Here’s another batch of David Muirhead’s unrespectable creatures, following his successful earlier volume of hilarious animal accounts (The Bedside Ark ). It offers a wealth of accurate information on each of the profiled creatures, while revealing their softer sides and the near-human frailties from which they suffer – and temptations for which they fall. Delightful, humorous pen-and-ink sketches accompany many of the stories.

Muirhead’s mix of humour, mythology, anecdotal tales and folklore builds quirky and captivating portraits of each animal, and makes for a lighthearted, funny – as well as illuminating – read.

This new anthology, offering something different from the standard collection of animal CVs, will appeal to anyone interested in humorous writing and the natural world, no matter their age (from teen to adult) or level of knowledge.

Why do boys instinctively bullsh*t more than girls? How do economic recessions shape a generation's confidence? Can we have too much confidence and, if so, what are the consequences?

Imagine we could discover something that could make us richer, healthier, longer-living, smarter, kinder, happier, more motivated and more innovative. Ridiculous, you might say... What is this elixir? Confidence. If you have it, it can empower you to reach heights you never thought possible. But if you don't, it can have a devastating effect on your future.

Confidence lies at the core of what makes things happen. Exploring the science and neuroscience behind confidence that has emerged over the last decade, clinical psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Ian Robertson tells us how confidence plays out in our minds, our brains and indeed our bodies. He explains where it comes from and how it spreads - with extraordinary economic and political consequences. And why it's not necessarily something you are born with, but something that can be learned.

A stunning anthology of great stories of war and peace collected and edited by Max Hastings.

Soldiers is a very personal gathering of sparkling, gripping tales by many writers, about men and women who have borne arms, reflecting bestselling historian Max Hastings's lifetime of studying war. It rings the changes through the centuries, between the heroic, tragic and comic; the famous and the humble. The nearly 350 stories illustrate vividly what it is like to fight in wars, to live and die as a warrior, from Greek and Roman times through to recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here you will meet Jewish heroes of the Bible, Rome's captain of the gate, Queen Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Cromwell, Wellington, Napoleon's marshals, Ulysses S. Grant, George S. Patton and the modern SAS. There are tales of great writers who served in uniform including Cobbett and Tolstoy, Edward Gibbon and Siegfried Sassoon, Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell and George MacDonald Fraser. Here are also stories of the female 'abosi' fighters of Dahomey and heroic ambulance drivers of World War I, together with the new-age women soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The stories reflect a change of mood towards warfare through the ages: though nations and movements continue to inflict terrible violence upon each other, most of humankind has retreated from the old notion of war as a sport or pastime, to acknowledge it as the supreme tragedy. This is a book to inspire in turn fascination, excitement, horror, amazement, occasionally laughter.

Max Hastings mingles respect for the courage of those who fight with compassion for those who become their victims, above all civilians, and especially in the twenty-first century, which some are already calling 'the Post-Heroic Age'.

Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war-and mankind itself.

Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory, only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child.

2 Academy Award nominations for:
- Best Visual Effects
- Best Sound

Solidarity Road tells the story of Jan Theron’s involvement in the Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU) during apartheid South Africa. Part memoir, part history this fascinating tale will reveal what working conditions were like in the 1970’s. It outlines the very beginnings of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

Theron states, ‘Solidarity in a trade union does not simply mean standing by your members, or by organised workers. It means solidarity with your class. At the time, in 1976, the working class was fragmented. Working for a trade union was part of a project to unite a fragmented class, and to give it a voice. This was the historical project to which a number of people from a certain intellectual background were drawn. This would be our contribution to the struggle: what we did to end apartheid. It was a struggle for democracy, but democracy did not just mean everyone getting to vote every so often in national elections. People also had to eat.

The most obvious way in which the working class was then fragmented was in terms of race. The Union put its commitment to solidarity into practice by uniting workers of different races in factories manufacturing food. To do so it had to overcome divisions among workers created by the ways in which government had structured employment, in terms of the law, which the bosses were able to exploit. Nowadays ‘bosses’ seems like a dated term, yet this is the term workers used to refer to the people for whom they actually worked. It is also no less important today than it was then to differentiate between those who control the factories and mines and those who operate at their behest.

