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The great modern biography of Augustus, founder of the Roman EmpireBorn to a plebeian family in 63 BC, Octavian was a young solder training abroad when he heard news of Julius Caesar's brutal assassination - and discovered that he was the dictator's sole political heir. With the opportunism and instinct for propaganda that were to characterize his rule, Octavian rallied huge financial, military and political backing to eliminate his opponents, end the bloody turmoil that had so long wracked Rome and, finally, take autocratic control of a state devoted to republicanism. He became Augustus - Rome's first Emperor, and the founder of the greatest empire the world had ever seen.In this monumental biography, translated into English for the first time by Anthea Bell, Jochen Bleicken tells the story of a man who found himself a demi-god in his own lifetime and paints a portrait of one of the most dramatic periods of Roman history.

From Jess Walter, the bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins, comes We Live in Water - a darkly funny, utterly compelling collection of stories about the American family.We Live in Water brings to vivid life a world of lost fathers and redemptive con men, of personal struggles and diminished dreams, a world marked by the wry wit and generosity of spirit that has made Jess Walter one of America's most talked-about writers. In 'Thief', a blue-collar worker turns unlikely detective to find out which of his kids is stealing from the family vacation fund. In 'We Live in Water', a lawyer returns to a corrupt North Idaho town to find the father who disappeared thirty years earlier. In 'Anything Helps', a homeless man has to 'go to cardboard' to raise enough money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book. In 'Virgo', a local newspaper editor tries to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. The final story transforms slyly from a portrait of Walter's hometown into a moving contemplation of our times.'A ridiculously talented writer' The New York Times'One of my favourite young American writers' Nick Hornby'Darkly funny, sneakily sad, these stories are very, very good' Publisher's Weekly'A witty and sobering snapshot of recession-era America' Kirkus

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Command and Control, a ground-breaking account of the management of nuclear weapons from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. Read by the award-winning narrator Scott Brick. A ground-breaking account of accidents, near-misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: how do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? Schlosser reveals that this question has never been resolved, and while other headlines dominate the news, nuclear weapons still pose a grave risk to mankind. Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a missile silo in rural Arkansas, where a single crew struggled to prevent the explosion of the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States, with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policymakers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons cant be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with men who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. It reveals how even the most brilliant of minds can offer us only the illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism.

A gripping narrative of the most critical years in modern Ireland's history, from Charles TownshendThe protracted, terrible fight for independence pitted the Irish against the British and the Irish against other Irish. It was both a physical battle of shocking violence against a regime increasingly seen as alien and unacceptable and an intellectual battle for a new sort of country. The damage done, the betrayals and grim compromises put the new nation into a state of trauma for at least a generation, but at a nearly unacceptable cost the struggle ended: a new republic was born.Charles Townshend's Easter 1916 opened up the astonishing events around the Rising for a new generation and in The Republic he deals, with the same unflinchingly wish to get to the truth behind the legend, with the most critical years in Ireland's history. There has been a great temptation to view these years through the prisms of martyrology and good-and-evil. The picture painted by Townshend is far more nuanced and sceptical - but also never loses sight of the ordinary forms of heroism performed by Irish men and women trapped in extraordinary times.Reviews:'Electric ... [a] magisterial and essential book' Irish TimesAbout the author:Charles Townshend is the author of the highly praised Easter 1916:The Irish Rebellion. His other books include The British Campaigns in Ireland, 1919-21 and When God Made Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Making of Iraq, 1914-21.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of An African Love Story, Daphne Sheldricks touching memoir about romance, life and elephants from Africas greatest living conservationist. Read by Virginia McKenna, the star of Born Free and the Founder Trustee of the Born Free Foundation. An African Love Story is the incredible memoir of the life of Africas greatest living conservationist. It tells two stories. The first is the Tsavo years, and the extraordinary love story which blossomed when the young Daphne, moved to Tsavo with her first husband and fell head over heels with both the park and its famous warden, David Sheldrick. The second is the love story of how Daphne and David, who devoted their lives to saving elephant orphans, at first losing every infant under the age of two until Daphne at last managed to devise the first-ever milk formula which would keep them alive. This recording contains a bonus track featuring an interview with Virginia McKenna in which she talks about her own conservation work and her friendship with Daphne Sheldrick.

