Skip to main content

The Iris Trilogy

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

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
Hardback:
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

Repeat Prescription

Ebook: July 23, 2020
Hardback:
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.

Viva La Madness

Ebook: September 21, 2011
Hardback:
Paperback: August 20, 2020

Viva La Madness

J. J. Connolly

Hiding out in the Caribbean until the heat dies down from his last job, X is thinking it’s time to ditch the resort life and calls up his old friend Morty to plot his return to London.

But he’s hardly stepped off the plane when his associates, Sonny King and Roy ‘Twitchy’ Burns, get on the wrong side of a feuding Venezuelan drug cartel on the hunt for a sensitive package. Suddenly he’s thrown into a stand-off between rival mobs and with so many players in the game it’s tough going making out who wants to cut him a deal and who’s trying to kill him.

Darkly comic, fast-paced and full of twists Viva la Madness is packed with sex, scams, drugs and enough dirty money to fill a few offshore bank accounts.

Reviews

  • 'Masterful plotting - double-crosses abound - a cracking pace and some truly excellent set pieces including a chase through the London underground all lead up to a wham-bam ending. Fast, furious, funny and highly recommended for fans of Layer Cake and new readers alike' Guardian

  • 'Connolly's style is fast and funny and just frightening enough to make you sit up all night' Independent on Sunday

  • 'The novel has its predecessor's driving energy and the protagonist's disparate colleagues are terrific characters' The Sunday Times

Hitler’s Piano Player

Ebook:
Hardback:
Paperback: February 20, 2020

Hitler’s Piano Player

Peter Conradi

Category: Memoir & Biography,

Ernst Hanfstaengl was court jester, pianist, and foreign press chief for Hitler, he even claimed to have devised the chant of Sieg Heil, but when the two men fell out he fled to Britain, where he was interned and transferred to America. There he worked as the star of Roosevelt’s ‘S-Project,’ informing on 400 leading Nazis and creating a detailed psychological portrait of Hitler.

Through newly declassified documents, interviews with surviving family members and original writing by Hanfstaengl himself, Peter Conradi recounts a remarkable life.

Reviews

  • 'All the elements of a gripping thriller... this well-written, non-judgmental biography perfectly captures Putzi’s predicament' Guardian

  • 'An exemplary piece of biographical writing, Hitler’s Piano Player is packed with colour and character' Independent

  • 'Fills in some fascinating detail about this bizarre figure... gives us a wealth of enjoyable anecdotes' Financial Times

  • 'Wholly entertaining' Observer

Layer Cake

Ebook: January 12, 2011
Hardback:
Paperback: August 20, 2020

Layer Cake

J. J. Connolly

Layer cake (n): a metaphor for the murky layers of the criminal world.

Smooth-talking drug dealer X has a plan to quietly bankroll enough cash to retire before his thirtieth birthday. Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman, his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it’s time to get out.

When kingpin Jimmy Price asks him to find the wayward daughter of a wealthy socialite who’s been running around with a cokehead, he accepts the job with the promise that after this he can leave the criminal world behind with Jimmy’s blessing. Oh, and he needs to find a buyer for two million ecstasy pills acquired by a crew of lowly, loud-mouth gangsters, the Yahoos. Simple enough, until an assassin named Klaus arrives to scratch him off his list, revealing this job is much more than it seems at first.

From the glitz of the London club scene of the 1990’s to the underbelly of its criminal world, Layer Cake is the best in British crime fiction.

Reviews

  • ‘This assured debut is far more sophisticated than such expressions of “gangster chic” as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Connolly displays the same infectious relish for underworld argot as Elizabethan writers fascinated by rogues’ cant, and his ostensibly artless plotting is as rich in double and triple crosses as a spy thriller’ John Dugdale, The Sunday Times

  • ‘The best crime novel I’ve ever read’ Bruce Reynolds 

  • ‘An immensely entertaining read’ Philip MacCann, The Spectator

  • ‘If the brilliantly written and intriguing Layer Cake is anything to go by, his will soon be a name to whet the appetites of readers and critics alike’ Francis Gilbert, The Times 

  • 'Funny, hectic, hard-hitting debut novel... Tart, tough and riveted at every juncture by unmistakable authenticity... sheer, unstoppable joy to read from the first page to the last' Philip Oakes, Literary Review

  • 'A storming piece of work... the novel has a grasp of street argot unparalleled since Kinky Friedman first sashayed out of his from door and nailed a checker straight out of the bat' D. J. Taylor

  • 'Connolly's style is fast and funny and just frightening enough to make you sit up all night finishing the book' Independent on Sunday

  • 'One novel in and Connolly has hit the jackpot, jump-started British crime fiction into the present... Like good drug fiction you're given glamour and squalor, a voyeuristic thrill, and the bill' Uncut

The Templar’s Garden

The Templars Garden
The Templars Garden

Ebook: November 12, 2020
Hardback:
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 Man Who Wasn’t There

Ebook: March 5, 2020
Hardback:
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.

