Keanu Reeves’ required reading for the Matrix
As mentioned in the previous post, we publish a new edition of Dylan Evans’ and Oscar Zarate’s Introducing Evolutionary Psychology today.
As you can see below, this book was one of three Keanu Reeves was required to read before shooting began on the original Matrix film – as you can see below. So now you know…
Published today
Icon, Wizard and Corinthian between them publish twelve books today.
They are:
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine, a vehement attack on the latest pseudo-scientific claims about the differences between the sexes.
Jilted Generation by Ed Howker and Shiv Malik, in which the authors argue that, in stark contrast to their parents’ generation, millions of young Britons today face the most uncertain future since the early 1930s.
The Ryder Cup: A History by Peter Pugh and Henry Lord, an authoritative up-to-date chronicle of one of the most dramatic sporting occasions in the world, which begins this year in Wales on 1st October.
The paperback edition of Darren Moore’s The Soldier, a powerful world history of the fighting man described by Max Arthur as ‘a powerful book, [which] should be read anyone contemplating taking the queen’s shilling’.
Six Introducing titles in the very-much-loved newish compact format: Aesthetics, Aristotle, Consciousness, Evolutionary Psychology, Semiotics and The Enlightenment. See more about the series on it’s website.
And finally two reissued titles in Wizard Books’ – our children’s imprint -Fighting Fantasy series, Trial of Champions and Howl of the Werewolf. Fighting Fantasy is the original, much-imitated but never bettered interactive gamebook series by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, of which much more here.
Something for everyone, eh?
‘It’s [the author's] ability to weave together threads of history, social commentary and everyday customs that make this memoir entertaining’
A Carpet Ride to Khiva by Christopher Aslan Alexander is reviewed on the Lonely Planet website. The book is a hauntingly, beautifully written tale of the author’s journey to, and life in, the desert oasis of Khiva in Uzbekistan.
The review ends by saying:
‘It was a joy being transported back to Central Asia, with its dust and decay and rounds of flat bread, its corrupt officials and wonderful hospitality, the piles of plov and greasy lamb mantis, its pomegranates and paranoid border crossings all washed down with gallons of tea and lashings of vodka.’
‘While every generation thinks it has things uniquely bad, today’s teenagers have the statistics to back it up’
Robert Colvile writes a big piece in the Telegraph today around Ed Howker and Shiv Malik’s Jilted Generation, published by Icon tomorrow.
‘Tomorrow, a provocative new book by Ed Howker and Shiv Malik, called Jilted Generation, takes things further. The two 29-year-olds show how those born after Margaret Thatcher’s arrival in Downing Street – a category into which I, too, squeeze – have things unutterably worse than their parents.’
Keep up with the latest on the book on it’s own Facebook page.
Jilted Generation in the Daily Mail and Herald
Ed Howker and Shiv Malik’s Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth, which is published this Thursday, was extracted over the weekend in the Daily Mail, and the authors wrote a big piece for the Herald in Scotland.
See more about the book here and it’s own website is here.
‘Everything that a popular history book should be’
Bookgeeks reviews Greg Grandin’s Fordlandia, a fact-is-far-stranger-than-fiction tale of Henry Ford’s mad attempt to build his idea of a perfect American town slap bang in the middle of the Amazonian jungle.
It’s won awards and plaudits aplenty both sides of the Atlantic, and we’re publishing the paperback in October.
‘With a cast of characters brought to life in superb style by Evans, Slaughter on a Snowy Morn cannot fail to keep you gripped until the very last page.’
Colin Evans’ utterly compulsive Slaughter on a Snowy Morn is reviewed on HistoryTimes.com
How to Run a Book Festival
David Shenk, author of the recently published The Genius in All of Us, was at the Edinburgh International Book Festival earlier this month, where he discussed his book at three, no less, sold-out events.
And impressed he was too - justifiably - with the Festival’s slick management, as you can read here on his blog.
His book is dazzling look at the new science of genetics and the frontiers of human potential, in which he argues that it’s not genetics that stops any of us from achieving greatness, just the inability to use what we already have. Already a New York Times bestseller, it has been described as a ’deeply interesting and important book’ by the New York magazine and you can read more from David on his blog about the book here.
