Category: Book

The Waltz of Reason by Karl Sigmund

“A mind-bending jaunt … that makes clear in fascinating detail how math is more than a sum of its parts” (Publishers Weekly)

“Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” Plato warned would-be philosophers. Mathematician Karl Sigmund agrees.

In The Waltz of Reason, he shows how mathematics and philosophy together have shaped our understanding of space, chance, logic, cooperation, voting, and the social contract. Sigmund shows how game theory is integral to moral philosophy, how statistics shaped the meaning of reason, and how the search for a logical basis for math leads to deep questions about the nature of truth itself. But this is no dry tome: Sigmund’s wit and humor shine as brightly as his erudition.

The Waltz of Reason is an engrossing history of ideas as vibrant as a ballroom full of dancers, one that empowers as it entertains, following the complex and occasionally dizzying steps of the thinkers who have molded our thought and founded our world.

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

*Now an acclaimed live-action Netflix series!*

Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. The bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between: this is the fifth volume of the much-loved HEARTSTOPPER series, featuring gorgeous two-color artwork.

Nick and Charlie are in love. They’ve finally said those three little words, and Charlie has almost persuaded his mum to let him sleep over at Nick’s house. He wants to take their relationship to the next level… but can he find the confidence he needs? And with Nick going off to university next year, is everything about to change?

By Alice Oseman, winner of the YA Book Prize, Heartstopper encompasses all the small moments of Nick and Charlie’s lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.

Contains discussions around mental health and eating disorders, and sexual references.

A Lethal Legacy by Fin Dwyer

The Instant Top 5 Irish Times Bestseller

From the creator of The Irish History Podcast comes a fascinating look at Irish history through the lens of murder.

In A Lethal Legacy, Fin Dwyer charts 200 years of Irish history, opening up our past as never before, by observing the grand societal changes of our times through the intimate lens of eighteen murders and the lives and communities they altered forever.

From the creator of the critically acclaimed Irish History Podcast comes a ground-breaking exploration of the past, casting its gaze beyond the chambers of power and carnage of battle, and into the lives of the everyday people that lived through those violent centuries. From the desperate retributions of the Land War of the nineteenth century, through the unprecedented tumult of the revolutionary years, to the causes that helped to shape contemporary Ireland, these previously overlooked cases of human tragedy offer a fresh perspective on a history we think we know.

Astonishing, illuminating and compelling, A Lethal Legacy chronicles Ireland’s turbulent past through one of our most enduring fascinations – the act of killing – and in mapping the causes and aftermath of these cases, Dwyer offers us a fresh new understanding of the fires that forged modern Ireland.

The Vacation by John Marrs

“John Marrs’s creative, high-concept thrillers never fail to keep me furiously turning the pages.”–Sarah Pearse

“John Marrs can do no wrong.” –Jack Jordan

“John Marrs is a master of suspense.” –Jeneva Rose

How far would you run to escape your past?

Venice Beach, Los Angeles. A paradise on earth. Tourists flock to the golden coast and the promise of Hollywood. But for eight strangers at a beach-front hostel, there is far more on their minds than an extended vacation. All of them are running from something. And they all have secrets they’d kill to keep…

Curepedia: The A-Z of The Cure by Simon Price

complete and truly unique biography of Robert Smith and company, The Cure, chronicling their 40+ year history with hundreds of entries in A to Z fashion. 

The Cure remain, 40 plus years into their career, one of the biggest rock bands in the world. With 12 studio albums, tours that pack stadiums all over the world—including their recent sold out series across North America in Spring/Summer 2023—they were the first alternative band to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2019 by Trent Reznor. Their influence is heard in bands as wide ranging as Twilight Sad to Interpol to My Chemical Romance.

 Amidst the record-setting Shows of a Lost World Tour winding down, acclaimed music journalist Simon Price has crafted a first of its kind history of this band that will satisfy legion of fans eagerly awaiting The Cure’s new album. Curepedia is a career-spanning and in-depth biography of Robert Smith and company, chronicling their 40 plus year history with hundreds of entries organized in an A-to-Z fashion.

