‘A refreshing variation on the will-intelligent-robots-bring-Armageddon genre . . . this colorful mixture of expert futurology and quirky speculation does not disappoint’
Kirkus

‘A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.’ Isaac Asimov, The First Law of Robotics

What robot and AI systems are being built and imagined right now? What do they say about us, their creators? Will they usher in a fantastic new future, or destroy us? What do some of our greatest thinkers, from physicist Brian Greene and futurist Kevin Kelly to inventor Dean Kamen, geneticist George Church and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, anticipate for our human-robot future? For even as robots and AI intrigue us and make us anxious about the future, our fascination with robots has always been about more than the potential of the technology – it also concerns what robots tell us about being human.

From present-day Facebook and Amazon bots to near-future ‘intimacy’ bots and ‘the robot that swiped my job’ bots, bestselling American popular science writer David Ewing Duncan’s Talking to Robots is a wonderfully entertaining and insightful guide to possible future scenarios about robots, both real and imagined.

The internationally best-selling fantasy sensation is back with brand-new stories set in the world of Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle!

A wanderer and a cursed child. Spells and magic. And dragons, of course. Welcome back to the world of Alagaësia.

It’s been a year since Eragon departed Alagaësia in search of the perfect home to train a new generation of Dragon Riders. Now, he is struggling with an endless sea of tasks: constructing a vast dragonhold, wrangling with suppliers, guarding dragon eggs, and dealing with belligerent Urgals and haughty elves. Then a vision from the Eldunarí, unexpected visitors, and an exciting Urgal legend offer a much-needed distraction and a new perspective.

This volume features three original stories set in Alagaësia, interspersed with scenes from Eragon’s own unfolding adventure. Included is an excerpt from the memoir of the unforgettable witch and fortune-teller Angela the herbalist…penned by Angela Paolini, the inspiration for the character herself!

Relish the incomparable imagination of Christopher Paolini in this thrilling new collection of stories based in the world of the Inheritance Cycle.

For suspense-filled, post-apocalyptic thrillers, Wool is more than a self-published ebook phenomenon―it’s the new standard in classic science fiction.

A New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller, as well as Kindle Book Review’s 2012 Indie Book of the Year, Wool is truly a blockbuster.

‘A Malcolm Gladwell-style social psychology/behavioural economics primer’ Evening Standard

Low-level dishonesty is rife everywhere, in the form of exaggeration, selective use of facts, economy with the truth, careful drafting – from Trump and the Brexit debate to companies that tell us ‘your call is important to us’. How did we get to a place where bullshit is not just rife but apparently so effective that it’s become the communications strategy of our times?

This brilliantly insightful book steps inside the panoply of deception employed in all walks of life and assesses how it has come to this. It sets out the surprising logic which explains why bullshit is both pervasive and persistent. Why are company annual reports often nonsense? Why should you not trust estate agents? And above all, why has political campaigning become the art of stretching the truth? Drawing on behavioural science, economics, psychology and of course his knowledge of the media, Evan ends by providing readers with a tool-kit to handle the kinds of deceptions we encounter every day, and charts a route through the muddy waters of the post-truth age.

Please Read Notes: Brand New, International Softcover Edition, Printed in black and white pages, minor self wear on the cover or pages, Sale restriction may be printed on the book, but Book name, contents, and author are exactly same as Hardcover Edition. Fast delivery through DHL/FedEx express

“A thrilling tale of abduction and escape in North Korea….highly entertaining.” —The Washington Post

A propulsive and ambitious thriller about a woman trying to rescue her twin sister from captivity in North Korea, and the North Korean citizens with whom she forms an unlikely alliance

Star of the North opens in 1998, when a Korean American teenager is kidnapped from a South Korean beach by North Korean operatives. Twelve years later, her brilliant twin sister, Jenna, is still searching for her, and ends up on the radar of the CIA. When evidence that her sister may still be alive in North Korea comes to light, Jenna will do anything possible to rescue her–including undertaking a daring mission into the heart of the regime. Her story is masterfully braided together with two other narrative threads. In one, a North Korean peasant woman finds a forbidden international aid balloon and uses the valuables inside to launch a dangerously lucrative black-market business. In the other, a high-ranking North Korean official discovers, to his horror, that he may be descended from a traitor, a fact that could mean his death if it is revealed. As the novel progresses, these narrative strands converge and connect in surprising ways, ultimately building to an explosive and unforgettable climax.

‘Excellent’ Martin Wolf, Financial Times Books of the Year
‘Essential’ Daniel Pink, author of Drive
‘Wonderful’ Martin Ford, author of The Rise of the Robots
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PROFIT
INNOVATION
GREED

WELCOME TO THE GIG ECONOMY

Between Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts, freelance jobs are becoming an increasingly prominent part of our economy.

