Speak another people's language. Know them. Become them. And discover you've destroyed them. In his training as a spy, Ro was warned: you will always be living a lie. Jumping into a Star Eater's mind in the first place requires a moment of perfect psychic connection, and he has studied all his life to comprehend their species. Admires them, respects them, is reverent at the idea of being one of them—the only species physiologically capable of mining the element needed for lightyear-spanning space travel. The species all others crave to know more of, but who have notoriously shared so very little. The species Ro's own small civilization, with its dwindling resources and withering reach, needs to know more about. It will feel real, his elders impressed upon him. It will never be real. But Ro's certainty runs deep: he will be different. Ro will not be an imposter hiding the truth of his past, because his heart will be one of them. He will be one of them. To understand is to become. It never occurs to him that the mere act of understanding can destroy.

In a radical new story about the birth of our species, The Origin of Language argues that it was not hunting, fighting, or tool-making that forced early humans to speak, but the inescapable need to care for our children.Journeying to the dawn of Homo sapiens, evolutionary biologist Madeleine Beekman reveals the “happy accidents” hidden in our molecular biology—DNA, chromosomes, and proteins—that led to one of the most fateful events in the history of life on our giving birth to babies earlier in their development than our hominid cousins the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Faced with highly dependent infants requiring years of nurturing and protection, early human communities needed to cooperate and coordinate, and it was this unprecedented need for communication that triggered the creation of human language—and changed everything. Infused with cutting-edge science, sharp humor, and insights into the history of biology and its luminaries, Beekman weaves a narrative that’s both enlightening and entertaining. Challenging the traditional theories of male luminaries like Chomksy, Pinker, and Harari, she invites us into the intricate world of molecular biology and its ancient secrets. The Origin of Language is a tour de force by a brilliant biologist on how a culture of cooperation and care have shaped our existence. “The Origin of Language is a tour de force. At its core it seeks to explain the origin of language. But, by linking our patterns of sociality, behavior, development, and communication it is a celebration of humanity’s origins. Reading Madeleine Beekman’s book, you will never look at babies—and their utterances—the same way ever again.” —Neil Shubin, evolutionary biologist and author of Your Inner Fish

The #1 bestselling economist shows how capitalism has been replaced by a more exploitative system, technofeudalism, in which the owners of big tech have become the world's feudal overlords. * A GUARDIAN BEST FORTHCOMING BOOK OF 2023 * THE TIMES BIGGEST BOOKS OF AUTUMN 2023 * ‘What an amazing piece of work this is. The dark, scary, exciting song of our age. 100 out of 100’ IRVINE WELSH In his boldest and most far-reaching book yet, world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis argues that capitalism is dead and a new economic era has begun. Insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. Capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents. Meanwhile, with every click and scroll, we labour like serfs to increase its power. Welcome to technofeudalism. Drawing on stories from Greek Myth and pop culture, from Homer to Mad Men , Varoufakis explains this revolutionary how it enslaves our minds, how it rewrites the rules of global power and ultimately what it will take overthrow it. 'Utterly accessible, deeply humane and startlingly original' NAOMI KLEIN on Talking To My Daughter