As the cold autumn nights approach, we all want to be wrapped up in a big blanket for a cosy evening of reading. And what better company than our latest season of fascinating non-fiction?

From the thrilling history of the Roman emperors, to the secret life of John le Carré, and eye-opening facts about healthcare inequality, read on to discover autumn’s most horizon-expanding reads!

What are you planning to read this autumn? Join us on X @profilebooks and Instagram @profile.books for daily bookish chat.

EYE-OPENING NON-FICTION

The Book at War by Andrew Pettegree (Out now)

From the bestselling author of The Library, The Book at War explores the unexpected ways in which written culture has shaped modern conflicts and why books have often found themselves on the frontline.

Divided by Annabel Sowemimo (Out now)

A FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2023 * A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST SUMMER BOOK 2023
Out now in paperback, Divided is a vital exploration of race and health by activist, doctor, and patient Annabel Sowemimo. An urgent call for change, this book reinserts Black and Indigenous doctors into the historical narrative of our racist and colonialist medical system.

The Handover by David Runciman (Out now)

We built the artificial entities, known as states and corporations, that now rule our world. While they have made us richer, safer, and healthier, they will also never die and might one day destroy us. How did we give control of our lives to artificial entities and how do we reclaim our agency?

TRANSFORMATIVE READS

Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday (Out now)

The New York Times bestselling author tackles the ancient virtue of self-control – drawing on the wisdom of great thinkers and leaders including Toni Morrison, Queen Elizabeth II, and Martin Luther King Jr, who all understood the power of directing habits and setting limits. Find self-discipline and reap its rewards with Ryan Holiday’s latest Stoic manual.

Disobedient Bodies by Emma Dabiri (Out now)

Too often, beauty culture becomes yet another tool of oppression, encouraging self-loathing and conditioning us to critique and discipline our bodies. Disobedient Bodies finds inherent joy in unruliness and is an accessible manifesto for lasting change. Rebel and reclaim what beauty means to you with this radical essay from bestselling author Emma Dabiri. 

How to Leave a Narcissist… For Good by Dr Sarah Davies (Out now)

A practical guide to moving on and healing from relationships with narcissists from an experienced psychologist. Full of case studies and expert guidance, How to Leave a Narcissist… For Good helps you break the cycle of abuse and master self-care so you can look forward to future healthy relationships.

The Secret Life of John le Carré by Adam Sisman (Publishing October)

The spy-turned-novelist John le Carré fought to keep certain subjects hidden during his lifetime, especially from Sisman’s 2015 biography. This extraordinary secret history is the story of what was left out. Get inside the mind of the complex, driven, but restless John le Carré.

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard (Out now)

Britain’s most famous classicist is back to shine the spotlight on Rome’s notorious figureheads – its emperors. But this isn’t the usual account. Emperor of Rome draws comparisons between the imperial elite and the modern world, as Beard explores what it really was to be Roman.

Fear by Robert Peckham (Out now)

World history has always been driven by fear and the panic it produces. Its impact has made it a coercive tool of power and a catalyst for social change. Cultural historian Robert Peckham traces a shadow of history from the Black Death to the current digital age in this fascinating alternative history of the world. How can a better understanding of fear equip us for the future?

The post Autumn Reads appeared first on Profile Books.

How to be a Renaissance Woman allows us to glimpse the world of the female artists, artisans and businesswomen carving out space for themselves, as well as those who gained power and influence in the cut-throat world of the court.

In a vivid exploration of women’s lives, Professor Jill Burke invites us to rediscover historical cosmetic recipes and unpack the origins of the beauty ideals that are still with us today.

Read an extract below.

Waterstones

Amazon

Bookshop.org

There is an astounding amount of cultural amnesia in relation to the history of hygiene, beauty and cosmetics. People from all periods in history who worry about the pressure to look good tend to talk about it as if it’s a new thing; it’s been brought about by the emergence of women’s literacy, or women’s magazines, or social media. Of course all these things change how we understand our appearance; but, historically speaking, Instagram, selfie culture and so on are just the most recent flashpoints in a long saga. Debates over female beautification have tended to be complex and seemingly self-contradictory, on one side insisting on women’s freedom to adorn themselves as they choose, and on the other arguing that beauty culture is nothing more than another pressure on women to conform. As we’ll find out in this chapter, women themselves have been arguing about beauty’s oppressive and empowering potential for at least 600 years…

