Bloomsbury

English is the world’s lingua franca-the most widely spoken language in human history. And yet, as historian and linguist Nicholas Ostler persuasively argues, English will not only be displaced as the world’s language in the not-distant future, it will be the last lingua franca, not replaced by another.Empire, commerce, and religion have...

Gilbert Is Dead is a Victorian scientific mystery play: a clever, funny and moving portrait of grief, faith and science. The plot follows Lucius Trickett, London’s most celebrated taxidermist, who finds himself in cahoots with Queen Victoria and our hero Gilbert Shirley, to disprove Darwin’s theory of evolution with a stuffed specimen of...

Glyn Cannon’s brilliantly dark and mischievous debutIn this darkly witty exploration of love and relationships Cannon explores how much you need to see of someone to know they are worth "taking a chance on". After apparently seeing everything, Shona is to move in with her boyfriend Dan. Her chronically shy work colleague Edward however...

Pregnant and secretly married, Cheryl Anway scribbles what becomes her last will and testament on a school binder shortly before a rampaging trio of misfit classmates gun her down in a high school cafeteria. Overrun with paranoia, teenage angst, and religious zeal in the massacre’s wake, this sleepy suburban neighborhood declares its saints,...

The fascinating history of an unknown peopleA vivid mixture of history and reporting, The Shaman’s Coat tells the story of some of the world’s least-known peoples-the indigenous tribes of Siberia. Russia’s equivalent to the Native Americans or Australian Aborigines, they divide into two dozen different and ancient nationalities-among...

Joanna Weinberg's love affair with cooking began at college. While she survived on pasta ... and more pasta, her sister would call from London with salacious stories of extra virgin olive oil, smoky pancetta and hunks of fresh Parmesan. Inspired, she started cooking for her friends, realising early on that a great meal was about the company as...