Discover your path through life's ups and downs with green witch Rebecca Beattie, a Wiccan priestess who has practised witchcraft for over twenty years and the author of The Wheel of the Year. 'Bring your troubles with an open mind and go away with the balm of nature and kindness.' Maggie Brookes, author of Acts of Love and War Where do we take our troubles when things get tough? In The Way Through the Woods, green witch Rebecca Beattie encourages us to reclaim times of great change in our lives – in relationships, work and family, and in our bodies and selves – as transformative, alchemical moments full of possibility. Drawing inspiration from the ebb and flow of the natural world, this is a must-have seasonal toolkit for optimising your spiritual, bodily and mental health. Whenever you need a helping hand, be it through grief or menopause, a new career or finding your flow, this enchanting book is filled with nurturing rituals and wild magic to guide you. The Way Through the Woods will help you to pause and reflect, to reconnect to nature and to yourself as you uncover a path towards joy and abundance. ___ 'The best book I have found yet on the magic of personal growth and personal healing. It is a perfect journey through the year and through nature to the self.' Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch 'Laden with compassion and care, it ripples with hope and is full of delicious magic and ritual.' Jini Reddy, author of Wanderland

Financial Times – BEST BOOKS OF 2023 PRESTO MUSIC – BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023 'This superb account of how that glorious institution came into being will give you deep and abiding pleasure' Stephen Fry When harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood and record producer Peter Wadland founded the Academy of Ancient Music in 1973, their mission was to create Britain's first orchestra devoted to recording baroque and classical music on period instruments. They went on to change the musical world. Their success brought the AAM global fame – bringing historically informed performance into the mainstream and putting Vivaldi into the pop charts. But then the orchestra faced a new challenge: reinventing itself to survive and thrive in the world its own success had created. For the first time, Richard Bratby tells the story of this trailblazing orchestra and the people who shaped it: fifty years of innovation, exploration and musical adventure, from the pioneering days of the early 1970s to new directions – and new triumphs – in the 21st century. 'An uplifting, anecdote-packed account of the Academy of Ancient Music […]' Lucie Skeaping 'The refiner's fire of AAM still burns brightly: this book tells us why. From the Marquis of Granby to the Hollywood Bowl; an illuminating account of a musical revolution.' Catherine Bott 'Using a mass of archival material and many interviews, Refiner's Fire is a lively account of the orchestra's history, of Christopher Hogwood himself and of the other essential players (literal and figurative).' Emma Kirkby

From the howling winds of Skye to the fen-sucked fogs of East Anglia, explore the power and beauty of British weather in all its wild and stormy forms. 'Beautifully written, wonderfully immersive and utterly life-affirming. This book glows with a rare light.' Julian Hoffman 'In All Weathers pulls off the trick of shining a fresh light on our much-maligned climate'Mail on Sunday 'In his glorious ode to the inclement, author and teacher Matt Gaw reveals how all weathers transform our relationship with the natural world – the secret is to open your senses and immerse yourself'The Observer magazine All too often our weather is simply deemed as good (sunny) or bad (anything else), and our likelihood of venturing outside is governed by that simplistic judgement. But inclement weather can be beautiful, sublime, even fun. It transforms the light, textures and colours of a landscape and influences our mood and behaviour. It has inspired poets and artists, seeped into our language and folklore, and fundamentally shaped our way of life on these isles. It allows new worlds to emerge, shrouded in fog, splintered by ice and refreshed by rain. In In All Weathers Matt Gaw embarks on a series of walks across Britain – through rain, fog, wind, ice and snow – to look again at our most widely accessed experience of the natural world, exploring where our weather comes from, the ways it is changing, and how we can embrace it as a positive presence in our lives. It's time to throw open the doors, window and soul to the inspiring wildness of weather. 'Gorgeously immersive and exposing. Matt Gaw's writing is lucid and illuminating, but with a subtle sensuality and creatureliness that means we almost walk in his skin. A journey of reconnection when we have never needed it more.' Amy-Jane Beer, author of The Flow 'In All Weathers is a beautiful book, a shimmer of unexpected ways of seeing and experiencing the world, shining with detailed insight and attentive understanding. Wild, oppressive and inclement weathers have found a wonderfully gentle champion in Matt Gaw – these are explorations to delight every walker and refresh any reader.' Horatio Clare, author of Heavy Light 'Elegant, learned and thoughtful, this book vindicates our obsession with the weather.' Katherine May, author of Enchantment 'Matt's vivid, personal journey through weather will inspire you to welcome and embrace even the dullest, dampest, shiver-inducing-est of conditions. Uplifting and full of wonder.' Lev Parikian, author of Taking Flight 'A brilliant, bracing, elucidating book. Wonderfully researched and written.' Stephen Rutt, author of The Eternal Season

