Archives de catégorie : Nos incontournables

ODE TO JOY de Sarah Gavron & Sophie Herxheimer

A gorgeous and moving graphic novel about one family’s struggle to survive in a concentration camp, and the persistence of art-making through the bleakest times.

ODE TO JOY
by Sarah Gavron & Sophie Herxheimer
Pushkin Press, May 2026

In 1943, Ib Katznelson was deported with the rest of his Jewish family to Terezín, also called Theresienstadt. Terezín was repurposed by the Nazis as a ‘show camp,’ a ghetto for the Jewish cultural elite, designed to deceive the prying Red Cross and conceal the horrifying truth behind Hitler’s death camps.

Ib didn’t speak about his experience for many years, but when he did, it was an incredible tale: in spite of the dreadful daily life of the camp, a rich cultural life proliferated. The incarcerated artists sustained their humanity by secretly continuing to make imaginative work that opposed the propaganda they were forced to produce for the ‘show camp’ by day. And, while many of these prisoners didn’t survive, much of their art does.

ODE TO JOY is a collaboration between Ib’s daughter-in-law, Sarah Gavron, and artist Sophie Herxheimer. Through stunning illustrations and text filled with pathos and peppered with wit, it blends the story of Ib and his parents and fellow prisoners along with that of his modern-day family, learning about the camp and their links to it for the first time.

Sarah Gavron is a British film director. Winner of a BAFTA and BIFA, among other awards, her films include Brick Lane, Suffragette, Village at the End of the World and Rocks.

Sophie Herxheimer is an artist and poet. Her work has been shown at Tate Modern, on a giant mural along the seafront at Margate and at her allotments! She has illustrated six collections of mythology and fairy tales. Her collection Velkom to Inklandt (2017) was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her book 60 Lovers to Make and Do (2019) was a TLS Book of the Year.

ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: A GRAPHIC INTERPRETATION by Paul Peart-Smith

In stunning full color and accessible text, a graphic adaptation of the American Book Award winning history of the United States as told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples—perfect for readers of all ages.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES:
A Graphic Interpretation
by Paul Peart-Smith
Beacon Press, October 2024

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s influential New York Times bestseller exposed the brutality of the USA’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide. Through evocative full color artwork, renowned cartoonist Paul Peart-Smith brings this watershed book to life, centering the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants to trace Indigenous perseverance over four centuries against policies intended to obliterate them.

Recognized for his adaptation of W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk and his extensive expertise in the comics industry, Peart-Smith collaborates with experienced graphic novel editor Paul Buhle to provide an accessible introduction to a complex history that will attract new generations of readers of all ages. This striking graphic adaptation will rekindle crucial conversations about the centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regime that has largely been omitted from history.

Paul Peart-Smith is a celebrated cartoonist of over 35 years, with experience in concept art, graphic design, and animation. Having studied to be an Illustrator in Cambridge, England, he has worked on comics for2000 AD, including Slaughter Bowl from its digital-only collections. He is the illustrator and adapter of W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation. He lives in Tasmania, Australia.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. Dunbar-Ortiz is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize and a recipient of the American Book Award (2015) for An Indigenous History of the United States. The author or editor of numerous books, including Not “A Nation of Immigrants,”she lives in San Francisco. Connect with her at reddirtsite.com or on Twitter @rdunbaro.

OUTSMARTING CANCER d’Adam Barsouk

OUTSMARTING CANCER aims to share the history and latest data on cancer prevention interwoven with narratives of patients that have inspired Dr. Adam Barsouk to see oncology in a new light.

OUTSMARTING CANCER:
Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention
by Adam Barsouk, M.D.
Johns Hopkins University Press, Winter 2026
(via Vertical Ink)

Dr. Adam Barsouk will break down the most common risk factors for cancer worldwide, sharing historical anecdotes, the latest epidemiological statistics, and studies on the best lifestyle and public health interventions, all interspersed with patient narratives and personal anecdotes. In sharing his patients’ and his family’s stories, Dr. Barsouk gives cancer a face and prevention the urgency it deserves. While virtually every cancer prevention book on the market today focuses on a specific type of diet that people should follow to avoid getting cancer, Dr. Barsouk takes a much broader approach, dealing with a wide variety of cancer risk factors and how to avoid them practically in people’s everyday lives. Dr. Barsouk’s writing and storytelling ability is on par with Dr. Atul Gawande or even an Dr. Oliver Sachs, and he is able to relate the humanity and pain and tragedy and triumph that he has seen firsthand through the stories of not only his patients, but also his own family, and translate the science of cancer into relatable and practical everyday advice.

