Fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, by some 220,000 men over rain-sodden ground in what is now Belgium, the Battle of Waterloo brought an end to twenty-three years of almost continual war between revolutionary and later imperial France and her enemies. A decisive defeat for Napoleon and a hard-won victory for the Allied armies of the Duke of Wellington and the Prussians led by the stalwart Blucher, it brought about the French emperor's final exile to St Helena and cleared the way for Britain to become the dominant world power. A former soldier, Gordon Corrigan is the author of an acclaimed military biography of Wellington and has walked the battlefields of the Napoleonic era many times. He is perfectly placed to offer a robust, clear and gripping account of the campaign that surveys the wider military scene before moving on to the actions at Quatre Bras and Ligny and then the final, set-piece confrontation at Waterloo itself. He is also well qualified to explore, often in fascinating detail, the relative strengths and frailties of the very different armies involved — French, British, Dutch, Prussian and German — of their various arms — infantry, artillery and cavalry — and of their men, officers and, above all, their commanders. Wellington remarked that Waterloo was a damned nice thing, 'nice' meaning uncertain or finely balanced. He was right. For his part, Napoleon reckoned the English are bad troops and this affair is nothing more than eating breakfast. He was wrong, and this splendid book proves just how wrong.

At twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's rapid death from cancer, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk eleven-hundred miles of the west coast of America — from the Mojave Desert, through California and Oregon, and into Washington state — and to do it alone. She had no experience of long-distance hiking and the journey was nothing more than a line on a map. But it held a promise — a promise of piecing together a life that lay in ruins at her feet.

A pocket-sized collection of sleep-themed Simon's Cat cartoons selected from the first three Simon's Cat books. In full colour and featuring a selection of brand new cartoons, Simon's Cat is back, only smaller, cheaper and cuter but as sleepy as ever.

Everything separates us from one another, with the exception of one fundamental point: we're both utterly despicable individuals.' (Houellebecq to BHL) In 2008, two of the most celebrated of French intellectuals Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Levy ('BHL') began a ferocious exchange of letters. Public Enemies is the result. In their inimitably witty, inimitably fascinating, inimitably confrontational correspondence, they lock horns on everything, including literature, sex, politics, family, fame and even — naturally — themselves. By turns caustic and touching, sincere and candid, Public Enemies reveals how these two immensely procovative writers came to be who they are. Never dull, always incendiary, this is one literary fight you can't ignore. The sparks fly from every page...

After serving twenty-seven years of a lifetime sentence for conspiring to overthrow South Africa's apartheid government, Nelson Mandela emerged to become both the catalyst and the symbol of post-apartheid South Africa. He served as the country's first black president and has since been internationally acclaimed as a powerful and vigilant humanitarian. John Carlin began covering South African politics while serving as the London Independent's Bureau Chief in South Africa in 1989, and formed a relationship with Nelson Mandela in the decades since. Mandela has called Carlin's journalism 'courageous' and 'absolutely inspiring'. Now, Carlin reflects back on the man he has studied and admired for much of his career. The book will begin with Mandela's release from prison in 1990, and will end with the last time Carlin saw Mandela face-to-face in the early 2000s. Spanning decades, and chronicling both personal and national memories, Carlin's tribute to Mandela is a fitting retrospective on a life well lived and its enduring legacy.

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her injured. Needing a place to rest and pick up the pieces of her life, Rhoda packed her bags, crossed the country, and returned to her Mennonite family's home, where she was welcomed back with open arms and weird advice. (Rhoda's good-natured mother suggested she get over her heartbreak by dating her first cousin he owned a tractor, see.) Written with wry humour and huge personality — and tackling faith, love, family, and aging — Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving and funny memoir, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.

Joanne Limburg thinks things she doesn't want to think, and does things she doesn't want to do. As a young woman, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours had come to completely dominate her life. She knew that something was wrong, but it would take many painful years of searching to find someone who could explain her symptoms. The Woman Who Thought Too Much is a vividly honest, beautifully told and darkly witty memoir about the quest to understand and manage a life with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

At the turn of the last century, two sisters are following very different paths. Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is a CEO of an internet start-up; twenty-three-year-old Jess is a grad student in philosophy, a vegan who rejects the rampant capitalism that surrounds her. Pragmatic Emily is making a fortune in Silicon Valley while capricious Jess works in an antiquarian bookstore. Emily's boyfriend is fantastically successful; Jess's boyfriend is an environmental activist. But as the burst of the Dotcom bubble looms and the falling towers of the World Trade Center cast a dark shadow over America, both sisters are torn between two loves, two lives. The Cookbook Collector serves up a lively stew of characters: bold young software titans, Berkeley tree-huggers, bibliophiles and a pair of investment savvy rabbis. In an increasingly virtual world, in an era of electronic organizers and onscreen identities, Allegra Goodman reminds us that the one thing that keeps us human is love.

Steve Jobs was an American visionary who immeasurably altered the way the world uses technology. From the Apple II to minimalist iMacs and from the foundation of Pixar to the invention of the iPad, Jobs' products and ideas confounded expectations perpetually redefined markets to make Apple the most successful technology company on the planet. Inside Steve's Brain is a unique and revealing look at one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the internet age. Part biography, part leadership manual, Kahney's book is a rich and insightful examination of a man who was at once a business poineer, and a cultural icon.

One boy, one boat, one tiger... After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in recent years.

