The Letters of Richard Cobden (1804-1865) provides, in four printed volumes, the first critical edition of Cobden's letters, publishing the complete text in as near the original form as possible. The letters are accompanied by full scholarly apparatus, together with an introduction to each volume which re-assesses Cobden's importance in their light. Together, these volumes make available a unique source of the understanding of British liberalism in its European and international contexts, throwing new light on issues such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, British radical movements, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, Anglo-French relations, and the American Civil War. The fourth and final volume, drawing on some forty-six archives worldwide, is dominated by Cobden's search for a permanent political legacy at home and abroad, following the severe check to his health in the autumn of 1859. In January 1860, he succeeded in negotiating the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty, a landmark in Anglo-French relations designed to bind the two nations closer together, and to provide the basis for a Europe united by free trade. Yet the Treaty's benefits were threatened by a continuing naval arms race between Britain and France, fuelled by what Cobden saw as self-interested scare mongering in his tract The Three Panics (1862). By 1862 an even bigger danger was the possibility that British industry's need for cotton might precipitate intervention in the American Civil War. Much of Cobden's correspondence now centred on the necessity of non-intervention and a campaign for the reform of international maritime law, while he played a major part in attempts to alleviate the effects of the 'Cotton Famine' in Lancashire. In addition to Anglo-American relations, Cobden, the 'International Man', continued to monitor the exercise of British power around the globe. He was convinced that the 'gunboat' diplomacy of his prime antagonist, Lord Palmerston, was ultimately harmful to Britain, whose welfare demanded limited military expenditure and the dismantling of the British 'colonial system'. Known for a long time as the 'prophet in the wilderness', in 1864 Cobden welcomed Palmerston's inability to intervene in the Schleswig-Holstein crisis as a key turning-point in Britain's foreign policy, which, together with the imminent end of the American Civil War, opened up the prospect of a new reform movement at home. Disappointed with the growing apathy of the entrepreneurs he had once mobilised in the Anti-Corn Law League, Cobden now promoted the enfranchisement of the working classes as necessary and desirable in order to achieve the reform of the aristocratic state for which he had campaigned since the 1830s.

Patrick was a wayward child who could not speak until he was four and ran away from boarding school. A disappointment to his parents and the despair of his teachers, he lacked the normal abilities that young people acquire as they grow up. After being sacked from his job, Patrick decided to try his fortunes overseas. A timid traveller and always obedient to authority, how did he come to the attention of the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Los Angeles Police Departments South Africa's Bureau of State Security and Rhodesia's BSA Police? And why did he come to be in police custody in Tanganyika and the first white man deported by newly independent Kenya? Back in England, Patrick's CV was no conducive to gainful employment of the kind enjoyed by his peers: encyclopaedia salesman, nomadic field-hand, lavatory cleaner, bear-chaser, baggage-smasher, waitress (yes!), factory labourer, scullion. The BBC offered sanctuary as a clerk, with few prospects of advancement. After five years of entertaining if ill-paid work in an office full of colourful misfits, Patrick fell into the embrace of the Civil Service. A trainee again at the age of 30, could things improve? Things could, but not without a catalogue of mishaps on the way. Patrick's propensity for bright ideas tended towards disaster, including a national crisis when he set in train the events that culminated in Black Wednesday.

The groundbreaking, intimate and inspiring memoir from Pope Francis.

Pope Francis originally intended this exceptional book to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope have moved him to make this precious legacy available now.

HOPE is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope. Written over six years, this complete autobiography starts in the early years of the twentieth century, with Pope Francis’s Italian roots and his ancestors’ courageous migration to Latin America, continuing through his childhood, the enthusiasms and preoccupations of his youth, his vocation, adult life, and the whole of his papacy up to the present day.

In recounting his memories with intimate narrative force (not forgetting his own personal passions), Pope Francis deals unsparingly with some of the crucial moments of his papacy and writes candidly, fearlessly and prophetically about some of the most important and controversial questions of our present times: war and peace (including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East), migration, environmental crisis, social policy, the position of women, sexuality, technological developments, the future of the Church and of religion in general.

