Weaving history, literature, science, and his own vivid experiences observing pigs, cows, sheep, goats, and chickens, Masson bears witness to the emotions and intelligence of these remarkable animals, each unique with distinct qualities.

The Pig Who Sang to the Moon

Science & Math

Jeffrey Mason

Agricultural Sciences

Chatto Bodley Head & Cape

When James Wood's first collection of essays, The Broken Estate, was published in 1999, the reviewers hailed a master critic. John Banville described Wood as a 'a close reader of genius-illuminating and exciting and compelling', and Malcolm Bradbury described him as 'a true critic: an urgent, impassioned reader of literature, a tireless interpreter, a live and learned intelligence'; Adam Begley, in the Financial Times, said that 'Wood is not just a keen critic, our best, but a superb writer'; Geoff Dyer admired the 'passionately sustained vigour of his writing' which 'towered above most of what passes for criticism'; Natasha Walter, in the Independent, described The Broken Estate as 'a book that makes you feel, having closed it, as if your mind has been oxygenated'. The common thread in Wood's latest collection of essays is what makes us laugh - and the book is an attempt to distinguish between the perhaps rather limited English comedy (as seen in Waugh, for example) and a 'continental' tragic-comedy, which he sees as real, universal and Quixotic. A particularly acerbic, and very funny, essay - which has been widely celebrated - deals with Zadie Smith, Rushdie, Pynchon and DeLillo,

The Irresponsible Self : Essays on Comedy and Fiction

James Wood

The Battle for New York : The City at the Heart of the American Revolution

On 15 September 1776 the British army under General William Howe invaded Manhattan Island, with the largest expeditionary force in their history. George Washington's Continental Army, still in disarray after the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn some two weeks earlier, retreated north to Harlem Heights, leaving New York in British hands. Control of the city was Howe's primary objective. Located at the mouth of the strategically vital Hudson river, it had become the centrepiece of England's strategy for putting down the American rebellion. However, as Barnet Schecter reveals in his stirring narrative, far from furnishing a key to the colonies, New York proved to be the fatal chalice that poisoned the British war effort. The Battle for New York tells the story of how the city became the pivot on which the American Revolution turned - from the political and religious struggles of the 1760s and early 1770s that polarised its citizens and increasingly made New York a hotbed of radical thought and action; to the campaign of 1776 that turned New York into a series of battlefields; to the seven years of British occupation, during which time Washington and Congress were as determined to regain the city as the British were to hold it. The extraordinary campaign in the autumn of 1776, which forms the dramatic heart of the book, was by far the largest military venture of the Revolutionary War; it involved almost every significant participant in the war on both sides; and there can be little doubt that during it the fate of America hung in the balance. Moreover, the outcome had a direct impact on the major turning points of the rest of the war.

History

Barnet Schecter

Americas

Darien Dogs

Jim Rogers once had everything: a successful career, the love of a beautiful woman, a Manhattan penthouse and more money than he knew what to do with. Now it had all gone wrong and he was in a seedy hotel in Panama realising that the prostitute he'd just been with had stolen his wallet. Though it wasn't the money he was worried about but a sheet of folded paper, which he'd just been given by the mysterious Albert Jones: a piece of paper that might have saved his life. The search for the girl and the stolen document lead the two men deep into the Darien archipelago - a primitive, treacherous idyll that seems like Paradise but may in fact be Hell. The short novel, Darien Dogs, and the four stories that accompany it, mark the fictional debut of an assured and thrillingly gifted writer. With his disaffected, morally riven characters caught up in exotic, ambiguous Edens, there are echoes of Graham Greene - but Henry Shukman's writing has an imaginative depth, an erotic, muscular charge, and a dark, compulsive energy all its own.

