We’ve long been told that saving the planet means buying local, switching to LED bulbs, using less plastic and cycling more. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: no matter how much we cut down our individual carbon footprints, it won’t be enough to stop global warming.

It’s time to move past feelings of guilt, powerlessness and frustration. Instead of tweaking our lifestyle, we need to pull the levers that drive real change on a systemic level.

Enter the  climate handprint -  a bold, positive approach that helps you  cut far more CO? than you personally produce. Whether at home, at work, or in your community, you can use your resources, skills, time, money and influence to create impactful change.

• Introduce plant-based meals at your workplace canteen -  saving dozens of tonnes of CO? per year.
• Get your company to install solar panels -  saving hundreds of tonnes of CO? per year.
• Push your local energy supplier to switch to renewables -  saving thousands of tonnes of CO? per year.

By shifting from  carbon footprint frustration to climate handprint power, you’ll start making impactful changes and feeling better about your contribution to curbing the climate crisis.

Gabriel Baunach  reveals how to move beyond small personal changes and start making a  genuine impact -  with strategies that are effective, empowering, and full of hope.

‘This is the book we’ve been waiting for’ – Helen Mort, author

When it comes to the toughest races in the world that push competitors to their absolute limits, a trend has captured public attention: female athletes have been beating the strongest male contenders, in events traditionally designed for men.

In Ultra Women, two endurance athletes delve into the surprising science of sporting performance to explore the physiological and psychological differences between the sexes. They ask: could fat stores and muscle type (and capacity for not sleeping) really give women an edge over men in ultra long distances? And what roles are played by pace, preparation, and motherhood?

Speaking to elite athletes, historians and scientists, the book unearths the largely unknown past of female endurance, from hunter-gathering to the early 20th Century discipline of pedestrianism. We meet poverty-stricken mother Stamata Revithi, who snuck into the 1896 Athens Olympics marathon, 1980s swimming pioneer Lynne Cox – who crossed the world’s coldest oceans in just a swimsuit – and Jasmin Paris, a British vet who ran almost non-stop to win a 268-mile mountain race, while breastfeeding.

Brimming with inspiring stories, Ultra Women blazes the trail laid by Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Upbeat and fast-paced, it sets out a blueprint for increasing female participation in sport.

Reviews

In this captivating history of language and power, speechwriter Guy Doza sets out how dictators have seized and maintained control of states through their mastery of oratory.

He shows how, despite their fearsome reputation, strongmen such as Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were surprisingly subtle and skillful in their speeches. Less notorious female tyrants (have you heard of Ranavalona I, the ‘Mad Queen of Madagascar’ who killed half of her subjects, or Chairman Mao’s murderous wife Jiang Qing?) were differently but equally manipulative.

As well as revealing the wordplay of each of 18 despots, Doza analyses the rhetorical techniques they shared. How Attila the Hun and Napoleon Bonaparte showered flattery on their troops and deliberately aggrandised their enemies. And how two violent 20th Century leaders, Zaire’s President Mobuto and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, portrayed themselves as the father of their respective nations to nurture their ethos.

For, irrespective of time, geography and language, dictators and their allies consistently reuse the same methods of persuasion. In a ‘post-truth’ age where simplified messages overpower sophisticated ones, The Language of Evil equips readers to spot the same tricks and techniques being used today by tomorrow’s would-be dictators.

Reviews

‘The handbook that humanity needs right now – not simply to understand the dangerous rhetoric of demagogues, but how to resist it.’ – Terry Szuplat, former policy speechwriter for President Barack Obama and author of Say It Well.

‘Whatever happens in the street, the populist mobs have to be fired up first. That’s where words come in. Guy Doza’s Language of Evil is a fascinating analysis of the speechifying that empowers tyranny through the malign careers of eighteen dictators, from Julius Caesar to Saddam Hussein.

‘Gun, clubs, camps and torture chambers come next, but without words to set things going, these despots and their current successors would be nowhere.’

‘Sticks and stones?says the old rhyme. Don’t believe a word of it.’ – Jonathon Green, Lexicographer

With vivid examples, dementia expert Michael Hornberger takes you on a whistle-stop tour of every aspect of Alzheimer’s disease, from its origins to modern diagnosis and treatment.

Professor Hornberger shows how you can protect yourself and your family from developing the disease. His book explains:

• What causes Alzheimer’s disease
• Why Alzheimer’s often affects memory first
• The role of genetics in raising and lowering risk for the disease
• The chances you will inherit Alzheimer’s from your parents
• The practical steps you can take to reduce your risk of getting dementia

Alzheimer’s disease accounts for around 70% of all people with dementia and its incidence is growing.

