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By Edited by Katherine Howe. 2024
Real-life accounts of the world&’s most notorious pirates—both men and women, from the Golden Age of Piracy and beyond—compiled by…
the New York Times bestselling author of A True Account: Hannah Masury&’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by HerselfA Penguin ClassicSpanning three centuries and eight thousand nautical miles, and compiled by a direct descendant of a sailor who waged war with pirates in the early nineteenth century, The Penguin Book of Pirates takes us behind the eye patches, the peg legs, and the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger and into the no-man&’s-land of piracy that is rife with paradoxes and plot twists. Here, in a fascinating array of accounts that include trial transcripts, journalism, ship logs, and more, are the grit and patois of real maritime marauders like the infamous Blackbeard; the pirates who inspired Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, Stede Bonnet in Max&’s Our Flag Means Death, and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride; the astoundingly egalitarian multi-ethnic and multilingual crews that became enmeshed in historical horrors like the slave trade; and lesser-known but no less formidable women pirates, many of whom disguised themselves as men. By turns brutal, harrowing, and inspiring, these accounts of the &“radically free&” sailors who were citizens more of the oceangoing world than of any nation on land remind us of the glories and dangers of the open seas and the seductive appeal of communities forged in resistance.By Angel Au-Yeung, David Jeans. 2023
A Financial Times best business book of 2023In 1998, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh sold his first company…
to Microsoft for $265 million.In 2009, at the age of 35, he sold his e-commerce company, Zappos, to Amazon for $1.2 billion.In 2020, at the age of 46, he died.Tony Hsieh revolutionized both the tech world and corporate culture. He was a business visionary. He was also a man in search of happiness. So why did it all go so wrong?Tony Hsieh’s first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. From there, he went on to build the billion-dollar online shoe empire of Zappos.The secret to his success? Making his employees happy.At its peak, Zappos’s employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry that it inspired copycats and earned a cult following. Then Hsieh moved the Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas, where he personally funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city’s historic downtown area. But as Hsieh fell deeper into his struggles with mental health and drug addiction, the people making up his inner circle began changing from friends to enablers.Drawing on hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, journalists Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by his eternal search for happiness and ultimately succumbed to his own demons.By Maria Birmingham. 2023
Key Selling Points The human desire to have fun is universal and timeless. This book is accessible to young readers…
who will leave armed with interesting facts and specific examples of how humans have had fun from ancient times to today, grouped by topics such art, sport and leisure. Play is important to healthy brain development in children as well as their intellectual, social and emotional development. The author is an award-winning established nonfiction writer, was the managing editor at OWL magazine for 5 years and now works as a freelance writer, editor and contributor to OWL and CBC Kids.By Patrick Bossert. 1981
Are you going cube-crazy?This easy to follow guide has everything you need to know about the Rubik's cube. From simple…
step-by-step instructions showing how to complete it, to how the cube was invented, plus lots of other cube challenges to test your skills - it's time to get cubing!By Mitchell Symons. 2010
DID YOU KNOW . . .Square watermelons are sold in Japan?There is a River Piddle in Dorset?Americans use enough toilet…
paper daily to wrap around the world nine times?Mitchell Symons goes global - join him on his fun fact-finding world tour!By Mitchell Symons. 1935
EVER WONDERED . . .Why we have tonsils?Is there any cream in cream crackers?Why is the sea blue?And if kangaroos…
keep their babies in their pouches, what happens to all the poo?! Mitch Symons answers all these crazy questions and plenty more in this wonderfully funny and addictive book for children from 8 to 80!And yes, eating bogeys is good for you . . . but only your own!By Mitchell Symons. 2012
DID YOU KNOW?Stinky ear wax has been hanging around in the ear canal for nearly a month before it is…
'pickable'!Humans share a third of their DNA with lettuce.Cockroaches fart every fifteen minutes.Giraffes never kneel.The average person spends six months of their life on the loo.Amaze your friends and fascinate your family with this book packed with jaw-dropping, eyebrow-raising facts.By Mitchell Symons. 2009
