Rayons
- Sciences humaines & sociales (45)
- Littérature générale (30)
- Entreprise, économie & droit (25)
- Sciences & Techniques (15)
- Parascolaire (11)
- Policier & Thriller (9)
- Vie pratique & Loisirs (4)
- Bandes dessinées / Comics / Mangas (3)
- Religion & Esotérisme (2)
- Scolaire (1)
- Tourisme & Voyages (1)
- Arts et spectacles (1)
- Fantasy & Science-fiction (1)
Support
Profile Books
-
At the heart of Born to Run lies a mysterious tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who live quietly in canyons and are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world; in 1993, one of them, aged 57, came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing a toga and sandals. A small group of the world's top ultra-runners (and the awe-inspiring author) make the treacherous journey into the canyons to try to learn the tribe's secrets and then take them on over a course 50 miles long. With incredible energy and smart observation, McDougall tells this story while asking what the secrets are to being an incredible runner. Travelling to labs at Harvard, Nike, and elsewhere, he comes across an incredible cast of characters, including the woman who recently broke the world record for 100 miles and for her encore ran a 2:50 marathon in a bikini, pausing to down a beer at the 20 mile mark.
-
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS PRIZE 2016 It's 1996, Bill Clinton has just been re-elected and in Houston a mayoral election is looming. As usual the campaign focuses on Pleasantville -- the African-American neighbourhood of the city that has swung almost every race since it was founded to house a growing black middle class in 1949. Axel Hathorne, former chief of police and the son of Pleasantville's founding father Sam Hathorne, was the clear favourite, all set to become Houston's first black mayor. But his lead is slipping thanks to a late entrant into the race -- Sandy Wolcott, a defence attorney riding high on the success of a high-profile murder trial. And then, just as the competition intensifies, a girl goes missing, apparently while canvassing for Axel. And when her body is found, Axel's nephew is charged with her murder. Sam is determined that Jay Porter defends his grandson. And even though Jay is tired of wading through other people's problems, he suddenly finds himself trying his first murder case, a trial that threatens to blow the entire community wide open, and reveal the lengths that those with power are willing to go to hold onto it.
-
*** THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE APPEAL *** It''s time to solve the murder of the century... Steven Smith has just been released from prison, and he is finally free to investigate a mystery that has haunted him since childhood. Forty years ago, he found a copy of a famous children''s book, full of strange markings and annotations. He took it to his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles, who became convinced it was the key to solving a puzzle. That a message in secret code ran through all Edith Twyford''s novels. Then Miss Isles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven''s memory won''t allow him to remember what happened. Was she deluded? Did she sense her own imminent death? Was she right about the code? And is it still in use today? Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Isles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn''t just a writer of forgotten children''s stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn''t the only one trying to solve it...
-
What would happen if the Queen became a reader of taste and discernment rather than of Dick Francis? The answer is a perfect story. The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely ( JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive. The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.
-
Drawn from 3,000 years of the history of power, this is the definitive guide to help readers achieve for themselves what Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissinger, Louis XIV and Machiavelli learnt the hard way. Law 1: Never outshine the master Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies Law 3: Conceal your intentions Law 4: Always say less than necessary. The text is bold and elegant, laid out in black and red throughout and replete with fables and unique word sculptures. The 48 laws are illustrated through the tactics, triumphs and failures of great figures from the past who have wielded - or been victimised by - power.