Prof Hornberger, a neuroscientist who has researched Alzheimer’s for decades, delves into this most common form of dementia by looking at the very first patient, Auguste Deter, who was diagnosed with ‘Alzheimer’s’. Mrs Deter was interviewed by a pioneering German doctor, Alois Alzheimer. She  could remember her wedding but not her husband’s name or where they lived.

Generally, old memories thrive in most people  with Alzheimer’s disease, while newer ones are harder to remember. But, as this guide explains, some lesser-known Alzheimer’s variants, such as Posterior Cortical Atrophy, do not start with memory loss.

Prof Hornberger explains the role that inherited genes play in transmitting Alzheimer’s, including the important difference between risk genes and familial Alzheimer’s disease genes – which make developing the disease a near certainty.

Finally, the book looks at new ‘biomarkers’ and blood tests to detect, diagnose and monitor Alzheimer’s, and which  new treatments are emerging.

Prof Hornberger warns that popularly touted techniques to prevent Alzheimer’s may not be worth your time or money. Instead, he sets out the steps you can take to protect yourself from this debilitating degenerative disease.

Reviews

‘A fascinating journey, both historically and scientifically, from the first recorded case of Alzheimer’s disease through to modern therapies. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the real science behind what causes Alzheimer’s disease and how best to prevent it.’ – John O’Brien, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, University of Cambridge

‘This is such a clear and interesting book, which takes away the fear from something to which we are all at risk. It is high time we knew more, and this is just the place to start.’ – Professor Tom Shakespeare, Professor of Disability Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

‘It expertly balances deep scientific insights with engaging storytelling… As we enter an era of hope in our battle against this devastating disease, Tangled Up is an invaluable resource for the curious reader, be they caregiver, scientist or medical professional.’ – Karen Duff, Centre Director, UK Dementia Research Institute, University College London

About the author

Michael Hornberger is Professor of Applied Dementia Research at the University of East Anglia in the UK. He regularly meets patients with Alzheimer’s disease as part of his research aimed at improving diagnosis, disease tracking and symptom management.  

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The Ultimate Guide to parkrun (always with a lower case p!) covers how parkrun started, how it is staged every week, how to get involved as a runner, walker, or volunteer – and even how to start your own run.

Written by a running writer and qualified athletics coach, this celebratory book goes behind the scenes to tell the heartwarming human stories behind parkrun. But it also brims with practical information, with training plans for different types of runners so that you can (if you wish to) improve your own finishing time.

Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the founding of the mass participation event in Autumn 2024, the book delves into parkrun’s origins as the brainchild of Paul Sinton-Hewitt, an unemployed man in London. Just 13 runners competed in the first Bushy Park Time Trial on 2 October 2004.

Now parkrun has more than 9 million runners at more than 2,200 parks in 23 countries, with the most popular countries being the UK, Australia, and South Africa.

The book features all aspects of parkrun, including how public-spirited volunteers put on the event, sustainably and for free, every week, and fun boxes such as the most interesting courses around the world, from Poland to the Falkland Islands.

About the author

Lucy Waterlow is a journalist, ghostwriter and author who has contributed to national newspapers and specialist publications such as  Runner’s World and  Women’s Running.

She is a keen amateur runner, and a qualified England Athletics coach in running fitness. She is the co-author of  Nell McAndrew’s Guide To Running  and  Run Mummy Run: Inspiring Women to be Fit, Healthy and Happy.

‘One of the best music books of the year‘ – Neil McCormick, Daily Telegraph

For the first time in history, almost every song ever recorded is available instantly. Everywhere.

This book charts what music’s dazzling digital revolution really means for fans and artists. As a former data guru at the world’s biggest streaming service, Spotify, Glenn McDonald reveals:

• What the tech giants know about you
• How they serve up your next song
• Whether fans can cheat the algorithm
• Whether jazz is dead and ASMR is the new punk
• Your chances of becoming a rock star

Having analysed the streams of 500 million people, McDonald explores what the data tells us about music and about ourselves, from the secrets of russelåter in Norway to Christmas in the Philippines.

Statistically, you have not yet heard your lifetime’s favourite song. This book will take you on a voyage of discovery through music’s fast-flowing new waters.

10 bonus playlists of wonder included!

About the Author

Glenn McDonald is expertly placed to provide a comprehensive picture of the global music industry in the 2020s.

