Mensch Publishing – The Bell Bookshop

I fear for this boy

Emma — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Theo Fennell’s picaresque journey from the depths of financial despair to the glittering celebrity world of the rich and famous is a comic classic comparable to Three Men in a Boat or Bill Bryson’s The Thunderbolt Kid. Despite the occasional success disasters and failures dominate his business life. Nonetheless his jewellery has brought pleasure to thousands and this book will bring pleasure to millions. “I ripped through this book like a train, snorting with laughter and delight??I cannot recommend the ride highly enough.” Stephen Fry”?but the end result is that Fennell has produced one of the funniest books I have ever read. Utterly beguiling and superbly well-written, it will become a classic of the genre, I predict.” William Boyd

The trauma chronicles

Emma — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

‘Never, never, never give in’, Winston Churchill’s famous quotation best sums up the life of Stephen Westaby, the world-leading cardiothoracic surgeon. This book chronicles the triumphs and failures of his surgical life, the lives saved and extended, the innovations (such as artificial hearts) he developed, and his research discoveries.Having spent his childhood in the backstreets of a northern steel town, he went on to become one of the world’s preeminent heart surgeons. HIs drive for perfection in his profession took him to the world-renowned Harefield Hospital, the foremost heart surgery centre in Birmingham, Alabama, the newly-created Cardiothoracic Centre in Oxford, and then in 2019 in Wuhan he was the first Western doctor to learn about Covid before the virus was identified. Following on from his two earlier best-selling works, Fragile Lives and The Knife’s Edge this volume is written with humour and a doctor’s reverence for life and his patients. The Trauma Chronicles gives an unmissable insight into the world of one of the greatest living heart surgeons.

Nagasaki

Emma — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This is one of the most remarkable untold stories of the Second World war. At 11.02 am on an August morning in 1945 America dropped the world’s most powerful atomic bomb on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki. The most European city in Japan was flattened to the ground ‘as if it had been swept aside by a broom’. More than 70,000 Japanese were killed. At the time, hundreds of Allied prisoners of war were working close to the bomb’s detonation point, as forced labourers in the shipyards and foundries of Nagasaki.These men, from the Dales of Yorkshire and the dusty outback of Australia, from the fields of Holland and the remote towns of Texas, had already endured an extraordinary lottery of life and death that had changed their lives forever. They had lived through nearly four years of malnutrition, disease, and brutality. Now their prison home was the target of America’s second atomic bomb.In one of the greatest survival stories of the Second World War, we trace their astonishing experiences back to bloody battles in the Malayan jungle, before the dramatic fall of Fortress Singapore, the mighty symbol of the British Empire. This abject capitulation was followed by surrender in Java and elsewhere in the East, condemning the captives to years of cruel imprisonment by the Japanese. Their lives grew evermore perilous when thousands of prisoners were shipped off to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway, including the Bridge on the River Kwai. If that was not harsh enough, POWs were then transported to Japan in the overcrowded holds of what were called hell ships. These rusty buckets were regularly sunk by Allied submarines, and thousands of prisoners lived through unimaginable horror, adrift on the ocean for days. Some still had to endure the final supreme test, the world’s second atomic bomb.The prisoners in Nagasaki were eyewitnesses to one of the most significant events in modern history but writing notes or diaries in a Japanese prison camp was dangerous. To avoid detection, one Allied prisoner buried his notes in the grave of a fellow POW to be reclaimed after the war, another wrote his diary in Irish. Now, using unpublished and rarely seen notes, interviews, and memoirs, this unique book weaves together a powerful chorus of voices to paint a vivid picture of defeat, endurance, and survival against astonishing odds.

You Matter

Emma — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We know science is awesome, as are its achievements. Yet so far scientists have managed to sidestep the most awesome reality of all, the true nature of human life, the source of their own genius. How is it that in the overwhelming immensity of the cosmos, on microscopic earth, human beings exist? We have not yet looked reality in the face and perceived the nobility and grandeur of who we are, each of us having a responsibility in the universe and being part of a vast and continuing process, which can only emerge from the shadows and darkest corners of our thought when we step aside away from all the noise.’You Matter’ encourages people to think more deeply about the phenomenon of existence, what it means to be a unique human person, and how in unity with one another we can build a future in these uncertain times.

You Matter

Emma — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We know science is awesome, as are its achievements. Yet so far scientists have managed to sidestep the most awesome reality of all, the true nature of human life, the source of their own genius. How is it that in the overwhelming immensity of the cosmos, on microscopic earth, human beings exist? We have not yet looked reality in the face and perceived the nobility and grandeur of who we are, each of us having a responsibility in the universe and being part of a vast and continuing process, which can only emerge from the shadows and darkest corners of our thought when we step aside away from all the noise. ‘You Matter’ encourages people to think more deeply about the phenomenon of existence, what it means to be a unique human person, and how in unity with one another we can build a future in these uncertain times.

The Covers Are Off

Emma — Wed, 26 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Foot Notes

Emma — Thu, 13 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

When Guy Kennaway, 63, a white, middle class, overweight, English, Tory-voting writer met Hussein Sharif, 22, an African-born, inner city, Tory-hating Muslim, they assumed they had little in common. But newly related by marriage, they decided to go on a walk through Britain to get to know each other. Guy’s mission was to explain to Hussein how wonderful British life and culture was, and Hussein’s was to describe to Guy the realities of life as a young black Muslim in Britain in 2019. Over a forty-mile hike they made friends, fell out, told stories, encountered strangers, argued, laughed and got very sore feet. Held up by COVID-19 and dramatically diverted by BLM, they reached the end of their walk together, but for both of them it marked the start of a new and more important journey.

To Be Fair

Emma — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

‘Ben’s book is an elegant and essential intervention in an era of enervating culture wars. It asks and answers nothing less than the most important question of our time: how can we recover the ability to talk to one another?’ – Sathnam Sanghera, author of EmpirelandWhat does it mean to be fair? Why do we feel unfairness so strongly? What has happened to us today that we spend more time condemning each other’s views than giving each other a fair hearing?The idea of fairness is one of the most commonly-expressed concepts, yet nobody ever stops to think what it really means. We all simply take the word ‘fair’ for granted.In this polemical guide to fairness, Ben Fenton explains the meaning of the word, how it fits into our genetic make-up and why we need our innate sense of fair play now more than ever.Fenton explores the idea that the unconscious procedure that humans go through in deciding fairness is the vital balancing act between competition and cooperation, the two driving forces that have made us the super-species of Planet Earth. He describes the neurology, anthropology, psychology, history and future of fairness and looks at how it affects our lives through politics, law, sex, religion, race, sport, business and even war.As a reporter of thirty years’ experience, Fenton brings all his skills to bear in a lively and challenging description of the profound inner meaning of a throwaway phrase and why it matters so much to every single person in the world to seek To Be Fair.PART I – WHY SHOULD WE TRY TO BE FAIR?1. Why You Should Read This Book 2. The Principles of Fairness3. The Neurology and Psychology of Fairness4. Fairness in History5. Is Fairness a Creation of the English speaking World? (Spoiler alert: No)PART II – WHAT DOES FAIRNESS LOOK LIKE IN THE MODERN WORLD?6. Fairness in Sport (and other forms of War)7. Fairness in Business and Economics8. Fairness in Law and Taxation9. Fairness in Communication and Technology10. Fairness in Politics and Government11. Fairness in Human Relationships12. Is Fair Play the Answer to the Ultimate Question?

Three Circles Into One

Emma — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000