-
THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM - THE FIGHT FOR A HUMAN FUTURE AT THE NEW FRONTIER OF POWER
Shoshana Zuboff
- Profile books
- 5 Septembre 2019
- 9781781256855
THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Everyone needs to read this book as an act of digital self-defense.' - Naomi Klein, Author of No Logo , The Shock Doctrine , This Changes Everything and No is Not Enough The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control us. The heady optimism of the Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened inequality and stoked divisions. Tech companies gather our information online and sell it to the highest bidder, whether government or retailer. Profits now depend not only on predicting our behaviour but modifying it too. How will this fusion of capitalism and the digital shape our values and define our future? Shoshana Zuboff shows that we are at a crossroads. We still have the power to decide what kind of world we want to live in, and what we decide now will shape the rest of the century. Our choices: allow technology to enrich the few and impoverish the many, or harness it and distribute its benefits. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a deeply-reasoned examination of the threat of unprecedented power free from democratic oversight. As it explores this new capitalism's impact on society, politics, business, and technology, it exposes the struggles that will decide both the next chapter of capitalism and the meaning of information civilization. Most critically, it shows how we can protect ourselves and our communities and ensure we are the masters of the digital rather than its slaves.
-
An updated edition of the Sunday Times Bestseller Britain's best-known classicist Mary Beard, is also a committed and vocal feminist. With wry wit, she revisits the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women. Her examples range from the classical world to the modern day, from Medusa and Athena to Theresa May and Hillary Clinton. Beard explores the cultural underpinnings of misogyny, considering the public voice of women, our cultural assumptions about women's relationship with power, and how powerful women resist being packaged into a male template. A year on since the advent of #metoo, Beard looks at how the discussions have moved on during this time, and how that intersects with issues of rape and consent, and the stories men tell themselves to support their actions. In trademark Beardian style, using examples ancient and modern, Beard argues, 'it's time for change - and now!' From the author of international bestseller SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.
-
HOW TO DEAL WITH IDIOTS - (AND STOP BEING ONE YOURSELF)
Maxime Rovere
- Profile books
- 7 Juillet 2022
- 9781788167147
Idiocy is all around us: whether it''s the uncle spouting conspiracy theories, the colleagues who repeat your point but louder, or the commuters who still can''t count two metres, our lives are beset by idiots. But what is the answer to this perpetual scourge? Maxime Rovere is a philosopher who has dedicated his life to studying the ways we interact, and the Early Enlightenment. Here he turns his attention to the murkiest of intellectual corners. With warmth, wit and wisdom, he illuminates a new understanding of idiots, one which examines our relations to others and our own ego, offers tools and strategies to dismantle the most desperate of idiotic situations, and even reveals how to stop being the idiots ourselves (because we''re always someone else''s idiot). Expertly translated by David Bellos, this is an erudite, enjoyable and much-needed solution to a most familiar vexation.
-
* SOON TO BE A MAJOR TV SERIES STARRING JULIA ROBERTS, PRODUCED BY REESE WITHERSPOON''S PRODUCTION COMPANY HELLO SUNSHINE, MAKERS OF BIG LITTLE LIES * ''A master storyteller. Gripping, big-hearted and twisty'' - GREER HENDRICKS ''I adored this beautifully written thriller'' - JO SPAIN IT WAS THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME: PROTECT HER Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his new wife, Hannah: protect her . Hannah knows exactly who Owen needs her to protect - his sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. And who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As her increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, his boss is arrested for fraud and the police start questioning her, Hannah realises that her husband isn''t who he said he was. And that Bailey might hold the key to discovering Owen''s true identity, and why he disappeared. Together they set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen''s past, they soon realise that their lives will never be the same again...
-
The must-read, pocket-sized Big Think book of 2020 It feels like the world is falling apart. So how do we keep hold of our optimism? How do we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this world of division? In this beautifully written and illuminating polemic, Booker Prize nominee Elif Shafak reflects on our age of pessimism, when emotions guide and misguide our politics, and misinformation and fear are the norm. A tender, uplifting plea for optimism, Shafak draws on her own memories and delves into the power of stories to reveal how writing can nurture democracy, tolerance and progress. And in the process, she answers one of the most urgent questions of our time.
-
Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, a young man must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather.
