In this selection from over twenty years of reporting and writing, Ian Jack sets out to deal with contemporary Britain - from national disasters to football matches to obesity - but is always drawn back in time, vexed by the question of what came first. In 'Women and Children First', watching the film Titanic leads into an investigation into the legend of Wallace Henry Hartley, the famous band leader of the doomed liner, while 'The 12.10 to Leeds', a magnificent report on the Hatfield rail crash, begins its hunt for clues in the eighteenth century in the search for those responsible. Further afield, he finds vestiges of a vanished Britain in the Indian subcontinent, meeting characters like maverick English missionary and linguist William Carey, credited with importing India's first steam engine. Full of the style, knowledge and intimacy that makes his work so special, this collection is the perfect introduction to the work of one of the country's finest writers.

In Citizens of Scandal, Vanessa Freije explores the causes and consequences of political scandals in Mexico from the 1960s through the 1980s. Tracing the process by which Mexico City reporters denounced official wrongdoing, she shows that by the 1980s political scandals were a common feature of the national media diet. News stories of state embezzlement, torture, police violence, and electoral fraud provided collective opportunities to voice dissent and offered an important, though unpredictable and inequitable, mechanism for political representation. The publicity of wrongdoing also disrupted top-down attempts by the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional to manage public discourse, exposing divisions within the party and forcing government officials to grapple with popular discontent. While critical reporters denounced corruption, they also withheld many secrets from public discussion, sometimes out of concern for their safety. Freije highlights the tensions-between free speech and censorship, representation and exclusion, and transparency and secrecy-that defined the Mexican public sphere in the late twentieth century.

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.

Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Alain Mabanckou left Congo in 1989, at the age of twenty-two, not to return until a quarter of a century later. When at last he comes home to Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on Congo's south-eastern coast, he finds a country that in some ways has changed beyond recognition: the cinema where, as a child, Mabanckou gorged on glamorous American culture has become a Pentecostal temple, and his secondary school has been re-named in honour of a previously despised colonial ruler. But many things remain unchanged, not least the swirling mythology of Congolese culture which still informs everyday life in Pointe-Noire. Mabanckou though, now a decorated French-Congolese writer and esteemed professor at UCLA, finds he can only look on as an outsider at the place where he grew up. As he delves into his childhood, into the life of his departed mother and into the strange mix of belonging and absence that informs his return to Congo, Mabanckou slowly builds a stirring exploration of the way home never leaves us, however long ago we left home.

In 2016, a young Afghan driver and translator named Omar makes the heart-wrenching choice to flee his war-torn country, saying goodbye to Laila, the love of his life, without knowing when they might be reunited again. He is one of millions of refugees who leave their homes that year. Matthieu Aikins, a journalist living in Kabul, decides to follow his friend. In order to do so, he must leave his own passport and identity behind to go underground on the refugee trail with Omar. Their odyssey across land and sea from Afghanistan to Europe brings them face to face with the people at heart of the migration crisis: smugglers, cops, activists, and the men, women and children fleeing war in search of a better life. As setbacks and dangers mount for the two friends, Matthieu is also drawn into the escape plans of Omar's entire family, including Maryam, the matriarch who has fought ferociously for her children's survival. Harrowing yet hopeful, this exceptional work brings into sharp focus one of the most contentious issues of our times. The Naked Don't Fear the Water is a tale of love and friendship across borders, and an inquiry into our shared journey in a divided world.

How do we shape a better world for LGBTQ+ people? Olly Alexander, Peppermint, Owen Jones, Beth Ditto, Shon Faye and more share their stories and visions for the future. 'A vital addition to your bookshelf' Stylist, 5 Books for Summer 'Captivating... A must-read' Gay Times, Books of the Year In We Can Do Better Than This, 35 voices - actors, musicians, writers, artists and activists - answer this vital question, at a time when the queer community continues to suffer discrimination and extreme violence. Through deeply moving stories and provocative new arguments on safety and visibility, dating and gender, care and community, they present a powerful manifesto for how - together - we can change lives everywhere. 'Powerful, inspiring...urgent' Attitude 'Read and be inspired' Peter Tatchell 'Illuminating' Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk 'Friendly and fierce' Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Gay Bar

The Joseph Roth revival has finally gone mainstream with the thunderous reception for "What I Saw," a book that has become a classic with five hardcover printings. Glowingly reviewed, "What I Saw" introduces a new generation to the genius of this tortured author with its "nonstop brilliance, irresistible charm and continuing relevance" (Jeffrey Eugenides, "New York Times Book Review"). As if anticipating Christopher Isherwood, the book re-creates the tragicomic world of 1920s Berlin as seen by its greatest journalistic eyewitness. In 1920, Joseph Roth, the most renowned German correspondent of his age, arrived in Berlin, the capital of the Weimar Republic. He produced a series of impressionistic and political essays that influenced an entire generation of writers, including Thomas Mann and the young Christopher Isherwood. Translated and collected here for the first time, these pieces record the violent social and political paroxysms that constantly threatened to undo the fragile democracy that was the Weimar Republic. Roth, like no other German writer of his time, ventured beyond Berlin's official veneer to the heart of the city, chronicling the lives of its forgotten inhabitants: the war cripples, the Jewish immigrants from the Pale, the criminals, the bathhouse denizens, and the nameless dead who filled the morgues. Warning early on of the dangers posed by the Nazis, Roth evoked a landscape of moral bankruptcy and debauched beauty a memorable portrait of a city and a time of commingled hope and chaos. "What I Saw," like no other existing work, records the violent social and political paroxysms that compromised and ultimately destroyed the precarious democracy that was the Weimar Republic."