Many women argued that the problems they had being understood as equal weren’t because they spent too much time on thinking about appearances, or how they wore their hair, or the money or time they spent on cosmetics – to the contrary, their appearance was one of the few areas where they had some agency. They argued that the problem was not with women’s attitudes to beauty. The problem was men. Even now, some men are baffled when you explain to them that women’s interest in clothes and make-up isn’t simply to attract male attention. Christine de Pizan (1364–1431) was probably the first woman to discuss this issue. She was a Venetian-born physician’s daughter, who moved with her father to the French court when she was a little girl. Widowed at twenty-five, and facing destitution, she started to make a living for herself as a writer. In 1405, she authored two texts that were to become landmarks in the history of feminist thought, The Book of the City of Ladies and The Treasure of the City of Ladies.10 Her character ‘Lady Rectitude’ answers a question from the author about whether it’s fair that ‘women who love wearing pretty clothes and accessories receive a great deal of criticism, because people say they do this in order to seduce men’. Presaging much feminist criticism since, Rectitude suggests that although being overly interested in one’s looks is a flaw, she also wants

‘to make sure that women who look pretty are not excessively criticised – I assure you that not all women do this to seduce men. Some people, both men and women, are just naturally inclined to enjoy elegance and attractive, rich clothing, cleanliness and the finer things in life’.

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Summer has well and truly arrived, and we’re busy planning the books we’ll be packing for our holidays. Whether you’ll be lying on a picnic blanket in the middle of your local park or relaxing on a sun lounger by the side of a pool, we’ve got a brilliant selection of reads to keep you occupied over the coming months. From remarkable and bestselling histories to a charming guide to the British countryside and a short story collection to keep crime fiction lovers entertained, take a look at our seasonal recommendations below!

What are you planning to read this summer? Join us on Twitter @profilebooks and Instagram @profile.books for daily bookish chat.

REMARKABLE HISTORIES

All That She Carried by Tiya Miles (Publishing July)

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE

A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a deeply layered and insightful testament to people who are left out of the archives.

Love in a Time of Hate by Florian Illies (Out now)

From the bestselling author of 1913 comes a telling of some of the greatest love stories of the 1930s – from Jean-Paul Sartre to Marlene Dietrich – with the darkening backdrop of fascism in Europe, in an irresistible journey into the past that brings history and its actors to vivid life.

Footsloggers by Peter Hart (Out now)

The latest volume in Peter Hart’s ‘British Band of Brothers’ series, combining gripping history with vivid eyewitness testimony, Footsloggers tells the story of the 16th Durham Light Infantry. This is a human look at the inhuman nature of war from the author of At Close Range and Burning Steel.

ENTERTAINING ESCAPISM

Led by the Nose by Jenny Joseph (Publishing August)

The unusual, remarkable memoir of a treasured British poet: Jenny Joseph, author of Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, presents a year in her garden – twelve months of musings, wisdom and scents.

Country Matters by Meg Clothier and Jonny Clothier (Out now)

In this delightful and eye-opening book, Meg Clothier and her father, Jonny, combine decades of practical know-how with a passion for literature and lore to produce a charming guide to the countryside, full of fascinating facts, folk tales and useful advice.

Murder in a Heatwave (Out now)

As the days get longer, escape your troubles and take a trip to the desperately hot towns where nightfall lingers and a sun-drenched picnic can end in panic. No matter how murderously high the temperatures rise, these stories from Dorothy L Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle and more will chill you to the bone…

EYE-OPENING NON-FICTION

Is Maths Real? by Eugenia Cheng (Out now)

From imaginary numbers to the perplexing order of operations we all had drilled into us, Eugenia Cheng – mathematician, writer and woman on a mission to rid the world of maths phobia – brings us maths as we’ve never seen it before, revealing how profound insights can emerge from seemingly unlikely sources.

Free For All by Dr Gavin Francis (Publishing August)

Britain’s health service is dying. Gavin Francis shows us why we should fight for it.

For those who believe in the future of the NHS and its founding principles, this is essential reading from the bestselling author of Recovery and Intensive Care.

How to be a Renaissance Woman by Jill Burke (Publishing August)

‘Lively and intriguing … You’ll never look at Renaissance portraits in the same way’ – Maggie O’Farrell

Plunge into the intimate history of cosmetics, and discover how, for centuries, women have turned to makeup as a rich source of creativity, community and resistance.

The post Summer Reading appeared first on Profile Books.

