'A hugely significant and wonderfully haunting collection' William Boyd In the 1920s and 1930s, Joseph Roth travelled extensively in Europe, living in hotels and writing about the towns through which he passed and the people he encountered. Collected in one volume, his experiences in Italy, Germany, Russia, Albania and Ukraine form a series of tender vignettes that capture life in the inter-war years. Evocative, curious and sharply observed, these literary postcards document a continent clinging to tradition while on the brink of further upheaval.

Haunting stories from the Soviet-Afghan War from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature - A new translation of Zinky Boys based on the revised text - From 1979 to 1989 Soviet troops engaged in a devastating war in Afghanistan that claimed thousands of casualties on both sides. While the Soviet Union talked about a 'peace-keeping' mission, the dead were shipped back in sealed zinc coffins. Boys in Zinc presents the honest testimonies of soldiers, doctors and nurses, mothers, wives and siblings who describe the lasting effects of war. Weaving together their stories, Svetlana Alexievich shows us the truth of the Soviet-Afghan conflict: the killing and the beauty of small everyday moments, the shame of returned veterans, the worries of all those left behind. When it was first published in the USSR in 1991, Boys in Zinc sparked huge controversy for its unflinching, harrowing insight into the realities of war.

How does a newsroom, made up of young journalists, change overnight into a war zone? How do you do your job as a correspondent when the conflict is literally on your doorstep? Reporting the facts as closely as possible is in itself a form of resistance, especially for this editorial staff, at least one of whose members has decided to abandon the pen and don the uniform. One was covering the business world in Ukraine, another was reporting on entertainment, a third was dealing with geopolitics, when suddenly the Russian army crossed the border. Staying is the choice they all made: to face the uncertainty of living and working in an active war zone head on. The power cuts, threat to life, concern for family members, trips to and from shelters while their city or town is subjected to lethal attacks - despite it all, they keep informing. In War Diary of the Ukrainian Resistance, written on the spot, day by day, the journalists of The Kyiv Independent share their work on the war that is ravaging their country. Combining articles published during the conflict with personal accounts, they give us an unprecedented inside look at the reality of the Russian invasion and its consequences on the lives of Ukrainians. Their names are Olga, Daryna, Illia, Jakub, Toma, Anna, Igor, Oleg, Natalia, Artur, Daria, Asami, Thaisa, Dylan, Sergiy, Alexander ... Their lives will never be the same again. Nor will ours.

The Road to Wigan Pier is a book in two parts: the first half is Orwell’s description of working-class life in industrial communities of the north of England, the second examines his own political views.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by journalist and author Amelia Gentleman.

The Road to Wigan Pier is an insightful and powerful account of lives lived in poverty and deprivation in a time of low wages and meagre government support. Orwell describes dismal housing (including the lodging house where he stays), harsh working conditions and the devastating effects of unemployment. And he also vividly describes the courage and dignity of the people he meets. In the second half of the book, Orwell examines his own political and social affiliations with an impressive ability to provoke and to question. He defends middle-class values whilst critiquing the failures of his own class, he advocates socialism whilst criticizing the socialist movement in England.

The first collection of food writing by Britain's funniest and most feared critic A.A. Gill knows food, and loves food. A meal is never just a meal. It has a past, a history, connotations. It is a metaphor for life. A.A. Gill delights in decoding what lies behind the food on our plates: famously, his reviews are as much ruminations on society at large as they are about the restaurants themselves. So alongside the concepts, customers and cuisines, ten years of writing about restaurants has yielded insights on everything from yaks to cowboys, picnics to politics. TABLE TALK is an idiosyncratic selection of A.A. Gill's writing about food, taken from his Sunday Times and Tatler columns. Sometimes inspired by the traditions of a whole country, sometimes by a single ingredient, it is a celebration of what great eating can be, an excoriation of those who get it wrong, and an education about our own appetites. Because it spans a decade, the book focuses on A.A. Gill's general dining experiences rather than individual restaurants - food fads, tipping, chefs, ingredients, eating in town and country and abroad, and the best and worst dining experiences. Fizzing with wit, it is a treat for gourmands, gourmets and anyone who relishes good writing.

A TLS and a Prospect Book of the Year A revelatory, explosive new analysis of the military today. Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century the British Army fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable financial and human cost. Yet neither war achieved its objectives. Award-winning journalist Simon Akam questions why, and provides challenging but necessary answers. Composed from assiduous documentary research, field reportage, and hundreds of interviews, this book is a strikingly rich, nuanced portrait of one of our pivotal national institutions in a time of great stress. This is as much a book about Britain, and about the politics of failure, as it is about the military.

