The Outside World

Tzippy Goldman’s mother has been planning her wedding since before she was born. Her four younger sisters want her to marry the fairy tale Jewish prince of their mother’s stories. But Tzippy, approaching spinsterhood at the age of 22, has other ideas. She is hungry for experience and longs to escape the suffocating expectations of religious stricture and romantic obligation. But when she falls in love with Bryan Miller she surprises everyone... Bryan comes from a different kind of family. Like Orthodox Jews anywhere in the world, they spend Saturdays in synagogue, and the rest of the week like suburbanites everywhere. But to Bryan, this middle road looks more and more like hypocrisy. He longs for conviction, for the relief of absolutes. To his parents’ bewilderment, Bryan decides to embrace a very different kind of lifestyle, swapping his beloved Yankees cap for something else entirely. In the courtship and marriage of Bryan and Tzippy, Tova Mirvis illuminates an insular world, where ancient and modern collide in a warm and hilarious novel about two very different families brought together by the marriage of their children.

Maximum City...

Bombay’s story is told through the lives, often desperately near the edge, of some of the people who live there. Hitmen, dancing girls, cops, movie stars, poets, beggars and politicians — Suketu looked at the city through their eyes. The complex texture of these extraordinary tales is threaded together by Suketu Mehta’s own history of growing up in Bombay and returning to live there after a 21-year absence, and in looking through the eyes of his found the city within himself. Part memoir, part journalism, part travelogue, and written with the relentless observation and patience of a novelist, Maximum City is a brilliantly illuminating portrait of Bombay and its people — a book as vast, diverse, and rich in experience, incident, and sensation as the city itself.

The Mind Gym

In much of our lives, our mind operates on autopilot. Rather like the tourist who repeats the same words louder each time the local doesn’t understand, we often tend to think and behave in set ways, even if it doesn’t get us what we want. However, once we can spot our mental habits, we can change them. And, as result, we are more likely to — make the right things happen; come up with original ideas; achieve more in less time; gain energy and have less negative stress; win people round to our point of view. Over 100,000 people have taken part in and recommended The Mind Gym’s workouts. Now, for the first time, hundreds of these practical tips and techniques based on applied psychology are packed into this book and, with your free personal membership number, at The Mind Gym Online. It’s not too late to change your mind...

Back on the Road

In July 1953, recently graduated as a doctor at the University of Buenos Aires, Che Guevara decided to set off once again to explore the Latin American continent. His principal interest was in archaeology and politics, and his first stop was Bolivia, which had recently experienced a far-reaching revolution, and where he had the opportunity to study the Inca remains at Tiahuanaco and elsewhere. He moved on to Peru, visiting Cuzco, Macchu Picchu and Lima, and along the Andes to Guayaquil in Ecuador before sailing up the coast to Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala, where he was caught up in the CIA overthrow of the Arbenz government, and later Mexico, where he was to meet Fidel Castro for the first time. Throughout his travels, the young Guevara kept a spasmodic diary in which he recorded his impressions of his two-year journey. It was an expedition which thousands of backpackers accomplish today, and thousands more dream about.

The Black Swan

Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a concept that will change the way you look at the world. Black Swans underlie almost everything, from the rise of religions, to events in our own personal lives. A Black Swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: it is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. And why do we always ignore the phenomenon of Black Swans until after they occur? In this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know, and shows us how to face the world.