Good writers follow the rules. Great writers know the rules—and follow their instincts!Finding the right words, in the right order, matters—whether you're a student embarking on an essay, a job applicant drafting your cover letter, an employee composing an email…even a (hopeful) lover writing a text. Do it wrong and you just might get an F, miss the interview, lose a client, or spoil your chance at a second date.Do it right, and the world is yours.

Do you remember the first time you fell in love with a book?The stories we read as children extend far beyond our childhoods; they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past – collective and individual, remembered and imagined – and invite us to dream up different futures.In a pioneering history of children's literature, from the ancient world to the present day, Sam Leith reveals the magic of our most cherished stories, a...

Rhetoric is what gives words power. It's nothing to be afraid of. It isn't the exclusive preserve of politicians: it's everywhere, from your argument with the insurance company to your plea to the waitress for a table near the window. It convicts criminals (and then frees them on appeal). It causes governments to rise and fall, best men to be shunned by brides, and people to march with steady purpose towards machine guns.In this highly entertaining (and persuasive) book, Sam Leith examines...

Once seen as a prediction of the sinking of the Titanic, this novella was written 14 years before that ill-fated event of 1912— now, on the centenary anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, the striking similarities can be examined again in this new edition John Rowland, a disgraced former Royal Navy lieutenant, has taken employment as a lowly deck hand aboard the largest ship ever to have sailed, the Titan. One night in deep fog, the ship strikes a gigantic iceberg and sinks almost immediat...

**An engaging exploration of how people have taught, practiced, and thought about rhetoric—from the Iron Age to today“An entertaining history of great oratory.” —New Yorker**Rhetoric gives our words the power to inspire. But it’s not just for politicians: it’s all around us, whether you’re buttering up a key client or persuading your children to eat their vegetables. You have been using rhetoric yourself, all your life. After all, you know what a rhetorical questio...

Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction'A tremendous novel - droll, savvy, original. An invigorating blast of fiction' William Boyd'A superbly entertaining brain-twister' The TimesA hurricane sweeps off the Gulf of Mexico and in the back-country of Alabama, assembles a passenger jet out of old bean-cans and junkyard waste. An eccentric mathematician - last heard of investiga...

A parliament of fools, or a confederacy of dunces? Blethering celebrities and blundering politicians, royal babies and right royal cock-ups, milkshake madness and vegan sausage rolls - and, of course, the long and winding road to Brexit.If ever the times were ripe for a return to the high days of Augustan satire, it’s now – and the Spectator’s literary editor Sam Leith provides it.Our Times in Rhymes is a waspish, affectionate and very fun...

Here lies Lord Berners/One of life's learners,Thanks be to the Lord/He was never bored.So reads the epitaph on the gravestone of Lord Berners. In its witty way, it hints at his range of accomplishment. He was a composer (admired by Stravinsky), writer, painter, aesthete and eccentric, indeed in Mark Amory's words 'The Last Eccentric', famously dyeing the pigeons at his house, Faringdon, in vibrant colours, and, for a time, having a giraffe as a pet and tea companion...

**An engaging exploration of how people have taught, practiced, and thought about rhetoric—from the Iron Age to today“An entertaining history of great oratory.” —New Yorker**Rhetoric gives our words the power to inspire. But it’s not just for politicians: it’s all around us, whether you’re buttering up a key client or persuading your children to eat their vegetables. You have been using rhetoric yourself, all your life. After all, you know what a rhetorical questio...

“A tremendous novel—droll, savvy, original. An invigorating blast of fiction.”—William Boyd, Author of Any Human Heart and Restless.”A hurricane sweeps off the Gulf of Mexico and, in the back country of Alabama, assembles a passenger jet out of old bean cans and junkyard waste. This piques the interest of the enigmatic Directorate of the Extremely Improbable. Their fascination with this random event sets into motion a madcap caper that will...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking exploration of probability and uncertainty that explains how to make better predictions in a world drowning in data, from the nation’s foremost political forecaster—updated with insights into the pandemic, journalism today, and pollingOne of The Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Works of Nonfiction of the Year“Could turn out to be one of the more momentous books of the de...

1916: the Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where has the mud, blood and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone?2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive (some said mad, others dangerous) scientist when she finds a curious gadget - a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a...potato. It is t...