Martha Lane Fox

Winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize • Winner of the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Award Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award • Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction • Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by New Yorker, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Foreign Affairs, Public Books, Sunday Times In a memoir that is by turns “bitingly, if darkly, funny … and truly profound” (Max Strasser, New York Times), Lea Ypi reflects on “freedom” as she recounts living through the end Communism in the Balkans as a child. “This is history brought memorably and powerfully to life” (Tara Westover, author of Educated). Family and nation formed a reliable bedrock of security for precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi. She was a Young Pioneer, helping to lead her country toward the future of perfect freedom promised by the leaders of her country, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. Then, almost overnight, the Berlin Wall fell and the pillars of her society toppled. The local statue of Stalin, whom she had believed to be a kindly leader who loved children, was beheaded by student protestors. Uncomfortable truths about her family’s background emerged. Lea learned that when her parents and neighbors had spoken in whispers of friends going to “university” or relatives “dropping out,” they meant something much more sinister. As she learned the truth about her family’s past, her best friend fled the country. Together with neighboring post-Communist states, Albania began a messy transition to join the “free markets” of the Western world: a dystopia of pyramid schemes, organized crime, and sex trafficking. Her father, despite his radical left-wing convictions, was forced to fire workers; her mother became a conservative politician on the model of Margaret Thatcher. Lea’s typical teen concerns about relationships and the future were shot through with the existential: the nation was engulfed in civil war. Ypi’s outstanding literary gifts enable her to weave together this colorful, tumultuous coming-of-age story in a time of social upheaval with thoughtful, fresh, and invigorating perspective on the relation between the personal and the political, and on deep questions about freedom: What does freedom consist of, and for whom? What conditions foster it? Who among us is truly free?

The Internet has become a staple of modern civilized life, now as vital a utility as electricity. But despite its growing influence, the Internet isn't as stable as it might seem; rather, it can be best thought of as a network of networks reliant on developing technical and social measures to function, including hardware, software, standards, and protocols. As millions of new internet users sign on each year, governing bodies need to balance evolving social ideas surrounding internet use against shifting political pressures on internet governance--or risk disconnection. Four Internets offers a revelatory new approach for conceptualizing the Internet and understanding the sometimes rival values that drive its governance and stability. Four Internets contends that the apparently monolithic "Internet" is in fact maintained by four distinct value systems--the Silicon Valley Open Internet, the Brussels Bourgeois Internet, the DC Commercial Internet, and the Beijing Paternal Internet--competing to determine the future directions of internet affordances for freedom, innovation, security, and human rights. Starting with an analysis of the original vision of an "Open Internet," the book outlines challenges facing this vision and the subsequent rise of other internets popularized through political and monetary machinations. It then unravels how tensions between these internets play out across politics, economics, and technology, and offers perspectives on potential new internets that might arise from emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and smart cities. The book closes with an evaluation of whether all these models can continue to co-exist--and what might happen if any fall away. Visionary and accessible, Four Internets lends readers the confidence to believe in a diverse yet resilient Internet through a deeper understanding of this everyday commodity.

How the Body Hijacks the Mind"This book, like everything Jacquelyn Sheppard sets her mind to accomplish, is a work of wisdom."Penelope Edwards-Conrad, M.D., Integrative Neurologist Do you feel like depression, anxiety, or addiction have hijacked your life? Mental and emotional disorders impact every part of society and disrupt life for even the most spiritually devout, intelligent and respected people. Unfortunately, many who suffer from these devastating disorders seek healing through costly, and sometimes harmful, counseling and medications measures which may bring temporary relief but do not fully correct the underlying problem. Jacquelyn Sheppard exposes the vital connection between your body, mind, and spirit and gives you practical tools "understand" the connection between your mind and body and discover root causes for such illnesses as depression, addiction, bipolar disorder, OCD, and others."identify" the life cycles of each disorder prenatal, childhood, adolescence and adulthood so you can overcome each cycle using the right tools. "gain" practical know-how to effectively combat these disorders through life-giving steps of health transformation. "Silent Takeover "delivers ancient wisdom, accessible science, simple nutrition, and life experience while providing a clear blueprint to help you pioneer a new life."

'An anarchic and lovingly perverse writer.' Ali Smith ‘I think Nicola Barker is incapable of a dull page. [Her work] is unified by its spirit of adventure.’ Kevin Barry 'She really is a genius.’ Guardian Charles, a forty-year-old boutique teddy bear maker and wearer of ironic t-shirts, is trying – and failing – to sell his small, characterless house in Llandudno. Avigail, yes Avigail, his estate agent, is trying – mostly in vain – to rein in Charles’s most unhelpful eccentricities, including his repeated recounting to potential buyers of an unsuccessful burglary that took place twelve years ago. When Wang Shu and her daughter view the house, a series of seemingly innocuous events distorts the reality of the characters’ lives, causing Avigail to revaluate her beliefs – and all of the characters to question their very existence. As religious epiphanies bump up against declarations of love, examinations of subjectivity hurtle into meditations on the history of culture, our entire understanding of the book – and of the boundaries between fiction and real life – is radically upended. A tour de force in miniature form that twists the novel into new shapes as the characters sabotage the fictional world they inhabit, I Am Sovereign sees Nicola Barker at her most joyful, provocative and riotous.

Paulette Wilson had always assumed she was British. She had spent most of her life in London working as a cook; she even worked in the House of Commons’ canteen. How could someone who had lived in England since being a primary school pupil suddenly be classified as an illegal immigrant? It was only through Amelia Gentleman’s tenacious investigative and campaigning journalism that it emerged that thousands were in Paulette’s position. What united them was that they had all arrived in the UK from the Commonwealth as children in the 1950s and 1960s. In The Windrush Betrayal, Gentleman tells the story of the scandal and exposes deeply disturbing truths about modern Britain.