Growing up in 198Os and 1990s America, he was an obsessive collector of physical music – CDs and vinyl albums. But he soon realised the revolutionary power of digital media to make songs more widely accessible.

He started working at the US music intelligence startup The Echo Nest, which was acquired by Spotify – and he became Spotify’s ‘Data Alchemist.’ His website Every Noise at Once is an unprecedented computational map of the world’s music genres.

Reviews

‘If you want to know anything about how music surfaces today, how to find it, or how to create it, you will find what you need right here. And you will be highly entertained and amused in the process.’ – Joseph Menn, Washington Post staff writer and author of All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster.

‘We used to sell CDs by the weight of pallets, thanks to streaming we know how our content is consumed. In this immersive book, Glenn has demonstrated what we can do with this knowledge, so other industries can learn’ – Will Page, author of Pivot and former Chief Economist of Spotify

‘I’d say that reading this book is the next best thing to having an in-depth, impassioned, hours-long fika with Glenn McDonald about music and culture and all of the most burning topics of our time… but, I’d be lying. It’s even better. This book is a true behind-the-scenes examination of our culture and our industry from the perspective of someone who was in the thick of it from the beginning. It’s a history of the streaming era, written by someone who made history in the streaming era.’ Meg Tarquinio, PhD, Spotify/Twitch/Nettwerk Music Group

‘Throughout McDonald’s book, personal anecdotes and his own love of music spill out in witty, conversational prose. Even chapters that delve into streaming’s complex finances – unsurprisingly, your £15 monthly fee does not go directly to your favourite artist, but is split between that month’s “most streamed,” meaning that megastars such as Swift and Ed Sheeran stay at the top of the pyramid – are told in layman’s terms.’ Poppie Platt, The Daily Telegraph

Ideal for anyone who wants to know how Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, YouTube Music and other music platforms work, whether as a fan, musician or music business professional.

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‘This could be the funniest business book you’ll read all year.’ Australian Financial Review

‘If you want a two-word review – it’s great.’ Financial Times

Why Politicians Lie About Trade reveals how international trade really works and the compromises and deals nations must make to take part in the greatest commercial show on earth.

With clear writing and lively case studies, a former trade negotiator takes readers on an often humorous tour of the shadowy workings of the agreements, tariffs, taxes and disputes that characterise this $32 trillion-a-year machine.

Dmitry Grozoubinski  reveals the underlying political and geographical forces that shape the impact of trade on topics as diverse and important as food, jobs, gender, conflict and climate change. And he reveals what politicians cover up about the system – and why it matters.

Why Politicians Lie About Trade  lights up a little-understood network that runs our world with brevity and humour.It contains everything you need to know about international trade and is an ideal companion to titles which explain commerce such as the Undercover Economist, Taxtopia and Freakonomics.

This book has been enthusiastically recommended by serious publications such as the Financial Times and the World Trade Review  and popular authors such as Ian Dunt and James O’Brien. Ian Dunt wrote: ‘I laughed more than I do in most comedies. I learned more than I do from the news.’

Reviews

‘For some time, there has been a clear gap in the market for a guide to trade policy to help those with an interest to gain a better understanding of this important field and enable them to engage more actively in trade policy debates. Dmitry Grozoubinski’s  Why Politicians Lie About Trade  fits the bill admirably.’ Justin Brown, the Lowy Institute

‘Written by a former trade negotiator who has trained many British diplomats, this book is authoritative, yet – and here’s the strange part – actually fun to read.  Dmitry Grozoubinski has a rare knack for explaining complex information in an accessible and light-hearted way.’  Richard Baldwin,  Professor of International Economics

‘Writing a 300-page book on international trade policy issues in a way that is not only accessible but also entertaining would be a serious challenge for most authors. Dmitry Grozoubinski’s new book rises to that challenge.’  Chris Horseman, Bordelex

‘If you want a two-word review, it’s great. It describes official myths and distortions, from overselling trade deals to claiming distance no longer matters in trade to saying corporations control the world by infiltrating the WTO.’  Alan Beattie, Financial Times

‘Much of the book’s strength lies in its language. It largely avoids technical and academic-style terminology, and the content is presented with a wry and sometimes mischievous sense of humour. This approach makes even the most arcane and obscure parts of the book engaging.’ Justin Brown, the Lowy Institute  

Introduction

I am very sorry. I once led a trade negotiation so impenetrably dull and infuriating my boss said our top priority was to ensure he never had to explain it to our trade minister. I am fully aware the average human being would rather eat a broken glass salad than read about the small print of a World Trade Organization tariff schedule. I get it. Unfortunately, trade is important and important people keep lying to us about it. In fact, the very fact that important people lie to us about it proves its importance, and its importance is probably what compels those people – let’s call them politicians, though that does leave some liars out – to lie about it.