Henry Shukman

When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626 - his first New York real estate killing - he showed his shrewdness by also buying the oyster beds off tiny, nearby Oyster Island, renamed Ellis Island in 1770. From the Minuit purchase until centuries of pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters- the 'Blue Points,' still produced by the Long Island town of the same name; the 'Rockaways' and 'East Rivers'; 'Sounds' from Staten Island; several Manhattan varieties, and even those from a celebrated area by what is now LaGuardia Airport. For centuries New York was world famous as an oyster centre, especially in the late 1800s, when Europe and America enjoyed a decades-long oyster craze. In Europe New York oysters were famous for both their size and durability. In a dubious endorsement, William Makepeace Thackeray said that eating a New York oyster was like eating a baby. When travellers visited New York, they not only wanted to eat the Coral oysters, they wanted to experience the famous New York oyster houses. While some houses were known for their elegance, the infamous slums such as Five-Points were notoriously disreputable. Due to

The Big Oyster

Mark Kurlansky

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Will most of the major fisheries of the world be exhausted by 2048, as has been claimed? Have the number of large fish in the ocean decreased by 90 per cent over the past 50 years, as has been asserted by a respected scientist? Are 60 per cent of the fish species studied by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation either fully exploited or depleted, as one of their reports attests? Fishing at sea, an ancient trade and a way of life that has defined coastal towns throughout history, may be coming to an end. The culture and traditions of coastal Britain and of seagoing nations everywhere are now threatened with extinction. In his most important book yet, Mark Kurlansky - the celebrated author of Cod, Salt and The Big Oyster - explores the fate of our oceans and the decline of our most ancient coastal enterprise. The Last Fish Tale sends up a timely distress flare but one which brilliantly illuminates a colourful, exuberant and poignant landscape, from Newlyn in Cornwall to Gloucester in Massachusetts - a fishing village first settled by Englishmen in the early 1600s.The result is a cultural, economic, environmental and culinary bouillabaisse - the most compelling fish tale of our time.

The Last Fish Tale

Mark Kurlanzki

Jorgen Jorgenson was a Dane who made Britain his adopted country, and became caught up in its story at opposite ends of the earth. The son of a Copenhagen clockmaker, inspired by his hero Captain Cook, he came to London. Here he became a sailor and at twenty-three was among the small party sent to establish a new colony - Tasmania. Twists of fortune found him captaining a ship for Napoleon against Britain: captured, his life was under threat. He escaped execution, but next a pile of London gambling debts drove him to sail with British traders to Iceland. Now comes his long-dreamed of moment of glory. When Danish officials in Iceland bar their trade, Jorgensen and his fellows (including the young botanist William Jackson Hooker) simply stage a coup. For seven summer months Jorgensen rules Iceland, proclaiming it free from Danish rule, its ancient rights restored and 'at peace with all the nations of the world'. A British warship arrives, and his rule is at an end, but on the voyage home, Jorgen is a hero once more, saving them all from a fire at sea. He was not yet thirty. Much lay ahead, from imprisonment in the hulks, patronage by the British establishment, and travels in Europe as a British spy. But Jorgensen was dogged by his own excesses, and spiralled downwards to prison again, until he was transported as a convict to Tasmania, the colony he helped to found. Here his second life began. He became a mighty explorer, cutting through the bush across icy mountains and flooded rivers. Despite his sympathy for the people, he was caught up in the 'Black Line' and the terrible Aboriginal clearances - movingly described here. Finally he won freedom and status and fame, before drink and a violent marriage dragged him down again. It's a great story - all the ripping yarns you need rolled into one, and a real eye-opener about the workings of power at the birth of the British empire.

The English Dane: A Life of Jorgen Jorgenson

Bakewell, Sarah

World

Beyond the prosperous New South surface of modern-day Atlanta lies a dangerous world of drug addiction and poverty, brilliantly realized in Suzanne Kingsbury's provocative new urban novel. Gracey Fill has been arrested during a narcotics raid aimed at busting one of the biggest drug runners Atlanta has ever known, her ex-husband, Sonny. In the questioning room, Gracey is intent on telling her entire story. Two officers, one young and naive, the other jaded, become her de facto audience. Meanwhile, the narrative moves back and forth between other expertly conjured characters: Deneeka Jones, a cross-dresser who turns tricks and sells heroin for Sonny; Frazier Sky and Audrey Sullivan, teenaged children of Atlanta's ultra-rich who dabble in drugs to soothe theestrangement in their home lives; and finally Frazier and Audrey's parents, once extra-marital lovers who can't be saved by money, power, or privilege. As Gracey's harrowing story unfolds, the cops close in on Sonny and a batch of bad heroin circulates through Atlanta, putting everyone in danger. The Gospel According to Gracey is a gripping, often surprising, and deeply haunting novel from a daring and original young writer.

The Gospel According to Gracey

Suzanne Kingsbury

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Lawson, Nigella

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