-
Liberalism - the comparatively mild-mannered sibling to the more ardent camps of nationalism and socialism - has never been so divisive as today. From the failed Cameron-Clegg Coalition to Putin''s populism and the Trump administration, it has both thrived and failed under identity politics, authoritarianism, and a weakened free press the world over. Since its birth following the post Reformation wars, liberalism has come under attack by conservatives and progressives alike, and today is dismissed as an ''obsolete doctrine.'' In this brilliant and concise exposition, Francis Fukuyama sets out the cases for and against its classical premises: observing the rule of law, independence of judges, means over ends, and most of all, tolerance. Pithy, to the point, and ever pertinent, this is political dissection at its very best.
-
From the invaders of the dark ages to the aftermath of the coalition, one of Britain's most respected journalists, Simon Jenkins, weaves together a strong narrative with all the most important and interesting dates in a book that characteristically is as stylish as it is authoritative. A Short History of England sheds light on all the key individuals and events, bringing them together in an enlightening and engaging account of the country's birth, rise to global prominence and then partial eclipse.There have been long synoptic histories of England but until now there has been no standard short work covering all significant events, themes and individuals. Now updated to take in the rapid progress of recent events and beautifully illustrated, this magisterial history will be the standard work for years to come.
-
Currently in Bill Gates's bookbag and FT Books of 2018 Increasingly, the demands of identity direct the world's politics. Nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, gender: these categories have overtaken broader, inclusive ideas of who we are. We have built walls rather than bridges. The result: increasing in anti-immigrant sentiment, rioting on college campuses, and the return of open white supremacy to our politics. In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American and global institutions were in a state of decay, as the state was captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatens to destabilise the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to 'the people', who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole. Identity is an urgent and necessary book: a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continual conflict.
-
Two brand-new monologues in the Talking Heads series, as seen on BBC1 and iPlayer ''Given the opportunity to revisit the characters from Talking Heads I''ve added a couple more, both of them ordinary women whom life takes by surprise. They just about end up on top and go on, but without quite knowing how. Still, they''re in good company, and at least they''ve made it into print.'' Alan Bennett''s twelve Talking Heads are acknowledged masterworks by one of our most highly acclaimed writers. Some thirty years after the original six , Bennett has written Two Besides, a pair of monologues. Each, in its way, is a devastating portrait of grief. In An Ordinary Woman, a mother suffers the inevitable consequences when she makes life intolerable for herself and her family by falling for her own flesh and blood; while The Shrine tells the story behind a makeshift roadside shrine, introducing us to Lorna, bearing witness in her high-vis jacket, the bereft partner of a dedicated biker with a surprising private life. The two new Talking Heads were recorded for the BBC during the exceptional circumstances of coronavirus lockdown in the spring of 2020, directed by Nicholas Hytner and performed by Sarah Lancashire and Monica Dolan. The book contains a substantial preface by Nicholas Hytner and an introduction to each, by Alan Bennett.
-
HOW WORDS GET GOOD - THE STORY OF MAKING A BOOK
Rebecca Lee
- Profile books
- 6 Avril 2023
- 9781788166386
Once upon a time, a writer had an idea. They wrote it down. But what happened next? Join Rebecca Lee, professional text-improver, as she embarks on a fascinating journey to find out how words get from an author''s brain to finished, printed books. She''ll reveal the dark arts of ghostwriters, explore the secret world of literary agents and uncover the hidden beauty of typesetting. Along the way, her quest will be punctuated by a litany of little-known (but often controversial) considerations that make a big impact: ellipses, indexes, hyphens, esoteric points of grammar and juicy post-publication corrections. After all, the best stories happen when it all goes wrong. From foot-and-note disease to the town of Index, Missouri - turn the page to discover how books get made and words get good.* * Or, at least, better
-
"Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?" Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don't understand what a shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices. The Diary of a Bookseller (soon to be a major TV series) introduced us to the joys and frustrations of life lived in books. Sardonic and sympathetic in equal measure, Confessions of a Bookseller will reunite readers with the characters they've come to know and love.