As technology speeds up the global flow of goods, services, money and ideas, trade policy is growing in importance. Growing, too, is the role of trade in politics, where it is increasingly used as a bludgeon to batter the opposition, or as a magical unicorn that can be ridden to peace and prosperity at no cost to any voter. Tragically, the truth of all this is that while you may have chosen to take little interest in trade policy, trade policy is increasingly taking an interest in you. In the 2020s, trade touches on almost every aspect of our lives and almost all of our passions. Understanding this web of trading connections and the debate over how governments should organise it may no longer be optional.

‘An excellent starter for those who want to gain an insight into how AI works and why it’s likely to shape our lives.’ -  Telegraph

‘It is short, gloriously succinct and yet manages to cover all four bases of the history, technology, business and politics of AI in page-turning detail.’ -  UKTN Technology Book of the Year

Artificial intelligence will shake up our lives as thoroughly as the arrival of the internet. This popular, up-to-date book charts AI’s rise from its Cold War origins to its explosive growth in the 2020s.

Tech journalist Chris Stokel-Walker (TikTok Boom and YouTubers) goes into the laboratories of the Silicon Valley innovators making rapid advances in ‘large language models’ of machine learning. He meets the insiders at Google and OpenAI who built Gemini and ChatGPT and reveals the extraordinary plans they have for them.

Along the way, he explores AI’s dark side by talking to workers who have lost their jobs to bots and engages with futurologists worried that a man-made super-intelligence could threaten humankind.

He answers critical questions about the AI revolution, such as what humanity might be jeopardising and the professions that will win and lose – and whether the existential threat technologists Elon Musk and Sam Altman are warning about is realistic – or a smokescreen to divert attention away from their growing power.

How AI Ate the World is a ‘start here’ guide for anyone who wants to know more about the world we have just entered.

Reviews

‘An excellent starter for those who want to gain an insight into how AI works and why it’s likely to shape our lives.’  Daily Telegraph

‘How AI Ate the World prodigiously captures the key issues and concerns around artificial intelligence.’  Azeem Azhar, Exponential View

‘From ancient China to Victorian England, How AI Ate The World is the story of the characters, moments, technologies, and relationships that populate the rich history of artificial intelligence… How AI Ate The World grapples with what the age of automation means for the people living through it.’  Harry Law, University of Cambridge  

‘A witty, engaging book that takes us through AI’s bumpy past to help us understand its present, and future, impacts. I highly recommend it to anyone who is impacted by AI tech – which is to say, everyone on the planet.’  Sasha  Luccioni, Hugging Face

‘Easily the most comprehensive book on AI I have read so far, covering all the key issues.’ Peter Hunt,  Business & Tech Correspondent, Evening Standard

‘Whether you are new to AI or have been following the AI hype for years, Chris Stokel-Walker offers an entertaining balance of history, context and insight that has something for everyone. The story of AI’s evolution is a complex one, but Stokel-Walker tackles it in a clear, direct way that will bring you up to speed while helping you grapple with what it all means – for individuals, the workplace, society and the planet.’  Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat

‘This book is a wild, brilliant ride through centuries of thinking about and decades of developing machines that can learn. As a crash course in how we got to this current point of thrilling chaos, it will take some beating. Whether or not you agree with Stokel-Walker’s solutions or not, How AI Ate The World is essential reading to understand where we are and how we got here’  Ciaran Martin, former CEO, UK National Cyber Security Centre

‘More books have been published about AI in 2024 than ever before – and that’s before you get to the ones written by AI. So it can be hard to figure out which are worth your time. I proffer this by Chris Stokel-Walker as one of the best out there. It is short, gloriously succinct and yet manages to cover all four bases of the history, technology, business and politics of AI in page-turning detail. I can’t think of anything it missed. Do yourself a favour: avoid the second-rate AI books and give this comprehensive one a try. It is the ideal primer for those new to the industry.’ UKTN Technology Book of the Year

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‘It is rare for a business analysis to read like a thriller – this one does.’  -  Azeem Azhar, Founder, Exponential View

‘Vital to understanding how[TikTok] works and the impact it’s having.’  – Damian Collins MP, former chairman of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee

‘TikTok Boom is a must read for students, scholars, and policy makers.’  -  David Craig, Clinical Professor, USC Annenberg