The world is blowing up. Every day a new blaze seems to ignite: the bloody implosion of Iraq & Syria; the East-West standoff in Ukraine; abducted schoolgirls in northern Nigeria. Is there some thread tying these frightening international security crises together? In a riveting account that weaves history with fast-moving reportage & insider accounts from the Afghanistan war, Sarah Chayes identifies the unexpected link: corruption. Since the late 1990s, corruption has reached such an extent that some governments resemble glorified criminal gangs, bent solely on their own enrichment. These kleptocrats drive indignant populations to extremes-ranging from revolution to militant puritanical religion. Chayes plunges readers into some of the most venal environments on earth & examines what emerges: Afghans returning to the Taliban, Egyptians overthrowing the Mubarak government (but also redesigning Al-Qaeda), & Nigerians embracing both radical evangelical Christianity & the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. In many such places, rigid moral codes are put forth as an antidote to the collapse of public integrity. The pattern, moreover, pervades history. Through deep archival research, Chayes reveals that canonical political thinkers such as John Locke & Machiavelli, as well as the great medieval Islamic statesman Nizam al-Mulk, all named corruption as a threat to the realm. In a thrilling argument connecting the Protestant Reformation to the Arab Spring, Thieves of State presents a powerful new way to understand global extremism. & it makes a compelling case that we must confront corruption, for it is a cause-not a result-of global instability. ...

Above an eerie realm of endless snow covered spires... Each step appears increasingly impossible. Disorientation & fatigue make the climber's head swim & the body threaten to collapse. For Greg Child it happened at 8, 000 meters on an all-out alpine-style climb marked by tragic loss.

In this spellbinding chronicle, Greg Child takes us step by nerve-shattering step through the world's most remote regions
- as he cracks the death zone above 26, 000 feet, & attacks by fair means the world's most perilous pinnacles. From Child's assault on Gasherbrum IV to a season of tragedy & carnage on K2, Thin Air is more than one man's story
- it is an intimate portrait of mountains & those who climb them: what bonds clients together & what separates them, & what the mountains teach us all about life -- & death...

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Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Biography Award & the 2012 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize Julia Blackburn & her husband moved to a little house in the mountains of northern Italy in 1999. She arrived as a stranger but a series of events brought her close to the old people of the village & they began to tell her their stories. Of how their village had been trapped in an archaic feudal system & owned by a local padrone who demanded his share of all they had, of the eruption of the Second World War, of the conflict between the fascists & the partisans, of death & fear & hunger of how they hid like like foxes in the mountains. ` Write it down for us, ` they said, `because otherwise it will all be lost.` Thin Paths is a celebration of the songlines of one place that could be many places & a celebration of the humour & determination of the human spirit. ...

You come across the shell of a ruined house. It could be anywhere in southern Europe where people once lived & then moved away because there was no work to hold them there. You might find things scattered in the empty rooms: a bread oven, a broken spade, earthenware jars that still hold the pungent scent of olive oil; even clothes left hanging in a cupboard, a silent clock on a shelf, a picture cut from a newspaper pinned on a wall. The house is remote, but it is surrounded by a tracery of thin paths. One path goes steeply down to a village; others zigzag their way to scattered huts & stone shelters, to caves where you could hide in times of danger & to unexpected lookout points from where you could watch the approach of animals or human intruders. Julia Blackburn & her husband moved to a little house in the mountains of northern Italy in 1999. She arrived as a stranger speaking no Italian, but a series of events brought her close to the old people of the village. They began to tell her stories that made the landscape come alive, repopulating it with their vivid memories. Until quite recently most of them had been mezzadri, half-people who were trapped in an archaic feudal system & owned by a local padrone who demanded his share of all they had
- even a pretty wife or daughter. They were eager to talk about the old way of life & about how everything changed with the eruption of the Second World War. This village was at the heart of the conflict between the fascists & the partisans, so they learnt a lot about death & fear & hunger & how men & women could hide like foxes in the mountains. ` Write it down for us, ` they said, `because otherwise it will all be lost.` Thin Paths is a celebration of the songlines of one place that could be many places; it is also a celebration of the humour & determination of the human spirit.
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In 1997 Andy Cave climbed the north face of Changabang in the Himalayas & attained something most climbers dream of but at a huge cost: the harrowing process claimed the life of his friend & climbing partner. This trauma prompted him to examine his relationship with the mountains & confront the question of whether he would ever have the courage to face such a challenge on them again. Thin White Line tracks Cave as he tackles some of the severest challenges that modern Alpinism holds in an attempt to steel his resolve & find his answers. ...

From the No. 1 bestselling author of What If?
- the man who created xkcd & explained the laws of science with cartoons
- comes

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From the No. 1 bestselling author of What If?
- the man who created xkcd & explained the laws of science with cartoons
- comes

...

Through rallies & marches, in polite drawing rooms & freezing prison cells & the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote. Evelyn is seventeen, & though she is rich & clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, & vows to pay the ultimate price for women`s freedom. May is fifteen, & already sworn to the cause, though she & her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who`s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together & in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place. But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May & Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice? ...

Through rallies & marches, in polite drawing rooms & freezing prison cells & the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote. Evelyn is seventeen, & though she is rich & clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, & vows to pay the ultimate price for women`s freedom. May is fifteen, & already sworn to the cause, though she & her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who`s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together & in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place. But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May & Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice? ...

When Bea Hanlon follows her preacher husband Max to a remote island in the Pacific, she soon sees that their mission will bring anything but salvation... Advent Island is a place beyond the reaches of Bea`s most fitful imaginings. It`s not just the rats & the hordes of mosquitos & the weevils in the powdered milk. Past the confines of their stuffy little house, amidst the damp & the dust & the sweltering heat, rumours are spreading of devil chasers who roam the island on the hunt for evil spirits. & then there are the noises from the church at night. Yet, to the amusement of the locals & the bafflement of her husb&, Bea gradually adapts to life on the isl&. But with the dreadful events heralded by the arrival of an unexpected, wildly irritating & always-humming house guest, Advent Island becomes a hostile place once again. & before long, trapped in the jungle & in the growing fever of her husband`s insanity, Bea finds herself fighting for her freedom, & for her life.*A Stylist Must-Read Book of 2018*` Thrilling` Elle Magazine`I was sucked into its dark beating heart & wasn`t spat out until I`d turned the final page` Claire Fuller ...