Penguin Group

A moving portrait of Esther Earl, the young woman whose friendship and life with cancer were an inspiration to many, including author John Green (The Fault in Our Stars). Told through Esther's own journals, letters, and fiction, supplemented with essays from her family and friends.

Imagine that everything around you — every material, building and object — was actually alive... This is the world of Stuff Matters, a place where you will meet concrete and metals that heal themselves, ceramics that become living bone, solids that look like sky — and where everything we have ever made, however normal and familiar, has its individual personality, a marvellous story to tell and a staggering history of scientific ingenuity. From the humble piece of string to the jet-engine and on into the future, Stuff Matters reveals a wonderful new world — and it's all around you.

The Freakonomics books have come to stand for challenging conventional wisdom; using data rather than emotion to answer questions. Now Levitt and Dubner have turned what they've learned into a readable and practical toolkit for thinking smarter, harder, and different — thinking, that is, like a Freak. Think Like a Freak offers rules like 'Put Your Moral Compass in Your Pocket,' 'The Upside of Quitting,' 'Just Because You're Great at Something Doesn't Mean You're Good at Everything,' and 'If You Have No Talent, Follow Levitt's Path to Success.'

In June 2013, reporter and political commentator Glenn Greenwald published a series of reports in the Guardian which rocked the world. The reports revealed shocking truths about the extent to which the National Security Agency had been gathering information about US citizens and intercepting communication worldwide, and were based on documents leaked by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden to Greenwald. Including new revelations from documents entrusted to Greenwald by Snowden, this essential book tells the story of Snowden and the NSA and examines the far-reaching consequences of the government's surveillance program, both in the US and abroad.

Margaret Thatcher was the longest-serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century and one of the most influential figures of the postwar era. Volume One of Moore's authorized biography gives unparalleled insight into her early life, especially through her extensive correspondence with her sister, and recreates brilliantly the atmosphere of British politics as she was making her way, taking us up to the zenith of her power: victory in the Falklands. Based on unrestricted access to all Lady Thatcher's papers, unpublished interviews with her and all her major colleagues, this is the indispensable portrait of a towering figure of our times.

The Hangman's Song is the thrilling third novel in James Oswald's Inspector McLean series set in Edinburgh. The body of a man is founding hanging in an empty house. To the Edinburgh police force this appears to be a simple suicide case. Days later another body is found. The body is hanging from an identical rope and the noose has been tied using the same knot. Then a third body is found. As McLean digs deeper he descends into a world where the lines of reality are blurred and that the most irrational answers become the only explanations. The first two titles in the series, Natural Causes and The Book of Souls, are both available as Penguin Paperbacks and ebooks. Praise for James Oswald: A star of Scotland's burgeoning crime fiction scene. (Daily Record). Crime fiction's next big thing. (The Sunday Telegraph). Literary sensation... James' overnight success has drawn comparisons with the meteoric rise of EL James and her Fifty Shades of Grey series. (Daily Mail). Fifty Shades of Hay. (The Times). Oswald is among the leaders in the new batch of excellent Scottish crime writers. (Daily Mail). The new Ian Rankin. (Daily Record). The hallmarks of Val McDermid or Ian Rankin: it's dark, violent, noirish. (The Herald).

Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a missile silo in rural Arkansas, where a single crew struggled to prevent the explosion of the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States, with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort to ensure that nuclear weapons can't be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with men who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view.

In The Death of Money — a New York Times bestseller and a Wall Street Journal bestseller — Rickards explores the future of the international monetary system. The international monetary system has collapsed three times in the past hundred years. Each collapse was followed by a period of war, civil unrest, or damage to the stability of the global economy. Now James Rickards explains why another collapse is rapidly approaching. The US dollar has been the global reserve currency since the end of the Second World War. If the dollar fails the entire international monetary system will fail with it. But Washington is gridlocked, and America's biggest competitors — China, Russia, and the Middle East — are doing everything possible to end US monetary hegemony. The potential results: Financial warfare. Deflation. Hyperinflation. Market collapse. Chaos. James Rickards offers a bracing analysis of the fundamental problem: money and wealth have become ever more detached. Money is transitory and ephemeral; wealth is permanent and tangible. While wealth has real value worldwide, money may soon be worthless. The world's big players — governments, banks, institutions — will muddle through by making up new rules, and the real victims of the next crisis will be small investors. Fortunately, it is not too late to prepare for the coming death of money. In this riveting book, James Rickards shows us how. «A terrifically interesting and useful book... fascinating». (Kenneth W. Dam, former deputy secretary of the Treasury and adviser to three presidents). James Rickards is the author of Currency Wars, which has been translated into eight languages and won rave reviews from the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and Politico. He is a portfolio manager at West Shore Group and an adviser on international economics and financial threats to the Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community. He served as facilitator of the first-ever financial war games conducted by the Pentagon. He lives in Connecticut.

