Zakia Sewell is on a quest for another Britain. Traversing the length and breadth of our island from Somerset to Scotland, she's seeking out a different story - one that lies beyond divisive national myths and symbols. In Finding Albion, Zakia uncovers an alternative spirit of Britain that is vividly alive today. It is found in otherworldly folk songs, ancient legends, Celtic seasonal rites and mystic stone circles that punctuate our landscape. Her journey begins as the sun rises on the spring equinox over Glastonbury Tor, where she meets neopagans reclaiming traditions from our pre-Christian past. At summer's peak at Notting Hill Carnival she hears cultural echoes that passed along the slave trade routes from the Caribbean. On All Hallow's Eve she encounters the ghosts of Empire that are still haunting the nation, and in the depths of a Cornish winter she asks if today's new folk revival could unite our increasingly divided country? Finding Albion brings a hopeful story of Britain out from the shadows, giving us a deeper sense of who we are, and heralding the promise of a brighter future.

The must-read, pocket-sized Big Think book of 2020 Ours is the age of contagious anxiety. We feel overwhelmed by the events around us, by injustice, by suffering, by an endless feeling of crisis. So, how can we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this age of division? In this powerful, uplifting plea for conscious optimism, Booker Prize-nominated novelist and activist Elif Shafak draws on her own memories and delves into the power of stories to bring us together. In the process, she reveals how listening to each other can nurture democracy, empathy and our faith in a kinder and wiser future.

The must-read, pocket-sized Big Think book of 2020 Ours is the age of contagious anxiety. We feel overwhelmed by the events around us, by injustice, by suffering, by an endless feeling of crisis. So, how can we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this age of division? In this powerful, uplifting plea for conscious optimism, Booker Prize-nominated novelist and activist Elif Shafak draws on her own memories and delves into the power of stories to bring us together. In the process, she reveals how listening to each other can nurture democracy, empathy and our faith in a kinder and wiser future.

‘A work of genius’ Philip Hoare‘One of the best things I’ve read in many many years’ Hilton Als'Beautifully provocative ... the most compelling exploration of life, death, love and resistance that I've read for a very long time' Eimear McBrideA story of loss and grief, sex and love, and refusing to relinquish dreamsHe said he would understand if it was too much for me, that I could leave him, that I was young, I should be living, I said to him, I am living.Johnny Grant faces stark life decisions. Seeking answers, he looks back to his relationship with Jerry Field. When they met, nearly thirty years ago, Johnny was 19, Jerry was 45. They fell in love and made a life on their own terms in Jerry’s 1, Nova Scotia House. Johnny is still there today – but Jerry is gone, and so is the world they knew.As Johnny’s mind travels between then and now, he begins to remember stories of Jerry’s of experiments in living; of radical philosophies; of the many possibilities of love, sex and friendship before the AIDS crisis devastated the queer community. Slowly, he realizes what he must do next—and attempts to restore ways of being that could be lost forever.Nova Scotia House takes us to the heart of a relationship, a community and an era. It is both a love story and a lament; bearing witness to the enduring pain of the AIDS pandemic and honouring the joys and creativity of queer life. Intimate, visionary, and profoundly original, it marks the debut of a vibrant new voice in contemporary fiction, and a writer with a liberating new story to tell.

‘A work of genius’ Philip Hoare‘One of the best things I’ve read in many many years’ Hilton Als'Beautifully provocative ... the most compelling exploration of life, death, love and resistance that I've read for a very long time' Eimear McBrideA story of loss and grief, sex and love, and refusing to relinquish dreamsHe said he would understand if it was too much for me, that I could leave him, that I was young, I should be living, I said to him, I am living.Johnny Grant faces stark life decisions. Seeking answers, he looks back to his relationship with Jerry Field. When they met, nearly thirty years ago, Johnny was 19, Jerry was 45. They fell in love and made a life on their own terms in Jerry’s 1, Nova Scotia House. Johnny is still there today – but Jerry is gone, and so is the world they knew.As Johnny’s mind travels between then and now, he begins to remember stories of Jerry’s of experiments in living; of radical philosophies; of the many possibilities of love, sex and friendship before the AIDS crisis devastated the queer community. Slowly, he realizes what he must do next—and attempts to restore ways of being that could be lost forever.Nova Scotia House takes us to the heart of a relationship, a community and an era. It is both a love story and a lament; bearing witness to the enduring pain of the AIDS pandemic and honouring the joys and creativity of queer life. Intimate, visionary, and profoundly original, it marks the debut of a vibrant new voice in contemporary fiction, and a writer with a liberating new story to tell.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

Where would I start, and how would it even make sense? How could you understand the year in Shandon Street unless you were there, with us, living it? Rachel Murray is twenty-one years old, platonically infatuated with her housemate James, and less-than-platonically infatuated with her enigmatic, married English professor Dr Byrne. Over the course of a year, as Rachel and James's lives become more and more deeply entwined with those of Dr Byrne and his perfect wife Deenie, tensions rise, and a shocking secret threatens everything they hold dear. The Rachel Incident is a sharp, poignant, and beautifully told story of losing and finding yourself and the lengths we will go to for those we love.

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists -- he a photographer, she a dancer -- trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence. At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.