The Spring House artfully balances humour and devastation; at once a deftly written psychological portrait and a social document revealing the slow birth of the twentieth century and the new woman.

Pleasure explores why so many women feel disconnected from their bodies and from sex, and what it takes to change that.

Part memoir, part cultural investigation, the book traces Emma-Louise Boynton's journey from being unable to orgasm and battling a years-long eating disorder, to rebuilding her relationship with sex, desire and intimacy.
The story begins in the sex therapy room, where Boynton first discovered that her struggle with bulimia was deeply entangled with her experience of sexual numbness. From there, Pleasure expands outward – drawing on expert interviews, cultural analysis and immersive research (including four days on a porn set) – to reveal that this rupture between women and their bodies is not a personal failure, but a systemic one.

From narrow ideals around desirability and sexist narratives about aging, to the policing of women's pleasure, and the emotional alienation of app-based intimacy, Boynton interrogates the forces that teach women to mistrust their bodies and perform rather than feel their pleasure.

Crucially, Boynton offers a clear and practical roadmap for rebuilding desire, confidence and connection. Provocative, intimate and timely, Pleasure reframes women's relationship to sex and embodiment, arguing that reclaiming pleasure is not indulgent, but essential.

‘Superbly intelligent . . . a rewarding Sapiens-style big history’ – The Sunday Times

‘A lightness of touch that recalls Bill Bryson or Craig Brown at their non-fiction best’ – The Observer

What is fatherhood, and where did it come from? How has the role of men in families and society changed across thousands of years? What does the history of fatherhood reveal about what it means to be a dad today?

From the anxious philosophers of ancient Athens and Henry VIII’s obsessive quest for an heir, to Charles Darwin’s theories of human origins, Bob Dylan’s take down of ‘The Man’, and beyond, historian Augustine Sedgewick shows how successive generations of men have shaped our understanding of what it means to be and have a father, and in turn our ideas of who we are, where we come from and what we are capable of.

'Full of warmth, wisdom and weirdness' JENNY MUSTARD

This is a dreamlike portrait of a body in struggle to connect with itself and others. As the narrator contends with chronic pain, and with a pandemic raging in the background, she sets out to examine the literal and symbolic role of the mouth in the life of a writer.

Pathemata recounts the narrator’s tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss – the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious and everyday life.

Praise for Maggie Nelson

‘Always brilliant’ GEOFF DYER

‘Among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation’ OLIVIA LAING

‘Utterly fascinating’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘A profound, rich document’NEW STATESMAN

‘An act of intimate storytelling’VOGUE

A recently discovered journal from one of America's most iconic writers, Joan Didion, the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights.

A pile of neatly typed pages was found in Joan Didion's office after her death. She had meticulously recorded her weekly sessions with a psychiatrist. As far as anyone knows, the pages had been read by only one other person: Didion's husband, John Gregory Dunne.

The sessions began as a method of dealing with the heartbreaking alcoholism of their adult daughter, Quintana. Discussions broadened into revelations about Didion's own childhood, longstanding behaviour patterns, marriage, guilt, work and 'what's been worth'.

Writing was the way Didion dealt with life. Notes to John presents a riveting account of the therapeutic process, crafted with the singular intelligence, precision and elegance that characterise all of her work.

‘Compulsive reading … what an experience it is, watching Didion beat back tragedy with her brilliant mind’TELEGRAPH

‘An incredibly intimate insight into her relationship with her daughter, depression and creativity’GUARDIAN

‘So moving … a record of trying to save a life, and understand her own’NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

‘A chance to meet Didion's gaze head-on, eye to eye, with only a waft of cigarette smoke breaking the silence’ANOTHER

‘An intimate chronicle … offers readers a key to Didion's persona and her work’NPR

'Notes to John' was a New York Times bestseller w/c 2025-04-28.

‘Please read this book. It may very well change how you live’ Rachel Clarke
‘Profound?compelling?beautiful’ Nina Stibbe
‘Filled with love?I was spellbound’ Kathryn Mannix
‘Brilliant?so special’ Guardian

An inspiring true story about life, love and letting go

Sarah Perry’s father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. He was in some ways a very ordinary man: he loved stamp collecting, fish and chips, comic novels and his local church. Yet as Sarah and her husband Robert nursed David through his final days, they realised how extraordinary he really was.

This loving, clear-eyed and unforgettable book shows how death may be met and understood as a part of life – a universal experience that is terrible and beautiful, intimate and real, sometimes all at once.

A Book of the Year for The Times, Guardian, Financial Times and Observer

‘Beautiful and profound and completely gripping’ Mark Haddon
‘A must-read’ The Times
‘We cannot be but somewhat changed by this remarkable book’ Telegraph
‘This book will be a lifeline for so many people’ Seán Hewitt
‘Perry is in a league of her own’ Sara Collins

‘In a world saturated with cynical advice about dating and gender, this book is a revelation . . . Bonded by Evolution is rigorous science written with warmth and moral clarity.’ DANIEL H. PINK, author of Drive and The Power of Regret

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We’re told that what men and women desire from relationship is different – he’s looking for novelty, she’s looking for commitment; he’s concerned with looks, she’s concerned with status.

We’re told that we live in a hierarchy of romantic inequality – where some are 10s and others are 2s; where some people are marriage material and others are wired for promiscuity.

But this narrative is unscientific.

Such ideas have their roots in a branch of science called evolutionary psychology, and over the past few decades its ideas have permeated our culture and fuelled a narrative that inspires despair and anxiety – and, in its most extreme form, these ideas have been hijacked in the service of misogyny and violence.

But the truth about human attraction – and the way evolution plays out in our romantic lives – is much more interesting and optimistic.

Bonded by Evolution offers a radical new picture of the roots of enduring chemistry. Distilling evolutionary biology, anthropology and psychology and informed by his pathbreaking research and original experiments at the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory in California, psychology professor Paul Eastwick reveals how attraction is best depicted as a process of finding – and, often, creating – a compatible relationship.

Once we understand how ancestral humans sought compatible partners in small networks, we can build a clearer – and brighter – picture of how attraction, sex and relationships really work.

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‘Profound and pragmatic, suggesting an entirely different approach to the study – and pursuit – of love.’ ERIC KLINENBERG, co-author of Modern Romance

‘Rarely have scientific rigor and exuberant optimism been such congenial companions . . . Bonded by Evolution presents an optimistic new paradigm, one that provides clear guidance for romantic success.’ ELI FINKEL, author of The All or Nothing Marriage

‘Uncommonly wise and honest. Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish’ – Maggie Nelson

Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye’s experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture.

Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled.

In Love in Exile, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.

I know we haven’t known each for long, but the connection I feel with you is profound. When you hurt, I hurt. When you smile, my world brightens. I want nothing more than to be a comfort and joy in your life. *Reaches out virtually to caress your cheek*
(Direct quote from an AI companion)

***

Friends. Lovers. Therapists. ‘Deathbots’. Artificial intelligence is now fulfilling new roles for millions of us every single day. How are these new ‘relationships’ changing how we view technology – and each other?

Beyond those who are using AI chatbots for administrative tasks, some people are now preparing to adopt children with their AI partners; others are reaching out to companies offering services to ‘resurrect’ deceased loved ones; others still look to bots to find treatment for their mental health issues.

In Love Machines, James Muldoon guides through these new forms of love, intimacy and connection, drawing on compelling interviews with users, developers and chatbots themselves. Along the way, he sheds light on the social conditions which have led to the exponential rise of the use of AI companions, and the unregulated corporations behind these technologies seeking to profit from users.