The Power of Knowledge

1. Who Really Owns Ireland P/B

by Matt Cooper

€18.99 €19.99

Leading journalist Matt Cooper examines the key players behind the scenes of Irish property ownership – who really controls the valuable land where we live, work and play and how did they acquire it? Who are the new foreign investors and why are they buying property and land in Ireland? What does it mean for ordinary citizens when the ownership of shopping centres, wind farms, forestry and data centres comes from outside?Comprehensively researched and filled with riveting detail, this compelling account of the Irish property landscape is about our offices, hotels and pubs and the power of those wealthy enough to accumulate these properties. This eye-opening book is a must-read for anyone interested in Ireland and who really owns it.

2. An eye on Ireland

by Justine McCarthy

€20.99 €28.00

'For those of us around from the beginning, this collection jolts like jump-leads to the complacent heart. For the many who were not, dive into these columns from an Ireland of not so long ago. It's an eye-opener.' MIRIAM LORD FOR FOUR DECADES, Justine McCarthy's fearless journalism and commentary has challenged stereotypes and held power to account as she, in her own words, 'grew up alongside my country'. The book opens with an extended piece of new writing in which Justine describes her formative years and entering the male-dominated Irish newspaper culture in the 1980s, a time when a woman getting too many bylines could, and did, lead to a National Union of Journalists bar. From Mary Robinson making history as Ireland's first female president to a present-day RTÉ in crisis, over thirty years of stories are collected here. In her long career, Justine broke child sexual abuse scandals and reported from the frontline of the Northern Ireland Troubles; she covered the major reforming referenda, documented political turmoil and charted the role of Ireland on the world stage. She followed the times the country let down its people, through its ailing health system, its legal system, the domination of the church, and its treatment of women. An Eye on Ireland maps a transformative era in Irish life towards a more progressive and just society, and one woman's extraordinary career at the forefront of change.

3. History of Ireland in maps

by Pat Liddy

€23.99 €35.00

Explore Ireland's fascinating story with more than 100 maps. From the early history of the Emerald Isle to the modern day, Ireland has evolved rapidly - along with the ways in which it has been mapped. Cartography has not only kept pace with these changes, but often driven them. Combining the artistic world of early cartography with modern computerised surveys, this is a beautiful and unique addition to any map- or history-lover's collection. Irish author and historian Pat Liddy produces an invaluable history of Ireland and its relationship with its neighbours, and indeed, the world. Featured maps include: Ptolemaic Map of Ibernia, 15th centuryMercator's Irlandiae Regnum, c. 1560Battle of Kinsale, 1601John Speed's Map of Ireland, 1610Down Survey, 1683Siege of Londonderry, 1689Survey of Dublin Bay, 1800INFOMAR's Map of the Seabed, 2019 Other books in the Collins History in Maps series: History of War in Maps by Philip Parker (ISBN 9780008506490)History of World Trade in Maps by Philip Parker (ISBN 9780008409296)

4. A History Of Ireland In 100 Episodes H/B

by Jonathan Bardon

€21.99 €22.99

This authoritative and comprehensive history of Ireland, written by Dr Jonathan Bardon and completed by his former editor Fergal Tobin, covers the entire history of the island from the Ice Age to the Peace Process in 100 short episodes. In this thoughtful analysis of Irish society, Bardon integrates the significant cultural and literary history of Ireland with its political and social histories. Based on the hugely popular BBC series A Short History of Ireland, each episode stands alone, providing a snippet of Irish history in five minutes’ reading. In turn, reading each episode in sequence from beginning to end provides a magisterial history of Europe’s most western land. Complete with a new introduction and epilogue, A History of Ireland in 100 Episodes is for anyone looking for a short but authoritative history of the island of Ireland.

5. Empireworld

by Sathnam Sanghera

€19.04 €23.80

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER In his ground-breaking new book, Sathnam Sanghera traces the legacies of British empire around the world. 'Beautifully written, and not just a welcome corrective but a book for our times. This is essential reading' Peter Frankopan 'An absolute masterpiece' James O'Brien 'Deeply poignant . . . riveting . . . brave, painful, urgent and timely' Jerry Brotton, Financial Times _____________________________________________________ 2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries, to nearly 1 in 3 driving on the left side of the road, to the origins of international law. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. -- With an inimitable combination of wit, political insight and personal honesty, the award-winning author and journalist explores the international legacies of British empire - from the creation of tea plantations across the globe, to environmental destruction, conservation, and the imperial connotations of Royal tours. His journey takes him from Barbados and Mauritius to India and Nigeria and beyond. In doing so, Sanghera demonstrates just how deeply British imperialism is baked into our world. And why it's time Britain was finally honest with itself about empire. _____________________________________________________ 'If Britain wants to move forward as a key player on the world stage, Sanghera demonstrates, we must take time to understand our past - all warts, and all wonders, considered' Alice Loxton, The Sunday Times 'Engages in deep research and historical re-analysis . . . also a profoundly moving work of personal insight, intelligence and compassion' Elizabeth Day 'Puts Sanghera in the firmament of great imperial historians' Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The i Instant Sunday Times bestseller, January 2024

6. On Palestine

by Noam Chomsky

€11.60 €14.50

Co-authored by two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, an indispensable book for understanding the situation in Gaza right now What is the future of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement directed at Israel? Which is more viable, the binational or one state solution? Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine in this urgent and timely book, a sequel to their acclaimed Gaza in Crisis. 'Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet' The New York Times Book Review 'Ilan Pappé is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian' John Pilger 'This sober and unflinching analysis should be read and reckoned with by anyone concerned with practicable change in the long-suffering region' Publishers Weekly (on Gaza in Crisis )

