Sub-titled 'A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan' the book explores the intertwined cultures and often fraught history of these neighbouring countries. Currently China's economic power continues to grow, Japan is becoming more militaristic, and Korea is divided between its westernised South and the dictatorial North. Michael Booth, long fascinated with the region, travels by car, ferry, train and foot, experiencing the people and culture of these nations up close. The burden of history and the memory of past crimes such as the sexual enslavement of women by the Japanese military during World War Two continued to sour relationships. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan ought to be the firmest of allies. All three are democracies with developed economies and significant mutual trade and militarily dependent upon the US. All share grave concerns about China. Although there are obvious ideological and political differences between China and its neighbours, all these countries are deeply intertwined culturally, genetically and historically. China has given its neighbours Confucian philosophy, rice cultivation, Buddhism, porcelain manufacture and tea, as well as the secrets of metallurgy, written language, and the art of calligraphy. In recent times Korea and Japan have also contributed to a great cultural exchange. From Korea have come K-Pop, histrionic TV dramas and very violent movies massively popular throughout China, Japan and beyond constituting the hallyu or Korean wave phenomenon. 'I begin my journey not in a place but a year: 1853. And at this early stage, of one thing I am convinced, if you go back far enough, everything is the fault of the Americans. 315pp, map, US first edition.

A mixture of detailed research coupled with the insider revelations of "Mr X", these gripping mini-biographies of 23 agents of various nationalities includes members of the DGSE, KGB, CIA and MI6. Starting with Sir Anthony Blunt, the "gentleman spy" who for many years was Master of the Queen's Paintings, the author exposes the divided loyalties, complicated trade-offs, vanities and sheer ruthless appetite for betrayal that drove these complex personalities. Blunt was sincere in his loyalty to Communism, an ideology he absorbed at Cambridge in the exclusive circle of the "Apostles", and when he was approached by Arnold Deutsch on behalf of the NKVD, spying was presented as a fight for peace against fascism. Deutsch saw Blunt not so much as an information gatherer as a head-hunter, but after being recruited by MI5 in the War, Blunt passed on huge amounts of information, no doubt reassuring himself that Russia was of course an ally. Meanwhile John Cairncross, another of the Cambridge Five, had passed on the information that the Allies were developing the atomic bomb. Moving into the Cold War, an estimated two thirds of Soviet diplomats were in fact agents, operating under diplomatic protection, while there was also a large cast of "illegals", freelancers who were given a "legend" and whose task it was to infiltrate. Markus Wolf, head of east German intelligence, may have been the inspiration for Le Carre's character Karla, though unlike Karla he was good-looking and charismatic. Wolf ran an operation named "Romeo and Juliet" where spooks such as double agent Gabriele Gast were tasked with seducing key targets to gain information, or to set up a honeytrap which would enable blackmail to take place. The reader will find Aldrich Ames, an American accused of spying for the KGB; Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy best known for his espionage work in Syria and Klaus Fuchs, the German-born British agent who helped the USSR to manufacture its atomic bomb in 1949. Other stories here include the defection of Lieutenant Werner Stiller and the classic case of Oleg Gordievsky and his escape to the west under the floorboards of a van. 201pp, notes.

The perceptive writer is an effortless explainer of tricky concepts and his books teem with nuggets of information. Once again he brings an array of memorable curious and unexpected 'things' from the brick, block chain and bicycle to fire, the factory and fundraising, from solar PV and the pencil to the postage stamp, from the tally-stick to the barcode, concrete to cuneiform. Each invention in Tim Harford's fascinating new book has its own curious, surprising and memorable story, a vignette against a grand backdrop. His sections on barbed wire, passports, the contraceptive pill, infant formula, and even that IKEA staple the Billy Bookcase are well researched and hugely entertaining nuggets of history about economics and maths. 343pp, paperback.

2021 paperback edition sub-titled 'Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers.' Stephen Fry said 'We are supremely lucky to have the fabulously readable, lucid, witty and authoritative Tim Harford to remind us why facts, reason, numbers, clarity and truth matter, how beautiful they are and how crucial to our understanding of the natural world and human society.' If you aren't in love with stats before reading this book, you will be by this powerful and persuasive book by the well-respected economist from the Financial Times. This book was the winner of the Sunday Times Book of the Year 2020. Harford takes us deep into the world of disinformation and obfuscation, bad research and misplaced motivation to find those priceless jewels of data and analysis that make communicating with numbers so rewarding. We see statistics in the newspapers and social media and hear them in everyday conversation, and yet we doubt them more than ever. But numbers in the right hands have the power to change the world for the better. Good statistics are not a trick, although they are a kind of magic. Harford's characters range from the art forger who conned the Nazis to the stripper who fell in love with the most powerful congressman in Washington, to the famous data detectives such as John Maynard Keynes, Daniel Kahneman and Florence Nightingale. He reveals how we can evaluate the claims that surround us with confidence, curiosity and a healthy level of scepticism. Using ten simple rules for understanding numbers, plus one golden rule, this extraordinarily insightful book shows how if we keep our wits about us, thinking carefully about the way numbers are sourced and presented, we can look around us and see with crystal clarity how the world adds up. 340pp, paperback.

