Books published by John Murray Press

An epic modern-day quest across the Sahara and a unique insight into the nomadic communities that surround the legendary city, by award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber.

Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? is the latest compilation of readers' answers to the questions in the 'Last Word' column of New Scientist, the world's best-selling science weekly. Following the phenomenal success of Does Anything Eat Wasps? - the Christmas 2005 surprise bestseller - this new collection includes recent answers never before published in book form, and also old favourites from the column's early days.Yet again, many seemingly simple questions turn out to have complex answers. And some that seem difficult have a very simple explanation. New Scientist's 'Last Word' is regularly voted the magazine's most popular section as it celebrates all questions - the trivial, idiosyncratic, baffling and strange. This new selection of the best is popular science at its most entertaining and enlightening.

Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? is the third compilation of readers' answers to the questions in the 'Last Word' column of New Scientist, the world's best-selling science weekly. Following the phenomenal success of Does Anything Eat Wasps? (2005) and the even more spectacularly successful Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? (2006), this latest collection includes a bumper crop of wise and wonderful answers never before seen in book form.As usual, the simplest questions often have the most complex answers - while some that seem the knottiest have very simple explanations. New Scientist's 'Last Word' is regularly voted the magazine's most popular section as it celebrates all questions - the trivial, idiosyncratic, baffling and strange. This all-new and eagerly awaited selection of the best again presents popular science at its most entertaining and enlightening.

The story of two trips, one glimpsing the future of travel, one revisiting its past. The tale of a tour that changed both Switzerland and the world of travel forever.

Longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the YearMagnus McFall was a comic on the brink of his big break when the world came to an end. Now, he is a man on the run and there is nothing to laugh about.Thrown into unwilling partnership with an escaped convict, Magnus flees the desolation of London to make the long journey north, clinging to his hope that the sickness has not reached his family on their remote Scottish island.He finds himself in a landscape fraught with danger, fighting for his place in a world ruled by men, like his fellow traveller Jeb - practical men who do not let pain or emotions interfere with getting the job done.This is a world with its own justice, and new rules.Where people, guns and food are currency.Where survival is everything.Death is a Welcome Guest defies you to put it down, and leaves you with questions that linger in the mind long after you read the last page.

A practical, exercise-based look at how to apply mindful compassion to yourself to ease emotional pain and to build better relationships with others.

The ability to recruit the right people to work for you is crucial to anyone who wants to advance their career.Written by Nigel Cumberland, a leading expert on recruitment as both a coach and a practitioner, this book quickly teaches you the insider secrets you need to know to in order to build a brilliant team.The highly motivational 'in a week' structure of the book provides seven straightforward chapters explaining the key points, and at the end there are optional questions to ensure you have taken it all in. There are also cartoons and diagrams throughout, to help make this book a more enjoyable and effective learning experience.So what are you waiting for? Let this book put you on the fast track to success!

The book will explain the contents of a set of accounts, particularly published statutory accounts. It will explain how to get behind the figures, use them constructively and understand their significance. It will systematically work through a set of accounts and show how the figures should be used and interpreted.Sunday: The Right ApproachMonday: Introduction to published accountsTuesday: Income statementWednesday: Statement of Financial PositionThursday: The remainder of a set of accountsFriday: Cash and investment ratiosSaturday: In-depth work with public accounts

Key account management just got easier'This little book is a real gem' Professor Malcolm McDonaldKey account management is increasingly important and must keep pace with its customers as they continually develop and evolve, often resulting in increasingly sophisticated buying structures. The key account manager therefore requires a wide variety of skills in order to be successful; this is not only an important job role in its own right, it is often a stepping stone to career development, leading to more senior management jobs.Successful Key Account Management In A Week is a week long course. On Sunday you are encouraged to Know your customer as success depends on a relationship that is both rewarding and valuable. On Monday you will Analyse your growth opportunities. The competitiveness of the company must be appraised to enable the identification of sales growth opportunities and all major accounts should be compared in appeal and position to give an indication of the strategy to be adopted for customers. On Tuesday you will Measure profits by account. You will be shown how to measure the profitability of major customers and to draw up league tables to enable profit improvement strategies. On Wednesday you will Plan for success, building on the analysis of growth opportunities and profit measurement already considered, to result in a best judgement final plan. On Thursday you will learn to Negotiate to win-win; success relies on understanding the difference between negotiation and selling and being able to conduct negotiations to produce a win-win situation in which the objectives of both sides are considered. On Friday you will look at Control activity levels and the monitoring of standards of performance to enable the presentation of plans and progress, allowing the measurement of success against these plans. And finally, on Saturday you are reminded to Manage relationships with an introduction to the Relationship Model which describes how business with a customer changes as it moves from a transactional or short-term sales achievement, to collaboration with long-term customer value and retention.'This little book is a real gem, which you should read, use and keep handy for continuous reference. If you follow the straightforward guidelines in this book, your company's future is assured' Professor Malcolm McDonald, Former Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director, Cranfield University School of Management

Managing yourself just got easierOne of the most important aspects of being a manager is being able to manage yourself and the first step to doing this effectively is becoming aware of yourself and evaluating your strengths and weaknesses. In Managing Yourself In A Week you will learn about good time management and organization skills including planning and setting priorities, dealing with time wasters, and practical steps on maintaining a diary and to-do lists. You will explore techniques such as managing your mind and learn about the power of positive thinking in developing strategies and making good decisions. You will learn about managing emotions, increasing confidence, dealing with nerves, motivating yourself and building strong relationships by applying good listening skills. The final chapter, on managing stress, looks at what produces stress in you and discusses ways of dealing with its consequences. Managing Yourself in a Week gives handy guidelines that will enable you to take a grip on yourself and re-evaluate your way of working and your priorities in life. It is a quick and reliable guide to the basics of self-management in the world of work.Over this week-long course you will cover:- Sunday: Know yourself well- Monday: Manage your focus clearly- Tuesday: Manage your time effectively- Wednesday: Manage your mind decisively- Thursday: Manage your emotions carefully - Friday: Manage your relationships successfully- Saturday: Manage stress thoroughly

Bestselling author T.D. Jakes brings a portable volume of daily affirmations and meditations for those who need to break habits of distraction and realise their destiny.

In the dawning age of brilliant machines, what will people do better than computers?It's easy to imagine a frightening future in which technology takes over the jobs that we now get paid to do, working more accurately and for barely any cost. Computers can already perform surgery, drive vehicles, write articles and do intricate legal work, so what hope will there be for tomorrow's workforce?Drawing on a wealth of research, Geoff Colvin uncovers the skills that will be in great demand as technology advances - and how they can be developed. In this new machine age, we shouldn't try to beat computers at what they can do. We'll lose that contest. Instead we must look to unlikely places, learn from the best, and cultivate the human abilities that make us unique.

Give your brain a workout with 100 quick general knowledge puzzles from the most crossword-friendly dictionary in the world

Give your brain a workout with 100 cryptic puzzles from the most crossword-friendly dictionary in the world

In his brief life, Hank Williams created one of the defining bodies of American music. Songs like Your Cheatin' Heart, Hey Good Lookin' and Jambalaya sold millions of records and became the model for virtually all country music that followed.But by the time of his death at age twenty-nine, Williams had drunk and drugged and philandered his way through two messy marriages and out of his headline spot on the Grand Ole Opry. Even though he was country music's top seller, toward the end he was so famously unreliable that he was lucky to get a booking in a beer hall.After his death, Williams' records sold more than ever, and have continued to do so in the half-century since. His oft-covered catalog has produced hits for artists ranging from Fats Domino and John Fogerty's Blue Ridge Rangers to Ray Charles and B.J. Thomas; from Bob Dylan and jazz diva Norah Jones, to crooner Perry Como, R&B star Dinah Washington, and British punk band, The The.In this definitive account Colin Escott vividly details the singer's stunning rise and his spectacular decline, and reveals much that was previously unknown or hidden about the life of this country music legend.Now, over sixty years after his death, a major motion picture starring Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen brings Hank Williams' tragic story to the screen. I Saw The Light first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be distributed by Sony Picture Classics in the UK.

A great, rhapsodic, urgent book full of joy, grief, rage and love . . . A must-read' Helen Macdonald, author of H is for HawkNature has many gifts for us, but perhaps the greatest of them all is joy; the intense delight we can take in the natural world, in its beauty, in the wonder it can offer us, in the peace it can provide - feelings stemming ultimately from our own unbreakable links to nature, which mean that we cannot be fully human if we are separate from it. In The Moth Snowstorm Michael McCarthy, one of Britain's leading writers on the environment, proposes this joy as a defence of a natural world which is ever more threatened, and which, he argues, is inadequately served by the two defences put forward hitherto: sustainable development and the recognition of ecosystem services.Drawing on a wealth of memorable experiences from a lifetime of watching and thinking about wildlife and natural landscapes, The Moth Snowstorm not only presents a new way of looking at the world around us, but effortlessly blends with it a remarkable and moving memoir of childhood trauma from which love of the natural world emerged. It is a powerful, timely, and wholly original book which comes at a time when nature has never needed it more.

'A startling psychological mystery' Michael GreenbergBenjam n Chaparro is a man haunted by his past. A retired detective, he remains obsessed with the decades-old case of the rape and murder of a young woman in her own bedroom.As he revisits the details of the investigation, he is reacquainted with his similarly long, unrequited love for Irene Hornos, then just an intern, now a respected judge.Set in the Buenos Aires of the 1970s, The Secret in Their Eyes reveals the underpinnings of Argentina's Dirty War, and asks what justice really means. And it explores the boundaries of love in all its forms: adoration, devotion and, finally, obsession.

If you've ever choked at a critical moment, you'll know what pressure can do. Using the strategies and techniques in this book you'll be able to take the pressure out of any situation instantly and avoid those moments when your performance drops off, just when you need it most.

'SIMPLY EXTRAORDINARY' New York Times'It's such a savage thing to lose your memory, but the crazy thing is, it doesn't hurt one bit. A blackout doesn't sting, or stab, or leave a scar when it robs you. Close your eyes and open them again. That's what a blackout feels like.'For Sarah Hepola, alcohol was 'the gasoline of all adventure'. She spent her evenings at cocktail parties and dark bars where she proudly stayed till last call. Drinking felt like freedom, part of her birthright as an enlightened twenty-first-century woman.But there was a price. She often blacked out, waking up with a blank space where four hours should be. Mornings became detective work on her own life. What did I say last night? How did I meet that guy?Publicly, she covered her shame with self-deprecating jokes, and her career flourished, but as the blackouts accumulated, she could no longer avoid a sinking truth. The fuel she thought she needed was draining her spirit instead.A memoir of unblinking honesty and poignant, laugh-out-loud humor, BLACKOUT is the story of a woman stumbling into a new adventure-the sober life she never wanted. Shining a light into her blackouts, she discovers the person she buried, as well as the confidence, intimacy, and creativity she once believed came only from a bottle. Her tale will resonate with anyone who has been forced to reinvent themselves or struggled in the face of necessary change. It's about giving up the thing you cherish most-but getting yourself back in return.A raw, vivid and ultimately uplifting memoir of addiction and recovery for anyone who is looking to find their way.

Effective negotiation skills just got easierThere was a time, not that long ago, when negotiation was seen, in the main, as the province of industrial relations folk and car-sales advisers. But, no longer! Repeated financial crises have squeezed profit margins and, in some markets, discouraged buyers from making marginal purchases or continuing habitual expenditure. Managers have found themselves in the frontline of the expectation to achieve better value for money, and the starting point for this is to shop around and explore the offers made by new suppliers, and/or to negotiate better deals with existing suppliers.Even if your job doesn't involve negotiation, then you might still be an active negotiator when replacing your car, moving house or even selling last season's wardrobe! The truth is that being a good negotiator has become a life skill, enabling those who are good at it not just to save money, but also to upgrade their computer, television or lawnmower with little or no increase in outgoings - and enhancing their reputation in the process.Becoming an effective negotiator is certainly within the scope of the majority of people. At its simplest, it involves thinking out what you want, planning how you'd like to get it and developing your powers of persuasion to convince other people that you are simply being reasonable.This book will help you to plan to become a better negotiator through being better prepared for meetings, planning clear and realistic objectives for a negotiation, maintaining concentration and making logical proposals that create agreement in the other party.- Sunday: Creating the right environment- Monday: Researching your objectives - Tuesday: People and places - Wednesday: Breaking the ice - Thursday: The agenda - Friday: Concluding- Saturday: Learning from your experiences