Number one bestseller The One Plus One is the beautiful, poignant and utterly compelling new novel by the internationally bestselling author Jojo Moyes.One eternal optimist . . .Jess Thomas, with two jobs and two kids and never enough money, wears flip flops in the hope of spring. And when life knocks her down she does her best to bounce right back. But no one told her it's okay to ask for help.Plus one lost stranger . . .Ed Nichols is the good guy gone bad. He had it all, then one stupid mistake cost him everything. Now he'll do anything to make it right.Equals a chance encounter . . .Ed doesn't want to save anyone and Jess doesn't want saving, but could Jess and Ed add up to something better together?Praise for The One Plus One:'A beautifully written love story I relished' Daily Mail'A heartbreaking, laugh-out-loud, roller coaster' Sunday Express'An uplifting, charming, life-affirming tale that you won't want to put down' Heat'Raw, funny, real and sad, this is storytelling at its best' Marie ClaireJojo Moyes is a novelist and a journalist. She worked at the Independent for ten years before leaving to write full time. Her previous novels have all been critically acclaimed and include The Ship of Brides, Foreign Fruit, The Last Letter From Your Lover, winner of Spring 2012's most popular Richard and Judy Book Club title Me Before You and top ten bestseller The Girl you Left Behind. She lives in Essex with her husband and their three children.

The Fall of Five is the heartstopping fourth installment in the Lorien Legacies series by Pittacus Lore. I thought things would change when I found the others. We would stop running. We would fight the Mogadorians. And we would win. But I was wrong. Even though we have come together, we barely escaped from them with our lives. And now we're in hiding, figuring out our next move. The six of us are powerful — but not strong enough to take on their entire army. We haven't discovered the full extent of our Legacies. We haven't learned to work together. Time is running out, and there's only one thing we know for certain: We need to find Number Five before they do. They caught Number One in Malaysia. Number Two in England. And Number Three in Kenya. I am Number Four. I was supposed to be next. But I'm still alive. This battle is far from over. Praise for Pittacus Lore: «Tense, exciting, full of energy». (Observer). «Relentlessly readable». (The Times). «Tense, keeps you wondering». (Sunday Times). «Set to eclipse Harry Potter and moody vampires. Pittacus Lore is about to become one of the hottest names on the planet». (Big Issue). Pittacus Lore is Lorien's ruling elder. He has been on Earth for the last twelve years preparing for the war that will decide Earth's fate. His whereabouts are unknown. The first book in his Lorien Legacies series, I Am Number Four, is now a major Disney motion picture, and along with The Power of Six and The Rise of Nine, perfect for fans of The Hunger Games.

Following the international No 1 bestsellers Mercy and Disgrace, Guilt is the fourth heart-stopping Department Q novel from Jussi Adler-Olsen, and a gripping treat for all fans of the Scandinavian crime thriller.1987. Nete Rosen thought she'd put her traumatic youth behind her. Her caring foster parents and loving husband helped her start again. However, when a man from her past reappears one night, Nete's new life could be shattered.But she won't be drawn back into that nightmare — she won't be a victim again...2010. Detective Carl Mørck from Copenhagen's cold case division is looking into the disappearance of Rita Nielsen, an escort agency owner. The investigation reveals that Rita is only one piece of the puzzle.Because this is not a one-off incident — but part of a disturbing pattern which has been hidden from prying eyes for over twenty years...'Gripping storytelling' Guardian 'Engrossing' Sunday Express'As impressive as it is unnerving' IndependentJussi Adler-Olsen was born in Copenhagen and worked as a magazine editor and publisher before starting to write fiction. Mercy and Disgrace are the first two in currently four novels in the Department Q series. He holds the prestigious Glass Key Award, given annually for a crime novel by a Scandinavian author, and is also winner of the Golden Laurels, Denmark's highest literary accolade.

The basis for the hit movie starring James Franco and Kate Hudson A thriller by the author of the Brilliance Saga and The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes Good People gleefully dread-filled, mercilessly tense, and moves with the speed of something fired from a sawed-off. Dennis Lehane Tom and Anna Reed are young, middle-class, and in love. But financial pressures and the struggle to have a baby are grinding them down. So when they find $370,000 in their tenant's apartment, happily ever after seems one risky decision away. But before the week is over, they'll know exactly where the money is from — and come face to face with ruthless men who have been double-crossed. Men who won't stop until they get revenge. Nothing in life is free, and for Tom and Anna, happiness may cost more than they can bear to pay...

