W W W. F L I N T B O O K S . C O . U K
B O O K S T H AT S P A R K
2022
Zero Altitude
How I Learned to Fly Less and Travel More Helen Coffey How going flight-free can save the planet – and change how you see the world.
May 2022 £16.99 9780750995726 Hardback 216 x 138mm, 288 pages UK & Commonwealth Rights
In recent decades, private jets have become status symbols for the world’s wealthiest, while quick and easy flights have brought far-flung destinations within the reach of everyone. But at what cost to the environment? Around the world, flying emits about 860 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, and until the outbreak of Covid-19, the aviation industry was one of the planet’s fastest-growing polluters. Part climate-change investigation, part travel memoir, Zero Altitude follows Helen Coffey as she journeys as far as she can in the course of her job as a top travel journalist – all without getting on a single flight. Between trips by train, car, boat and bike, she meets climate experts and activists at the forefront of the burgeoning flight-free movement. Her book is brimming with tips and ideas for swapping the middle seat for the open road. ‘Helen Coffey’s book is an inspiration to share the joys of terrestrial travel’ – SIMON CALDER
Helen Coffey is deputy travel editor of the The Independent, following stints as a travel reporter at The Daily Express and online editor of The Telegraph’s ski and snowboard section.
‘… passionate, entertaining and compelling … puts forward a strong case for travelling without flying’ – ANNA HUGHES, director of Flight Free UK
The Ocean in a Drop
Reasons to be Cheerful about the Collapse of Civilisation Dr Rosalind Savage, MBE A radical new way of looking at the future of human civilisation by one of the world’s leading female adventurers.
November 2022 £20.00 9780750999694 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 224 pages World Rights Dr Roz Savage MBE is the only woman to have ever solo-rowed the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. She holds four Guinness World Records, and was appointed an MBE for services to fundraising and the environment. She has shared a stage with President Obama, and is sought out by major organisations for her insights. In 2010 she was named Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic and is a UN Climate Hero.
The Ocean in a Drop follows the quest of Roz Savage, a frustrated environmentalist, to find out why her own endeavours and the environmental movement more generally have failed to achieve change at the necessary scope, scale and speed. Her journey takes her from the environment through economics and politics into patriarchy and a global culture of domination – the domination of rich over poor, strong over weak, humanity over nature. She examines the tragic psychological flaws of our cognitive biases and thinking errors, our tendency to reductionist thinking, and the apparent inevitability of civilizational collapse, and deduces that our best hope is to transcend our current paradigm of runaway materialism. Exploring cutting-edge theories on the nature of reality and the relationship between matter and consciousness, she peels back the veils of our shared delusions to arrive at a new narrative about what it means to be human in the 21st century. She paints a bold, exciting vision of a future paradigm that supports the thriving of people and planet.
Machines Behaving Badly The Morality of AI Toby Walsh
Toby Walsh explores how AI is here to stay and although it may not be the stuff of science fiction, but it will undoubtedly change the future of the human race, for better or worse.
May 2022 £20.00 9780750999366 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 336 pages World English Language excl. ANZ
Toby Walsh is one of the world’s leading researchers in AI. He is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales. He has been elected a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of AI, and has won the prestigious Humboldt research award. He regularly appears on the BBC and writes for global national press.
AI is rapidly becoming a pervasive and critical technology that invisibly permeates every aspect of our lives. AI touches every stage of life, from the start (predicting which fertilised eggs to implant) to the very end (powering chatbots that spookily bring back the dead). Soon robots will outnumber humans. For the first time, we are giving technology autonomy. But what happens if an autonomous AI harms or kills a person, deliberately or accidentally? It will happen, in fact, it already has. AI is changing how we operate and shaping society in ways that we unaware of. It is influencing how we shop, how we live in our homes, how we vote, how we date, how and when we have sex, and what we think about those around us. Its presence in our lives means we need to get to grips with how it works and how it thinks. ‘[Walsh] makes a persuasive case that AI will eventually have as big an impact as the Industrial Revolution … a provocative guide to the future.’ – Financial Times
Future Hackers
The Indispensible Guide For Curious Minds Matt O’Neill How can we make future-ready choices in a rapidly changing world? Here are hacks to help you thrive.
September 2022 £10.00 9781803991108 Paperback 153 x 200mm, 160 pages World Rights
Matt O’Neill is a futurist and keynote speaker, who works with global corporations to futureproof their teams. His real interest lies at the intersection between technology and humanity. His positive outlook means he’s always looking for ways to fuse the best of what technology has to offer and how we humans can flourish alongside, as individuals and societies. He has delivered keynotes at innumerable conferences across the UK, Europe and Asia on a wide range of futures topics. Additionally, he has worked at board level on business strategy, leadership development and organisational workshops to prepare teams for a changing world.
