Bantam Press The Oracle of Night Рибейро Сидарта

One of our most distinguished military historians tells the story of six defining battles • Every battle is different. Each takes place in a different context - the war, the campaign, the weapons. However, battles across the centuries, whether fought with sticks and stones or advanced technology, have much in common. Fighting is, after all, an intensely human affair; human nature doesn't change. So why were battles fought as they were? What gave them their shape? Why did they go as they did: victory for one side, defeat for the other? • In exploring six significant feats of arms - the war and campaign in which they each occurred, and the factors that determined their precise form and course - The Shape of Battle answers these fundamental questions about the waging of war

When did you last feel exhilarated and lighthearted? • When were you last engaged, focused and completely present? • When is the last time you felt fully alive? • In other words, when did you last have fun? • In our always-on, tech-addicted lifestyles, we often think of the pursuit of fun as an indulgence. When we do find time to relax, we often turn to activities that are not actually that enjoyable, let alone fun: bingeing on television and movies, doomscrolling the news, or feeding our FOMO on social media • But award-winning science journalist Catherine Price has learned the truth: far from being frivolous, fun is the key to living a more meaningful, fulfilling and happier life. If you make fun a priority, you will be healthier and have more energy

This is the inspiring, dramatic and heart-warming true story of family, justice and how we all deserve a second chance • The young Walter Miller was a product of his time. Growing up Black in the Jim Crow American South, he was in trouble with the police before his fourteenth birthday. And, like so many young Black men, once he'd landed in the criminal justice system it was hard to find a way out. Soon enough, he was facing a thirty-year prison sentence • But Walter was smarter than his jailers. He escaped prison and fled to New York with a hundred dollars in his pocket. He changed his name to Bobby Love, and began again - living a crime-free life for nearly forty years, with a steady job, a loving wife, a church-going family. And a big secret

The radio war of 1939-45 is one of the great scientific battles in history • This is the story of that war • Relying on first-hand accounts as well as papers recently released by the Admiralty, The Battle of the Beams fills a huge missing piece in the canon of WW2 literature • It combines history, science, derring do and dogged determination and will appeal as much to fans of WW2 history as to those fascinated by the science behind the beams that changed our lives • The British believed that, through ingenuity and scientific prowess, they alone have a war-winning weapon: radar. They are wrong. The Germans have it too • They believe that their unique maritime history means their pilots have no need of navigational aids. Flying above the clouds they, like the seafarers of old, had the stars to guide them, and that is all that is required

The first novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk about Kevin is a compelling and provocative story of love and how we suffer for it • Still unattached and childless at fifty-nine, world-renowned anthropologist Gray Kaiser is seemingly invincible-and untouchable. Returning to make a documentary at the site of her first great triumph in Kenya, she is accompanied by her faithful middle-aged assistant, Errol McEchern, who has loved her for years in silence • When young graduate assistant Raphael Sarasola arrives on the scene, Gray is captivated and falls hopelessly in love-before an amazed Errol's eyes. As he follows their affair with jealous fascination, Errol watches helplessly from the sidelines as a proud and fierce woman is reduced to miserable dependence through miserable dependence

One of the last great untold stories of the Holocaust, The Survivor is an astonishing account of one man's unbreakable spirit, unshakeable faith, and extraordinary courage in the face of evil • At only sixteen years old, Josef Lewkowicz became a number, prisoner 85314. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland, he and his father were separated from their family and herded to the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp. Forced to carry out hard labour in brutal conditions, and to live under the constant threat of extreme violence and sudden death, before the war was over Josef would witness the unique horrors of six of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee • From salt mines to forced marches, summary executions to Amstetten, where prisoners were used as human shields in Allied bombing, Josef lived under the spectre of death for many years

AD 400. Rome and its Empire are failing • Veteran cavalry commander Marcus Flavius Victor sets out with his regiment to make what may be his final tour of the forts along Hadrian's Wall • Through a combination of military prowess, brutality and bribery, Marcus has spent twenty years keeping the savage Picts at bay. Feared by his enemies and hated by his superiors, his strength of will is the only thing that has held the disgruntled, poorly paid garrisons of the Wall in place as the failing Roman Empire's grip on Britannia weakened • Yet as this tour of the wall progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that this is more than a routine inspection. Why is Marcus stripping the defences of cavalry to strengthen his own force? Is he negotiating with the Picts - or conspiring with them? And who is the mysterious figure who follows Marcus' every move and yet hides in the shadows? • Segeduno, Cilurno, Brocolitia, Vindolanda: each fort holds memories and friendships, hides rivals, or conceals enemies

Over a hundred years ago, the citizens of F- did something rather bad. And local school teacher Catherine Evans has made writing the definitive account of what happened when Ilsbeth Clark drowned in the well her life's work • The town's people may not want their past raked up, but Catherine is determined to shine a light upon that shameful event. For Ilsbeth was an innocent, after all. She was shunned and ostracised by rumour-mongers and ill-wishers and someone has to speak up for her. And who better than Catherine, who has herself felt the sting and hurt of such whisperings? • But then a childhood friend returns to F -. Elena is a successful author whose book, The Whispers Inside: A Reawakening of the Soul, has earned her a certain celebrity. In search of a new subject, she takes an interest in the story of Ilsbeth Clark and announces her intention to write a book about the long-dead woman, focusing on the natural magic she believes she possessed

Known as the 'four horsemen' of New Atheism, these four big thinkers of the twenty-first century met only once. Their electrifying examination of ideas on this remarkable occasion was intense and wide-ranging. Everything that was said as they agreed and disagreed with one another, interrogated ideas and exchanged insights - about religion and atheism, science and sense - speaks with urgency to our present age • Questions they asked of each other included: 'Is it ever possible to win a war of ideas? Is spirituality the preserve of the religious? Are there any truths you would rather not know? Would you want to see the end of faith?' • The dialogue was recorded, and is now transcribed and presented here with new introductions from the surviving three horsemen

Why do some radical ideas make history while others founder? • We tend to think of revolutions as loud: frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fuelling them have traditionally been conceived in much quieter spaces, in the small, secluded corners where a vanguard can whisper among themselves, imagine alternate realities, and deliberate over how to get there. This extraordinary book is a search for those spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that they might soon go extinct • The Quiet Before is a grand panorama, stretching from the seventeenth century correspondence that jumpstarted the scientific revolution to the groundswell of the Chartists, the liberation movement on the Gold Coast and the underground network of samizdat publications in Soviet Russia - even the encrypted apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic in the shadow of an inept administration

Change is in the air for Jack Sheffield and the Ragley village school • It's 1987, and after a decade as head teacher at Ragley-on-the-Forest School, Jack Sheffield is looking to the future. He and his wife are expecting a new baby, the school is preparing for the introduction of the new National Curriculum, and the coming year promises a whole host of other surprises. Whether it's combing the church for an escaped pet mouse or dealing with the obnoxious new school governor, life in the village is always entertaining • So when Jack is offered an opportunity that could change everything, he knows he has a difficult decision to make. Endings are never easy, but perhaps the thrill of a new beginning is exactly what Jack needs • Hilarious, nostalgic and heart-warming in equal measure, Last Day of School is the final novel in the much-loved Teacher series

Two best friends • Elizabeth and Bryony are polar opposites but their unexpected friendship has always worked. They're the best of friends, and godmothers to each other's daughters - because they both trust that the safety of their children is their top priority • One little secret • Little do they know that they differ radically over one very important issue. And when Bryony, afraid of being judged, tells what is supposed to be a harmless white lie before a child's birthday party, the consequences are more catastrophic than either of them could ever have imagined • Every parent's worst nightmare