Category: New Books

WHAT’S PUBLISHING THIS SUMMER AT ICON BOOKS

 

The long-awaited summer is here at last with that tell-tale June weather. Whether you’re a jet-setter or a home bird, make this summer the one where you lose yourself in a different world or learn about a fascinating topic with your latest gripping non-fiction read. This summer, we’re bringing the perfect companions to hectic holidays and lazy lie-ins with our new titles and upcoming paperbacks.

With everything from quirky travelogues to unknown histories, make sure you follow the links of the titles that spark your curiosity and follow us on X and Instagram @iconbooks to share what you’re reading this summer!

 

WHAT’S NEW THIS JUNE

 

The Restless Coast: A Journey around the Edge of Britain by Roger Morgan-Grenville (5th June 2025)

 

The island of Britain has over 10,000 miles of coastline, steeped in history and constantly shifting, changing, adapting and providing. The Restless Coast is a moving and beautiful account of a journey around it, during which the author sets out to discover its challenges and opportunities, and to talk to its people.

At once delightful travelogue and passionate defence, The Restless Coast shines a powerful spotlight on the thin line that surrounds us, and defines our status as islanders. Overarching the journey is the extraordinary natural history of the coastline, together with the story of how man has imprinted himself on its very geology and shape for countless centuries. Roger Morgan-Grenville addresses the modern challenges that the shoreline faces, and highlights the people who are trying to protect it.

Informative, angry and funny, The Restless Coast is a very personal love letter to our island edge.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-restless-coast-a-journey-around-the-edge-of-britain-roger-morgan-grenville/7891588?ean=9781837731442

 

Data Culture: How to Succeed with Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence by Alex Vail (5th June 2025)

 

Capturing the views of over 300 business leaders on the common causes of digital transformation failure, this book sets out an actionable framework to help organisations of all sizes build successful data-driven cultures.

After working as a senior executive in one of the country’s leading manufacturers, Alex Vail took a sabbatical to conduct several research projects, including the largest ever study into the UK’s corporate AI capabilities. In total, he surveyed 234 senior leaders and interviewed 92 executives from FTSE350 companies to identify why digital transformations succeed or fail; the data dependency of organisations; and their levels of data literacy at senior levels. What emerged from the research was a clear set of success factors, grounded in mindset and behaviour elements, which have been used to create a framework that any company can follow, regardless of their size or complexity, that will guarantee successful data transformations.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/data-culture-how-to-succeed-with-digital-transformation-and-artificial-intelligence-alex-vail/7891589?ean=9781837732319

 

Remembering Women: Lessons from the Ancient World by Christine Lehnen (19th June 2025)

 

Women do have a history of their own.
All we need to do is remember it.

In this illuminating new investigation, Christine Lehnen looks back at our collective memory to explore the myriad ways that women in the past have enjoyed a more egalitarian life.

Due to advances in bioarchaeological methods, scientists have discovered that one out of three women in Ancient Scythia was an active warrior buried with her weapons. Far from being confined to their homes, these women rode out to hunt, travelled to distance places, or used weapons to fend off their enemies. These warriors were no exceptions to the rule, with women enjoying a significantly higher degree of equality than their Greek contemporaries.

Remembering Women argues that there is a historical precedent for a fairer society. From reappraisals of well-known objects such as the earliest human bone calendars from the Stone Age to revelatory findings of innovative bioarcheological methods used on human remains from Ancient Scythia, evidence is accumulating that there were places in the past where all women were allowed to thrive.

Interweaving new findings from archaeology with the stories of her mother and grandmothers, as well as her everyday experiences as a woman living today, Lehnen explores our collective memory of women and argues that it needs to change if we are to create an egalitarian society. Remembering Women follows the traces left in the material, literary, and archaeological record by our foremothers, and their heirlooms, artwork and stories, to take a fresh look at our life in the present.

 

COMING IN PAPERBACK IN JUNE 2025

 

The Army That Never Was: D-Day and the Great Deception by Taylor Downing (5th June 2025)

 

The Army That Never Was: D-Day and the Great Deception tells the remarkable story of the deceptions, hoaxes and misdirections carried out by the Allies ahead of the most pivotal moment of the Second World War – the D-Day invasion.

The most audacious of these schemes aimed to convince German forces that plans to storm Normandy were a mere sideshow, and featured a fictitious army led by General Patton and furnished with hundreds of real-world dummy landing craft, tanks and aircraft. New research reveals a hidden link with Britain’s film industry, as the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of this dramatic gambit is explored in detail.

Full of fascinating characters from the US, Britain and Germany, this compelling and propulsive narrative explores one of the most remarkable secret campaigns of the Second World War.

 

Sunderland AFC: The Definitive History by Rob Mason (19th June 2025)

 

The definitive history of Sunderland AFC.

Formed by a group of teachers nearly 150 years ago in 1879, Sunderland AFC have a long and storied history in English football. The club has won six top-flight titles, only six other teams have won more, and they have lifted the FA Cup twice – in 1937 and in 1973.

The Black Cats are renowned for having one of the largest and most loyal fan bases in the country, and records have regularly been broken for attendance figures at the Stadium of Light. After hitting a nadir with back-to-back relegations from the Premier League down to the third division in 2018, the club are now back on the ascendancy and plotting a return to the top flight.

Drawing on interviews with key players, managers and staff members, esteemed club historian Rob Mason delves into Sunderland’s 150-year history, charting the glorious highs and the ignominious lows to trace how the Black Cats have come to dominate football in the North-East.

 

 

WHAT’S NEW THIS JULY

 

Face to Face: Finding Justice for My Murdered Twin Brother by Nick Dawson (3rd July 2025)

 

When his identical twin brother Simon was kicked to death, all Nick Dawson felt for the killers was hatred.

Struggling in a world where his mirror image had vanished, he came to realise there was only one way to stop the torture – acceptance. Travelling to the absolute limits of personal darkness, Nick came face to face with one of his brother’s killers.

Now a champion of restorative justice, Nick heads behind bars, asking hardened criminals to change, to think of their victims, to make amends.

In Face to Face he takes us with him on a journey into this hidden and unpredictable world.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/face-to-face-finding-justice-for-my-murdered-twin-brother-nick-dawson/7831503?ean=9781837732425

 

There Will Be Headwinds: Kayaking the Northwest Passage by Mark Agnew (3rd July 2025)

 

Mark Agnew was part of the first team ever to kayak the northwest passage – spending 103 days in the Arctic.

The infamous route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans had defeated countless explorers for centuries, and Mark himself had failed on two previous expeditions to row across the Atlantic. Pushed to the brink, on the verge of turning his back on the adventures that had made him feel alive, he experienced a mental health crisis and almost abandoned the water forever.

Charting an inspirational journey from failure to world record breaker, in There Will Be Headwinds Mark reflects on his struggles and reveals the lessons from sports psychology that allowed him to conquer his demons and achieve something truly remarkable. An astonishing story of ice, suffering and camaraderie, There Will Be Headwinds is a testament to the power of teamwork, determination and ambition – and a celebration of the human spirit of adventure.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/there-will-be-headwinds-kayaking-the-northwest-passage-mark-agnew/7831502?ean=9781837732142

 

Human History on Drugs: An Utterly Scandalous but Entirely Truthful Look at History Under the Influence by Sam Kelly (17th July 2025)

 

A lively, hilarious, and entirely truthful look at the druggie side of history’s most famous figures, including Shakespeare, Queen Victoria, and the Beatles, from debut author (and viral historical TikToker with over 100K followers) Sam Kelly.

