One woman, one bike and one richly entertaining, perception-altering journey of discovery. In 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to learn more about this troubled region and its relationship with the West, Lowe's 11,000-kilometre journey took her through Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf and finally to Iran.

A gripping tale of law and justice, liberty and freedom, and trade and adventure in medieval Iceland. Sailing Free follows the life of Kári Ragnarsson, a venturous shipowner and merchant, and his brother Guðmundr, who dutifully takes over the family farm, as they traverse adulthood against the backdrop of 11th century Iceland. All around greedy neighbours seek to amass power and subvert Iceland’s ancient liberties; feuds are common and justice is being eroded and abused by those in charge.

Examining work by novelists, filmmakers, TV producers and songwriters, this book uncovers the manner in which the radio – and the act of listening – has been written about for the past 100 years. Ever since the first public wireless broadcasts, people have been writing about the radio: often negatively, sometimes full of praise, but always with an eye and an ear to explain and offer an opinion about what they think they have heard.

The West has lost its way. But which way was it? Disoriented by postmodern relativism and critical theory, many seek refuge in older certainties of religious or political traditions. But many of these paths, author Thomas Plant maintains, are only recent forks off a wider, older road—a way that belongs as much to the East as to the West, and can unite Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and more in pursuit of the truly common Good.

What was the personality of 19th-century Paris? To answer that question, Alan - who has lived in Queen Edith's for 43 years and was one of its city councillors from 2002 to 2010 - starts with the legacies that late 18th-century Paris inherited from its foundation in pre-Roman and Roman times and from its medieval infancy and early-modern adolescence. His book unpacks the social and material complexity of the 19th-century city. It considers the role of immigration in the making of Parisians and in the city's growth from half a million people in 1801 to almost three million in 1911.

Karl Marx outlined the idea of a material ‘base’ and politico-cultural ‘superstructure’. According to this formula, a material reality – wealth, income, occupation – determined your politics, leisure habits, tastes, and how you made sense of the world. Today, the importance of material deprivation, in terms of threats to life, health and prosperity, are as acute as ever. But the identities apparently generated by these realities are increasingly detached from material circumstances.

The Greeks is the story of a culture that has contributed more than any other to the way we live now in the West. It is a story that travels the entire globe and four millennia, taking us from the archaeological treasures of the Bronze Age Aegean, myths of gods and heroes, to the politics of the European Union today. Here are the glories of the classical city-states of Athens and Sparta, the far-reaching conquests of Alexander the Great, the foundations of early Christianity, the thousand-year empire of the Byzantines, and the rediscoveries of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

My debut novel follows a captivating dictator's wife standing trial for her dead husband's crimes in post-communist eastern Europe, and the web of lies she weaves around the young female lawyer defending her.

Published as a lead launch by Headline Review as 'the most darkly gripping debut of the year'.

Exploring how the authority of medicine is controlled, negotiated, and organized, Managing Medical Authority asks: How is knowledge shared throughout the profession? Who makes decisions when your heart malfunctions—physicians, hospital administrators, or private companies who sell pacemakers? How do physicians gain and keep their influence?