________________ 'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman 'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry ________________ The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, 'the power of culture over the culture of power'. Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations. Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Mieville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice Walker With messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee ________________ 'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness ... The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that - and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

This carefully curated collection of the writings and speeches of W. McNeil (Mac) Lowry will provide significant information about and insight into a remarkable period in the second half of the twentieth century, when the foundations of the arts as they now exist in the United States were creatively and firmly laid, primarily through Lowry's penetrating intellectual perspective and his strategic organizational acumen as Director of The Ford Foundation's unique Program in Humanities and the Arts. And many of the fundamental issues he raised and analyzed-why the arts should be valued and how they are best supported and governed-are no less pressing today. The significance of the material is framed and underscored by a foreword by Darren Walker, President of The Ford Foundation; an enlightening essay on "W. McNeil Lowry, the Arts and American Society" by the eminent scholar, Stanley Katz; poetic and powerful tributes to Lowry by Lincoln Kirstein and Peter Zeisler; and a context-setting introduction by the editor. Given the substantive variety and depth of the chapters, the volume will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students, artists and administrators, both within and at the intersection of philanthropy, the arts, society, public policy and history.

In 2012, the joyful hopes of the democratic Egyptian Revolution were tempered by revelations of mass sexual assault in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the revolution's symbolic birthplace. This is the story of the women and men who formed Opantish - Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment - who deployed hundreds of volunteers, scouts rescue teams, and getaway drivers to intervene in the spiraling cases of sexual violence against women protesters in the square. Organized and led by women during 2012-2013 - the final, chaotic months of Egypt's revolution - teams of volunteers fought their way into circles of men to pull the woman at the center to safety. Often, they risked assault themselves. Journalist Yasmin El-Rifae was one of Opantish's organizers, and this is her evocative, aching account of their work, as they raced to develop new tactics, struggled with a revolution bleeding into counter-revolution, and dealt with the long aftermath of assault and devastation. Told in a daring, hybrid narrative style drawn from years of interviews and her own, intimate experience, it is a story of overlapping circles: the circles of male attackers activists had to break through, the ways sexual violence can be circled off as "irrelevant" to political struggle, and the endless repetitive loops of living with trauma. Introducing a powerful new voice, a writer whose searchingly beautiful, spare prose cuts to the core of a story ever more urgent and relevant: of women's resistance when all else has failed.

The son of one of the greatest writers of our time-Nobel Prize winner and internationally best-selling icon Gabriel Garcia Marquez-remembers his beloved father and mother in this tender memoir about love and loss. "I find myself remembering that my father used to say that everyone has three lives: the public, the private, and the secret." On a weekday morning in March 2014, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century, came down with a cold. In this intimate and honest account on grief and death, Rodrigo Garcia not only contemplates his father's mortality and remarkable humanity, but also his mother's tremendous charm and tenderness. Mercedes Barcha, Gabo's constant companion and creative muse, was one of the foremost influences on his life and art. A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes is a revelatory portrait of a family coping with loss and a rich depiction of a son's love.

Everything Must Change! brings together prominent commentators from around the world to present a rich and nuanced weighing of progressive possibilities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In these pages you'll encounter influential voices across the left, ranging from Roger Waters to Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek to Saskia Sassen. Gael Garcia Bernal, Brian Eno, and Larry Charles examine the pandemic's more cultural and artistic consequences, touching on topics of love, play, comedy, dreaming, and time. Their words sit alongside analyses of the paradoxes and possibilities of debt, internationalism, and solidarity by Astra Taylor, David Graeber, Vijay Prashad, and Stephanie Kelton. Burgeoning surveillance and control measures in the name of public health are a concern for many of the contributors here, including Shoshana Zuboff and Evgeny Morozov, as are the opportunities presented by the crisis for exploitation by financiers, technocrats, and the far right. Against a return to the normal and, indeed, the notion that there ever was such a thing, these conversations insist that urgent, systemic change is needed to tackle not only the pandemics arising from the human destruction of nature, but also the ceaseless debilitations of contemporary global capitalism. Contributors: Tariq Ali, David Adler, Gael Garcia Bernal, Larry Charles, Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno, Daniel Ellsberg, Kenneth Goldsmith, David Graeber, Johann Hari, Maja Kantar, Stephanie Kelton, Stefania Maurizi, Evgeny Morozov, Maja Pelevic, Vijay Prashad , Angela Richter, Saskia Sassen, Sasa Savanovic, Jeremy Scahill, Richard Sennett, John Shipton, Astra Taylor, Ece Temelkuran, Yanis Varoufakis, Roger Waters, Slavoj Zizek, and Shoshana Zuboff.

