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This Just In

New and noteworthy arrivals in May

A Delicate Truth by John le Carré

Viking Canada
A Delicate Truth by John le Carré

2008: A covert counterterror operation code-named Wildlife is to be mounted on the Rock of Gibraltar. This one is right off the books; the target code-named PUNTER. The Brits on land, the American mercenaries by sea. Kit Probyn, an upright Foreign Office veteran with a safe pair of hands and no previous experience of the dark arts, will be the minister’s eyes and ears on the ground. His “red telephone.” Toby Bell, a rising Foreign Office star and the minister’s personal private secretary, has been kept out of the loop. Why? There are whispers of private armies, bounty, dicey intelligence, corporate wars.

2011: A disgraced Special Forces soldier who took part in Wildlife delivers a message from the dead. The worlds of Toby Bell and Kit Probyn collide. If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, at what point do these two good men become guilty bystanders?

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Margaret Thatcher: Not For Turning by Charles Moore

Allen Lane
Margaret Thatcher: Not For Turning by Charles Moore

Not For Turning is the first volume of Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century and one of the most influential political figures of the postwar era.

Charles Moore's biography of Margaret Thatcher, published after her death on 8 April 2013, immediately supercedes all earlier books written about her. At the moment when she becomes a historical figure, this book also makes her into a three dimensional one for the first time. It gives unparalleled insight into her early life and formation, especially through her extensive correspondence with her sister, which Moore is the first author to draw on. It recreates brilliantly the atmosphere of British politics as she was making her way, and takes her up to what was arguably the zenith of her power, victory in the Falklands. (This volume ends with the Falklands Dinner in Downing Street in November 1982.) Moore is clearly an admirer of his subject, but he does not shy away from criticising her or identifying weaknesses and mistakes where he feels it is justified. Based on unrestricted access to all Lady Thatcher's papers, unpublished interviews with her and all her major colleagues, this is the indispensable, fully rounded portrait of a towering figure of our times.

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The Serpent's Promise by Steve Jones

Doubleday Canada
The Serpent

A unique contribution to the God/religion debate: a scientific take on the Bible that doesn't take sides.

Many of the subjects studied by physicists or by biologists are found in the texts of the world's religions: the origins of the universe, of life and of mankind; fate, sex, age and death; and the prospects of eternal life or of fiery doom. The Bible is a handbook for understanding Nature and, in its own way, it succeeds. As a factual account, of course, it is out of date, but many of its statements can be rephrased in modern terms. Distinguished geneticist Steve Jones has done that: written a rivetingly accessible work on recent advances in our understanding of ourselves, using the Bible as a framework. His narrative is structured around the Good Book's grand themes, from Genesis to Revelations, and weaves a series of unexpected facts into a coherent whole.

The struggle of rationalism with its opposite has, after decades of torpor, returned to centre stage. Polemics against and in favour of religion and atheism fill the shelves. Instead of adding to that pile, Steve Jones stands back and takes a fresh look at that issue in a volume that is not an attack or a defence but which explores scriptural motifs--Creation, the Garden of Eden, original sin, the Exodus, virgin birth, the Resurrection, and the Last Judgment--using the methods and results of the latest scientific research. It is a remarkably quick jump, shows Professor Jones, from Adam to astrophysics.

Although some of the questions raised are beyond the capabilities of science, at least a scientist can ask them in a new way. Steve Jones shows there is a better route to understanding the universe than through doctrine.

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1940 by Susan Dunn

Yale University Press
1940 by Susan Dunn

In 1940, against the explosive backdrop of the Nazi onslaught in Europe, two farsighted candidates for the U.S. presidency—Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, running for an unprecedented third term, and talented Republican businessman Wendell Willkie—found themselves on the defensive against American isolationists and their charismatic spokesman Charles Lindbergh, who called for surrender to Hitler's demands. In this dramatic account of that turbulent and consequential election, historian Susan Dunn brings to life the debates, the high-powered players, and the dawning awareness of the Nazi threat as the presidential candidates engaged in their own battle for supremacy. 1940 not only explores the contest between FDR and Willkie but also examines the key preparations for war that went forward, even in the midst of that divisive election season. The book tells an inspiring story of the triumph of American democracy in a world reeling from fascist barbarism, and it offers a compelling alternative scenario to today’s hyperpartisan political arena, where common ground seems unattainable.

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