A collection of stories written in duet.Eight highly original stories, each woven from the joint inspiration of two amazing writers.Sixteen celebrated authors respond, play, twist and develop their story in turn. Without the certainty of being in full control, Duets brings a new dimension to the drama of reading and writing.

Lieutenant Nowell Oxland, killed at Gallipoli in 1915 aged just 24, wrote poems and stories deeply rooted in place. He is unknown bar one poem Farewell, published anonymously in The Times nine days after his death. A native of Cumberland, he wrote it on the way to war, his heart longing for home:'There's a pool for which I'm grieving,Near the water-ouzel's home....And the curlews faintly crying,'Mid the wastes...

A merchant sailor works for a decade, captaining a yacht up and down the coasts of Malaysia, in the hope that his crooked employer will stay true to a promise...Years after a pandemic sweeps across Europe, wiping out its all-white population, a pilgrim returns to his Polish birthplace in search of the only other non-white kid he knew at school...An inscrutable hotelier loses his composure when a secret passage is discovered in his hotel, leading to a mysterious room and a p...

Featuring leading scientists acting as consultants on the stories, and writing scientific afterwords, bringing the theory featured in the stories to life, including Prof. Sarah Bridle (Jodrell Bank), Prof. Jonathan Wolff and Prof. Frank Jackson (the inventor of the 'Mary's Room' thought experiment).Science is always telling stories. Whether in the creation myths of evolution or the Big Bang, or in the eureka moments of science history, narrative – just as much as metaphor – is a ke...

A daughter flies into a painting to escape her overprotective mother. An exchange student sees green lights in the sky above South America and fears the worst. Against the backdrop of an Italian bird market, a holidaying teenager makes her first attempt at seduction. And an affair that never happens is deconstructed while tigers pace in a European zoo.Wild Gestures is the first collection from British writer Lucy Durneen, bringing together stories of loss, desire and oppor...

*THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN, Matt Haig’s new novel from the world of The Midnight Library, is arriving in May 2026*THERE'S NO PLANET LIKE HOMEAfter an 'incident' one wet Friday night where he was found walking naked through the streets of Cambridge, Professor Andrew Martin is not feeling quite himself. Food sickens him. Clothes confound him. Even his loving wife and teenage son are repulsive to him. He feels lost amongst an alien ...

TV and movies will have you believing that black holes are huge holes in space and anything that falls into them is lost for all time – possibly falling into another universe or another time, or even falling forever.You may think that black holes run around in space like huge vacuum cleaners sucking up everything in their path. This is not true.But what actually is a black hole and what do they do? This book will help you find out.LearningIsland.com believes in the v...

Adam Roberts turns his attention to answering the Fermi Paradox with a taut and claustrophobic tale that echoes John Carpenters' The Thing.Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love-letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant.As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world they debate Ka...

We see stars in the night sky as pretty, twinkling objects, but what exactly are they?A lot of the information we find out about stars, helps us understand other objects; pulsars, quasars, galaxies – even the origin of our universe. Here are some fun facts about stars.Do stars twinkle?What are stars made of?Do we know more about the inside of stars or the inside of Earth?Do stars have a life cycle?Is a dead star still a star?How do we measu...

Opening another drawer in his Cabinet of Curiosities, renowned mathematics professor Ian Stewart presents a new medley of games, paradoxes, and riddles in Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures. With wit and aplomb, Stewart mingles casual puzzles with grander forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought.Amongst a host of arcane and astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational and imaginary to complex and cuneiform, we learn:

The biggest question ever asked by science is: Where did everything come from?Science has answered this big question for nearly one hundred years. Everything was created after the big bang. If the Big Bang created the Universe and everything. What was it that created the Big Bang originally?What is it that went, Bang?

Knowing that the most exciting math is not taught in school, Professor Ian Stewart has spent years filling his cabinet with intriguing mathematical games, puzzles, stories, and factoids intended for the adventurous mind. This book reveals the most exhilarating oddities from Professor Stewart's legendary cabinet.Inside, you will find hidden gems of logic, geometry, and probability-like how to extract a cherry from a cocktail glass (harder than you think), a pop-up dodecahedr...