Books published by Swift Press

The inspiration for the award-winning film Nomadland starring Frances McDormand.

'Fascinating. It blew my mind!' - Malcolm GladwellWonderworks reveals that literature is among the mightiest technologies that humans have ever invented, precision-honed to give us what our brains most want and need.

SOON TO BE A FIVE-PART HBO SERIES, STARRING WOODY HARRELSON AND JUSTIN THEROUX

How games are being harnessed as instruments of exploitation - and what we can do about itWarehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving. China scores its citizens so they behave well, and games with in-app purchases use achievements to empty your wallet. Points, badges and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life. In You've Been Played, game designer Adrian Hon delivers a blistering takedown of how corporations, schools and governments use games and gamification as tools for profit and coercion. These are games that we often have no choice but to play, where losing has heavy penalties. You've Been Played is a scathing indictment of a tech-driven world that wants to convince us that misery is fun, and a call to arms for anyone who hopes to preserve their dignity and autonomy.

Mercia's Take summons an England in the heat of the industrial revolution, and the lives it took to make it. Gripping, powerful and intense, it is the debut of an astonishing new talent. 'Energy and passion fuels this harsh and beautiful first novel; Daniel Wiles connects us viscerally to the past we have buried, the history we choose to ignore' - Hilary Mantel

A Times, Express and Daily Mail Book of the Year 2022The scandalous new novel from the godfather of the legal thriller. Lucia Gomez is a female police chief in a man's world and she's walked a fine line to succeed at the top. Now a trio of police officers in Kindle County have accused her of soliciting sex for promotions and she's in deep. Rik Dudek is an attorney and old friend of Lucia's. He's the only one she can trust, but he's never had a headline criminal case. This ugly smear campaign is already breaking the internet and will be his biggest challenge yet. Clarice 'Pinky' Granum is a fearless PI who plays by her own rules. Her 4-D imagination is her biggest asset when it comes to digging up dirt for Rik but not all locks are best picked. It's cops against cops in this hive of lies. And it will take more than honeyed words from the defence to change the punchline and save the Chief from her own cell.

With a new afterword. 'The best book on teachers and children and writing that I've ever read. No-one has said better so much of what so badly needs saying' - Philip PullmanKate Clanchy wants to change the world and thinks school is an excellent place to do it. She invites you to meet some of the kids she has taught in her thirty-year career. Join her as she explains everything about sex to a classroom of thirteen-year-olds. As she works in the school 'Inclusion Unit', trying to improve the fortunes of kids excluded from regular lessons because of their terrifying power to end learning in an instant. Or as she nurtures her multicultural poetry group, full of migrants and refugees, watches them find their voice and produce work of heartbreaking brilliance. While Clanchy doesn't deny stinging humiliations or hide painful accidents, she celebrates this most creative, passionate and practically useful of jobs. Teaching today is all too often demeaned, diminished and drastically under-resourced. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me will show you why it shouldn't be. Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2020

A groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, and a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires.

Mercia's Take summons an England in the heat of theindustrial revolution, and the lives it took to make it.Gripping, powerful and intense, it is the debut of an astonishingnew talent.

Bring Back Our Girls is an urgent and engrossing work of investigative journalism that unfolds across four continents, from the remote forests of northern Nigeria to the White House; from Khartoum safe houses to gilded hotel lobbies in the Swiss Alps.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo meets Sharp Objects in this internationally bestselling psychological thriller, for fans of Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell

Bully-Proof Kids offers concrete strategies to empower children and teenagers to deal confidently with bullying and dominant characters.