All Books

‘a whirlwind tour of technological possibility’ new scientist welcome to the future, where you’ll be able to take an elevator hundreds of miles into space, the internet will be in your contact lens, nanobots will scan your dna for signs of disease and you’ll be able to control computers with your brain – and even rearrange the physical world itself. it may sound like science fiction but, as physics guru michio kaku shows, this is the shape of things to come. based on interviews with over three hundred of the world’s top scientists who are already inventing this future in their labs, physics of the future is a time-travelling tour through the revolutionary advances in medicine, computers, quantum physics and space travel that will forever change our way of life – and alter the course of civilization itself. internationally acclaimed physicist dr michio kaku holds the henry semat chair in theoretical physics at the city university of new york. he is also an international bestselling author, his books including hyperspace and parallel worlds, and a distinguished writer, having featured in time, the wall street journal, the sunday times and the new scientist to name but a few. dr kaku also hosts his own radio show, ‘science fantastic’, and recently presented the bbc’s popular series ‘time’.

In this landmark work, new yorker columnist james surowiecki explores a seemingly counter-intuitive idea that has profound implications. decisions taken by a large group, even if the individuals within the group aren’t smart, are always better than decisions made by small numbers of ‘experts’. this seemingly simply notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organised and how nation-states fare. with great erudition, surowiecki ranges across the disciplines of psychology, economics, statistics and history to show just how this principle operates in the real world. along the way surowiecki asks a number of intriguing questions about a subject few of us actually understand – economics. what are prices? how does money work? why do we have corporations? does advertising work? his answers, rendered in a delightfully clear prose, demystify daunting prospects. as surowiecki writes: ‘the hero of this book is, in a curious sense, an idea, a hero whose story ends up shedding dramatic new light on the landscapes of business, politics and society’.

“shortlisted for the samuel johnson prize for non-fiction 2015 winner of the jerwood prize a constellation of everyday digital phenomena is rewiring our inner lives. we are increasingly coaxed from the three-dimensional containment of our pre-digital selves into a wonderful and eerie fourth dimension, a world of ceaseless communication, instant information and global connection. our portals to this new world have been wedged open, and the silhouette of a figure is slowly taking shape. but what does it feel like to be four-dimensional? how do digital technologies influence the rhythms of our thoughts, the style and tilt of our consciousness? what new sensitivities and sensibilities are emerging with our exposure to the delights, sorrows and anxieties of a networked world? and how do we live in public, with these recoded private lives? tackling ideas of time, space, friendship, commerce, pursuit and escape, and moving from hamlet to the ghosts of social media, from seinfeld to the fall of gaddafi, from facebook politics to oedipus, the four-dimensional human is a highly original and pioneering portrait of life in a digital landscape.”

Winner of the 2019 lionel gelber prize ‘majestic, informative and often delightful … insights on every page’ yanis varoufakis, observer the definitive history of the great financial crisis, from the acclaimed author of the deluge and the wages of destruction. in september 2008 the great financial crisis, triggered by the collapse of lehman brothers, shook the world. a decade later its spectre still haunts us. as the appalling scope and scale of the crash was revealed, the financial institutions that had symbolised the west’s triumph since the end of the cold war, seemed – through greed, malice and incompetence – to be about to bring the entire system to its knees. crashed is a brilliantly original and assured analysis of what happened and how we were rescued from something even worse – but at a price which continues to undermine democracy across europe and the united states. gnawing away at our institutions are the many billions of dollars which were conjured up to prevent complete collapse. over and over again, the end of the crisis has been announced, but it continues to hound us – whether in greece or ukraine, whether through brexit or trump. adam tooze follows the trail like no previous writer and has written a book compelling as history, as economic analysis and as political horror story.

The field of language is one full of misconceptions about the way in which language works, or is used. this collection of essays tackles beliefs, correcting a catalogue of errors such as: aborigines speak a primitive language, french people speak faster and german is ugly.

A child is presented with a marshmallow and given a choice: eat this one now, or wait and enjoy two later. what will she do? and what are the implications for her behaviour later in life? walter mischel’s now iconic ‘marshmallow test,’ one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology, proved that the ability to delay gratification is critical to living a successful and fulfilling life: self-control not only predicts higher marks in school, better social and cognitive functioning, and a greater sense of self-worth; it also helps us manage stress, pursue goals more effectively, and cope with painful emotions. but is willpower prewired, or can it be taught? in his groundbreaking new book, dr. mischel draws on decades of compelling research and life examples to explore the nature of willpower, identifying the cognitive skills and mental mechanisms that enable it and showing how these can be applied to challenges in everyday life–from weight control to quitting smoking, overcoming heartbreak, making major decisions, and planning for retirement. with profound implications for the choices we make in parenting, education, public policy and self-care, the marshmallow test will change the way we think about who we are and what we can be. and since, as mischel argues, a life with too much self-control can be as unfulfilling as one with too little, this book will also teach you when it’s time to ring the bell and enjoy that marshmallow.