GIGGED goes inside the Silicon Valley companies leading the way to this emerging ‘gig economy’. It tells the stories of the workers – from computer programmers to online comment moderators – who are getting by in a new wave of precarious, short-term employment. And it sketches out what tomorrow’s economy might look like: one where the fortunate get to work when they want, how they want, while the rest live lives of extraordinary hardship.

It might just be the future of work for all of us.

*Longlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award*

Praise for GIGGED

‘Well researched and beautifully written . . . Essential reading for anyone who is interested in understanding the future of our economy and society.’ Ha-Joon Chang, author of 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism

‘Well crafted . . . a multitude of anecdotes supported by data and extensive reporting.’ Forbes

‘Kessler’s timely book explores the personal, corporate and societal stories behind a massive tech-driven shift away from permanent office-based employment.’ Books of the Month, Financial Times

‘Kessler illuminates a great divide: For people with desirable skills, the gig economy often permits a more engaging, entrepreneurial lifestyle; but for the unskilled who turn to such work out of necessity, it’s merely “the best of bad options”.’ Harvard Business Review

‘Sarah Kessler writes like a dream. If you want to know how work is changing and how you too must change to keep up, you must read this book.’ Dan Lyons, author of Disrupted

GRUESOME MURDERS

His victims are young, beautiful and coldly mutilated. He calls himself the Beijing Ripper. Li Yan, head of Beijing’s serious crime squad, must stop him.

FEARSOME LETTERS

Just as pathologist Margaret Campbell finds an insight into the killer’s cruel signature, Li receives a letter from the killer, betraying his cruel intentions.

CHINESE WHISPERS

There’s no way Li can misinterpret the Ripper’s motives: he wants to tear Li and Campbell’s lives apart, and write the darkest chapter in Beijing’s history.

Philippe Tahon has made a thrilling discovery, and it’s something many of us will want to know. This highly sought-after London psychotherapist has created a unique set of tools that not only enabled him to lose five stone, but is now doing the same for hundreds of others.

In Shrink, Philippe shares his easy programme and teaches you to eat mindfully, intuitively and positively. He encourages you to throw away the rulebook and free yourself forever from emotional eating and the diet trap.

In being mindful we can tell how hungry we really are. Using our intuition, we eat only what our body knows is good for us, and when. By eating positively, we no longer regard food as the enemy but make friends with it, embracing it for the pleasure and nourishment it brings.

Philippe’s holistic technique gives you back your confidence, allows you to retake control and enjoy food guilt-free. Step by step, his clients identify the patterns in their eating habits and learn how to eat what they like whilst losing weight for good.

The simple beauty of this hugely successful programme is that it allows you to ‘think like a shrink’ and have the body you really want – for life.

*Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award* *Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award* *Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize* *Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018* *A Sunday Times Book of the Year * Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her. When she is born in 1973, her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains. Aged two, and suffering from malnutrition on a diet of yam leaves, they leave Xiaolu with her illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea. Once Upon a Time in the East takes Xiaolu from a run-down shack to film school in a rapidly changing Beijing, navigating the everyday peculiarity of modern China: censorship, underground art, Western boyfriends. In 2002 she leaves Beijing on a scholarship to study in Britain. Now, after a decade in Europe, her tale of East to West resonates with the insight that can only come from someone who is both an outsider and at home. ‘This generation’s Wild Swans ‘ Daily Telegraph

A deep dive into the race to develop and perfect the driverless car—an innovation that promises to be the most disruptive change to our way of life since the smartphone by a veteran insider of the automotive and tech worlds

In Autonomy, former GM executive and current advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car project Lawrence Burns offers a sweeping history of the race to make the driverless car a reality. In the past decade, titans of the old automobile industry, like General Motors, have been partnering with robust tech startups, such as Tesla and Uber, to revolutionize the way we move around the world. It’s not a question of whether the self-driving car will disrupt the automobile industry; it’s a question of when, how, and who will do it.

With the first driverless car likely to hit markets in less than ten years, Burns also looks toward the future and explains how this new technology will impact our lives—from drastically reducing our carbon footprint and eliminating 90 percent of road fatalities, to automating yet another segment of blue collar industries, putting more workers out of a job.

We are on the brink of a technological revolution that promises to fundamentally change how we interact with our world. A chronicle of the past, diagnosis of the present, and prediction of the future, Autonomy is the ultimate guide to understanding the driverless car and to navigating the revolution it sparks.

Meet the women of Delaney Gardens, a bustling suburban village in the outer reaches of Dublin. There’s Cassie, who’s spent her married life doing everything right for her children, husband, and mother-in-law, yet feels so exhausted that “wine o’clock” comes a littler earlier each afternoon. There’s her sister Coco, who runs a vintage dress shop, but has avoided the complications of romantic commitment. Watching over them is their grandmother Pearl, who, despite caring deeply for her family, is contending with a long-buried secret. And then there’s Elsa, the polished face of daytime TV, who’s triumphed over demons before, but is now facing her toughest battle yet. At every crossroad these women face, readers are taken deeper into the heart of what it means to be a family.