HOPE includes a wealth of revelations, anecdotes and illuminating thoughts. It is a thrilling and very human memoir, moving and sometimes funny, which represents the ‘story of a life’ and, at the same time, a touching moral and spiritual testament that will fascinate readers throughout the world and will be Pope Francis’s legacy of hope for future generations.

Born out of a viral “Shouts & Murmurs” piece in The New Yorker, this darkly humorous, charming, and brilliant graphic memoir, in the tradition of Allie Brosh and Roz Chast, brings the first few years of parenthood to life.

With the wit of a comedian and the observational skills of a sociologist surveying a new subculture, Becky Barnicoat writes about her first few years of parenthood with warmth, sharp insight, and uproarious humor in her debut graphic memoir Cry When the Baby Cries.

Barnicoat’s prose is always relatable, smart, and so funny while discussing everything from how ignoring women’s pain is baked into the practice of obstetrics to the impossibility of putting a child down drowsy but awake while you are permanently drowsy but awake, to the tyranny of gentle parenting, and more.

Barnicoat gives us permission to cry when the baby cries, and also laugh, snort, lie on the floor naked, drool, and revel in a deeply strange new world ruled by a tyrannical tiny leader, growing bigger and more cherished by the day.

Hier is dit nou! Riaan klim uit die TV-kas! Sy langverwagte outobiografie met die ware Riaan gaan elke mens laat regop sit.

Gou word die leser in hierdie kostelike, gemaklike en informatiewe biografie ingetrek, sodat jy later absoluut meegevoer word deur die welkome inligting. Dit voel eintlik asof jy vir ete by die Cruywagens genooi is en jy in 'n diep gemakstoel na daardie welluidende mooi stem sit en luister wat op 'n boertige en gesellige manier onthou. Hy bring al vir die afgelope 47 jaar vir ons die nuus in ons huis en lyk sowaar nog presies dieselfde. Vind uit hoekom hy die geloofwaardigste Suid-Afrikaner naas Nelson Mandela is. In hierdie boek wys ons jou wie Riaan werklik is. 'n Familieman wat ‘n passie het vir Afrikaans en wat mal is oor 'n goeie grap.

Hierdie boek gaan jou laat skater van die lag en jou hart laat warm klop na jy dit gelees het.

On 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixth-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body, wheelchair-bound in a rehab facility and endlessly frustrated by his newfound physical limitations. As he resisted the overbearing ministrations of the nurses helping him along the road to recovery, Raban began to reflect not only on the measure of his own life but the extraordinary story of his parents’ early marriage, conducted for three years by letter while his father fought in the Second World War.

Oliver Sacks, one of the great humanists of our age – who describes himself in these pages as a ‘philosophical physician’ and an ‘astronomer of the inward’ – wrote to an eclectic array of family and friends. Most were scientists, artists, and writers, even statesmen: Francis Crick, Antonio Damasio, Jane Goodall, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Stephen Jay Gould, Björk, and his first cousin, Abba Eban. But many of the most eloquent letters in this collection are addressed to the ordinary people who wrote to him with their odd symptoms and questions, to whom he responds with a sense of generosity and wonder.

With some correspondents, Sacks shares his struggle for recognition and acceptance both as a physician and as a gay man, providing intimate accounts as well of his passions for competitive weightlifting, motorcycles, botany, and music. With others, he chronicles his penchant for testing the boundaries of authority, the discovery of his writer’s voice, and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate his book Awakenings.

His descriptions of travels as a young man and the extraordinary people he encounters can be lyrical, ferocious, penetrating and hilarious. Many of his musings include the first detailed sketches of an essay forming in his mind, or miniature case histories rivalling those in his beloved essay collections.

Sensitively selected and introduced by Kate Edgar, Sacks’s longtime editor, the letters trace the arc of a remarkable life and reveal an often surprising portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of his own brain and mind.

