Atlantic Books – The Bell Bookshop

Happiness

Emma — Tue, 01 Jan 2999 00:00:00 +0000

Although we are materially better off than ever before, surveys show that we are depressed and listless. In his revolutionary book, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard shows that happiness is not just an emotion, but a skill that can be developed. Free of jargon, Happiness contains simple exercises that will train the mind to recognize and pursue happiness by concentrating on the fundamental things in life, and in doing so change the way we view the world.

Sunak at 10

Emma — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

'The leading authority on our contemporary prime ministers' Dominic Grieve, Guardian After almost a decade and a half of Tory rule, the 2024 General Election saw the Conservatives suffer their worst-ever defeat: they received 7.14 million fewer votes than in 2019; 23.7 per cent is their lowest ever vote share; and their current 121 MP contingent is their smallest since 1832. Meanwhile, the rise of Reform threatens the party's very existence. How did it all go wrong so quickly, following Boris Johnson's record-setting win in 2019? From taking office amidst the cost of living and energy supply crises and the panic caused by Liz Truss's disastrous mini-budget, through the agenda-dominating Ukraine and Gaza wars and the Rwanda Asylum Plan, to the stunning 2023 local election results, Sunak at 10 is the definitive and jaw-dropping window into Rishi Sunak's premiership.

Peacemaker

Emma — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

'A wonderful subject, beautifully written, evoking a world startlingly like and unlike our own' Rory Stewart 'A brilliant portrait not just of a great and unjustly forgotten man, but of an entire age' William Dalrymple 'Important reading at any time in history; essential in the world of today' Peter Frankopan IN THE EARLY 1960S, a peaceful world seemed possible. The still young United Nations was regarded as humankind's best hope for ending war. African and Asian nations, having recently won their freedom from colonial rule, sought influence on the world stage. At the helm of their international efforts was Secretary-General U Thant, a practising Buddhist and former schoolteacher from Burma. In Peacemaker, acclaimed historian Thant Myint-U traces his grandfather's integral yet forgotten roles in some of the twentieth century's most critical crises: from battling white supremacist mercenaries in the Congo and mediating an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis to desperately trying to prevent the 1967 Six Day War. Drawing on newly declassified documents, he traces U Thant's tireless efforts to bring peace to Vietnam, create a fairer international economy, safeguard the environment, and avoid a third world war. A testament to the power of hope and individual action in times of uncertainty, Peacemaker is an extraordinary chronicle of a golden age of diplomacy – and vital to a fresh understanding of our world today.

Children of the Wild

Emma — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Yellow Birds comes a gorgeous, haunting love story set in the Virginia mountains and on the battlefields of World War I France. 'Children of the Wild is a wonderful, poignant novel that deserves to be on as many shelves and reside in as many hearts as possible' David Baldacci 'I inhaled this heart-wrenching epic…a breathtaking story of three young people coming together and coming of age' Rachel Beanland 'A novel of extraordinary beauty and power' Ben Fountain Ewer's Rock, Virginia, 1917. Roy Young is restless, determined to leave this rural valley and make his mark on the twentieth century. Samantha Hatton, the minister's daughter, knows the town expects her and Roy to marry, but she hungers for more. The arrival of Ennis Duke – a mysterious wild boy tending to a lost herd of cattle up the mountain – will change everything. Within a year, the lives of these three young people will be dramatically transformed. In the crucible of conflict, Roy and Ennis forge a fierce bond. Meanwhile, back in Virginia, Samantha's love and courage endure unthinkable sacrifice in a corner of the world fractured by violence. With the spare, exquisite prose and the profound insight that made The Yellow Birds a landmark work of American fiction, Kevin Powers illuminates the savage, complex, and timeless bonds of loyalty, honour, and heroism. Children of the Wild captures what it means to be human in times of loss – and how, even in darkness, the light of friendship and love endures.

Cursed Daughters

Emma — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO AWARD 2026 Readers are falling hard for Cursed Daughters… 'ABSOLUTELY RIVETING!!' 'Will hook you from start to finish… I read in two days!' 'Oh my gosh this book is so good!'' 'I cannot express how much I adored this book – like truly, madly, deeply adored it' Your daughters are cursed. They will pursue men, but the men will be like water in their palms. Your granddaughters will love in vain. Your daughters, your daughter's daughters, and all the women to come will suffer for man's sake… Eniiyi has heard about the family curse her whole life. She's never believed in it. She's also heard, her whole life, that she is the reincarnation of her dead aunt, Monife. Same eyes, same left hand, same scar in the same place. She's never believed in that, either. Then she falls in love with a handsome local boy, and Monife begins to appear to Eniiyi: in her dreams, on the beach, in the mirror, pulling her, it seems, towards the same terrible fate. Can Eniiyi live her life on her own terms, or is history – and the curse – repeating itself? 'Funny and fearless, soaked in secrets, spirit, heartbreak, and love… Impossible to put down' Abi Darï¿½ 'A rich and absorbing tale of destiny versus self-determinism… I lost myself within its gorgeous pages' Jennie Godfrey

