Sixth Form Recommended Reading

Contents

Art .......................................................................................................................... 4

Biology.................................................................................................................... 6 Chemistry ............................................................................................................... 8

Classics ................................................................................................................. 10

Computer Science ................................................................................................. 12 Design Technology ................................................................................................ 14 Drama & Theatre Studies ...................................................................................... 16 Economics............................................................................................................. 18 English .................................................................................................................. 20 Geography ............................................................................................................ 24 History .................................................................................................................. 26 History of Art ........................................................................................................ 28 Mathematics......................................................................................................... 30 Music.................................................................................................................... 32 Physics.................................................................................................................. 36 Politics .................................................................................................................. 38 Psychology ............................................................................................................ 40 Sports Science....................................................................................................... 42 Philosophy ............................................................................................................ 34 Environmental Systems and Societies .................................................................... 22

Theology & Ethics ................................................................................................. 44

Theory of Knowledge (TOK) .................................................................................. 46

ART “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Edward Hopper

What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy

During his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These works culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Impassioned and iconoclastic, this powerfully influential work both criticizes the elitist nature of art in nineteenth century Western society, and rejects the idea that its sole purpose should be the creation of beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire and Wagner are all vigorously condemned, as Tolstoy explores what he believes to be the spiritual role of the artist - arguing that true art must work with religion and science as a force for the advancement of mankind.

The Short Story of Art by Susie Hodge

The Short Story of Art is a new and innovative introduction to the subject of art. Simply constructed, the book explores 50 key works, from the wall paintings of Lascaux to contemporary installations, and then links these to sections on art movements, themes and techniques. The design of the book allows the student or art enthusiast to easily navigate their way around key periods, artists and styles. Accessible and concise, it simplifies and explains the most important and influential concepts in art, and shows how they are connected .

What Art Is by Arthur C. Danto

A lively meditation on the nature of art by one of America's most celebrated art critics what is it to be a work of art? Renowned author and critic Arthur C. Danto addresses this fundamental, complex question. Part philosophical monograph and part memoiristic meditation, What Art Is challenges the popular interpretation that art is an indefinable concept, instead bringing to light the properties that constitute universal meaning. Danto argues that despite varied approaches, a work of art is always defined by two essential criteria: meaning and embodiment, as well as one additional criterion contributed by the viewer: interpretation.

The Art Book Edited by Georgina Palffy

Embark on a grand tour of art history with this guide to the story of art with the big ideas and themes behind the world's most important artistic movements, artworks, and artists. The Art Book explores the more than 80 of the world's most ground breaking artworks by history's most influential painters, sculptors, and artists with stunning visuals and insightful quotations. Discover key artworks and artists from across the globe, stretching from the prehistoric Altamira cave paintings and Chinese jade carvings to more impressionism, symbolism, cubism, and pop art.

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1000 Symbols by Rowena & Rupert Shepherd

Symbols are often identified as an international language but that language is far from universal. Different symbols can mean radically different things in different contexts - a cross, a crane or a swastika could each have a distinct meaning for a Buddhist, an art historian or a student of the occult, for example, and none of those meanings would be quite the same. 1000 Symbols offers the reader a full explanation: an introductory alphabetical index is followed by groupings of related symbols, everyone with an extended definition of its history and its cross-cultural meanings.

Biology

“ There is no scientific study more vital to man than the study of his own brain. Our entire universe depends on it ” Francis Crick

Drugs – Without the Hot Air by David Nutt The science of what drugs are and how they work lets us quantify and compare the harms caused by different drugs. With this information we can radically transform drugs law, and hugely reduce crime and all the other social, economic and health harms currently caused by drugs. The book is written in plain English. It is intended for people who take drugs, and those dealing with the harms drugs cause: parents, teachers, doctors, politicians, social workers and law enforcement agencies. - It explains what drugs are, how they work, and how people become addicted.

Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre puts the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. What he reveals is a fascinating, terrifying mess. Doctors and patients need good scientific evidence to make informed decisions. But instead, companies run bad trials on their own drugs, which distort and exaggerate the benefits by design. When these trials produce unflattering results, the data is simply buried. All of this is perfectly legal. In fact, even government regulators withhold vitally important data from the people who need it most.