Read an extract below, and buy your copy at:

Waterstones
Amazon
Bookshop.org 

TWO IMPORTANT POINTS

1
I was drinking an awful lot of alcohol. However, I wasn’t waking up in shop doorways, wetting the bed, getting into fights or drinking Pernod in the morning. Therefore, I told myself, I obviously didn’t have this ‘disease’ called ‘alcoholism’. And, as I didn’t have this ‘disease’, logically I was fine. I wasn’t.
2
If I lined up all the drinks I’d drunk in a forty-year drinking career, stretching back to my mid-teens, that line would be around three miles long. This was quite a thought. More shocking than that, though, was the figure I got to when I considered how many of those drinks I could have done
without. Or, put another away, how many of those had I really enjoyed, wanted or needed? I reckoned it was no more than a third of them. What a waste. Two miles of pointless drinks. This couldn’t go on. All I had to do was find a way of enjoying the drinks I wanted, and not bother with the rest.

Two blokes in two streets and a bloke who wrote a book

Late one night in Manchester, I was walking back to my hotel after an evening out with some friends. A chap fell into step with me. He was plainly down on his luck, but decidedly chipper with it.

‘I’m from Tipperary,’ he told me. ‘And I wonder if I could trouble you for some money, if you could spare some?’

I grunted something and we walked on for a moment before he added, ‘And if you do give me any money, I make you this promise: I’ll not be wasting it on food.’

I looked at him.

‘No, I’ll be spending it on booze!’ he shouted in delight.

‘Because I love booze.’

He won. I gave him a tenner.

I love booze too.

And I’ve learned to love it more by drinking less of it.

TWO BLOKES IN TWO STREETS AND A BLOKE WHO WROTE A BOOK

I was minding my own business down at the shops near where I live in West London when a bloke with a dog came up to me.

‘There’s a rumour you’re off the booze,’ he said.

‘I’ve cut down a huge amount,’ I replied.

‘Oh, I see,’ he said, smiling a knowing smile.

And off he went. I knew from the pitying look on his face exactly what he was thinking. He was thinking that I was in denial about my relationship with alcohol. In his view, there was no such as thing as cutting down. As I wasn’t ‘off the booze’ completely, I plainly didn’t have my drinking under control. I was kidding myself.

I get this a lot. It is annoying. It is widely held that the only realistic option available to heavy drinkers is to give up completely. This belief is so firmly held by many people that even if you do manage to convince them that you have genuinely moderated your drinking for good, they will simply conclude that you can’t have had much of an alcohol problem in the first place. I get this a lot too. It is even more annoying. There are certainly some problem drinkers for whom the only answer is to stop drinking completely. But I believe there are many more who don’t seek help for their drinking precisely because they’re frightened of being told that abstinence is their only option. This is a tragedy because, quite unable to countenance the prospect of life without alcohol, they just continue drinking as they were. Their consumption of alcohol won’t be addressed, and they’ll sink deeper into problem drinking territory and a level of dependence that means abstinence, in the end, really could be the only answer.

The post Adrian Chiles’ The Good Drinker: read an extract appeared first on Profile Books.

We are thrilled to announce that Divided: Racism, Medicine and Why We Need to Decolonise Healthcare by Annabel Sowemimo has been nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2023, and that Dr Annabel is the first Black British woman to be a finalist for this prize. Profile Books and Wellcome Collection could not be more proud of our brilliant author and her important debut. The winners of all the 2023 Orwell Prizes will be announced at the Prize Ceremony on 22nd June.

Divided is vital, eye-opening exploration of race and health. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are all too aware of the urgent health inequalities that plague our world. But these inequalities have always been urgent: modern medicine has a colonial and racist history.

Here, in an essential and searingly truthful account, Annabel Sowemimo unravels the colonial roots of modern medicine. Tackling systemic racism, hidden histories and healthcare myths, Sowemimo recounts her own experiences as a doctor, patient and activist.

Divided exposes the racial biases of medicine that affect our everyday lives and provides an illuminating – and incredibly necessary –insight into how our world works, and who it works for.

The post Divided: Orwell Prize Nomination appeared first on Profile Books.

