A quirky, joyful, feel-good love story about a lonely museum worker who falls in love with a statue of Venus, from the author of international bestseller Diary of a Void Rika Horauchi’s new part-time job is to converse with a statue of Venus—in Latin—every Monday, when the museum is closed. Initially reluctant, Rika starts to enjoy her strange new job. Recommended by her old university professor for her exemplary language skills, Rika leads an otherwise unassuming life, working the rest of the week in a frozen-food warehouse. As Venus comes to life in the quiet of the museum, they talk about everything. Venus opens up new worlds for Rika, both intellectually and emotionally. They soon fall in love. But when the museum’s curator, Hashibami, makes it clear he wants to keep Venus for himself, what will Rika do? When the Museum is Closed is by turns charming, funny and surprising, a surreal take on our most real emotions and concerns: love, loneliness, freedom, perceptions of beauty and how women are seen in society. This uncommonly original new novel confirms Emi Yagi as one of the most exciting Japanese writers published in English today.

A Times Best Book of the Year 2025A remarkable micro-history from the author of The Sleepwalkers and Revolutionary Spring'It takes a confident historian to write a short book… the story is distilled to its powerful essence; he knows precisely what’s important… This small book is many things, but for me what shines brightest is a tale of two renegade preachers who understood women and love' - Gerard de Groot, The Times Now part of the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the former Prussian and German port of Königsberg has always been a somewhat sleepy place, doomed to be famous for having once been the residence of Immanuel Kant. But in the late 1830s, just for a short while, it became famous for all the wrong reasons.Christopher Clark’s brilliant new book is the result of many years of fascination with this strange case. Sensational accusations were bandied about, implying that beneath the town’s somnolent surface there were dark erotic currents and wrenching betrayals of trust. For the Prussian authorities this was just the sort of moral collapse they feared most. In the aftermath of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which had unsettled a generation, every lapse could be seen as the harbinger of new storms.A Scandal in Königsberg beautifully brings to life a time and a place that we would now situate in the tranquil ‘Biedermeier’ years between the seismic upheavals of the 1810s and 1840s. But there is a timeless quality to this small vortex of turbulence, in which spiritual hunger, vanity, professional rivalry, sexual incontinence, naivety and sheer human waywardness threatened to tear a city apart.

In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade. Julie Chan has nothing. Her twin sister has everything. Except a pulse. Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied. Transforming into Chloe is easier than expected. Julie effortlessly adopts Chloe’s luxurious influencer life, complete with designer clothes, a meticulous skincare routine, and millions of adoring followers. However, Julie soon realizes that Chloe’s seemingly picture-perfect life was anything but. Haunted by Chloe’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.

In this electrifyingly fierce and funny social satire-- a gender-flipped reboot of the iconic 1970's film "Taxi Driver"--a ride share driver is barely holding it together on the hunt for love, dignity and financial security . . . until she decides she's done waiting. "A ferocious new voice. A fierce and immersive debut."--Weike Wang Damani is tired. Her father just died on the job at a fast food joint, and now she lives paycheck to paycheck in a basement, caring for her mom and driving for an app that is constantly cutting her take. The city is roiling in protests --everybody's in solidarity with somebody-- but while she keeps hearing that they're fighting for change on behalf of people like her, she literally can't afford to pay attention. Then she gives a ride to Jolene (5 stars, obviously). Jolene seems like she could be the perfect girlfriend - attentive, attractive, an ally - and their chemistry is off the charts. Jolene's done the reading, she goes to every protest, and she says all the right things. So maybe Damani can look past the one thing that's holding her back: She's never dated anyone with money before, not to mention a white girl with money. But just as their romance intensifies and Damani finally lets her guard down, Jolene does something unforgivable, setting off an explosive chain of events. A wild, one-sitting read brimming with dark comedy, and piercing social commentary and announcing Priya Guns' feverishly original voice, Your Driver Is Waiting is a crackling send-up of our culture of modern alienation.

From holy cup comes holy light; The faithful hand sets world aright. And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight, Mere man shall end this endless night. It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness.Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order could not stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains.Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope: The Holy Grail. From author Jay Kristoff comes Empire of the Vampire, the first illustrated volume of an astonishing new dark fantasy saga.

The year is 2272 and the last of the polar icecaps have melted. New York and Buenos Aires were submerged years ago and the Patagonian Archipelagos have been radically transformed into the only habitable lands on Earth. Here, in the unbearable heat of Victorica, Argentina, our child protagonist is a humanoid mosquito. Carrier of the deadly dengue virus, his monstrous appearance not only makes him a target for his cruel classmates - led by the little tyrant El Dulce - but also elicits disgust from his own mother.As the world spirals to its end, Dengue Boy searches for the meaning of his life and his true origins. Elsewhere, adults negotiate the value of pandemics on the Stock Exchange and waste the last of Earth's resources, while children more privileged than Dengue Boy plug into virtual realities and constant streams of violent video games. In delirious prose that brings together the picaresque, manga, body horror and cyberpunk, Dengue Boy delivers an extraordinary and bizarre portrait of a demented future.