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

Ingredients

Ebook: July 9, 2020
Hardback:
Paperback: July 23, 2020

Ingredients

George Zaidan

Category: Popular Science,

Cheese puffs. Coffee. Sunscreen. Vapes. Hand sanitiser. George Zaidan reveals the weird science behind everyday items that may or may not kill you, depending on whom you ask.

If you want easy answers, this book is not for you. But if you’re curious which health studies to trust, what dense scientific jargon really means, and how to make better choices when it comes to food and health – dive right in!

Zaidan makes chemistry more fun than potions class as he reveals exactly what science can (and can’t) tell us about the packaged ingredients we buy in the supermarket. He demystifies the ingredients of life and death – and explains how we know whether something is good or bad for you – in exquisite, hilarious detail at breakneck speed.

Reviews

  • 'If you crossed Bill Nye with Stephen Colbert, you'd get George Zaidan. Ingredients is a masterful piece of science writing' Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive

  • 'If you ever thought that chemistry might be really interesting (it is), but your eyes glazed over in high school chem class, this is the book for you. George Zaidan will keep you laughing out loud as he shares the wonders of our most useful, practical science, with brilliant analogies that even an 11-year old can understand' Daniel J. Levitin, author of Successful Aging and This is Your Brain on Music

  • 'I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that food is very important, and yet we are terrible at talking about it. Nutrition is a mess of marketing, classism, science, truth, guilt, confusion, and outright hucksterism. Ingredients lifts the film from our eyes with humour and reassurance' Hank Green, author of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

  • 'At last, a book on nutrition that tries to make you understand how little we know instead of offering blanket prognostications. If instead of a simple solution, you want a guide to how to think about health, this is it' Zach and Kelly Weinersmith, New York Times bestselling authors of Soonish

  • 'If you are looking for a guide in understanding the everyday chemistry of our lives, you could not do better than George Zaidan. And his book, Ingredients, is everything that should lead you to expect: funny, edgy, fascinating, dismaying, reassuring, and overall, just incredibly smart' Deborah Blum, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Poison Squad

  • 'By all means, pick up George Zaidan's high-octane Ingredients if you want to know more about Cheetos, sunscreen, butter substitutes, and other fascinating bits of everyday chemistry. But above all, you should buy Ingredients because it teaches you how to think better—like a smart, informed, and wickedly funny scientist' Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon and The Bastard Brigade

  • 'Omfg this book is FABULOUS! It's hilarious, insightful, sassy, and reassuring. A delightful roller-coaster of science communication' Kallie Moore, Co-host of PBS Eons

  • 'George Zaidan’s mix of razor-sharp wit and pin-point accuracy are rarer in science than a T-Rex performing nuclear fusion. Ingredients has the answers to age-old questions—how many Oreos is too many Oreos?—and many more you never thought to ask. Like an optometrist performing stand-up, Zaidan is eye-opening and hilarious' Daniel Stone, author of The Food Explorer

  • 'Everything in our lives is made of chemicals. But unfortunately very few of us are chemists. Ingredients is a road map for navigating the confusing polysyllabic world we find in product labels and in viral news stories. Zaidan’s blend of humor and science will not only make you a better-informed consumer of all things chemical. Ingredients will also make you appreciate the chemistry that makes our world possible' Joe Hanson, creator, writer and host of It's Okay to Be Smart

  • 'Through incredibly weird and wonderful analogies (and delightfully nerdy wit), George helps you understand how scientists work toward the truth. I wish he'd rewrite all of my high school science textbooks!' Emily Calandrelli, author of the Ada Lace Adventures

  • 'Ingredients is a friendly introduction to the chemistry behind our health, but it's also a compelling portrait of how science is conducted and knowledge is built. Turns out, Cheetos and the scientific method have something in common: there's a lot going on, and not everyone knows what. George does a masterful job of showing where chemistry can answer questions about our health and environment, and where it—as well science in general—is lead by politics, culture and even *gasp* opinion' Mike Rugnetta, host of Idea Channel

  • 'When I taught a writing intensive course for nutrition and food science seniors, the main objectives were how to read scientific papers critically and how to argue effectively in print. I thought several times while reading this book that, rather than using peer-reviewed papers, I wish I could have had this book for my students. Pick any argument George makes and tell me, with references, why you agree or disagree. They probably would have learned more that way and certainly would have enjoyed their reading more' David Klurfeld, former Professor and Chair of Nutrition and Food Science at Wayne State University

  • 'Ingredients has all the ingredients I’m looking for in a science book: it’s chock full of interesting information, it reveals the science behind an everyday subject—and it’s written in a breezy, easy-to-understand voice—and it’s funny! I can’t recommend it enough' Brian Malow, Science comedian

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