Penguin Travels with Herodotus Kapuscinski Ryszard

Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuscinski describes the tyrannical monarch, who, despite his cruel oppression of the Iranian people, sees himself as the father of a nation, who can turn a backward country into a great power - a vain hope that proves a complete failure. Yet even as Iran becomes a 'behemoth of riches' and as the Shah lives like a European billionaire, its people live in a climate of fear, terrorized by the secret police. Told with intense power and feeling, Kapuscinski portrays the inevitable build-up to revolution - a cataclysmic upheaval that delivered Iran into the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini

The Penguin Modern Classics edition of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor is translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, with an introduction by Neal Ascherton • After the deposition of Haile Selassie in 1974, which ended the ancient rule of the Abyssinian monarchy, Ryszard Kapuscinski travelled to Ethiopia and sought out surviving courtiers to tell their stories. Here, their eloquent and ironic voices depict the lavish, corrupt world they had known - from the rituals, hierarchies and intrigues at court to the vagaries of a ruler who maintained absolute power over his impoverished people. They describe his inexorable downfall as the Ethiopian military approach, strange omens appear in the sky and courtiers vanish, until only the Emperor and his valet remain in the deserted palace, awaiting their fate

'You will hear it for yourselves, and it will surely fill you with wonder...' • In this selection from Marco Polo's famous travel book, the intrepid Venetian describes the customs of India, recounts the story of the king who died eighty-four times and explains how to retrieve diamonds from snake-infested caves • Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions

'Like rotting stakes in a forest clearing' • The great journalist of conflict in the Third World finds an even stranger and more exotic society in his own home of post-War Poland • Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space

'This is a very personal book, about being alone and lost'. In 1975 Kapuscinski's employers sent him to Angola to cover the civil war that had broken out after independence. For months he watched as Luanda and then the rest of the country collapsed into a civil war that was in the author's words 'sloppy, dogged and cruel'. In his account, Kapuscinski demonstrates an extraordinary capacity to describe and to explain the individual meaning of grand political abstractions

One of the masterpieces of classical literature, The Histories describes how a small and quarrelsome band of Greek city states united to repel the might of the Persian empire. But while this epic struggle forms the core of his work, Herodotus' natural curiosity frequently gives rise to colourful digressions - a description of the natural wonders of Egypt; tales of lake-dwellers, dog-headed men and gold-digging ants. With its kaleidoscopic blend of fact and legend, The Histories offers a compelling Greek view of the world in the fifth century BC, in Aubrey de Selincourt's elegant and celebrated translation

Gerd Gigerenzer's Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty illustrates how we can learn to make sense of statistics and turn ignorance into insight • However much we want certainty in our lives, it feels as if we live in an uncertain and dangerous world. But are we guilty of wildly exaggerating the chances of some unwanted event happening to us? Are we misled by our ignorance of the reality of risk? • Far too many of us, argues Gerd Gigerenzer, are hampered by our own innumeracy, while statistics are often presented to us in highly confusing ways. With real world examples, such as the incidence of errors in tests for breast cancer or HIV, or in DNA fingerprinting, and the manipulation of statistics for evidence in court, he shows that our difficulty in thinking about numbers can easily be overcome

This penetrating, timely portrait of Robert Mugabe is the psychobiography of a man whose once brilliant career has ruined Zimbabwe and cast shame on the African continent. Heidi Holland's tireless investigation begins with her having dinner with Mugabe, the freedom fighter, and ends in a searching interview with Zimbabwe's president more than 30 years later. The author charts Mugabe's gradual self-destruction, and uncovers some of the most respectable international players in the Zimbabwe tragedy. Probing the mystery of Africa's loyalty to one of its worst dictators, Holland explores the contradictions that cloud the life of the man who had embodied a continent's promise

Francis Saxover and Diana Brackley, two scientists investigating a rare lichen, discover it has a remarkable property: it retards the aging process. Francis, realising the implications for the world of an ever-youthful, wealthy elite, wants to keep it secret, but Diana sees an opportunity to overturn the male status quo by using the lichen to inspire a feminist revolution • As each scientist wrestles with the implications and practicalities of exploiting the discovery, the world comes ever closer to learning the truth • Trouble With Lichen is a scintillating story of the power wielded by science in our lives and asks how much trust should we place in those we appoint to be its guardians?

A mesmerising, chilling close-up portrayal of Stalin from Milovan Djilas, a Communist insider - with an introduction from Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag and Iron Curtain • This extraordinarily vivid and unnerving book three meetings held with Stalin during and after the Second World War. Djilas brilliantly describes the dictator in his lair - cunning, cruel, enormously talented. Few books give as clear a sense of what made Stalin such a compelling figure and how he was able to hypnotise and terrify those around him. Djilas also describes the key members of Stalin's court: Beria, Malenkov, Zhukov, Molotov and Khruschchev. The result is a gripping account of the ruler at the height of his fame and power

В своей книге "Готовим вместе с Джейми. Мой путеводитель по тому, как научиться готовить лучше" Джейми Оливер поделится всем, чему он научился как шеф-повар • "Готовьте с Джейми" научит вас готовить блюда с нуля, включая простые инструкции по приготовлению пасты и клецок и даже по приготовлению свежих крабов, омаров и кальмаров. Научитесь смешивать прекрасно сбалансированные заправки и майонез для идеального дополнения к рецептам Джейми, таким как теплый копченый бекон и салат из топинамбура. В "Готовьте с Джейми" есть рецепты на любой случай и вкус - от легких закусок до десертов с изюминкой, таких как панировочно-сливочный пудинг с мармеладной глазурью и корицей и апельсиновым маслом • Книга на английском языке • Jamie Oliver will share everything he's learned as a chef as he invites you to Cook With Jamie • Whether you're a student, a young couple, an established cook or a novice, Cook With Jamie takes you through a whole load of simple and accessible recipes that will blow the socks off your family and any guests you might have round for dinner

A darkly humorous Czech satire: a new super-breed tries to conquer the world • War with the Newts (1936) is Karel Capek's darkly humorous allegory of early 20th-century Czech politics. Captain van Toch discovers a colony of newts in Sumatra which can not only be taught to trade and use tools, but also to speak. As the rest of the world learns of the creatures and their wonderful capabilities, it is clear that this new species is ripe for exploitation - they can be traded in their thousands, will do the work no human wants to do, and can fight - but the humans have given no thought to the terrible consequences of their actions