower in a clear and novel light. 

Reviews

  • 'A fascinating study of the centrality of militarism in 18th-century British life, and how imperial expansion and arms went hand in hand... This book is a triumph' Guardian

  • 'A fascinating and important glimpse into how violence fueled the industrial revolution, Priya Satia's book stuns with deep scholarship and sparkling prose' Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies

  • 'Satia's detailed retelling of the Industrial Revolution and Britain's relentless empire expansion notably contradicts simple free market narratives... She argues convincingly that the expansion of the armaments industry and the government's role in it is inseparable from the rise of innumerable associated industries from finance to mining... Fascinating' New York Times

  • 'Satia marshals an overwhelming amount of evidence to show, comprehensively, that guns had a place at the center of every conventional tale historians have so far told about the origins of the modern, industrialized world... This book leaves us with the disquieting notion that guns - whether the slow and inaccurate weapons of the eighteenth century or today's models - do more than alternately cloak or explore human inclination towards violence. They also shape it' New Republic

  • 'A richly researched and probing historical narrative that challenges our understanding of the engines that drove Britain’s industrial revolution. With this book, Priya Satia... affirms her place as a deeply captivating and thought-provoking historian' Caroline Elkins, Pulitzer Prize winner for Imperial Reckoning

  • 'An important revisionist account of the industrial revolution... a revelatory book' Sven Beckert, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Empire of Cotton

The Importance of Living

Ebook: January 23, 2020
Paperback: January 23, 2020

The Importance of Living

Lin Yutang

Category: Psychology & Philosophy,

A tremendous bestseller when it was first published in 1937, The Importance of Living has been a classic for over sixty years. Intended as an antidote to the dizzying pace of the modern world, Lin Yutang’s prescription is the classic distillation of ancient Chinese wisdom: revere inaction as much as action, invoke humour to maintain a healthy attitude, and never forget that there will always be plenty of fools around who are willing – indeed eager – to be busy, to make themselves useful, and to exercise power while you bask in the simple joy of existence. 

Now, more than six decades later, with our lives accelerated to unbelievable levels, this wise and timeless book is more pertinent than ever before. In an era when we’re overwhelmed with wake-up calls, it’s an entertaining innovation to savour life’s beauty, its endless fascination and its slow, sure, simple pleasures. 

Reviews

  • 'A richly, enjoyably wise and suggestive book' New York Times

  • 'Dr Lin has performed the inestimable service of distilling the philosophy of generations of Chinese sages and presenting it against a modern background, which makes it easily readable and understandable' Saturday Review of Literature

Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl

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

Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl

Jeannie Vanasco

Category: Memoir & Biography,

Why would a good person commit a terrible act?

Fifteen years ago, Jeannie’s relationship with a close friend ended in rape. With the rise of the #MeToo movement, recurring nightmares of the event that plagued her as a girl have returned. To process her conflicted feelings of betrayal and take back control, she resolves to face her trauma head-on by interviewing her rapist.

Through their transcribed conversations and discussions with her closest friends, Jeannie’s compelling memoir explores how the incident impacted both of their lives, while examining the culture and language surrounding sexual assault and rape. Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl is a necessary contribution to the wider conversation around sexual violence from a brave, new voice. 

Reviews

  • 'Cuts through the silence of deep betrayal, gives contour to the aching space between forgiveness and absolution, and offers a living testament to the endless wreckage of sexual assault’ Amy Jo Burns, author of Cinderland

  • 'Explodes rape culture at the level of language, shows us how we are trapped and how we might make ourselves free. This is a brilliant book, an astonishingly fierce inquiry into the places language won't go' Emily Geminder, author of Dead Girls

  •  'Vanasco has written exactly the book we need right now. I wish everyone would read it' Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me

  • 'Brave and compelling... Vanasco muddles through the silt of her thoughts to create a language for something we don’t talk about' Paris Review, staff pick

  • 'Brave and urgent... a searching, brilliant book and Vanasco is a formidable talent. We are lucky to have her' Daniel Gumbiner, author of The Boatbuilder