Death In the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan

A potential Bigfoot sighting is linked to a vicious murder, but skeptical cryptozoologist Morgan Carter is on the case in this new Monster Hunter Mystery by USA Today bestselling author Annelise Ryan.

Business has been booming since Morgan Carter solved the case of the monster living in Lake Michigan. The Odds and Ends bookstore is thriving, of course, but Morgan is most excited by the doors that were opened for her as a cryptid hunter. 

Recently, there have been numerous sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest area of Bayfield County, Wisconsin. After a man is found dead from a vicious throat injury in the forest, the conservation warden asks Morgan to investigate. 

When Morgan and her dog, Newt, go there to investigate, they uncover a trail of lies, deception, and murder. It seems a mysterious creature is indeed living in the forest, and Morgan might be its next target.

Llamas beyond the Andes: Untold Histories of Camelids in the Modern World by Marcia Stephenson

Camelids are vital to the cultures and economies of the Andes. The animals have also been at the heart of ecological and social catastrophe: Europeans overhunted wild vicuña and guanaco and imposed husbandry and breeding practices that decimated llama and alpaca flocks that had been successfully tended by Indigenous peoples for generations.

Yet the colonial encounter with these animals was not limited to the New World. Llamas beyond the Andes tells the five-hundred-year history of animals removed from their native habitats and transported overseas.

Initially Europeans prized camelids for the bezoar stones found in their guts: boluses of ingested matter that were thought to have curative powers. Then the animals themselves were shipped abroad as exotica. As Europeans and US Americans came to recognize the economic value of camelids, new questions emerged: What would these novel sources of protein and fiber mean for the sheep industry? And how best to cultivate herds? Andeans had the expertise, but knowledge sharing was rarely easy. Marcia Stephenson explores the myriad scientific, commercial, and cultural interests that have attended camelids globally, making these animals a critical meeting point for diverse groups from the North and South.

The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino

From the acclaimed author of Malice and Newcomer, a confounding murder in Tokyo is connected to the mystery of the disappearance and death of Detective Kaga’s own mother.

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions.

Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo – and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there.

Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo – the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search through Oshitani’s past for any clue that might shed some light, one of the detectives reaches out to Detective Kaga for advice. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga’s missing mother.

The Final Curtain, one of Keigo Higashino’s most acclaimed mysteries, brings the story of Detective Kaga to a surprising conclusion in a series of rich, surprising twists.

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police on her step. They have arrived to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart, caught in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny. As the life she knows and the ones she loves disappear before her eyes, Eilish must contend with the dystopian logic of her new, unraveling country. How far will she go to save her family? And what–or who–is she willing to leave behind?

The winner of the Booker Prize 2023, Prophet Song presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.

The Lost Tomb by Douglas Preston

Douglas Preston, the #1 bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God, presents the jaw-dropping discovery of a vast Egyptian tomb containing dozens of sealed burial chambers, as well as recounting tales of pirate treasure, mysterious deaths, archaeological mysteries, and more… 

What’s it like to be the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that’s been sealed for thousands of years? Where might a blocked doorway or newly excavated corridor lead? And what might this stupendous tomb reveal about the most powerful pharaoh in Egyptian history? 

From the jungles of Honduras to macabre archaeological sites in the American Southwest, Douglas Preston’s journalistic explorations have taken him across the globe. He broke the story of an extraordinary mass grave of animals killed by the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, he explored what lay hidden in the booby-trapped Money Pit on Oak Island, and he roamed the haunted hills of Italy in search of the Monster of Florence. When he hasn’t been co-authoring bestselling thrillers featuring FBI Agent Pendergast, Preston has been writing about some of the world’s strangest and most dramatic mysteries.

The Lost Tomb brings together an astonishing and compelling collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, and other fascinating tales of the past and present.