Genome by Matt Ridley

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

Why we sleep Matthew Walker

The most important investigation of genetic science since The Selfish Gene, from the author of the critically acclaimed and best selling The Red Queen and The Origins of Virtue. The genome is our 100,000 or so genes. The genome is the collective recipe for the building and running of the human body. These 100,000 genes are sited across 23 pairs of chromosomes. Genome, a book of about 100,000 words, is divided into 23 chapters, a chapter for each chromosome. The first chromosome, for example, contains our oldest genes, genes which we have in common with plants.

Sleep is one of the most important aspects of our life, health and longevity and yet it is increasingly neglected in twenty-first century society, with devastating consequences: every major disease in the developed world - Alzheimer's, cancer, obesity, diabetes - has very strong causal links to deficient sleep. Drawing upon 20 years of research and looking at creatures from across the animal kingdom as well as major human studies, Why really happens during REM sleep to how caffeine and alcohol affect sleep and why our sleep patterns change across a lifetime, transforming our appreciation of the extraordinary phenomenon that safeguards our existence. We Sleep delves into everything from what

Why do we laugh? What makes memories fade? Why do fools fall in love? Why do people believe in ghosts? How do we recognize a face? How the Mind Works explores every aspect of our brains, showing that our minds are not a mystery, but rather a system designed by natural selection over years of human evolution.

Whether looking at optical illusions or

religion, Mozart or films, Stephen Pinker offers us a new way of understating ourselves.

CHEMISTRY

“All that glitters may not be gold but at least it contains free electrons ” John Desmond Bernal

The Gecko’s Foot by Peter Forbes

Bio-inspiration is a form of engineering but not in the conventional sense. Extending beyond our established and preconceived notions, scientists, architects and engineers are looking at imitating nature by manufacturing 'wet' materials such as spider silk or the surface of the gecko's foot. The amazing power of the gecko's foot has long been known – gecko’s can climb a vertical glass wall and even walk upside down on the ceiling.

Recently the secret of how they do this was discovered by a team of scientists in Oregon who established that it does not involve suction, capillary action or anything else the lay person might imagine. Instead, each foot has half a million bristles and each bristle ramifies into hundreds of finer spatula-shaped projections. The fine scale of the gecko's foot is beyond the capacity of conventional micro engineering, but a team of nanotechnologists have already made a good initial approximation and this book delves into the technology behind the discovery and the ramifications for future scientific development.

The Water Book by Alok Jha

Water is the most every day of substances. It pours from our taps and falls from the sky. We drink it, wash with it, and couldn't live without it. Yet, on closer examination it is also a very strange substance (it is one of only a very small number of molecules which expand when cooled). Look closer again and water reveals itself as a key to a scientific story on the biggest of canvases. Water is crucial to our survival - life depends on it - but it was also fundamental in the origins of life on Earth.

The millions of gallons of water which make up our rivers, lakes and oceans, originated in outer space. How it arrived here and how those molecules of water were formed, is a story which takes us back to the beginning of the universe. Explore that story in The Water Book .

Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams Packed with fascinating stories and unexpected information about the building blocks of our universe, in Periodic Tales you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and noble gases that light the way to vice. You'll learn how lead

The Secrets of Alchemy by Lawrence Principe

can tell your future while zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the Whitehouse in Washington, the glow of a streetlamp with the salt on your dinner table. The book is divided into five sections, Power, Fire, Craft, Beauty and Earth, which group elements according to their primary cultural connotations, rather than their position on the periodic table and in doing so allow for a fresh look at the various elements.

Lawrence M. Principe, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, brings alchemy out of the shadows and restores it to its important place in human history and culture. By surveying what alchemy was and how it began, developed, and overlapped with a range of ideas and pursuits, he illuminates the practice. Vividly depicting the place of alchemy during its heyday in early modern Europe, he explores how alchemy has fit into wider views of the cosmos and humanity, touching on its enduring place in literature, fine art, theatre, and religion as well as its recent acceptance as a serious subject of study for historians of science. In addition, he introduces the reader to some of the most fascinating alchemists, such as Zosimos and Basil Valentine, whose lives dot alchemy's long reign from the third century down to the present day. Through his exploration of alchemists and their times, Principe pieces together closely guarded clues from obscure and fragmented texts to reveal alchemy's secrets, and - most exciting for budding alchemists - uses them to recreate many of the most famous recipes in his lab, including those for the "glass of antimony" and "philosophers' tree."