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BRITISH BOOK DESIGN & PRODUCTION AWARDS* THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER and IRISH INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A masterpiece' Max Porter 'A forest of writing to be cherished' Irish Times 'One of the most inspired items of environmental literature in recent years.' Irish Independent If trees have memories, respond to stress, and communicate, what can they tell us? And will we listen? A stunning international collaboration that reveals how trees make our world, change our minds and rewild our lives – from root to branch to seed. In this beautifully illustrated collection, artist Katie Holten gifts readers her visual Tree Alphabet and uses it to masterfully translate and illuminate pieces from some of the world's most exciting writers and artists, activists and ecologists. Holten guides us on a journey from prehistoric cave paintings and creation myths to the death of a 3,500 year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry. In doing so, she unearths a new way of seeing the natural beauty that surrounds us and creates an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away. Printed in deep green ink, The Language of Trees is a celebratory homage filled with prose, poetry and art from over fifty collaborators, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Macfarlane, Zadie Smith, Radiohead, Elizabeth Kolbert, Amitav Ghosh, Richard Powers, Suzanne Simard, Gaia Vince, Tacita Dean, Plato and Robin Wall Kimmerer. 'Immersive, celebratory… all beautifully illustrated.' Observer 'A visual reminder that, like strong oaks from little acorns, we still can create the world in which we wish to live.' Kerri ní Dochartaigh 'A thoughtful and incisive view of Nature across the globe.' The Countryman

Every animal on the planet owes its existence to one crucial piece of evolutionary engineering: the egg. It's time to tell a new story of life on Earth. 'Jules Howard's egg's-eye view of evolution is dripping with fascinating insights' ALICE ROBERTS If you think of an egg, what do you see in your mind's eye? A chicken egg, hard-boiled? A slimy mass of frogspawn? Perhaps you see a human egg cell, prepared on a microscope slide in a laboratory? Or the majestic marble-blue eggs of the blackbird? Every egg there has ever been, is an emblem of survival. Yet the evolution of the animal egg is the dramatic subplot missing in many accounts of how life on Earth came to be. Quite simply, without this universal biological phenomenon, animals as we know them, including us, could not have evolved and flourished. In Infinite Life, zoology correspondent Jules Howard takes the reader on a mind-bending journey from the churning coastlines of the Cambrian Period and Carboniferous coal forests, where insects were stirring, to the end of the age of dinosaurs when live-birthing mammals began their modern rise to power. Eggs would evolve from out of the sea; be set by animals into soils, sands, canyons and mudflats; be dropped in nests wrapped in silk; hung in stick nests in trees, covered in crystallised shells or secured by placentas. Whether belonging to birds, insects, mammals or millipedes, animal eggs are objects that have been shaped by their ecology, forged by mass extinctions and honed by natural selection to near-perfection. Finally, the epic story of their role in the tapestry of life can be told.

Join psychotherapist Dr Elaine Kasket as she takes us on a journey to rethink technology – and tune into what really matters. * Do your screentime reports make you wonder what you're missing out on in 'real' life? * Have you ever phubbed your partner on a date night? * Will your kids forgive your sharenting when they are old enough to understand digital consent? * Do you want to live a more balanced, present life? In a digital world full of distraction and noise, it can be so easy to lose sight of the relationships and people that really matter. Yet as this transformative book shows, it is entirely possible at every stage of our lives to make positive choices about who we connect with and how we share our world with the people we know, love and trust. Armed with Elaine's insights, you won't just think differently about technology. You'll feel happier and more empowered along the way. 'A critical reminder that, at every stage of life, we get to choose our relationship with technology.' Luke Burgis, author of Wanting 'Digital technologies aren't just transforming every area of life. They're transforming us… This book couldn't be more timely.' Catherine Mayer, author of Good Grief 'As a recent parent, this book really made me reevaluate the way I use technology around my family… One of the most thought-provoking books I've read this year.' Carl Öhman, author of The Afterlife of Data

