The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It, Daisy Dunn
For centuries, men have been writing histories of antiquity filled with warlords, emperors and kings. But when it comes to incorporating women aside from Cleopatra and Boudica, writers have been more comfortable describing mythical heroines than real ones. While Penelope and Helen of Troy live on in the imagination, their real-life counterparts have been relegated to the margins. In The Missing Thread, Daisy Dunn inverts this tradition and puts the women of history at the centre of the narrative.
The book presents Enheduanna, the earliest named author, the poet Sappho and Telesilla, who defended her city from attack. Here is Artemisia, sole female commander in the Graeco-Persian Wars, and Cynisca, the first female victor at the Olympic Games. Cleopatra may be the more famous, but Fulvia, Mark Antony’s wife, fought a war on his behalf. Daisy Dunn shows us the ancient world through fresh eyes, and introduces us to an incredible cast of ancient women, weavers of an entire world.
Death of a Racehorse: An American Story, Katie Bo Lillis
Every year, hundreds of horses die on the racetrack. Why?
Journalist Katie Bo Lillis shows how two high-profile cases lay bare the ills facing the sport: the abrupt, industry-rocking indictments of top trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, and the untold story of Bob Baffert, the most successful and recognizable horse trainer in modern history, and the allegations he faced after a string of mysterious horse deaths and the high-profile disqualification of his latest Kentucky Derby winner for a failed drug test.
Death of a Racehorse delves deep into the horse racing world, offering intimate access to dozens of top trainers, owners, breeders, veterinarians, lab specialists, and more. The mainstream perception has been that rampant drug use is forcing these horses to run past their natural ability, resulting in heart attacks and broken legs. But this doesn’t paint the full picture.
That picture is driven by class tension between the affluent old stables and an ambitious new guard. This upstairs-downstairs drama shows blue-blooded families on a quest to restore horse racing to the good old days that never existed, versus those like Bob Baffert who are still viewed as outsiders – fantastically successful, but coming from less pedigreed backgrounds and experience. The privileged few, determined to save the sport, seem to hold a powerful suspicion that the sport’s brash, pioneering working class could not possibly be doing so well on their own.
Lillis shows how the breeding industry prioritises making millions over breeding a sound, durable horse. A disjointed race schedule, created by racetrack operators that are trying to maximize betting opportunities, makes it impossible to manage a horse’s athletic career safely. In this purely capitalistic industry, the brute force of winning and the money that follows has taken the place of a responsible husbandry of the animal that is its beating heart.
Uncommon Ground: Rethinking Our Relationship with the Countryside, Patrick Galbraith
The countryside is under increasing pressure and people, the science shows, need nature. Access to the countryside is essential for our health, our happiness and our future. But does nature need us? In January 2023, the largest land access demonstration since the 1930s took place on a bright wintery morning on Dartmoor. The access movement demands that the countryside be thrown open. This, they argue, would help nature by giving the public the opportunity to hold farmers and wealthy landowners to account. But would it really work for Britain’s growing population to spill out across the countryside, and is access quite as restricted as we are led to believe?
In Uncommon Ground, Patrick Galbraith takes us on an extraordinary tour of rural Britain, from the Hebrides to Devon, and from Anglo-Saxon England to the present day. To uncover the truth and fully understand our deep connection with the land, he meets farmers, Irish Travellers, politicians, salmon poachers, and the nation’s most-hated landowners, as well as activists calling for a total abolition of the right to own land. Uncommon Ground argues that what matters is not greater access but how we engage with the land and demands that landowners give us more opportunities to do so, while also giving endangered wildlife the right to tranquillity.
The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748–1789, Robert Darnton
When a Parisian crowd stormed the Bastille in July 1789, it triggered an event of global consequence: the overthrow of the monarchy and the birth of a new society. Most historians account for the French Revolution by viewing it as the outcome of underlying conditions such as a faltering economy, class conflict or Enlightenment ideology. Without denying any of these, Robert Darnton offers a different explanation: what Parisians themselves, those at the centre of the Revolution, thought was happening at the time and how it guided their actions.
To understand the rise of what he calls “the revolutionary temper”, Darnton draws on a lifetime’s study of pamphlets, books, underground newsletters, songs and public performances, exploring Paris as an information society not unlike our own. Its news circuits were centred in cafes and marketplaces, on park benches, and under the Palais-Royal’s Tree of Cracow, a favourite gathering-place for gossips. He shows how the events of forty years – from disastrous treaties, official corruption and royal scandal to thrilling hot-air balloon ascents and a new conception of the nation – all entered the collective consciousness of ordinary Parisians. As news and opinion travelled across this profoundly unequal society, public trust in royal authority eroded, its legitimacy was undermined, and the social order unravelled.
Naked Portrait: A Memoir of My Father Lucian, Rose Boyt
In Naked Portrait, Rose Boyt explores her complicated relationship with her beloved father, Lucian Freud, drawing on a diary she kept while sitting for him and which she found five years after his death. Enthralled by his genius, she remembered as uncontentious and amusing all the extraordinary stories he told her to keep her entertained in the studio, but the shock of the truth is profound when she looks back. What emerges is her compassion and love not just for herself as a vulnerable young woman but for the man himself, in all his brilliant complexity.
Test Cricket: A History, Tim Wigmore
Test cricket is on the cusp of its 150th anniversary. Test Cricket: A History tells the full, gripping story of the players and stories that have shaped the game’s evolution since 1877.
Tim Wigmore brings to life both Test cricket on the pitch and the game’s social significance around the world. This captivating tour is illuminated by dozens of exclusive interviews with the game’s greatest players, including Sachin Tendulkar, Pat Cummins, Michael Holding, Muthiah Muralidaran, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Chappell, Dale Steyn and Rahul Dravid.
All information sourced from publishers.