Atkins’ Molecules by Peter Atkins Discover the molecules responsible for the experiences of our everyday life - including fabrics, drugs, plastics, explosives, detergents, fragrances and tastes.

With engaging prose Peter Atkins gives a non technical account of an incredible range of aspects of the world around us, showing unexpected connections, and giving an insight into how this amazing world can be understood in terms of the atoms and molecules from which it is built.

Classics

“ Education is the kindling of a flam, not the filling of a vessel ” Socrates

The Hemlock Cup by Bettany Hughes

We think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did. His aphorism 'The unexamined life is not worth living' may have originated twenty-five centuries ago, but it is a founding principle of modern life. For seventy years Socrates was a vigorous citizen of Golden Age Athens, philosophising in the squares and public arenas rather than in the courts of kings, before his beloved city turned on him, condemning him to death by poison.

Socrates lived in and contributed to a city that nurtured key ingredients of contemporary civilisation - democracy, liberty, science, drama, rational thought - yet, as he wrote almost nothing down, he himself is an enigmatic figure. In The Hemlock Cup , acclaimed historian Bettany Hughes gives Socrates the biography he deserves, painstakingly piecing together Socrates' life and using fresh evidence to get closer to the man who asked 'how should we live?' - a question as relevant now as it has ever been.

Circe by Madeline Miller

“Circe is a bold and subversive retelling of the goddess’s story that manages to be both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right. Miller has combined scholarship with imagination to turn the most familiar war epic into a fresh, emotionally riveting page-turner. ” - Head of Classics, Mr Taylor Circe is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship. When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell,

wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia. But she will not always be alone; many are destined to pass through Circe's place of exile, entwining their fates with hers. The messenger god, Hermes. The craftsman, Daedalus. A ship bearing a golden fleece. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home. There is danger for a solitary woman in this world, and Circe's independence draws the wrath of men and gods alike.

Greek Myths by Charlotte Higgins

The Decipherment of Linear B by John Chadwick The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris reveals the secrets of Linear B and offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Mycenaean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.

Here are the myths of Heracles and Theseus, the Trojan war, Thebes and Argos and Athens. They are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive

gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures and resourceful witches.

In this telling the female characters take centre stage as Athena, Helen, Circe, Penelope and others weave these stories into elaborate imagined tapestries. In Charlotte Higgins's thrilling new interpretation of these ancient stories, their tales combine to form a dazzling, sweeping epic of storytelling.

The Odyssey by Emily Wilson

The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage, family and identity; and about travellers, hospitality and the changing meanings of home in a strange world.

This vivid new translation the first by a woman matches the number of lines in the Greek original, striding at Homer's sprightly pace. Emily Wilson employs elemental, resonant language and a five-beat line to produce a translation with an enchanting "rhythm and rumble" that avoids proclaiming its own grandeur. An engrossing tale told in a compelling new voice that allows contemporary readers to luxuriate in Homer's descriptions and similes and to thrill at the tension and excitement of its hero's adventures, Wilson recaptures what is "epic" about this wellspring of world literature.

Computer Science “ Computer science is no more about computers that astronomy is about telescopes, biology is about microscopes or chemistry is about beakers and tubes. Science is not about tools, it is about how we use them and what we find out when we do.” Edsger Dijkstra

Computational Thinking by Peter J Denning

What is computational thinking? This volume offers an accessible overview, tracing a genealogy that begins centuries before digital computers and portraying computational thinking as pioneers of computing have described it.

The authors identify six dimensions of today's highly developed CT (computational thinking) — methods, machines, computing education,

software engineering, computational science, and design — and cover each in a chapter. Along the way, they debunk inflated claims for CT and computation while making clear the power of CT in all its complexity and multiplicity.

Computing: A concise history by Paul E Ceruzzi

In this accessible account of the invention and development of digital technology, computer historian Paul Ceruzzi identifies four major threads that run throughout all of computing's technological development: digitization - the coding of information, computation, and control in binary form, ones and zeros; the convergence of multiple streams of techniques, devices, and machines, yielding more than the sum of their parts; the steady advance of electronic technology, as characterized famously by "Moore's Law"; and the human-machine interface.