After working on one of the worst mass killings in US history, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta returns home to recover, but an unsettling call drives her straight back to work. The body of a young woman has been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT, draped in an unusual cloth and posed in a way that is too deliberate to be the killer's first strike. A preliminary examination reveals that the body is covered in a fine dust that under ultra-violet light fluoresces blood-red, emerald-green and sapphire-blue, and physical evidence links this to another series of disturbing homicides in Washington, DC. As she pieces together the fragments of evidence, Scarpetta discovers that the cases connect, yet also seem to conflict, drawing herself and her team deeper into the dark world of designer drugs, drone technology, organised crime, and shocking corruption at the highest level. Dust is a thrilling, addictive novel featuring one of the most iconic, original and compelling characters in crime fiction today.

The incomparable J. D. Robb presents the latest moving and suspenseful novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Eve Dallas series. Leading the demolition of a long-empty New York building that once housed a makeshift shelter for troubled teenagers, Lieutenant Eve Dallas's husband uncovers two skeletons wrapped in plastic. And by the time Eve's done with the crime scene, there are twelve murders to be solved. The victims are all young girls. A tattooed tough girl who dealt in illegal drugs. The runaway daughter of a pair of well-to-do doctors. They all had their stories. And they all lost their chance for a better life. Then Eve discovers a connection between the victims and someone she knows. And she grows even more determined to reveal the secrets of the place that was called The Sanctuary — and the evil concealed in one human heart.

In 1939, Dr. Lotty Herschel, V. I. Warshawki’s closest friend in Chicago, escaped the Holocaust in Vienna with her childhood playmate, Kitty Saginor Binder. Though the two drifted and animosities grew between them over the years, when Kitty’s daughter finds her life in danger, she turns to Lotty for help. In turn, Lotty summons V.I. to take the case. The threats on the daughter’s life at first seem a simple case of bad drug dealings, but V.I. soon discovers that they are just the tip of an iceberg of lies, secrets, and silence whose origins trace back to the deadly race among America, Germany, Japan, and England to develop the atomic bomb. And while the secrets may be old, the people who continue to guard them will do anything to make sure they stay buried....

Will I really — I mean, really — actually take an axe, start bashing her on the head, smash her skull to pieces? Will I really slip in sticky, warm blood, force the lock, steal, tremble, hide, all soaked in blood... axe in hand? Lord, will I really? This new translation of Dostoevsky's 'psychological record of a crime' gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. His debut, the epistolary novella Poor Folk (1846), made his name. In 1849 he was arrested for involvement with the politically subversive 'Petrashevsky circle' and until 1854 he lived in a convict prison in Omsk, Siberia. From this experience came The House of the Dead (1860-2). In 1860 he began the journal Vremya (Time). Already married, he fell in love with one of his contributors, Appollinaria Suslova, eighteen years his junior, and developed a ruinous passion for roulette. After the death of his first wife, Maria, in 1864, Dostoyevsky completed Notes from Underground and began work towards Crime and Punishment (1866). The major novels of his late period are The Idiot (1868), Demons (1871-2) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80). He died in 1881. Oliver Ready is Research Fellow in Russian Society and Culture at St Antony's College, Oxford. He is general editor of the anthology, The Ties of Blood: Russian Literature from the 21st Century (2008), and Consultant Editor for Russia, Central and Eastern Europe at the Times Literary Supplement. As Director of the Russkiy Mir Programme at St Antony's, he runs events and conferences devoted to Russian culture.

This is the incredible debut novel from YouTube phenomenon Zoe Sugg, aka Zoella. I have this dream that, secretly, all teenage girls feel exactly like me. And maybe one day, when we realize that we all feel the same, we can all stop pretending we're something we're not... But until that day, I'm going to keep it real on this blog and keep it unreal in real life. Penny has a secret. Under the alias Girl Online, Penny blogs her hidden feelings about friendship, boys, high school drama, her crazy family, and the panic attacks that have begun to take over her life. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets Noah, a gorgeous, guitar-strumming American. Suddenly Penny is falling in love — and capturing every moment of it on her blog. But Noah has a secret, too, one that threatens to ruin Penny's cover — and her closest friendship — forever.

The House of Hades is the fourth book in the bestselling Heroes of Olympus series, set in the action-packed world of Percy Jackson. The stakes have never been higher. If Percy Jackson and Annabeth fail in their quest, there'll be hell on Earth. Literally. Wandering the deadly realm of Tartarus, every step leads them further into danger. And, if by some miracle they do make it to the Doors of Death, there's a legion of bloodthirsty monsters waiting for them. Meanwhile, Hazel and the crew of the Argo II have a choice: to stop a war or save their friends. Whichever road they take one thing is certain — in the Underworld, evil is inescapable. A cracking read. (Sunday Express). Explosive. (Big Issue). Action-packed. (Telegraph). Rick Riordan is an award-winning mystery writer. He lives in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife and two sons. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Rick's first novel featuring the heroic young demigod, was the overall winner of the Red House Children's Book Award in 2006 and is now a blockbuster film franchise, starring Logan Lerman.