Did you know that Alexander the Great was a sloppy drunk, William Shakespeare was a stoner, and George Washington drank a spoonful of opium every night to staunch the pain from his fake teeth? Or how about the fact that China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, ingested liquid mercury in an (ironic) attempt to live forever, or that Alexander Shulgin, inventor of no fewer than 230 new psychedelic drugs, was an employee of the DEA?

In Human History on Drugs, historian Sam Kelly introduces us to the history we weren’t taught in school, offering up irreverent and hysterical commentary as he sheds light on some truly shocking aspects of the historical characters we only thought we knew. With chapters spanning from Ancient Greece (‘The Oracle of Delphi Was Huffing Fumes’) and the Victorian Era (‘Vincent van Gogh Ate Yellow Paint’) to Hollywood’s Golden Age (‘Judy Garland Was Drugged by Grown-Ups’) and modern times (‘Carl Sagan Got Astronomically High’), Kelly’s research spans all manner of eras, places, and, of course, drugs.

History is rife with drug use and drug users, and Human History on Drugs takes us through those highs (pun intended) and lows on a wittily entertaining ride that uncovers their seriously unexpected impact on our past.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/human-history-on-drugs-an-utterly-scandalous-but-entirely-truthful-look-at-history-under-the-influence-sam-kelly/7831505?ean=9781837733095

 

COMING IN PAPERBACK IN JULY 2025

The Drummond Affair: Murder and Mystery in Provence by Stephanie Matthews and Daniel Smith (3rd July 2025)

 

1950s France. A British establishment figure. A shocking crime. A miscarriage of justice. The search for truth.

In 1952, in a peaceful corner of Provence, a farmer’s son stumbled upon a terrible scene. Three bodies: a husband and wife shot dead, their ten-year-old daughter savagely beaten to death. They were all British. So begins one of the most notorious murder cases in French history.

Sir Jack Drummond was a senior advisor to the British government, a household name who was respected and admired. His fame made the case a cause célèbre in France and resulted in the swift conviction of a local farmer, but questions about Drummond’s life and death remain unanswered.

In this bold new investigation, Stephanie Matthews and Daniel Smith strip away the prejudice and propaganda to reveal a grave miscarriage of justice. A light is shone on Drummond’s secret life in the shadows of the Cold War, painting a portrait of an enigmatic man who may not have been the innocent holidaymaker he appeared to be, and recasting one of the twentieth century’s most notorious murders in a fascinating and important new light.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-drummond-affair-murder-and-mystery-in-provence-stephanie-matthews/7639342?ean=9781837730599

 

Chain Reactions: A Hopeful History of Uranium by Lucy Jane Santos (31st July 2025)

 

Tracing uranium’s past, and how it intersects with our understanding of other radioactive elements, this book aims to disentangle our attitudes and to unpick the atomic mindset.


Chain Reactions looks at the fascinating, often-forgotten, stories that can be found throughout the history of the element. Ranging from glassworks to penny stocks; medicines to weapons; something to be feared to a powerful source of energy, this global history not only explores the development of our scientific understanding of uranium, but also shines a light on its cultural and social impact.

By understanding our nuclear past, we can move beyond the ideological opposition to atomic technology and encourage a more nuanced dialogue about whether it is feasible – and desirable –  to have a genuinely nuclear-powered future.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/chain-reactions-a-hopeful-history-of-uranium-lucy-jane-santos/7650570?ean=9781837731992

 

The Kremlin’s Noose: Vladimir Putin’s Bitter Feud with the Oligarch Who Made Him Ruler of Russia by Amy Knight (31st July 2025)

 

A Guardian Book of the Day

In The Kremlin’s Noose Amy Knight tells the riveting story of Vladimir Putin and the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who forged a relationship in the early years of the Yeltsin era.

Berezovsky later played a crucial role in Putin’s rise to the Russian presidency in March 2000. When Putin began dismantling Boris Yeltsin’s democratic reforms, Berezovsky came into conflict with the new Russian leader by reproaching him publicly. Their relationship quickly disintegrated into a bitter feud played out against the backdrop of billion-dollar financial deals, Kremlin in-fighting and international politics.

Dubbed the ‘Godfather of the Kremlin’ by the slain Russian-American journalist Paul Klebnikov, Berezovsky was a successful businessman and media mogul who had an outsized role in Russia after 1991. Worth a reported $3 billion by 1997, Berezovsky engineered the re-election of Yeltsin as president in 1996 and negotiated an end to the 1995-96 Chechen war. Despite his own wealth, power and influence, once he became Putin’s enemy, Berezovsky was forced into exile in Britain, where he waged a determined campaign to topple Putin. Kremlin authorities responded with bogus criminal charges and demanded Berezovsky’s extradition. Death threats soon followed. In March 2013, after losing a British court battle with another Russian oligarch, Berezovsky was found dead at his ex-wife’s mansion outside London. Whether he died from suicide or murder remains a mystery.

The Kremlin’s Noose sheds crucial new light on the Kremlin’s volatile politics under Yeltsin and Putin, helping us understand why democracy in Russia failed so badly. Knight provides a fascinating narrative of Putin’s rise to power and his authoritarian rule, told through the prism of his relationship with Russia’s once most powerful oligarch, Boris Berezovsky.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-kremlin-s-noose-vladimir-putin-s-bitter-feud-with-the-oligarch-who-made-him-ruler-of-russia-amy-knight/7831504?ean=9781837732210

 

WHAT’S NEW THIS AUGUST

Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibres Became the Backbone of Civilization by Tim Queeney (14th August 2025)

 

A unique and compelling adventure through the history of rope and its impact on civilization, in the vein of single-subject bestsellers like Salt and Cod.

Tim Queeney is a sailor who knows more about rope and its importance to humankind than most. In Rope, Queeney takes readers on a ride through the history of rope and the way it weaves itself through the story of civilization. From Magellan’s world-circling ships, to the 15th-century fleet of Admiral Zheng He, to Polynesian multihulls with crab claw sails, he shows how without rope, none of their adventurous voyages and discoveries would have been possible. Time travelling, he describes the building of the pyramids, the Roman Colosseum, Hagia Sophia, Notre-Dame, the Sultan Hasan Mosque, the Brooklyn Bridge, and countless other constructions that would not have been possible without rope.

Not content to just look at rope’s past, Queeney examines its present and possible future and how the re-invention of rope with synthetic fibers will likely provide the strength for cables to support elevators into space. Drawing upon personal experience, Queeney tells remarkable nautical stories of his own reliance on rope at sea. Rope is history, adventure, and the story of one of the world’s most common tools that has made it possible for humans to advance throughout the centuries.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/rope-how-a-bundle-of-twisted-fibres-became-the-backbone-of-civilization-tim-queeney/7843984?ean=9781837733316

Fiesta: A Journey Through Festivity by Daniel Stables (14th August 2025)

 

A journey through human festivity, told through colourful travel narratives set at some of the world’s most eye-catching festivals and interweaved with insights from the fields of anthropology, history, psychology, and folklore, examining why we celebrate festivals in the ways we do.


Fiesta explores the vibrant tapestry of human festivity, delving into the extraordinary lengths to which we go to express our cultures and commemorate life’s milestones. From drunken pilgrimages to sacrificial funerals, national days to neo-pagan necromancy, festivals represent human culture at its most vivid and varied, and the resulting account is both a rich collection of travel writing and an anthropological exploration of the roles that festivals play in society. Through colourful characters, vibrant sights, and varied locales, Daniel Stables takes a curious, humanistic look at festivals across the world, unravelling the universal threads that run through our diverse global celebrations.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/fiesta-a-journey-through-festivity-daniel-stables/7843983?ean=9781837732517

 

The Future of Agriculture by Sarah Bearchell (28th August 2025)

 

Record rain fall and extreme climates have become a common occurrence around the world. The television news shows farmers standing in front of their flooded fields; the ground too wet to harvest one season’s crop, or to plant the next. Our climate is changing, but agriculture is not just the victim of climate change – it is one of the major drivers too. Our food systems are responsible for around a third of all greenhouse gases.