7. Normal women

by Philippa Gregory

€16.99 €21.00

A NEW STATESMEN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 'A lasting work of social history' THE TIMES 'A genuinely new history of our nation' DAN JONES 'This celebration of women is a triumph of popular history' SPECTATOR FROM THE MULTI-MILLION BESTSELLING HISTORICAL NOVELIST COMES THE CULMINATION OF HER LIFE'S WORK Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry?That the Peasant's Revolt was started and propelled by women, protesting a tax on women?Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men but that they'd evolve to become ever more inferior? These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory's Normal Women. In this ambitious and ground-breaking book, she tells the story of our nation over 900 years, but for the very first time women - some fifty per cent of the population - are no longer invisible in this history of England, but are at its beating heart. Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records to find highway women, beggars and shepherdesses, through newspapers and diaries to find murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The 'normal women' you will meet in her pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency and built ships, corn mills and houses as part of their everyday lives They committed crimes, or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things and rioted. A lot. They built our society to be as diverse and varied as the women themselves. They are there in the archives - if you look - and they made our history. 'You'll lose count of the number of things you learn about women and their skewed place in history as you read Philippa Gregory's stunning Normal Women . the book reframes the past . an essential read' INDEPENDENT, FIVE-STAR REVIEW

8. A history of women in 101 objects

by Annabelle Hirsch

€28.34 €35.00

A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023 This is a neglected history. Not a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular. A single journey, picked out in 101 objects, through the fascinating, too-often-overlooked, manifold histories of women. Open up this cabinet of curiosities and you'll find objects that have been highly esteemed - even, like the Bayeux tapestry, fought over by nations - and others that are humble and domestic. Some (like a sixteenth century glass dildo) are objects of female pleasure, some (a thumbscrew) of female subjugation. There are artefacts of women celebrated by history and of women unfairly forgotten by it; examples of female rebellion and of self-revelation; objects that are inspiring, curious or (like radium-laced chocolate) just fundamentally ill-conceived. Through the variety and nuance in all these 101 objects, Annabelle Hirsch has created a new history - teeming, unexpected, witty and always illuminating. This overdue corrective reveals what a healed femur says about civilisation, what men have to fear from hat pins, and it shows that the past has always been as complicated and fascinating as the women that peopled it.

9. The inequality of wealth

by Liam Byrne

€24.64 €30.80

The super-rich have never had it so good. But millions of us can't afford a home, an education or a pension. And unless we change course soon, the future will be even worse. Much worse. But things don't have to be like this. In this bold new book, former Treasury Minister Liam Byrne explains why wealth inequality has grown so fast in recent years; warns how it threatens our society, economy and politics; shows where economics has got it wrong - and lays out a path back to common sense, with five practical ways to rebuild an old ideal: the wealth-owning democracy. Liam Byrne draws on conversations and debates with former prime ministers, presidents and policymakers around the world, together with experts at the OECD, World Bank and IMF, to argue that after twenty years of statistics and slogans it's time for solutions that aren't just radical but plausible and achievable as well. The future won't be a land of milk and honey but it could be a place where we live longer, happier, healthier and wealthier lives.

10. The fall

by Michael Wolff

€18.99 €23.80

Meet the Murdochs and the disastrously dysfunctional family of Fox News. Until recently, they formed the most powerful media and political force in America. Now their empire is cracking up and crashing down. Drawing on years of unprecedented access to the Murdoch family and key players, Michael Wolff plunges us behind the scenes of an empire of influence, and the result is astonishing and unforgettable. Here is Rupert Murdoch, the ninety-two-year-old billionaire - concerned about his legacy, but more concerned about profits. Here are his contentious children, jockeying to take over when the old man is gone. Here is star anchor Tucker Carlson considering a run for the presidency while his bosses have other plans for him. Sean Hannity, the richest man in television, has his own plans: to put Trump back in office.

11. Elon Musk

by Walter Isaacson

€26.99 €39.20

From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of Elon Musk, the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era-a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter. When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist. His father's impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive. At the beginning of 2022-after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth-Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. "I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life," he said. It was a wistful comment, not a New Year's resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world's ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground. For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?  

12. Going Infinite H/B

by Michael Lewis

€26.99 €35.00

Sam Bankman-Fried wasn’t just rich. Before he turned thirty he’d become the world’s youngest billionaire, making a record fortune in the crypto frenzy. CEOs, celebrities and world leaders vied for his time. At one point he considered paying off the entire national debt of the Bahamas so he could take his business there. Then it all fell apart. Who was this Gatsby of the crypto world, a rumpled guy in cargo shorts, whose eyes twitched across TV interviews as he played video games on the side, who even his million-dollar investors still found a mystery? What gave him such an extraordinary ability to make money – and how did his empire collapse so spectacularly? Michael Lewis was there when it happened, having got to know Bankman-Fried during his epic rise. In Going Infinite he tells us a story like no other, taking us through the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own. Both psychological portrait of a preternaturally gifted ‘thinking machine’, and wild financial roller-coaster ride, this is a twenty-first-century epic of high-frequency trading and even higher stakes, of crypto mania and insane amounts of money, of hubris and downfall. No one could tell it better.

13. Conflict

by David Howell Petraeus

€18.39 €23.80

'A HUGELY IMPORTANT BOOK . ELEGANTLY WRITTEN AND PERSUASIVELY ARGUED' DAILY TELEGRAPH, FIVE-STAR REVIEW 'AN INTELLIGENT, AUTHORITATIVE, COMPELLING AND, ABOVE ALL, TIMELY' TLS Shortlisted for the Military History Matters Book of the Year Award ** FULLY UPDATED TO INCLUDE NEW MATERIAL ON THE ISRAEL/GAZA CONFLICT ** Conflict is both a sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past, and anticipate in the future, in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world. In this deep and incisive study, General David Petraeus, the former CIA director who commanded the US-led coalitions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the prize-winning historian Andrew Roberts, explore over seventy years of conflict, drawing significant lessons and insights from their fresh analysis of the past. Petraeus and Roberts show how often critical mistakes have been repeated time and again, and explore the challenge, for statesmen and generals alike, of learning to adapt to various new weapon systems, theories and strategies. Among the conflicts examined are the Arab - Israeli wars, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the two Gulf wars, the Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia, and both the Soviet and Coalition wars in Afghanistan, as well as guerrilla conflicts in Africa and South America. Conflict culminates with a bracing look at Putin's disastrous invasion of Ukraine, yet another case study in the tragic results that occur when leaders refuse to learn from history, and an assessment of the nature of future warfare. Filled with sharp insight and the wisdom of experience, Conflict is not only a critical assessment of our recent past, but also an essential primer of modern warfare that provides crucial knowledge for waging battle today as well as for understanding what the decades ahead will bring. 'This collaboration between a famous general and a distinguished author is a marriage made in heaven. The book's narrative is seamless, sustained by comparative judgements, and calculated to challenge the professional and enlighten the generalist' PROFESSOR SIR HEW STRACHAN, Chichele Professor of History of War 'Not since Clausewitz' On War has a book provided so much insight into the nature of warfare. Deeply researched, brilliantly constructed and thoroughly entertaining, Conflict gets to the heart of why some nations win and others lose during war. It is a book that will shape the thinking of policy maker

