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<b>A highly readable cultural history of queer women's lives in the second half of the twentieth century</b><br/><br/>'An inspiring celebration of lesbian camaraderie, activism and fun'<b> SARAH WATERS</b><br/><br/>'A cracking read, and a reminder of what shaped where we are now'<b> VAL MCDERMID </b><br/><br/>'Riveting; indispensable; and suffused with a humane warmth' <b>ALISON BECHDEL</b><br/><br/>For as long as queer women have existed, they've created gathering grounds where they can be themselves. In <i>A Place of Our Own</i>, journalist June Thomas invites readers into six iconic lesbian spaces over the course of the last sixty years, including the rural commune, the sex toy boutique and the feminist bookstore. She also illuminates what is gained and lost in the shift from the exclusive, tight-knit women's spaces of the '70s toward today's more inclusive yet more diffuse LGBTQ+ communities.<br/><br/>'Thomas's ability to resurrect the past is a testament to her meticulous research. But it's her voice - charming, irreverent, tender - that makes the journey through lesbian history so worthwhile' <b>NEW YORK TIMES</b><br/><br/>'A must-have for any queer bookshelf' <b>TEGAN QUIN</b><br/><br/>'Pulses with delicious dykes and the spaces we have made for ourselves over the years'<b> STELLA DUFFY</b>

Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China&apos;s Superpower Future shatters the many myths and caricatures that shroud one of the world&apos;s most secretive political organizations and its leader. Many observers misread Xi during his early years in power, projecting their own hopes that he would steer China toward more political openness, rule of law, and pro-market economics. Having masked his beliefs while climbing the party hierarchy, Xi has centralized decision-making powers, encouraged a personality cult around himself, and moved toward indefinite rule by scrapping presidential term limits-stirring fears of a return to Mao-style dictatorship. Today, the party of Xi favors political zeal over technical expertise, trumpets its faith in Marxism, and proclaims its reach into every corner of Chinese society with Xi portraits and hammer-and-sickle logos. Under Xi, China has challenged Western preeminence in global affairs and cast its authoritarian system as a model of governance worthy of international emulation. As a China reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Chun Han Wong has chronicled Xi&apos;s hardline strategy for crushing dissent and his political repression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Wong spent five years in Beijing before the Chinese government forced him to leave mainland China in 2019, after which he moved to Hong Kong and continued writing about Xi&apos;s leadership. Now, Wong has drawn on his years of first-hand reporting across China to create a lucid and historically-rooted account of China&apos;s leader, and how he inspires fear and fervor in his party, his nation, and beyond. Timely, revelatory, and important, Party of One explains how the future Xi imagines for China will reshape the future of the entire world.

<b>The Instant <i>Sunday Times</i> Bestseller</b><br/><br/><b>'The star of her generation' - Dan Snow, host of <i>History Hit</i><br/>'Bursting with ideas and images' - Philippa Gregory, author of <i>The Other Boleyn Girl</i><br/>'Utterly, utterly brilliant' </b> <b>- Tracy Borman, author of <i>The King's Witch</i></b><br/><br/><i>At eighteen, your life is full of of what-ifs and why-nots. You have everything to look forward to - unless you've got the plague . . .</i><br/><br/>What happens if the First World War breaks out while you're at university?<br/><br/>How does a young woman, born without arms or legs, make a living in Georgian London?<br/><br/>What turns a rugby-obsessed teenager from a Welsh mining town into Richard Burton?<br/><br/>In this unconventional and witty history, award-winning writer and broadcaster Alice Loxton delves into Britain's past, exploring the country through eighteen notable figures at that most formative age - eighteen. From a young Elizabeth Tudor facing deadly intrigue at court, to Empress Matilda already changing the fate of nations, <i>Eighteen </i>invites readers to join an eclectic cast of young Britons across the nation and throughout its history.<br/><br/><b>Filled with fascinating stories of royalty, explorers, writers and entertainers, <i>Eighteen</i> asks what lessons we can learn for modern Britain.</b><br/><br/><b>'Brilliantly original, wonderfully perceptive and full of rich insights . . . Loxton has confirmed her place as one of our most exciting and talented young historians' </b> <b>- James Holland, bestselling author and historian</b>