In this book, Sarah Bearchell explores how agriculture is using targeted breeding, automation and precision inputs to produce more with less. She considers how we can reduce our impact by addressing problems in our food system, from packaging and transport to the incredible quantities of waste. As consumers, we can make small changes straight away and push for long-term change in the wider system. Agriculture can become a force for good, but it needs our help.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-future-of-agriculture-sarah-bearchell/7843981?ean=9781837731756

 

COMING IN PAPERBACK IN AUGUST 2025

Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World by Casey Michel (28th August 2025)

 

Foreign Policy, Most Anticipated Books of 2024

A stunning investigation and indictment of the elements in United States’ foreign lobbying industry and the threat they pose to democracy.

For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they’ve not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they’ve secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, journalist Casey Michel contends some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.

These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry – a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it – and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.

Many of these lobbyists have transformed into proxies for dictators and strongmen wherever they can be found. And for years, they’ve escaped scrutiny.

In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists, and all the damage and devastation they have caused in Washington and elsewhere. From Moscow to Beijing, from far-right nationalists to far-left communists, from anti-American autocrats to pro-Western authoritarians, these foreign lobbyists have helped any illiberal, anti-democratic government they can find. And after decades of success in installing dictator after dictator, and in tilting American policy in the process, some of these lobbyists have now begun trying to end America’s democratic experiment, once and for all.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/foreign-agents-how-american-lobbyists-and-lawmakers-threaten-democracy-around-the-world-casey-michel/7669420?ean=9781837731886

 

God’s Own Gentlewoman: The Life of Margaret Paston by Diane Watt (28th August 2025)

 

The remarkable story of Margaret Paston, whose letters form the most extensive collection of personal writings by a medieval English woman.

Drawing on the largest archive of medieval correspondence relating to a single family in the UK, God’s Own Gentlewoman explores what everyday life was like during the turbulent decades at the height of the Wars of the Roses. Covering topics including political conflicts and familial in-fighting, forbidden love affairs and clandestine marriages, bloody battles and sieges, fear of plague and sudden death, friendships and animosity, and childbirth and child mortality, Margaret’s letters provide us with unparalleled insight into all aspects of life in late medieval England.

Diane Watt, a world expert on medieval women’s writing, offers insight into Margaret’s activities, experiences, emotions and relationships, presenting the life of a medieval woman who was at times absorbed by the mundane and domestic, but who found herself caught up in the most extraordinary situations and events.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/god-s-own-gentlewoman-the-life-of-margaret-paston-diane-watt/7669421?ean=9781837731657

Remembering Women by Christine Lehnen: Sneak Peek

 Remembering Women: Lessons From the Ancient World by Christine Lehnen

Sneak Peek

 

 

Women do have a history of their own.
All we need to do is remember it.

 

‘A fascinating, thought-provoking exploration of powerful women’s lives in the past and today, showing how important it is that we remember their successes, leadership, independence and equality.’

Marion Gibson, author of Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials

 

Due to advances in bioarchaeological methods, scientists have discovered that one out of three women in Ancient Scythia was an active warrior buried with her weapons. Far from being confined to their homes, these women rode out to hunt, travelled to distance places, or used weapons to fend off their enemies. These warriors were no exceptions to the rule, with women enjoying a significantly higher degree of equality than their Greek contemporaries.

Remembering Women argues that there is a historical precedent for a fairer society. From reappraisals of well-known objects, such as the earliest human bone calendars from the Stone Age, to revelatory findings of innovative bioarcheological methods used on human remains from Ancient Scythia, evidence is accumulating that there were places in the past where all women were allowed to thrive.

Interweaving new findings from archaeology with the stories of her mother and grandmother, as well as her everyday experiences as a woman living today, Lehnen explores our collective memory of women and argues that it needs to change if we are to create an egalitarian society. Remembering Women follows the traces left in the material, literary, and archaeological record by our foremothers, and their heirlooms, artwork and stories, to take a fresh look at our life in the present.

Take the first steps towards changing our cultural memory for the better with the extract below!

 

 

Helen of Troy leaves her husband in the dead of night.

 

I imagine her hastily packing her things, casting about her room, wondering what she can part with and what she cannot live without. Will she bring her precious bronze mirror? The warrior Amazon puppet her mother gave her when she was a child? Her brush? (Of course she will bring her brush, and hair pins or bands, anything to hold it in place. It is windy out there on the Aegean Sea.) It must have been daunting to pack her things, to even entertain the idea of running off with Paris, Prince of Troy. This palace in Sparta is all she has ever known. Famously, her husband came to live with her after he won her hand, not the other way around, as would have been more common. She has grown up in this palace, she has barely ever left this city. This is where her family is, where she gave birth to her daughter, where she has made a life for herself. It must have been a hard thing to leave that night. Anyone who is an immigrant, who has had to leave the place they know to go to a strange place, will know how difficult it is. Anyone who has had to leave a lifelong partner, no matter how abusive, will testify to the courage it requires. 

Helen is a legendary figure, but women like her existed, and they have existed throughout time: women who left their houses, the men they were with and who owned them, the families they had raised, to go and discover an unknown future, no matter the risks. There is the woman in Ancient Assyria who left her male ‘owner’ and sought refuge with another woman, a female lover or friend. We do not retain her name, but let us imagine we do. Let us say her name was Atalia, this woman who left her husband knowing it would almost certainly end in her death. Think how courageous she must have been still to leave in the middle of the night, to choose hope over despair, to make a life for herself, no matter how brief. Then there is Neaera, the Corinthian woman sold into prostitution, who left her owners and ran from the pimp Phrynion to live a free life in Athens. She raised her daughter Phanos in the same spirit, a girl who would refuse to become a demure wife once wedded, resulting in legal challenges to the family. More recently, there is my friend R, who had to get a job as a cleaner, hide her wages away from her partner, save up, learn how to drive, pack her suitcases and hide them at the back of the wardrobe, all so that she would be able to up and go one night, vanish within seconds. Atalia, Neaera, R: women who have had the courage to say no to the lives they were living, and yes to the uncertain futures ahead of them.  

[…] 

Women today still feel that consequence, every day. Six women are murdered every hour of every day worldwide. In the UK, a woman is killed by a man every three days. In six out of seven cases, the killer is a man she knows, and seventy-four per cent of women are killed in their own homes. As women, we are aware how dangerous our homes may be, whether the knowledge is conscious or not. My friend R left in secret, stole away in the dead of night because she too feared violent retribution. This was sensible, as data from the Femicide Census shows that ‘separation is a risk factor for intimate-partner femicides’, as violent men may choose to kill women rather than lose control over them. The fate of another friend of mine bears testimony to this fact. My dear friend S, one of the most intelligent, capable, and confident people I know, had to leave the country she was born and raised in to escape an abusive and violent male partner. As Margaret Atwood once wrote, men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men are going to kill them. 

Atalia was indeed killed by the Assyrian state, as far as we know. We cannot be sure of the fate of Neaera and Phanos, but Phanos’s husband brought charges against them with the aim of stripping them of their Athenian citizenship, forcing them once more into sexual slavery. No record of the end of the court case survives, but historian Eric Berkowitz does not see much hope for them in the misogynist, xenophobic slave society of Classical Athens. We all know how Helen’s mythical story ends, and it is not a happy ending: Menelaus uses her escape as a pretext to raise an army and destroy the beautiful city of Troy, murder and enslave the entire population, and bring her back to Sparta, where she secretly prepares and feeds him a narcotic potion in the evening so that she may escape his dominance for a few hours. 