14. Uncivil war

by Huw C. Bennett

€28.34 €35.00

When Operation Banner was launched in 1969 civil war threatened to break out in Northern Ireland and spread over the Irish Sea. Uncivil War reveals the full story of how the British army acted to save Great Britain from disaster during the most violent phase of the Troubles but, in so doing, condemned the people of Northern Ireland to protracted, grinding conflict. Huw Bennett shows how the army's ambivalent response to loyalist violence undermined the prospects for peace and heightened Catholic distrust in the state. British strategy consistently underestimated community defence as a reason for people joining or supporting the IRA whilst senior commanders allowed the army to turn in on itself, hardening soldiers to the suffering of ordinary people. By 1975 military strategists considered the conflict unresolvable: the army could not convince Catholics or Protestants that it was there to protect them and settled instead for an unending war.

15. Dirty linen

by Martin Doyle

€23.99 €24.99

Martin Doyle, Books Editor of The Irish Times, offers a personal, intimate history of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish, his own, part of both the Linen Triangle - heartland of the North's defining industry - and the Murder Triangle - the Badlands devastated by paramilitary violence. He lifts the veil of silence drawn over the horrors of the past, recording in heartrending detail the terrible toll the conflict took - more than twenty violent deaths in a few square miles - and the long tail of trauma it has left behind. Neighbours and classmates who lost loved ones in the conflict, survivors maimed in bomb attacks and victims of sectarianism, both Catholic and Protestant, entrust Doyle with their stories. Writing with a literary sensibility, he skillfully shows how the once dominant local linen industry serves as a metaphor for communal division but also for the solidarity that transcended the sectarian divide. To those who might ask why you would want to reopen old wounds, the answer might be that some wounds have never been allowed to heal.

16. The Long Game TPB

by Aoife Moore

€19.99 €25.20

Sinn Féin is the most popular political party in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. A party once synonymous with a paramilitary campaign is on the brink of taking real power through purely democratic means. But if Sinn Féin has mastered the art of electoral politics, it remains strangely opaque. Who really runs the party? How is it funded? And what can we expect of it as a party of government? Aoife Moore, Irish Journalist of the Year 2021, explores these and other burning questions in The Long Game. Drawing on exclusive interviews with current and former members of Sinn Féin, she builds up a picture of a party undergoing a profound, and still incomplete, transformation. She looks at the key individuals and moments that put the party on its present course, and she explores tensions within the party and the wider republican movement. Packed with revelatory details, The Long Game is a groundbreaking telling of contemporary Ireland's biggest and most elusive political story.

17. Rough beast

by Mairia Cahill

€16.99 €23.80

NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER IN THE IRISH NON-FICTION CHARTS "Rough Beast is shocking, important and unputdownable." Roddy Doyle Rough Beast is Máirìa Cahill's harrowing story of her life and of what she went through at the hands of what is now Ireland's largest and richest party. That story is told here for the first time in full detail and with unsparing honesty. It is a story of unimaginable trauma and political corruption. It brings to life a world of paramilitary secrecy and parallel laws, but above all it is the story of one young woman's defiance of the power wielded by ex-gunmen inspiring fear and silence, and their influence over elected politicians. Máirìa Cahill grew up steeped in the traditions of Irish republicanism and the shadowy world of the IRA: her great-uncle Joe was one of the main founders of the Provisional IRA and her grandfather was Gerry Adams's mentor in the republican movement. From an early age she seemed destined for a glittering career within the increasingly successful political machine of Sinn Féin, which was then enjoying the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. She worked in a radio station alongside leading republicans; the Sinn Féin offices were her second home. She knew Gerry Adams and other senior republicans as family friends. But at the age of 16, she was sexually abused by a prominent Belfast IRA man. When she confided in some friends she trusted about the abuse, one of them told the IRA without Máirìa's knowledge. A year later the organisation came calling, and forced her to take part in an inept and grotesquely insensitive internal investigation. She was subjected to round after round of interrogations by senior IRA men and women, usually in a network of safe houses around Belfast. Doubt was cast on her account of what had been done to her. Her assailant was allowed to confront and denounce her. Eventually her rapist was permitted to vanish from Belfast while Sinn Féin and the IRA professed bafflement about his whereabouts.

18. 100 novels that changed the world

by Colin Salter

€24.29 €30.80

A look at 100 inspiring novels that have left a significant mark on the world of literature and popular culture. Before the novel, the world of books was dominated by scientific tomes, religious tracts and histories of the victorious in war. There had been stories and epic poems from ancient times - Homer's Iliad and Odyssey recounted ancient Greece, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was a chivalric romance in Middle English, but it was not until the seventeenth century, when the European middle classes had money and leisure, that anything so frivolous as a novel could be sold for entertainment. Colin Salter traces the evolution of the novel from the earliest examples through to the postmodernist best-sellers of the 21st century. Rather than dwelling too long on the technical nuances of innovative writing style he has amassed 100 of the greatest novel writers and chosen their most significant work. For writers such as Herman Melville, James Joyce or Harper Lee the decision is not a difficult one. For Charles Dickens, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood, the choice is perhaps more difficult. Following the style set with previous books in the 100 series, most notably 100 Children's Books and 100 Science Discoveries, each author is given a concise biography and their major novel analysed and then set in context with their other published work. Readers can become ridiculously well-read in 224 pages. Authors included: Alexandre Dumas, Daniel Defoe, Victor Hugo, Mary Shelly, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Hilary Mantel, Jane Austen, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Scott, Lewis Carroll, JRR Tolkien, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Henry James, Harper Lee, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Jules Verne, HG Wells, Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy, Louisa M. Alcott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, John Steinbeck, CS Lewis, Chinua Achebe, Jack Kerouac, John Le Carre, Arundhati Roy, Mila Kundera, Joseph Heller, JD Salinger, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Miguel Cervantes, Graham Greene, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Evelyn Waugh, Robert Graves, Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie, PG Wodehouse, Raymond Chandler, Hunter S. Thompson, Khaled Hosseini.