Josh Kaufman, bestselling author of The Personal MBA, is back with his new book, The First Twenty Hours, to teach readers how to learn anything... fast!'Lots of books promise to change your life. This one actually will' -Seth GodinPick up any new skill in just 20 hours... Want to learn to paint, play the piano, launch a business, fly a plane? Then pick up this book and set aside twenty hours to go from knowing nothing to performing like a pro. That's it. Josh Kaufman, author of international bestseller The Personal MBA, has developed this brilliant approach to mastering anything fast. You'll learn how to: Focus energy on acquiring key skill sets Eliminate obstacles and discover critical tools Create rapid feedback loops Work against the clock to get better fast With examples ranging from writing a web program to learning an instrument to picking up windsurfing, Kaufman shows how to break complexity into simple tasks, make the very best of your limited time and solve unexpected problems. In The First 20 Hours you'll learn how to acquire any skill in record time - and have a lot of fun along the way. 'After reading this, you'll be ready to take on any number of skills and make progress on that big project you've been putting off for years' Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup

A stunning novel, spanning generations and continents, Ghana Must Go by rising star Taiye Selasi is a tale of family drama and forgiveness, for fans of Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.This is the story of a family -- of the simple, devastating ways in which families tear themselves apart, and of the incredible lengths to which a family will go to put itself back together. It is the story of one family, the Sais, whose good life crumbles in an evening; a Ghanaian father, Kweku Sai, who becomes a highly respected surgeon in the US only to be disillusioned by a grotesque injustice; his Nigerian wife, Fola, the beautiful homemaker abandoned in his wake; their eldest son, Olu, determined to reconstruct the life his father should have had; their twins, seductive Taiwo and acclaimed artist Kehinde, both brilliant but scarred and flailing; their youngest, Sadie, jealously in love with her celebrity best friend. All of them sent reeling on their disparate paths into the world. Until, one day, tragedy spins the Sais in a new direction.This is the story of a family: torn apart by lies, reunited by grief. A family absolved, ultimately, by that bitter but most tenuous bond: familial love.Ghana Must Go interweaves the stories of the Sais in a rich and moving drama of separation and reunion, spanning generations and cultures from West Africa to New England, London, New York and back again. It is a debut novel of blazing originality and startling power by a writer of extraordinary gifts.'Ghana Must Go is both a fast moving story of one family's fortunes and an ecstatic exploration of the inner lives of its members. With her perfectly-pitched prose and flawless technique, Selasi does more than merely renew our sense of the African novel: she renews our sense of the novel, period. An astonishing debut' Teju Cole, author of Open City Taiye Selasi was born in London and raised in Massachusetts. She holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale and an M.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford. "e;The Sex Lives of African Girls"e; (Granta, 2011), Selasi's fiction debut, appears in Best American Short Stories 2012. She lives in Rome.

"e;Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?"e; Not Colonel Rodney Foster, a platoon commander of the Kent Home Guard. Here, for the first time, is the full inside story of the Home Guard, the ragtag volunteer army that defended the coast of Britain from German invasion during the Second World War. Colonel Rodney Foster, who retired to Hythe in the south of England after a military career in British India, joined the Home Guard in 1940 and kept a diary every day - a highly illegal act at the time.Living directly beneath the Battle of Britain on the Kent coast, Foster commanded a company of men in the face of constant aerial bombardment and the ever-present threat of death from above - Hitler's crack parachutists. Writing from the village hall, abandoned barns, churches and makeshift officers' messes, he records with a unique wit and wisdom the everyday details of family life during the war: the domestic routine dogged by air raid warnings, the antics of soldiers stationed nearby taking every chance to improve their lot, the quiet strength of a small community faced with great adversity.

