Lukas Zbinden leans on the arm of Kâzim, as they walk slowly down the stairway towards the door of his old people's home. Step by step, the irrepressible Lukas recounts the life he shared with his wife Emilie and his son. She loved to walk in the countryside; he loved towns and meeting strangers. Different in so many ways, what was the secret of their life-long love? And why is it now so hard for him to talk to his son?Gradually we get to know a man with a twinkle in his eye and lea...

At the age of only 36, Sir Mark Sykes was signatory to the Sykes-Picot agreement, one of the most reviled treaties of modern times. A century later, Christopher Sykes’ lively biography of his grandfather reassesses his life and work, and the political instability and violence in the Middle East attributed to it.The Sykes–Picot agreement was drawn by the eponymousBritish and French diplomats in 1916 to determine the divideof the collapsing empire in th...

Drawing on exclusive and unprecedented access to David Hockney’s extensive archives, notebooks, and paintings, interviews with family, friends, and on Hockney himself, Christopher Simon Sykes provides a colorful and intimate portrait of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.Born in 1937, David Hockney grew up in a northern English town during the days of postwar austerity. By the time he was ten years old he knew he wanted to be an artist, an...

The renewable and alternative energy markets and energy policy have evolved rapidly in recent years. Although a rapidly expanding part of the nation’s energy portfolio, renewable energy will need to grow significantly if a dominant clean energy paradigm is to be achieved. In this fully revised and expanded third edition author Christopher Simon discusses the basic technical aspects of major renewable energy systems and technological developments and considers the impact of politics on ener...

Chester the Cat is talented, handsome and charming—think of a feline Jason Bourne who is so gifted he makes Albert Einstein look stupid. With his street-smart business acumen and catnip-induced superpowers, Chester has overcome his less-than-perfect start to life to create a cat empire. He is director of Chester’s School of the Feline Arts, where he instructs other cats on how to take charge of their destinies . . . and owners.With hilarious wit and heartfelt vulnerability, Chester...

On June 8, 2010, while on a book tour for his bestselling memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens was stricken in his New York hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest and thorax. As he would later write in the first of a series of award-winning columns for Vanity Fair, he suddenly found himself being deported "from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady." Over the next eighteen months, until his death in Houston on December 15, 20...

In The Atlas of an Anxious Man, Christoph Ransmayr offers a mesmerizing travel diary—a sprawling tale of earthly wonders seen by a wandering eye. This is an exquisite, lyrically told travel story.Translated by Simon Pare, this unique account follows Ransmayr across the globe: from the shadow of Java’s volcanoes to the rapids of the Mekong and Danube Rivers, from the drift ice of the Arctic Circle to Himalayan passes, and on to the disenchanted islands of the South Pacific....

How can we be resilient and flexible when facing difficult challenges and adversity in our work, and in our life? How can we develop our resilience and mental toughness to perform under stress and pressure? Wrestling with Resilience is a handbook that answers these questions.Written by psychologist Christopher Shen and Associate Professor Simon Moss, Wrestling with Resilience is a straightforward, accessible handbook for developing resilience and mental toughness. In it, Christopher and Si...

Meet Osbert Brinkhoff, the unlikeliest of avengers. His is a tale of dark delights and ghastly goings-on, of injustice and revenge. The villains are vicious. The settings are sinister. And good does NOT always prevail...

When twins Greta and Feliks lose their beloved Aunt Gisela to a poisoned marzipan cake and are sent to the ill-omened Schwartzgarten Reformatory for Maladjusted Children it seems their fate is sealed... that is until they are rescued by the glamorous and wealthy Olga Van Veenen, a fabulous children's author. The two twins are grateful but something tells them that Olga's motives are not entirely genuine...‘A deliciously dark invitation to the strange world of Schwartzgarten.’ WE LOV...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. Two renowned psychologists explain how and why our intuitions lead us astray, “[spinning] the plain world [we] know into a wonderment of surprising new insights” (Time).“A must-read for anyone who wants to better understand how the mind works.”—Associated PressIn The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one ...

The Raven Brothers put their dream plans into action and traverse the Trans-oceanic highway from the Pacific to the Atlantic Coast of South America. Pioneering a new frontier over the Andes and through the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, the bizarre and the beautiful cross their dusty path as they seek inspiration for a new book and go in search of the ultimate carnival. Not always getting it right, Simon and Chris lose themselves in the mysterious world of the Inca Empire, swim with caiman ...