In the tradition of Madeline Miller and Claire North, Lilith is the story of the first woman, who was expelled from Paradise for disobedience. In this retelling of the Hebrew myth [NM1] that justified and explained woman's subjection to man, Lilith will have her revenge - however long it takes. In the Garden of Eden, at the beginning of time, an outrageous lie is born: that women are inferior. Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses - and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah - God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven - is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world and regain her rightful place in Paradise. Lilith's quest for justice drives her throughout history, from the ziggurats of Ancient Sumer to the court of Israel's Queen Jezebel, and to the side of a radical preacher in Roman Judea. In the modern age, as she observes the catastrophic consequences of a world built on inequality, Lilith finally understands what must be done to correct the wrong done to women - and all humankind - at the beginning of time. Inspired by ancient myths and suppressed scriptures, Lilith is a thought-provoking and ambitious novel with an evocative literary voice and a triumphantly engaging heroine.

An atmospheric, feminist retelling of the early life of famed villainess Morgan le Fay, set against the colourful chivalric backdrop of Arthurian legend. When King Uther Pendragon murders her father and tricks her mother into marriage, Morgan refuses to be crushed. Trapped amid the machinations of men in a world of isolated castles and gossiping courts, she discovers secret powers. Vengeful and brilliant, it's not long before Morgan becomes a worthy adversary to Merlin, influential sorcerer to the king. But fighting for her freedom, she risks losing everything – her reputation, her loved ones and her life.

The thrilling conclusion to the bestselling Morgan Le Fay series Grieving over a devastating loss, Morgan has retreated to the sanctuary of Belle Garde behind a veil of fairy magic, after swearing vengeance upon King Arthur and Camelot. Steeped in her rage, she becomes a storm of retribution, battling to avenge her brother’s wrongs while trying to undo a terrible tragedy. But with her resurrection skills elusive and Camelot growing in glory and strength, Morgan is failing, her freedom under threat in the wake of her chaos and treasonous reputation. All appears futile, until her efforts bring news of scandal in the Royal Court, and Morgan is once again drawn inside Camelot’s golden walls. When an encounter with Arthur’s trusted knight, Sir Lancelot, sparks suspicions of Queen Guinevere’s adultery, Morgan falls deeper into obsession, the need to punish those who betrayed her driving her further away from her loved ones, and the woman she once wished to be. As the Age of Camelot darkens, and the forces of love, fate and truth collide, she must choose between her thirst for vengeance and the power to heal what is broken, and decide who Morgan le Fay truly is, in her own future and for all time.

Lady Morgan surveys her life at an unhappy marriage and a vengeful husband determined to keep their son from his queen’s clutches, a true love she can’t be with, a jealous rival in magician Merlin who has the ear of Morgan’s half-brother King Arthur, and strange but wonderful powers of her own she is still exploring. As tensions rise within the castle, happiness seems an impossible dream until Morgan dares to break the shackles of expectation those around her insist upon. But this path to great joy comes at a terrible cost, and before long Morgan must understand it’s a price to be exacted in rich, red blood. Rising from the ashes of desperation, she emerges hard, crystalline and unforgiving - now she is Morgan Le Fay. And hate is in her heart...

Beginning a generation before Hekate, Styx sings the story of the goddess of the underworld river that bears her name…The firstborn child of Titans, Styx is revered as the first of her kind – until she is eclipsed and forgotten amid her scores of siblings, the Oceanids and the Potamoi.Coming of age in a world simmering with paranoia and unspoken fear of Zeus, the volatile and unchecked god-king, Styx learns to conceal the rage ignited by her growing disillusionment with her parents and her vain and unkind siblings. Instead, she finds solace and sisterhood in her cousin, Asteria. Together, they train in the arts of creation and magic. And as they seek to learn their divine purpose and their place within the Titanomachy, they discover both the joy sparked by true love and the fierce resilience birthed from motherhood.In this lyrical and heartrending tale of sisterhood, identity, love, and war, Styx must carve her own path to womanhood – and ultimately, godhood.