Many writing instructors teach writing through autobiography. By considering the lives of others and then contemplating their own lives, aspiring writers discover a wellspring of material that can be used in their prose. While not explicitly for courses, this book follows a similar pedagogical line, focusing specifically on the philosophical and spiritual questions that every person faces in the course of meeting life's challenges. How the Light Gets In encourages readers to contemplate their lives through spiritual observation and exploratory writing. It guides readers through the process in 17 concise thematic chapters that include meditations on fear, freedom, silence, secrets, joy, prayer, tradition, forgiveness, service, social justice, aging, and death. Short poems by Schneider begin each chapter. Schneider's book is distinct from the many other books in the popular spirituality and creative writing genre by virtue of its approach, using one's lived experience, including the experience of writing, as a springboard for writing about beliefs and faith. As her many followers would attest, Schneider writes with particular clarity and immediacy about the writing process. Her belief that writing about one's life leads to greater consciousness, satisfaction, and wisdom energizes the book and carries the reader gracefully difficult topics.

Niels Bohr and the Quantum Atom is the first book that focuses in detail on the birth and development of Bohr's atomic theory and gives a comprehensive picture of it. At the same time it offers new insight into Bohr's peculiar way of thinking, what Einstein once called his 'unique instinct and tact'. Contrary to most other accounts of the Bohr atom, the book presents it in a broader perspective which includes the reception among other scientists and the criticism launched against it by scientists of a more conservative inclination. Moreover, it discusses the theory as Bohr originally conceived it, namely, as an ambitious theory covering the structure of atoms as well as molecules. By discussing the theory in its entirety it becomes possible to understand why it developed as it did and thereby to use it as an example of the dynamics of scientific theories.

Luthando Dyasop’s memoir starts with an account of his young life as a black artist in apartheid South Africa. He eventually joins uMkhonto we Sizwe, the banned ANC’s military wing.

Soon he falls out of favour with the powers that be and is sent to the Quatro detention centre. After years of torture, he is eventually released, when he begins his battle for vindication.

Out of Quatro is a story not only about Dyasop’s extraordinary life, but also about a tumultuous time in ANC history.

In Troep! vertel meer as ’n honderd oud-troepe wat hulle onthou van diensplig: om op skool opgeroep te word, te gaan oorlog maak en twee jaar later weer huis toe te kom. Tussenin lê stories van varkpanne, tiekiebokse, twee-komma-viers, boeliebief, die DB, ryloop, pakkies, bosbussies, naweekpas, ratpacks, stof, Buffels, landmyne en skrapnel – en ook herinneringe van vriende, seuns en broers wat nie teruggekom het nie.

Bun Booyens voeg al hierdie stemme saam tot die verhaal van die uitsonderlike dinge wat duisende gewone seuns beleef het. Hierdie stories sal ’n snaar by veterane roer, en hul naastes help om te verstaan watter dinge hierdie mense vandag steeds met hulle saamdra – dit wat hulle onthou, maar ook dit wat hulle nie kan vergeet nie.

Robert Dallek, a luminary in the field of political biography-author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Nixon and Kissinger and the New York Times bestselling biography of John F. Kennedy-offers here a look at the life of William Dodd, an American diplomat stationed in Nazi Germany. An insightful historical account, Democrat and Diplomat exposes the dark underbelly of 1930s Germany and explores the terrible burden of those who realized the horror that was to come. Dodd was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937, arriving in Berlin with his wife and daughter just as Hitler assumed the chancellorship. An unlikely candidate for the job-and not President Roosevelt's first choice-Dodd quickly came to realize that the situation in Germany was far grimmer than was understood in America. His early optimism was soon replaced by dire reports on the treatment of Jewish citizens and his pessimism about the future of Germany and Europe. Finding unwilling listeners back in the U.S., Dodd clashed repeatedly with the State Department, as well as the Nazi government, during his time as ambassador. He eventually resigned and returned to America, despairing and in ill-health. Dodd's story was brought into public prominence last year by Erik Larsen's New York Times bestseller The Garden of Beasts. Dallek's biography, first published in 1968 and now in paperback for the first time, tells the full story of the man and his doomed years in the darkness of pre-War Berlin.