It may seem difficult at times to find hope in Greek myth, but it can be found in Scythia, in the Stone Age, even in the earliest periods of human history. In the graves of our foremothers and forefathers, the women who were warriors with and without children, the men who wore jewellery, made warm cloaks, and cared for their children. Think of all the children who grew up with their fathers. In fact, I will raise you one: think of all the children who grew up with happy mothers and happy fathers, who had the chance to grow into happy people themselves, because they did not have to choose between hunting and motherhood, or masculinity and a pair of earrings. 

Waterstones

Amazon

Remembering Women: Lessons From the Ancient World by Christine Lehnen publishes on the 19th of June 2025

Breaking Waves by Emma Simpson: Sneak Peek

26th March 2025

Breaking Waves by Emma Simpson: Sneak Peek

 

 

A warm, reflective and uplifting memoir about healing wounds, reclaiming a voice and discovering freedom through the open water.

‘If you enjoyed Freya Bromley’s The Tidal Year, you’ll love this. Perfect for those of us who need cold water to heal.’

Emma Gannon, author of Olive

After a period of immense pain and lost in grief, Emma felt the instinctive pull of the water. This expanse of mystery represents the unknown to so many, but it’s also a space to heal and soothe the soul for those that brave the wild waters.

This unexpected source of strength also offered a glorious sisterhood of women with their own remarkable stories to share. Interweaving these inspirational tales with her own experiences of birth, chronic illness, body confidence and so much more, Breaking Waves is a love letter to womanhood and the open water.

Take the first daunting dip of your toe into this community with the below extract!

 

‘I signed up to do a 500-metre swim. Not the kilometre, mind, that would have been silly. This was terrifying enough.

 

On the day of the event I was nervous yet excited. I knew this would challenge me both mentally and physically, and it brought back inklings of my previous sense of fun and adventure. They were feelings that had deserted me while I was unwell, although I hadn’t realised their absence until just at that moment. Having donned my tummy-control Marks & Spencer swimming costume and sparkly flip-flops, I affected my best Dickensian jaunt and made my way to the departure point on the rocks, before realising that, clearly, I must have turned up to the wrong event, because everyone else was dressed head to toe in rubber and they were all wearing swim hats. What. The. Actual. Fuck. Swim hats?? I hadn’t possessed one of those instruments of torture since the excruciating hair towelling days of school PE. I can’t say it really occurred to me that I might be the one inappropriately dressed until I began to absorb the looks from the other participants, ranging from pity, ‘oh bless her, she’ll get so cold’, to indignation, ‘oh my God, the integrity of this event has just gone through the floor’, to almost famous, ‘they’ll interview me and I’ll say I saw her just before she drowned, I’ll pretend I spoke to her!’ Awkward doesn’t even come close. 

One thing that grief does do, however, is stop you giving a damn what other people think, because it really doesn’t matter, so I pretended that I had turned up like that intentionally because I was so hardcore. In reality, without a wetsuit I only had my blubber to protect me, but I figured that would suffice, so I shed my flip-flops and joined the shuffling penguins towards the entry point.

Within seconds, I experienced an exquisite pain in my feet – why were we entering the sea here? Walking through the jagged, craggy rocks, slime-covered stones and deceptively evil shingle? Why weren’t we going in at a sandy point? Why was no one else swearing?! Aah – because they all had bootees on. Of course they did. With their smugsuits and swim hats there was a whole wardrobe no one had told me about (and dryrobes weren’t even a lucrative twinkle in their inventor’s eye at this point). There was nothing to do but get on with it, so enter the sea I did, carried by my excitement and terror, the Jaws soundtrack looping in my ears as I hit the water. Once in I allowed myself to surrender – to the feeling, to the sensation, to the experience. In the deep water, unprepared, untrained, with seaweed bouncing in and around my legs and breaststroke my only way to stay afloat, I felt exhilarated. I took in my surroundings and marvelled at my own courage. I felt alive and connected to something for the first time in such a long time. The grey blanket of numbness that had encased me since Brian’s death threatened to shift, ever so slightly. I looked around and just grinned – until that let a bit too much water into my mouth – at which point I got a bit more serious and swam to the exit point.

At the exit steps I was aided by some volunteers, handed my beach towel by my sister who shared the emotion of that moment, and my two daughters ran up to me just so proud and excited by my adventure. My endeavour had lit something up in them too. Their faces filled with awe and admiration are something I will never forget. I looked back at the water and felt so happy that I had conquered my fear, and while feeling slightly faint and a bit punch-drunk, I also started to feel the first steps of a spiritual healing. Something awoke for me that day. It wasn’t a big distance that I had crossed – just 500 metres – but it began to span an emotional gulf.’

Bookshop.org

Amazon

Breaking Waves: Discovery, Healing and Inspiration in the Open Water by Emma Simpson publishes 27th March 2025.

What’s Publishing This Spring at Icon Books

What’s Publishing This Spring at Icon Books

As the weather starts to brighten and the evenings get longer, there’s no better time than now to delve into a new topic or pick up the latest book from one of your favourite authors.

This spring we are bringing you some brilliant non-fiction, from long-buried histories to heartfelt memoirs, and hilarious travelogues. Plus, some of our greatest hits from last year are making an appearance in paperback!

Follow the links below to find out more about ordering the reads that catch your eye, and make sure to follow us on X and Instagram @iconbooks to share what’s on your to be read list this spring!

What’s New This March

The Next One is For You A True Story of Guns, Country and the IRA’s Secret American Army by Ali Watkins (13th March 2025)

A gripping true story of crime, rebellion and the hazy line that separates the two. From New York Times reporter and Pulitzer finalist Ali Watkins, this is the long-buried story of how a group of Philadelphia gunrunners armed the IRA at the height of the Troubles. A ragtag band of carpenters, family men and fugitives, the Philadelphia Five, banded together, bolstering the fight for a united Ireland but fuelling the conflict at an untold cost.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-next-one-is-for-you-a-true-story-of-guns-country-and-the-ira-s-secret-american-army-ali-marie-watkins/7761028?ean=9781837732135

Everyday Jews: Why The Jewish People Are Not Who You Think They Are by Keith Kahn-Harris (13th March 2025)

With Israel and antisemitism constantly in the news, it seems as though the Jewish people have become synonymous with controversy, drama and anxiety. With passion and wry humour, Keith Kahn-Harris argues that his people’s extraordinary public visibility today is harming their ability to live everyday Jewish lives and celebrates the mundanity and mediocrity of a people before it vanishes completely.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/everyday-jews-why-the-jewish-people-are-not-who-you-think-they-are-keith-kahn-harris/7761027?ean=9781837732111

Breaking Waves Discovery, Healing and Inspiration in the Open Water by Emma Simpson (27th March 2025)

A warm, reflective and uplifting memoir about healing wounds, reclaiming a voice and discovering freedom through the open water. Emma Simpson discovered wild swimming after a period of immense pain. Lost in grief, disillusioned with life, and feeling increasingly untethered from the world, she instinctively felt the pull of the water. There she found an unexpected source of hope and strength, a profound sense of connection, and a glorious sisterhood of women – each with their own remarkable stories to tell.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/breaking-waves-discovery-healing-and-inspiration-in-the-open-water-emma-simpson/7746753?ean=9781837731794

Coming in Paperback in March 2025

Across a Waking Land: A 1,000-Mile Walk Through a British Spring by Roger Morgan-Grenville (13th March 2025)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RICHARD JEFFERIES AWARD 2023