In the next two decades, we’ll see profound technological, social and cultural developments that will drive the same level of change as we have experienced the past 200 years, but it will be even faster and look and feel completely different. Future Hackers is an indispensable guide to these changes, which not only include macro trends across work, leadership, technology and our emerging post-pandemic lives, but also how these trends will combine to create entirely new ways of living. Armed with insights into these seismic changes, Futurist Matt O’Neill will provide you with some answers which will help you navigate this changing world with confidence; and more importantly, present the right questions to ask to find your own way to thrive towards 2030 and beyond.
Difference Is Born on the Lips Michael Handrick
Shining a light on the trauma of samesex abuse.
October 2022 £18.99 9780750999021 Hardback 216 x 138mm, 256 pages UK & Commonwealth (exc audio rights)
Michael Handrick’s work has been shortlisted for Penguin Random House’s Write Now 2020 and Kit de Waal’s anthology, Common People, and longlisted for the London Writers Awards, 2019. In 2013, he was invited to present his thesis on gender and sexuality at an international literary conference at Magdalen College, Oxford.
At this point in history, despite having more equal rights and media representation than ever before, the gay community is suffering a mental health epidemic. 49% of gay men have suffered from domestic abuse, while 26% have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. Those statistics would be substantially higher if gay men had been aware that they had been subjected to abuse, and if society had not denied them a right to a voice. It is not a secret that men are far less likely to discuss their emotional innerlives than women, but the repercussions of this reluctance are deadly for male homosexuals. In this shockingly raw, but beautifully written book, Michael Handrick embarks on a course of research to trace the root causes of the abuse, trauma and mental health crises faced by gay men, and the silence that surrounds them. He roots his exploration in his own journey from a working-class boy growing up on a council estate to suffering two same-sex abusive relationships.
The Super-Helper Syndrome A Survival Guide for Compassionate People Jess Baker and Rod Vincent
A response to the urgent and growing need to change the way we think about the role of helping in society.
September 2022 £18.99 9780750998864 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 256 pages World Rights
Jess Baker is a Chartered Psychologist. She started her career in clinical and research psychology in the NHS, and later moved into leadership roles in the corporate sector and consulting. She is an expert in wellbeing at work and speaks to large conference audiences on this topic. Rod Vincent is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.
Super-Helpers are the backbone of the caring professions, but they can also be found in offices, restaurants, charities, gyms and many other walks of life. All of us at some point will experience what it is like to care for a loved one. What Super-Helpers have in common is that they put endless effort into caring for other people. However, all too often they fall prey to a compulsion to help beyond their capacity and are frequently taken for granted. The increasing tensions of the last few years highlight how much we need people who care. The current health crisis has drawn even more attention to helpers with louder calls for fair pay and support. But it is not enough. Helpers are overstretched and suffering. It’s time to help the helpers. Psychologist and researcher Jess Baker has worked extensively with Super-Helpers and has learnt what motivates them and what holds them back. She gives you the tools you need to care in a healthy way.
Rigged
The Incredible True Story of the Whistleblowers Jailed for Exposing the Rotten Heart of the Financial System Andy Verity One of the most spectacular miscarriages of justice the USA and UK have ever seen. How could this happen?
November 2022 £20.00 9780750998857 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 288 pages World Rights
Andy Verity is the award-winning economics correspondent for BBC News, covering finance and business. He can currently be heard on the Today programme, Radio Four’s six o’clock news and the BBC News TV channel reporting the worst economic crisis in 300 years caused by the pandemic.
Rigged picks up where The Big Short leaves off, in the autumn of 2007, as the dark clouds of the financial crisis gather. Financial institutions enter a state of panic. For the Big 16 banks, their measure of health is an interest rate measure known as Libor (the London Interbank Offered Rate). The higher the Libor, the worse off the bank – too high and it’s goodnight Vienna. Libor is heading skywards. To save themselves from collapse, nationalisation and loss of bonuses, banks and financial institutions conspire to rig Libor so it stays artificially low, a criminal practice known as lowballing. A handful of low-level traders, outraged after being ordered to rig Libor, turn whistleblowers, alerting the Wall Street Journal. When it proves impossible for the investigators to pin the crime on the banks themselves, they turn on the traders. They charge them with rigging interest rates for profit, a crime of which – as Rigged proves – they were innocent. Innocent people jailed for years for doing the right thing, their lives ruined and families destroyed. Turns out, it’s not just the market that’s rigged – it’s the entire system
The Great Melt
Accounts from the Frontline of Climate Change Alister Doyle The time for action is now. The fate of the world’s coasts rests on a knife edge as global warming melts ice sheets and glaciers from the Alps to the Andes. The choices we make now will determine whether oceans rise by a coast-swamping 1 metre by 2100 or whether we can save our coastal communities. From the glaciers of Antarctica and the high Andes, to the small island states of the Pacific and the coastal cities of Miami, New York, Venice and Rotterdam – Alister Doyle tracks the thaw that threatens life as we know it, shining a light on the most vulnerable people at the shoreline who are already moving inland, on the scientists puzzling about what is going on, and on the ideas about how to limit the damage.
