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  Gathering Flowers of the Mind:...

  Jeff Rich

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  In Gathering Flowers of the Mind, Jeff Rich has collected five fascicles of his poetry, collected over thirty years: Dreams before the Pills, After the Pills, The Burning Archive, Dr Cogito's Rebellion, and Meditations. This Melbourne poet writes in multiple traditions, variously Wallace Stevens, Zbigniew Herbert and Japanese tanka. In this audiobook edition, the poet himself narrates all his poems, and the self-revelatory preface that explains the making of the poet and the aesthetic principles expressed by the title, Gathering Flowers of the Mind.

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  Sedition - How America's...

  Marcus Alexander Gadson

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  Since protestors ripped through the Capitol Building in 2021, the threat of constitutional crisis has loomed over our nation. The foundational tenets of American democracy seem to be endangered, and many citizens believe this danger is unprecedented in our history. But Americans have weathered many constitutional crises, often accompanied by the same violence and chaos experienced on January 6. However, these crises occurred on the state level. In Sedition, Marcus Alexander Gadson uncovers these episodes of civil unrest and examines how state governments handled them. 
   
   
   
  Sedition takes listeners through six instances of constitutional crisis: The Buckshot War, Dorr's Rebellion, Bleeding Kansas, the Brooks-Baxter War, a successful terrorist campaign to overthrow South Carolina's government during Reconstruction, and the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898. He chronicles these turbulent periods of violent anti-government conflict on the state level, explaining what it was like to experience coup d'états, rival governments fighting in the streets, and disputed elections that gave way to violence. As he addresses constitutional breakdown, Gadson urges Americans to pay increased attention to the risk of constitutional instability in their home states. His sweeping historical analysis provides new insights on the fight to protect democracy today.

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  The Republic

  Plato

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  "What is justice—and is it better to be just than unjust?"
  
  This is the question that launches one of the most influential intellectual journeys in history. In The Republic, Plato constructs a "city in speech" (Kallipolis) to examine the nature of the perfect society and the perfect individual. Through a series of rigorous and challenging dialogues, he explores the radical idea of the Philosopher King, the necessity of communal living for the ruling class, and the profound Allegory of the Cave, which suggests that our perception of the world is but a shadow of a higher reality. Whether you are interested in political science, ethics, or metaphysics, The Republic remains the essential manual for understanding the structure of civilization.
  
  
  The Three-Part Soul: Plato argues that both the state and the individual soul are divided into three parts: Reason, Spirit, and Appetite. True justice, he claims, is achieved only when these parts exist in perfect harmony, with Reason (the Philosopher) at the helm.
  
  A Vision of the Ideal State: From the censorship of poetry to the "Noble Lie" used to maintain social order, Plato's vision of the Republic is both inspiring and controversial. He provides a blueprint for an educational system designed to identify and cultivate the most virtuous leaders, ensuring the city is governed by wisdom rather than greed.
  
  Why It Is a Global Foundation: Alfred North Whitehead famously noted that all of Western philosophy is but "a series of footnotes to Plato." The Republic is the origin point for nearly every debate regarding democracy, tyranny, and the role of the individual in society. To read it is to engage with the very DNA of Western civilization.
  
  Uncover the foundations of truth. Purchase "The Republic" today.

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  SAS: The History of the SAS

  Joshua Levine

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  The authorised history of the SAS by the number one bestselling author of Dunkirk, Joshua Levine. With unheard stories, this is the SAS’s wartime history in vivid and astonishing detail. 
  The SAS began as a lie, a story of a British parachute unit in the North African desert, to convince the Axis they were under imminent threat. The lie was so effective that soon a small band of men were brought together to make it real. These recruits were the toughest and brightest of their cohort, the most resilient, most dynamic and most self-sufficient. Their first commanders, David Stirling and Paddy Mayne, would go down in history as unorthodox visionaries. Yet this book tells much more than the usual origin story of the unit and seeks out less well-known leaders like Bill Fraser, who was essential in helping the SAS achieve fame for their devastating raids. By looking beyond the myth, this book brings back to life a group of men who showed immense bravery and endured unimaginable risks behind enemy lines. 
  Written with the full cooperation of the SAS and with exclusive access to SAS archives, Levine draws on individual stories and personal testimony, including interviews with veterans and family members. The book gives a visceral sense of what it was like to fight and train in the SAS in both North Africa and Europe during the Second World War, focusing on their failures as well as their successes. 
  This book is vivid with the characters of the men, their eclectic personalities, their strengths, weaknesses and many disagreements. Levine has uncovered a remarkable portrait of this enigmatic unit with stories long thought lost to history 
  The book SAS by Joshua Levine, the Sunday Times bestselling author, is a top-notch non-fiction biography that delves into the special forces of Britain during World War II. It's a compelling narrative that showcases the author's expertise in military history. 
  For fans of Roderick Bailey (Target), Damien Lewis (SAS Daggers Drawn), Julian Thompson (Dunkirk), Al Murray (Arnhem), and Rowland White (Mosquito). 
  HarperCollins 2023

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  The Secret Life of John le Carre

  Adam Sisman

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  The extraordinary secret life of a great novelist, which his biographer could not publish while le Carré was alive.  
   
  Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. 
  Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy - cover stories, cut-outs and dead letter boxes. These clandestine operations brought an element of danger to his life, but they also meant deceiving those closest to him. Small wonder that betrayal became a running theme in his work. 
  In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed. 
  The Secret Life of John le Carré reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject. “Now that he is dead,” Sisman writes, “we can know him better.”

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  Letters From Everest:...

  George Mallory

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  ‘An extraordinary treasure trove’ Andrew Marr 
  A unique collection of unpublished letters from the climbing legend George Mallory to his family, revealing his innermost thoughts about people, places and mountains. 
  On the 8th of June, 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were seen through a telescope on the upper slopes of Mount Everest. They were never seen alive again. In 1999, Mallory’s body was found below the ridge where he was last seen. In the 100 years since his disappearance, many words have been written about Mallory, but very little has ever been published of his own thoughts. 
  Letters from Everest is an eye opening set of personal letters from Mallory to his family, collected and published for the first time by his great-nephew. In the letters, Mallory is completely open about his life, his climbing and especially the three Everest Expeditions he was a part of – 1921, 1922 and the last in 1924. His writing is full of extraordinary insights – most of which have never been published in any form. They are a unique collection – an actual reflection, possibly the one and only, of the thoughts of a climbing legend who walked into history a century ago. 
  In this non-fiction biography, Mallory's letters reveal the raw and unfiltered thoughts of a man who dared to challenge nature. His experiences, his fears, his triumphs, all laid bare in this literary collection, make Letters from Everest a must-read for anyone fascinated by the world of mountaineering and exploration. 
  nan 
  HarperCollins 2024

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