19. The future of geography

by Tim Marshall

€10.99 €14.00

THE INSTANT #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER IN HARDBACK 'A superb survey of planetary politics'The Sunday Times Spy satellites orbiting the Moon. Space metals worth billions. Humans on Mars within our lifetime.This isn't science fiction. It's astropolitics. Space is already central to our lives on Earth, from communication and military strategy to international relations. Now, it is becoming the latest arena for human exploration, exploitation - and, possibly, conquest. With China, the USA and Russia leading the way, we're heading up and out, and we're taking our power struggles with us. If you've ever wondered why humans are going back to the Moon, which countries will benefit most from space exploration, and if lasers on satellites will lead to space wars, the answers are here. As we enter a new age of the space race, this gripping book will help you understand how it will transform the future of global politics on Earth.This is essential reading on power, politics and the future of humanity. 'Insightful, hopeful and endlessly fascinating' Daily Express 'A voyage of galactic discovery' The Mail on Sunday

20. The power of geography

by Tim Marshall

€11.59 €14.50

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* 'I can't imagine reading a better book this year' Daily Mirror Tim Marshall's global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation's choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn't changed. But the world has. In this revelatory new book, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry: Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel, Ethiopia, Spain and Space. Find out why Europe's next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks as trouble brews in the Sahel; why the Middle East must look beyond oil and sand to secure its future; why the eastern Mediterranean is one of the most volatile flashpoints of the twenty-first century; and why the Earth's atmosphere is set to become the world's next battleground. Delivered with Marshall's trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity's past, present - and future. 'Another outstanding guide to the modern world. Marshall is a master at explaining what you need to know and why.' Peter Frankopan

21. Prisoners of geography

by Tim Marshall

€11.59 €14.50

*Discover the ten maps that reveal the future of our world in THE POWER OF GEOGRAPHY - the sequel to PRISONERS OF GEOGRAPHY - OUT NOW* ___ THE MILLION COPY INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Geography shapes not only our history, but where we're headed... All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Yes, to follow world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements - but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture. If you've ever wondered why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, why the USA was destined to become a global superpower, or why China's power base continues to expand ever outwards, the answers are all here. In ten chapters and ten maps, Prisoners of Geography looks at the past, present and future to offer an essential insight into one of the major factors that determines world history. It's time to put the 'geo' back into geopolitics. ___ 'Like having a light shone on your understanding... I can't think of another book that explains the world situation so well.' Nicolas Lezard, Evening Standard 'Sharp insights into the way geography shapes the choices of world leaders.' Gideon Rachman, Financial Times ___ Ten maps; ten chapters: Russia * China * United States of America * Latin America * the Middle East * Africa * India and Pakistan * Europe * Japan and Korea * the Arctic

22. Shadowplay

by Tim Marshall

€11.59 €14.50

In his gripping new book The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World, Marshall digs deep into the past, present and future of the new 'astropolitics' that are set to change the face of life on Earth. Available to PRE-ORDER NOW in hardback, ebook and audio - out 27th April 2023 A gripping eyewitness account of a major 20th-century military conflict by the UK's most popular writer on geopolitics The shattering of Yugoslavia in the 1990s showed that, after nearly 50 years of peace, war could return to Europe. It came to its bloody conclusion in Kosovo in 1999. Tim Marshall, then diplomatic editor at Sky News, was on the ground covering the Kosovo War. This is his illuminating account of how events unfolded, a thrilling journalistic memoir drawing on personal experience, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with intelligence officials from five countries. Twenty years on from the war's end, with the rise of Russian power, a weakened NATO and stalled EU expansion, this story is more relevant than ever, as questions remain about the possibility of conflict on European soil. Utterly compelling, this is Tim Marshall at his very best: behind the lines, under fire and full of the insight that has made him one of Britain's foremost writers on geopolitics.

23. Worth dying for

by Tim Marshall

€11.59 €14.50

When you see your nation's flag fluttering in the breeze, what do you feel? For thousands of years flags have represented our hopes and dreams. We wave them. Burn them. March under their colours. And still, in the 21st century, we die for them. Flags fly at the UN, on the Arab street, from front porches in Texas. They represent the politics of high power as well as the politics of the mob. From the renewed sense of nationalism in China, to troubled identities in Europe and the USA, to the terrifying rise of Islamic State, the world is a confusing place right now and we need to understand the symbols, old and new, that people are rallying round. In nine chapters (covering the USA, UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, international flags and flags of terror), Tim Marshall draws on more than twenty-five years of global reporting experience to reveal the histories, the power and the politics of the symbols that unite us - and divide us.

24. Divided

by Tim Marshall

€11.59 €14.50

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER New from the million copy bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography Which side of the fence are you on? Every story has two sides, and so does every wall. We're in a new era of tribalism and the barricades are going up. Money, race, religion, politics: these are the things that divide us. Trump's wall says as much about America's divided past as it does its future. The Great Firewall of China separates 'us' from 'them'. In Europe, the explosive combination of politics and migration threatens liberal democracy itself. Covering China; the USA; Israel and Palestine; the Middle East; the Indian Subcontinent; Africa; Europe and the UK, in this gripping read bestselling author Tim Marshall delves into our past and our present to reveal the fault lines that will shape our world for years to come.

25. The new Silk Roads

by Peter Frankopan

€15.07 €18.85

From the internationally bestselling author of The Silk Roads: everything you need to know about the present and future of the world 'Masterly mapping out of a new world order' Evening Standard 'Frankopan is a brilliant guide to terra incognita' The Times Peter Frankopan's highly anticipated follow-up to the 'Book of the Decade', The New Silk Roads takes a fresh look at the network of relationships being formed along the length and breadth of the Silk Roads today. The world is changing dramatically and in an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads, where ties have been strengthened and mutual cooperation established. Following the Silk Roads eastwards from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. In this prescient contemporary history, Peter Frankopan assesses the global reverberations of these continual shifts in the centre of power - all too often absent from headlines in the west. This important - and ultimately hopeful - book asks us to reread who we are and where we are in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihoods depend.