Andrew Franklin said: ‘I have always said I will retire on or before April 2026 when Profile will be 30. That remains the case, but it would have been negligent to wait until then to make a plan for the future. I am confident that I’m handing over to a group of exceptional people who know the company well and believe as strongly as I do in what we do. And of course the best part is that I am not going anywhere. I am still as attached to my authors, the books and Profile as ever. My family own the majority of the company and I will never stop caring passionately about my colleagues, the sales and the campaigns. I have enjoyed almost every day of the job but as one of our authors said: ‘it is much better to go when people ask “why?” rather than “when?”’ I am delighted that Rebecca has agreed to succeed me. I have always said that my successor must be an editor, and I wanted to hand the leadership of the company over to someone who has Profile in their bones and values its independence as much as I do. I think Rebecca is that person and have done for some time. She is a brilliant editor, publisher and leader. She is thoughtful, shrewd, entrepreneurial and wise. Most of all, she believes that we have the best books, authors and staff in the business. And I know she’s right. Claire Beaumont is the industry’s best sales director by a country mile and I am grateful for her commitment to Profile, which has had an enormous influence on the company’s success. She sees opportunities everywhere, and contributes as much to the publishing of our books as she does to selling them. Her vision is unmatched. Finally, I am sorry to disappoint everyone, but there won’t be a party because I am not retiring. You’ll have to wait for that one. Meanwhile, we can all celebrate, as we always do, at our summer party in June.’

Rebecca Gray said: ‘It’s an absolute honour to be trusted by Andrew to take Profile into the future. His shoes are implausibly large: he is an inspiring, if occasionally stubborn, leader, and a smart, disciplined managing director. But a company, if it is to survive in the long term, has to be the sum of many people, not just one, and we are extremely lucky to have so many excellent people here. It’s an unusual opportunity: the company is well-run and has an exceptionally strong foundation. As MD, I will be able to continue to acquire and publish books as well as running the business. I love my authors, and I love my colleagues, both within the company and in the wider trade. Most of all, I believe deeply in what we do. So I think that, together, we’ve got exciting times ahead – and we’ll enjoy ourselves along the way. Which has always been the spirit of Profile.’

Claire Beaumont said: ‘Profile is my home, mostly happy and always eventful, never more so than when I was trying to save a precious reprint of Eats, Shoots and Leaves from a flood on Christmas Eve. Andrew is incredibly supportive and patient, allowing me to tell him what we need to do to sell our books and sometimes even what the books should be. He’s also driven me completely bonkers for twenty years, but he’s a genius and a rebel, so I was never going to go anywhere else. We have gone from being five people to over sixty, from twenty books a year to 120, and now along with the rest of the company and executive team, Rebecca and I are ready for the next phase, cooking up exciting plans for our authors. I can’t wait to see what we do next. My feeling is that MURDLE will be the word – and the book – of the summer!’

For more information or further comment please contact Kate McQuaid, Publicity Director – kate.mcquaid@profilebooks.com

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When Frieda Hughes moved to the depths of the Welsh countryside, she was expecting to take on a few projects: planting a garden, painting and writing her poetry column for the Times. But instead, she found herself rescuing a baby magpie, the sole survivor of a nest destroyed in a storm – and embarking on an obsession that would change the course of her life.

As the magpie, George, grows from a shrieking scrap of feathers and bones into an intelligent, unruly companion, Frieda finds herself captivated – and apprehensive of what will happen when the time comes to finally set him free.

George: A Magpie Diary publishes 27th April.

Follow Frieda Hughes on Instagram @friedahughes.

Keep reading for an extract from Frieda’s new book, where she meets George for the first time…

In the raised rockery beds that I’d built adjacent to the tree, a small feathered scrap caught my eye. I parted the foliage around it and found an injured baby magpie; it was almost the size of my palm – too young to walk or fly, and with only the most rudimentary feathers. Its stumpy wings were like a bundle of fan-sticks still awaiting fluff. So, the magpie eggs had already hatched. Immediately, I wanted to save it.

Although I’ve picked up various injured birds over the years, I’ve only ever seen baby birds when they’ve fallen out of the nest, already dead. This little thing was just about alive and in desperate need of care.

The baby magpie’s open beak was full of fly eggs, which didn’t bode well for the bird. I gently flushed the eggs out under a dribble from the outdoor tap; the bird was bleeding in patches all over its body, and I guessed the neighbour’s cat must have had a go at it – it looked torn in places, like a bloodied rag. I took it indoors and gave it a lukewarm bath to flush out the fly eggs from the wounds on the rest of its body; I had to use a tiny watercolour paintbrush to get the fly eggs out of its nostrils. I didn’t know what else to do, but I remembered clearly how quickly fly eggs can turn into maggots, and the idea of any egg hatching, eating flesh as a maggot before becoming a chrysalis from which would emerge a fly, made gigantic by the minuteness of its tiny, flesh surroundings, revolted me. I made sure I fished out every single one.

