The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica, by Ian Thomson

Jamaica used to the source of much of Britain’s wealth, an island where slaves grew sugar and the money flowed out in vast quantities. It was a tropical paradise for the planters, a Babylonian exile for the Africans shipped to the Caribbean. Since independence in 1962, it has gradually become associated with a new kind of hell, a society where extreme violence has become ordinary and gangs control the areas where most Jamaicans live.

Ian Thomson’s brave new book explores a country of lost promise, a country that most older Jamaicans in Britain cannot recognise as their own. Once a beacon of optimistic third world politics, the island is now sunk in corruption, hopelessness and drug wars. Jamaica’s music was once the lilting anthem of idealists everywhere; now it is a repetitive glorification of homophobia and violence.

Thomson walks the streets and rides the buses that most middle-class Jamaicans, let alone white visitors, avoid like the plague. He describes poverty, the reality of gang rule and police brutality. He meets Jamaicans who are trying to make a difference, and astonishingly complacent members of the elite.

This is an unforgettable portrait of a country that has had a huge influence on British culture, for good and ill.

What Price Liberty?, by Ben Wilson

Individual liberty will be the defining issue of the twenty-first century. With fear of terrorism, crime and social chaos putting our ideals of it into retreat in recent years, how do we, as individuals, negotiate the maximum amount of freedom in such a complex world? How can we resist the growth of intrusive authoritarianism without exposing ourselves to those risks?

History provides a guide to answering these questions. In What Price Liberty? Ben Wilson travels through four centuries of British, American and European history, elaborating not just how civil liberties were constructed in the past, but how they were continually re-thought – and re-fought – in response to modernity. The last chapters put into context the controversies of the last decade or so – the threat of terrorism and the rise of the database nation. If liberty is to survive now it must, like it did in the past, adapt to new circumstances. But to do this we need to agree about the value we place on it.

At the Water’s Edge, by John Lister-Kaye

For the last thirty years John Lister-Kaye, one of Britain’s best-known nature writers, has taken the same circular walk from his home deep in a Scottish glen up to a small hill loch. Each day brings a new observation or an unexpected encounter – a fragile spider’s web, an osprey struggling to lift a trout from the water or a woodcock exquisitely camouflaged on her nest – and every day, on his return home, he records his thoughts in a journal.

Drawing on this lifetime of close observation, John Lister-Kaye’s new book encourages us to look again at the nature around us and to discover its wildness for ourselves. It also forges wonderful connections between the most unlikely subjects, from photosynthesis and the energy cycle to Norse mythology, to weasels and perfume and to the over-population of our planet. At the Water’s Edge is a lyrical hymn to the wildlife of Britain, and a powerful warning to respect and protect it.

The Decisive Moment, by Jonah Lehrer

Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate or we ‘blink’ and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind’s black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they’re discovering this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason – and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it’s best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we’re picking stocks and shares, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to lean on which part of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think.

In The Decisive Moment, Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research by Daniel Kahneman, Colin Camerer and others, as well as the world’s most interesting ‘deciders’ – from airline pilots, world-famous sportsmen and hedge fund investors to serial killers, politicians and poker players. He shows how the fluctuations of a few dopamine neurons saved a battleship during the Persian Gulf War, and how the fevered activity of a single brain region led to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Lehrer’s goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?

Koestler: The Indispensible Intellectual, by Michael Scammell

Best-known as the author of the classic Darkness at Noon, Koestler was one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals, involved in and commenting on almost every political movement of the twentieth century. As a young man, he was a committed Zionist and moved to Palestine; he was imprisoned and sentenced to death in Franco’s Spain; escaped Occupied France; and was a member of the Communist party for seven years, later becoming one of its fiercest critics with the publication of Darkness at Noon.

Without sentimentality, Scammell gives a full account of Koestler’s turbulent private life: his drug use, manic depression, the frenetic womanizing that doomed his three marriages and led to an accusation of rape, and his startling suicide pact with his wife in 1983. Koestler also gives a full account of the author’s voluminous writings, making the case that the autobiographies and essays are fit to stand beside Darkness at Noon as works of lasting literary value.