Though the Greek and Roman crew members of the Argo II have made progress in their many quests, they still seem no closer to defeating the earth mother, Gaea. Her giants have risen — all of them — and they're stronger than ever. The gods, still suffering from multiple personality disorder, are useless. How can a handful of young demigods hope to persevere against Gaea's army of powerful giants? As dangerous as it is to head to Athens, they have no other option. They have sacrificed too much already. And if Gaea wakes, it is game over...

Jamie's new cookbook brings together 100 ultimate comfort food recipes from around the world. It's all about the dishes that are close to your heart, that put a smile on your face and make you feel happy, loved, safe and secure. Inspired by everything from childhood memories to the changing of the seasons, and taking into account the guilty pleasures and sweet indulgences that everyone enjoys, it's brimming with exciting recipes you'll fall in love with. Jamie's Comfort Food is all about the food you really want to eat, made exactly how you like it. With this in mind, the book features ultimate versions of all-time favourites, and also introduces cherished dishes from countries around the world, providing a delicious recipe for every occasion. This isn't everyday cooking — this is about weekends, holidays, celebrations and occasions. Whether you're home alone, or sharing the love with a big group of family or friends, there really is something for everyone. Celebrating the beauty of good food is at the heart of this book, and it's jam-packed with incredible photography. Written in Jamie's usual down-to-earth and easy-to-understand style, the methods are precise and have been tested to the hilt, so are guaranteed to work, but this time Jamie has turned the edit filter off, and shares extra hints, tips and ideas throughout to ensure you achieve the best possible results. This is about making food the very best it can be, and embracing the rituals of cooking. Recipes include everything from mighty moussaka, delicate gyoza with crispy wings, steaming ramen and katsu curry to super eggs Benedict, scrumptious sticky toffee pudding and tutti frutti pear tarte tatin. Treat yourself, and your loved ones, with Jamie's Comfort Food.

The film tie-in edition of John Greens witty yet heart-breaking tour de force. This edition of the multi-million #1 bestseller contains images from the major motion picture starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort. I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once. Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazels story is about to be completely rewritten. Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Greens most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

Funny Girl takes place in a swinging 60s where the nation is mesmerized by unlikely comedy star Sophie Straw, the former Blackpool beauty queen who just wants to make people laugh, like her heroine Lucille Ball. Behind the scenes, the cast and crew are having the time of their lives. But when the script begins to get a bit too close to home, and life starts imitating art, they all face a choice.The writers, Tony and Bill, comedy obsessives, each harbour a secret. The Oxbridge-educated director, Dennis, loves his job but hates his marriage. The male star Clive, feels he’s destined for better things. And Sophie Straw, who’s changed her name and abandoned her old life, must decide whether to keep going, or change the channel…

The problem of Russia dominated the 20th century. Well before the 1917 revolutions Russia obsessed its imperial rivals and Russians themselves argued violently both about how Russia should be run and about its role in the world. Other, terrible regimes came and went, but from the 19th century to the final collapse of the USSR in 1991, it was Russia's that drew everything into its orbit. In his remarkable new book Orlando Figes describes and takes apart this story, in the shortest space possible. Starting with the horrific famines of 1891, Figes charts a vast experiment in state-building. The manipulation of many millions of people, first by Tsarist ministers and then by the Communists — on a scale and with a ferocity that their predecessors could not dream of — aimed to totally transform Russian society. Through war and peace Russia's rulers battled to subdue and control their vast state, fighting off a mass of real and imagined enemies until exhaustion, corruption and intellectual bankruptcy brought the whole terrible experiment to an end. As the Soviet Union becomes ever more distant in our memory, Revolutionary Russia is an invaluable reminder of why this one, hideously violent and callous state became for so long the great focus of the hopes and fears of much of humankind.

Christmas was coming. Out came the tree, dressed up in finery, splendid to see. Trinkets and tinsel with baubles and bows, a mouse with a hat and a very red nose. It's Christmas in Slinky Malinki's house and the rapscallion, mischievous cat is most curious about the Christmas tree. With its reindeer, ribbons, baubles and bells, it's too tempting a treat for Slinky not to investigate. So Slinky Malinki, with mischievous glee, creeps out from the shadows to climb up the tree...