'an absolute belter' IAN RANKIN 'The British Jack Reacher'The Sunday Times 'Packed with deception and espionage … Kent has become the British Baldacci, and there can be no higher praise.'Daily Mail Don't miss Book 5 from criminal barrister and crime author Tony Kent: THE SHADOW NETWORK How do you take down an enemy when no one believes they exist? When the lawyers of alleged war criminal Hannibal Strauss are caught up in a terror attack in The Hague, barrister Michael Devlin immediately suspects all is not what it seems. Teaming up once more with Agent Joe Dempsey, they must find who's behind it all before any more innocent lives are lost. With their key witness on the run and assassins on their tail, their only lead is a codename: the Monk, a legendary and mysterious foreign agent with a fearsome reputation. But what is his stake in this dangerous game? And just who is part of his shadowy network of spies? Caught in a complicated web of lies, secrets and double agents, there's no one Dempsey and Devlin can trust but themselves. PRAISE FOR THE SHADOW NETWORK 'What a ride! The very definition of a fast-paced thriller … Tony Kent's best yet.' IMRAN MAHMOOD, AUTHOR OF ALL I SAID WAS TRUE 'I couldn't put it down!' STEPH BROADRIBB, AUTHOR OF DEATH ON THE BEACH 'A blistering, bruising and utterly addictive thriller that never misses.' NEIL BROADFOOT, AUTHOR OF UNMARKED GRAVES 'Unrelenting tension, nerve-shredding action, and lightening pace. Joe Dempsey is this decade's Jack Bauer.' NEIL LANCASTER, AUTHOR OF BLOOD RUNS COLD

'The deliciously simple conceit ― pop facts from every day of the year ― lets Lewis roam wide and free, to fascinating effect.' Daily Mail, 2023's best history booksWith entries for every day of the year, ranging from mini-essays to pithy and engaging sentences, Don't Stop the Music is a novel musical companion – a way of charting your year through the major events and tiny incidents in the lives and careers of pop stars and recording artists, spanning 130 years of unmissable musical milestones from 1894 to the present day.Whether it be when pop became newsworthy; when future stars attended notable gigs; when that K-Pop act issued their first single; or when Elvis Presley found himself on TV singing 'Hound Dog' to a basset hound, there are surprising and enlightening events from the history of popular music for every single day of the year. And esteemed music writer Justin Lewis has compiled them all for you, informatively and divertingly.***'A wonderful ride through our pop universe amongst thousands of bright stars, gnarled debris and twinkling nuggets of music and events made distant over time. Lewis has made all of it up-close and vivid through this indispensable companion for anyone who loves music and popular culture. Whatever the age of the reader, it's brimming with new discoveries and triggering classics: memories and signposts make this an intoxicating music journey!' Peter Curran'This is an astonishing book, a calendar of pop, an almanac of songs, a day by day in the life of music. A book of events that's an event in itself.' David Quantick'An absolute must for all music fans, Lewis' addictive volume is packed to the gills with facts, trivia, notable events and pure pop nuggets.' Waterstones'A brilliant musical almanac, compiled by an engaging writer whose musical knowledge is not just detailed but wide-ranging and generous.' Jonathan Coe

The captivating story of WWII Airman Frank Murphy, who features in new TV miniseries Masters of the Air. THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "In the pursuit of authenticity, of accurate history and undeniable courage, no words matter more than, 'I was there.' Read Luck of the Draw and the life of Frank Murphy and ponder this: how did those boys do such things?" Tom Hanks The epic true story of an American hero who flew during WWII, featured in the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks TV Series, Masters of the Air. Beginning on August 17, 1942, American heavy bomber crews of the Eighth Air Force took off for combat in the hostile skies over occupied Europe. The final price was staggering. 4,300 B-17s and B-24s failed to return; nearly 28,000 men were taken prisoner or interned in a neutral country, and a further 26,000 made the ultimate sacrifice. Luck of the Draw is more than a war story. It's the incredible, inspiring story of Frank Murphy, one of the few survivors from the 100th Bombardment Group, who cheated death for months in a German POW camp after being shot out of his B-17 Flying Fortress. Now with a new foreword written by his granddaughter Chloe Melas, of NBC, and daughter Elizabeth Murphy.