When I was a small child my father, who was a fanatical fisherman, forgot that he’d left a tin of maggots on the dashboard of his old black Morris Traveller. In the summer heat they turned into flies in record time, exploding the top of the old tobacco tin he’d put them in as the bulk of their bodies swelled up like miniature Hulks, clouding the interior of the car with tiny black shiny pissed-off engine-driven lunatics. When he opened the car door my father was engulfed in a cloud of quickly dispersing fizzing black dots, and I was engulfed in peals of laughter, tempered only by a sense of revulsion at the seething mass.

The magpie chick didn’t fight or struggle; on the contrary, it put up with my ministrations with the air of a creature that no longer cares. I dried it off, and got it to eat a small worm, which I dangled into its open upturned beak and dropped to the back of its throat, so it swallowed. Then I wrapped it up warmly in a T-shirt and put it in a small cardboard box. I left it to recover and hoped it might, although given its condition I had my doubts. If it lived, I’d call it George.

The post George: Read an Extract appeared first on Profile Books.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are all too aware of the urgent health inequalities that plague our world. But these inequalities have always been urgent: modern medicine has a colonial and racist history.

Here, in an essential and searingly truthful account, Annabel Sowemimo unravels the colonial roots of modern medicine. Tackling systemic racism, hidden histories and healthcare myths, Sowemimo recounts her own experiences as a doctor, patient and activist.

Divided exposes the racial biases of medicine that affect our everyday lives and provides an illuminating – and incredibly necessary – insight into how our world works, and who it works for.

This book will reshape how we see health and medicine – forever.

Follow Annabel Sowemimo on Twitter @SoSowemimo and on Instagram @soafrodiziac.

Read an opening extract from Divided below. Get your copy here. 

At no point in my medical education – nearly a decade of university, three degrees and countless hours spent on the wards – did anyone mention how the legacies of colonialism and racism affect my decisions as a doctor.

Shortly after completing my master’s (at arguably one of the world’s best public health schools, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), I became disillusioned with how healthcare is taught and discussed. I’d spent a year studying sexual and reproductive health, particularly that of countries in the Global South, and I felt that there were gaping holes in many of our discussions. It was the same feeling that I had felt in my undergraduate medical education. I would sit in lectures and listen to senior doctors disparagingly make sweeping generalisations about why some Black people were at risk of high blood pressure and how these patients often did not take their medication. We never discussed the tension between majority white, middle-class doctors and racially minoritised patients. We never discussed how our health institutions have been shaped by imperialism. Nobody challenged these narratives. No one was given the space to do so. The system was heavily weighted in favour of a few. Medicine and healthcare is taught the way it is practiced. Only a few bodies have ever historically mattered: usually those of white, male, able-bodied and heterosexual people.

But I wanted to challenge this status quo, to rethink who the true experts may be. As a doctor, I knew that I garnered respect that many others did not, so I founded Decolonising Contraception Collective in 2018, a not-for-profit company with the aim of creating spaces for those working across sexual and reproductive health to discuss health inequalities among marginalised communities. Our mission was to create a not-for-profit company for those working across sexual and reproductive health to discuss health inequalities among marginalised communities and how race affects those accessing care. We dived into the history of our institutions, looked at the mistrust between providers and patients, and how race played out in healthcare. For some, it was quite emotional – we hadn’t been able to share our experiences and feelings like this before. As our events became successful, I began receiving messages from young Black women, who wrote that they had never heard people speak about how racism shaped their experiences of healthcare. I knew our work was important and I knew it was helping people, but every now and then I would speak to a medical colleague, and they would say something demeaning. My work was considered a ‘little project’. Colleagues told me it was ‘edgy’ and not ‘academically rigorous’. It was clear that this work wasn’t a priority to them – and, in some people’s minds, it was even a waste of time. As frustrating as this was, I did not care as long as we continued to help our communities and played some role in improving the sexual and reproductive health landscape.