26. The new world disorder

by Peter R. Neumann

€22.39 €28.00

'A far-sighted analysis of the world order, and an urgent warning of what the future may hold in store.' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads 'Excellent ... In the face of countries such as China and Russia challenging the US-led international order, Neumann's book is a plea to Western countries to acknowledge their mistakes ? but not to abandon the very values that have inspired others around the world.' Emma Sky, author of The Unravelling The West has fatally overestimated itself. What does this mean for the world? Over the last thirty years, through a mixture of naivety and arrogance, the West has lost its global advantage. Today's challenges are profound: climate change, polarisation in society, and tensions with Russia and China. Instead of a liberal world order, a new world disorder has emerged. Yet the triumph of the West had seemed unstoppable not that long ago. After the end of the Cold War, the democratic market economy took hold in the former Eastern Bloc, Russia went from being an enemy to a partner, and even China turned to capitalism. Then came the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that shook the world. The War on Terror destabilised an entire region; the Arab Spring only brought forth new autocracies; and, following the annexation of Crimea, the confrontation with Russia intensified. The West is under pressure, and it has only itself to blame. It's time for a new start: modernity must become sustainable if it is to survive. Peter R. Neumann, an internationally acclaimed expert on terrorism and geopolitics, uncovers the mistakes that led to our present situation and sets out the dangers the world will face if the West fails to reinvent itself.

27. The story of Russia

by Orlando Figes

€15.40

A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: Sunday Times * Irish Times * Spectator * Financial Times * Telegraph * Aspects of History 'The history book you need if you want to understand modern Russia' ANNE APPLEBAUM 'A magnificent, magisterial thousand year history of Russia . . . by one of the masters of Russian scholarship' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 'A great historian at the peak of his powers' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE '[An] excellent short study' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES 'If you really want to understand Putin's Russia today, anchored in its past of myths, then you simply have to read Figes's superb account' ANTONY BEEVOR ' A lucid chronological journey that ably illustrates how narratives from the nation's past have been used to shape its autocratic present' OBSERVER 'A valuable, instructive overview' INDEPENDENT ------------------------- From the great storyteller of Russia, a spellbinding account of the stories that have shaped the country's past - and how they can inform its present. No other country has been so divided over its own past as Russia. None has changed its story so often. How the Russians came to tell their story, and to reinvent it as they went along, is a vital aspect of their history, their culture and beliefs. To understand what Russia's future holds - to grasp what Putin's regime means for Russia and the world - we need to unravel the ideas and meanings of that history. In The Story of Russia , Orlando Figes brings into sharp relief the vibrant characters that comprise Russia's rich history, and whose stories remain so important in making sense of the world's largest nation today - from the crowning of sixteen-year-old Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral, to Catherine the Great, riding out in a green uniform to arrest her husband at his palace, to the bitter last days of the Romanovs. Beautifully written and based on a lifetime of scholarship, The Story of Russia is a major and definitive work from the great storyteller of Russian history: sweeping, suspenseful, masterful. ------------------------- PRAISE FOR ORLANDO FIGES 'An outstanding historian and writer, he brings distant history so close that you could feel its heartbeat' KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD 'Figes knows more about Russia than any other historian' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

28. Putin and the return of history

by Martin Sixsmith

€27.99 €35.00

An original history of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics and rekindled the Cold War. Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that shaped how the West would treat Russia for the next two decades. But history wasn't over. Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad. So, what happened? Was he lying when he proclaimed his support for freedom, democracy and friendship with the West? Or, was he sincere? Did he change his views at some stage between then and now? And if that is the case, what happened to change him? Putin and the Return of History examines these questions in the context of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics of aggression: the enduring terror of encirclement by outsiders, the subjugation of the individual to the cause of the state, the collectivist values that allow the sacrifice of human lives in battle, the willingness to lie and deceive, the co-opting of religion and the belief in Great Russia's mission to change the world.

29. Invasion

by Luke Harding

€15.40

A FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING The first book of reportage from the front line of the Ukraine war. This is a powerful, moving first draft of history written by the award-winning Guardian journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Collusion and Shadow State. 'An excellent, moving account of an ongoing tragedy.' ANNE APPLEBAUM ' Compelling, important and heartbreaking.' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 'Essential reading.' ELIOT HIGGINS, founder of Bellingcat 'Brilliant.' ANDREY KURKOV For months, the omens had pointed in one scarcely believable direction: Russia was about to invade Ukraine. And yet, the world was stunned by the epochal scale of the assault that began in February 2022. It was an attempt by one nation to devour another. Invasion is Luke Harding's compelling chronicle of the war that changed everything. For this breathtaking work of reportage he spent months reporting on the ground during the build up to the conflict and afterward; his book tells of the initial days of shock and panic, the grim reality of this ongoing war, and the unheard human stories behind the headlines. Invasion also offers insightful portraits of the the war's two great personalities. One, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is an actor-turned-president who rallied support on a global stage. The other, Vladimir Putin, is a dictator who dwells in a strange and unreachable realm. Harding examines the ideological, religious and personal reasons behind Putin's decision to invade. And he confronts a crucial question: which side will prevail in this terrible war? With the ripple effects of the largest armed conflict in Europe since 1945 already being felt beyond Ukraine and Russia's borders, it is more vital than ever to understand how the situation on the front line will have profound effects for us all. Written in Luke Harding's starkly transfixing style, Invasion makes for essential reading. *Includes a brand new chapter for the paperback edition* *** Author royalties from this edition will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee's Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.