Adam Barsouk, M.D.’s medical journey began at a young age, when in the 2010’s he acted as his Ukrainian grandparents’ translator at the cancer clinic in Pittsburgh where they both received treatment for rare blood cancers which were, in all likelihood, due to exposure to radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. After they passed, Adam knew he wanted to continue to change lives through medicine, and he started volunteering with cancer patients and in cancer research labs at the University of Pittsburgh. Working with patients, he got to translate not just Russian or Spanish, but also the complex science of oncology to ordinary people in need. He became their advocate, and he continued that advocacy by publishing articles in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, the DailyMail, and more, and through numerous appearances on television to talk about healthcare and policy. He went on to graduate summa cum laude from the accelerated undergraduate medical program at Penn State University, and top of his class from Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He is currently a resident physician in Internal Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he rotates in the oncology ward and clinic.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CLIMATE FOLLY de Tim & Emma Flannery

In this entertaining and at times terrifying book Tim and Emma Flannery tell the story of how human beings have tried to change the weather.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CLIMATE FOLLY
by Tim & Emma Flannery
Text Publishing Australia, October 2026

In this entertaining and at times terrifying book Tim and Emma Flannery tell the story of how human beings have tried to change the weather. It’s a long story that goes back to priests and shamans who prayed to weather gods and sang and danced to make it rain. It’s a story of shysters and charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. And it’s a story of shocking schemes to reshape nature.

Climate shapes species and plays a key role in evolution. But we are the only species that has ever dreamed of making the weather suit ourselves. And now that we are in danger of triggering catastrophic global warming, the history of human climate folly is more alarming than ever. Hitler, for instance, wanted to drain the Mediterranean. In the 1950s Soviet and US governments contemplated nuking the Arctic ice cap in order to create a warmer climate.

These schemes seem ludicrous to us, but are they any stranger than the idea that we can arrest runaway climate change by burying our carbon emissions deep in the earth or by seeding clouds with sulphur to block out the sun.

This book reveals an outrageous history of dreamers and schemers who wanted to bend the climate to their will.

Tim Flannery is a paleontologist, an explorer, a conservationist and a leading writer on climate change. His books include the award-winning international bestseller The Weather Makers, and Here on Earth, Atmosphere of Hope and Europe: The First 100 Million Years, as well as his previous collaboration with his daughter, Emma Flannery, Big Meg.

Emma Flannery is a scientist and writer. She has explored caves, forests and oceans across most of the globe’s continents in search of elusive fossils, animals and plants. Her research and writing on geology, chemistry and palaeontology has been published in scientific journals, children’s books and a number of museum-based adult education tours.

THE NIGHTLESS CITY de Callum McSorley

The first in a new series of historical thrillers set in nineteenth-century Japan, from the prizewinning author of Squeaky Clean.

THE NIGHTLESS CITY
by Callum McSorley
Pushkin Press, September 2026

Tokyo, 1886.

Chino Kunio, a male courtesan in Tokyo’s infamous Yoshiwara neighbourhood, the Nightless City, discovers his one and only client, a British diplomat, dead and himself in the frame for the man’s grisly murder.

Trying to save Chino from the judicial blade are his friend, samurai rebel turned reckless drunk Shimura Shingo, police inspector Tokuda Reiji, and the victim’s wife, Fiona Gordon, a Scottish teacher living a stifled life in the foreign concession, who is seeking her own answers.

But as more foreigners are slain, dredging up the shadow of shipwreck that led to a diplomatic scandal, Chino’s only hope may be to escape the Nightless City for good, before it explodes into violence between belligerent westerners and nationalist bully boys.

Callum McSorley is a writer based in Glasgow, where he grew up. His debut thriller, Squeaky Clean, the first book in the Alison McCoist thriller series, was published to great acclaim and went on to win the prestigious McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish Crime Book of the Year. THE NIGHTLESS CITY is the first in a new series of historical thrillers set in nineteenth-century Japan.