Science & Knowledge

Bushcraft Survival

£6.99

In BUSHCRAFT SURVIVAL Ray Mears travels to some of the most remote and beautiful wildernesses in the world, and experiences first hand the survival techniques of different indigenous cultures.

 

From the Hudson Bay in Canada, via Tanzania and the jungles of Venezuela, to the moors and highlands of Britain, BUSHCRAFT SURVIVAL explores a range of locations and techniques from indigenous peoples. Drawing on centuries of knowledge as well as his own experience, Ray demonstrates how our enjoyment of the wilderness comes through respect for our surroundings and the people, plants and animals that live there.

Clubland Confidential

£5.50

‘Owen writes fast and tough, like a cop flick voice-over – if anything, Clubland Confidential is Robin Moore’s The French Connection remixed for the “chemical generation” ‘ -The Guardian

 

Clubland Confidential is the true story of the rise and fall of a decadent nocturnal empire that stretched over several American cities and spawned its own subculture of celebrities and wannabes. Journalist, Frank Owen spent nearly a decade inside the nightclubs of the 1990s – an era when disco gave way to more unsettling dance music, cocaine was supplanted by Ecstacy and heroin, ‘clubkids’ mingled with bully boys, trans people danced with stockbrokers, and celebrities looked on. But as the drugs got out of control, their world became murkier and slowly began to implode. As clubland decadence turned to darkness, its self-publicised king, Michael Alig, committed one of the most notorious crimes of New York’s recent history – the violent murder of Angel Melendez. With his friends fleeing for cover, a tangled web of mafia-related crimes begins to emerge and the secrets of New York nightlife are dragged through the courts.

On Freedom: The electrifying new book from the author of The Argonauts

£10.99

‘One of the most electrifying writers at work in America today, among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation’ OLIVIA LAING

What can freedom really mean?
In this invigorating, essential book, Maggie Nelson explores how we might think, experience or talk about the concept in ways that are responsive to our divided world. Drawing on pop culture, theory and the intimacies and plain exchanges of daily life, she follows freedom – with all its complexities – through four realms: art, sex, drugs and climate. On Freedom offers a bold new perspective on the challenging times in which we live.

‘Tremendously energising’ Guardian

‘This provocative meditation…shows Nelson at her most original and brilliant’ New York Times

‘Nelson is such a friend to her reader, such brilliant company… Exhilarating’ Literary Review

* A New York Times Notable Book *
* A Guardian and TLS ‘Books of 2021’ Pick *

On the Genealogy of Morals (Audiobook CDs)

£7.50

This is one of the most accessible of Nietzsche’s works. It was published in 1887, a year after Beyond Good and Evil, and he intended it to be a continuation of the investigation into the theme of morality. In the first work, Nietzsche attacked the notion of morality as nothing more than institutionalised weakness, and he criticised past philosophers for their unquestioning acceptance of moral precepts. In On the Genealogy of Morals, subtitled ‘A Polemic’, Nietzsche furthers his pursuit of a clarity that is less tainted by imposed prejudices. He looks at the way attitudes towards ‘morality’ evolved and the way congenital ideas of morality were heavily coloured by the Judaic and Christian traditions.

The Comfort Book

£16.99

Reflections on hope, survival and the messy miracle of being alive

 

It is a strange paradox, that many of the clearest, most comforting life lessons are learned while we are at our lowest. But then we never think about food more than when we are hungry and we never think about life rafts more than when we are thrown overboard.

 

The Comfort Book is a collection of consolations learned in hard times and suggestions for making the bad days better. Drawing on maxims, memoir and the inspirational lives of others, these meditations celebrate the ever-changing wonder of living. This is for when we need the wisdom of a friend or a reminder we can always nurture inner strength and hope, even in our busy world.

 

A book of timeless comfort for modern minds.

The Importance of Being Interested

£17.99

SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE

 

A delightful and scintillating hymn to science.’ Carlo Rovelli

 

Comedian Robin Ince quickly abandoned science at school, bored by a fog of dull lessons and intimidated by the barrage of equations. But, twenty years later, he fell in love and he now presents one of the world’s most popular science podcasts. Every year he meets hundreds of the world’s greatest thinkers.

 

In this erudite and witty book, Robin reveals why scientific wonder isn’t just for the professionals. Filled with interviews featuring astronauts, comedians, teachers, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and more – as well as charting Robin’s own journey with science – The Importance of Being Interested explores why many wrongly think of the discipline as distant and difficult. From the glorious appeal of the stars above to why scientific curiosity can encourage much needed intellectual humility, this optimistic and profound book will leave you filled with a thirst for intellectual adventure.

The Natural History of Selborne

£14.00

A century before Charles Darwin, decades before the French Revolution, Gilbert White began his lifelong habit of measuring and observing the world around his Hampshire home. Daily rainfall levels and temperature shifts were recorded with home-made instruments. Bird song and seasonal migrations were noted. The feeding habits of frogs, bats and mice were jotted into his diaries and nature journals, as were the simple delights he felt hearing a cricket in the meadow or a blackbird in the hedgerows. The extraordinary detail of the natural history he described has given us, two hundred years later, a glimpse into ecosystems untouched by industry and an account of how changes in global climate can affect local weather patterns. Gilbert White is now considered England’s first ecologist. The Natural History of Selborne is one the most published books in the English language. Yet the most enduring quality of his writing is the spirit of curiosity that bounds across every page, inspiring us to explore the abundance of life at our doorsteps and around our parishes.

The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice

£10.99

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘Few books are as urgent as Shon Faye’s debut … Faye has hope for the future – and maybe so should we’ Independent


‘Unsparing, important and weighty … a vitally needed antidote’ Observer


‘A moving and impressively comprehensive overview of trans life’ Vogue

Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war ‘issue’. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country’s population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized ‘debate’ which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice.

In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the ‘transgender issue’ to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond.

The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalized people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.

‘Fundamentally not a culture-war book. It operates outside the narrow coverage of trans people in the mainstream, and lays bare the inarguable facts’ New Statesman

‘Monumental and utterly convincing – crystal clear in its understanding of how the world should be’ Judith Butler