Canongate

We're all in Sales now. Parents sell their kids on going to bed. Spouses sell their partners on mowing the lawn. We sell our bosses on giving us more money and more time off. And in astonishing numbers we go online to sell ourselves on Facebook, Twitter and Match.com profiles. Relying on science, analysis and his trademark clarity of thought, Pink shows that sales isn't what it used to be. The low road of deceit and trickery is no longer a viable option, and success in persuasion now depends on being more, not less, human.

The extraordinary happens everyday. One night, George Duncan is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly away, his life is transformed. The next day, a beautiful woman called Kumiko walks into his shop and begins to tell him the most extraordinary story. Wise, romantic, magical and funny, The Crane Wife is a celebration of the disruptive and redemptive power of love.

Isserley spends most of her time driving along empty, winding Highland roads in her red Toyota. She is interested in hitchhikers — so long as they are male, well-muscled and alone. But once she has coaxed them into her car, what she does to them is truly astonishing. Meeting Isserley is only the beginning of their journey, and a gateway to a new world. Cutting across different genres, Under the Skin is a wildly inventive, bold and beautifully written book that launched Michel Faber's international career and was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Book Award. And in Isserley, Faber created one of the most memorable and singular heroines of modern times.

George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the wilds of the North Carolina mountains to build a life together. Unlike any woman the timber empire has ever seen, Serena oversees crews, hunts rattlesnakes and even saves her husband's life in the wilderness. But when Serena learns she will never bear a child, it sets in motion a course of events that will change the lives of everyone in the community.

In the four years since Simon's Cat first leapt in to our lives he has stared in more than 15 films, appeared in three best-selling books and has entertained and delighted millions of fans across the world. Along the way he has swotted flies, pulled down Christmas trees, and generally terrorized his long-suffering owner, Simon. And for the most part, he has had things his way. Until now. This year the nation's favourite cat faces up to his toughest challenge yet. With a new kitten in the house, a new girlfriend for Simon and endless new visitors to the garden, it is time to reassert his position — once and for all — as the undisputed Top Cat. One hundred original cartoons (each one in full colour), one hundred hilarious encounters: this is Simon's Cat vs. The World!

Is our search for happiness futile? Or are we just going about it the wrong way? In this fascinating new book, Oliver Burkeman argues that 'positive thinking' and relentless optimism aren't the solution to the happiness dilemma, but part of the problem. And that there is, in fact, an alternative path to contentment and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid — uncertainty, insecurity, pessimism and failure. Thought-provoking, counter-intuitive and ultimately uplifting, The Antidote is a celebration of the power of negative thinking.

In this spellbinding new book, the man described by the Daily Telegraph as 'possibly the best living writer in Britain' takes on his biggest challenge yet: unlocking the film that has obsessed him all his adult life. Like the film Stalker itself, it confronts the most mysterious and enduring questions of life and how to live.

Hugo Chávez was a true phenomenon. On his death in March 2013 tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets and honoured a seven-day period of national mourning. Chávez has been compared to Napoleon, Nasser, Perón and Castro but the truth is there has never been a leader like him. He was democratically elected, reigned like a monarch from a mobile television throne, and provoked adoration and revulsion in equal measure. How did a charismatic autocrat seduce not just a nation but a significant part of world opinion? And how did he continue to stay in power despite the crumbling of Venezuela? When he first came to power in 1999, Chávez became a symbol of hope and freedom for his people. Yet, in his fourteen years as president, Chávez seized control of the lucrative Venezuelan oil industry, allowed basic government functions to wither, jailed political opponents and courted Castro and Ahmadinejad, all while occupying much of Venezuela's airwaves with his long-running television show, Aló Presidente!. In Comandante, acclaimed journalist Rory Carroll breaches the walls of Miraflores Palace to tell the inside story of Chávez's life and his political court in Caracas. Blending the lyricism and strangeness of magical realism with the brutal, ugly truth of authoritarianism — a powerful combination reminiscent of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor — Rory Carroll has written the definitive account of Hugo Chávez's presidency, and the legacy he has left behind.

Struggling to keep a grip on reality after his wife's death, Bunny Munro does the only thing he can think of: with his young son in tow, he hits the road. An epic chronicle of one man's judgement, The Death of Bunny Munro is also an achingly tender portrait of the relationship between father and son.

For Iris, childhood memories are of long hot summers spent playing with her cousin Rosmarie in her grandmother's garden, a place where redcurrants turned to pale tears on the branches of trees and beautiful Aunt Inga shook sparks from the tips of her fingers. But now her grandmother is dead and, along with inheriting the property, Iris finds that she also inherits her family's darkest secrets. Reluctant to keep it, but reluctant to sell, Iris spends one more summer at the house. By day she swims at the local lake, where she rediscovers a childhood companion. Alone at night she roams through the familiar rooms, exploring the tall black shadows of the past. In the flicker between remembrance and forgetting, Iris recalls an enigmatic grandfather who went to war and came back a different man, the night her cousin Rosmarie fell through the conservatory roof and shattered her family's lives, and a moment of love that made all the trees in the orchard bloom over night.

A pocket-sized collection of play-themed Simon's Cat cartoons selected from the first three Simon's Cat books. In full colour and featuring a selection of brand new cartoons, Simon's Cat is back, smaller, cheaper and cuter, but still up to his usual tricks.

In the last five years, Simon's Cat has become a national treasure and a global phenomenon. Star of over twenty-five films, which have been watched over 300 million times, and winner of a dozen major industry awards, Simon's Cat has captured the hearts of a global audience. In this first major paperback edition author, animator and illustrator Simon Tofield brings together the best cartoons from the first three bestselling books, with exclusive new material and a unique 'How to Draw' section. This really is The Bumper Book of Simon's Cat.