The thrilling sequel to the instant Sunday Times bestseller and number one global phenomenon, Fourth Wing!

She survived her first year at Basgiath War College . . . but the danger is only beginning.

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College, Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet's already wondering how she'll get through. It's not just that it's grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it's designed to stretch the riders' capacity for pain beyond endurance. It's the new vice commandant, who's made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is - unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet's body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else's, she still has her wits, and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won't be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College - and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.

Finalist for the 2023 Booker Prize. Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction.

A major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what the younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”

Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck. After a fight with Topper, Trelawny claws his way out of homelessness through a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab to get his kids back, and his cousin Cukie looks for a father who doesn’t want to be found. As each character searches for a foothold, they never forget the profound danger of climbing without a safety net.

Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and inimitable style, sly commentary and contagious laughter, Escoffery’s debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. With If I Survive You, Escoffery announces himself as a prodigious storyteller in a class of his own, a chronicler of American life at its most gruesome and hopeful.

Told with the immediacy of a diary, which is where the book began, Patrick takes us on a journey to the highest mountain in the world, where one of the greatest tragedies in climbing history was about to unfold. Filled with photographs and sketches from his notebooks we become part of the Radio 702 team sent to cover the South African Everest Expedition of 1996. It would turn out to be the deadliest climbing seasons in the peak’s history.

Twenty years later the controversy around what truly happened on the mountain continues to rage. Conroy kept a meticulous diary and recorded many hours of radio communications between the climbers. Now, two decades later, his memoirs reveal a remarkable and untold story of what happened on the mountain that fateful year. Everest Untold includes hidden insights and never before revealed transcripts that shed new light on the 1996 disaster, including the mysterious disappearance of one of the South African team members in the death zone.

Conroy’s hidden story reopens the debate on the risks of high-altitude mountaineering and what it meant to a young democratic South Africa unaware of the dangers that lay ahead.

Gramadoela-kos is saamgestel om in die bos te kook wanneer jy ’n ietsie meer as net boerewors en pap elke aand wil voorberei. Die resepte is vars, innoverend en bowenal, maklik! Al die resepte is getoets en kan oor ’n oop vuur of ’n kampstofi e berei word, maar dit is so smaaklik dat jy dié boek selfs in jou kombuis of vir jou braai by die huis kan gebruik.

As jy daarvan hou om in die buitelug te kook, hetsy onder die sterre by ’n kampterrein in die gramadoelas of buite in jou agterplaas te braai, is hierdie boek net vir jou.

Reigning light-heavyweight boxing champion Billy 'The Great' Hope (Gyllenhaal) has a loving wife (Rachel McAdams) and child and a promising career ahead of him. However, Billy finds himself in danger of losing all of that after tragedy strikes and he is declared unfit to look after his young daughter Leila (Oona Laurence).

Having hit rock-bottom, Billy desperately tries to regain control of his life and win back custody of his little girl with the help of boxing trainer Titus 'Tick' Wills (Whitaker).

Peacemaking and Peacebuilding in South Africa examines the creation and implementation of South Africa's National Peace Accord and this key transitional phase in the country's history, and its implications for peace mediation and conflict resolution.

It is now 30 years since the National Peace Accord (NPA) was signed in South Africa, bringing to an end the violent struggle of the Apartheid era and signalling the transition to democracy. Signed by the ANC Alliance, the Government, the Inkatha Freedom Party and a wide range of other political and labour organizations on 14 September 1991, the parties agreed in the NPA on the common goal of a united, non-racial democratic South Africa, and provided practical means for moving towards this end: codes of conduct for political organizations and for the police, the creation of national, regional and local peace structures for conflict resolution, the investigation and prevention of violence, peace monitoring, socio-economic reconstruction and peacebuilding.