30. Putin's people

by Catherine Belton

€11.99 €15.95

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'An outstanding exposé of Putin and his criminal pals . [A] long-awaited, must read book' SUNDAY TIMES'Books about modern Russia abound . Belton has surpassed them all. Her much-awaited book is the best and most important on modern Russia' THE TIMES A chilling and revelatory expose of the KGB's renaissance, Putin's rise to power, and how Russian black cash is subverting the world. In Putin's People, former Moscow correspondent and investigative journalist Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and his entourage of KGB men seized power in Russia and built a new league of oligarchs. Through exclusive interviews with key inside players, Belton tells how Putin's people conducted their relentless seizure of private companies, took over the economy, siphoned billions, blurred the lines between organised crime and political powers, shut down opponents, and then used their riches and power to extend influence in the West. In a story that ranges from Moscow to London, Switzerland and Trump's America, Putin's People is a gripping and terrifying account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world. 'A fearless, fascinating account . Reads at times like a John le Carré novel . A groundbreaking and meticulously researched anatomy of the Putin regime, Belton's book shines a light on the pernicious threats Russian money and influence now pose to the west' Guardian

31. Killer in the Kremlin

by John Sweeney

€12.75 €15.95

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - NOW UPDATED WITH FOUR NEW CHAPTERS 'This swashbuckling book is a furious attack on the Russian president. Killer in the Kremlin traces Putin's bloody career... a life littered with corpses.' - THE TIMES A gripping and explosive account of Vladimir Putin's tyranny, charting his rise from spy to tsar, exposing the events that led to his invasion of Ukraine and his assault on Europe. In Killer in the Kremlin , award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes readers from the heart of Putin's Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine. In a disturbing exposé of Putin's sinister ambition, Sweeney draws on thirty years of his own reporting - from the Moscow apartment bombings to the atrocities committed by the Russian Army in Chechnya, to the annexation of Crimea and a confrontation with Putin over the shooting down of flight MH17 - to understand the true extent of Putin's long war. Drawing on eyewitness accounts and compelling testimony from those who have suffered at Putin's hand, we see the heroism of the Russian opposition, the bravery of the Ukrainian resistance, and the brutality with which the Kremlin responds to such acts of defiance, assassinating or locking away its critics, and stopping at nothing to achieve its imperialist aims. In the midst of one of the darkest acts of aggression in modern history - Russia's invasion of Ukraine - this book shines a light on Putin's rule and poses urgent questions about how the world must respond. 'An extraordinarily prescient and fascinating book.' - NIHAL ARTHANAYAKE Instant Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023

32. Red notice

by Bill Browder

€12.75 €15.95

'An unburdening, a witness statement and a thriller all at the same time ... electrifying.' The Times I have to assume that there is a very real chance that Putin or members of his regime will have me killed some day. If I'm killed, you will know who did it. When my enemies read this book, they will know that you know. A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. A true-life thriller by one of Putin's Most Wanted. In November 2009, the young lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by eight police officers in a freezing cell in a Moscow prison. His crime? Testifying against Russian officials who were involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million of taxes. Red Notice is a searing exposé of the whitewash of this imprisonment and murder. The killing hasn't been investigated. It hasn't been punished. Bill Browder is still campaigning for justice for his late lawyer and friend. This is his explosive journey from the heady world of finance in New York and London in the 1990s, through battles with ruthless oligarchs in turbulent post-Soviet Union Moscow, to the shadowy heart of the Kremlin. With fraud, bribery, corruption and torture exposed at every turn, Red Notice is a shocking political roller-coaster. __________________ Reads like a classic thriller, with an everyman hero alone and in danger in a hostile foreign city ... but it's all true, and it's a story that needs to be told.' Lee Child 'A shocking true-life thriller.' Tom Stoppard 'A riveting account... it is a powerful story and Browder tells it skilfully.' The Washington Post

33. Freezing order

by Bill Browder

€12.99 €15.40

THE SUNDAY TIMES NO 2 BESTSELLER  **  THE NEW YORK TIMES NO 1 BESTSELLER 'More explosive, compulsive and gasp-inducingly, spine-tinglingly, mouth-dryingly, heart-poundingly thrilling than any fiction I have read for years, but it is all true' Stephen Fry 'Mind-blowing...Browder's battle for justice is at times terrifying, at times deeply touching' Catherine Belton 'A jaw-dropping exposé by Putin's anti-corruption nemesis' Daily  Telegraph Following his explosive international bestseller Red Notice, Bill Browder returns with another gripping thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin's number one enemy by exposing Putin's campaign to steal and launder hundreds of billions of dollars and kill anyone who stands in his way. When Bill Browder's young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life's mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step of that mission was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over. As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime. As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of the top lawyers and politicians in America to bring him down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, it was Browder's campaign to expose Putin's corruption that prompted Russia's intervention in the 2016 US presidential election. At once a financial caper, an international adventure and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order is a timely and stirring morality tale about how one man can take on one of the most ruthless villains in the world.

34. Profiles in ignorance

by Andy Borowitz

€11.99 €15.40

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER *WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER * Andy Borowitz, "one of the funniest people in America" (CBS Sunday Morning ), brilliantly "chronicles our embrace of anti-intellectualism" (Walter Isaacson) in American politics, from Ronald Reagan to Dan Quayle, from George W. Bush to Sarah Palin, to its apotheosis in Donald J. Trump. Andy Borowitz has been called a "Swiftian satirist" (The Wall Street Journal ) and "one of the country's finest satirists" (The New York Times ). Millions of fans and New Yorker readers enjoy his satirical news column "The Borowitz Report." Now, in Profiles in Ignorance , he delivers "a wittily alarming polemic that tracks the evolution of American politics from grounds for gravitas to festival of idiocy" (The New York Times ). Borowitz argues that over the past fifty years, American politicians have grown increasingly allergic to knowledge, and mass media have encouraged the election of ignoramuses by elevating candidates who are better at performing than thinking. Starting with Ronald Reagan's first campaign for governor of California in 1966 and culminating with the election of Donald J. Trump to the White House, Borowitz shows how, during the age of twenty-four-hour news and social media, the US has elected politicians to positions of great power whose lack of the most basic information is terrifying. In addition to Reagan, Quayle, Bush, Palin, and Trump, Borowitz covers a host of congresspersons, senators, and governors who have helped lower the bar over the past five decades. Profiles in Ignorance aims to make us both laugh and cry: laugh at the idiotic antics of these public figures, and cry at the cataclysms these icons of ignorance have caused. But most importantly, the book delivers a call to action and a cause for optimism: History doesn't move in a straight line, and we can change course if we act now.

35. Kleptopia

by Tom Burgis

€12.75 €15.95

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'If you think the UK isn't corrupt, you haven't looked hard enough . This terrifying book follows a global current of dirty money, and the murders and kidnappings required to sustain it' GEORGE MONBIOT, GUARDIANAN ECONOMIST AND WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 'When you pick this book up, you won't be able to put it down' MISHA GLENNY, author of MCMAFIA 'Gripping, disturbing and deeply reported' BEN RHODES, bestselling author of THE WORLD AS IT IS In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis reveals a terrifying global web of kleptocracy and corruption. Kleptopia follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, enriching oligarchs and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, London to the Trump White House, it shows how the thieves are uniting - and the terrible human cost. A body in a burned-out Audi. Workers riddled with bullets in the Kazakh desert. A rigged election in Zimbabwe. A British banker silenced and humiliated for trying to expose the truth about the City of London - the world's piggy bank for blood money. Riveting, horrifying and written like fiction, this book shows that while we are looking the other way, all that we hold most dear is being stolen.