Ceruzzi guides us through computing history, from the coining of the word ‘ digital ’ in 1942 to the world-changing evolution of the computer from a room-size ensemble of machinery to a "minicomputer" to a desktop computer to a pocket-sized smartphone. He describes the development of the silicon chip and visits that hotbed of innovation, Silicon Valley and the story up to the present with the Internet, the World Wide Web, and social networking.

Smart Cities by Germaine Halegoua

Over the past 10 years, urban planners, technology companies, and governments have promoted smart cities with a somewhat utopian vision of urban life made knowable and manageable through data collection and analysis. After reviewing current terminology and justifications employed by technology designers, journalists, and researchers, Smart Cities describes

three models for smart city development and offers examples of each. It covers technologies and methods, including sensors, public wi-fi, big data, and smartphone apps, and discusses how developers conceive of interactions among the built environment, technological and urban infrastructures, citizens, and citizen engagement.

The Technological Singularity by Murray Shanahan

The idea that human history is approaching a "singularity"―that ordinary humans will someday be overtaken by artificially intelligent machines or cognitively enhanced biological intelligence, or both―has moved from the realm of science fiction to serious debate. Some singularity theorists predict that if the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop at its current dizzying rate, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century. Murray Shanahan offers an introduction to the idea of the singularity and considers the ramifications of such a potentially seismic event.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark AI is the future - but what will that future look like? Will superhuman intelligence be our slave, or become our god? Will AI help life flourish as never before, or will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, and even, perhaps, replace us altogether? Taking us to the heart of the latest thinking about AI, Max Tegmark, the MIT professor whose work has helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial, separates myths from reality, utopias from dystopias, to explore the next phase of our existence.

Design Technology

“ Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. ” Steve Jobs

Digital Handmade by Lucy Johnston

Speed, regulation and mass production defined the first Industrial Revolution but, we have entered a new era. Today’s revolution has been driven by digital technologies and tools, giving rise to entirely new working methods, skill sets and consumer products. Spearheading this movement is a new generation of creatives who fuse the precision and flexibility of computing and digital fabrication with the skill and tactility of the master artisan to create unexpected and desirable objects and

products. Digital Handmade selects a group of 80 pioneering designers, artists and craftsmen who represent the best of this new trend. Profiles of 80 pioneering designers, artists and craftsmen ’s techniques are featured alongside the objects they produce, each conceived and made through a multifaceted process of hand and digital means and unique to its maker.

Natural Designs by Aurelie Drouet

Since the beginning of time, nature has been a source of inspiration for designers: Natural Designs is part of this creative process and offers you the possibility to create furniture and everyday objects with raw materials from mineral to plant. Enjoy a walk in the woods, or beachcomb by the sea to unleash your imagination and bring a little nature into your home. From cork hanging lights, a slate desk to a natural wool pouffe and a birch coat stand, discover simple and elegant ideas that you can make yourself. Easy to make and accessible to everyone discover 20 creations with step-by-step photos, plans and technical tips.

Green Design Volume 1 by Dorian Lucas

To live sustainably has become one of the key goals of our time. Environmentally compatible methods of construction and products are hotly sought after especially when they are appealingly designed. Green Design, Vol. 1 presents products that are not only green but which also show good design: beautiful and functional objects of day to day life, which are distinguished by certain principals of environmental compatibility. Among them are environmentally compatible raw materials, production and disposal, energy efficient or energy independent use, and fair production.

Radical Matter by Kate Franklin & Caroline Till

Holistic systems of design, production and consumption that will benefit our world environmentally, socially and economically are now possible, and material innovation will be a crucial element in achieving that goal. Radical Matter presents eight ‘Big Ideas’ that will shape and inform the choices of materials, design methods and manufacturing processes made by designers in the years ahead and draws from a global community of designers who are pushing boundaries of ‘sustainable design’.

Furniture Design by Stuart Lawson

A comprehensive guide and insight into furniture design for those considering a university education in product and industrial design. As well as discussing pioneering contemporary and historical designs, substantive answe rs to designers’ questions about function, materials, manufacture and sustainability are included. Leading contemporary furniture designers from around the world are featured with case studies carefully selected to highlight the importance of both material and manufacture-led design processes.

