Wednesday, 25 November 2020

The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder - Sarah J. Harris

 


There are three things you need to know about Jasper.

1. He sees the world completely differently.
2. He can’t recognise faces – not even his own.
3. He is the only witness to the murder of his neighbour, Bee Larkham.

But it’s hard to catch a murderer when you can’t recognise their face…

An extraordinary and compelling debut which will make you see the world in a way you’ve never seen it before.

Wednesday, 18 November 2020

The Tales of Max Carrados - Enest Bramah



Max Carrados featured in a series of mystery stories that first appeared in 1914. Carrados featured alongside Sherlock Holmes in The Strand magazine, in which they both had top billing. The character often boasted how being blind meant his other senses were heightened.

Saturday, 7 November 2020

The Diary of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell


 Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover's paradise? Well, almost ...


In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.

Sunday, 25 October 2020

Infinite Powers: The Story of Calculus - The Language of the Universe - Steven Strogatz

 


A magisterial history of calculus (and the people behind it) from one of the world's foremost mathematicians.

This is the captivating story of mathematics' greatest ever idea: calculus. Without it, there would be no computers, no microwave ovens, no GPS, and no space travel. But before it gave modern man almost infinite powers, calculus was behind centuries of controversy, competition, and even death.

Taking us on a thrilling journey through three millennia, professor Steven Strogatz charts the development of this seminal achievement from the days of Archimedes to today's breakthroughs in chaos theory and artificial intelligence. Filled with idiosyncratic characters from Pythagoras to Fourier, Infinite Powers is a compelling human drama that reveals the legacy of calculus on nearly every aspect of modern civilisation, including science, politics, medicine, philosophy, and much besides.

Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Narconomics - Tom Wainwright

 


Everything drug cartels do to survive and prosper they’ve learnt from big business – brand value and franchising from McDonald’s, supply chain management from Walmart, diversification from Coca-Cola. Whether it’s human resourcing, R&D, corporate social responsibility, off-shoring, problems with e-commerce or troublesome changes in legislation, the drug lords face the same strategic concerns companies like Ryanair or Apple. So when the drug cartels start to think like big business, the only way to understand them is using economics.

In Narconomics, Tom Wainwright meets everyone from coca farmers in secret Andean locations, deluded heads of state in presidential palaces, journalists with a price on their head, gang leaders who run their empires from dangerous prisons and teenage hitmen on city streets - all in search of the economic truth.

Thursday, 15 October 2020

A bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner - Chris Atkins


 Where can a tin of tuna buy you clean clothes? Where is it easier to get 'spice' than paracetamol? Where does self-harm barely raise an eyebrow?


Welcome to Her Majesty's Prison Service. Like most people, documentary-maker Chris Atkins didn't spend much time thinking about prisons. But after becoming embroiled in a dodgy scheme to fund his latest film, he was sent down for five years. His new home would be HMP Wandsworth, one of the largest and most dysfunctional prisons in Europe.

With a cast of characters ranging from wily drug dealers to senior officials bent on endless reform, this powerful memoir uncovers the horrifying reality behind the locked gates. Filled with dark humour and shocking stories, A Bit of a Stretch reveals why our creaking prison system is sorely costing us all - and why you should care.

Monday, 12 October 2020

Panzer Ace: The Memoirs of an Iron Cross Panzer Commander from Barbarossa to Normandy - Richard Freiherr von Rosen

 


Richard Freiherr von Rosen was a highly-decorated Wehrmacht soldier and outstanding panzer commander. His memoirs, richly illustrated with contemporary photographs, including key confrontations of World War II. After serving as a gunlayer on a Pz.Mk.III during Barbarossa, he led a Company of Tigers at Kursk, later a company of King Tiger panzers at Normandy and in late 1944 commanded a battle group (12 King Tigers and a flak Company) against the Russians in Hungary in the rank of junior, later senior lieutenant (from November 1944, his final rank.) ?? Only 489 of these King Tiger tanks were ever built. They were the most powerful heavy tanks to see service, and only one kind of shell could penetrate their armour at a reasonable distance. Every effort had to be made to retrieve any of them bogged down or otherwise immobilized, which led to many towing adventures. The author has a fine memory and eye for detail, his account is easy to read and not technical, and adds very substantially to the knowledge of how the German Panzer Arm operated in the Second World War.