October 2021 £20.00 9780750997843 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 256 pages World Rights Alister Doyle is an award-winning journalist who has covered climate change for almost two decades. He has reported from about 50 nations in six continents, including two trips to Antarctica and numerous visits to the Arctic, and was the first Environment Correspondent for Reuters, from 2004-19. He was also a lead writer for Reuters’ awardwinning Project Greenland in 2018 and wrote the UN report, “The Heat is On” (2019).
‘This book is an innovative wake-up call for action from the fragile frontlines.’ – CHRISTIANA FIGUERES ‘The Great Melt draws our attention to the people and places where the climate crisis is a real and present danger.’ – The Earthbound Report “A must-read… Fascinating.” – ALEXANDER VERBEEK, The Planet
Dwellbeing
Fibding Home In The City Claire Bradbury The battle for our future will be fought and won in our cities. This gamechanging book reveals how we create the happy city of tomorrow.
October 2021 £20.00 9780750996020 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 256 pages World Rights
Claire Bradbury is a sustainable business specialist with a background in law and international development. Working across FTSE100 companies, charities and the Household of HRH The Prince of Wales, she has helped to engage public and private stakeholders in some of our most critical global sustainability challenges of our times.
In 2018, city dwellers numbered 4.2 billion across the globe and unsurprisingly the complexity of urban ecosystems — in which humans, nature, institutions, data and buildings compete for resources — is also ever increasing. Life in cities can be hard. It can be stressful, expensive, lonely, and even dangerous; making it difficult to tip the scale in favour of thriving, rather than just surviving. But it doesn’t have to be this way, as our planet enters a new era we are not only faced with challenges but also amazing opportunities to reshape the way we live in our cities, so that they nurture the lives we dream of. For the first time, international sustainability expert and self-confessed urban nomad Claire Bradbury, explores how we can all be a part of building the future cityscape that we want to dwell in. ‘... passionately argues for greener urban planning to help us embrace the city’s natural ecosystem and reframe its pressing challenges’ – BEAST Magazine ‘An essential read before it’s too late.’ – DEBORAH CALMEYER (ROAR AFRICA)
Friday is the New Saturday
How a Four-Day Working Week Will Save the Economy Dr Pedro Gomes A groundbreaking book on how and why the status quo of the 5-day week must change
August 2021 £16.99 9780750996846 Hardback 216 x 138mm, 288 pages UK & Commonwealth Rights
Friday is the New Saturday makes a compelling, provocative and timely case for societal change. Drawing on an eclectic range of economic theory, history and data, Dr Pedro Gomes argues that a four-day working week will bring about a powerful economic renewal for the benefit of all society. It will stimulate demand, productivity, innovation and wages, whilst reducing unemployment and crushing populist movements. The arguments come from both the left and right of the political spectrum to show that a polarised society can still find common ground. In the 1800s, people in the West worked six days each week, resting on Sundays. In the 1900s, firms began to give workers Saturdays off as well, realising that a two-day weekend helped the economy. In the 2000s, Friday will become the new Saturday, and we will never look back. ‘… a compelling approach to the topic’ – Financial Times (FT Business Books of the Month)
Pedro Gomes is Reader in Economics at Birkbeck, University of London. He studied for his BSC in Economics in his home town of Lisbon and received his PhD from LSE in 2010. A leading researcher on public sector employment his work has influenced policy makers globally. He lives in London.
‘[This] book should be on the bookshelves of every socially curious reader’ – PIETRO GARIBALDI
Planet Grief
Re-defining Grief for the Real World Dipti Tait Grief doesn’t just occur when someone dies – it is the stuff of life.
October 2021 £18.99 9780750994644 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 224 pages World Rights Dipti Tait is a respected grief therapist, mental health lecturer and ex-media producer at the BBC. She is frequently invited to be a guest speaker on TV and radio, including appearances on ITV’s This Morning, Good Morning Britain, BBC Asian Network and Thrive Global (founded by Arianna Huffington). She is due to be the focus of an episode the BBC Asian Network podcast Deep, Down & Desi: Fresh To Death.