The Best American Magazine Writing 2022 presents a range of outstanding writing on timely topics, from in-depth reporting to incisive criticism: Kristin Canning calls for a change in how we talk about abortion (Women's Health), and Ed Yong warns us about the next pandemic (The Atlantic). Matthieu Aikins provides a gripping eyewitness account of the Taliban's seizure of Kabul (New York Times Magazine). Heidi Blake and Katie J. M. Baker's "Beyond Britney" examines how people placed under legal guardianship are deprived of their autonomy (BuzzFeed News). Rachel Aviv profiles a psychologist who studies the fallibility of memory-and has testified for defendants including Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby (The New Yorker). The anthology includes dispatches from the frontiers of science, exploring why Venus turned out so hellishly unlike Earth (Popular Science) and detailing the potential of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (Quanta). It features celebrated writers, including Harper's magazine pieces by Ann Patchett, whose "These Precious Days" is a powerful story of friendship during the pandemic, and Vivian Gornick, who offers "notes on humiliation." Carina del Valle Schorske depicts the power of public dance after pandemic isolation (New York Times Magazine). And the NBA icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lauds the Black athletes who fought for social justice (AARP the Magazine). Amid the continuing reckoning with racism, authors reconsider tarnished figures. The Black ornithologist and birder J. Drew Lanham assesses the legacy of John James Audubon in the magazine that bears his name, and Jeremy Atherton Lin questions his youthful enthusiasm for Morrissey (Yale Review). Jennifer Senior writes about memory and the lingering grief felt for a friend killed on 9/11 (The Atlantic). The collection concludes with Nishanth Injam's story of queer first love across religious boundaries, "Come with Me" (Georgia Review).

Sir Philip Gibbs was one of the most widely read English journalists of the first half of the twentieth century. This coverage of his writing offers a broad insight into British social and political developments, government and press relations, propaganda, and war reporting during the First World War.

Welcome to the favela, welcome to the rainforest, welcome to the real Brazil. This is the Brazil where a factory worker is loyal to his company for decades, only to find out that they knew the product he was making would eventually poison him. This is the Brazil where the mothers of the favela expect their sons to die as victims of the drug trade while still in their teens. This is the Brazil where the women initiated into the old Amazonian tradition of 'baby-pulling' deliver babies in their own time, far away from the drugs and scalpels of the modern hospital. In the company of award-winning journalist Eliane Brum, we meet the individuals struggling to stay afloat in a society riven by inequality and violence, and witness the resilience of spirit and commitment to life that makes Brazil one of the most complicated, most exhilarating places on earth.

New Zealand has a long and rich tradition of journalism that holds power to account, and that goes beyond allegation and denial to reveal hidden truths. That journalism also bears witness and investigates ideas, exposes systemic problems and insists on government action, and goes beyond allegation and denial to get to the truth of issues. This compelling anthology of pieces, dating from the war in the Waikato to recent investigations, features the work of some of this country's finest investigative journalists, from Robyn Hyde and Pat Booth to Sandra Coney and Phillida Bunkle, Mike White, Jon Stephenson, Nicky Hager and Phil Kitchin.