This book, written by one of those involved in the process that evolved, provides for the first time an assessment and in-depth account of this key phase of South Africa's history. The National Peace Campaign set up under the NPA mobilized the 'silent majority' and gave peace an unprecedented grassroots identity and legitimacy. The author describes the formulation of the NPA by political representatives, with Church and business facilitators, which ended the political impasse, constituted South Africa's first experience of multi-party negotiations, and made it possible for the constitutional talks (Codesa) to start.

She examines the work of the Goldstone Commission, which prefigured the TRC, as well as the role of international observers from the UN, EU, Commonwealth and OAU. Exploring the work of the peace structures set up to implement the Accord - the National Peace Committee and Secretariat, the 11 Regional Peace Committees and 263 Local Peace Committees, and over 18,000 peace monitors - Carmichael provides a uniquely detailed assessment of the NPA, the on-the-ground peacebuilding work and the essential involvement of the people at its heart.

Filling a significant gap in modern history, this book will be essential reading for scholars, students and others interested in South Africa's post-Apartheid history, as well as government agencies and NGOs involved in peacemaking globally.

Thinking of moving to the UK but don’t know where to start? Overwhelmed by the information coming at you after a Google search? Baffled by visa requirements? Worried about how your kids and your beloved pet iguana would handle it?

Fear not! Written by a seasoned mover who's been there, done that and even brought back the tea towel, Sam Beckbessinger will hold your hand in this end-to-end guide to moving from South Africa to the land of tabloids, tweed and terrible weather.

Inside, you'll find helpful tips, funny anecdotes and thorough to-do lists to keep you on track. This guide covers everything from the practicalities of finding a job and a place to live to the cultural quirks of British life (yes, they really are obsessed with tea), equipping you with everything you need to know about fitting in on this weird, adorable island.

Essential reading for matriculants, first year university and college students – and their parents!

Your First Year Of Varsity talks directly to Grade 12 learners and first year university and college students who arrive at their place of higher education filled with hopes, expectations, fears and dreams; yet with little understanding of what this new world means and how to adapt, grow – and graduate.

The book addresses all the rules, demands, behaviours, skills and cultural shifts that will turn an undergraduate into a viable part of higher education life. Foster and Mofokeng have written the book in plain English and it is accessible to anyone who can read a magazine or newspaper. An empathetic, no-nonsense and practical guide to understanding the cultural and academic divide between high school and college or university.

When facing life’s questions, who do you turn to for advice? We all need mentors, particularly when the odds seem stacked against us. To find his own, bestselling author and podcast guru Tim Ferriss tracked down more than 100 eclectic experts to help him, and you, navigate life. Through short, action-packed profiles, he shares their secrets for success, happiness, meaning, and more. No matter the challenge or opportunity, something in these pages can help.

You will learn:

- The three books legendary investor Ray Dalio recommends most often

- Lessons and tips from elite athletes like Maria Sharapova, Kelly Slater, Tony Hawk and Dan Gable

- How and why Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz says no to most incoming requests

- The meditation and mindfulness practices of David Lynch, Jimmy Fallon, Sharon Salzberg, Rick Rubin, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and others

- The high-school loss that motivated actor Terry Crews for life . . . and how you can use the lesson

- Why TED curator Chris Anderson thinks ‘pursue your passion’ is terrible advice

- How Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens went from repeated rejections to global mega-bestseller

- Why comedian Patton Oswalt wishes at least one catastrophic failure on anyone in the arts

- Astrophysicist Janna Levin’s unique reframe that helps her see obstacles as opportunities

- Why actor Ben Stiller likes to dunk his head in a bucket of ice in the morning

TIM FERRISS is one of Fast Company’s ‘Most Innovative Business People’ and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba and more. He is also the author of The 4-Hour Work Week, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef and Tools of Titans. The Observer and other media have named him ‘the Oprah of audio’ due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 200 million downloads.

MasterChef Street Food of the World is a no-holds-barred celebration of a food trend that continues to grow exponentially, delighting and enticing foodies. This exciting new book takes inspiration from the hugely successful pop up restaurants that continue to delight in their sheer theatre, as well as the street food vans and street food festivals that proliferate worldwide.