Michael Scammell creates an indelible portrait of this brilliant, unpredictable, and talented writer, once memorably described as ‘one third blackguard, one third lunatic, and one third genius’.

How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, by Robin Dunbar

Why do men talk, women gossip and which is better for you? When is it good to be tall and why is monogamy a drain on the brain? And why should you suspect someone who has more than 150 friends on Facebook?

We are the product of our evolutionary history and this history colours our everyday lives – from why we kiss to how religious we are. In How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Robin Dunbar explains how the distant past underpins our current behaviour, through the groundbreaking experiments that have changed the thinking of evolutionary biologists forever.

He explains phenomena such as why ‘Dunbar’s Number’ (150) is the maximum number of acquaintances you can have, why all babies are born premature and the science behind lonely hearts columns. Stimulating, provocative and highly enjoyable, this fascinating book is essential for understanding why humans behave as they do and what it is to be human.

Nice To See It, To See It, Nice, by Brian Viner

The 1970s was not just the decade of power-cuts and three-day weeks, of Chopper bikes and Spacehoppers, of kipper ties and bad perms, of Abba and the Bay City Rollers . . . it was also the decade of Fawlty Towers and Porridge; A Bouquet of Barbed Wire and I, Claudius; The Sweeney and Starsky and Hutch. There was no such thing in those days as Wacky Warehouse or Playstation or even video recorders — for its entertainment, the nation switched on the telly. Some programmes, such as The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, were practically part of the national psyche, while some characters — such as Benny from Crossroads and Olive from On The Buses — became the unlikeliest of icons.

Watching the box will never again be the collective experience it was then, and Brian Viner, in this hilarious and affectionate memoir, pays tribute to an era in televison – the forgettable as well as the memorable – which happily coincided with his own formative years.

Where Power Lies, by Lance Price

Britain has one of the oldest and most developed democracies on earth. It is admired and copied the world over. Yet at home British politics is frequently viewed with a mixture of derision and contempt. Why? Our democratic system may be mature but the politicians we elect and the media we rely on to tell us what they are up to often behave like difficult teenagers, calling each other names, arguing for the sake of argument and pointing the finger of blame rather than accepting responsibility. Little wonder that the public switches off, tired of all the racket and fed up with the lot of them.

How did we get into this sorry state, or was it ever thus?

With first-hand experience of the worlds of both journalism and politics, Lance Price looks back over almost a century of battles between the media and our political leaders to find out who is to blame. He exposes liars in Downing Street and scoundrels in Fleet Street, bullies and megalomaniacs in both. There are many wiser heads, too, who see the madness and try to find a better way of doing things. Yet are all in pursuit of the same objective? Power. They want power over each other and power over the rest of us. It is a battle without end and too often the truth is the first casualty.

Where Power Lies is the story of how powerful men and women have tried for generations to twist the facts to their own ends. It puts the struggle for supremacy between journalists and politicians into perspective. And it offers a glimmer of hope for a future in which both sides grow up, learn to respect each other and trust the rest of us with that most precious of all commodities, the truth.

The Age of Absurdity, by Michael Foley

The good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfilment. The bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of The Age of Absurdity – a wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of wellbeing and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life.

Michael Foley examines the elusive condition of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and ageing are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships and perpetual youth.

In conclusion, rather than denouncing and rejecting the age, Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today’s world – finding happiness in its absurdity.

Inside of a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz

As an unabashed dog lover, Alexandra Horowitz is naturally curious about what her dog thinks and what she knows. As a cognitive scientist she is intent on understanding the minds of animals who cannot say what they know or feel. This is a fresh look at the world of dogs — from the dog’s point of view. The book introduces the reader to the science of the dog — their perceptual and cognitive Abilities – and uses that introduction to draw a picture of what it might be like to be a dog. It answers questions no other dog book can- such as: What is a dog’s sense of time? Does she miss me? Want friends? Know when she’s been bad?

Horowitz’s journey, and the insights she uncovered from studying her own dog, Pumpernickel, allowed her to understand her dog better, and appreciate her more through that understanding. The reader will be able to do the same with their own dog.

This is not another dog training book. Instead, Inside of a Dog will allow dog owners to look at their pets’ behaviour in a different, and revealing light, enabling them to understand their dogs and enjoy their relationship even more.

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