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.

University of Oxford and Professor of History, University of Toronto, Margaret Macmillan's book is based on her 2018 Reith Lectures, The Mark of Cain. Despite the 'long peace' enjoyed by much of the world since 1940, there has been war somewhere in the world every year. Is war an essential part of being human? Macmillan explores the deep links between society and war and the questions they raise. As societies have changed and technologies have developed, we have fought wars differently and often over greater distances and for longer periods of time. In turn, war has brought huge changes to society, for better and worse. Economies, science, technology, medicine, culture - all are instrumental in war and have been shaped by it. Without war we would not have had centralised states, penicillin, radar or rockets. Throughout history, writers, artists, composers and philosophers have been inspired by war and we have tried again and again to limit and even outlaw war, but if we want to understand our own history and create a peaceful world, we must think about war. The writing style is crisp and there is an enviable clarity of thought as Macmillan cogently explains via colourful historical anecdotes how we understand what war means, our emotions, our ideas and capacity for good as well as cruelty. Winner of the Sunday Times Best Book for Autumn 2020. 328pp, colour and other photos.

After 16 years of bloody war, Hannibal Barca is on the verge of defeat. On the plains of Zama, Felix stands in the formidable Roman legions, ready to deliver the decisive blow. Victory will establish Rome as the pre-eminent power in the ancient world. Meanwhile young senator Flaminius is set on becoming one of the Republic's greatest military commanders with his eyes on as-yet-unconquered Macedon and Greece. But in the north of Greece, Philip V of Macedon has his own agenda and is determined to restore his kingdom to its former glory but needs a strong army to help him do it. Young Demetrios dreams of fighting in the Phalanx but is just a poor oarsman. Thirsty, hungry, burnt by the unforgiving Mediterranean sun, dreams are his only sustenance until a chance encounter changes everything. A thrilling novel by the bestselling writer about the Roman invasion of Greece and the heroes of history for fans of Simon Scarrow. 430pp in large softback with useful glossary.

Donaldson returns to the word of his Great God's War fantasy epic as two kingdoms, with their alliance failing, prepare to be challenged by a merciless enemy. It has been 20 years since Prince Bifalt of Belleger discovered the Last Repository and the sorcerous knowledge hidden there and brought peace to the kingdoms of Belleger and Amika. Founded upon the uneasy marriage between Bifalt and Estie, the crown princess of Amika, they now fear a new war is soon to begin. An ancient enemy has discovered the location of the Last Repository. Dark forces are massing and making their way to the library to seize the magical knowledge it guards. That horde will slaughter every man, woman and child in its path to get what it desires and destroy both Belleger and Amika along the way. They must beat the odds and unite their people and fight back against this terrible foe despite the alliance undermined by lingering hostility and old feuds and conspiracies threatening. Parallels will be found in this wonderful style of Donaldson's writing with his Covenant novels. Military scifi at its best, 564pp in huge softback.

The author's novel 'The Warlow Experiment' was a Sunday Times Fiction Book of the Year. Teeming with historical detail she dazzles and intrigues with her unique, immersive portrayal of a turbulent period of British history. 'I'll be back soon, my love. Tonight, I hope.' The last Eve saw of her mother was a wave from the basket of a rising balloon one ill-fated afternoon in 1802. Growing up a wilful, clever orphan in the house of her erratic artist guardian Joseph, Eve comes to suspect he knows more than he is telling. She struggles to retain the image of her missing mother and the father she never knew while traversing a London beset by pageantry, incipient riots and the fear of Napoleonic invasion, with no one to guide her through its perils. Far away in a Norfolk fishing village, the Rev Snead preaches hellfire and damnation to his impoverished parishioners and oppressed wife. His morality is ostensibly irreproachable - he even plays host to a beautiful, mute woman pulled from the sea, and likes to illustrate his sermons with her good example. For as her protector he keeps a very close watch indeed. A gripping novel of obsession gone sour the pages keep turning as we absorb the stories of the three women, Sarah, Hester and Eve at the heart of this fine historical novel. 248pp.

Brighton 1965 and when theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead, no one suspects foul play, but when the post-mortem reveals poisoning, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone. Determined to prove her innocence, Verity calls in private investigator Emma Holmes, former detective and now wife of Police Superintendent Edgar Stephens. This is her first real case, but luckily she has a lead. Her friend, actor Max Mephisto is filming a remake of Dracula starring Bert's son, Seth, but Max is playing his cards close to his chest. Emma must vie with the police including her husband to untangle the case. She's convinced the answer lies in Bert's dark past and in the glamorous, occasionally deadly days of Music Hall, but the closer she gets to the truth the more danger she finds herself in. Subtle, charming and with an unflaggingly keen eye, this is an emotionally intelligent and satisfying crime novel from the bestselling author. 346pp, paperback.

