Titles in this preview are published in July


ancient art and science of plants and the potential they hold to boost health and happiness.


History


Breeze Barrington The Graces: The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court


Bloomsbury 17th, HB, £25, 9781526663788


This “spellbinding” work of history uncovers the inner lives and work of Maria of Modena – wife of James Duke of York, future King of England – and her “graces”, the young women around her who immersed themselves in art, poetry and politics despite the misogyny of the Jacobite court.


Victor Gibson North Sea Oil: A History Amberley, 15th, HB, £22.99, 9781398126893


Charting the development of the North Sea oil business from its early prospecting days to the present, this is a story of “adverse conditions, monumental feats of engineering and a new frontier in the race for energy independence”.


Toby Green The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port


Allen Lane, 3rd, HB, £25, 9780241611418


Through the story of Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave trafficking port of Cacheu, this “unique, startling” book recreates the terrible world of the early transatlantic slave trade, based on surviving documents.


Simon Hall ( 4) Three Revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba and the Epic Journeys that Changed the World


Faber, 3rd, HB, £25, 9780571367153


From the streets of Petrograd in 1917 to Mao’s victory in October 1949 and Fidel Castro’s arrival in Havana in January 1959, this is an account of how the history of the 20th century was transformed by the Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions.


Annie Irfan A Short History of the Gaza Strip


Simon & Schuster, 31st, HB, £12.99, 9781398536197


Bringing the people of Gaza to the forefront, this concise history shows how this strip of land went from being a thriving port town that


birthed poets, feminists and revolutionaries to a place known for poverty and then as a theatre of war. “We cannot afford to ignore it,” says Simon & Schuster of this “urgent, gripping” book.


Sam Kelly Human History on Drugs: An Utterly Scandalous but Entirely Truthful Look at History Under the Influence


Icon, 17th, PB, £16.99, 9781837733095


William Shakespeare was a stoner, George Washington drank opium every night and Alexander the Great was a sloppy drunk. Just some of the assertions in this jaunty look at the druggie side of famous figures from history.


Luke Kemp Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse


Viking, 3rd, HB, £25, 9780241741238


From ancient Rome to the British Empire, Kemp gives us a new history of humanity told through the lens of why civilisations rise and then collapse. At its heart is the idea of Goliath’s curse: the combination of rampant inequality, extractive institutions, corruption and over-expansion, which leads to collapse.


Miriam Lewin, Horacio Lutzky, Frances Riddle (trans) Iosi, the Remorseful Spy


Seven Stories, 24th, PB, £18.99, 9781911710233


This “gripping” true-crime story of espionage, Jewish history and anti- semitic mass terrorism in 1990s Buenos Aires concerns José Pérez, a young intelligence agent charged with infiltrating


the Argentine Jewish community to monitor an alleged plan to take over Patagonia and create a second state of Israel.


Justin Marozzi Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World


Allen Lane, 3rd, HB, £20, 9780241522158


From corsairs and concubines to eunuchs and janissaries, the renowned historian of the Islamic world examines the diversity, fluidity and longevity of the lesser-known institution of Islamic slavery across 1,300 years and several empires.


Takashi Nagai, William Johnston (trans) The Bells of Nagasaki


Vintage, 31st, HB, £16.99, 9781529952605


A Japanese bestseller on first publication in 1949, a “harrowing, heart-rending” eyewitness account by a doctor who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9th August 1945. Nagai tended to the gravely injured and dying and came to be known as the “saint of Nagasaki”.


Lynne Olson The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How An Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp


Scribe, 17th, HB, £22, 9781917189118


This story of female solidarity and nobility of spirit in the bleakest of circumstances focuses on the bond between four women of the French Resistance who defied the Nazis,


despite the hell of Gestapo capture and the horrors of Ravensbrück concentration camp.


Barbara H Rosenwein Winter Dreams: A Historical Guide to Old Age


Reaktion, 1st, HB, £20, 9781836390916


Exploring how views of the elderly and of a “good old age” have changed through time and across different societies. This “evocative” history shows that older people have always retained their emotional depth and desires, testifying to the richness of “winter dreams”.


Alec Ryrie The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It


Reaktion, 1st, HB, £15.95, 9781836390824


Ranging across history and literary fiction, as well as films, including Star Wars and Harry Potter, and modern myths, this title is an examination of our fixation with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, which also questions what will happen as “our anti-Nazi moral consensus frays”.


Marina Warner Sanctuary William Collins, 3rd, HB, £20, 9780008347543


The renowned novelist and non-fiction writer uncovers the principles behind the tradition of the ancient right of sanctuary, whereby it was a crime to lay hands on a fugitive once they had claimed sanctuary. The book is born of Warner’s work with refugees through the Stories in Transit project.


Gareth Williams The Impossible Bomb: The Hidden History of British Scientists and the Race to Create an Atomic Weapon


Yale, 22nd, HB, £25, 9780300284881


Unearthing the true story of the British contribution to the creation of the atomic bomb, Williams argues that British scientists were crucial to all stages of the project, especially through the Tube Alloys programme, set up in 1941.


Humour & gift


Satu Hämeenaho-Fox Sense and Situationships Jane Austen’s Biting Guide to Love, Dating and All Things in Between


Bantam Books, 24th, HB, £9.99, 9780857508706


4


Imagine Jane Austen in 2025 as your favourite podcaster, reading out


romance dilemmas with her signature wisdom and wit. That is the premise behind this “hilarious” and gifty celebration of Austen’s wittiest words, applied to the chaotic dating scene of today.


Emily Reed The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women: Serving Tea with a Side of Scorn


HarperCollins, 17th, HB, £12.99, 9780008760977


From “let us have the luxury of silence” to “pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked”; a perfect put-down for filtered selfies, a celebration of the sharpest, wittiest and most timeless retorts from the pen of Jane Austen.


Language, literature & essays


Adam Aleksic Algospeak Ebury, 17th, HB, £22, 9781529949148


From the rise of leetspeak to the trend of adding “-core” to different aesthetics, this title provides a deep dive into how algorithms, social media and the internet are changing the way we communicate and think. Harvard linguist and online etymologist Aleksic has almost two million followers across his @etymologynerd platforms. “The Etymologicon for the social media generation,” says Ebury.


Anonymous Who Will Tell My Story? A Gaza Diary


Guardian Faber, 17th, HB, £12.99, 9781783353279


In diary entries which initially appeared in the Guardian, this is a visceral and moving account of life in Palestine following the 7th October Hamas attacks, “conveying with astonishing clarity how seeds of hope might linger amid the most trying of times”.


María Sonia Cristoff, Katherine Silver (trans) False Calm: A Journey Through the Ghost Towns of Patagonia


Daunt Books, 31st, PB, £10.99, 9781917092258


In a book that is part- reportage, part-personal essay and part- travelogue, Argentinian writer Cristoff chronicles the ghost towns left behind by the Patagonia oil boom, conjuring the reality of a place that “unveils a startlingly lucid netherworld”.


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PAUL STEWART


Books New Titles: Non-Fiction


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