The son of one of the greatest writers of our time-Nobel Prize winner and internationally best-selling icon Gabriel Garcia Marquez-remembers his beloved father and mother in this tender memoir about love and loss. 'It enthralled and moved me.' Salman Rushdie In March 2014, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century, came down with a cold. The woman who had been beside him for more than fifty years, his wife Mercedes Barcha, was not hopeful; her husband, affectionately known as "Gabo," was then nearly 87 and battling dementia. I don't think we'll get out of this one, she told their son Rodrigo. Hearing his mother's words, Rodrigo wondered, "Is this how the end begins?" To make sense of events as they unfolded, he began to write the story of Garcia Marquez's final days. The result is this intimate and honest account that not only contemplates his father's mortality but reveals his remarkable humanity. Both an illuminating memoir and a heartbreaking work of reportage, A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes transforms this towering genius from literary creator to protagonist, and paints a rich and revelatory portrait of a family coping with loss. At its centre is a man at his most vulnerable, whose wry humour shines even as his lucidity wanes. Gabo savours affection and attention from those in his orbit, but wrestles with what he will lose-and what is already lost. Throughout his final journey is the charismatic Mercedes, his constant companion and the creative muse who was one of the foremost influences on Gabo's life and his art. Bittersweet and insightful, surprising and powerful, A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes celebrates the formidable legacy of Rodrigo's parents, offering an unprecedented look at the private family life of a literary giant. It is at once a gift to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's readers worldwide, and a grand tribute from a writer who knew him well.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE WEEK BY THE NEW YORK POST ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIOBOOK A from-the-trenches view of New York Daily News and New York Post runners and photographers as they stop at nothing to break the story and squash their tabloid arch-rivals. When author Mike Jaccarino was offered a job at the Daily News in 2006, he was asked a single question: "Kid, what are you going to do to help us beat the Post?" That was the year things went sideways at the News, when the New York Post surpassed its nemesis in circulation for the first time in the history of both papers. Tasked with one job-crush the Post-Jaccarino here provides the behind-the-scenes story of how the runners and shooters on both sides would do anything and everything to get the scoop before their opponents. The New York Daily News and the New York Post have long been the Hatfields and McCoys of American media: two warring tabloids in a town big enough for only one of them. As digital news rendered print journalism obsolete, the fight to survive in NYC became an epic, Darwinian battle. In America's Last Great Newspaper War, Jaccarino exposes the untold story of this tabloid death match of such ferocity and obsession its like has not occurred since Pulitzer- Hearst. Told through the eyes of hungry "runners" (field reporters) and "shooters" (photographers) who would employ phony police lights to overcome traffic, Mike Jaccarino's memoir unmasks the do-whatever-it-takes era of reporting-where the ends justified the means and nothing was off-limits. His no-holds-barred account describes sneaking into hospitals, months-long stakeouts, infiltrating John Gotti's crypt, bidding wars for scoops, high-speed car chases with Hillary Clinton, O.J. Simpson, and the baby mama of a philandering congressman-all to get that coveted front-page story. Today, few runners and shooters remain on the street. Their age and exploits are as bygone as the News-Post war and American newspapers, generally. Where armies once battled, often no one is covering the story at all. Funding for this book was provided by: Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund

Open your eyes to a new world view with 100 women and nonbinary photojournalists' stories from behind the lens. 85% of photojournalists are men. That means almost everything that is reported in the world is seen through men's eyes. Similarly, spaces and communities men don't have access to are left undocumented and forgotten. With the camera limited to the hands of one gender, photographic 'truth' is more subjective than it seems. To answer this serious ethical problem, Women Photograph flips that bias on its head to show what and how women and nonbinary photojournalists see. From documenting major events such as 9/11 to capturing unseen and misrepresented communities, this book presents a revisionist contemporary history: pore over 50 years of women's dispatches in 100 photographs. Each image is accompanied by 200 words from the photographer about the experience and the subject, offering fresh insights and a much-needed perspective. Until we have balanced, representative reporting, the camera cannot offer a mirror to our global society. To get the full picture, we need a diverse range of people behind the lens. This book offers a first step. Relearn how to see with this evergreen catalogue that elevates the voices of women and nonbinary visual storytellers.

David Mitchell’s 2014 bestseller Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse must really have made people think – because everything’s got worse. We’ve gone from UKIP surge to Brexit shambles, from horsemeat in lasagne to Donald Trump in the White House, from Woolworths going under to all the other shops going under. It’s probably socially irresponsible even to try to cheer up.

But if you’re determined to give it a go, you might enjoy this eclectic collection (or eclection) of David Mitchell’s attempts to make light of all that darkness. Scampi, politics, the Olympics, terrorism, exercise, rude street names, inheritance tax, salad cream, proportional representation and farts are all touched upon by Mitchell’s unremitting laser of chit-chat, as he negotiates a path between the commercialisation of Christmas and the true spirit of Halloween. Read this book and slightly change your life!

Elizabeth Gaskell is best known as a novelist and biographer, but she was also a lively and sensitive letter writer, with a vivacious interest in all that was going on around her. This selection from her letters, with a linking commentary, provides a biography of Gaskell largely in her own words. It is in chronological order, with special chapters devoted to her family life, her travels, her charities and her life as an author who was also a wife and mother, in a period when Victorian society and culture were undergoing major changes - especially apparent in the Manchester where she lived. She emerges as a woman of intelligence, integrity and grace, with an enchanting sense of humour, an insatiable curiosity about life, a deep regard for truth and a boundless sympathy for others. This selection by John Chapple, and assisted by John Geoffrey Sharps, was originally published in 1980. With the support of the Gaskell Society it has been reprinted without alteration, except for some new illustrations.

From the earliest FA Cup finals in the 1870s played between teams of former public schoolboys, to twenty-first-century Champions League matches contested by teams of billionaires - with stops along the way for Leicester City's extraordinary Premier League triumph, the Hand of God, and the 1966 World Cup - this is football history as it happened, straight from the pages of The Times. 'The players came off arm in arm. They knew they had finally fashioned something of which to be proud.'