'A fascinating if stark warning about human hubris in ignoring our place in nature'New Scientist Travel through drowned forests, vanished villages and sinking cities: the lost lands of our past, present – and future. 'A rich, haunting account of lost lands and vanished futures.' Professor David Farrier, author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils From Stone Age lands that slipped beneath the English Channel to the rapid inundation of New Orleans, Gareth E. Rees explores stories of flooded places from the past – and those disappearing before our eyes. The places lost to the eternally shifting boundaries between water and land continue to have a powerful emotional resonance today. Their uncertain features emerge to haunt us, briefly, when the moon draws back the tide to reveal a spire or a tree stump. And, imbued with myths and warnings from the past, these underwater worlds can also teach us important lessons about the unavoidability of change, the ebb and flow of Earth's natural cycles, and the folly of trying to control them. Sunken Lands peels back the layers of silt, sea and mythology to reveal what our submerged past can tell us about our imminent future as rising sea levels transform our planet once more. Praise for Sunken Lands 'An evocative and essential guide to disappeared places and difficult futures.' Will Wiles, author of Plume 'A beguiling exploration of lost worlds beneath the sea' Merlin Coverley, author of The Art of Wandering 'A reassuring perspective on the Anthropocene: the ebb and flow of civilisations, the inevitability of change and our capacity for renewal. Thoughtful and necessary writing.' Sonia Overall, author of Heavy Time

From the founder of Simple Politics comes a guide to rediscovering the heart of our democracy, reshaping our political system and making the UK a better place for all.Strikes across the country. A prime minister resigning after just forty-four days. Accusations of bullying in the House of Commons. Our politics and our democracy appear to be fundamentally broken.But that doesn't mean that all hope is lost. Things can get better. There are solutions out there to the complex web of failure in which we're currently entangled.Politics, But Better will look at the very fabric of our system and what improvements can be made. Exploring twenty-six issues in UK politics, from A to Z – including censorship, elections, insults and U-turns – it clearly lays out the problems and challenges we face, and puts forward possible solutions. Looking at a variety of ideas and real-world examples, it will encourage us to rethink the fundamental ways we do things, to question the status quo, and to chart a path towards a more hopeful future.Respect and understanding are at the heart of this book, promoting open debate, tolerance and compassion as the cornerstones of a reformed political landscape. Politics is about improving the world – and we can do better.

'Urgent, compulsively readable and powerfully resonant' Sinclair McKay You know Oppenheimer, the man who created the atomic bomb… Now meet the men who detonated it, and the extraordinary weight of their decisions…Road to Surrender by New York Times bestselling author Evan Thomas is a riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan – a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history. At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war "at once." Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet? So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America's decision to drop the atomic bomb―and Japan's decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atom bomb; Gen. Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito's Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender. Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as the U.S. nuclear program progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson's recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender. To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender, an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history. 'This dramatic, you-are-there masterpiece provides a convincing explanation of one of the great moral questions of 20th century history: was America right to drop the atom bomb on Japan at the end of World War II? … This is an indispensable book for those who want to understand the moral issues surrounding the use of great power.' Walter Isaacson 'In this meticulously crafted and vivid account, Evan Thomas tells the gripping and terrifying story of the last days of the Second World War in the Pacific. Writing with insight and understanding, he recreates for us those critical moments when, for better or worse, the decisions, from the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the Japanese surrender, were made.' Margaret MacMillan

___ 'From the author of our former Non-Fiction Book of the Month Fifty Words for Snow comes a luminous collection of fascinating seasonal tales that explore everything from Tove Jansson's childhood to polar bird myths.' Waterstones A treasure trove of nature tales from storytellers across the globe, bringing a little magic and wonder to every winter night. As the evenings draw in – a time of reckoning, rest and restoration – immerse yourself in this new seasonal anthology. Nature Tales for Winter Nights puts winter – rural, wild and urban – under the microscope and reveals its wonder. From the late days of autumn, through deepest cold, and towards the bright hope of spring, here is a collection of familiar names and dazzling new discoveries. Join the naturalist Linnæus travelling on horseback in Lapland, witness frost fairs on the Thames and witch-hazel harvesting in Connecticut, experience Alpine adventure, polar bird myths and courtship in the snow in classical Japan and ancient Rome. Observations from Beth Chatto's garden and Tove Jansson's childhood join company with artists' private letters, lines from Anne Frank's diary and fireside stories told by indigenous voices. A hibernation companion, this book will transport you across time and country this winter. ___ Praise for Fifty Words for Snow, a Waterstones Book of the Month: 'Absolutely exquisite. This little book is a work of art.' Horatio Clare, author of The Light in the Dark 'This stunning book made me want to pack all my woolies, candles, ample firewood and enough books for a year – and head to as northerly a location as I could find.' Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Caught by the River 'A delightful compendium' The Herald 'Winter has its own special magic, and this collection from around the world makes you want to pull on your boots and get out there.' Saga