“ We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are. ” Laurence Olivier

Towards a Poor Theatre by Jerzy Grotowski

Systems of Rehearsal by Shomit Mitter

The gap between theory and practice in rehearsal is wide. Many actors and directors apply theories without fully understanding them, and most accounts of rehearsal techniques fail to put the methods in context. Systems of Rehearsal is the first systematic appraisal of the three principal paradigms in which virtually all theatre work is conducted today - those developed by Stanislavsky, Brecht and Grotowski. The author compares each system to the work of the contemporary director who, says Mitter, is the Great Imitator of each of them: Peter Brook. The result is the most comprehensive introduction to modern theatre available.

Grotowski created the Theatre Laboratory in Opole, South-West Poland, in 1959. His work since then, with a small permanent company, became one of the most potent sources of information for modern actors and directors. This is a record of the ideas that motivated the work of the Theatre Laboratory, and of the company's methods and discoveries. In his Preface Peter Brook writes: "Grotowski is unique. Why? Because no one else in the world, to my knowledge no one since Stanislavski, has investigated the nature of acting, its phenomenon, its meaning, the nature and science of its mental-physical-emotional processes as deeply and completely as Grotowski." Grotowski's Theatre Laboratory Company was first seen in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968 and went on to international fame.

The Theater and Its Double by Antonin Artaud

An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski

A collection of manifestos originally published in 1938, The Theater and Its Double is the fullest statement of the ideas of Antonin Artaud. “We cannot go on prostituting the idea of the theater, the only value of which is in its excruciating, magical rela tion to reality and danger,” he wrote. He fought vigorously against an encroaching conventionalism he found anathema to the very concept of theatre and sought to use it to transcend writing, “to break through the language in order to touch life.”

An Actor Prepares is the most famous acting training book ever to have been written and the work of Stanislavski has inspired generations of actors and trainers. Stanislavski deals with the inward preparation an actor must undergo in order to explore a role to the full. He introduces the concepts of the 'magic if' units and objectives, of emotion memory, of the super-objective and many more now famous rehearsal aids. This is an essential read for actors, directors and anyone interested in the art of drama.

The Empty Space by Peter Brook

Ground-breaking director Peter Brook draws on a love of the stage to explore the issues facing any theatrical performance. He describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to the rise of Method Acting to Brecht's revolutionary alienation technique, and from the different styles of such great Shakespearean actors to a joyous impromptu performance in the burnt-out shell of the Hamburg Opera just after the war. Passionate, unconventional and fascinating, Brook shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions and creates lasting memories for its audiences.

“ The hardest thing in the world to understand in the income tax. ” Albert Einstein

Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Ken Binmore

Games are everywhere: Drivers manoeuvring in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. A firm negotiating next year's wage is playing a bargaining game. The opposing candidates in an election are playing a political game. The supermarket's price for corn flakes is decided by playing an economic game. Game theory is about how to play such games in a rational way. Even when the players have not thought everything out in advance, game theory often works for the same reason that mindless animals sometimes end up behaving very cleverly: evolutionary forces eliminate irrational play because it is unfit.

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

Every time we choose a route to work, decide whether to go on a second date, or set aside money for a rainy day, we are making a prediction about the future. Yet from the financial crisis to ecological disasters, we routinely fail to foresee hugely significant events, often at great cost to society. In The Signal and the Noise, the New York Times political forecaster Nate Silver, who accurately predicted the results of every single state in the 2012 US election, reveals how we can all develop better foresight in an uncertain world. From the stock market to the poker table, from earthquakes to the economy, he takes us on an enthralling insider's tour of the high-stakes world of forecasting, showing how we can use information in a smarter way amid a noise of data - and make better predictions in our own lives.

The Quest for Prosperity by Justin Yifu Lin

How can developing countries grow their economies? Most answers to this question centre on what the rich world should or shouldn't do for the poor world. In The Quest for Prosperity, Justin Yifu Lin — the first non-Westerner to be chief economist of the World Bank — focuses on what developing nations can do to help themselves. Lin examines how the countries that have succeeded in developing their own economies have actually done it. Interwoven with insights, observations, and stories from Lin's travels as chief economist of the World Bank and his reflections on China's rise, this book provides a road map and hope for those countries engaged in their own quest for prosperity.

The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner

The final revision of this classic bestseller, the 7th edition defines the common thread linking the world's greatest economic thinkers and explores the philosophies that motivate them. Hailed by Galbraith as a "brilliant achievement", The Worldly Philosophers not only enables us to see more deeply into our history, but helps us to better understand our own times. Heilbroner provides the new theme that connects thinkers as different as Adam Smith and Karl Marx: the desire to understand how a capitalist society works. A new chapter conveys a concern that today's increasingly "scientific" economics may overlook fundamental social and political issues that are central to economics.

