FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NAMED ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2025 BY THE WASHINGTON POST NAMED ONE OF THE 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2025 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2025 NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF FALL 2025 BY ELLE ONE OF CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY'S MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2025Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through th...

Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy.In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly twenty years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow—only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up—doctors, engineers, scientists—had seemingly been replaced with w...

Brought to you by Penguin.Built by slave labour in the early years of the eighteenth century, Saint Petersburg was Peter the Great’s so-called ‘window on to Europe’, a city that would outdo all of Europe in its splendour. But a window works both ways, and as bestselling historian Sinclair McKay writes, St Petersburg has always been a city that has drawn Westerners who wanted to see into Russia. It is also a city where much has happened. It was St Petersburg until 1...

Brought to you by Penguin.Even as the great siege began it was understood by both sides to be an epic – a potentially decisive encounter between an uneasy assortment of soldiers, native Maltese, adventurers and Knights Hospitaller on a strategically crucial but near waterless island and a vast, seemingly all-powerful Ottoman armada. With three quarters of the Mediterranean’s coasts already in the hands of the Sultan and his allies, all eyes were now on Malta.

**Brought to you by Penguin.Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.**Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, col...

Brought to you by Penguin.We tend to think that everything important comes from the centre: from big cities, from established orthodoxies in the sciences and the arts, from the Establishment in all its forms. We think this because the centre tells us it is so, but it's a lie. It is only at the edges that we think, innovate and thrive.This book travels to the frontiers of human culture and consciousness; to the edges of continents, of evolution, of artistic ...

A joyous celebration of Britain’s rich bird lifeIn Birdland, journalist and lifelong birder Jon Gower explores our intimate connection with the bird life around us. From the symphonic song of the wren to the clack of a puffin’s beak and from epic migrations to sunset murmurations, birds are commonplace miracles. No wonder they have inspired our artists, writers and songwriters. Whether rare or abundant, Jon Gower visits some of the best places in Britain to watch birds, se...

'[An] elegant and forensic double portrait setting Greene, that sociologist of sin, alongside the Kremlin's golden boy Philby, with the lengthening shadow of the cold war falling between them ... both his subjects make for terrific copy ... Part of the pleasure of Verkaik's book is the vicarious glide through their parallel rake's progresses.' - Pratinav Anil, Guardian'A wholly fascinating account of an extraordinary friendship. Robert Verkaik's nu...

‘A feast for mind and soul, a treasure trove of insights into the enigmatic and enchanting world of the birds we share our lives with but barely notice. I have learnt so much. Every page is a thrill. Bird School has opened my eyes' Isabella Tree, author of WildingStep into the hide for a glorious new encounter with the British wildClose to Adam Nicolson’s home in Sussex, there is a forgotten field overrun by bracken and th...

Brought to you by Penguin.The story of the ancient world’s most spectacular library, and the civilization that created itWhen a team of Victorian archaeologists dug into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge ever seen: the library of the Assyrian emperor Ashurbanipal, seventh century BCE ruler of a huge swathe of the ancient Middle East known as Mesopotamia. After his death, vengeful riva...

‘A curious-minded and subtle intervention in the politics of the countryside’ Sunday Times'Galbraith spent three years investigating the truth about rural Britain and how we treat it. Uncommon Ground is the brilliant result' Daily Telegraph'Very funny. Acutely observed. An attempt to look beyond the usual clichés of country life' Observer“B...

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONThe award-winning author of Free returns with an extraordinary investigation into historical injustice, personal and collective dignity, truth and imagination**When Lea Ypi discovers that a photo of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the Italian Alps in 1941 has been posted by a stranger on social media, she is faced with deeply unsettling questions. Growing up, she had been told all records of her grandmother...