Engelska

<p>The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is one of the strangest creatures nature ever created. Remarkably little is known about the eel, even today. What we do know is that it&apos;s born as a tiny willow-leaf shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, travels on the ocean currents toward the coasts of Europe - a journey of about four thousand miles that takes at least two years. Upon arrival, it transforms itself into a glass eel and then into a yellow eel before it wanders up into fresh water. It lives a solitary life, hiding from both light and science, for ten, twenty, fifty years, before migrating back to the sea in the autumn, morphing into a silver eel and swimming all the way back to the Sargasso Sea, where it breeds and dies. And yet . . . There is still so much we don&apos;t know about eels. No human has ever seen eels reproduce; no one can give a complete account of the eel&apos;s metamorphoses or say why they are born and die in the Sargasso Sea; no human has even seen a mature eel in the Sargasso Sea. Ever. And now the eel is disappearing, and we don&apos;t know exactly why. What we do know is that eels and their mysterious lives captivate us. This is the basis for The Gospel of the Eels, Patrik Svensson&apos;s quite unique natural science memoir; his ongoing fascination with this secretive fish, but also the equally perplexing and often murky relationship he shared with his father, whose only passion in life was fishing for this obscure creature. Through the exploration of eels in literature (Günter Grass and Graham Swift feature, amongst others) and the history of science (we learn about Aristotle&apos;s and Sigmund Freud&apos;s complicated relationships with eels) as well as modern marine biology (Rachel Carson and others) we get to know this peculiar animal. In this exploration, we also learn about the human condition, life and death, through natural science and nature writing at its very best. As Patrik Svensson concludes: &apos;by writing about eels, I have in some ways found my way home again.&apos;</p>

<p><b>A <i>NEW YORKER</i> BEST BOOK OF 2022</b><br/><b><br/>'Well-researched and readable' - <i>Financial Times</i></b><br/><b>'An absorbing, pacy read' -</b><i><b> New Statesman</b></i><br/><b>'The story of lycra-clad feminism'<i> Stylist</i><br/>'Canny and informative' <i>- The New Yorker</i></b><br/><br/><b>The untold history of women's exercise culture, from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda.</b><br/><br/>Author of The Cut's viral article shared thousands of times unearthing the little-known origins of barre workouts, Danielle Friedman explores the history of women's exercise, and how physical strength has been converted into other forms of power.<br/><br/>Only in the 60s, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, did women begin to move en masse. In doing so, they were pursuing not only physical strength, but personal autonomy.<br/><br/>Exploring barre, jogging, aerobics, weight training and yoga, Danielle Friedman tells the story of how, with the rise of late-20th century feminism, women discovered the joy of physical competence - and how, going forward, we can work to transform fitness from a privilege into a right.</p>

<p>The extraordinary true story of the Stasi's poetry club: Stasiland and The Lives of Others crossed with Dead Poets Society. 'Engrossing.' Observer 'Remarkable.' The Times 'Magnificent.' Phillipe Sands 'Gripping.' Literary Review 'A history so outlandish and unlikely that you feel it must be true . . . </p><p>[A] grippingly well-written book.' Anthony Quinn, Observer Book of the Week</p><p>In 1982, East Germany's fearsome secret police - convinced that writers were embedding subversive messages in their work - decided to train their own writers, weaponising poetry in the struggle against the class enemy. Once a month, a group of soldiers and border guards gathered in a heavily guarded military compound in East Berlin for meetings to learn how to write lyrical verse. Journalist Philip Oltermann spent five years rifling through Stasi files, digging out lost volumes of poetry and tracking down surviving members of this Red poet's society, to illustrate the little known story in which spies turned poets and poets spies.</p>

<p><b>'This riveting behind-the-scenes story of the clothes on our backs is a must-read for clotheshorses everywhere' Harper's Bazaar<br/></b><br/><b>'Extraordinary . . . fascinating . . . a wonderful way into history, quite often through the voices of people who don't have a say in history' Cerys Matthews</b><br/><br/>Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool: through the stories of these five fabrics, Sofi Thanhauser illuminates the world we inhabit in a startling new way, travelling from China to Cumbria to reveal the craft, labour and industry that create the clothes we wear.<br/><br/>From the women who transformed stalks of flax into linen to clothe their families in nineteenth century New England to those who earn their dowries in the cotton-spinning factories of South India today, this book traces the origins of garment-making through time and around the world. Exploring the social, economic and environmental impact of our most personal possessions, <i>Worn</i> looks beyond care labels to show how clothes reveal the truth about what we really care about.<br/><br/><b>'A must-read . . .</b> <b>combines remarkable research with heartfelt care' Clare Hunter</b></p>

<p><b><i>THE TIMES </i>BOOK OF THE YEAR<br/></b><b>*Shortlisted for the </b><b>2021 Financial Times and McKinsey &amp; Company Business Book of the Year Award*</b><br/><br/><b>'This unique and fascinating history explains why the blame now being piled upon meritocracy for many social ills is misplaced-and that assigning responsibilities to the people best able to discharge them really is better than the time-honoured customs of corruption, patronage, nepotism and hereditary castes' </b>Steven Pinker<br/><br/>Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their status at birth. For much of history this was a revolutionary thought, but by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left?<br/><br/>Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocractic system.<br/><br/>Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.</p>

<p><b>'Exhilarating . . . a work of scholarship, but also inspiration. . . Go and read Jablonka and change the world' Christina Patterson, <i>Sunday Times</i><br/><br/>'An unexpected bestseller in France. . . it has sparked conversations' <i>Challenges</i><br/><br/>A highly acclaimed, bestselling work from one of France's preeminent historians</b><br/><br/><i>What does it mean to be a good man? To be a good father, or a good partner? A good brother, or a good friend?</i><br/><br/>In this insightful analysis, social historian Ivan Jablonka offers a re-examination of the patriarchy and its impact on men. Ranging widely across cultures, from Mesopotamia to Confucianism to Christianity to the revolutions of the eighteenth century, Jablonka uncovers the origins of our patriarchal societies. He then offers an updated model of masculinity based on a theory of gender justice which aims for a redistribution of gender, just as social justice demands the redistribution of wealth.<br/><br/>Arguing that it is high time for men to be as involved in gender justice as women, Jablonka shows that in order to build a more equal and respectful society, we must gain a deeper understanding of the structure of patriarchy - and reframe the conversation so that men define themselves by the rights of women. Widely acclaimed in France, this is an important work from a major thinker.</p>

The world comes to us in colour. But colour lives as much in our imaginations as it does in our surroundings, as this scintillating book reveals. Each chapter immerses the reader in a single colour, drawing together stories from the histories of art and humanity to illuminate the meanings it has been given over the eras and around the globe. Showing how artists, scientists, writers, philosophers, explorers and inventors have both shaped and been shaped by these wonderfully myriad meanings, James Fox reveals how, through colour, we can better understand their cultures, as well as our own. Each chapter offers a fresh perspective on a different epoch, and together they form a vivid, exhilarating history of the world. 'We have projected our hopes, anxieties and obsessions onto colour for thousands of years,' Fox writes. 'The history of colour, therefore, is also a history of humanity.'