Picador Nature's Mutiny. How the Little Ice Age Transformed the West and Shaped the Present Blom Philipp

Benjamin Franklin took daily naked air baths and Toulouse-Lautrec painted in brothels. Edith Sitwell worked in bed, and George Gershwin composed at the piano in pyjamas. Freud worked sixteen hours a day, but Gertrude Stein could never write for more than thirty minutes, and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in gin-fuelled bursts - he believed alcohol was essential to his creative process • From Marx to Murakami and Beethoven to Bacon, Daily Rituals by Mason Currey presents the working routines of more than a hundred and sixty of the greatest philosophers, writers, composers and artists ever to have lived. Whether by amphetamines or alcohol, headstand or boxing, these people made time and got to work • Featuring photographs of writers and artists at work, and filled with fascinating insights on the mechanics of genius and entertaining stories of the personalities behind it, Daily Rituals is irresistibly addictive, and utterly inspiring

unisex • Книга "Little Book of House Plants and Other Greenery" автора Эммы Сибли (Emma Sibley) Книга в твердой обложке Все, что нужно знать о выращивании домашних растений Содержит описание 60 самых популярных разновидностей растений, включая фотографии, подробные сведения и советы по выращиванию Автор Эмма Сибли (Emma Sibley) 144 страницы

Brutally honest and fearless, Poverty Safari is an unforgettable insight into modern Britain, and will change how you think about poverty • Darren McGarvey has experienced poverty and its devastating effects first-hand. He knows why people from deprived communities all around Britain feel angry and unheard. And he wants to explain • So he invites you to come on a safari of sorts. But not the kind where the wildlife is surveyed from a safe distance. This book takes you inside the experience of poverty to show how the pressures really feel and how hard their legacy is to overcome • Arguing that both the political left and right misunderstand poverty as it is actually lived, McGarvey sets out what everybody - including himself - could do to change things

The great forces of population change - the balance of births, deaths and migrations - have made the world what it is today. They have determined which countries are superpowers and which languish in relative obscurity, which economies top the international league tables and which are at best also-rans • The same forces that have shaped our past and present are shaping our future. Illustrating this through ten illuminating indicators, from the fertility rate in Singapore (one) to the median age in Catalonia (forty-three), Paul Morland shows how demography is both a powerful and an under-appreciated lens through which to view the global transformations that are currently underway • Tomorrow's People ranges from the countries of West Africa where the tendency towards large families is combining with falling infant mortality to create the greatest population explosion ever witnessed, to the countries of East Asia and Southern Europe where generations of low birth-rate and rising life expectancy are creating the oldest populations in history

A cult classic of Italian literature published in English for the first time, with a foreword by Andre Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name • In the late 1960s, Leo Gazzara left his family in Milan and moved to Rome for work. Soon unemployed, he has spent his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between hotels, bars, romantic entanglements, and the homes of his rich and well-educated friends. Rome is indifferent. Leo drifts, aimless and alone • On the evening of his thirtieth birthday, he meets Arianna, a young woman who is both fragile and seductive. All night they drive the city in Leo's run-down Alfa Romeo, talking and talking. They eat brioche for breakfast, drink through the dawn, drive to the sea and back. A whirlwind beginning. This is the story of the year Leo fell in love and lost everything

A Bend in the River is V. S. Naipaul's vivid exploration of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence. With an introduction by Yiyun Li, author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers • Salim has spent most of his life on the east coast of Africa, living and working with his family. When he sets out to build a new life for himself, moving to an unnamed country in the heart of the continent he believes he is doing so to fulfil his duty as a man. He buys a small shop in a sleepy town, at a bend in the river, where he sells sundries to the locals • First published in 1979, A Bend in the River is V.S. Naipaul's vivid exploration of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence. Serving as a microcosm of this changing world, his bend in the river is a scene of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation and poverty

We are living in an age of heightened individualism. Success is a personal responsibility. Our culture tells us that to succeed is to be slim, rich, happy, extroverted, popular - flawless • The pressure to conform to this ideal has changed who we are. We have become self-obsessed. And our expectation of perfection comes at a cost. Millions are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy • It was not always like this. To explain how we got here, Will Storr takes us on a journey across continents and centuries. Full of thrilling and unexpected connections between history, psychology, economics, neuroscience and more, Selfie is an unforgettable book that makes sense of who we have become

Set in an unnamed African country, V. S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River is narrated by Salim, a young man from an Indian family of traders long resident on the coast. He believes The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. So he has taken the initiative; left the coast; acquired his own shop in a small, growing city in the continent’s remote interior and is selling sundries – little more than this and that, really – to the natives • This spot, this ‘bend in the river’, is a microcosm of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence: a scene of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation and poverty. And from this rich landscape emerges one of the author’s most potent works – a truly moving story of historical upheaval and social breakdown

Marianne Power was stuck in a rut. Then one day she wondered: could self-help books help her find the elusive perfect life? • She decided to test one book a month for a year, following their advice to the letter. What would happen if she followed the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? Really felt The Power of Now? Could she unearth The Secret to making her dreams come true? • What begins as a clever experiment becomes an achingly poignant story. Because self-help can change your life - but not necessarily for the better • Help Me! is an irresistibly funny and incredibly moving book about a wild and ultimately redemptive journey that will resonate with anyone who's ever dreamed of finding happiness

A Voice in the Night is the twentieth compelling crime novel in the phenomenally successful Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri • Feeling his age, as his birthday rolls round once again, Inspector Montalbano decides to cheer himself up by dealing with a young driver's road rage in his own unique way • But his joy is short-lived, as at police headquarters he receives an angry phone call from a supermarket boss: there's been a robbery at his store and Montalbano's colleague is treating him as a suspect. On arrival at the scene, Montalbano quickly agrees with Inspector Augello that this was no ordinary break-in, but with the supermarket's infamous links to the Sicilian Mafia creating problems at every turn, this isn't going to be an easy case for the inspector to solve

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, King Leopold's Ghost is the true and haunting account of Leopold's brutal regime and its lasting effect on a ruined nation. With an introduction by award-winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver • In the late nineteenth century, when the great powers in Europe were tearing Africa apart and seizing ownership of land for themselves, King Leopold of Belgium took hold of the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. In his devastatingly barbarous colonization of this area, Leopold stole its rubber and ivory, pummelled its people and set up a ruthless regime that would reduce the population by half. While he did all this, he carefully constructed an image of himself as a deeply feeling humanitarian

Жизнь пяти сестер - Элеоноры, Джоанны, Маргарет, Марии и Елизаветы - включала в себя всю гамму переживаний, доступных женщинам королевской крови в Средние века • Опираясь на широкий спектр современных источников, "Дочери рыцарства. Забытые дети Эдуарда I" предлагают богатый портрет этих энергичных женщин из династии Плантагенетов. С их библиотеками прекрасно иллюстрированных псалтырей и романтических рассказов, их богатыми шелками и сверкающими драгоценностями мы следуем за этими выдающимися женщинами на протяжении всей их жизни и видим, как они - наконец-то - выходят из тени, показывая, каково это - быть принцессой в эпоху рыцарства • Книга на английском языке • Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized - and largely mythical - notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers