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An intimate portrait of Yanis Varoufakis's political awakening, told through the history of his extraordinary family

'Gripping and unforgettable. It reads like a thriller' BRIAN ENO

Dramatic in scope and deep in feeling, Raise Your Soul traces three generations swept up in the whirlwind of history, across a century of occupation, civil war, Cold War fracture and economic crisis, from 1924 to the present.

At its heart are Eleni, Anna, Trisevgeni, Georgia and Danaë - the women who shaped the visionary economist most, and whose resilience and courage inspire us to resist the forces of authoritarianism that still haunt our world.

'Written with a historian's grasp of events, an economist's rationalisation of how things work and, most of all, a storyteller's understanding of the human condition, this is not just Varoufakis's story, but ours' IRVINE WELSH

'Beautiful and inspiring, I couldn't put it down' ROSIE HOLT

'Fierce ... to sit with Varoufakis's words is a gift' ESTHER ANATOLITIS

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\"Stirring and sparkling.\"--The Washington Post

Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect \"Life Ruiners\".

Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah's deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives?

Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.

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*Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize*

'A fascinating exploration of the linkages between ancestral inheritance, diasporic belonging, and our climate future... I read it in one sitting, which took me on a moving and often unexpected journey' Aube Rey Lescure

'Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations.'

Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their home villages in China to sweep the tombs of their ancestors, making offerings of food and incense to prevent them from becoming hungry ghosts that could cause misfortune. Yet for the past century, a time ruptured by war and revolution, many tombs have been left unattended. Following a record year of wildfires, Alice Mah returns to her family's rice village in South China, and discovers that her ancestors are almost forgotten, and there are no tombs left to sweep. Instead, there are incalculable clan debts to be paid.

Here Mah chronicles her journey from the rice villages of South China to her home in post-industrial England, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she grew up, to the isles and industry of Scotland where she now lives. As years pass and fires rage on, she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors' neglected graves. Her research on pollution gives way to growing eco-anxiety, culminating in a crisis of spiritual belief.

A haunting blend of memoir, cultural history and environmental exploration, Red Pockets confronts the hungry ghosts of our neglected ancestors, while searching for an acceptable offering. What do we owe to past and future generations? What do we owe to the places that we inhabit?

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Ill Tell You When Im Home

A Memoir

by Hala Alyan