36. The Irish difference

by Fergal Tobin

€12.75 €15.95

An Irish TImes Book of the Year 'The beauty of this book is in the telling: The Irish Difference lays out its themes and chronologies with impeccable clarity, and is full of fascinating detail... Exemplary.' Irish Independent For hundreds of years, the islands and their constituent tribes that make up the British Isles have lived next door to each other in a manner that, over time, suggested some movement towards political union. It was an uneven, stop-start business and it worked better in some places than in others. Still, England, Wales and Scotland have hung together through thick and thin, despite internal divisions of language, religion, law, culture and disposition that might have broken up a less resilient polity. And, for a long time, it seemed that something similar might have been said about the smaller island to the west: Ireland. Ireland was always a more awkward fit in the London-centric mini-imperium but no one imagined that it might detach itself altogether, until the moment came for rupture, quite suddenly and dramatically, in the fall-out from World War I. So, what was it - is it - about Ireland that is so different? Different enough to sever historical ties of centuries with such sudden violence and unapologetic efficiency. Wherein lies the Irish difference, a difference sufficient to have caused a rupture of that nature? In a wide-ranging and witty narrative, historian Fergal Tobin looks into Ireland's past, taking in everything from religion and politics to sports and literature, and traces the roots of her journey towards independence.

37. Can Ireland Be One P/B

by Malachi O'Doherty

€15.29 €16.99

Who are the Irish? What is Irishness, and can this deeply divided island ever be united? Malachi O’Doherty’s ground-breaking new book explores these questions and many more. Spanning centuries of history alongside contemporary issues, Malachi looks for answers by talking to those who know and understand it best: the Irish themselves. From journalists to politicians, writers, lawyers, celebrities, sportspeople and residents of both the North and the Republic, this is the most comprehensive study yet of a divided nation and its uncertain future. This book asks the big political questions about the prospects of reconciliation between North and South, but it also goes behind the upfront attitudes of parties and factions to ask what really drives a sense of being Irish, and whether it can find a more coherent and inclusive sense of identity. Ireland has changed radically in a generation. Today both parts of the island define themselves by or against the narrative of a freedom struggle. Could they conceivably put that behind them, regard it as closed, and if so, how would they jointly define Ireland’s sovereign national character after that? In Can Ireland Be One, Malachi O’Doherty asks the big questions and confronts the real world implications of this incendiary debate.

38. We don't know ourselves

by Fintan O'Toole

€13.92 €17.40

The #1 Irish Times bestseller WINNER of the An Post Irish Book Awards 'A clear-eyed, myth-dispelling masterpiece' Marian Keyes 'Sweeping, authoritative and profoundly intelligent' Colm Tóibìn, Guardian 'With the pace and twists of an enthralling novel' Irish Times 'Evocative, moving, funny and furious' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'An enthralling, panoramic book' Patrick Radden Keefe 'A book that will remain important for a very long time' An Post Irish Book Award We Don't Know Ourselves is a very personal vision of recent Irish history from the year of O'Toole's birth, 1958, down to the present. Ireland has changed almost out of recognition during those decades, and Fintan O'Toole's life coincides with that arc of transformation. The book is a brilliant interweaving of memories (though this is emphatically not a memoir) and engrossing social and historical narrative. This was the era of Eamon de Valera, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and John Charles McQuaid, of sectarian civil war in the North and the Pope's triumphant visit in 1979, but also of those who began to speak out against the ruling consensus - feminists, advocates for the rights of children, gay men and women coming out of the shadows. We Don't Know Ourselves is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand modern Ireland.

39. Chums

by Simon Kuper

€11.59 €14.50

Now with a new chapter on the end of the chumocracy era - and Oxford's upcoming elite for 2050. THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022 A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF 2023 Power. Privilege. Parties. It's a very small world at the top. 'Brilliant ... traces Brexit back to the debating chambers of the Oxford Union in the 1980s' James O'Brien 'A searing onslaught on the smirking Oxford insinuation that politics is all just a game. It isn't. It matters' Matthew Parris 'A sparkling firework of a book' Lynn Barber, Spectator 'Exquisite and depressing in equal measure' Matthew Syed, Sunday Times Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Daniel Hannan, Jacob Rees-Mogg: Whitehall is swarming with old Oxonians. They debated each other in tutorials, ran against each other in student elections, and attended the same balls and black tie dinners. They aren't just colleagues - they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them. Thirteen of the seventeen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford University. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools - and the friendships and worldviews it created - shaped modern Britain. A damning look at the university clique-turned-Commons majority that will blow the doors of Westminster wide open and change the way you look at our democracy forever.

40. Why the Germans do it better

by John Kampfner

€12.75 €15.95

***THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*** BOOK OF THE YEAR IN GUARDIAN, ECONOMIST & NEW STATESMAN 'Excellent and provocative... a passionate, timely book.' Sunday Times 'A fine new book... thoughtful, deeply reported and impeccably even-handed.' The Times Emerging from a collection of city states 150 years ago, no other country has had as turbulent a history as Germany or enjoyed so much prosperity in such a short time frame. Today, as much of the world succumbs to authoritarianism and democracy is undermined from its heart, Germany stands as a bulwark for decency and stability. Mixing personal journey and anecdote with compelling empirical evidence, this is a critical and entertaining exploration of the country many in the West still love to hate. Raising important questions for our post-Brexit landscape, Kampfner asks why, despite its faults, Germany has become a model for others to emulate, while Britain fails to tackle contemporary challenges. Part memoir, part history, part travelogue, Why the Germans Do It Better is a rich and witty portrait of an eternally fascinating country.

