Bloomsbury

Worm farms, pearl-button making, chicken processing, pornography, and beauty pageantry. These quirky cottage industries hold the potential to make fortunes, though it's more likely that they'll lead to bankruptcy and shattered dreams. Mark Poirier introduces the misfits and visionaries who embody the aspirations - and frequently the...

A Memoir'...And then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling; and when we came to get the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.' Harriet TubmanIn five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five men in her life, to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men....

The Fall of the Soviet EmpireThe author of this volume was present during the final decade of the Soviet empire, first for Reuters, then for the "e;Washington Post"e;. While Dobbs watched, playwrights and elctricians were transformed into presidents, while Communist Party leaders became jailbirds or newly-minted tycoons. He identifies the...

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZEFrom the moment Alma Whittaker steps into the world, everything about life intrigues her. Instilled with an unquenchable sense of wonder by her father, a botanical explorer and the richest man in the New World, Alma is raised in a house of luxury and...

(And Almost Everything In It)Paul Morley grew up in Reddish, less than five miles from Manchester and even closer to Stockport. Ever since the age of seven Morley has always thought of himself as a northerner. What that meant, he wasn't entirely sure. It was for him, as it is for millions of others in England, an absolute, indisputable truth....

Teen TV celebrities Jenna and Jonah (real names, Charlie Tracker and Fielding Withers) make more money in a month than most people do in a lifetime. They can't stand to be in the same room as each other, but to boost the TV ratings their agents make them a "e;real life"e; couple. Then the deception is uncovered by the paparazzi, and...