And then, Covid-19 hit. As we entered the first months of lockdown in 2020, we witnessed these issues – of racism, colonialism and mistrust – becoming more vitally significant than ever. I had been writing for gal-dem for a few years, and, in the throes of lockdown, I felt it was the right time to begin a regular column on decolonising healthcare. In my first column, I wrote of my experience of encountering a young woman who needed emergency dialysis. Due to her fears about deportation, she hadn’t sought medical help until she had kidney failure. The article resonated with many – I received direct messages from people sharing their experiences of similar issues. Not everyone was complimentary – a few people suggested I was being overly critical of the medical profession – but it was the messages from young people, particularly medical students who would be shaping the next generation of healthcare providers, that had the most impact on me. My inbox flooded with messages from students across the UK, asking how they might spark similar conversations around the role that colonialism and race played within health at their medical school or if I wouldn’t mind speaking at an event. I tried to respond to as many students as possible but I simply didn’t have the time. And I realised I had far more to say than one conversation or lecture would allow.

I needed to start at the beginning and create something that untangled exactly how and why we have such profound health inequalities. We needed to look at our society and tackle the huge structural shifts that are required if we are truly going to see significant change. Despite the concerns I had of placing myself further in the public eye, I realised that I simply had to write this book. We urgently need to address the colonial history of healthcare and how it continues to perpetuate health inequalities. This is long overdue. Over the last couple of years, Covid-19 has brought most of the world to a grinding halt, and we all, now, have to acknowledge the role that healthcare institutions have in determining how we live our lives, and the real power that medical professionals yield. We can no longer deny that health inequalities and uneven power relations exist. This is most apparent in the poorest areas of the world. Black communities globally have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19 and have disproportionately died of the virus. Poorer countries have failed to secure adequate Covid-19 vaccinations. We must start to question precisely why this is the case. We need to make sense of the health inequalities we see. We need to address the racial inequalities in medicine. Only then can we hope to build a system that is more equitable for everyone.

The post Divided: Read an Extract appeared first on Profile Books.

We are proud to announce that in October 2023 we will be publishing The Secret Life of John le Carré by Adam Sisman.

Adam Sisman’s biography of John le Carré, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy – cover stories, cut-outs and dead letter boxes. These clandestine operations brought an element of danger to his life, but they also meant deceiving those closest to him; betrayal understandably became a running theme in his work.

In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed.

Profile editorial director Nick Humphrey said: ‘What a thrill to publish a book that reveals the life of one of our master spy novelists to be riven with secrets, casting new light on his work. Adam Sisman’s reputation as a biographer is second to none; The Secret Life of John le Carré is both a literary treat and a fascinating examination of the complex relationship between a biographer and his subject.’

Adam Sisman said: ‘There was much that I was obliged to withhold from my biography of John le Carré, published in 2015 while my subject was very much alive and looking over my shoulder. I came to realise that his turbulent personal life, which he wanted to keep private in his lifetime, was key to an understanding of his work. His son Simon urged me to keep a secret annexe for publication after his father’s death. The Secret Life of John le Carré is based on that annexe. It shows how le Carré conducted his affairs like espionage operations, running women as if they were agents. The tension involved became a necessary drug to his writing. The book illuminates a hidden life of secrecy, passion and betrayal. In the process it reveals a different John le Carré. Now that he is dead, we can know him better.’

Adam Sisman is the author of Boswell’s Presumptuous Task, winner of the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and the biographer of John le Carré, A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper. Among his other works are two volumes of letters by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews.

The post Announcing The Secret Life of John le Carré by Adam Sisman appeared first on Profile Books.

With a new introduction on the Ukraine crisis

LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
A DAILY MAIL BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS BOOK OF 2022
A DAILY MIRROR BEST NON-FICTION BOOK OF 2022
A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
PRESENTER OF THE BBC RADIO 4 SERIES ‘HOW TO STEAL A TRILLION’
A WATERSTONES BEST POLITICS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
AN IRISH TIMES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
A MANAGEMENT TODAY BEST LEADERSHIP BOOK OF 2022

How did Britain become the servant of the world’s most powerful and corrupt men?

From accepting multi-million pound tips from Russian oligarchs, to the offshore tax havens, meet Butler Britain…

In his Sunday Times-bestselling expose, Oliver Bullough reveals how the UK took up its position at the elbow of the worst people on Earth: the oligarchs, kleptocrats and gangsters. Though the UK prides itself on values of fair play and the rule of law, few countries do more to frustrate global anti-corruption efforts. From the murky origins of tax havens and gambling centres in the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar to the influence of oligarchs in the British establishment, Butler to the World is the story of how we became a nation of Jeeveses – and how it doesn’t have to be this way.

The post Butler to the World is Blackwells Book of the Month appeared first on Profile Books.