Archives de l’auteur : WebmasterBenisti

FOR LOVE OF MAGIC de Simon R. Green

History isn’t what you think it is. It’s been rewritten to remove all the magic. Together, two people decide to put things right. A new novel of magic, history and true love from Simon R. Green.

FOR LOVE OF MAGIC
by Simon R. Green
Baen, May 2023
(via JABberwocky)

When they fall in love, it’s magic!
History can change and has changed. Magic was and is real.
Once upon a time, there was a forgotten era of magic and monster. But the remnants—and all memory—of the old world have been replaced by the sane, the scientific, and the rational. But sometimes the magical past isn’t content to stay past. That’s where Jack Daimon comes in. It’s his joy to protect our present from the supernatural remnants of an earlier time, a different history. It’s his job to make the past safe.
Jack is called to the Tate Museum, where dozens of people have disappeared beneath the surface of a painting. While investigating, he finds himself smitten with a mysterious art expert, Amanda Fielding. But Amanda has plans of her own, and soon the two are traveling through time—back to the Roman Empire and then forward through history, from King Arthur’s court to Sherwood Forest. As they explore histories past as written and overwritten, the balance of magic and science shifts, and the choices the two make could change the world forever.

Simon R. Green is the New York Times best-selling author of more than sixty science fiction, fantasy, and mystery novels. Green sold his first book in 1988 and the very next year was commissioned to write the best-selling novelization of the Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. From there he went on to write many more series of books, including Deathstalker, Nightside, Secret History, Forest Kingdom, and the Ishmael Jones mysteries. His books have sold more than 3.8 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than a dozen different languages.

THE DICTATORS de Iain Dale

Were the signs that Putin is a ruthless dictator there all along? How should we deal with President Xi of China? THE DICTATORS will contain 64 essays detailing the lives of some of the world’s infamous dictators, going back to 600BC up to the current day.

THE DICTATORS:
A Warning from History
by Iain Dale
Hodder & Stoughton, April 2024
(via Northbank Talent Management)

THE DICTATORS will feature essays on 60 of the most significant and notorious dictators from the 4th century BC to the present day. Unlike the subjects of the previous three books in this series, which were self-selecting, the decision about who to include will be subjective. It will be Iain’s personal choice, and he will include a mixture of ‘usual suspects’ and less familiar figures. The essays will be written by a range of academics, historians, commentators, political journalists and serving politicians. Each contributor will be carefully chosen. Most have either written about their subjects before or have a personal connection of some sort.
THE DICTATORS will be selected according to a defined set of criteria, and will include elected and unelected dictators, wartime and peacetime dictators, those driven by ideology and those with a reputation for sheer brutality. How did these tyrants, autocrats and despots seize power and how did they exercise it? Are there specific character traits that all dictators share? What can we learn from them in order to spot the warning signs in future?
By studying a wide variety of dictators in different parts of the world and throughout history, themes and patterns will inevitably emerge. The book is acutely relevant to world politics today.
As the subtitle states, it will serve as a warning from history.

Iain Dale is an accomplished broadcaster, presenting his own daily radio show on LBC, and several podcasts including the Iain Dale Book Club and The Presidents and Prime Ministers to accompany the Hodder books. He is a regular on CNN, Question Time, Newsnight, Good Morning Britain, the Jeremy Vine Show on Channel 5, The Andrew Marr Show, Politics Live and a myriad of other political programmes too. He is a regular columnist for the Telegraph, Evening Standard and the ‘i’ newspaper and has a weekly column in the Eastern Daily Press and East Anglian Daily Times.

MISBELIEF de Dan Ariely

The renowned social scientist, professor, and bestselling author of Predictably Irrational delivers his most urgent and compelling book—an eye-opening exploration of the human side of the misinformation crisis—examining what drives otherwise rational people to adopt deeply irrational beliefs.