A veteran nature writer walks the length of Britain in pursuit of spring, and of hope. Fed up with bleak headlines of biodiversity loss, Roger Morgan-Grenville sets out on a 1,000-mile walk through a British spring to see whether there are reasons to be hopeful about the natural world.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/across-a-waking-land-a-1-000-mile-walk-through-a-british-spring-roger-morgan-grenville/7412275?ean=9781837731039

Well Beings: How the Seventies Lost Its Mind and Taught Us to Find Ourselves by James Riley (27th March 2025)

Concepts such as wellness and self-care may feel like distinctly twenty-first century ideas, but they first gained traction as part of the New Age health movements that began to flourish in the wake of the 1960s. James Riley dives into this strange and hypnotic world of panoramic coastal retreats and darkened floatation tanks,

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/well-beings-how-the-seventies-lost-its-mind-and-taught-us-to-find-ourselves-james-riley/7606744?ean=9781785787898

What’s New This April

The Elephant in the Room: How to Stop Making Ourselves and Other Animals Sick by Liz Kalaugher (10th April 2025)

Taking the reader on a globe-trotting journey through time, Liz Kalaugher presents a series of fascinating case histories of human-related wildlife diseases. Examining these tales and drawing on first-hand accounts from experts around the world, The Elephant in the Room is both a tragic history and an inspirational call to arms. It doesn’t have to be this way. By learning from the past, it’s possible to create a better, healthier environment for ourselves, our wildlife and our planet.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-elephant-in-the-room-how-to-stop-making-ourselves-and-other-animals-sick-liz-kalaugher/7748917?ean=9781837731381

Processed: How the Processed Meat Industry is Killing Us with the Food we Love by Lucie Morris-Marr (10th April 2025)

The chilling exposé the food industry doesn’t want YOU to see. We love crispy bacon with our eggs for breakfast, and ham sandwiches for lunch. Lucie Morris-Marr’s family was no different, ordering pepperoni pizzas on Friday nights and putting salami on their summer picnic platters. But when the Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer, she learned the chilling truth about our love affair with processed meats.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/processed-how-the-processed-meat-industry-is-killing-us-with-the-food-we-love-allen-unwin-pty-limited/7815442?ean=9781837733071

Delusions of Paradise: Escaping the Life of a Taliban Fighter by Maiwand Banayee (24th April 2025)

When Maiwand Banayee was 16, he wanted to become a suicide bomber for the Taliban. Growing up in Kabul amid the Afghan wars, he witnessed atrocities that no child should ever see.  He escaped to a refugee camp in Pakistan, where religious militants began the gradual grooming of Maiwand and other Afghan boys. But Maiwand escaped this life. Fleeing Afghanistan, he had a life-altering crisis of faith, confidence and meaning, finding new purpose and rebuilding himself.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/delusions-of-paradise-escaping-the-life-of-a-taliban-fighter-maiwand-banayee/7783215?ean=9781837731909

Coming in Paperback in April 2025

The Beacon Bike: Around England and Wales in 327 Lighthouses by Ed Peppitt (10th April 2025)

The incredible story of a 3,500-mile cycle ride to explore the onshore and offshore lighthouses around the coastline of England and Wales, proving that a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis doesn’t mean giving up on a lifelong dream.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-beacon-bike-around-england-and-wales-in-327-lighthouses-edward-peppitt/7616615?ean=9781837732005

Ten Men: A Year of Casual Sex by Kitty Ruskin (24th April 2025)

A Stylist pick of the best non-fiction for 2024

A Cosmopolitan and Glamour best new book for April 2024

At the beginning of 2019, Kitty Ruskin decided it was time to embrace her sexuality, by having fun, easy, no-strings sex with whomever she desired. What followed was sometimes sexy, frequently funny, occasionally shocking and, sadly, all too often fraught with pain and danger. It was not the carefree adventure she had envisaged; it was something altogether darker.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/ten-men-a-year-of-casual-sex-kitty-ruskin/7616617?ean=9781837730698

What’s New This May

Sh*tty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities by Ben Aitken (8th May 2025)

Not everything that glitters is gold – which is why Ben Aitken gave London the cold shoulder and went to Preston instead. Hailing from Portsmouth, Ben knew from experience that unfashionable places could be quietly brilliant. So, over the course of a year he visited twelve of the least popular spots in the UK and Ireland for a city break. The upshot is a celebration of the underdog; a hymn to the wrong direction; and evidence that there’s no such thing as a shitty break.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/shitty-breaks-a-celebration-of-unsung-cities-ben-aitken/7811929?ean=9781837730469

Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James  (22nd May 2025)

A brilliant and bloody examination of the axe’s foundational role in human history, from prehistoric violence, to war and executions, to newspaper headlines and popular culture. Whack Job is the story of the axe, first as a convenient danger and then an anachronism, as told through the murders it has been employed in throughout history.

More information Coming Soon

Thinking Small and Large: How Microbes Made and Can Save Our World by Peter Forbes (22nd May 2025)

Thinking Small and Large reveals the ingenuity of microbes at key stages in life’s 4-billion-year history and highlights their developing role in resolving our deepest problem: climate change that is flooding and burning our world more menacingly every year. In this fascinating and illuminating book, Peter Forbes shines a light on this crucial technology and offers a tantalising glimpse of what is possible. To solve the big problems, you have to think small.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/thinking-small-and-large-how-microbes-made-and-can-save-our-world-peter-forbes/7811931?ean=9781837731701

Coming in Paperback in May 2025

Harpy: A Manifesto for Childfree Women by Caroline Magennis (9th May 2025)

In this timely and thoughtful book, Caroline Magennis looks beyond the often-divisive conversation around women who choose to be childfree and offers an alternative message of hope and celebration.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/harpy-a-manifesto-for-childfree-women-caroline-magennis/7811930?ean=9781837730667

The History Lessons by Shalina Patel (22nd May 2025)

Taking the reader on a tour through history, from the Romans to the Second World War via Tudor courts, medieval castles and more, this hugely entertaining debut from an award-winning history teacher explores a variety of historical topics in a thoughtful and engaging way.

More information: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-history-lessons-shalina-patel/7627891?ean=9781837731626

Icon to publish innovation and productivity expert Bec Evans’ How To Have a Happy Hustle

Innovation expert, startup founder and Futurebook judge Bec Evans is to publish her first book, How To Have a Happy Hustle: The Complete Guide to Making Your Ideas Happen. In the book she will lead readers through the process of generating life-changing ideas and the crucial steps to getting them off the ground.

Designed for anyone who is looking for fulfilment beyond the 9-5 career-track – either in a side-hustle alongside a main job or in a startup, How To Have A Happy Hustle will focus on practical skills and mindset. Using examples from successful innovators, Evans will explain how to use feedback to improve ideas, understand the psychology of being productive, find the best problems to solve and gain motivation to follow through on ideas, even in the face of set-backs and failures.

Kiera Jamison at Icon bought world rights (excluding USA and Canada) from Michael Alcock at Johnson and Alcock for an undisclosed sum. Icon will publish in May 2019.

Jamison says:

‘Bec’s approach really resonated with us, as we’re sure it will with readers looking to develop their ideas. We often tend to think of start-ups as created by these exceptional innovators who have a Eureka-moment and then wild success, but the reality entails a lot of graft to find, develop and launch the right idea. In the book, Bec guides us through every step: from coming up with and testing ideas to launching and growing them, and – most importantly – enjoying the process.’

Evans says:

‘Ideas are the easy bit, what people struggle with is making them happen. Working with people taught me that everyone has the ability to be creative – they just need to skills to make it happen. This book helps people get off the starting blocks by sharing the ‘secrets’ of innovation. Whatever your background or experience, whether you’ve got a great idea you don’t know how to develop, or a problem you’d like to solve, these tried-and-tested techniques will help you to innovate and thrive.’

