In The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders who Barter the Earth’s Resources by the Bloomberg News reporter and former FT journalist, Javier Blas and Jack Farchy tow leading journalists lift the lid off one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy including the working of the billionaire commodity traders who buy,…
Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at Oxford University, proves how wrong politicians are who claim social mobility is real, a just reward for ambition and hard work. She tracks down successive British generations with a humane focus on how individuals took their opportunities and how obstacles were put in their way – sometimes…
“Recycle, Fly less, Eat less meat”, are some of the ways that we’ve been told can slow climate change, but the emphasis is on individual behaviour is the result of a marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals. Fossil fuel companies have…
Cat Jarman, a Scandinavian bioarchaeologist based in Britain who did her PhD on the Repton Charnel, with cutting edge forensic techniques for research, uncovers the Viking Age and takes us to a small “Carnelian” bead found in a Viking grave in Derbyshire to its origins thousands of miles to the East in Gujarat. By examining…
Tabitha Lasley spends six months in Aberdeen interviewing 103 men who work on offshore oil rigs to hunt down old-school masculinity. In the process, she has an affair with the first one Caden, but the result Is acidic, addictive reporting with some fiction. Lesley summons up Aberdeen a city made up of Louisiana avarice and…
Ian Leslie, a former advertising executive, and brand strategist argue that the cause of the argument is because most of us never learn how to air our differences in a way that leads to progress. Insight and empathy spring from the clash of a different perspective, where people share their opinions and reap the benefit…
Walter Isaacson’s famous biographer of Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Ben Franklin discusses the life, career, and ethical implications of scientist Jennifer Doudna, cocreator or CRISPR and the 2020 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. New technology has the power to optimise our DNA, transform medicine, and allow us to cure…
George Blake was the last remaining Cold War spy and as a senior officer in the British Intelligence Service who was a double agent for the Soviet Union, his actions had devasting consequences for Britain. Yet he was also one of the least known double agents and remained unrepentant. In 1961, Blake was sentenced to…
The longest river in Europe, the Volga stands for the Russian national spirit, where exhausted from the second world war’s most destructive battle, Soviet soldiers washed in its waters, a form of mass baptism before the terrible battle for freedom. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are…
“ODE TO LOVE” BY SAMANTHA COOPER JONES (NOM DE PLUME) FOR VALENTINES DAY 2021 ©Copyright February 2021 Look up to the stars above Clasp your hands close to your heart and pray for LOVE! If you’ve already got it – nurture and nourish it! And if you’re hunting and searching it, pray you’ll find a…