For avid readers and the uninitiated alike, this is a chance to reengage with classic literature and to stay inspired and entertained. The concept of the magazine is simple: the first half is a long-form interview with a notable book fanatic and the second half explores one classic work of literature from an array of surprising and invigorating angles.

An urgent manifesto for re-defining human potential in our turbulent times, from the bestselling author of The Element 'As we face an increasingly febrile future, the answer is not to do better what we've done before. We have to do something else . . . We must urgently re-imagine education and schools' Imagination and creativity are at the root of every uniquely human achievement and those achievements have brought us to this present moment. As we reckon with the extractive practices that have depleted our natural resources and threaten our survival as a species, Sir Ken Robinson argues that we must also find a better way of cultivating human potential in order to navigate our uncertain future. This incisive book distills the thought and expertise that underpinned Sir Ken's influential work as educator, speaker and adviser; grounded in his unwavering belief in the indispensable value of human potential. Imagine If . . . reframes the ongoing debate in a compelling new way, bringing fresh inspiration and much-needed clarity, and sets out the blueprint for creating new systems of education that are based on diversity, creativity and collaboration.

Dive into centuries of mermaid lore with these captivating tales from around the world.A Penguin ClassicAmong the oldest and most popular mythical beings, mermaids and other merfolk have captured the imagination since long before Ariel sold her voice to a sea witch in the beloved Disney film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen''s "The Little Mermaid." As far back as the eighth century B.C., sailors in Homer''s Odyssey stuffed wax in their ears to resist the Sirens, who lured men to their watery deaths with song. More than two thousand years later, the gullible New York public lined up to witness a mummified "mermaid" specimen that the enterprising showman P. T. Barnum swore was real. The Penguin Book of Mermaids is a treasury of such tales about merfolk and water spirits from different cultures, ranging from Scottish selkies to Hindu water-serpents to Chilean sea fairies. A third of the selections are published here in English for the first time, and all are accompanied by commentary that explores their undercurrents, showing us how public perceptions of this popular mythical hybrid--at once a human and a fish--illuminate issues of gender, spirituality, ecology, and sexuality.

The great epic poem of Northern Europe, born deep in the heart of ancient Karelian forestsSharing its title with the poetic name for Finland-"the land of heroes"-Kalevala is the soaring epic poem of the Finnish people. Born of an ancient tradition of folklore and song, Kalevala is a work rich in magic, cosmic mystery and myth, presenting a story of a people through the ages, from the dawn of creation. Sung by rural Finns since prehistoric times, and formally compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century, it is a landmark of Finnish culture and it played a vital role in galvanizing Finland's national identity in the decades leading up to independence. And yet its tales of tragedy and triumph, adventure and ambition, hope, lust, death and birth, reach far beyond the region's borders, searching the heart of human existence.

Be ambitious; find everlasting love; look after your health ... There are countless stories about how we ought to live our lives. These narratives can make our lives easier, and they might sometimes make us happier too. But they can also trap us and those around us. In Happy Ever After, bestselling happiness expert Professor Paul Dolan draws on a wealth of evidence to bust the common myths about our sources of happiness and shows that there can be many unexpected paths to lasting happiness. Some of these might involve not going into higher education, choosing not to marry, rewarding acts rooted in self-interest and caring a little less about living forever. By freeing ourselves from the myth of the perfect life, we might each find a life worth living.

Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006) was born in Lviv, then part of Poland. He is probably the most original and influential European science-fiction writer since H.G. Wells. Best known in the West for Tarkovsky's film of his novel Solaris, Lem wrote novels and stories that have been published all over the world. He is credited with anticipating in his writing artificial reality, e-books and nano-technology. His most famous works include The Cyberiad, Mortal Engines, The Star Diaries, The Futurological Congress, Tales of Pirx the Pilot and Solaris.

