In the vein of the international bestselling Freakonomics, award-winning journalist Matthew Syed reveals the hidden clues to success—in sports, business, school, and just about anything else that you’d want to be great at. Fans of Predictably Irrational and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point will find many interesting and helpful insights in Bounce.

The first child was taken from her house.The second from his mother’s car.The third from her own bedroom...When Helen and Sean Philips go out for the evening, leaving their teenage daughter babysitting little Frankie, they have no idea that they are about to face every parent’s greatest fear.Detective Inspector Patrick Lennon is hopeful that the three children who have been abducted in this patch of south-west London will be returned safe and well. But when a ...

England in the fourteenth century: a land of poverty and opulence, prayer and plague...witchcraft and necromancy.As a child, Elisha witnessed the burning of a witch outside of London, and saw her transformed into an angel at the moment of her death, though all around him denied this vision. He swore that the next time he might have the chance to bind an angel’s wounds, he would be ready. And so he became a barber-surgeon, at the lowest ranks of the medical profession, following the...

Little Sister has vanished. The prototype device—real name IPD400—has powers of surveillance that governments and terrorist organisations would kill for. They might yet.James Palatine, a trained killer with a surplus of conscience, invented the device and is the only person who can operate it. He’s determined to retrieve it, and so is Natalya Kocharian—the arms dealer who ‘inadvertently’ sold the prototype to a rogue dealer. But the current owner, holed up in the scorching void of ...

One office, five lives, on the most romantic day of the year.For most people, Valentine’s Day means flowers, chocolates, and candlelit dinners. But for five of Seek Software’s employees, it’s shaping up to be as much fun as a trip to the dentist.Long-term singleton Sophie has a crush on colleague Nathan but worries he doesn’t even know her name. And is there really any point in her sending a card to the man who organises the annual office Anti-Valentine’s p...

Marie Colvin, described as "the greatest war correspondent of her generation," was killed in a rocket attack in February 2012 while reporting on the desperate suffering of civilians inside Syria's besieged Homs. Paul Conroy, who had forged a close bond with Colvin as they put their lives on the line time and time again to report from some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones, was with her. Under the Wire is Paul's gripping, visceral and moving account of their friendship, ...

How do master storytellers compel us? There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story, but few have used a scientific approach. In The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can tell better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and also our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change. Storr’s superbly chosen examples ...

""An important reminder of simple everyday practices to improve how we all work together, which will lead to greater team and individual happiness and performance. Great results will follow.""—Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square""With just 30 changes, you can transform your work experience from bland and boring (or worse) to fulfilling, fun, and even joyful.""—Daniel Pink, author of When and DriveThe vice president of Tw...

“Where is she? And what was she doing out on the waves that night?”For Hal, now, this summer is different. Sure he’s spending it, as always, with his family at their cottage on the wild west coast of England. But this summer he meets Jackie, beautiful, impetuous Jackie. Lying with her on the beach while she sculpts mermaids from wet sand–it’s paradise. Or would be, if only he didn’t keep hearing the desperate pleas of his lost sister Charley in his head . . .For Charley, the...

There’s bad stuff out there. Folks reckon things like vampires don't exist, but they does—Jock from the burger van told me. Plus I found an actual one of ’em, sleeping at the time in the back of a hearse I nicked that first morning. That's how me and Jock got to setting out freeing the world of ’em, using his bag o’ wooden stakes and special bottles of whisky. Course, I knowed that vampires didn’t exist, not when I stopped and done some thinking. And I knowed Jock had mental wossnames, wha...

Three years have passed since Royston Blake left Mangel for Parpham Mental Hospital, his unstable mind finally entrusted to professionals. He served his stretch, and now he’s out, pronounced “cured” by the Doc. But a lot can change in three years, even in Mangel. Blake’s gal, Sal, has gone off and had a kid for one. His kid…whom Blake’s never even met. Not to mention that most of his old haunts, including Hoppers, are gone, replaced by a gleaming new shopping mall. But like the Doc says, c...

Royston Blake is head doorman at Hoppers Wine Bar & Bistro in the backwater English town of Mangel. He drives a Ford Capri 2.8i and can walk the streets of his town knowing he’s respected by one and all—until a rumour begins to circulate that Blake’s “lost his bottle.” Even his sharp-tongued girl, Sal, has overheard the talk that the formerly fearsome bloke has gone soft, lost his edge, and become a pushover in a town where he can ill afford it. To make matters worse, the violent Munton br...