From burritos, churros and pretzels to shrimp po'boy, Pad Thai or aromatic buns, it is estimated that 2.5 billion people per day eat street food across the world - a staggering figure. From affordable snacks to the more up-market, this collection will focuses on the celebration of fresh and local ingredients and different cultures and cuisines. Often quick and easy to make, these recipes will delight the home chef who wants to create sensational street snacks in their own kitchens.

Written by the brilliant Genevieve Taylor, the book also features recipe contributions from MasterChef winners from around the world, such as Ping Coombes, Brent Owens and Claudia Sandoval. Chapters celebrate the best of each nation and continent, with photography from the legendary David Loftus to create a striking, vibrant and colourful book.

A story of mix-ups, mess-ups and making the most of second chances, this is the new novel from international sensation Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You and The Giver of Stars.

Meet Sam . . . She's not got much, but she's grateful for what she has: a job she's just about clinging on to and a family who depend on her for everything. She knows she's one bad day away from losing it all - and just hopes today isn't it.

Meet Nisha . . . She's got everything she always dreamed of - and more: a phenomenally rich husband; an international lifestyle; and she's just been locked out of all of it after her husband initiates divorce proceedings.

Sam and Nisha should never have crossed paths. But after a bag mix-up at the gym, their lives become intertwined - even as they spiral out of control. Each blames the other as they feel increasingly invisible, forgotten, lost - and desperately alone. But they're not.

No woman is an island. Look around. Family. Friends. Strangers. Even the woman you believe just ruined your life might turn out to be your best friend. Because together you can do anything - like take back what is yours.

Winner of the Golden Man Booker Prize! This special once-off award crowns the best work of fiction from the last five decades of the Man Booker Prize, as chosen by five judges and then voted for by the public.

The final curtain is closing on the Second World War and in an abandoned Italian village Hana, a nurse, tends to her sole remaining patient. Rescued from a burning plane, the anonymous Englishman is damaged beyond recognition and haunted by painful memories.

The only clue Hana has to unlocking his past is the one thing he clung on to through the fire - a copy of The Histories by Herodotus, covered with hand-written notes detailing a tragic love affair.

Reine Duvenage, ’n tweedejaar kunsstudent en finalis in die universiteit se debutantekompetisie, trek die aandag van ’n sluipjagter wat jong vrouens teiken. Sy oorleef ’n wreedaardige aanranding, maar hou emosionele en fisieke letsels oor. Pieter Taljaard, die speurder wat die saak moet oplos, se ondersoek lei hom na verskeie mans met wie sy in kontak was.

Gedurende haar herstelproses kwalifiseer Reine deur afstandonderrig as onderwyser. Sy aanvaar as Renette Mouton ʼn pos by ’n plattelandse hoërskool in die laeveld omdat die jagter steeds bedrywig is ná twee jaar.

Haar poging om anoniem te bly en nie weer ’n slagoffer te word nie, word bemoeilik toe mans uit haar verlede onverwags in die dorp opdaag en die sluipjagter haar opnuut begin treiter. Onseker oor die identiteit van die sluipjagter wantrou sy almal, ook Charl de Jongh, die finale jaar kliniese assistent wat haar behandel het, Jacques Ritsen, die verteenwoordiger van Frey Skoonheidshuis wat haar geborg het, Francois Booyens en Carlo von Brandis van Erasmus Foto-ateljee wat haar foto’s geneem het, en die ontwerper, Giorgio van Jolie Mam’selle Boetiek wat haar rok ontwerp het vir die debutantebal. Selfs Stefan Treurnicht, die blinde klavierstemmer lyk vir haar verdag.

Ondanks die teenwoordigheid van haar troue waghond beland sy weer in die sluipjagter se strik. Kan Pieter Taljaard die leidrade betyds ontrafel om ’n moord te voorkom?

Two women. An office filled with secrets. One terrible crime that can't be taken back.

Dawn Schiff is strange. At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.

So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell―beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running―is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything…

It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider―she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her wondering: who's the real victim?

But one thing is incredibly clear: somebody hated Dawn Schiff. Enough to kill.