EVER WONDERED . . .Why we burp?What a wotsit is?Whether lemmings really jump off cliffs?Why vomit always contains carrots?And why…
do farts smell like rotten eggs?No subject is too strange and no trivia too tough for Mitchell Symons, who has the answer to these crazy questions, and many more.By Sony Pictures Television UK Rights Ltd. 2018
Have you got what it takes? Sharpen your mind with Who Wants to be a Millionaire - The Quiz Book…
and see if you would win the £1,000,000 jackpotAnd remember, no cheating . . .__________Sir Seretse Khama was the first president of which country?A: BotswanaB: TanzaniaC: GhanaD: Zambia...For £1,000,000, what is your final answer?__________Only five people on UK screens have ever answered their way to the top and taken home the full cash prize.The question is, could you become a winner?Whether you're confident quizzer or trivial about trivia, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - The Quiz Book is perfect for a solo test of knowledge or the ultimate at-home quiz with family and friends.Complete with all four life-lines and over 1,000 brand new questions, and written by brains behind the classic show, you can recreate Who Wants to Be a Millionaire from your home. Now there's only one question that really matters . . .Do you have what it takes?By Wensley Clarkson. 2011
The compelling and disturbing true story of Vanessa George and the evil abuse she doled out upon the children of…
more than 300 families.As a nursery worker, wife and mother, she was a figure to place trust in. Yet her adulterous relationship and sick love triangle with Colin Blanchard and Angela Allen drew her into a dark world of violence and sexual abuse. To compete for Blanchard's attention she would do everything in her power to impress him, even if this meant committing unspeakable acts of sexual violence on children as young as two years old.What could have driven a mother to betray not only her daughters and loving husband, but the very families who entrusted her with their children? How could a seemingly caring women become engaged in a sordid and vile love triangle with a man and woman she had never met? Were there events in her own childhood that pushed her to commit these acts?True crime expert Wensley Clarkson pieces together the events surrounding the case as well as new investigative research to compile a fascinating yet disturbing account of a case which shocked a nation.We may never know the full extent of Vanessa George's cruelty, but the horror of her story will remain as a chilling memory for generations.By Jayne-Anne Gadhia. 2017
Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the straight-talking CEO of Virgin Money, looks back at the events that have influenced, shaped and inspired her…
to become one of the most powerful women in banking.With anecdotes from her life before becoming a banker, including beating the bullies and experiencing racism as part of a mixed race marriage, through to building a business from scratch, working at RBS under Fred Goodwin just before the financial crash, and steering Virgin Money to become a listed business, breaking boundaries along the way, professionally and personally.Jayne-Anne shines a light on issues surrounding the role of women in banking and the alpha-male dinosaurs that dominate the industry. She draws on the relationships and deals that have shaped her career so far, including her personal experience with mental health issues, which has helped her attitude and approach to both her business and personal life. This is not a conventional biography, nor a ‘how to do it’ business book. It is a candid, fresh and fascinating insight into being a woman in business, the financial crisis and the way in which business can be conducted as a force for good.By Olivia Swarthout. 2023
'FASCINATING' Guardian | 'WE LOVE THIS BOOK' Blackwells | 'THE BEST GIFT BOOK THERE IS' IndependentA GUIDE TO LIVING IN…
DARK TIMES, FROM PEOPLE WHO REALLY DIDBursting with wisdom and artwork from the Middle Ages, this handy guide will give you time-tested solutions for all of life's biggest problems. Whether it's choosing an appropriate dog name like Garlik or Filthe, becoming an irresistible suitor even though you can't joust, surviving encounters with rabbits and dragons, or coming to terms with your inevitable demise, this book is full of illuminating advice that is sure to brighten up the darkest of times.Full of quizzes, how-to-guides, diagrams, and flow charts that take you from birth to your gruesome death, this is the ultimate laugh-out-loud read for history buffs.By Her Honour Wendy Joseph. 2022
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 2023'Wendy Joseph's gripping account of the law at…
