New non-fiction books for May

At the heart of Is a River Alive? is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings, who should be recognised as such in both imagination and law. Macfarlane takes the reader on a mind-expanding global journey into the history, futures, people and places of the ancient, urgent concept. Around the world, rivers are dying from pollution, drought and damming. But a powerful movement is also underway to recognize the lives and the rights of rivers, and to re-animate our relationships with these vast, mysterious presences whose landscapes we share. The young 'rights of nature' movement has lit up activists, artists, law-makers and politicians across six continents - and become the focus for revolutionary thinking about rivers in particular.

At some point in life, we will all experience pain, uncertainty and loss. Widowhood, redundancy, a life-changing diagnosis, pregnancy loss, or a global pandemic. So how can we weather the storms, and cope with whatever comes next? No one can answer this better than Lucy Easthope, an emergency planner whose job is to support survivors of major disasters. She has been there after countless earthquakes, fires and floods. Time and again she has watched how people rebuild: the work, the pitfalls and the fragile joy. Here, she distils for us what she has learned about how to carry on during and after terrible times. This is a book for all of us existing in 'the after' who want not just to survive, but to live and unleash strengths we never knew we had.

If art imitates life then Ashley Walters is living proof. From his explosive performance as the drug dealer Dushane in Top Boy to his turn as an undercover detective in Bulletproof, to his time as a member of one of Britain's most notorious music collectives, So Solid Crew, Ashley's career has always explored the same conflicting forces that have governed his life. Born on a London council estate, surrounded by drug and gang culture, his father in and out of prison, Ashley found purpose in the performing arts but could never truly escape his environment. At 15, he was stabbed in the neck and left for dead. At 18, he had a gun held to his head as he held his newborn son. Through a series of hard lessons, Ashley realised he had to master his own mindset and start to take control of his future.

Is AI going to take over the world? Have scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to replace all our jobs? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? The answers to these questions, as the expert authors of The AI Con make clear, are 'no', 'they wish', 'LOL', and 'definitely not'. In fact, these fears are all symptoms of the hype being used by tech corporations to justify data theft, motivate surveillance capitalism, and devalue human creativity. Packed with real-world examples, pithy arguments and expert insights, The AI Con arms you to spot AI hype in all its guises, expose the exploitation and power-grabs it aims to hide, and push back against it at work and in your daily life.

It made your mouth water when you saw it on your feed. Now, it's time to get it on your plate! Get ready to finally tackle all those recipes you've saved on your phone but never made! 'You'll Love This' brings the internet's most-shared and most-loved recipes into one delicious, fail-proof collection.

Often, just one line can turn a difficult situation around or stop trouble in its tracks - I decide who pushes my buttons. I'll forgive myself right now. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression you could talk to me like that. I understand you completely, and I would like something else. This isn't against you, it's for me. Drawing on more than two decades' experience as a leadership and life coach, Karin Kuschik demonstrates how a well-chosen sentence can provide much-needed clarity, offering up an effective solution even in the heat of the moment. Combining entertaining storytelling with practical tips and examples, Karin shows how purposeful words can have a freeing effect, how they make us strong, calm and confident, ready to win respect, meet challenges and take control.

On 6th June 1944 when the allied armies landed on D-Day, the Second World War had already lasted almost five years. Yet many of the British and American troops who invaded Normandy were virgin soldiers, never before committed to battle. They quit summer England to face within hours a storm of machine-gun and mortar fire. They witnessed scenes, above all of sudden death, such as no exercise had prepared them for. In 'Sword', veteran chronicler of war Max Hastings explores with extraordinary vividness the actions of the Commando brigade, Montgomery's 3rd Infantry and 6th Airborne divisions on and around a single British beach. He describes their frustrations, hopes, loves and fears through the apparently interminable years training and preparing in England, then their triumphs and tragedies on the beach and beyond.

Praised by Wayne Rooney and Sir Alex Ferguson as one of the greatest and most passionate players to ever play the game, Duncan Ferguson, or Big Dunc as he is known, is larger than life in every sense. Measuring a towering 6 feet 4 inches in height, from the moment the striker emerged in British football in the 1990s, he was front and back page news. On the pitch, fans loved Duncan for his roguish charm, his thrilling goals and his total commitment in every game. But he was sentenced to 3 months in Glasgow's toughest prison for headbutting an opponent. In this book, Duncan reveals the full story: the truth about his experiences in prison, his partying with African princes and Liverpool gangsters, his fighting with burglars, his making and losing a fortune, and how he turned his life around through his beloved Everton F.C.

Where does your inner value come from? In The Self-Esteem Class, a renowned Korean psychiatrist and inner worth expert reveals a transformative lesson of self-value and its powerful impact on all aspects of our lives, including love, happiness, and success. Most of us don't realise that every single decision we make comes from the sense of our inner worth, affecting the trajectory of our lives. By understanding how the sense of the self is created and enhanced, you will get to finally attain your highest value and tap into sources of confidence and happiness that don't go away - because they start with you. Serving as a roadmap to restoring and maintaining a healthy sense of the self, the book not only offers a reliable method for unpacking inner conflicts and overcoming repetitive patterns, but also presents practical strategies for boosting our inner sense of worth and ways to act from it rather than from a place of lacking.

A powerful, personal exploration of anxiety, ADHD and neurodiversity, 'Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal' reminds us all - no matter how weird we feel - that it's okay to be a little different. We all are. What if being a bit weird is actually entirely normal? What if sharing our internal struggles wasn't a sign of weakness, but strength? For over thirty years, award-winning broadcaster and comedian Robin Ince has entertained thousands in person and on air. But underneath the surface, a whirlwind was at play - a struggle with sadness, concentration, self-doubt and near-constant anxiety. But then he discovered he had all the hallmarks of ADHD and his stumbling blocks became stepping stones. In this book, Robin uses his own experiences to explore the neurodivergent experience and to ask what the point of 'being normal' really is.