Politics Entertainment

Best-selling, award-winning writer Simon Garfield returns with an enthralling investigation of humans’ peculiar fascination with small things - and what small things tell us about our larger world.

Perhaps all of Jonathan Ames' problems, and the genesis of this hilarious audiobook, can be traced back to the late onset of his puberty. After all, it can't be easy to be 16 with a hairless penis "undistinguishable from that of a five-year-old's".

Many have tried to silence her, but Mozhdah Jamalzadah remains the most powerful female voice of her generation in Afghanistan, boldly speaking out about women’s rights. Voice of Rebellion charts her incredible journey, including arriving in Canada as a child refugee, setting her father’s protest poem to music (and making it a number one hit), performing that song for Michelle and Barack Obama, and, finally, being invited to host her own show in Afghanistan.

The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions today, as it has throughout much of American history. But what gets lost in the debates about policy are the stories of immigrants themselves, the people who are drawn to America by its promise of economic opportunity and political and religious freedom - and who strengthen our nation in countless ways. Out of Many, One brings together 43 full-color portraits of men and women who have immigrated to the United States, alongside stirring stories of the unique ways all of them are pursuing the American dream.

Nev Schulman is the host of the wildly popular TV series Catfish which investigates online relationships to determine whether they are based on truth or fiction (spoiler: it's almost always fiction).

Listen to This stands out as the first book exclusively dedicated to Davis' watershed 1969 album, Bitches Brew. Victor Svorinich traces its incarnations and inspirations for 10-plus years before its release. The album arrived as the jazz scene waned beneath the rise of rock and roll and as Davis faced large changes in social conditions affecting the African-American consciousness.

Photographer and Grateful Dead insider Rosie McGee narrates her memoir, telling dozens of previously-untold stories of living, traveling and working with the Dead during their first decade as a band. Not just for Deadheads or baby boomers - this audiobook is for anyone seeking a woman's intimate account of the San Francisco rock music community in the Sixties, rare in a field of such books most often written by men.

The year 2000. As Britain celebrates the new millennium, something fluorescent and futuristic is stirring in the crumbling council estates of inner city London. Making beats on stolen software, spitting lyrics on tower block rooftops and beaming out signals from pirate radio aerials, a group of teenagers raised on UK garage, American hip-hop and Jamaican reggae stumble upon a dazzling new genre. Against all odds, these young MCs will grow up to become some of the UK’s most famous musicians, scoring number one records and dominating British pop culture for years to come.

Available once again, the definitive biography of the pioneering Black performer - the first nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award - who broke new ground in Hollywood and helped transform American society in the years before Civil Rights movement - a remarkable woman of her time who also transcended it.

Milan Kundera's brilliant new collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. With the same dazzling mix of emotion and ideas that characterizes his bestselling novels, the internationally acclaimed author revisits the artists whose works help us better understand what it means to be human. Elegant, startlingly original, and provocative, Encounter combines many of the author's signature themes with personal reflections and stories.

At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the Western world, his armies were seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. He had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised. A special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.

Inspired by the Academy Award-nominated Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, an intimate and vivid look at the legendary life of Nina Simone, the classically trained pianist who evolved into a chart-topping chanteuse and committed civil rights activist.

I used to love the rattle and whoosh of my grandma's buttons as they scattered from their Quality Street tin. An inlaid wooden chest the size of a shoe box holds Lynn Knight's button collection. A collection that has been passed down through three generations of women: a chunky '60s-era toggle from a favourite coat, three tiny pearl buttons from her mother's first dress after she was adopted as a baby, a jet button from a time of Victorian mourning. Each button tells a story.

With threats multiplying by the hour, Haley and the other analysts of the Central Analysis Group work frantically to uncover hidden plots, dangerous traps, and the masterminds behind it all. While in the field, disaster strikes… and there’s no way out. The team must use all their skills to get to the bottom of the threats before America is thrust into a war with an enemy who will never surrender.

What would happen to international politics if the dead rose from the grave and started to eat the living? Daniel Drezner's groundbreaking book answers the question that other international relations scholars have been too scared to ask. Addressing timely issues with analytical bite, Drezner looks at how well-known theories from international relations might be applied to a war with zombies.

Goldblum has become one of Hollywood’s most enduring actors, someone who only seems to grow more famous, more heralded, more beloved through the decades, even though he’s always followed his own, strange muse. The guy primarily plays jazz music these days, but is more famous than ever. Actor, pianist, husband, father, style icon, meme. Goldblum contains multitudes, but why? What does he mean?

In this book, Michael Smith and Rahul Telang, experts on entertainment analytics, show how the success of House of Cards upended the film and TV industries - and how companies like Amazon and Apple are changing the rules in other entertainment industries, notably publishing and music. We're living through a period of unprecedented technological disruption in the entertainment industries.

When Stuever's narrative begins, he's standing in line with the people waiting to purchase flat-screen TVs at Best Buy on Black Friday, the opening of the Christmas shopping season. From there he follows a number of key residents of Frisco, Texas, as they navigate through the nativity and all its attendant crises.

We may not often think of our clothes as having a function beyond covering our naked bodies and keeping us a little safer from the elements. But to discount the enormous influence of clothing on anything from economic cycles to the future of water scarcity is to ignore the greater meaning of the garments we put on our backs. Disrobed vividly considers the role that clothing plays in everything from natural disasters to climate change to terrorism to geopolitics to agribusiness.

Tan pronto entré al cuarto para mi primera entrevista con los productores de Dancing with the Stars, uno de ellos dijo, “¿Por qué no estás bailando?” Miré a mi alrededor. No había música. “Perdón, ¿Entré cuando no debía?” No tenía la más remota idea de qué estaban hablando. Todos se rieron, y me explicaron, “Tú eres Latino, así que creíamos que ibas a entrar bailando!” Esta experiencia fue la que me puso a pensar acerca de los estereotipos Latinos, y luego nició el camino para escribir este libro.