work reads like a cliffhanger.' Sunday Times'Absolutely superb. 5 stars for sheer readability alone. Her Honour entertains as she educates us about murder, about the law and about how we human beings are shaped as we create the culture we live with.' PHILIPPA PERRY, author of THE BOOK YOU WISH YOUR PARENTS HAD READ___________________________________________________________________________________'Every day in the UK lives are suddenly, brutally, wickedly taken away. Victims are shot or stabbed. Less often they are strangled or suffocated or beaten to death. Rarely they are poisoned, pushed off high buildings, drowned or set alight. Then there are the many who are killed by dangerous drivers, or corporate gross negligence. There are a lot of ways you can kill someone. I know because I've seen most of them at close quarters.'High-profile murder cases all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines - for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room.And yet, each of us has a vested interest in what happens there. And while most people have only the sketchiest idea of what happens inside a Crown Court, any one of us could end up in the witness-box or even in the dock.With breath-taking skill and deep compassion, the author describes how cases unfold and illustrates exactly what it's like to be a murder trial judge and a witness to human good and bad. Sometimes very bad.The fracture lines that run through our society are becoming harder and harder to ignore. From a unique vantage point, the author warns that we do so at our peril._____________________________________________________________________________________________'The most exceptional book I have read in a long time.' CLARE MACKINTOSH'A very rare gem. written with authority, humility and compassion. Compellingly clever and sharply honest.' PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK, author of ALL THAT REMAINS'Riveting, thought-provoking, and very, very entertaining. I loved it.' RODDY DOYLE'Will make you question all the fundamentals that you've come to take for granted about offenders, the crimes that they commit - especially murder - and the punishment they deserve. A page turner that will leave you wanting to know more.' EMERITUS PROFESSOR DAVID WILSON, author of MY LIFE WITH MURDERERSThe instant Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023By Joe Carter. 2016
A compelling true story of the reality of undercover police workFor over 20 years, Joe Carter has worked for the…
police as an undercover cop. Travelling the globe on different passports, fraternising with thieves and international drugs and arms dealers, working alongside dangerous criminals, Carter always knew his life would come crashing down around him at any point. His story is a gripping account of the secret, solitary work of an undercover officer and the many ‘sticky’ situations he found himself in, as well as the moving confession of the difficulty in reconciling his two identities with his family life.This book explores the resilience needed to lead a double life, the thrilling challenge of working with the biggest criminals in Britain, and maintaining a sense of justice through the many adventures he encounters.By Damian Bradfield. 2019
From the moment we wake up and unlock our phones, we're producing data. We offer up our unique fingerprint to…
the online world, scan our route to work, listen to a guided meditation or favourite playlist, slide money around, share documents and update our social media accounts. We reach for our phones up to 200 times a day, not knowing which companies are storing, using, selling and manipulating our data. But do we care? We're busy. We've got lives. We're pressed for time! There aren't enough hours in the day to read the terms and conditions. Or, maybe we're happy to trade our personal data for convenient services and to make our lives easier?Big data is the phenomenon of our age, but should we trust it without question? This is the trust dilemma.In 2009, Damian Bradfield founded WeTransfer, the largest file-sharing platform in the world with 50 million global users shipping more than one billion files of data a month. His unique experience of the big data economy has led him to question if there is another way to build the internet, one that is fairer and safer for everyone and, in The Trust Manifesto, he lays out this vision.By Peter Lance. 2014
In Deal with the Devil, five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative reporter Peter Lance draws on three decades of once-secret FBI files…
to tell the definitive story of Greg Scarpa Sr., a Mafia capo who “stopped counting” after fifty murders, while secretly betraying the Colombo crime family as a Top Echelon FBI informant.Lance traces Scarpa’s shadowy relationship with the FBI all the way back to 1960, when his debriefings went straight to J. Edgar Hoover. In forty-two years of murder and racketeering, Scarpa served only thirty days in jail thanks to his secret relationship with the Feds. This is the untold story that will rewrite Mafia history as we know it —a page-turning work of journalism that reads like a Scorsese film. Deal with the Devil includes more than 130 illustrations, crime scene photos, and never-before-seen FBI documents.By Anne Bird. 2005