MISBELIEF:
What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things
by Dan Ariely
HarperCollins, September 2023
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

Misinformation affects all of us on a daily basis—from social media to larger political challenges, from casual conversations in supermarkets, to even our closest relationships. While we recognize the dangers that misinformation poses, the problem is complex—far beyond what policing social media alone can achieve—and too often our limited solutions are shaped by partisan politics and individual interpretations of truth.
In MISBELIEF, preeminent social scientist Dan Ariely argues that to understand the irrational appeal of misinformation, we must first understand the behavior of “misbelief”—the psychological and social journey that leads people to mistrust accepted truths, entertain alternative facts, and even embrace full-blown conspiracy theories. Misinformation, it turns out, appeals to something innate in all of us—on the right and the left—and it is only by understanding this psychology that we can blunt its effects. Grounded in years of study as well as Ariely’s own experience as a target of disinformation, MISBELIEF is an eye-opening and comprehensive analysis of the psychological drivers that cause otherwise rational people to adopt deeply irrational beliefs. Utilizing the latest research, Ariely reveals the key elements—emotional, cognitive, personality, and social—that drive people down the funnel of false information and mistrust, showing how under the right circumstances, anyone can become a misbeliever.
Yet Ariely also offers hope. Even as advanced artificial intelligence has become capable of generating convincing fake news stories at an unprecedented scale, he shows that awareness of these forces fueling misbelief make us, as individuals and as a society, more resilient to its allure. Combating misbelief requires a strategy rooted not in conflict, but in empathy. The sooner we recognize that misbelief is above all else a human problem, the sooner we can become the solution ourselves.

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. He is a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight; co-creator of the film documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies; and a three-time New York Times bestselling author. His books include Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, Irrationally Yours, Payoff, Dollars and Sense, and Amazing Decisions. His TED talks have been viewed more than 27 million times. Dan has what appears to be bad luck in terms of the troubles he gets into, but also the good fortune to learn and develop from these challenges.

HARD BODY de Robert James Russell

A graphic narrative of body dysmorphia; a memoir of obsession, shame, and what it means to face the physical space you take up in the world.

HARD BODY:
A Personal History of the Self on Display
by Robert James Russell
Simon & Schuster, 2024
(via The Lark Group)

In the vein of graphic memoirs from Meichi Ng, Alison Bechdel, and Adrian Tomine, HARD BODY by Robert James Russell is a graphic narrative – a blend of comics, memoir, and history – about the author’s experience of male body dysmorphia. From personal stories about how the author’s body has been a commodity for others – while modeling or working at the cult-like Abercrombie & Fitch or teaching – to examining the history and current climate of “get fit” culture, the rise of personal fitness in the early 20th Century (Muscular Christianity, anyone?), and our collective obsession with our appearance throughout history, HARD BODY is a memoir of obsession, shame, and what it means to face the physical space you take up in the world.

Robert James Russell is a wellpublished, former creative writing professor who has taught national workshops for fiction, nonfiction, and graphic narratives across the country. He is the founder of two national literary brands (Midwestern Gothic and CHEAP POP).

THE HEARTBEAT OF THE WILD de David Quammen

In this inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed author David Quammen journeys to places where civilization meets raw nature and explores the challenge of balancing the needs of both.

THE HEARTBEAT OF THE WILD:
Dispatches From Landscapes of Wonder, Peril, and Hope
by David Quammen
National Geographic, May 2023
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

For more than two decades, award-winning science and nature writer David Quammen has traveled to Earth’s most far-flung and fragile destinations, sending back field notes from places caught in the tension between humans and the wild. This illuminating book features 20 of those assignments: elegantly written narratives, originally published in National Geographic magazine and updated for today, telling colorful and impassioned stories from some of the planet’s wildest locales.
Quammen shares encounters with African elephants, chimpanzees, and gorillas (and their saviors, including Jane Goodall); the salmon of northeastern Russia and the people whose livelihood depends on them; the lions of Kenya and the villagers whose homes border on parks created to preserve the species; and the champions of rewilding efforts in southernmost South America, designed to rescue iconic species including jaguars and macaws.
With a new introduction, afterword, and notes framing each story, Quammen reminds us of the essential role played by wild nature at the heart of the planet.

Three-time winner of the National Magazine Award (the Ellie) and author of 15 books, David Quammen is one of the world’s top nature and science writers. His 2012 book Spillover, which predicted a worldwide pandemic, was shortlisted for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and has made him one of the most sought-after commentators on the coronavirus. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.