In 1951, seven-year-old Peter Stockley's life was set down a dark path after losing his mother. Her legacy to him was an optimism and spirit that a vile stepmother could not break, and after an explosive confrontation, Peter set off on a new journey, via an orphanage, to his aunt and uncle's home in a tenement block by the North Liverpool docks: The Billogs. It was here he became one of 'The Scallywags', a group of streetwise young rascals who knew every inch of the canals, docklands and railway lines. With a turbulent home life, intense family tragedy and a chronic heart murmur, Peter had ground to make up in a golden age when children would play in the streets from dusk until dawn. But with the Scallywags, he had the run of the city. Peter embarked on a youth of picaresque adventures; clinging to the backs of speeding lorries, treading the boards of bombed houses for firewood, head-spinning climbs up five-storey flat blocks - nothing was out of bounds for the Scallywags. But their adventures also gave Peter an iron-clad sense of morality, honesty and respect which would go on to shape the rest of his life. This nostalgic, deeply moving - and often extremely funny - memoir of youth and young manhood in the Liverpool of the fifties and sixties remembers the exuberant joy every child feels at being 'one of the gang'. Full of local lingo and place names. 305pp in paperback.

Set contains Undercover Economist, Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy and How to Make the World Add Up. Buy all three paperbacks and save even more.

As far as prestige and standing in the world were concerned, the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 was the worst disaster to befall the USA since the War of 1812 when British forces burned the Whitehouse. Badly planned and organised and littered with mistakes from start to finish, not least an inept performance by John F. Kennedy and his new administration, supposedly an attempt by Cuban exiles to regain their homeland, the whole operation was funded and equipped by the USA. When things began to go wrong with the landings at Playa Larga and Playa Giron on the south-eastern coast of Cuba, President Kennedy and his advisors began overruling military decisions, with the result that the invading Brigade 2506, made up of Cuban exiles, was left with little or no air cover, limited ammunition, and no easy escape. Fidel Castro made great play of his success and the American failure at the Bay of Pigs. He, like Nikita Khrushchev, thought Kennedy was weak. The Cuban Missile Crisis of the following year was almost an inevitable consequence of the disaster. A good quick overview of important events and characters leading up to the Kennedy assassination, well illustrated, some colour, 128 page large softback in the Cold War 1945-1991 Series.

Professor Dudley Buck invented the Cryotron: a tiny super-conducting computer chip that promised ever-smaller computers. An NSA consultant, he had a hand in countless top-secret projects linked to the space race, missiles and super computers. His inventions cleared a path for some of the most consequential developments of the last half century. Brilliant and unassuming, Buck might have benefitted greatly from his efforts had he not died in mysterious circumstances at the age of 32 soon after a visit to his lab by high-profile USSR government scientists. Was this a coincidence? Drawing on recently released papers, the books suggests a far more sinister picture. The sub-title of this highly acclaimed non-fiction book is 'The Strange Death of a Pioneering Cold War Computer Scientist' and the book is an incredibly thorough and fully accessible deep dive into the Cold War battle for computer supremacy. It details the increasingly relevant and increasingly eerie relationship between geopolitics and technology and is an insider's look at the 1950s military-industrial complex and the ease and informality with which academia, the military, intelligence agencies and industry collaborated. 286pp, paperback with photos.

We are transported back to a time when consumers wondered whether mixing radium into chicken feed might result in eggs that could hard-boil themselves, when diners cheerfully drank radioactive cocktails that glowed in the dark, and when people used toothpaste containing lethal thorium oxide in pursuit of healthy gums. The book unpicks fact from fiction and exhibits a masterful grasp of a complex area of science history that is so often mis-told. Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the 19th century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal. Here is the macabre story of the element through its ascendence as a desirable item - a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in-the-dark dance costume - to its role as a supposed cure-all in everyday 20th century life when business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element. Enthusiastic customers welcomed their radioactive wares into their homes. Historian Lucy Jane Santos, herself the proud owner of a formidable collection of radium beauty treatments, delves into these stories and details the gradual downfall and discredit of the radium industry through the eyes of the people who bought, sold and eventually came to fear the once-fetishized substance. It was also to be a cure for cancer, and the book looks at the interplay between science and popular culture. 280pp, photos.

Writer of more than 25 books, many of them about the British royal family and their corgis, acclaimed as a five star sensation under its original title 'We Are Amused', this 2020 edition is brought up to date with fascinating details from Her Majesty to Meghan Markle, including William, Kate and their three children, the new jewels in the royal crown. The A-Z begins with Abdication, Accession, Act of Settlement 1701 through Birthdays and Bridesmaids and Court Circulars and the Duchy of Cornwall, Eton College, Footmen, the George Cross and George Medal, Handbags, Tax, Jubilees, Knighthoods, Ladies in Waiting, Maids of Honour, Nannies, Order of Succession, Palace Stewards and Picnics, Queens, Racing, Religion, Salaries and State Banquets, Tartans and Tweeds and Trooping the Colour, Valets and the Royal Cross, Royal Warrants and Wine, X-Ray Machine, Yachts, to Zara Phillips. Every detail of whatever the royals do, wear, eat and drink is avidly consumed and it is a never-ending soap opera. When Zara Phillips, daughter of the Princess Royal, appeared with a stud showing through her pierced tongue it made headlines for days and pictures sold all over the world, while speculation about the wealth of the Windsors provides endless stories. The scandal that was caused by the Duke of York's unfortunate friendship with an American billionaire who was convicted of sexual offences and found dead in his prison cell ended the Duke's career. Packed with fascinating details and witty to the point of wickedness. Which member of the royal family won't travel anywhere without his own lavatory seat? What wedding present did Gandhi give to the Queen and Prince Philip? Why did Diana's arrival at her wedding cause an unexpected commotion among the establishment? 274pp, paperback.