The Coworker is a tense, unputdownable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden that explores the dark ways the past can echo through the present―with deadly consequences.

Vimbai, a final-year law student at the University of Zimbabwe, is determined not to join the long line of unemployed graduates. She'd would rather trade sexual favours to get a job than go back to living with her aunt-turned-stepmother. Unlike her roommate, Nosihle, she prides herself on being pragmatic. Nosihle is the good girl who mistakenly falls in love with the wrong man and then there’s Ruby, the spoilt socialite who is leading a double life.

Through their messy choices, their lives become intertwined. Vimbai is looking for someone who can offer her the opulence and grandeur of the Sunshine City. Even if it means sleeping with Cheropa, the former first son and Ruby’s boyfriend. It’s a dog-eat-dog world after all. But Vimbai soon learns that every action has a consequence and some of our wishes come to haunt us when we are at our happiest.

Her carefully orchestrated life takes a nosedive when her secrets are held against her by a mysterious well-connected man.

This volume uniquely draws together seven contemporary plays by a selection of the finest African women writers and practitioners from across the continent, offering a rich and diverse portrait of identity, politics, culture, gender issues and society in contemporary Africa.

Niqabi Ninja by Sara Shaarawi (Egypt) is set in Cairo during the chaotic time of the Egyptian uprising.

Not That Woman by Tosin Jobi-Tume (Nigeria) addresses issues of violence against women in Nigeria and its attendant conspiracy of silence. The play advocates zero-tolerance for violence against women and urges women to bury shame and speak out rather than suffer in silence.

I Want To Fly by Thembelihle Moyo (Zimbabwe) tells the story of an African girl who wants to be a pilot. It looks at how patriarchal society shapes the thinking of men regarding lobola (bride price), how women endure abusive men and the role society at large plays in these issues.

Silent Voices by Adong Judith (Uganda) is a one-act play based on interviews with people involved in the LRA and the effects of the civil war in Uganda. It critiques this, and by implication, other truth commissions.

Unsettled by JC Niala (Kenya) deals with gender violence, land issues and relations of both black and white Kenyans living in, and returning to, the country.

Mbuzeni by Koleka Putuma (South Africa) is a story of four female orphans, aged eight to twelve, their sisterhood and their fixation with death and burials. It explores the unseen force that governs and dictates the laws that the villagers live by.

Bonganyi by Sophia Kwachuh Mempuh (Cameroon) depicts the effects of colonialism as told through the story of a slave girl: a singer and dancer, who wants to win a competition to free her family.

Each play also includes a biography of the playwright, the writer's own artistic statement, a production history of the play and a critical contextualisation of the theatrical landscape from which each woman is writing.

On a hot summer’s day, the animals wandered, they roamed and explored, they galloped and soared, in search for the perfect tree for their needs.

Many trees were falling one by one, from the force and destruction of what the elephants had done. And some of the trees that had stood the test, had patches of bark missing from the rhino’s unrest.

And looking more closely at the top of the trees, sat fish eagles in waiting to soar and fly free.

Will the animals find the perfect tree?

Easy, practical guidance on how to make the most out of your mentorship journey.

Being a great mentor leads to thriving, engaged employees on both sides of the mentor-mentee relationship and helps drive renewed purpose. There are growing expectations and interest in business today that leaders will make themselves available as mentors to provide future leaders growth opportunities and help them grow in their roles. There is also plenty of evidence that shows how impactful mentorship can be for the mentors when approached with the right mindset.

The Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship walks mentors through the mentorship journey, from setting initial expectations and goals, to tracking progress, to identifying when it is time to find new opportunities. Filled with practical sample plans and forms to make the experience much more impactful for all parties, this timely guide takes the ambiguity out of how to be a great mentor.

• Learn how mentor-mentee relationships work best for both parties.
• See how other top leaders approach mentorship and what works and what doesn’t.
• Keep your mentorship journey on track with practical forms and timelines to work on with your mentee.
• See how being a great mentor leads to personal and professional growth and renewal for you as well as your mentee!