Oneworld Publications Animal Vegetable Criminal. When Nature Breaks the Law Роуч Мэри

For fans of Gut by Giulia Enders • Eating is the most pleasurable, gross, necessary, unspeakable biological process we undertake. But very few of us realise what strange wet miracles of science operate inside us after every meal – let alone have pondered the results (of the research). How have physicists made crisps crispier? What do laundry detergent and saliva have in common? Was self-styled ‘nutritional economist’ Horace Fletcher right to persuade millions of people that chewing a bite of shallot seven hundred times would yield double the vitamins? • In her trademark, laugh-out-loud style, Mary Roach breaks bread with spit connoisseurs, beer and pet-food tasters, stomach slugs, potato crisp engineers, enema exorcists, rectum-examining prison guards, competitive hot dog eaters, Elvis’ doctor, and many more as she investigates the beginning, and the end, of our food

Winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award, 2014 • When Atticus receives a mysterious message asking him to a meeting in a sleepy coastal town, he packs his bags and sets off. The world’s greatest cat burglar likes a good mystery and this time curiosity has got the better of him. The writer of the message, it turns out, is none other than Jimmy the Magpie, gang leader. He wants Atticus to steal all the jewels in town and leave the humans baffled • And what could be more straightforward? • But when Atticus moves in with Inspector Cheddar and his family, he starts to wonder if a life of crime is really for him

War. Mention it and most of us think of history, of conflicts on foreign soil, of heroism and compromise, of strategy and weapons. But there’s a whole other side to the gruesome business of the battlefield • In Grunt, the inimitable Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war. Setting about her task with infectious enthusiasm, she sniffs World War II stink bombs, tests earplugs in a simulated war zone and burns the midnight oil with the crew of a nuclear submarine. Speaking to the scientists and the soldiers, she learns about everything from life-changing medical procedures to innovations as esoteric as firing dead chickens at fighter jets

'Don't think, dear' said Balanchine. 'Just do.' • For centuries, being a ballerina has been synonymous with being beautiful, thin, obedient and feminine. It is the crucible of womanhood, together with the harassment, physical abuse and eating disorders endemic at top schools. Can we abide this in a post #MeToo world? • Weaving together her own time at America's most elite ballet school with the lives of renowned ballerinas throughout history, Alice Robb interrogates what it means to perform ballet today. She confronts the all-consuming nature of the form: the obsessive and dangerous practices to perfect the body, the embrace of submission and the idealisation of suffering • Yet ballet also gifts its dancers 'brains in their toes', a way to fully inhabit their bodies and a sanctuary of control away from the pressures of the outside world

The mayor and local officials of a small provincial town in Russia have got it made: corruption is rife and they have all the power. Yet, when they learn that an undercover government inspector is about to make a visit, they face a mad dash to cover their tracks. Soon, the news that a suspicious person has recently arrived from St Petersburg and is staying in a local inn produces a series of events and misunderstandings that lead to a hilarious denouement. Often quoted as Russian literature's greatest comedy, The Government Inspector is a trenchant satire of the corruption, greed and stupidity of petty officialdom, and the crowning achievement of Gogol's skills as a playwright • Alma Classics is committed to make available the widest range of literature from around the globe

The crunch of a bird’s wing • A cloud of butterflies, so beautiful it smothers • A crimson flash of blood across an artist’s canvas • Spine-tingling and unexpected, unearthly and strange, the stories of Mouthful of Birds are impossible to forget. Samanta Schweblin’s writing expertly blurs the line between the surreal and the everyday, pulling the reader into a world that is at once nightmarish and beautiful. An exhilarating tour de force guaranteed to leave the pulse racing

The epic literary adventure that has transfixed readers and critics alike in Spain • Almost four hundred passengers are on board the Boeing 747 en route from Los Angeles to Singapore. Only a handful will survive the crash • Washed ashore on a tiny island with no means of contacting the outside world, tension and fear threaten to overwhelm the group. But as they endeavour, day by day, to survive, they find themselves forced to confront the reality of the lives they left behind • Written in deftly cinematic prose, Andres Ibanez’s stunning novel is already considered a modern classic in Spain, expertly translated here by Sophie Hughes

The history of the world is the history of great women • Marie Curie discovered radium and revolutionised medical science. Empress Cixi transformed China. Frida Kahlo turned an unflinching eye on life and death. Anna Politkovskaya dared to speak truth to power, no matter the cost. Their names should be shouted from the rooftops • And that is exactly what Jenni Murray is here to do

Winston ‘Tuffy’ Foshay is a 19-year-old, 24-stone ‘player-king’ to a hapless gang in Spanish Harlem, a denizen who breaks jaws and shoots dogs. His best friend is a disabled Muslim man who wants to rob banks, his guiding light is an ex-hippie Asian woman who worked for Malcolm X, and his wife he married over the phone whilst in jail. When the frustrated Tuffy agrees to run for City Council, so begins a zany, riotous concoction of nonstop hip-hop chatter and brilliant mainstream social satire, as the indomitable Beatty again demonstrates why he is hailed as one of the shrewdest cultural commentators and hilarious cutups of his generation

Perfectly pitched and gorgeously penned, this astonishingly bold collection of stories explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized. Pitting human beings against the extremes of nature, Diane Cook surgically peels back the layers of civilization to lay bare our vulnerabilities and the ease with which our darker, primal urges emerge • These exhilarating and terrifying tales are set in worlds that are distorted versions of our own, where an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals, a marooned woman defends her house against the rising flood and hordes of desperate refugees, and a pack of not-needed boys take refuge in a murky forest and compete against one another for food. Wry, transgressive and utterly unique, Cook’s wildly inventive debut collection illuminates, with surreal humour and heartbreak, humankind’s struggle not only to thrive, but survive

It starts with a single black hair, growing thick and immovable from her spine • Marianne is grieving. Desperately trying to hold down some semblance of a normal life, she forces herself to go through the motions: cooking dinner with her boyfriend, showing up to work, calling her parents when she feels able to handle their reminders of all she has lost. And then, her body begins to betray her • When no one can explain what is going on, Marianne’s doctor directs her to Nede, an experimental health retreat deep in the Welsh countryside. By the time Marianne starts to suspect that all is not as it seems at Nede, it’s already too late • Dark and incendiary, The Weight of Loss is a moving novel about grief and resilience, full of surprising twists

From an award-winning Scottish poet, an unforgettable novel about memory and radical forgiveness • How far would you go to overcome the limits of your own forgiveness? • Quinn is serving a life sentence for a crime he’s convinced he hasn’t committed. Surely the authorities have got it wrong, and when they find his childhood sweetheart, Andrea, his name will be cleared. His parole is drawing near when he receives an unexpected letter from Andrea’s mother, who invites Quinn to share her home • It soon becomes apparent that what appears to be a genuine act of forgiveness is influenced by more complex motivations. As they navigate the thorny terrain of guilt, justice and mutual need that underpins their relationship, the story of Quinn’s past is gradually revealed, setting in motion a final reckoning