"Rich and lively."--New York Times Book ReviewA vibrant look at an unsettled and strangely familiar time that overturns our assumptions about the history of magic.Imagine: it's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facing a trial. Maybe you're looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do?In medieval and early modern Europe...

Magic is ubiquitous across the world and throughout history. Yet if witchcraft is acknowledged as a persistent presence in the medieval and early modern eras, practical magic by contrast – performed to a useful end for payment, and actually more common than malign spellcasting – has been overlooked. Exploring many hundred instances of daily magical usage, and setting these alongside a range of imaginative and didactic literatures, Tabitha Stanmore demonstrates the entrenched nature of 'ser...

Bloomsbury presents Cunning Folk by Tabitha Stanmore, read by Anna Wilson-Jones."Rich and lively."—New York Times Book ReviewA vibrant look at an unsettled and strangely familiar time that overturns our assumptions about the history of magic.Imagine: it’s the year 1600 and you’ve lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they’ve been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you’re facing a trial. Maybe you’re looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do...

Hold the glory—and infamy—of ancient Rome in the palm of your hand with this “brilliant combination of history and storytelling” (Conn Iggulden, author of the Emperor series) as it explores history’s greatest superpower, as told through humanity’s most universal object: the coin.When Gareth Harney was first given a Roman coin as a child, he became entranced by its beauty, and its unique ability to connect us with the past. He soon learned that the Romans saw coins ...

Brought to you by Penguin.On the 14th of August 1941, a Polish monk named Maximilian Maria Kolbe was murdered in Auschwitz.Kolbe's life had been remarkable. Fiercely intelligent and driven, he founded a movement of Catholicism and spent several years in Nagasaki, ministering to the 'hidden Christians' who had emerged after centuries of oppression. A Polish nationalist as well as a monk, he gave sanctuary to fleeing refugees and ran Poland's largest publishi...

The inspirational and honest first book from S Club legend Rachel StevensWhether as part of the iconic S Club or as a successful solo artist, Rachel Stevens was in the eye of the Noughties pop storm when she was catapulted to fame in her teens. The whirlwind of celebrity life brought glamour, glitz and BRITs, but not everything was as it seemed behind the smile.Constantly stereotyped and controlled within the industry, Rachel privately struggled with her se...

‘A persuasive manifesto for a better Britain.’ Observer Book of the DayBritain needs a fresh start. This timely book by one of the stars of the new government shows how to achieve it.In this brilliant and accessible intervention, Lisa Nandy reveals how Britain can leave behind the mess in which we find ourselves. All In charts a course towards a fairer, more equal, more prosperous country by drawing on the greatest asset we have – each oth...

'Multi-layered and immersive ... Hughes casts the seeds of mystery and doubt like a pro' Irish Independent'Compelling, unsettling and very creepy' Catherine Kirwan'Atmospheric and filled with twists and turns ... a fantastic read' Patricia GibneyEveryone is talking about the disappearance of Emma Harte.A high-achieving university graduate and young entrepreneur, she was last seen in the early hours ...

A groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed debut novel of friendship and freedom that crosses continents and centuries, in a timeslip story exploring the legacy of slavery, selected as The Times Children's Book of the Week.Sometime, me love to dream that me is a human, a proper one, like them white folks is.Enslaved on a plantation in Barbados, Obah dreams of freedom. As talk of rebellion bubbles up around her in the Big House, she...

THE empowering intro to politics that EVERY young person needs right now from writer, podcaster and strategist ALASTAIR CAMPBELL.Politics made fun? YES, REALLY!Writer, podcaster and strategist, Alastair Campbell, makes politics exciting, relatable and personal – AT LAST!Alastair shares his incredible knowledge and passion to empower young people and give them the skills and confidence they need to understand how the country is run, ...

Brought to you by Penguin.Travelling a thousand miles and across three billion years, Christopher Somerville (walking correspondent of The Times and author of Coast, The January Man and Ships of Heaven) sets out to interrogate the land beneath our feet, and how it has affected every aspect of human history from farming to house construction, the Industrial Revolution to the current climate crisis.In his thousand-mile journey, Some...

Brought to yoy by Penguin.The average person sees about 10,000 commercial visuals a day. Yet, research shows we can only process about 1% of the visual information we encounter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, where does this excess leave us?In The Visual Detox, art expert and businesswoman Marine Tanguy explains how the imagery we see shapes our wellbeing. She gives us new tools to think critically about images, combat information ov...