 

Bec Evans is a consultant on innovation and the co-founder of Prolifiko, a digital coach that helps writers to be productive. Formerly Head of Innovation at Emerald Publishing, Bec is a judge for the FutureBook Awards 2018 and writes and speaks on innovation, startups and productivity. She was selected as one of Business Cloud’s Top Female Founders of Tech in 2017 and mentors students on entrepreneurship at Leeds University Business School.

Jane Austen, The Secret Radical

Jane Austen, the Secret Radical jacket cover

AUTHOR HELENA KELLY SEARCHES FOR THE REAL JANE AUSTEN

‘However well you think you know the novels, you’ll be raring to read them again once you’ve read this.’
Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller

Almost everything we know about Jane Austen is wrong. Her novels don’t confine themselves to grand houses and they were not written for readers’ enjoyment. She writes about serious subjects and her books are deeply subversive.

We just don’t read her properly – and we haven’t been reading her properly for 200 years. Jane Austen, The Secret Radical puts that right.

In her first, brilliantly original book, Austen expert Helena Kelly introduces the reader to a passionate woman living in an age of revolution; to a writer who used what was regarded as the lightest of literary genres, the novel, to grapple with the weightiest of subjects – feminism, slavery, abuse, the treatment of the poor, the power of the Church, even evolution – at a time, and in a place, when to write about such things directly was akin to treason.

Uncovering a radical, spirited and politically engaged woman, this book will encourage Austen fans to read her all over again.

The Book: Jane Austen, The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly is published on 3rd November (Hardback, £20)

Events: Helena Kelly will be discussing her book at the following venues:

 

5000-1: The Leicester City Story

The incredible as-it-happened story of Leicester City’s march to Premier League victory

5000-1: The Leicester City Story jacket coverWe are thrilled to be publishing 5000-1: The Leicester City Story on 26th May to mark an amazing moment in sporting history.

In August 2015 bookmakers William Hill priced Leicester at 5000-1 to win the Premier League – the same odds as Elvis being
found alive.

On 2 May 2016, the impossible happened – Leicester won, to ecstatic celebrations in the city and around the world.

Detailing the key matches and turning points, author Rob Tanner, Leicester Mercury’s chief football writer, tells the inside story of Leicester City’s heroic year of triumph – and the players who under Claudio Ranieri’s inspired leadership became the most unlikely champions in football history.

Includes a foreword from Sky Sports‘ Alan Smith

Read an extract

Buy a copy

 

New Books published in March!

We have four brand new books to share with you, all published this month.

First up, we’re thrilled to be publishing We Have A Deal by acclaimed negotiation expert Natalie Reynolds, who will teach you how to avoid common pitfalls, keep cool and in control, and achieve what you want, every time – whether you’re responsible for large deals at work or simply renegotiating your phone contract.

Then we have a stunning piece of nature writing in Adrift, an incredibly sensory journey, tracing Helen’s journey over the course of a year from deep winter to late autumn, from east to west, taking you on a tour of the people, politics, history and wildlife of London’s canals and rivers.

We’re also publishing The 50 Most Influential Britons of The Last 100 Years, a whistle-stop tour through recent British history, as well Positive Psychology: A toolkit for happiness, purpose and well-being. It is the perfect concise start to making your life better.

For more information about all future releases and competitions, make sure you sign up to our newsletter.

All books are available in all good bookshops and as an eBook. Head over to @iconbooks to see how you can win all of our new books this month!

Adrift

Adrift: A Secret Life of London’s Waterways

by Helen Babbs

Today is the publication day of Adrift: A Secret Life of London’s Waterways, a new book by London-based writer Helen Babbs.

Here at Icon Books, we’ve loved working on Adrift and with Helen Babbs, and we wanted to give you a flavour of what’s to come.

snoops

“It was a dark and stormy night.” It’s a well-known opening line and though now something of a cliché, it never ceases to draw me in. Who doesn’t love a stormy night? If, that is, you have the opportunity of curling up in a warm, dry spot with a good book.

With Adrift, Helen Babbs gives us both of these things: a dark and stormy opening scene, and a good book to get us through it. In her beautiful rhythmic style she draws us onto her boat, Pike, dashing all images of harlequin canal boats and bucolic waterway scenes:

 

It’s dark out. In here it’s warm and orange-lit, flickering. The smell is wet coal and woodsmoke. The sound, violent: high-pitched whistles and metallic cracks. The boat shifts and shudders, moans and rolls, more like a ship at sea than a broad barge on a narrow river. Dislocated branches suck across the Lea at speed, dragging their claws over the roof before rushing mad into the marshes. Suddenly there’s a smash and scraping overhead as the wind grabs hold of the chimney’s hat, rips it off and carries it, bouncing, away. The fire shudders in the stove, spits and starts, then settles again into its gentle, giving roar. Sometimes it’s possible to forget this is a home without bricks, that she floats free of foundations. Not tonight. Tonight she is a tin drum, beaten by a thousand furious drumsticks. Tonight she is the weather’s toy, to toss and whip at will.

adrift 

The rest of the book takes you on a journey that is just as sensory, tracing Helen’s journey over the course of a year from deep winter to late autumn, from east to west, taking you on a tour of the people, politics, history and wildlife of London’s canals and rivers.

We were delighted to bring May van Millingen to the project too, who brought to life some of the book’s waterways and stopping points in six illustrated maps, helping readers to navigate Helen’s journey and bringing to life the bats and herons, gas holders and cemeteries.

 

Adrift publishes in Hardback and E-book on 4 March 2016 and is available at all good bookstores.

ISBN: 9781848319202

Price: £16.99

See more at: http://www.iconbooks.com/blog/title/adrift

Announcing Queer

9781785780714 (1)IN LGBT HISTORY MONTH, ICON BOOKS ACQUIRE A GROUNDBREAKING NON-FICTION COMIC BOOK ON LGBTQ+ HISTORY.

Kiera Jamison, commissioning editor at Icon Books, has acquired world rights in all languages to QUEER: A GRAPHIC HISTORY by activist-academic Meg-John Barker and illustrator Julia Scheele.

Queer: A Graphic History is a groundbreaking non-fiction comic book that tells the histories of queer thought and activism. At its heart are questions and ideas relevant to everybody, such as whether we have fixed identities, understanding gender as a performance, and challenging binaries such as gay/straight or nature/nurture.

Bringing together pop-culture, activism and academic theory, Queer: A Graphic History explores the various ways in which people have wrestled with issues of sexual identity and behaviour, from studies like Alfred Kinsey’s view of sexuality as a spectrum, to Johnson and Masters’ research into sexual response. It also explores queer moments or directions in everything from Sherlock Holmes to Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.

queer umbrella 1

Barker says, ‘This book is about making queer theory and queer activism accessible to a wide audience. There are some hugely useful ideas in queer thought that rarely get out to the people who might benefit from them, because the language can be pretty dense or because people think it won’t be relevant unless they identify as queer. I’m also a huge comics fan, so the possibility of having my words illustrated by Julia was extremely exciting.’

‘Meg-John has written an introduction to queer theory and activism that breaks out of the topic’s usual academic confines and is clever and witty,’ says Jamison. ‘Together with Julia’s cool illustrations, it will raise a lot of smiles and, hopefully, change the way many people think about LGBTQ identity, culture and history. It’s safe to say this is the only book you’ll read this year that sees Lady Gaga facing off to Foucault, and Miley Cyrus’s wrecking ball tearing into gender constructs.’

queer umbrella 2

Queer: A Graphic History will appeal to anyone interested in LGBTQ issues and stories, fans of Orange is the New Black, The Danish Girl or Alison Bechdel’s comics, and anyone interested in queer, gender or critical theories, indeed anyone interested in seeing culture and society from a different perspective.