-
THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE ALPERTON ANGELS
Janice Hallett
- Profile books
- 19 Janvier 2023
- 9781800810433
Everyone knows about the Alperton Angels: the cult who brainwashed a teenage girl into believing that her baby was the anti-Christ. When the girl came to her senses and called the police, the Angels committed suicide and mother and baby disappeared into the care system. Now, author Amanda Bailey is writing a book on the case. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen; finding them will be the true-crime scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and also on the baby''s trail. As Amanda and Oliver are forced to collaborate, they realise that the truth about the Angels is much darker and stranger than they''d ever imagined. This story is far from over...
-
Consice 48 laws of power new ed.
Robert Greene, Joost Elffers
- Profile books
- 15 Juin 2002
- 9781861974044
Suitable for those with an interest in conquest, self-defense, wealth, power or simply being an educated spectator, this book teaches you how to cheat, dissemble, feign, fight and advance your cause in the modern world.
-
Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving. In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff.
-
The concise edition of the 2019 WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS BOOK AWARD From the million-copy bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power Robert Greene is a master guide for millions of readers, distilling ancient wisdom and philosophy into essential texts for seekers of power, understanding and mastery. Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves. We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Concise Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defence.
-
How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything
Mike Berners-Lee
- Profile books
- 7 Mai 2020
- 9781788163811
How Bad Are Bananas? was a groundbreaking book when first published in 2009, when most of us were hearing the phrase 'carbon footprint' for the first time. Mike Berners-Lee set out to inform us what was important (aviation, heating, swimming pools) and what made very little difference (bananas, naturally packaged, are good!). This new edition updates all the figures (from data centres to hosting a World Cup) and introduces many areas that have become a regular part of modern life - Twitter, the Cloud, Bitcoin, electric bikes and cars, even space tourism. Berners-Lee runs a considered eye over each area and gives us the figures to manage and reduce our own carbon footprint, as well as to lobby our companies, businesses and government. His findings, presented in clear and even entertaining prose, are often surprising. And they are essential if we are to address climate change.
-
THE WORLD IN CONFLICT - UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD''S TROUBLESPOTS
John Andrews
- Profile books
- 6 Octobre 2022
- 9781800810785
The world today rests on increasingly unstable fault lines. Since The World in Conflict''s last edition, we have experienced a global pandemic, fresh upheavals in the Middle East, and growing doubts over America''s role in the world. As climate change and natural disasters threaten humanity, the world''s danger zones once again draw their battle lines across our hyperconnected, yet fragmented, globe. Join veteran Economist journalist John Andrews as he analyses the old enmities and looming collisions that underlie conflict in the twenty-first century. Region by region, discover the causes, contexts, participants and likely outcomes of every globally significant struggle now underway. From drug cartels to cyber war, this is the indispensable guide for anyone who wants to understand our perilous world.
-
Which sort of seducer could you be: *Siren? *Rake? *Cold Coquette? *Star? *Comedian? *Charismatic? or *Saint? This book will show you which. 'Charm, persuasion, the ability to create illusions: these are some of the many dazzling gifts of the Seducer, the compelling figure who is able to manipulate, mislead and give pleasure all at once. When raised to the level of art, seduction, an indirect and subtle form of power, has toppled empires, won elections and enslaved great minds. In this beautiful, sensually designed book, Greene unearths the two sides of seduction: the characters and the process. Discover who you, or your pursuer, most resembles. Learn, too, the pitfalls of the anti-Seducer. In part II, immerse yourself in the twenty-four manoeuvres and strategies of the seductive process, the ritual by which a seducer gains mastery over their target. Understand how to 'Choose the Right Victim', 'Appear to Be an Object of Desire' and 'Confuse Desire and Reality'. In addition, Greene provides instruction on how to identify victims by type. Each fascinating character and each cunning tactic demonstrates a fundamental truth about who we are, and the targets we've become - or hope to win over. The Art of Seduction is an indispensable primer on the essence of one of history's greatest weapons and the ultimate power trip.
