New Science

A retired group of legendary mercenaries get the band back together for one last impossible mission in this award-winning debut epic fantasy. Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best, the most feared and renowned crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld. Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk, or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help - the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for. It's time to get the band back together.

Today’s college-bound kids are stressed, anxious, and navigating demands in their lives unimaginable to a previous generation. They’re performance machines, hitting the benchmarks they’re “supposed” to in order to reach the next tier of a relentless ladder. Then, their mental and physical exhaustion carries over right into first jobs. What have traditionally been considered the best years of life have become the beaten-down years of life.

Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.

What does it take to raise a great dog? This was the question that husband-and-wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods hoped to answer when they enrolled one hundred and one puppies in the Duke Puppy Kindergarten. With the help of a retired service dog named Congo, Brian, Vanessa, and their team set out to understand the secrets of the puppy mind: What factors might predict whether a puppy will grow up to change someone’s life?

We've been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago - amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago - many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere.

This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early 16th to the early 21st century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice: first as a river people who dominated the Missouri Valley, America's great commercial artery, and then - in what was America's first sweeping westward expansion - as a horse people who ruled supreme on the vast high plains.

Leading a cultural revolution driven by identity politics and so-called 'social justice', the new puritanism movement is best understood as a religion - one that makes grand claims to moral purity and tolerates no dissent. In The New Puritans, Andrew Doyle powerfully examines the underlying belief-systems of this ideology and how it has risen so rapidly to dominate all major political, cultural and corporate institutions. He reasons that, to move forward, we need to understand where these New Puritans came from and what they hope to achieve.

As shadows of the past continue to plague the forest, Brambleclaw is haunted by a dark figure on a dangerous quest for revenge and must struggle to remain true to his Clan. A sinister path is unfolding, and the time is coming for certain warriors to make the choices that will determine their destinies...and the destiny of all the Clans.

An essential exploration of why and how women's sexuality works - based on groundbreaking research and brain science - that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy. Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a "pink pill" for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never exist - but as a result of the research that's gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women's sexuality works than we ever thought possible.

When Jafar steals the genie's lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become sultan and the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Agrabah lives in fear, waiting for his third and final wish. To stop the power-mad ruler, Aladdin and the deposed Princess Jasmine must unite the people of Agrabah in rebellion. But soon their fight for freedom threatens to tear the kingdom apart in a costly civil war. What happens next? A "street rat" becomes a leader. A princess becomes a revolutionary. And listeners will never look at the story of Aladdin in the same way again.

To save her mother's life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters - never mind that entering the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown in prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a vampire who can withstand sunlight.

The previous edition of this now-classic book revealed the existence and subversive manipulations of "economic hit men". John Perkins wrote that economic hit men (EHM) "are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder".

Insurmountable odds, hidden powers maneuvering behind the scenes, all culminating in a final, titanic clash. The mighty city of Everance lay in the GreenPiece clan’s path, but as Oren soon discovers he’s got even bigger obstacles to overcome before reaching his final goal.

From early childhood, we learn about the world and its possibilities through myths and fairy tales. The heroines, though, tend to be young princesses or fair maidens, and the evildoers older women: wicked witches or unforgiving matriarchs. Yet a wealth of lesser-known European stories feature mature wise women with personality and power. Compiling many years of research, Sharon Blackie has reclaimed these tales, presenting them in evocative prose that will resonate with women of all ages.

The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?

The Summer of Chaos has ended. Ansalon's nightmare has only just begun. The gods have departed the world, heralding a new Age of Mortals. But before the dust of war can settle, vast shadows cover the land. Dragons have come to Ansalon, larger and more powerful than any ever seen, and they will wreak havoc on nations still trembling from war. As the lands themselves begin to change under the dire magic of the new dragon overlords, new heroes arise to lead the fight for freedom.

The war is tearing our world apart. Instead of big armies with tanks in the field, the Vampire War is fought in the streets, neighbor against neighbor, family against family. Anyone can turn at any time. The blood hunger can suddenly appear in the middle of a kiss. The person who sleeps next to you every night could wake up in the dead of night... hungry. So hungry.

Fifty thousand years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonesis and the Denisovans. At the forefront of the latter's ground-breaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham. In The World Before Us, he explains the scientific and technological advancements.

For a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights brought peace and order to the Galactic Republic, aided by their connection to the mystical energy field known as the Force. But they were betrayed - and the entire galaxy has paid the price. It is the Age of the Empire. Now Emperor Palpatine, once Chancellor of the Republic and secretly a Sith follower of the dark side of the Force, has brought his own peace and order to the galaxy. Peace through brutal repression, and order through increasing control of his subjects’ lives.

In the age of Brexit and Trump, the West is buffeted by the tides of isolationism and fragmentation. Yet to the East, this is a moment of optimism as a new network of relationships takes shape along the ancient trade routes. In The New Silk Roads, Peter Frankopan takes us on an eye-opening journey through the region, from China's breathtaking infrastructure investments to the flood of trade deals among Central Asian republics to the growing rapprochement between Turkey and Russia.