Icon will publish as an £11.99 paperback (254 x 177mm), and as an ebook, in September 2016.

Icon Books – Advent Calendar

Behind door #1, a copy of every book we’ve published in the last two months!

Win this stack of eight books on our Twitter page!

So Christmas is here. And what better way to celebrate than with a bookish advent calendar?

So every day we’ll be giving away a book or book-related gift. Behind every door is something different, so keep an eye out on our website and our Twitter for new and exciting prizes each day until Christmas.

Behind the first door, we’re giving away a copy of every book we’ve published in November and December this year. You have until midnight tonight to enter with the winner to be announced on Wednesday morning… where we’ll open another door and give away another wonderful prize.

If you’ve been barking up the wrong tree at dinner parties, you can let Hubert van den Bergh and Thomas W. Hodgkinson show you How to Sound Cultured (‘Damn, all my cheating secrets revealed. In book form’ Stephen Fry). For more dinner party ammo, there’s the ultimate science quiz book, How Many Moons Does the Earth Have? by Brian Clegg.

There’s a fantastic biography of a 19th-century Parisian courtesan who harbours an incredible secret in The Mistress of Paris by Catherine Hewitt and for the Gardens and Antiques lovers in your life, there’s Allum’s Antiques Almanac 2016 from BBC Antiques Roadshow specialist Marc Allum and The Sceptical Gardener from the Telegraph’s gardening expert Ken Thompson.

Brand new this month from sports writer Luca Caioli is the greatest rivalry in football’s history, Messi vs Ronaldo. Two of the world’s greatest ever players compared and contrasted in this wonderful new book. And finally, new in paperback we have a inspiring tale of survival during World War Two, Beyond the Call by Lee Trimble with Jeremy Dronfield and some mind-bending Oxford and Cambridge Questions in So, You Think You’re Clever? by John Farndon.

All books available in all good bookshops and as an eBook. Head over to @iconbooks to see how you can win our new titles!

How to Sound Cultured – Radio 4

Master the 250 names that intellectuals love to drop into conversation

How to Sound Cultured by Thomas W. Hodgkinson and Hubert van den Burgh is published today and we’re very excited.

Aside from the already receiving fantastic coverage, including this Sunday Times article Where are the British intellectuals?’ as well as this piece in the Sunday Herald, Thomas appeared on the Today show on Radio 4.

Which philosopher had the maddest hairstyle? Which novelist drank 50 cups of black coffee every day? What on earth did Simone de Beauvoir see in Jean-Paul Sartre?

How to Sound Cultured offers a wry and yet profoundly useful look inside the mirrored palaces of high culture. Covering such inscrutable characters as Heidegger, Montaigne, Kahlo and Lévi-Strauss (apparently not just a designer of jeans), inscrutable polymaths Thomas W. Hodgkinson and Hubert van den Bergh – the author of the acclaimed How to Sound Clever – have done the hard work of sorting the cultural wheat from the chaff.

Read this book and you’ll never again mistake Rimbaud for Rambo or Georg Lukacs for George Lucas, you’ll know precisely when to drop Foucault’s name into a conversation and how to pronounce ‘Borgesian’, and you’ll learn many more essential pointers for the intellectual life.

Zizek

How to Sound Cultured is available now as a £12.99 hardback, and as an ebook.

ICON BOOKS AQUIRES EXPERT GUIDE TO NEGOTIATING

Kiera Jamison, commissioning editor at Icon Books, has bought World rights in all languages to WE HAVE A DEAL: HOW TO NEGOTIATE WITH INTELLIGENCE, FLEXIBILITY AND POWER by negotiation expert Natalie Reynolds. Jamison bought the book directly from the author.

Natalie Reynolds specialises in negotiation, commercial dispute resolution and governance. She is the founder of negotiation consultancy advantageSPRING and counts the BBC, JP Morgan, DLA Piper and the European Investment Bank among her clients. She has advised the UN and provides pro-bono negotiation support to Human Rights Watch, the NSPCC and UN Women. She also runs a hugely popular gender workshop, ‘Is Negotiation a Man’s Game?’, and has published articles in the Guardian and the Huffington Post.

WE HAVE A DEAL argues that negotiation is the most important skill you can develop to get what you want in business and life. But we often struggle to do it effectively, or try to avoid it altogether. In this book Reynolds steers us through the steps of successful negotiations, from understanding underlying motivations, to avoiding pitfalls and stereotyping, to getting what you want, every time.

Kiera said: ‘Natalie is an inspiring and empowering speaker; I’m delighted that we can now capture her expertise and share it with readers. As the diverse audiences she speaks to and trains can attest, her approach has something for everyone: from a new-starter at work to a seasoned CEO. Icon Books is building a great base of motivational business authors, and we’re so lucky to have Natalie join us.’

Natalie said: ‘I’ve long admired Icon’s publishing, particularly their recent success with Graham Allcott’s How to Be a Productivity Ninja; so they were a natural choice for my first book. From Brexit to securing a pay rise, negotiation is in the headlines, and this is the right time for my book. I’m enjoying working with Kiera and the Icon team, planning an exciting international launch – it’s time for negotiation to take centre stage!’

Icon will publish as a £12.99 trade paperback, and as an ebook, in March 2016.

 

Man Up – a ground-breaking new book on masculinity from a 23-year old journalist

Jack Urwin – author of Man Up

Tom Webber, commissioning editor at Icon Books, has bought UK & Commonwealth rights from Juliet Pickering at Blake Friedmann to MAN UP: Surviving Modern Masculinity by Jack Urwin. Audible have bought unabridged audio rights from Juliet Pickering, to publish simultaneously in June 2016.

Urwin’s article in Vice last year – A Stiff Upper Lip is Killing British Men – went viral on publication and was praised by Irvine Welsh as ‘fabulous’, and by feminist journalist and author Laurie Penny as ‘the brilliant, personal, not-actually-sexist writing by millennials about masculinity and politics that the world has been waiting for’.

Man Up explores why masculinity – for all of its positive achievements – is currently in crisis, and what it means to be a man now. There’s no doubt about that crisis, either: suicide is currently the main cause of death among men between the ages of 18-49 in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.

As commentators like Matt Haig have repeatedly said, men are now facing up to the challenges that their gender presents, and as more books are published about women, by women, men are struggling to be part of a similar conversation about the future of their gender.

Inspired in part by his own father’s premature death when Jack was nine, and his subsequent struggles with depression in his teens and early twenties – to which his inability to communicate emotionally was a major contributing factor – Man Up expands on Urwin’s personal experiences, and delves further into the historical causes of toxic male behaviour in both biological and sociological contexts.

In the book, Jack traces crises of masculinity from our grandfathers’ inability to verbalise the horrors of war and the decline of the working class in the latter part of the 20th century, to the mob mentality displayed on the football terraces, and the disturbing rise of mental health problems among men today. He also looks at the wider impact wrought by reinforcement of such rigid definitions of masculinity, harming not only heterosexual men but also the women and LGBT people around them.

Smart, funny and friendly, Man Up is the start of an essential conversation for men, exploring why we have perpetuated various myths of masculinity – and how we can challenge it, and change it.

‘This won’t be the only voice discussing men and masculinity in 2016 – there seem to be few more contemporary topics – but Jack’s is definitely unique’’ Webber says. ‘His writing is extremely resonant and clear, and as well as coming from his own traumatic experiences as a child and teenager, it shows a wisdom that belies his age. We think he’s going to be a star and that this book will only be the beginning of his rise to fame’

Jack Urwin says ‘This is a book from the heart and I’m really looking forward to adding what I can to the debate about masculinity. Icon have a great reputation for books about big ideas, and having already seen how receptive Tom and his colleagues are, I’m more than confident they’ll be the perfect publisher.’