The Script of the Stones

Emma — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Script of the Stones follows a single half-mile clifftop walk on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales – one the author has been making his whole life. It takes fifteen minutes, if you keep moving. But one day Francis Gooding decides to stop and look down. What unfolds is a rare act of attention: to limestone laid down in tropical seas 350 million years ago, to the orchids and gorse and banded snails that have claimed the cliff for their own, to the rocks and caves that hold the bones of mammoths, bears and one ochre-stained man who slept here for thirty thousand years. But the cliff also holds something else: the deep, tangled roots of human history – imperial violence, ecological destruction – rising through the red earth like the old mole Shakespeare knew, unstoppable, asking to be acknowledged. A book about grief and deep time, about what it means to belong to a place and what it costs to pay attention, The Script of the Stones is nature writing of a rare and searching kind. An elegy, a field guide, a ghost story – and underneath it all, a love letter to one small patch of the world.

The Path of Light

Emma — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Praise for The Path of Peace: 'A formidable achievement' Rory Stewart 'Thoughtful [and] heartfelt' Observer 'Profound [and] compelling' Spectator 'A noble endeavour' New Statesman In 2021, Anthony Seldon, inspired by a fallen First World War soldier who dreamed of a 'Via Sacra' to commemorate the war dead and stand as a marker for the triumph of peace, set out on a 1,000km walk tracing the historic route of the Western Front. He went on to recount that story in the widely acclaimed The Path of Peace. But there wasn't to be lasting peace, with the continent falling into an even more horrific war two decades later. In The Path of Light, Seldon sets out to walk a new 1,300 km route from the same starting point at Kilometre Zero to Auschwitz, discovering in the towns and villages through which he walks stories of women and men who bravely protected the vulnerable and stood up to evil in the face of unimaginable brutality during the Second World War. As he ruminates on these 'figures of light', whose uplifting stories he encounters along his path, a pattern begins to emerge about how we can draw on their lives to build a better and more peaceful world, never more needed than now, with the ominous and increasing drumbeat of belligerence globally that month by month is the constant backdrop of his walk between 2023 and 2025. It proved a harder book to write than The Path of Peace. But it was a project he knew he had to complete, whatever the cost.

Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

Emma — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For fans of Fredrik Backman, Virginia Evans and Lisa Ridzï¿½n, an astonishing, deeply moving novel about finding beauty in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death. 'This book will change your life' Joanna Cannon 'One of the most moving books I've read in a long while' Graeme Simsion 'The ending left me speechless' Matthew Quick Travis lives an unassuming life with his cat in a small English town. Travis also happens to be the cosmic force of Death, visiting people in their final days and hours of life, before shepherding them into whatever happens next. He listens to their stories, doesn't judge, and never tries to change anyone's fate… until he meets a young, single midwife called Dalia and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter, Layla. As he gets closer to this small, seemingly unremarkable family, Travis begins to learn what it is that makes life so worth living, and so what it is that is irrevocably lost in death. Full of compassion and deep magic, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt might be a novel about Death, but it's also about the joy of being alive – appreciating each day we have, from the people around us to the strange wonder of our spinning world. From the five-star reader reviews: 'This book has changed me' 'Completely took my breath away' 'Absolutely blew me away' 'It touched me deeply' 'I want to stand on the rooftops and shout: you MUST read this'

Leave Your Lights On!

Emma — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

'Improve your happiness and wellbeing while also reducing your carbon footprint? Many would argue that this is too good to be true; Dunn and Zhao expertly show us that it is not' Hannah Ritchie, author of Not the End of the World What if the most effective ways to fight climate change made you happy? What if we could make ourselves, and our planet, happier at the same time? Psychologist Elizabeth Dunn and climate behaviour scientist J. Z. Zhao challenge everything we think we know about sustainable living. While most climate advice demands self-denial – eat less, travel less, want less – this groundbreaking book offers a counterintuitive truth: you can make your life better while saving our species at the same time. Dunn and Zhao reveal how tweaking everyday decisions around food, travel, housing, and shopping can nudge us toward a tipping point of mass action – without tipping us into burnout. Discover that: Joy is a powerful climate strategy: When you like the changes you're making, you're more likely to stick with them – and spread them. You don't have to go vegan or give up flying: Smart substitutions (chicken over beef, carry-on over checked bags) make a real dent in emissions with less personal friction. Small talk matters: Normalizing climate conversations with friends and family helps shift social norms and catalyzes cultural change. Learn to carbon budget: Approach your emissions like your finances: strategically, thoughtfully, and with long-term impact in mind. With warmth, clarity and a refreshingly optimistic voice, Dunn and Zhao reframe what it means to 'do your part'. Because sustainability doesn't lie in doing everything, it lies in doing something, joyfully.