We all grieve. From the moment we are born into this cold, loud, bright world, we experience change and loss that can often threaten to overwhelm us, but – when managed well – can help mould us into our strongest, most powerful selves. Grief is not only about death: it is part of our everyday lives. We are all grieving something. We grieve when our life changes – when meaningful relationships end, when we move house, change schools or jobs, and when our sense of identity and reality are under threat. We also grieve on a larger level – for a lost way of life and for our planet, particularly in these times of climate crisis, pandemic, fast-moving technology, misinformation and societal division. Grief can even be found in joy and is one of the most universal shared emotions, connecting people across the world in an act of love. In this surprisingly uplifting book, acclaimed grief therapist Dipti Tait draws on her own professional and personal experiences, her clients’ stories and the neuroscience behind our emotions to redefine grief for our fast-paced lives and this sometimes alarming yet wonderful world we live in. ‘… it will transform you’ – PENNY POWER OBE
A History of Seeing in Eleven Inventions Susan Denham Wade
Why do we see the world the way we do? An unusual history of sight across 500 million years.
August 2021 £12.99 9780750997164 Paperback 216 x 138mm, 432 pages World Rights
Susan Denham Wade has an MA in Creative Writing (Non Fiction) from City University, where she was awarded the City Non Fiction Award, as well as degrees in Economics and Law and a Harvard MBA. She lives in West Sussex.
In 2015 #thedress captured the world’s imagination. Was the dress in the picture white and gold or blue and black? It inspired the author to ask: if people in the same time and place can see the same thing differently, how did people in distant times and places see the world? Jam-packed with fascinating stories, facts and insights and impeccably researched, A History of Seeing in Eleven Inventions investigates the story of seeing from the evolution of eyes 500 million years ago to the present day. Time after time, it reveals, inventions that changed how people saw the world ended up changing it altogether. Twenty-first-century life is more visual than ever, and seeing overwhelmingly dominates our senses. Can our eyes keep up with technology? Have we gone as far as the eye can see? ‘I was entranced from the first paragraph. A magnificently readable survey of so much that in the human experience is profound and profoundly important to us ... As Far As The Eye Can See is a remarkable achievement.’ - STEPHEN FRY
Dare To Be Great
M-boldened
Unlock Your Power to Create a Better World Polly Higgins
Menopause Conversations we all need to have Edited by Caroline Harris
‘… we are sowing the seeds of greatness for countless generations to come. That is the Great Work of our times.’
‘Please read this book. It will save your sanity’ – KIRSTY WARK (FRSE)
Dare To Be Great is both a playful, inspirational conversation and a heartfelt call, daring each one of us and our societies to become truly great. Celebrated Earth lawyer Polly Higgins was a luminary in the environmental justice movement as she worked to Stop Ecocide across the globe. This book shares insights from her own remarkable journey, inspiring us step into our greatness and align with our unique purpose in service of a better world.
The reality of the menopause experience is so diverse and deserves to be heard. The contributors in M-Boldened speak from many different walks of life and recognise menopause as a human rights issue that affects everyone everywhere. These 21 chapters cover an astounding range of perspectives, from harrowing experiences of surgical menopause, the impact on relationships and hormonal realities of transitioning, to revelations of shocking neglect in the UK criminal justice system and compelling chapters on menopause as a time of activism, rage, transformation and realising your own power.
April 2020 £7.99 9780750994101 Paperback 198 x 129mm, 192 pages World Rights
October 2020 £20.00 9780750994064 Hardback 234 x 156mm, 288 pages World Rights
Fuck Off, I’m Sewing Swearing and Sewing That Will Have You in Stitches Profanity Embroidery Group
Stop Believing Bullsh*t and Actually Start Helping Yourself James Adonis
Swearing is good for you Stitching is good for you It’s win f*cking win
An ‘anti-self-help’ book that speaks to our need to cut through all the bullsh*t of modern life.
Once upon a time in the quiet coastal town of Whitstable, previously known for oysters and fingering, a bunch of unknown stitchers came together to sew, drink and swear. We bring you the highlights and lowlifes of the Profanity Embroidery Group. Inspired by Mrs Winchester who found a positive outlet for her frustrated negative energy. Beautiful stitching for a world that is fucked.
Stop Believing Bullsh*t offers sense in place of the sparkling nonsense that permeates the inspiration industry. It exposes the unrealistic clichés and misleading mantras that frequently just make you feel bad, replacing them with evidence-based insights that are no less motivating, but are credible, reliable and, most importantly, scientifically tested. A reality check like no other, Stop Believing Bullsh*t is among the most refreshing, liberating and surprisingly comforting books you’ll read this year.
November 2020 £9.99 9780750996051 Paperback with flaps 190 x 168mm, 96 pages 50 colour Illustrations World Rights
January 2021 £9.99 9780750994972 Paperback 192x129mm, 192 pages UK & Commonwealth (exc. Aus/NZ/Can)
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