At the heart of 'Is a River Alive?' is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings, who should be recognised as such in both imagination and law. Macfarlane takes the reader on a mind-expanding global journey into the history, futures, people and places of the ancient, urgent concept. Around the world, rivers are dying from pollution, drought and damming. But a powerful movement is also underway...
Faced with turning 35 - and seeing friends settle down, get married, have kids - Phoebe Smith found herself ending a long-term relationship, considering giving up her dream job and asking herself what actually is the point of everything? On an assignment to walk the most famous pilgrimage in the world - the Camino de Santiago, in northern Spain - Phoebe experiences a moment of self-discovery shared by many who travel these ancient trails. And so,...
This is a book about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, dreaming of better futures. It is about Leiya, who wants to escape the fate of the women in her village. Still underage, she bluffs her way on to the factory floor. It is about June, who at fifteen sets what her family thinks is an impossible goal: to attend university rather than raise pigs. It is about Siyue, ranked second-to-bottom of her English class, who...
A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation's earliest days, and a small-town murder in the '90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later.
All families have secrets. But Alistair Wood's family have more than most. He grew up within the four (very high) walls of SIS's specialist training camp, surrounded by the most senior and colourful characters in the Service's history. His mother was one of only a handful of female agents to have operated behind enemy lines in Berlin. And his father, an ostensibly heroic humanitarian who died 'in the field' in Bosnia at 82, had in fact led a highly...
Following on the heels of her bestseller 'Unlawful Killings', Old Bailey judge Wendy Joseph KC skilfully reconstructs courtroom dramas affecting society's most vulnerable, drawing on her many years' experience as a murder trial judge, and asking the key questions of the institutions tasked to deliver what is right and fair. From the trial of a child charged with disposing of dismembered body parts, to the woman accused of killing her own husband,...
If you and your family needed help, could you trust the law to be on your side? Award-winning barrister Charlotte Proudman has dedicated her working life to representing women who find themselves in need of help from the family law courts. Time and again, she has watched as these women - many of whom have experienced the very worst traumas imaginable - are let down by the system that is supposed to protect them. Seeking only justice and safety, they...
On the 200th birthday of the world's first passenger-carrying railway, Nige Tassell sets out to ride Britain's railway network all the way to its lesser-travelled-to corners, its seldom-visited outposts. From Wick to Penzance and many points in between, he stays on until the end of the line. He is the last man sitting. The sixteen final destinations he visits offer sixteen different stories. By delving into their histories, by speaking to their people...
The first five years of a child's life are the most critical time to get nutrition right. A time in which the path of health and happiness, or an increased risk of disease and health challenges can manifest as a direct result of what is put onto a child's plate. The right what and how of nutrition can help define gut health, brain development, allergy profile, and food relationships. Future systemic health and impact a child's wellbeing for life....
A likeable young girl who's burnt her family home to the ground. A man with no memory of the night he killed his wife. A teenager whose visions and voices have had murderous effect. One question binds these and others from the casebook of Britain's leading forensic psychiatrist: Why? What drives a person to commit seemingly inexplicable crimes? Dr Duncan Harding is the person the police and the courts turn to for answers. An expert witness, he must...
You will find a bothy in the mountains or the wilderness, remote huts you can't reserve, usually without electricity or other mod-cons, running water or a marker on the map. In this beautiful journey, Kat Hill travels between fifteen bothies - across Scotland, England and Wales - revealing the beauty of these wild shelters, their history, the stories of the people who frequent them and the core of why we all crave escaping into the remote. Weaving...
Postal paths span the length and breadth of Britain - from the furthermost corners of the Outer Hebrides to the isolated communities clinging to the cliffs of the Rame Peninsula in south-east Cornwall. As far back as the 1660s, postmen and women have been moulding and forging paths to deliver posts to homes across Britain, no matter how remote. A chance remark by a farmer about a postman's path led Alan Cleaver on a quest to discover more about this...
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach in Hawaii, Cook was killed - beaten and stabbed in a conflict with the indigenous population. Renowned for his humane leadership, dedication to science and the curiosity and respect, not judgement, with which he greeted societies that were new to him, Cook had already...
Britain's landowners, we are told, are the rightful stewards of the countryside. They care for the land, they nurture it for future generations and for the good of all. But this is not true. In 'The Lie of the Land', Guy Shrubsole shows that a handful of large landowners are responsible for the destruction and degradation of many of our most important landscapes. This book paints a vivid picture of some of the most dramatic failures of land stewardship...
1603. Elizabeth I dies and with her, the Tudor line comes to an end. England is plunged into crisis. Into this time of uncertainty comes James I, arriving in London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. In taking the throne, he established a new dynasty and the first 'united' kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales was born. The Stuarts had arrived. But first, this new 'Great Britain' had to play catch up. In 'The Rising Sun', Anna...
Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here - like the glass the island's maestros spend their lives learning to handle. Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her...
Emilia del Valle was always destined for great things. Abandoned at birth by her Chilean aristocrat father, Emilia comes of age in nineteenth-century San Francisco as an independent and fiercely ambitious young woman, decades ahead of her time. She will do whatever it takes to pursue her life's passion for writing, even if it means publishing under a man's name. When Emilia lands a position as a journalist for the Daily Examiner, her unwavering sense...