Investigating the murder of one of Paris''s elite, the detective Maigret finds the list of suspects is longer than anyone could have imaginedWhen a wealthy wine merchant is shot and killed in Paris, Inspector Maigret must investigate a long list of family, colleagues and lovers to uncover just who could have committed the crime. Delving into the depths of the man''s personality, Maigret discovers that the victim may have made one too many enemies on his way to the top.Breathlessly paced and psychologically astute, Maigret and the Wine Merchant is a thrilling mystery from the master Georges Simenon.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Why Cant We Sleep by Darian Leader. One in four adults sleeps badly. Sleeping pill prescriptions have increased dramatically over the last three decades and our bookshelves and browser histories are littered with experts promising to fix our insomnia. But is this so-called sleep crisis anything new? Our relationship to sleep has always been irregular and changeable, variously shaped by social conventions, commercial imperatives and personal psychologies. Look beneath the headlines and it seems that there is no such thing as a perfect nights sleep. Here Darian Leader reveals the history and pathology of sleeplessness - from the industrial revolution to Freudian dream analysis to the fears around blue light on our phones. Along the way, he dispels the pervasive myths and anxieties around this most universal human experience.

THE BEST GARDENING BOOKS OF THE YEAR - GARDENS ILLUSTRATED''Informative and enthusiastic'' i PaperPLANT-BASED MEDICINE FOR A CALMER, HEALTHIER LIFE It''s easy to turn to the pharmacy when we''re stressed, sick or feeling under the weather, but what if you turned to your garden instead?In this accessible and easy to use manual, horticultural expert, former Gardener''s World presenter and Guardian columnist, Alys Fowler, shows how to take control of your health by adopting a more natural lifestyle. For thousands of years, people who had no access to clinical medicine knew how to boost their well-being by using the ingredients they found in plants. Herbs are the people''s medicine; often freely available and abundant, they are ready and waiting to be plucked from around you to soothe and heal your body and mind. With guides for how to use and grow over 100 herbs - for example how to use fennel for indigestion, camomile for anxiety and nettle for hayfever - you''ll soon be heading into the garden, rather than opening the medicine cabinet. Offering a fusion of botanical, practical, cultural and historical information, A Modern Herbal reveals how common herbs are the simple, cleansing way to better health and happiness.''An important and accessible herbal for the 21st century . . . For anyone delving into herbs for the first time or those who want to broaden their herbal repertoire in the garden and home, this book is much needed'' Gardens IllustratedAS SEEN IN THE GUARDIAN

When a Jumbo jet blows apart above the English Channel, Gabreel and Saladin miraculously survive and are washed up on a beach. However, it appears that curious changes have come over them and that they have been chosen as protagonists in the eternal wrestling match between God and the Devil.

Gathered together in this volume are some of Iris Murdoch's most influential writings. They include major critiques of existentialism, essays such as "The Sublime and the Good", Platonic dialogues, and analyses of key literary and philosophical figures such as T.S.Eliot and Sartre.

This set of postcards celebrates the lives of women who have changed the world, from the writers of the popular book Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls. Figures depicted on the postcards include Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and the Bronte Sisters.

Georges Simenon (Author) Georges Simenon was born in Li¿, Belgium, in 1903. He is best known in Britain as the author of the Maigret novels and his prolific output of over 400 novels and short stories have made him a household name in continental Europe. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.

'One of the biggest intelligence coups in recent years' The TimesFor years KGB operative Vasili Mitrokhin risked his life hiding top-secret material from Russian secret service archives beneath his family dacha. When he was exfiltrated to the West he took with him what the FBI called 'the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source'. This extraordinary book is the result. 'Co-authored in a brilliant partnership by Christopher Andrew and the renegade Soviet archivist himself ... This is a truly global expos of major KGB penetrations throughout the Western world' The Times'This tale of malevolent spymasters, intricate tradecraft and cold-eyed betrayal reads like a cold war novel' Time'Sensational ... the most informed and detailed study of Soviet subversive intrigues worldwide' Spectator'The most comprehensive addition to the subject ever published' Sunday Telegraph