Showing 25–36 of 150 resultsSorted by latest
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£12.99
When long-time AI expert and journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a non-profit with safety enshrined as its core mission, it was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely market forces. But the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that it requires an unprecedented amount of proprietary resources: the ‘compute’ power of scarce high-end chips, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans on the ground ‘cleaning it up’ for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the need for energy and water underlying everything. In this book, Hao recounts the meteoric rise of OpenAI and shows us the sinister impact that this industry is having on society.
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£9.99
Two decades ago, the Bloodmoons ruthlessly murdered Saffron’s parents, destroying her idyllic childhood. Hellbent on revenge, she lied her way into the elite Silvercloak Academy of detectives with a single goal: find a way to bring the Bloodmoons to justice.But on the eve of her graduation, her deception is expose, and she’s given only one option: go undercover and tear the Bloodmoons down from the inside. Descending into a world where pleasure and pain are the most powerful currencies, Saff must commit some truly heinous deeds to keep her cover – and her life. Not only are there rival gangs and sinister smuggling rings to contend with, there’s also her growing feelings for the kingpin’s tortured son, and curious prophecy foretelling his death at Saff’s hand. With each day testing her loyalties further, Saff’s web of lies becomes harder to spin.
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£10.99
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the rich and powerful always look after their own and the working people are always revolting. But every now and again, a new group actually manages to seize power, and it changes history. Terry Deary takes readers on a hilarious and eye-opening journey through some of the most significant revolts and uprisings that have happened around the world. From the peasants to the slaves, the suffragettes to the civil rights activists, this book celebrates the resilience and determination of those who dared to challenge the status quo.
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£9.99
Munich, 1936. All eyes are on the Bavarian capital for the upcoming Olympic games. As athletes fight for gold and the Nazis fight for power, Detective Sebastian Wolff faces a battle of his own. A famous actress has disappeared and Wolff has been ordered to find her, fast. But Elena Lang is no ordinary film-star: she is the mistress of Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s right-hand-man in the party that Wolff despises. But corruption runs deep in Munich and Elena is just the first to go missing. In a search that will take him from high society to the city’s darkest corners, Wolff is about to learn just how easily the hunter becomes the hunted: this is a city on the brink of war, and some enemies are better left alone.
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£11.99
The A1. The Great North Road. A 400-mile multiplicity of ancient trackway, Roman road, pilgrim path, coach route and motorway that has run like a backbone through Britain for the last 2,000 years. In this genre-defying and profoundly personal book, Cowen follows this ghost road from beginning to end on a journey through history, place, people and time. Weaving his own histories and memories with the layered landscapes he moves through, this is the story of an age, of coming to terms with time past and time passing, and the roads that lead us to where we find ourselves.
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£9.99
Welcome to the Kennedy household: There’s Lila who wrote a bestseller about keeping your marriage alive. Now divorced, she watches her ex play happy families with another woman. There’s Bill – her stepdad – who moved in after Lila’s mum died. Celie, Lila’s eldest, hates school. Hates it so much she’s stopped going. Violet is nine and sings age-inappropriate rap songs, laughs at fart jokes and Lila dearly hopes she’ll never, ever change. Lastly, there’s Truant the dog. He’s just taken a bite out of the American actor who’s suddenly landed on the Kennedy’s doorstep. This is Gene – Lila’s estranged father, he walked out on Lila and her mum years ago – and wherever he goes domestic discord follows. Because Gene’s presence changes things in unexpected ways. Soon the girls discover a kindred spirit in a man always chasing life’s joys. Something is happening to the Kennedy household – but what is it? And will it break, or save, their family?
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£9.99
Gabriel Dax, travel writer and accidental spy, has found himself back in the shadows. Unable to resist the allure of his MI6 handler, Faith Green, he has returned to the that life of secrets and subterfuge, to that life of espionage. Under the guise of covering a knife edge presidential election, Dax is sent to Guatemala, where he quickly finds himself tangled a web of intrigue involving a planned coup, the CIA, and the Mafia. As political turmoil erupts, Gabriel’s reluctant involvement deepens, leading him to West Berlin, where he faces a chilling realization: there is a plot to assassinate magnetic young President John F. Kennedy. In a race against time, Gabriel must navigate deceit and danger, knowing that the stakes have never been higher.
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£9.99
In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin; mission specialist Lydia Danes; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe. Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.
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£9.99
Staff Pick!
Mia says…
Thomas Flett works a difficult life on the shores, while secretly dreaming up folk music compositions. After striking an unlikely friendship with a man who claims to be a Hollywood film director, Thomas’s future seems at once closer and further away. A considerate novel about aspirations, hope, class, and pining, while the sea looms ominously in the background. I also very much recommend following the book’s ending prompt and listening to a “real-life” recording of Thomas’s song.
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Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach and scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream. When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?
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£9.99
One long summer, a heatwave descends. Bloated sea creatures wash up along the parched riverbed, animals grow frenzied, ravens gather on the roofs of those about to die. As the stifling heat grips the village, so does a strange rumour: the Mansfield sisters have been seen transforming into a pack of dogs. With the witch trials only a recent memory, hysteria sets in. Slowly but surely, the villagers become convinced that something strange is taking root in Little Nettlebed. And when a bark finally leads to a bite, the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.
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£11.99
Beginning with the death of Edward I in 1307 and ending with the deposition of Richard II in 1399, ‘Sceptred Isle’ is the story of a century told through the lives of the last Plantagenets, uncovering lesser-known voices and untold stories along the way. Through the epic drama of regicide, war, the prolonged spectre of the Black Death, religious antagonism, revolt and the end of a royal dynasty, we encounter the human stories behind a fractured monarchy, the birth of the struggle between Europeanism and nationalism, social rebellion and a global pandemic. ‘Sceptred Isle’ is a thrilling narrative account of a century of revolution, shifting power and great change – social, political and cultural – shedding new light on a pivotal period of English history and the people who lived it.
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£10.99
As a boy, Alistair Wood lived within the (very high) walls of a Secret Intelligence Service – or MI6 – training camp, surrounded by some of the most senior characters in SIS history. After all, he was family. His mother was one of a handful of women to have operated behind the lines in post-war Berlin. His father, once one of Britain’s most highly-regarded intelligence officers, was an absent and perplexing figure, the reasons for his sudden departure from the Service still classified to this day. But Wood’s search for the truth took him on a journey more remarkable than even he had imagined. This title is a gripping exploration of an extraordinary, scarcely believable life, a globe-trotting spy story that spans a half century from the gathering storm before the Second World War to the fall of Communism, and a son’s reckoning with the secrets of the past.