Our dear friend Gyles is and always was a huge fan of the Duke of Edinburgh, and together with our Annie dined at a banquet with the Duke at the Natural History Museum in London several years ago, and he had had the pleasure of meeting him on many occasions and enjoying his wit, intellect and bon viveur. Elusive, complex, controversial, challenging, often humorous and sometimes irascible, Prince Philip was the man Elizabeth II once described as her 'constant strength and guide'. What was he really like and what is the truth about those 'gaffes' and the rumours of affairs? Gyles is the writer who got closest to the human truth about our long-serving senior royals and this is the revised and updated 2022 paperback edition. 'I knew the Duke of Edinburgh over a period of more than 40 years. I was accustomed to his sense of humour. I liked it, I liked him. I admired him as much as any man I have known. It was knowing him as I did that led me to write this book about him, and his wife, and their remarkable marriage - the longest-lasting marriage of any sovereign and consort in history. I first met Prince Philip in the 1970s, when he was in his 50s and I was in my 20s, and I became involved in the world of the National Playing Fields Association.' 'I suppose the polo was fun. Playing cricket was fun, in the old days. The carriage driving is fun - when you don't fall off the box seat. Then it's just bloody painful.' 'I enjoyed flying... I think I should have joined the Air Force instead of the Navy.' Prince Philip's grandfather King George I of Greece was assassinated a few years before he was born. His favourite sister Cécile was killed in an aeroplane accident when he was still a teenager. His favourite uncle and guardian at the time George Milford Haven died of cancer soon after. His father, Prince Andrew of Greece, died when Philip was just 23. His other favourite uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was murdered by the IRA when blow up in his own boat in 1979. 'I'm quite ready to die. It's what happens - sooner or later.' And now it has and how sad we are here at Bibliophile since he was our patron and gave us a Royal Warrant, by Royal Appointment, which by the gracious gift of the Queen, we can still refer to in perpetuity. Here are candid photos like the tell-tale photograph of Philip and Elizabeth in October 1946 entitled 'The First Look', and their first dance, seen together publicly for the first time in July 1947 in Edinburgh. Gyles' book tells the story of two contrasting lives and assesses the Duke of Edinburgh's character and achievements, relationships with his wife, children and their families, and with the press and public and those at court who were suspicious of him in the early days. A moving account of a long life well lived and a remarkable royal partnership the likes and length of which we shall never see again. 513pp, paperback, well illus. with many colour plates.

The Sunday Times Bestseller is sub-titled 'A Survivor's Guide to the Menopause' and is an hilarious and refreshingly honest compendium from C for Carb-loading and G for Getting Your Shit Together, to I for Invisibility and V for Vaginas. Jenny's whistlestop tour of 'The Change' in all its glory will make you realise that it really isn't just you. She will share the surprising lessons she has learned along the way as well as her hard-won tips on the joy of cardigans, dealing with the empty nest (get a lodger) and keeping the lid on the pressure cooker of your temper (count to 20, ten is never enough). 'The trouble with overheating in bed and ripping off your nightie is that your partner thinks it's a sexy come-on...' This is a book written from experience and from the heart which will make you laugh and feel better because a problem shared after all is a problem halved, and as women age, nowadays the fairer sex are no longer content to boil silently and uncomplainingly in the corner. ?As long as there has been life on earth, then, there have been menopausal women, stomping about, feeling furious, giving the old man grief for bringing home some scraggy bit of flea-bitten mammoth and complaining about 'the bloody fire being too hot'?. The Grumpy Old Woman speaks, and very funny she is too. 295pp, paperback.

'Why me? How could a boy from a Copenhagen tower block say I want to be champion with Manchester United and Denmark and make it happen?' Frank and conversational in tone, honest and unsentimental, this is the biography of Peter Schmeichel and his exceptionally successful goalkeeping career alongside the remarkable story of a family. Schmeichel is a giant of football who won more Premier League titles (five) than any player in his position, and captained Manchester United in the incomparable, last gasp Treble, clinching a win over Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final. In his book he takes us inside the remarkable, winning environment of a club that transformed football during the 1990s, and on to the pitch on that crazy, breathless night in Barcelona in 1999. From Sir Alex Ferguson's unique gifts, to Eric Cantona's unique personality, he delivers a close-up and insightful portrait of United's Golden era. But the biography goes way beyond the pitch. Schmeichel has an incredible family story to tell, starting with his father, Antoni, a brilliant Polish jazz musician who battled demons and for years kept a momentous secret from those around him. And he explores what he has been able to pass on to his own son, Kasper, himself a Premier League-winning goalkeeper and number one in the Danish national side. Schmeichel won ten league titles, three FA Cups and nine other major trophies in a club career spanning 19 years, 748 games and 10 goals - no ordinary goalkeeper. Ferguson paid just £505,000 to sign him in 1991, and hailed him as 'The bargain of the century'. 400 page paperback, many photos including colour.