Within the pages of this book lies the diary of a girl called Nao. Riding the waves of a tsunami, it is making its way across the ocean. It will change the life of the person who finds it. It might just change yours, too. Crossing generations and continents, from World War Two to present day Japan, A Tale for the Time Being tells an unforgettable story, as wondrous as it is wise.

This is a brilliant new collection of stories from the Nobel Prize-winning author, available for the first time in English. Written in the years between Solzhenitsyn's return from exile to Russia in 1994, and his death in 2008, they confirm the author's position as not only a visionary political commentator but also as a true literary giant. APRICOT JAM AND OTHER STORIES presents a series of astonishing portraits of a Soviet and Russian life across the twentieth century. In 'The New Generation', a professor promotes a student purely out of good will. Years later, the same professor finds himself arrested and, in a striking twist of fate, his student becomes his interrogator. In 'Nastenka', two young women with the same name lead routine, ordered lives — until the Revolution exacts radical change on them both. Through their unforgettable cast of military commanders, imprisoned activists and displaced families, these stories play out the moral dilemmas and ideological conflicts that defined the century. The most eloquent and acclaimed opponent of government oppression, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, and his work continues to receive international acclaim.

Simon's Cat is now bite-sized! A pocket-sized collection of food-themed Simon's Cat cartoons, these adorable snapshots of life with a very demanding cat are selected from the first two Simon's Cat books, with 10 brand new cartoons. In full color for the very first time, the YouTube sensation is back on the page—only smaller and cuter. This cat will do anything to be fed.

By the age of six, Nicolai Lilin had been given his first 'pike knife' by an uncle, and by the age of twelve, he had been convicted of attempted murder... Nicolai Lilin gained his 'education' as a member of the Siberian Urkas — a small and tight-knit community of 'honest criminals' in a forgotten corner of Eastern Europe. It was a remarkable upbringing, defined by an elaborate set of rituals and strict codes of honour, and by a deep distrust of outsiders — especially the police and state authorities. Even the youngest children were taught to understand violence and when it was appropriate to use it. An huge international bestseller, Siberian Education is a tale of an extreme childhood — exotic, violent and completely unique.

Free Fall tells the brutal engrossing story of the Second Chechen War, through the eyes of a young Russian Soldier. Nicolai Lilin was trained as a sniper in an unorthodox Russian Special Forces regiment called the Saboteurs. This hardened and close-knit band of brothers, operating beyond the control of military code, faced mercenary fighters, anti-personnel mines and torture of the most extreme kind. Free Fall offers a sniper's eye view of one of the most controversial wars in living memory. It is unflinching, unforgiving and unputdownable.

He wants to go out. She wants to stay in. For some reason, they are best friends. Luke is twenty-five, allergic to the sun and housebound. He's stuck in his bedroom where the world comes to him through TV, the internet and Julie's visits. Julie meanwhile is brilliant, kind and could be changing the world. Unfortunately she is too terrified of aeroplane crashes, road accidents and potentially life-threatening bacteria to leave her home town. When someone contacts Luke and claims that he can cure him, Luke and Julie have to deal with their fears and face the world outside. With four friends, wellies and a homemade space suit, they set off in a VW Camper van, along Britain's B-roads. It is a journey that might just change their lives.

For two centuries Jacob Marlowe has wandered the world, enslaved by his lunatic appetites and tormented by the memory of his first and most monstrous crime. Now, the last of his kind, he knows he can't go on. But as Jake counts down to suicide, a violent murder and an extraordinary meeting plunge him straight back into the desperate pursuit of life.

Greedy, cruel and foolish, the Gods deserve to die... From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession and The Children's Book comes a mesmerising tale of the end of the gods and the destruction of life on this planet. Into her version of Ragnarok, surely one of the most thrilling and apocalyptic of myths, A.S. Byatt weaves the story of a young girl evacuated to the British countryside during the Second World War. Struggling to make sense of her life, she is given a book of Norse myths, and her inner and outer worlds are transformed.

Beyond The Survival of the Fittest: Why Cooperation, not Competition, is the Key to Life If life is about survival of the fittest, then why would we risk our own life to jump into a river to save a stranger? Some people argue that issues such as charity, fairness, forgiveness and cooperation are evolutionary loose ends, side issues that are of little consequence. But as Harvard's celebrated evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak explains in this groundbreaking and controversial book, cooperation is central to the four-billion-year-old puzzle of life. Indeed, it is cooperation not competition that is the defining human trait.

In this startling book, David Eagleman shows us forty possibilities of life beyond death. With wit and humanity, he asks the key questions about existence, hope, technology and love. These short stories are full of big ideas and bold imagination.

How do you solve the problem of human happiness? It's a subject that has occupied some of the greatest philosophers of all time, from Aristotle to Paul McKenna — but how do we sort the good ideas from the terrible ones? Over the past five years, Oliver Burkeman has travelled to some of the strangest outposts of the 'happiness industry' in an attempt to find out. In Help!, Oliver presents his findings. It's a witty and thought-provoking exploration that punctures many of self-help's most popular myths, while also offering clear-headed, practical and often counterintuitive advice on a range of subjects, from stress, procrastination and insomnia to wealth, laughter, time management and creativity. It doesn't claim to have solved the problem of human happiness. But it might just bring us one step closer.

This is the story of two brothers — one impassioned and one reserved. One is destined to go down in history and the other to be forgotten. In Philip Pullman's hands, the story of Jesus is reborn as one of the most enchanting, thrilling and thought-provoking stories of recent years, asking the reader questions that will continue to resonate long after they've finished reading it.