Samuel Fleming, an aging priest, is tormented by doubts on the case of Joan Flower and her daughters Margaret and Philippa, whom he helped condemn to death as witches in 1618. Were they guilty? Was justice done? Did he do all he could to save their souls? The spirit of Joan Flower appears to him and tells him that she has been rejected by both Heaven and Hell and is condemned to wander the earth. She unfolds a story of horror, telling how she and her daughters became witches, participated in orgies at the witches' sabbath with the Devil himself, cast spells to kill and torment their enemies, and eventually faced trial and execution. As Samuel listens, he tries desperately to find some way to save the witch's soul. And the stakes are for as the witch tells her horrifying tale, Samuel realizes that hers is not the only soul in jeopardy, and if he fails, he may be joining her in Hell! Hilda Lewis (1896-1974), a prolific author of historical fiction, ranked The Witch and the Priest (1956), based on the real-life case of the Witches of Belvoir, as her own favourite among her many novels. In creating this masterpiece of historical fiction, Lewis conducted extensive research on the case and on early works of witchcraft and demonology, resulting in a novel that is both compulsively readable and historically accurate. This new edition is the first in more than 40 years and includes an introduction by bestselling historian and novelist Alison Weir, and the original jacket art by Evelyn Gibbs.

An epic tale of revolution, love, post-scarcity, and the end of death. Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin Ellis Espinoza—known to his friends as Hubert, Etc—was too old to be at that Communist party. But after watching the breakdown of modern society, he really has no where left to be—except amongst the dregs of disaffected youth who party all night and heap scorn on the sheep they see on the morning commute. After falling in with Natalie, an ultra-rich heiress trying to escape the clutches of her repressive father, the two decide to give up fully on formal society—and walk away. After all, now that anyone can design and print the basic necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter—from a computer, there seems to be little reason to toil within the system. It’s still a dangerous world out there, the empty lands wrecked by climate change, dead cities hollowed out by industrial flight, shadows hiding predators animal and human alike. Still, when the initial pioneer walkaways flourish, more people join them. Then the walkaways discover the one thing the ultra-rich have never been able to buy: how to beat death. Now it’s war – a war that will turn the world upside down. Fascinating, moving, and darkly humorous, Walkaway is a multi-generation science fiction thriller about the wrenching changes of the next hundred years…and the very human people who will live their consequences.

A revolutionary feminist case for child liberation, a utopian project that helps us imagine ways to build insurgent, collective forms of care. We live in a world that is profoundly against children—evident in the genocide in Palestine, the fascist targeting of trans children, and the blatant disregard for the lives of migrant children crossing borders and oceans. It is a world in which climate catastrophe has become the new normal, in which children’s futures are by no means assured.What we need, feminist writer and scholar Madeline Lane-McKinely argues, is a politics of solidarity with children, one that sees children as comrades in our struggle for a better future. Blending personal and political reflection with cultural analysis, Lane-McKinley examines the history of childhood as a system of private property in capitalism, showing how the idea of the child has been weaponized in the service of white supremacy and empire. She disentangles motherhood from the act of caregiving, tracing the possibilities of revolutionary mothering. And she critiques the parents’ rights movement and imagines what education might look like outside schools, considering how we might center children as we challenge the strictures of the nuclear family. Elegantly written and provocative, Solidarity with Children is a book for anyone who cares about children and the struggle for a better world.

First published in 1990, The Sexual Politics of Meat is a landmark text in the ongoing debates about animal rights. In the two decades since, the book has inspired controversy and heated debate.Praise for The Sexual Politics of Meat:CAROL J. ADAMS is the author of The Pornography of Meat (Continuum, 2004), and co-author of Beyond Animal Rights (Continuum, 2000), and The Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Companion to Jane Austen (Continuum, 2008). She has toured as a speaker throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. More information can be found at her website: http://www.triroc.com/caroladams

Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state itself-a history that is drenched in liquor. Scrutinizing (rather than dismissing) the role of alcohol in Russian politics yields a more nuanced understanding of Russian history itself: from palace intrigues under the tsars to the drunken antics of Soviet and post-Soviet leadership, vodka is there in abundance. Beyond vivid anecdotes, Schrad scours original documents and archival evidence to answer provocative historical questions. How have Russia's rulers used alcohol to solidify their autocratic rule? What role did alcohol play in tsarist coups? Was Nicholas II's ill-fated prohibition a catalyst for the Bolshevik Revolution? Could the Soviet Union have become a world power without liquor? How did vodka politics contribute to the collapse of both communism and public health in the 1990s? How can the Kremlin overcome vodka's hurdles to produce greater social well-being, prosperity, and democracy into the future? Viewing Russian history through the bottom of the vodka bottle helps us to understand why the liquor question remains important to Russian high politics even today-almost a century after the issue had been put to bed in most every other modern state. Indeed, recognizing and confronting vodka's devastating political legacies may be the greatest political challenge for this generation of Russia's leadership, as well as the next.

