New non-fiction books for January 2024
by Brandon King
Take a look at our latest non-fiction titles for January 2024, including ways to improve your wellbeing and real-life stories from WWII.
Looking for something new to read? Browse our recommendations.
Missing Persons, or My Grandmother's Secrets, by Clair Wills
When Clair Wills was in her twenties, she discovered she had a cousin she had never met. Born in a Mother and Baby Home in 1950s Ireland, Mary grew up in an institution not far from the farm where Clair spent happy childhood summers. Yet she was never told of her existence. How could a whole family - a whole country - abandon unmarried mothers and their children, erasing them from history?
To discover the missing pieces of her family's story, Clair searched across archives and nations, in a journey that would take her from the 1890s to the 1980s, from West Cork to rural Suffolk and Massachusetts, from absent fathers to the grief of a lost child. There are some experiences that do not want to be remembered. What began as an effort to piece together the facts became an act of decoding the most unreliable of evidence - stories, secrets, silences.
Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading, by Chris Anderson
As head of TED for the past 20 years, Chris Anderson has had a ringside view of the world's most significant thinkers sharing their boldest ideas across every imaginable discipline. Yet there's a single theme that stands out in his mind as the essential connecting thread: generosity. It may seem simple, but generosity has played a key role in building the tools, knowledge, and institutions that have allowed civilisation to flourish. Now, in our unsettled modern world, beset by disruption and division, Anderson believes our collective future depends on reconnecting to this vital human trait.
In this profound and inspiring book, Anderson shows how the same technologies that have been a catalyst for negativity can be turned into an exponential force for good - to create chain reactions of generous behaviour.
Borrow Infectious Generosity →
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, by Bettany Hughes
Their names still echo down the ages: The Great Pyramid at Giza. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Temple of Artemis. The statue of Zeus at Olympia. The mausoleum of Halikarnassos. The Colossus at Rhodes. The Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Seven Wonders of the World were staggeringly audacious impositions on our planet. They were also brilliant adventures of the mind, test cases of the reaches of human imagination. Now only the pyramid remains, yet the scale and majesty of these seven wonders still enthral us today.
In a thrilling, colourful narrative enriched with the latest archaeological discoveries, bestselling historian Bettany Hughes walks through the landscapes of both ancient and modern time; on a journey whose purpose is to ask why we wonder, why we create, why we choose to remember the wonder of others.
Borrow The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World →
The Four Ways to Wellbeing: Better Sleep, Less Stress, More Energy, Mood Boost, by Nicola Elliott
Better sleep, less stress, more energy, mood boost - these are the four pillars of wellbeing and there is no one better placed to show you how to do exactly that than Nicola Elliott, founder of NEOM. After 17 years of building the UK's leading wellbeing business, she has been there, done that and got the weighted blanket. In this practical book she reveals what works, what doesn't, whose advice is worth listening to, with insights from leading experts such as Mo Gawdat, Dr Kimberley Wilson and Dr Zoe Williams. Wellbeing starts with the little moments so whether you've got 30 seconds or 30 minutes, you will find simple tips and tricks that fit with your lifestyle and help you feel better than ever, the NEOM way.
Borrow The Four Ways to Wellbeing →
I Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children and the Adverts That Helped Them Escape the Holocaust, by Julian Borger
In 1938, Jewish families are scrambling to flee Vienna. Desperate, they take out adverts offering their children into the safe keeping of readers of a British newspaper, the Manchester Guardian. The right words in the right order could mean the difference between life and death. Eighty-three years later, Guardian journalist Julian Borger comes across the advert that saved his father, Robert, from the Nazis. Robert had kept this a secret, like almost everything else about his traumatic Viennese childhood, until he took his own life. Drawn to the shadows of his family's past and starting with nothing but a page of newspaper adverts, Borger traces the remarkable stories of his father, the other advertised children and their families, each thrown into the maelstrom of a world at war.
One Life: The True Story of Sir Nicholas Winton, by Barbara Winton
Sir Nicholas Winton rescued 669 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia at the brink of World War II. Most never saw their parents again. This is his story. In 1938, 29-year-old 'Nicky' cancelled a ski holiday and instead spent 9 months masterminding a seemingly impossible plan to rescue hundreds of children and find them homes in the UK. There are around 6000 people who are alive today because of him. What motivated an ordinary man to do something so extraordinary?
This book, written by his daughter, Barbara, explores the 106-year life of an incredible humanitarian, a man whose astounding feats only came to public light decades later. His legacy is to encourage us all to act when we see injustice or need, and to remind us that every one of us can change the world for the better.' If something is not impossible, then there must be a way to do it.'
Love From Venice: A Golden Summer on the Grand Canal, by Gill Johnson
In the summer of 1957, anxious to impress an admirer who had moved to Paris, while rebelling against her family, Gill Johnson, aged twenty-five, gave up her comfortable job at the National Gallery in London and travelled to Venice to take up a job teaching English to an aristocratic Italian family. 'Love from Venice' is her vivid evocation of that summer, the last hurrah of the European Grand Tour, when the international jet set lit upon the city for their fun.
Champion Thinking: How to Find Success Without Losing Yourself, by Simon Mundie
As the sports reporter for BBC Radio 1 for the best part of a decade, Simon Mundie was pitch-side at some of the most high-profile sporting events in history. It was often thrilling, but when he took to the airwaves to report on what he had seen, it felt like something was missing. The emphasis always seemed to be on the result. Who had won, and by how much? Who was 'the Greatest'? How did they do it?
Drawing on interviews with sporting legends from Jonny Wilkinson to Kate Richardson-Walsh, Lucy Gossage to Will Carling, along with coaches, psychologists and experts, Simon shares some of the tools and techniques that athletes have embraced to grow and develop - in both their sport and as people. From emotional intelligence to developing togetherness and avoiding burnout, he explores eight universal themes that are highlighted in sport - but that are all too easily overlooked.
Bored of Lunch: Healthy Slow Cooker, Even Easier, by Nathan Anthony
From Nathan Anthony, the home cook with over 3 million followers, comes another book of recipes to transform your weeknight cooking. Filled with all your favourite fakeaways, pastas, pies, soups and curries, as well as a whole chapter on meal prep recipes, you will be amazed what you can make in a slow cooker. Here are recipes with hardly any prep, fewer ingredients and clever time-saving tips, making it useful for any busy home-cook. Every recipe is 500 calories or under, providing a hassle-free way to enjoy lighter versions of your family favourites.
Sort Your Life Out: The 3-Step Method That Will Transform Your Home and Change Your Life
The first official book from the life-changing BBC One show, 'Sort Your Life Out' will have you falling back in love with your home in three simple steps. 1. STRIP - how to let go and clear out the clutter (when you don't have a warehouse to hand)! 2. SORT - time to sell, donate, recycle and upcycle. 3. SYSTEMISE - learn how to organise, fold and store in a way that is manageable and sustainable.