A definitive treasury of philosophers from around the world, from ancient times to the modern day. A must-read for anyone wanting answers to the most important questions, from those that have dared to ask them. This essential introduction to world philosophy contains the most noted quotations from 100 of the greatest philosophers in our history. Along with their most famous thoughts, the accompanying text puts each philosopher into the context of their place and time and provides the reader with fascinating but highly accessible insight into the meaning and interpretations of each one. From Lao Tzu in sixth-century BCE China to Plato in Classical Greece, and from Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century to Noam Chomsky in the twenty-first, the breadth of philosophical thought gives the reader unique insights into different attitudes and cultures around the world - along with the issues that unite and divide us. This timely book is an introduction to world thought and intellectual debate through the eyes and minds of those who, by their very nature, ask the most important questions and can fuel change and progress.

An Irish Times Best Book of 2020 A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of The Mere Wife. Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf — and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world — there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements never before translated into English. A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. These familiar components of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history. Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment — of powerful men seeking to become more powerful and one woman seeking justice for her child — but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation; her Beowulf is one for the twenty-first century.

Fast on the heels of the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance comes The Book of Animal Ignorance, a fun, fact-filled bestiary that is sure to delight animal lovers everywhere. Arranged alphabetically from aardvark to worm, here are one hundred of the most interesting members of the animal kingdom explained, dissected, and illustrated, with the trademark wit and wisdom of John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.Did you know, for instance, that• when a young albatross takes wing, it may stay aloft for ten years• vampire bat saliva—unsurprisingly, when you think about it—is the source of the world’s most powerful blood thinning drug, appropriately called draculin• bombardier beetles fire a boiling chemical spray out of their rears at 300 pulses per second• a bald eagle’s feathers weigh twice as much as its bones• a giant tortoise recently died at the documented age of 255• octopuses are dexterous enough to unscrew tops from jars• spider silk is so light that a strand long enough to circle the world would weigh as much as a bar of soap?So meet the water bears that can live in suspension for hundreds of years, the parasite carried by your cat that makes men grumpy and women promiscuous, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the ends of their tongues.If you still think a pangolin is a musical instrument, that hyenas are dogs, or that sheep are pointless and stupid, The Book of Animal Ignorance has arrived just in time.

A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of The Mere Wife. Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf — and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world — there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements never before translated into English. A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. These familiar components of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history. Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment — of powerful men seeking to become more powerful and one woman seeking justice for her child — but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation; her Beowulf is one for the twenty-first century.

Fast on the heels of the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance comes The Book of Animal Ignorance, a fun, fact-filled bestiary that is sure to delight animal lovers everywhere. Arranged alphabetically from aardvark to worm, here are one hundred of the most interesting members of the animal kingdom explained, dissected, and illustrated, with the trademark wit and wisdom of John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.Did you know, for instance, that• when a young albatross takes wing, it may stay aloft for ten years• vampire bat saliva—unsurprisingly, when you think about it—is the source of the world’s most powerful blood thinning drug, appropriately called draculin• bombardier beetles fire a boiling chemical spray out of their rears at 300 pulses per second• a bald eagle’s feathers weigh twice as much as its bones• a giant tortoise recently died at the documented age of 255• octopuses are dexterous enough to unscrew tops from jars• spider silk is so light that a strand long enough to circle the world would weigh as much as a bar of soap?So meet the water bears that can live in suspension for hundreds of years, the parasite carried by your cat that makes men grumpy and women promiscuous, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the ends of their tongues.If you still think a pangolin is a musical instrument, that hyenas are dogs, or that sheep are pointless and stupid, The Book of Animal Ignorance has arrived just in time.

An Irish Times Best Book of 2020 A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of The Mere Wife. Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf — and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world — there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements never before translated into English. A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. These familiar components of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history. Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment — of powerful men seeking to become more powerful and one woman seeking justice for her child — but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation; her Beowulf is one for the twenty-first century.