Positive Linking by Paul Ormerod

According to Paul Ormerod, author of the bestselling Butterfly Economics and Why Most Things Fail, the mechanistic viewpoint of conventional economics is drastically limited - because it cannot comprehend the vital nature of networks. As our societies become ever more dynamic and intertwined, network effects on every level are increasingly profound. 'Nudge theory' is popular, but only part of the answer. According to Paul Ormerod, to grapple successfully with the current financial crisis, businesses and politicians need to grasp the perils and possibilities of Positive Linking.

Our social and economic worlds have been revolutionised by a

English

“ To live is the rarest thing in the World. Most people exist, that is all. ” Oscar Wilde

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty. One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in North America. The world will never be the same again. Twenty years later Kirsten, an actress in the Travelling Symphony, performs Shakespeare in the settlements that have grown up since the collapse. But then her newly hopeful world is threatened. If civilization was lost, what would you preserve? And how far would you go to protect it? A dystopian thriller about courage and freedom, with a stark reminder of our current need to tackle climate change.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid 'Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America . . . ' So speaks the mysterious stranger at a Lahore cafe as dusk settles. Invited to join him for tea, you learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. For he is more worldly than you might expect; better travelled and better educated. He knows the West better than you do. And as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream -- and a Western woman -- and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear . . .

Night of Fire by Colin Thubron

Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse

A house is burning. Its six tenants include a failed priest, a naturalist, a neurosurgeon and a photographer. Their landlord's relationship to them is both intimate and shadowy. At times he shares their obsessions and memories. He will also share their fate. The passions of these individuals reach beyond the dying house that holds them. One recalls a lonely childhood, another the cremation grounds of India, another an African refugee camp. But will their stories be consumed forever by the flames?

The Empress of Blandings, prize-winning pig and all-consuming passion of Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, has disappeared. Blandings Castle is in uproar and there are suspects a-plenty - from Galahad Threepwood (who is writing memoirs so scandalous they will rock the aristocracy to its foundations) to the Efficient Baxter, chilling former secretary to Lord Emsworth. Even Beach the Butler seems deeply embroiled. And what of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, Clarence's arch-rival, and his passion for prize-winning pigs? This comic masterpiece is vintage Blandings, and P.G. Wodehouse at his best.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink" is the memorable first line of this enchanting coming-of-age story, told in the form of Cassandra Mortmain's journal. Cassandra wittily describes life growing up in a crumbling castle, with her father who suffers from crippling writer's block, her glamorous but ineffectual step-mother and her vain but beloved sister Rose. When two visiting Americans arrive, all of their lives are turned upside down, and Cassandra experiences her first love. This is a classic coming-of-age story, beloved of generations of teenage and adult readers, by Dodie Smith, who also wrote The Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Environmental Systems and Societies

“ Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do. ” Michel de Montaigne

A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright

Palaeolithic hunters who learnt how to kill two mammoths instead of one had made progress. Those who learnt how to kill 200 by driving a whole herd over a cliff had made too much. Many of the great ruins that grace the deserts and jungles of the earth are monuments to progress traps, the headstones of civilisations which fell victim to their own success. The twentieth-century´s runaway growth has placed a murderous burden on the planet. A Short History of Progress argues that this modern predicament is as old as civilisation. Only by understanding the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated since the Stone Age can we recognise the inherent dangers, and, with luck, and wisdom, shape its outcome.

Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert

Elizabeth Kolbert's environmental classic Field Notes from a Catastrophe first developed out of a groundbreaking, award-winning three-part series in The New Yorker. She expanded it into a still concise yet richly researched and damning book about climate change: a primer on the greatest challenge facing the world today. In the years since, the story has continued to develop; the situation has become more dire, even as our understanding of it grows. Now Kolbert returns to the defining book of her career, with new chapters on ocean acidification, the tar sands, and a Danish town that's gone carbon neutral. Field Notes from a Catastrophe remains as necessary as ever, and a must-read for our moment.

