In her own league (VO)

It's hard not to become ensnared by words beginning with the letter B, when attempting to describe Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell's third novel. It's a big book, for start, bold in scope and execution--a bravura literary performance, possibly. (Let's steer clear of breathtaking for now.) Then, of course, Mitchell was among Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and his second novel number9dreamwas shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Characters with birthmarks in the shape of comets are a motif; as are boats. Oh and one of the six narratives strands of the book--where coincidentally Robert Frobisher, a young composer, dreams up "a sextet for overlapping soloists" entitled Cloud Atlas--is set in Belgium, not far from Bruges. (See what I mean?) Structured rather akin to a Chinese puzzle or a set of Matrioshka dolls, there are dazzling shifts in genre and voice and the stories leak into each other with incidents and people being passed on like batons in a relay race. The 19th-century journals of an American notary in the Pacific that open the novel are subsequently unearthed 80 years later on by Frobisher in the library of the ageing, syphilitic maestro he's trying to fleece. Frobisher's waspish letters to his old Cambridge crony, Rufus Sexsmith, in turn surface when Rufus, (by the 1970s a leading nuclear scientist) is murdered. A novelistic account of the journalist Luisa Rey's investigation into Rufus"death finds its way to Timothy Cavendish, a London vanity publisher with an author who has an ingenious method of silencing a snide reviewer. And in a near-dystopian Blade Runner-esque future, a genetically engineered fast food waitress sees a movie based on Cavendish's unfortunate internment in a Hull retirement home. (Cavendish himself wonders how a director called Lars might wish to tackle his plight). All this is less tricky than it sounds, only the lone"Zachary"chapter, told in Pacific Islander dialect (all"dingos'n'ravens","brekker"and"f'llowin'"s) is an exercise in style too far. Not all the threads quite connect but nonetheless Mitchell binds them into a quite spellbinding rumination on human nature, power, oppression, race, colonialism and consumerism. --Travis Elborough"

**The instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestsellerfrom the creator of the wildly popular science YouTube channel, KURZGESAGT - IN A NUTSHELL** A deeply entertaining and fully illustrated dive into the immune system, which will change how you think about your body forever. __________'Reads as if it's a riveting sci-fi novel' TIM URBAN, creator of Wait But Why You wake up and feel a tickle in your throat. Your head hurts. You're mildly annoyed as you get the kids ready for school and dress for work yourself. Meanwhile, an utterly epic war is being fought, just below your skin. Millions are fighting and dying for you to be able to complain as you drink your cup of tea and head out the door. So what, exactly, IS your immune system? Second only to the human brain in its complexity, it is one of the oldest and most critical facets of life on Earth. Without it, you would die within days. In Immune, Philipp Dettmer takes readers on a journey through the fortress of the human body and its defences. There is a constant battle of staggering scale raging within us, full of stories of invasion, strategy, defeat, and noble self-sacrifice. In fact, in the time you've been reading this, your immune system has probably identified and eradicated a cancer cell that started to grow in your body. Each chapter delves deeply into an element of the immune system, including defences like antibodies and inflammation as well as threats like viruses, bacteria, allergies and cancer, as Dettmer reveals why boosting your immune system is actually nonsense, how parasites sneak their way past your body's defences, how viruses - including the coronavirus - work, and what goes on in your wounds when you cut yourself. Enlivened by engaging full-colour graphics and immersive descriptions, Immune turns one of the most intricate, interconnected, and confusing subjects - immunology - into a gripping adventure through an astonishing alien landscape. Challenging what you know and think about your own body and how it defends you against all sorts of maladies and how it might also eventually be your own downfall, Immune is a vital and remarkably fun crash course in what is arguably, and increasingly, the most important system in the body.__________ 'Fast-paced and full of wonder.' SCIENCE 'A truly brilliant introduction to the human body's vast system for fighting infections and other threats'JOHN GREEN, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars

They do not need the Reaper. They need the man.The action-packed sixth book in the explosive global sensation from Sunday Times and #1 New York Times bestselling author Pierce Brown.The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man. But he is also Darrow: husband, father, friend. After a devastating defeat, Darrow longs to return to his wife and sovereign, Virginia, to defend Mars from Lysander. Lysander longs to restore the supremacy of Gold, and will raze the worlds for his ambitions. The worlds once needed the Reaper. Now they need Darrow. So begins his voyage home, an interplanetary adventure where old friends will reunite, new alliances will be forged, and rivals will clash on the battlefield. After the dark age will come something new: born of light, of victory and of hope. READERS LOVE PIERCE BROWN 'This book, this series, will elicit all the emotions you could possibly feel' ????... 'A action packed heart breaking triumph of a novel' ????... 'A fantastic book' ????...'Everything we could hope from the master that is Pierce Brown, drama, action, love, loss, humour, violence' ????... 'Truly an amazing addition to an already outstanding series' ?????

Everyone who goes to Zallindov dies. Everyone, that is, except Kiva. Lynette Noni weaves a masterful and action-packed narrative that will take readers on a roller coaster of twists, turns, and thrills and sweep them up in a love story for the ages.