Icon will publish as a paperback and as an ebook on 2nd June 2016.

 

Love Among the Ruins

Love Among the Ruins – A memoir of life and love in Hamburg, 1945

We’re incredibly excited to announce the publication of Love Among the Ruins by Harry Leslie Smith, author of Harry’s Last Stand.

Harry Leslie Smith‘s Guardian articles have been shared almost a quarter of a million times on Facebook and have attracted huge comment and debate. His book Harry’s Last Stand attracted huge praise, with Annie Lennox saying that Harry ‘is absolutely one of my heroes. Everyone should read this and be humbled. Now the 92-year activist and author presents a unique memoir, announced on BookBrunch earlier today.

‘I say accept love as it comes and accept love as it goes because it is the only currency that never devalues us.’

At 22, the war is over for RAF serviceman Harry Leslie Smith – the now 92-year-old activist and author of the acclaimed Harry’s Last Stand – but the battle for love and hope rages on.

Stationed in occupied Hamburg, a city physically and emotionally ripped apart by Allied bombing, and determined to escape the grinding poverty of his Yorkshire youth, Harry unexpectedly finds a reason to stay: a young German woman by the name of Friede.

As their love develops, they must face both German suspicion and British disapproval of relations with ‘the enemy’.

Harry’s ardent, straight-from-the-heart memoir brings to life a city reduced to rubble, populated with refugees, black marketeers, corrupt businessmen and cynical soldiers. It’s a unique snapshot of a terrible period in Europe’s history, and a passionate love letter to a city, to a woman, and to life itself.

Love Among the Ruins will be published in August 2015 and will be available in paperback, as an ebook and as an audiobook.

New Books published in June!

We have three brand new books to share with you, all published this month.

June titles2First up, we’re thrilled to be publishing The Invisible Woman by Helen Walmsley-Johnson. From the irrepressible voice behind the much-loved Guardian column ‘The Vintage Years’ comes a clarion call for any woman who neither wants to be told constantly to look younger, nor is ready to join the ‘cardigan and slippers brigade’.

Then we have two new paperbacks. Up first is the thrilling And Some Fell on Stony Ground, a visceral and affecting fictionalised report of a bombing mission, from Leslie Mann, a former tailgunner shot down over Germany in the Second World War.

Also published in June, acclaimed popular science author Brian Clegg demonstrates how quantum physics underpins everyday life in The Quantum Age.

 

And finally, don’t forget to check out our brand new catalogue to see what else we’re publishing all the way to the end of the year!

For more information about all future releases and competitions, make sure you sign up to our newsletter.

All books are available in all good bookshops and as an eBook. Head over to @iconbooks to see how you can win all of our new books this month!

Win signed copies of The Invisible Woman!

We have two signed copies of The Invisible Woman: Taking on the Vintage Years to give away!

To celebrate the publication of The Invisible Woman: Taking on the Vintage Years, by Helen Walmsley-Johnson, we’re giving away two signed copies.

First of all, you can regram this picture below on your Instagram with the #invisiblewoman (make sure you follow @iconbooks!)

If you don’t have Instagram, don’t worry! We’ll have another signed copy to giveaway on Twitter, Friday 12th June. Make sure you follow @iconbooks and keep an eye out.

Sixty is the new forty, we’re constantly told. Or is it that seventy is the new fifty?

Yet fashionable clothes shops cater for little but elfin twenty-year-olds; magazines carry little but articles about appearing younger. Heaven forbid you try to apply for a job…

Older women are permitted to be either part of the slippers and cardigans brigade, or to cling desperately to their youth and insist on being ‘young at heart’. Can’t there be a third way? A way to age with grace, security, beauty and adventure, and a way to keep your identity against a growing tide of voices telling you how you’d be happier if only you looked ten years younger.

Covering topics from family, finances and work to cosmetics, fashion and sex, The Invisible Woman – which is also Helen’s Guardian column nom de plume – is a new sort of book about ageing; one that teaches us not how to avoid it, but how to enjoy it, grow with it, and thrive.

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Competition closes on 17th June, 23.59 GMT. Winners will be announced on 18th June.

The Invisible Woman is available now in paperback and as an ebook. Find out more here.

New Books published in May!

We have a bundle of great books to share with you, all published this month!

First up, we’re thrilled to be publishing Einstein’s Masterwork. John Gribbin puts Einstein’s astonishing breakthrough in the context of his life and work, and makes it clear why his greatest year was indeed 1915. Later in the month, published on the 14th May, former England captain and Ashes winner David Gower takes a leap of faith and names his 50 Greatest Cricketers of All Time.

New in paperback is the thrilling Zero Night, the untold story of the Second World War’s most daring escape by Mark Felton.

We have two brand new 30-Second books: Evolution and Twentieth Century and don’t miss the re-issue of Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide which landed this month!

And finally, you can check out our brand new catalogue to see what else we’re publishing all the way to the end of the year!

All books are available in all good bookshops and as an eBook. Head over to @iconbooks to see how you can win all of our new books this month!

The New Wild

Why invasive species will be natures salvation…

Icon New Wild-5We’ve published this absolutely stunning book in time for Spring. The New Wild by Fred Pearce is a provocative exploration of the ‘new ecology’ and why most of what we think we know about alien species is wrong.

Veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce used to think of invasive species as evil interlopers spoiling pristine ‘natural’ ecosystems. Most conservationists would agree. But what if traditional ecology is wrong, and true environmentalists should be applauding the invaders? Icon New Wild-6

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To accompany this brave and beautiful book, we’ve given the hardback some lavish production as you can see. Produced in PVC hardback with an acetate jacket, this has to be one of the most stunning books we’ve ever produced.

The New Wild is available in stunning hardback format and as an ebook.

New Books published in March!

 We have five more great reads to share with you, all published this month!

 

First up is Junk DNA, A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome by Nessa Carey. From the author of the acclaimed The Epigenetics Revolution (‘A book that would have had Darwin swooning’ – Guardian) comes another thrilling exploration of the cutting edge of human science. Watch Nessa as she tells us why you need to get to grips with Junk DNA.

Study smarter. Focus better. Achieve more. How to be a Knowledge Ninja will show you how. With Graham Allcott, the author who told us all how to get our inbox down to zero in How to be a Productivity Ninja, you can master the ninja approach to studying.

In Girls Uninterrupted, Tanith Carey lays out the steps for building strong girls in a challenging world. Whether they are praised for being pretty rather than smart, or accused of being ‘bossy’ rather than leaders, teaching girls how to be comfortable with themselves has never been more challenging. Laid out in clear simple steps, Girls Uninterrupted shows the practical strategies you need to create a carefree childhood for your daughters and ultimately help build them into the healthy, resilient women they deserve to be.

Women tell the truth about motherhood in Things I Wish I’d Known. Edited by Victoria Young and featuring a stellar cast of contributions from Cathy Kelly, Adele Parks, Kathy Lette and many more, this is a reassuring, moving and often hilarious collection that will speak to mothers – and mothers-to-be – everywhere.

Also published this month is A King in Hiding. The story of how Fahim, a child refugee, became a world chess champion. This is a very modern fairyale, told through the clear eyes of a child, Fahim’s tale is not only a moving account of the grim realities that underlie a supposedly caring society, but also a heartwarming testimony to a father’s determination, the kindness of strangers, and one small boy’s courageous will to succeed.

All books are available in all good bookshops and as an eBook. Head over to @iconbooks to see how you can win all of our new books this month!