How Did We Get into this Mess? by George Monbiot

George Monbiot is one of the most vocal, and eloquent, critics of the current consensus. Based on his powerful journalism, he assesses the state we are now in: the devastation of the natural world, the crisis of inequality, the corporate takeover of nature, our obsessions with growth and profit and the decline of the political debate over what to do. Controversial, clear but always rigorously argued, How Did We Get into this Mess? makes a persuasive case for change in our everyday lives, our politics and economics, the ways we treat each other and the natural world.

This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein's international bestseller This Changes Everything is a must-read on our future, one of the defining and most hopeful books of this era. Forget everything you think you know about global warming. It's not about carbon - it's about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better. In her most provocative and optimistic book yet, Naomi Klein has upended the debate about the stormy era already upon us, exposing the myths that are clouding the climate debate.

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think like a 21st Century Economist by Kate Raworth Economics is broken, and the planet is paying the price. Unforeseen financial crises. Extreme wealth inequality. Relentless pressure on the environment. Can we go on like this? Is there an alternative? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth lays out the seven deadly mistakes of economics and offers a radical re-envisioning of the system that has brought us to the point of ruin. Moving beyond the myths of ‘rational economic man’ and unlimited growth, Doughnut Economics zeroes in on the sweet spot: a system that meets all our needs without exhausting the planet.

The demands of the 21st century require a new shape of economics. This might just be it.

Geography “ It is impossible to understand history, international politics, the world economy, religions, philosophy, or ‘ patterns of culture ’ without taking geography into account. ” Kenneth C. Davis

The Revenge of Geography by Robert D. Kaplan In The Revenge of Geography, Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. The Russian steppe's pitiless climate and limited vegetation bred hard and cruel men bent on destruction, for example, while Nazi geopoliticians distorted geopolitics entirely, calculating that space on the globe used by the British Empire and the Soviet Union could be swallowed by a greater German homeland.

The Shock of the Anthropocene by Christophe Bonneuil & Jean-Baptiste Fressoz The Earth has entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene. What we are facing is not only an environmental crisis, but a geological revolution of human origin. In two centuries, our planet has tipped into a state unknown for millions of years. How did we get to this point? Refuting the convenient view of a human species that upset the Earth system, unaware of what it was doing, this book proposes the first critical history of the Anthropocene, shaking up many accepted ideas: about our supposedly recent environmental awareness, about previous challenges to industrialism, about the manufacture of ignorance and consumerism, about so-called energy transitions, as well as about the role of the military in environmental destruction. In a dialogue between science and history, The Shock of the Anthropocene dissects a new theoretical buzzword and explores paths for living and acting politically in this rapidly developing geological epoch.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman Exploring key concerns of our time, this absorbing thought experiment reveals a powerful - and surprising - picture of our planet's future. What if mankind disappeared right now, forever ... what would

happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate ever recover from human activity? How would nature destroy our huge cities and our myriad plastics? And what would our final legacy be? This ground-breaking book examines areas of the world that have been abandoned or never occupied by humans to see how they have fared without us and looks beyond to discover whether, and for how long, our largest cities, biggest achievements and most devastating mistakes will last after we are gone. In doing so it wrestles with some of the key concerns of our time and reveals a picture of the future that is both illuminating and terrifying.

Collapse by Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future. What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Collapse shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors.

The Holocene: An Environmental History by Neil Roberts The Holocene provides students, researchers and lay-readers with the remarkable story of how the natural world has been

transformed since the end of the last Ice Age around 15,000 years ago. This period has witnessed a shift from environmental changes determined by natural forces to those dominated by human actions, including those of climate and greenhouse gases. Understanding the environmental changes - both natural and anthropogenic - that have occurred during the Holocene is of crucial importance if we are to achieve a sustainable environmental future.

History “ A generation which ignores history has no past and no future ” Robert Heinlen

Black and British by David Olusoga

When did Africans first come to Britain?

Who are the well-dressed black children in Georgian paintings?

Why did the American Civil War disrupt the Industrial Revolution?

These and many other questions are answered in this essential introduction to 1800 years of the Black British history: from the Roman Africans who guarded Hadrian’s Wall right up to the present day.

