'Profound and unforgettable' Sally Rooney 'A classic . . . I have long thought of Boyer as a genius' Patricia Lockwood 'An outraged, beautiful, and brilliant work of embodied critique' Ben Lerner 'Some of the most perceptive and beautiful writing about illness and pain that I have ever read' Hari Kunzru A week after her 41st birthday, Anne Boyer was diagnosed with highly aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. For a single mother living payslip...

Down in the basement of a bombed building in a heavily shelled area of Darayya there is a secret library. Around it, shattered buildings that were once homes and offices lie in treacherous ruins. No signs mark the presence of the library. Locals fear that Syrian government planes will bomb it if they find where it is. In a war zone, books are dangerous. While the streets above echo with rifle fire and shelling, below is a haven of peace and tranquillity....

When World War II broke out, no one could predict the impact it would have, as the conflict begins to take its toll, the lives of four families become entwined. The Duchamps, the Spurgeons, the Sowersbys and the Tooleys are all faced with personal struggles while the world around them is torn apart. Families become fragmented, love is found and the young are forced to grow up too quickly - but all are determined to remain defiant and united against...

The heartwarming and inspiring tale of five brave women in a munitions factory during WWII. Ernest Bevin's 1941 announcement that all woman between 18 and 30 must register for war work has made Emily furious - she's just landed her dream job and the last thing she wants is to have to give it up for a bomb factory in Lancashire. The glamorous Lillian and studious Alice are not too happy either. But for downtrodden Elsie and determined Agnes, the promise...

Written with great literary and historical relish, One More Kilometre examines the spread of cycling?s popularity, how it developed into a sport and how the bicycle has changed people?s lives - all viewed through the eyes of a seasoned 56-year-old racing cyclist/art critic who keeps eleven racing cycles in his garden shed and who never cycles less than 10,000 miles a year. The book starts with the 1950s, regarded as the golden age of cycling, and...

Published to coincide with a major new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London in March 2011, this provocative book features specially commissioned essays and a short graphic novel section on the significance and implications of dirt from the microbial level through to the environmental.

From chimpanzees caring for mates that have been wounded by leopards, elephants reassuring youndsters in distress to dolphins preventing sick companions from drowning, 'The Age of Empathy' demonstrates that animals are guided by cooperation.

This title unwraps the story of opera in the contexts in which it has developed, throughout history and around the world, from Handel's London to the glamour of the Parisian opera via Venetian carnival.

Through self-help assessments, step-by-step programmes and rebalancing techniques, 'Unplugged' shows you how technology can still play an important role in your life but not at the expense of relationships, and shows how to create a healthy balance between the two.

Writers are now able to cross disciplines in producing original work for stage, television and feature films. What does this mean for the future of British writing? In this book, Peter Ansorge seeks to find the answer to that question.