A revelatory history--spanning continents and millennia--of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization, by the chief strategy officer and global ambassador of water at The Nature Conservancy. In this richly narrated and authoritative work--combining environmental and societal history--Giulio Boccaletti begins with the earliest civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. He describes how these societies were made possible by sea level changes from the last glacial melt. He examines how this sedentary farming led to irrigation and multiple cropping, which, in turn, resulted in an explosion in population and the specialization of labor. We see how irrigation structure led to social structure--inventions like the calendar sprung from agricultural necessity; how, in Ancient Greece, communal ownership of wells laid the groundwork for democracy; how the Greek and Roman experience dealing with water security was the seed for tax systems. And he makes clear how the modern world as we know it began with a legal structure for the development of water infrastructure. In its scope and clarity, Water: A Biography provides a fascinating framework through which we can more fully understand society's relationship to, and fundamental reliance on, the most elemental substance on our planet.

A new history of Assyria, the ancient civilization that set the model for future empires    At its height in 660 BCE, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was the first empire the world had ever seen. Here, historian Eckart Frahm tells the epic story of Assyria and its formative role in global history. Assyria’s wide-ranging conquests have long been known from the Hebrew Bible and later Greek accounts. But nearly two centuries of research now permit a rich picture of the Assyrians and their empire beyond the their vast libraries and monumental sculptures, their elaborate trade and information networks, and the crucial role played by royal women.     Although Assyria was crushed by rising powers in the late seventh century BCE, its legacy endured from the Babylonian and Persian empires to Rome and beyond. Assyria is a stunning and authoritative account of a civilization essential to understanding the ancient world and our own. 

Pope laboured on this English translation for over six years, and published it, by subscription, in six parts between 1715 and 1720. Ultimately, it earned Pope the grand sum of £5,000 and allowed him to live on his own means as a professional author. Samuel Johnson described it as ‘the greatest version of poetry which the world has ever seen’ The thing that best distinguishes this from all other translations of Homer is that it alone equals the original in its ceaseless pour of verbal music. When Pope's contemporaries praised him for his ''numbers,'' they were referring not to the fairly obvious metrical system of the heroic couplet but to the euphony he achieved within its constraints. The relatively enclosed nature of the system concentrates attention on every syllable in the line, on continual shifts in the position and degree of pause marked by metrical breaks (caesuras), on sound effects used to emphasize the careful alterations in word order. Dryden, working a generation earlier on his translation of Virgil, had complained that the raspy consonants of English denied him the smooth vowel effects of the ancient languages. Pope worked miracles in highlighting the play of vowels through his lines. This edition combines two volumes also published separately.

'BOLD AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN' Tom Holland'MY GOD, THIS BOOK IS NEEDED. HISTORY HAS NEVER SEEMED MORE ALIVE...' Russell T DaviesA gripping new journey through ancient history, uncovering the origins of homophobia and the untold stories of those who dared to love.In the early days of ancient Greece, queer love was celebrated. The most famous warrior in antiquity loved another man, the poet whose lyrics were memorised by philosophers and kings sang of her desire for women. Men could swear oaths of undying love and live out the rest of their lives together in peace. What fragments survive of this ancient world all tell us one it was not a sin to be queer. In this extraordinary book, Harry Tanner sets out on a journey to discover the origins of homophobia in the West. From the rise of belligerent tyrants to civil unrest and the birth of radical new philosophies, Tanner follows the traces of this sinister idea as it swept across the ancient Mediterranean. Wherever he discovers the roots of homophobia taking hold, from ancient Judea to imperial Rome, Tanner finds a confluence of crises mirrored across the centuries. Inequality, fear and an obsession with self-control – this is how societies turn on their queer citizens, time and time again, since the dawn of history.This is a powerful story that draws on the rich world of the ancients to reveal how homophobia infected Western religion and ideology - the consequences of which we are still living with today - and to that end how we can move forward and resist homophobia in the future.'EXTREMELY COMPELLING' Alain de Botton'SCINTILLATING' Orlando Reade'FASCINATING' Patrick Ness

Did you love Madeline Miller’s Circe? Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls? Jennifer Saint's Elektra? Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships? But did you ever wonder who the real women behind the myths of the Trojan War were? Now award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.Because, contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it's not only men's stories that deserve to be told . . .In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.

Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future.