Dissolution Series: The Shardlake series by CJ Sansom

Tudor England is brought to vivid life in the historical fiction, Dissolution , the first in C.J. Samson's phenomenal, bestselling Shardlake series. England, 1537: Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church and the country is waking up to savage new laws, rigged trials and the greatest network of informers ever seen. Under the

order of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent through the country to investigate the monasteries. There can only be one outcome: the monasteries are to be dissolved. But on the Sussex coast, at the monastery of Scarnsea, events have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's Commissioner Robin Singleton, has been found dead, his head severed from his body. His horrific murder is accompanied by equally sinister acts of sacrilege - a black cockerel sacrificed on the altar, and the disappearance of Scarnsea's Great Relic. Dr Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and long-time supporter of Reform, has been sent by Cromwell into this atmosphere of treachery and death. But Shardlake's investigation soon forces him to question everything he hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes . . .

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens?

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans : a popular bestseller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival. Through the story of three generations of women in her own family – the grandmother given to the warlord as a concubine, the Communist mother and the daughter herself – Jung Chang reveals the epic history of China's twentieth century. Breathtaking in its scope, unforgettable in its descriptions, this is a masterpiece which is extraordinary in every way.

Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us. One of the world's preeminent historians and thinkers, Yuval Noah Harari challenges everything we know about being human. In this bold and provocative book, he explores who we are, how we got here and where we're going.

My Father’s Country: story of a German family by Wibke Bruhns

In August 1944, Hans Georg Klamroth was tried and executed for his part in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. Wibke Bruhns, his youngest daughter, was six years old at the time. Decades later, watching a documentary about the events of 20 July, images of her father in the Third Reich People's Court appeared on the screen. 'I stare at this man with the lifeless expression. I don't know him... But I can see myself in him - his eyes are my eyes, I know that I look like him... I wouldn't be me, without him.'

In My Father's Country , Bruhns tells of her search for her father. Returning to Halberstadt in Northern Germany, where her ancestors the Klamroth family lived and worked for generations, she retraces the story from Kaiser Wilhelm to the end of World War Two, discovering old photographs, letters and diaries, which she uses to piece together a unique and unforgettable family epic.

Engaging with her family on both an emotional and political level, My Father's Country is a memoir that is also a remarkable work of history, powerfully told and deeply moving.

History OF Art

“ I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. ” Michelangelo

Mother’s House : The Evolution of Vanna Venturi ’ s House in Chestnut Hill by Frederic Schwartz The House that Robert Venturi designed for his mother and built in 1964 is arguably the most architecturally influential building of the second half of the twentieth century. In this book Robert Venturi, a world-renowned architect, reflects on this seminal building from a distance of over a quarter of a century.

He discusses why it ’s style and form, once so revolutionary, are accepted now. This book presents for the first time all of the developmental drawings that were executed to accompany the six stages of design. Also include are original constructions drawings, yellow tracing-paper drawings and photographs of the house including the series of models made for it.

A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

Spanning an enormous range, A History of the World in 100 Objects begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai Gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today.

Neil MacGregor's aim is not simply to describe these remarkable things, but to show us their significance - how a stone pillar tells

us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency or how an early Victorian tea-set tells us about the impact of empire. This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them.

Rice’s Architectural Primer by Matthew Rice

Rice’s Architec tural Primer covers the grammar and vocabulary of British buildings, explaining the evolution of styles from Norman castles to Norman Foster. Its aim is to enable the reader to recognise, understand and date any British building. As Matthew Rice says, 'Once you can speak any language, conversation can begin, but without it communications can only be brief and brutish. The same is the case with Architecture: an inability to describe the component parts of a building leaves one tongue-tied and unable to begin to discuss what is or is not exciting, dull or peculiar about it.' Rice’s Architectural Primer explains the language of architecture.

Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection by Norman Rosenthal Presenting the work of young British artists from the Saatchi Collection, this volume features work by over 40 of the most radical artists working in Britain in the 1990s. Essays analyse the phenomenon of the British art scene from the late 1980s, assessing the critical reaction of the work, placing it in its historical context, and revealing the startling achievements of these young artists in Britain and the role played by imaginative and courageous patronage.

Hadid by Rachel Zadok

Zaha Hadid is a wildly controversial architect whose work remained largely unbuilt for years, despite awards and critical acclaim. Yet in the past decade, Hadid has risen to fame and completed numerous structures like the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, the Glasgow Riverside Museum, and the Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum in Michigan. With her audacious, futuristic designs, Hadid now ranks among the elite of world architecture. Born in Baghdad and educated in London, where her practice is based, Hadid has designed radical architecture for over 30 years.