Thich Nhat Hanh shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth

Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity

An extremely important book

Thich Nhat Hanh does not merely teach peace; Thich Nhat Hanh is peace

Thich Nhat Hanh's work, on and off the page, has proven to be the antidote to our modern pain and sorrows ... His books help me be more human, more me than I was before

The monk who taught the world mindfulness

Mindfulness has become a serious movement, now with champions among policy makers as well as Buddhists. Thich Nhat Hanh is one of its guiding spirits

Thich Nhat Hanh's words are like water. Simple, pure, transparent, and absolutely indispensable for life

A rich and beautifully written microhistory ... a work of remarkable historical reconstruction.

Malcolm Gaskill shows us with filmic vividness the daily life of the riven, marginal community of Springfield, where settlers from a far country dwell on the edge of the unknown. The clarity of his thought and his writing, his insight, and the immediacy of the telling, combine to make this the best and most enjoyable kind of history writing. Malcolm Gaskill goes to meet the past on its own terms and in its own place, and the result is thought-provoking and absorbing.

A surefooted and gripping narrative ... Gaskill's Springfield joins Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou, Tony Wrigley's Colyton and other places of little intrinsic importance which for one reason or another have been immortalised by modern historiography... There is currently no memorial for Hugh and Mary Parsons in Springfield like those which have been erected in other places where witches were hunted. Perhaps they will get one now.

Reads with the fluency of a novel ... Crucially, Gaskill writes to make us see the world as those early Puritans saw it; how their own psychological fears, of financial ruin, of neighbours, of Native Americans and the hostile elements, could seed the first accusations of witchcraft.

An impressively researched account, bringing to life the fears and preoccupations of obscure and humble people, and setting them in the context of their time and place.

Powerfully evocative, a grimly compelling morality tale with more than one unexpected twist ... an outstanding achievement, haunting, revelatory and superbly written - a strong contender for the best history book of 2021.

A pulsating history of sorcery and superstition ... an academic feat but reads like a Stephen King thriller - and it's just right for our conspiracy-laden times.

A riveting micro-history, brilliantly set within the broader social and cultural history of witchcraft. Drawing on previously neglected source material, this book is elegantly written and full of intelligent analysis.

Bowler's affecting narrative offers fresh insight on life and chronic illness. Readers will be engrossed by this heartfelt memoir.

Higgins’ darting, spooling path connects myth with faith, art with literature, landscape with architecture, anecdote with interpretation… its images and schematic diagrams of labyrinths adding a visual dimension to a book already rich in thought and observation.

Richly erudite and compellingly personal.

A rich cultural history of mazes and labyrinths… Beautifully designed and precisely structured, it’s also a personal book about childhood memories, dreams and feeling at times lost in life.

[An] immersive, unusual love tale

Stokes-Chapman can write fascinating, three-dimensional characters... Meanwhile, extensive research brings the period so much to life you can taste it... full of buried family histories and fantastical archaeological theories, Pandora is a readable, solid debut

Whether the discussion is about artificial intelligence, the future capacities of knowledge, politics, philosophy, intuition, history (philosopher Thomas Metzinger shares experiences from post–World War II Germany that are hard to look away from), religion, reason, or the nature of consciousness, Harris grounds lofty discussions with concrete examples and his gift for analogy . . . free and open debate, in the best sense of the word . . . the book’s advantage over the podcast is that readers can linger as they need to and cherry-pick interviews at will. Recommended for anyone who wants to spend time with intelligent minds wrestling not with each other but with understanding.

One of the most eloquent and inspiring memoirs of recent years... A Dutiful Boy is real-life storytelling at its finest

Mohsin Zaidi...in a compassionate, compelling and humorous way, tells his story of seeking acceptance within the gay community, and within the Muslim community in which he grew up

A powerful portrayal of being able to live authentically despite all the odds

Zaidi's affecting memoir recounts his journey growing up in east London in a devout Muslim household. He has a secret, one he cannot share with anyone - he is gay. When he moves away to study at Oxford he finds, for the first time, the possibility of living his life authentically. The dissonance this causes in him - of finding a way to accept himself while knowing his family will not do the same - is so sensitively depicted. One of the most moving chapters includes him coming home to a witch doctor, who his family has summoned to "cure" him. This is an incredibly important read, full of hope.

A beautifully written book, a lovely story, life-affirming

Zaidi's account is raw, honest and at times quite painful to read. It's so vivid that it feels almost tangible, as though you're living the experiences of the author himself.

This heartfelt and honest book is beautifully written and full of hope