William Collins Why Bowie Matters Brooker Will

When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan, the literary world was up in arms. How could the world's most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter in his Seventies, who wouldn't even deign to make an acceptance speech? • In Why Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers that question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry, Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a course on Bob Dylan alongside his traditional seminars on Homer, Virgil and Ovid. Dylan's Nobel prize win brought him vindication. This witty, personal volume is a distillation of Thomas's famous course, and makes a compelling case for moving Dylan out of the rock n' roll Hall of Fame and into the pantheon of Classical poets

«Баламут предлагает тост» – продолжение одной из самых известных книг британского писателя и теолога Клайва Стейплза Льюиса. Оригинальное произведение, «Письма Баламута», было оформлено в виде писем старого беса Баламута, опытного искусителя и верного прислужника «всенизшего». Письма были адресованы его племяннику, юному бесу Гнусику, и попали в руки Льюиса тайным путём, который он отказывался рассекречивать. Несмотря на колебания автора, через несколько лет после публикации «Писем» читатель всё же смог добиться от него продолжения • Теперь, в 75-ю годовщину первой публикации «Писем», издательство William Collins представляет новое издание книги «Баламут предлагает тост», включающее также и другие произведения автора • «Баламут предлагает тост», книга выдающегося британского писателя Клайва Стейплза Льюиса, является знаковым произведением для направления популярной теологии

Writing on everything from a defence of suburban life and moderate politics to big ideas and pop culture, Daniel Finkelstein is one of the UK’s most entertaining and widely read columnists • This collection brings together Finkelstein’s greatest writings from The Times, ranging from the personal – with his articles on growing up Jewish in Hendon Central and on the deaths of both of his parents – to the political, with columns on how to predict elections, the way political science showed us Ed Miliband was on his way to defeat, and why the base rate of coups meant Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t be ousted before an election • Wry, informed and often brilliantly funny, these pieces zip between Walt Disney, Hilary Clinton, David Bowie, Margaret Thatcher, Clement Attlee and Muhammed Ali

Loss and adversity are part of the human condition, but an imperfect past isn’t always an indicator of what’s to come • This book traces a pattern: why is it that often the people with the hardest beginnings in life – children who experience displacement, disease, financial ruin, abandonment or bereavement – become the most successful adults? And is there something to learn from those people, who perhaps have the strongest sense of what matters most? • Of Britain’s fifty-five prime ministers, twenty-five lost one or both of their parents as a child and 69 per cent suffered some form of serious childhood trauma. For their acclaimed podcast Past Imperfect, Thomson and Sylvester spoke to some such prime ministers, as well as pioneers and poets, CEOs and chefs, actors and archbishops, sports stars and Nobel prize-winning scientists

We are at a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change – with the ultimate opportunity to reassess what society values and how we can better respond to future crises • This book asks why it is that the things we value most – from the environment to frontline workers to keeping children well fed and educated – are so often neglected by the market • In Value(s), one of the great global thinkers of our time examines how what we value has become misaligned and how we can rethink and rebuild before it is too late • Drawing on a truly international perspective, this book offers a blueprint for how we can channel the dynamism of the market to transform intractable global problems into opportunities. And in so doing build a better world for all

The inconvenient truth is that we are causing the climate crisis with our carbon intensive lifestyles and that fixing - or even just slowing - it will affect all of us. But it can be done • In Net Zero the economist Professor Dieter Helm addresses the action we would all need to take, whether personal, local, national or global, if we really wanted to stop causing climate change • Net Zero is Professor Dieter Helm's measured, balanced view of how we stop causing climate change by adopting a net zero strategy of reducing carbon emissions and increasing carbon absorption. It is a rational look at why the past 30 years efforts has failed and why and how the next 30 years can succeed. It is a vital book for anyone who hears the clamour of Extinction Rebellion and other ecological activists, but wonders what they can actually do

In this extraordinary journey through twenty-six countries, Simon Mundy meets the people on the front lines of the climate crisis, showing how the struggle to respond is already reshaping the modern world - shattering communities, shaking up global business, and propelling a groundbreaking wave of cutting-edge innovation • How is China's green energy push driving a hazardous mining rush in Congo? • Why is a maverick scientist building a home for engineered mammoths in northeast Siberia? • Can an Israeli fake meat startup make a fortune while helping to save the Amazon? • Will Greenland's melting sea ice put its people at the centre of a global power struggle? • Who are the entrepreneurs chasing breakthroughs in fusion power, electric cars, and technology to suck carbon from the atmosphere? • As the impacts of climate change cascade across the planet and the global economy, who is battling to survive the worst impacts - and who is chasing the most lucrative rewards? • Telling unforgettable human stories from six continents, this is an account of disaster, of promise, of frantic adaptation and relentless innovation, of hope, of survival, and of the forces that will define our future

Foxes, buzzards, crows, badgers, weasels, seals, kites - Britain and Ireland's predators are impressive and diverse and they capture our collective imagination. But many consider them to our competition, even our enemies • The problem is that predators eat what we farm or use for sport. From foxes and ravens attacking new-born lambs to weasels eating game-bird chicks, predators compete with us, putting them directly into the firing line. Farming, fishing, sport and leisure industries want to see numbers of predators reduced, and conservation organisations also worry that predators are threatening some endangered species. Other people, though, will go to great lengths to protect them from any harm. This clashing of worlds can be intense. So, what do we do? One of the greatest challenges facing conservation today is how, when and where to control predators

Einstein’s Fridge tells the story of how scientists uncovered the least known and yet most consequential of all the sciences, and learned to harness the power of heat and ice • The laws of thermodynamics govern everything from the behaviour of atoms to that of living cells, from the engines that power our world to the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Not only that, but thermodynamics explains why we must eat and breathe, how the lights come on, and ultimately how the universe will end. The people who decoded its laws came from every branch of the sciences – they were engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, cosmologists and mathematicians • Their discoveries, set over two hundred years, kick-started the industrial revolution, changed the course of world wars and informed modern understanding of black holes

Do tough times create tougher people? Can humanity handle the power of it's weapons without destroying itself? Will human technology ever peak or regress? And why, since the dawn of time, has it always seemed as though death and destruction are waiting just around the corner? • Combining his trademark thrilling, expansive storytelling with rigorous history and thought experiment, Dan Carlin connects past with future to explore the tipping points of collapsing civilisations - from the plague to nuclear war • Looking across every brush with apocalypse, crisis and collapse, this book also weighs, knowing all we do about human patterns, whether our world is likely to become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore

Now with a new epilogue, the UK's most influential food and drink journalist shoots a few sacred cows of food culture • Buying 'locally' does no good. Farmers' markets are merely a lifestyle choice. And 'organic' is little more than a marketing label, way past its sell by date. This may be a little hard to swallow for the ethically-aware food shopper but it doesn't make it any less true. And now the UK's most outspoken and entertaining food writer is ready to explain why • Jay Rayner combines personal experience and hard-nosed reportage to explain why the doctrine of organic has been eclipsed by the need for sustainable intensification; and why the future lies in large-scale food production rather than the cottage industries that foodies often cheer for

From the ultimate insider – a former General Motors executive and current advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car project – comes the definitive story of the race between Google, Tesla and Uber to create the driverless car • We stand on the brink of a technological revolution. In the near future, most of us will not own automobiles, but will travel instead in driverless electric vehicles summoned at the touch of an app. We will be liberated from driving, so that the time we spend in cars can be put to more productive use. We will prevent more than 90 percent of car crashes, provide freedom of mobility to the elderly and disabled and decrease our dependence on fossil fuels • Autonomy tells the story of the maverick engineers and computer experts who triggered the revolution