‘A joy’ Philippe Sands ‘Glorious’ David Spiegelhalter A fascinating, enchanting and personal look at the meaning of luck, and the way in which it has shaped our shared history and continues to inflect our day to day lives. What does it mean to be lucky? How might we mitigate the effects of bad luck and maximise those of good? Is there really such a thing as ‘luck’ at all? To answer these questions, David Flusfeder sets out on a quest that will take him across the world and through history. Travelling from Siberia to Versailles, from his father’s life in war-time Poland to Nietzsche on the slopes of Vesuvius, Flusfeder investigates some victors of luck and those who were defeated by it. In following him, we find ourselves confronting who we are and how we might choose to live. ‘Thrilling, intelligent and wilfully unique … I loved it’ James Runcie, author of The Great Passion ‘Ruminative … page-turning’ TLS ‘Fascinating … An eminently enjoyable and engrossing page-turner’ The Jewish Chronicle

We live with the idea of sin every day - from the greatest transgressions to the tiniest misdemeanours. But surely the concept was invented for an age where divine retribution and eternal punishment dominated the collective consciousness? In this lively collection of new writing, Nicola Barker, Dylan Evans, David Flusfeder, Todd McEwen, Martin Rowson, John Sutherland and Ali Smith go head to head with the capital vices to explore what we really mean when we talk about sin. The resulting mixture of erudite and playful essays and startling new fiction might not make you a better person, but it will certainly give you pause for thought when you're next laying the law down or - heaven forfend - about to do something beyond the pale yourself.

Set in the colourful, threatened world of occupied Warsaw just before the Holocaust, this third novel by a highly praised writer tells the story of Gloria, a young Freudian analyst whose sole client, a Jewish tycoon, fakes his own suicide and thereby drags Gloria into a web of intrigue, deception and betrayal. Gloria, the sexy, clever, appealing narrator of David Flusfeder's brilliant third novel, is thrown into a series of adventures after the faked suicide of her sole client, a Jewish tycoon in occupied Warsaw. She is dragged into a plot to assassinate Igo Sym, one of several real-life figures appearing in the novel: a Polish movie star who became 'Volkdeutsch' during the Nazi occupation. Murder, comedy, paranoia, heartache and depth psychology... these are the threads running through this vividly readable new novel by the author of 'MAN KILLS WOMAN' and 'LIKE PLASTIC'. In original, sensual prose, Flusfeder has woven a novel both entertaining and thoughtful, preoccupied by war, by the idea of 'psychic infection', by sexual and physical power, by danger and the exotic.

Problem: Best friends keep giving extremely generous gifts Solution: Give better ones in return Philip has a lot on his mind. At home, in his unnecessarily large, excessively expensive house in south London, he is attempting to become a Taoist master of love with his wife Alice, but his quest is forever being interrupted by the requests of his twin daughters: Can we have a pony - please? I want to go to boarding school - please? At work, in his shed/office at the bottom of the garden, between countless games of Minesweep and FreeCell, Philip is trying to pay the mortgage by writing instruction manuals for Korean bread-making machines. And, at parties where he is concerned that he is not taken seriously (he has been variously mistaken as a doctor/waiter and sinologist) Philip tells the world he is a scriptwriter, even though all he has managed to pen is a story he calls Wang the Unlucky Scholar. But, above all, Philip is worrying about his best friends Sean and Barry. The problem is simple: they give great presents. Their gifts are exquisite: a full set of Italian crockery, a handmade corkscrew from Venice. They give them indiscriminately: on birthdays, at parties and quite often for no reason whatsoever. And, most distressingly, these presents break all bounds of generosity: two FA Cup Final tickets beside the royal box, a skiing holiday for Philip's entire family. These are gifts that hurt a man's pride, these are gifts that can never be matched.