Picador Christmas. A History Flanders Judith

Убийство в 19 веке было редкостью. Но убийство как сенсация и развлечение стало повсеместным явлением - трансформировалось в романы, в афиши и баллады, в театр, мелодраму и оперу - даже в кукольные представления и представления с участием собак • В этой тщательно исследованной и убедительной книге Джудит Фландерс - автор книги "Викторианский дом" - пересказывает ужасные истории о множестве различных видов убийств - как известных, так и малоизвестных. От преступлений (и мифов) Суини Тодда и Джека Потрошителя до трагедий убитой семьи Марр в лондонском Ист-Энде, Берка и Хэйра и их бизнеса по похищению тел в Эдинбурге, а также Гринакра, который перевозил свою расчлененную невесту по городу на омнибусе • С неотразимым составом мошенников, фальшивомонетчиков и отравителей, сумасшедших, плохих и опасных для познания, "Изобретение убийства" - это одновременно захватывающая повесть о преступлении и наказании и история в ее наиболее читаемом виде

France: An Adventure History is a profoundly original and endlessly entertaining history of France, from the first century BC to the present day, based on countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, by bicycle and in the library • Beginning with the Roman army's first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending with the Gilets Jaunes protests in the era of Emmanuel Macron, each chapter is an adventure in its own right. Along the way, readers will find the usual faces, events and themes of French history - Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Resistance, the Tour de France - but all presented in a shining new light • Graham Robb does not offer a standard dry list of facts and dates, but instead a panorama of France, teeming with characters, full of stories, journeys and coincidences, giving readers a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment

In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean • This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalised. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all • Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history • We meet Black and multi-racial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief – all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history – about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight • In ‘Boys Go to Jupiter’ a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral

The number one Sunday Times bestseller in a new festive package, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas is the perfect stocking filler from the author of multi-million-copy bestseller This is Going to Hurt – now a major BBC TV series • Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . . but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital, Adam Kay delves back into his diaries for a hilarious, horrifying and sometimes heartbreaking peek behind the blue curtain at Christmastime • This is a love letter to all those who spend their festive season on the front line, removing babies and baubles from the various places they get stuck, at the most wonderful time of the year

In recent years house histories have become the new frontier of popular, participatory history. People, many of whom have already embarked upon that great adventure of genealogical research, and who have encountered their ancestors in the archives and uncovered family secrets, are now turning to the secrets contained within the four walls of their homes and in doing so finding a direct link to earlier generations. And it is ordinary homes, not grand public buildings or the mansions of the rich, that have all the best stories • As with the television series, A House Through Time offers readers not only the tools to explore the histories of their own homes, but also a vividly readable history of the British city, the forces of industry, disease, mass transportation, crime and class

From revolution on Twitter to romance on Tinder, we live in a world constructed of code - and coders are the ones who built it for us • In Coders, acclaimed tech writer Clive Thompson offers an illuminating reckoning with the most powerful tribe in the world today, computer programmers, asking who they are, how they think, and what should give us pause. Along the way, Thompson ponders the morality and politics of code, including its implications for civic life and the economy, and unpacks the surprising history of the field, beginning with the first coders - brilliant and pioneering women, who were later written out of history. To understand the world today, we need to understand code and its consequences. With Coders, Thompson offers a crucial insight into the heart of the machine

In The Running Book, John Connell vividly describes a marathon through County Longford, Ireland, where he lives and farms. Because running is as much about the mind as the body, the book is about more than the physical experience. What John sees on his journey prompts him to contemplate a wide range of things: he's as likely to think about local Irish history, the legacy of colonialism in Australia or the story of Haile Gebrselassie as he is to remember his own past runs in Arizona or Ibiza • After a mental health crisis, John found the simple act of putting one foot in front of another helped him to regain his sense of self and better appreciate the world around him. At its core, The Running Book is a life-affirming read about the nature of happiness - and how for one man it came through the feet

Stephen Maxwell has just retired from a lifetime spent teaching history at his alma mater. As he writes the official history of Blake's, a minor public school steeped in military tradition, he also reveals how, forty years ago, a secret conflict dating from the Second World War re-enacted itself among staff and pupils, when fascism once more made its presence felt in the school and the city, with violent and nightmarish results

Dan Boothby had been drifting for more than twenty years, without the pontoons of family, friends or a steady occupation. He was looking for but never finding the perfect place to land. Finally, unexpectedly, an opportunity presented itself. After a lifelong obsession with Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water trilogy, Boothby was given the chance to move to Maxwell's former home, a tiny island on the western seaboard of the Highlands of Scotland • Island of Dreams is about Boothby's time living there, and about the natural and human history that surrounded him; it's about the people he meets and the stories they tell, and about his engagement with this remote landscape, including the otters that inhabit it. Interspersed with Boothby's own story is a quest to better understand the mysterious Gavin Maxwell

Set in Sicily, The Terracotta Dog is the second novel in the humorous Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri • After a cloak and dagger exchange with an ageing Mafioso, Inspector Montalbano is left haunted by the man's dying words, which lead him to a mountainside just west of Vigata where he unearths two young lovers, dead fifty years and still embracing, watched over by a life-size terracotta dog • Heedless of personal danger, Montalbano's drive to solve this old crime forces him on a journey through Sicily's World War II history and to the dark heart of one family…

In Alligator and Other Stories, Dima Alzayat captures luminously how it feels to be 'other': as a Syrian, as an Arab, as an immigrant, as a woman. Each one of the nine stories collected here is a snapshot of those moments when unusual circumstances suddenly distinguish us from our neighbours, when our difference is thrown into relief • Here are 'dangerous' women transgressing, missing children in 1970s New York, a family who were once Syrian but have now lost their name, and a young woman about to discover the hollowness of the American dream. At its centre lies 'Alligator': a remarkable compilation of real and invented sources, which rescues from history the story of a Syrian American couple who were murdered at the hands of the state • Alzayat explores experiences that are startling and real, delivering an emotional punch that lingers long after reading