«This book includes short responses to the 2010 annual EDGE question «How is the Internet changing the way you think?» Most of the responses, by reputable scientists, thinkers and artists, present fascinating ideas, whether convincing or not. But about a third do not relate to the question, are written in a hurry, present personal projects not related to the issue, or express raw feeling. The book as a whole is very stimulating. But benefitting from its more profound insights, while avoiding misleading views, requires readers with literacy in studies of the mind and a lot of Internet sophistication. In substance, this book is a kind of brainstorming with many high-quality contributions, but without any well-based conclusions. This is also a result of the formulation of the question, which is open to multiple interpretations and different understandings. Clearly Internet impacts on some levels of thinking, such as the dictionaries of the mind, and not on others, such as deeper recursive processes. But little more can reliably be states. In any case, it is much too early for Internet to exert significant influence on deeper mental processes. Therefore, empiric bases for studying the question are inadequate, assuming that relevant aspects of the mind can in principled be studies and are not shaped in part by the study instruments, as in quantum phenomena. All this caveats do not diminish the value of the many ideas presented in the book from which knowledgeable readers can benefit a lot. To such an audience the book is strongly recommended. But readers without required entry qualifications will be either mislead or mixed up or both — similar to what happens to uncritical and ignorant users of the Internet.»

David Loftus is one of the world's leading food photographers: on the road 350 days of the year, camera in hand, shooting top chefs and their wonderful dishes from Battersea to New York to the Bahamas. Now, in Around the World in 80 Dishes, he shares the most delicious cuisine he has come across on his travels: introduced by his close friend Jamie Oliver, eighty recipes from the world's favourite chefs, many of whom have shared David's adventures. Around the World in 80 Dishes features mouthwatering recipes from international chefs and cookery writers including Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Gennaro Contaldo, Heston Blumenthal and Atul Kochhar. It follows in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg and his famous Grand Tour, taking in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and America, to create a treasure-trove of treats from the four corners of the globe. Lovingly compiled and beautifully photographed, rich with the stories behind the recipes captured in these pages, this is a dream anthology for committed cooks and amateurs alike. If you love food and travel, and you've a hearty appetite for life, warm up the oven, pick a destination and prepare to set off on your own culinary journey.

Meet Balram Halwai, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur and murderer. Balram, the White Tiger, was born in a backwater village on the River Ganges, the son of a rickshaw-puller. He works in a teashop, crushing coal and wiping tables, but nurses a dream of escape. When he learns that a rich village landlord needs a chauffeur, he takes his opportunity, and is soon on his way to Delhi behind the wheel of a Honda. Amid the cockroaches and call-centres, the 36,000,004 gods, the slums, the shopping malls, and the crippling traffic jams, Balram learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India. Driven by desire to better himself, he comes to see how the Tiger might escape his cage...

«In 1907, Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung began what promised to be both a momentous collaboration and the deepest friendship of each man's life. Six years later they were bitter antagonists, locked in a savage struggle. In between them stood a young woman named Sabina Speilrein: a patient and lover to Jung, a colleague and confidante to Freud, and one of the greatest minds in modern psychiatry. This mesmerizing book reconstructs the fatal triangle of Freud, Jung and Spielrein. It encompasses clinical methods and politics, hysteria and anti-Semitism, sexual duplicity and intellectual brilliance wielded as blackmail. Learned, humane and impossible to put down, A Dangerous Method is intellectual history with the narrative power and emotional impact of great tragedy.»

21st Century Mumbai is a city of new money and soaring real estate, and property kingpin Dharmen Shah has grand plans for its future. His offer to buy and tear down a weathered tower block, making way for luxury apartments, will make each of its residents rich — if all agree to sell. But not everyone wants to leave; many of the residents have lived there for a lifetime, many of them are no longer young. As tensions rise among the once civil neighbours, one by one those who oppose the offer give way to the majority, until only one man stands in Shah's way: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, once the most respected man in the building. Shah is a dangerous man to refuse, but as the demolition deadline looms, Masterji's neighbours — friends who have become enemies, acquaintances turned co-conspirators — may stop at nothing to score their payday...

This is the debut of 2011: A stunning novel of moral ambiguity, uncertainty and corruption in Moscow. Snowdrops assaults all your senses with its power and poetry, and leaves you stunned and addicted. (Independent). Snowdrops. That's what the Russians call them — the bodies that float up into the light in the thaw. Drunks, most of them, and homeless people who just give up and lie down into the whiteness, and murder victims hidden in the drifts by their killers. Nick has a confession. When he worked as a high-flying British lawyer in Moscow, he was seduced by Masha, an enigmatic woman who led him through her city: the electric nightclubs and intimate dachas, the human kindnesses and state-wide corruption. Yet as Nick fell for Masha, he found that he fell away from himself; he knew that she was dangerous, but life in Russia was addictive, and it was too easy to bury secrets — and corpses — in the winter snows... This title is suitable for readers of William Boyd, James Meek's People's Act of Love, Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, John le Carre and Robert Harris.

This essential and timely guide to all things England and English, which has sold 34,000 hardback copies to date, is now available in paperback.Despite a thousand years of glorious history, the people of England know surprisingly little about the facts and fables, people and places and events and emblems that have shaped their country and its heritage.Where did John Bull come from? What is the Long Man of Wilmington? Who abolished Christmas? When did roast beef become a national dish? From the White Cliffs of Dover to MG Rover, from Newcastle Brown Ale to Royal Mail, and from John Milton to blue stilton, Nicholas Hobbes explains and celebrates every aspect of Englishness for a modern audience. The result is as entertaining as it is essential.