Alternate covers can be found here and here. When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her ‘cousin’ Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.

An awe-inspiring tour of bat world by the world’s leading expert With nearly 1500 species, bats account for more than twenty percent of mammalian species. The most successful and most diverse group of mammals, bats come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, from the tiny bumblebee bat to the giant golden-crowned flying fox. Some bats eat fruit and nectar; others eat frogs, scorpions or fish. Vampire bats feed on blood. Bats are the only mammals that can fly; their fingers have elongated through evolution to become wings with a unique super-flexible skin membrane stretched between them. Their robust immune system is one of the reasons for their extreme longevity. A tiny bat can live for forty years. Yossi Yovel, an ecologist and a neurobiologist, is passionate about deciphering the secrets of bats, including using AI to decipher their communication. In The Genius Bat he brings to vivid life these amazing creatures as well as the obsessive and sometime eccentric people who study them–bat scientists. From muddy rainforests, to star-covered night deserts, from guest houses in Thailand, to museum drawers full of fossils in New York, this is an eye-opening and entertaining account of a might mammal.

Say “algae” and most people think of pond scum. What they don’t know is that without algae, none of us would exist. There are as many algae on Earth as stars in the universe, and they have been essential to life on our planet for eons. Algae created the Earth we know today, with its oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant oceans, and coral reefs. Crude oil is made of dead algae, and algae are the ancestors of all plants. Today, seaweed production is a multibillion-dollar industry, with algae hard at work to make your sushi, chocolate milk, beer, paint, toothpaste, shampoo, and so much more.   In Slime we’ll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel and plastics to market.   With a multitude of lively, surprising science and history, Ruth Kassinger takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the up-and-coming.

Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias, in time, money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women​, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.

Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of the very best mystery fiction, shares the untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. In The Poisoner's Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Drama unfolds case by case as the heroes of The Poisoner's Handbook—chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler—investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, Barnum and Bailey's Famous Blue Man, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler work with a creativity that rivals that of the most imaginative murderer, creating revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. Yet in the tricky game of toxins, even science can't always be trusted, as proven when one of Gettler's experiments erroneously sets free a suburban housewife later nicknamed "America's Lucretia Borgia" to continue her nefarious work. From the vantage of Norris and Gettler's laboratory in the infamous Bellevue Hospital it becomes clear that killers aren't the only toxic threat to New Yorkers. Modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner. Automobiles choke the city streets with carbon monoxide; potent compounds, such as morphine, can be found on store shelves in products ranging from pesticides to cosmetics. Prohibition incites a chemist's war between bootleggers and government chemists while in Gotham's crowded speakeasies each round of cocktails becomes a game of Russian roulette. Norris and Gettler triumph over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice during a remarkably deadly time. A beguiling concoction that is equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten New York.

An entertaining and informative look at the unique culture of crime, punishment, and killing in Ancient Rome In Ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common—murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city, Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theater, Claudius was poisoned at dinner, and Galba was beheaded in the Forum. In one 50-year period, 26 emperors were murdered. But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how perpetrator, victim, and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside Ancient Rome's darkly fascinating history, we see how the Romans viewed life, death, and what it means to be human.  

'Few venture as thou hast in the alarming paths of sin.' This is the final judgement of Satan on Victoria di Loredani, the heroine of Zofloya, or The Moor (1806), a tale of lust, betrayal, and multiple murder set in Venice in the last days of the fifteenth century. The novel follows Victoria's progress from spoilt daughter of indulgent aristocrats, through a period of abuse and captivity, to a career of deepening criminality conducted under Satan's watchful eye. Charlotte Dacre's narrative deftly displays her heroine's movement from the vitalized position of Ann Radcliffe's heroines to a fully conscious commitment to vice that goes beyond that of 'Monk' Lewis's deluded Ambrosio. The novel's most daring aspect is its anatomy of Victoria's intense sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya that transgresses taboos both of class and race. A minor scandal on its first publication, and a significant influence on Byron and Shelley, Zofloya has been unduly neglected. Contradicting idealized stereotypes of women's writing, the novel's portrait of indulged desire, gratuitous cruelty, and monumental self-absorption retains considerable power to disturb.

Norah, a disabled child of seven, loses her mother and is sent to live in the strangely complicated household of her Aunt Rose. She learns to fight the loneliness and indifference she finds there, and makes a place for herself with the help of the staunch Aunt Poll, and the friendship of Paul, sensitive eldest son, whose difficult relationship with Aunt Rose proves a salient factor in the development of plot.