  • 'Wickedly clever and powerful... a necessary book' Krystal A. Sital

A Mirror for Monkeys

Ebook: April 22, 2021
Hardback: April 22, 2021

A Mirror for Monkeys

John Spurling

Category: Historical Fiction,

Beneath the floorboards of a ruined house, an 18th-century memoir is discovered. It reveals the life story of William Congreve, the acclaimed English playwright. The lost manuscript is penned by his faithful servant, Jeremy, who tells how they lived together through fierce political division and triumphal nationalism in that era of war with France, the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution.

Upon his death a monument in Stowe is erected to honour Mr Congreve. Atop a slender pyramid sits a monkey peering into a mirror, a court wit seeing reflected the ironies of polite society folding in on itself as Whigs and Tories feud with scant ground for compromise.

Through the prisms of memory and art, award-winning author John Spurling reimagines this tumultuous period and brings to life historical figures Dryden, Vanbrugh, Swift, Pope and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as never before. 

Reviews

  • 'Elegant and playful, a tonic for these trouble times' Andrew Taylor, No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ashes of London

  • ‘A heartfelt memorial to the extraordinary William Congreve and to those who loved him. Spurling provides an imaginative way into a wonderful period for readers who prefer their historical tea mixed with the milk of fiction’ Ophelia Field, Author of The Kit-Cat Club, and The Favourite

  • ‘This cleverly constructed portrait of a great playwright and good man starts with the turbulent politics of the Restoration period and ends with a timeless love. As erudite and entertaining as Congreve himself’ Carole Angier, biographer of Jean Rhys and Primo Levi

The Secret Life of Bones

Ebook: August 8, 2019
Paperback: August 8, 2019

The Secret Life of Bones

Brian Switek

Category: Popular Science,

Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over 500 million years of evolutionary history. It has manifested itself in wings, sails, horns, armour, and an even greater array of appendages since the time of its origin. In dinosaur fossils, skeletons are biological time capsules that tell us of lives we’ll never see in the flesh. Inherited from a common fishy ancestor, it is the stuff that binds all of us vertebrates together into one great family. Swim, slither, stomp, fly, dig, run – all are expressions of what bones make possible. But that’s hardly all.

In The Secret Life of Bones, Brian Switek frames the history of our species through the importance of bone from instruments and jewellery, to objects of worship and conquest from the origins of religion through the genesis of science and up through this very day. While bone itself can reveal our individual stories, the truth very much depends on who’s telling it. Our skeletons are as embedded in our culture as they are in our bodies. Switek, an enthusiastic osteological raconteur, cuts through biology, history, and culture to understand the meaning of what’s inside us and what our bones tell us about who we are, where we came from and the legacies we leave behind.

Reviews

  • 'Smart, lively, and hugely informative... the ideal guide to the bones around us and in us' Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction

  • ‘A witty, conversational romp through the world of bones, by one of our finest natural history writers. Dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, human origins, and culture are all woven together into a breezy, beautifully told story that will make you appreciate the wonder of the skeleton hidden inside of us all’ Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh palaeontologist and Sunday Times-bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

  • ‘A thoughtful, engaging meditation on the origins of the human skeleton, how it functions (or malfunctions) and how we come to terms with our essential but unsettling osseous framework’ Nature

  • ‘Compellingly evokes the sheer wonder and complexity of the supporting framework inside you - and the murky human responses it arouses’ Science

  • ‘I sit here now crossing my extraordinary kneecaps... I can see them better thanks to Switek’ Rose George, New York Times Book Review

  • 'A lyrical love letter to the 206 or so bones in the human skeleton and thecolourful figures who have studied them over the centuries’ Jennifer Ouellette, author of The Calculus Diaries

  • 'Switek writes with remarkable grace about the natural world… Every chapterhas some surprise, told in elegant tales, that you will repeat to your friends' Carl Zimmer, author of She Has Her Mother's Laugh

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