What happens if, after being given up for adoption in childhood, you reestablish contact with your biological family -- only…
to discover that your newfound brother is a killer?Anne Bird, the sister of Scott Peterson, knows firsthand.Soon after her birth in 1965, Anne was given up for adoption by her mother, Jackie Latham. Welcomed into the well-adjusted Grady family, she lived a happy life. Then, in the late 1990s, she came back into contact with her mother, now Jackie Peterson, and her family -- including Jackie's son Scott Peterson and his wife, Laci. Anne was welcomed into the family, and over the next several years she grew close to Scott and especially Laci. Together they shared holidays, family reunions, and even a trip to Disneyland. Anne and Laci became pregnant at roughly the same time, and the two became confidantes.Then, on Christmas Eve 2002, Laci Peterson went missing -- and the happy façade of the Peterson family slowly began to crumble. Anne rushed to the family's aid, helping in the search for Laci, even allowing Scott to stay in her home while police tried to find his wife. Yet Scott's behavior grew increasingly bizarre during the search, and Anne grew suspicious that her brother knew more than he was telling. Finally she began keeping a list of his disturbing behavior. And by the time Laci's body -- and that of her unborn son, Conner -- were found, Anne was becoming convinced: Her brother Scott Peterson had murdered his wife and unborn child in cold blood.Filled with news-making revelations and intimate glimpses of Scott and Laci, the Peterson family, and the investigation that followed the murder, Blood Brother is a provocative account of how long-dormant family ties dragged one woman into one of the most notorious crimes of our time.“This book grills up an enjoyable read for both avid foodies and novice diners alike! Perman’s sneak peek into the…
fascinating history of In-N-Out is as good as the delicious burgers themselves.”—Mario Batali, celebrity chef and author of Molto ItalianoA behind-the-counter look at the fast-food chain that breaks all the rules, Stacy Perman’s In-N-Out Burger is the New York Times bestselling inside story of the family behind the California-based hamburger chain with a cult following large enough to rival the Grateful Dead’s. A juicy unauthorized history of a small business-turned-big business titan, In-N-Out Burger was named one of Fast Company magazine’s Best Business Books of 2009, and Fortune Small Business insists that it “should be required reading for family business owners, alongside Rich Cohen’s Sweet and Low and Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.”By Antonio Garcia Martinez. 2016
The instant New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback and featuring a new afterword from the author—the insider's guide to the…
Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the inner workings of the tech world, and who really runs Silicon Valley“Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.”— Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York TimesImagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test online services’ robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys. One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. In Chaos Monkeys, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future.An exclusive first look at Five Minute Mum: Time for School with the Maths chapter. It may not clear all…
those home school headaches, but it will make life easier- and a bit more fun too! The Maths chapter from Five Minute Mum: Time for School, is packed full of fun activities to immediately help support your child's maths learning including learning your number bonds, timetables and everything in between. Time for Home School: Maths is THE book you need if you're home-schooling, from former teaching assistant, bestselling author and social media superstar Daisy Upton AKA Five Minute Mum. This short chapter is all based around the maths your child will be taught in their first few years at school - Early Years, Reception and Key Stage 1 - will bring some much-needed laughter to your at-home learning and, if nothing else, give you five minutes where you feel like you are getting it right.Remember: 'IF YOU ARE TRYING, YOU ARE BRILLIANT' Daisy Upton brings her unique five-minute, learning-through-play method to these quick and easy, fun games and activities that are all maths based, using stuff you probably already have at home. Maths is taken from Five Minute Mum: Time for School- the ultimate handbook to support your child through Early Years, Reception and KS1 - available from 15 April 2021. Praise for Five Minute Mum: Give Me Five: 'I love Five Minute Mum. She's managed to come up with a huge array of activities for kids that are fun and educational yet don't require an Art degree or Diploma in Patience to execute. Her blog makes these kinds of games accessible to everyone and for that, I am grateful! - Sarah Turner, Unmumsy Mum 'So many fab ideas in here! Love it' - Rosie Ramsey