41. Broken code

by Jeff Horwitz

€19.04 €23.80

'A penetrating portrait of one of the most significant companies in the world' Ronan Farrow, author of Catch and Kill 'With the skill of an award-winning journalist, Horwitz details the inner workings of the tech giant and their outcomes...A must-read.' Scott Galloway, bestselling author of The Four Facebook had a problem. Along with its sister platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, it was a daily destination for billions of users around the world, extolling its products for connecting people. But as a succession of scandals rocked Facebook from 2016, some began to question whether the company could control, or even understood, its own platforms. As Facebook employees searched for answers, what they uncovered was worse than they could've imagined. The problems ran far deeper than politics. Facebook was peddling and amplifying anger, looking the other way at human trafficking, enabling drug cartels and authoritarians and allowing VIP users to break the platform's supposedly inviolable rules. It turned out to be eminently possible to isolate many of Facebook's worst problems, but whenever employees offered solutions their work was consistently delayed, watered down or stifled by a company that valued user engagement above all else. The only option left was to blow the whistle. In Broken Code, award-winning Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz tells the riveting inside story of these employees and their explosive discoveries, uncovering the shocking cost of Facebook's blind ambition in the process.

42. Social Capital TPB

by Aoife Barry

€13.99 €21.00

A David and Goliath story about Ireland’s role as prime real estate for the world’s largest tech multinationals, and the considerable impact it has had on us as individuals.Since the arrival of Google to Dublin’s docklands in 2003, Ireland has experienced a ‘tech sprawl’, with some of the world’s largest social media multinationals like Facebook and Twitter following suit –all taking full advantage of Ireland’s attractive corporate tax rate.Their presence has changed the landscape of Ireland significantly, both physically and economically: pressed up against the sleek, gargantuan offices of these tech firms are some of Dublin’s oldest communities, inhabited by the dedicated users of the products these companies are touting.But the promises of opportunity and enterprise initially posited by Ireland’s policy-makers haveexposed infrastructure and legislation woefully underprepared to keep up with the rate of expansion of the tech giants. With over 75% of the population using social media sites, and an increase in online harassment, trolling and misinformation campaigns, how do we live offline if they live next door?In The Tech Dilemma, investigative journalist Aoife Barry does a deep-dive into the butterfly effect thepresence of these tech companies has had on the nation and exposes the real-life consequences it has had on us as individuals.

43. My fourth time, we drowned

by Sally Hayden

€10.99 €15.40

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZEWINNER OF IRISH BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE'The most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read' SALLY ROONEY The treatment of refugees has become one of the most devastating human rights disasters in our history. In this book, award-winning journalist Sally Hayden unfolds a staggering investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa. This book follows the experiences of refugees, telling a range of shocking and eye-opening human stories. But it also surveys the bigger picture: the negligence of NGOs and corruption within the United Nations. The economics of the twenty-first-century slave trade and the EU's bankrolling of Libyan militias. The trials of people smugglers, the frustrations of aid workers, the loopholes refugees seek out and the role of social media in crowdfunding ransoms. Who was accountable for the abuse? Where were the people finding solutions? Why wasn't it being widely reported? At its heart, this is a book about people who have made unimaginable choices, risking everything to survive in a system that wants them to be silent and disappear.

44. Sapiens

by Yuval N. Harari

€15.07 €18.85

'Interesting and provocative... It gives you a sense of how briefly we've been on this Earth' Barack Obama What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens ? One of the world's preeminent historians and thinkers, Yuval Noah Harari challenges everything we know about being human. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us. In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we're going. **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN' S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY** PRAISE FOR SAPIENS : 'Jaw-dropping from the first word to the last... It may be the best book I've ever read' Chris Evans 'Startling... It changes the way you look at the world' Simon Mayo 'I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who's interested in the history and future of our species' Bill Gates

45. Empireland

by Sathnam Sanghera

€12.75 €15.95

EMPIREWORLD IS AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW WINNER OF THE 2022 BRITISH BOOK AWARD FOR NARRATIVE NONFICTION ***THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE CHANNEL 4 DOCUMENTARY 'EMPIRE STATE OF MIND'*** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'The real remedy is education of the kind that Sanghera has embraced - accepting, not ignoring, the past' Gerard deGroot, The Times _____________________________________________________ EMPIRE explains why there are millions of Britons living worldwide. EMPIRE explains Brexit and the feeling that we are exceptional. EMPIRE explains our distrust of cleverness. EMPIRE explains Britain's particular brand of racism. Strangely hidden from view, the British Empire remains a subject of both shame and glorification. In his bestselling book, Sathnam Sanghera shows how our imperial past is everywhere: from how we live and think to the foundation of the NHS and even our response to the COVID-19 crisis. At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Empireland is a groundbreaking revelation - a much-needed and enlightening portrait of contemporary British society, shining a light on everything that usually gets left unsaid. _______________________________________________________ 'Empireland takes a perfectly-judged approach to its contentious but necessary subject' Jonathan Coe 'I only wish this book has been around when I was at school' Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London 'This remarkable book shines the brightest of lights into some of the darkest and most misunderstood corners of our shared history' James O'Brien Sathnam Sanghera, Sunday Times bestseller, February 2024

46. Empire of pain

by Patrick Radden Keefe

€12.75 €15.95

The gripping and shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family and their roles in the stories of Valium, OxyContin and the opioid crisis. The inspiration behind the Netflix series Painkiller , starring Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick. The Sunday Times Bestseller Winner of the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction A BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' Shortlisted for the 2021 Financial Times /McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021 Shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 'I gobbled up Empire of Pain . . . a masterclass in compelling narrative nonfiction.' - Elizabeth Day, The Guardian '30 Best Summer Reads' 'You feel almost guilty for enjoying it so much' - The Times The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions - Harvard; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Oxford; the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations in the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis - an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people. In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, award-winning journalist and host of the Wind of Change podcast Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality. Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty: a parable of twenty-first-century greed. 'There are so many "they did what?" moments in this book, when your jaw practically hits the page' - Sunday Times

47. King

by Jonathan Eig

€17.99 €21.00

A NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER *SELECTED AS ONE OF  BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2023* Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. - and the first to include recently declassified FBI files.   In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.   He casts fresh light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King  reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death.   As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became its only modern-day founding father - as well as the nation's most mourned martyr. In this landmark biography, Eig gives us an MLK for our times: a deep thinker, a brilliant strategist, and a committed radical who led one of history's greatest movements, and whose demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were in his lifetime.