<b>Blending the allure of the supernatural with keen historical insights and more than 500 photos, this enchanting chronicle of magic around the world will bewitch skeptics and true believers alike.</b><br/><br/>Magic and the occult have held humanity in their thrall for thousands of years. This sweeping history traces its origins across time and culture-from the protective amulets of ancient Egypt to ceremonial magic in India, Celtic paganism to modern magic tricks.<br/><br/><i>National Geographic Book of Magic and the Occult</i> illuminates this enthralling world across more than 90,000 years of history. You'll meet witches and wizards, healers and alchemists, discovering the legends behind them and how they have enriched modern culture. You'll also encounter a host of spellbinding subjects, including:<br/><br/><ul><li>Mystical moments, including spooky gatherings, strange happenings, and ghost stories</li><li>Magic in pop culture, from Harry Houdini to Harry Potter</li><li>Places of power, from Mount Fuji to "phantom" islands like Hy-Brasil</li><li>Magical creatures like dragons and the Loch Ness Monster</li><li>The art of divination, including the Chinese Zodiac, numerology, and tarot</li><li>Modern magic, from neopaganism to astrology and herbalism</li></ul><br/>Filled with more than 500 vivid illustrations and dynamic maps, this bewitching book is the true story of magical beliefs around the world.

<b>For fans of <i>Hidden Figures </i>and <i>The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</i></b><br/><br/><b>'The kind of history I wish I learned as a child dreaming of the stage!' MISTY COPELAND</b><br/><br/><b>'Vibrant, propulsive and inspiring' TIA WILLIAMS</b><br/><br/>Harlem 1969; it's the height of the Civil Rights era and the community is still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King. Arthur Mitchell, the first Black principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, takes his protest to the stage and establishes the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Here begins the story of the five extraordinary women at the heart of this book.<br/><br/>Both a group biography and a story of a particular time, this is a book about ballet, the enduring allure of ballet for young girls, and about how these pioneers broke into a world that was closed to them and changed ideas of what a classical dancer could be. It is about the heart-breaking impact of the AIDS epidemic which claimed the lives of so many of the male dancers. It's about racism and activism through art. And it's about the eternal glamour of ballet; these swans appeared at the grandest opera houses and theatres, dancing at the White House, and even for the Queen. Their fans included Mick Jagger and they performed alongside the likes of Michael Jackson and Josephine Baker.<br/><br/>But most importantly it tells the universal story of female friendship, and in particular how these five young women formed a bond - while experimenting with different ways of dying ballet shoes and tights to match their skin tones - which still endures many decades later.

<b>A radical retelling of human history through collapse - from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twentieth-first century and beyond - based on the latest research and a database of more than 440 societal lifespans over the last 5,000 years.</b><br/><br/><b>Why do civilisations collapse? </b><br/><br/>For the first 200,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering <i>Homo sapiens</i> lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change.<br/><br/>Slowly, reluctantly we congregated in the first farms and cities, and people began to rely on lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. When more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organisation. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires - with vast bureaucracies and militaries - carved up and dominated the globe.<br/><br/>What brought them down? From Rome and the Aztec empire and the early cities of Cahokia and Teotihuacan, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power which hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population.<br/><br/>Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth-obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech, and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now faces a choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last.<br/><br/><b>'A deeply sobering and strangely inspiring history of how societies collapse - and how we can still save ours. Read it now, or your descendants will find it in the ruins' JOHANN HARI</b><br/><br/><b>'Absolutely essential reading for understanding why past civilisations collapsed, and how to protect our own from the same fate' LEWIS DARTNELL</b>

On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Princes Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued as millions gathered around screens across the country to witness the longest news flash in British television history, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS &ndash; hitherto an organisation shrouded in secrecy &ndash; laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. Drawing on unpublished source material, exclusive interviews with the SAS, and testimony from witnesses including hostages, negotiators, intelligence officers and the on-site psychiatrist, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre takes readers on a gripping journey from the years and weeks of build-up on both sides, to the minute-by-minute account of the siege and rescue. Recreating the dramatic conversations between negotiators and hostages, the cutting-edge intelligence work happening behind-the-scenes, and the media frenzy around this moment of international significance, The Siege is the remarkable story of what really happened on those fateful six days, and the first full account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS &ndash; and itself.