Vintage books Knocking On Heaven's Door. How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate our Universe Randall Lisa

Soap Saves Lives. But did you know that excessive use of soap and skin-care products is harming our health and the environment? Apart from in hand-washing there is no need to use soap on our bodies at all? • Doctor and preventative medicine expert James Hamblin gave up showering five years ago and only ever uses soap on his hands. In Clean, he takes us on an irreverent and entertaining journey through our complex relationship with our bodies and cleanliness. Drawing on the latest science, he introduces a new way to think about cleanliness - one that is cheaper, simpler and better for our skin, our immunity and the world in which we live

An explosive and revelatory account about the British lobbying industry and how it affects us all at every level of our lives • Q. What's worth ?2,000,000,000, answers to no-one and operates out of public sight? • A. Britain's influence industry • The corporate takeover of democracy is no conspiracy theory - it's happening, and it affects every aspect of our lives: the food we eat, the places we live, the temperature of our planet, how we spend our money and how our money is spent for us. And much more • A Quiet Word shows just how effectively the voice of public interest is being drowned out by the word in the ear from the professional persuaders of the lobbying industry. And if you've never heard about them, that's because the most effective lobbying goes unnoticed

Too often we take for granted and neglect our libraries, parks, markets, schools, playgrounds, gardens and communal spaces, but decades of research now shows that these places can have an extraordinary effect on our personal and collective wellbeing. Why? Because wherever people cross paths and linger, wherever we gather informally, strike up a conversation and get to know one another, relationships blossom and communities emerge – and where communities are strong, people are safer and healthier, crime drops and commerce thrives, and peace, tolerance and stability take root • Through uplifting human stories and an illuminating tour through the science of social connection, Palaces for the People shows that properly designing and maintaining this ‘social infrastructure’ might be our single best strategy for a more equal and united society

Acclaimed National Book Award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America's descent into a failed state, and envisions a path toward overcoming injustices, paralyses, and divides • How, in a few decades, did the United States transform from a broadly prosperous middle-class country, with relatively healthy institutions and competent leaders, to a nation defined by discredited elites, hollowed-out institutions, and blatant inequalities-feared and pitied by our friends, mocked and sabotaged by our adversaries, first in the world in Covid cases and deaths, and led in recent years by an incompetent authoritarian bigot? Last Best Hope is a bracing account of our current crisis and of how a new era of civic revitalization may bring it to an end • Combining reportage with historical narrative, autobiography, and political analysis, Packer depicts and assesses the four inadequate narratives that dominate American public life: Libertarian America, which imagines a nation of individuals responsible for their own fate, and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Cosmopolitan America, the ideology of Silicon Valley and the professional elite,which celebrates globalization and leaves many American communities behind; Diverse America, which defines citizens as members of large identity groups that have inflicted or suffered oppression; and White America, a shallow nationalism that fears the contamination of non-whites and treachery of coastal elites, and poses the greatest threat to democracy in our lifetime

Nurses have never been more important • We benefit from their expertise in our hospitals and beyond: in our schools, on our streets, in prisons, hospices and care homes. When we feel most alone, nurses remind us that we are not alone at all • In The Courage to Care bestselling author Christie Watson reveals the remarkable extent of nurses' work • - A community mental-health nurse choreographs support for a man suffering from severe depression • - A teen with stab wounds is treated by the critical-care team; his school nurse visits and he drops the bravado • - A pregnant woman loses frightening amounts of blood following a car accident; it is a military nurse who synchronises the emergency department into immaculate order and focus • Christie makes a further discovery: that, time and again, it is patients and their families - including her own - who show exceptional strength in the most challenging times

In a quiet English suburb, a love affair ignites. For our nameless narrator, Louise is the last in a long line of explosive passions, but the first to have broken their heart. With Louise's husband, Elgin, blocking love's course, their affair is doomed to unravel - until, that is, a terrible choice must be made • With its witty and masterful prose, Written on the Body takes the reader on a beguiling and defying exploration of love and its physical forms

The definitive account of North Korea - its veiled past and uncertain future - from former White House adviser and Korea expert Victor Cha • ‘We killed Americans • We are killing Americans • We will kill Americans.’ • North Korean schoolchildren conjugating verbs • How did North Korea become The Impossible State, where citizens found humming South Korean pop songs risk being sent to a gulag, and yet a starving populace clings fiercely to its Dear Leader Kim Jong-un? What does the future hold for a regime with terrifying nuclear ambitions and an endless war with its southern counterpart? Former White House adviser and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University, Victor Cha, pulls back the curtain on the world’s most isolated country to provide this unprecedented and timely insight into North Korea’s history, present and future

A unique and captivating collection of Hemingway's writings on war, including extracts from his unparalleled war novels, some classic short stories, an extract from his only full-length play and a range of his war journalism • Ernest Hemingway witnessed many of the seminal conflicts of the twentieth century, as a Red Cross ambulance driver during the First World War and during his twenty-five years as a war correspondent. This edition offers an unparalleled portrayal of the physical and psychological impact of war and its aftermath. It contains extracts from A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls, some of Hemingway’s very best short stories, his only full-length play, The Fifth Column as well as selections from his wartime journalism. Hemingway on War represents the author's penetrating chronicles of perseverance and defeat, courage and fear, and love and loss in the midst of modern warfare

Midnight, New Year’s Eve, 1976. Nine lives are about to be changed forever • Regan and William Hamilton-Sweeney, heirs to one of New York's greatest fortunes; Keith and Mercer, the men who, for better or worse, love them; Charlie and Samantha, two suburban teenagers seduced by the punk scene; an obsessive magazine reporter and his idealistic neighbour – and the detective trying to figure out what any of them have to do with a shooting in Central Park on New Year’s Eve • Then, on July 13th, 1977, the lights go out

A funny, sharp, delicately woven story of female friendship • Read this funny, sharp, delicately woven story of two women's complicated relationship set in post-apartheid South Africa • Hortensia and Marion are next door neighbours in a charming, bougainvillea-laden Cape Town suburb. One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers behind them. Both have recently been widowed. Both are in their eighties. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility pruned with zeal • But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. Could long-held mutual loathing transform into friendship? • Love thy neighbour? Easier said than done

Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return 'home' when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pangkot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their landlady, the imposing Mrs Bhoolabhoy, threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days • Both funny and deeply moving, Staying On is a unique, engrossing portrait of the end of an empire and of a forty-year love affair

A student moves to the city to research Gothic nudes, renting an apartment from a painter, Agnes, who lives in another town with her husband. One day, Agnes arrives in the city and settles into the upstairs studio • Agnes tells stories of her youth, her family, her marriage, and ideas for her art. As the months pass, it becomes clear that Agnes might not have a place to return to. Her stories are frenetic; her art scattered and unfinished, white paint on a white canvas • White on White is a sharp exploration of what it means to be truly vulnerable and laid bare