Wait Till I'm Dead

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The novel was a succes de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.

Currently in Bill Gates's bookbag and FT Books of 2018 Increasingly, the demands of identity direct the world's politics. Nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, gender: these categories have overtaken broader, inclusive ideas of who we are. We have built walls rather than bridges. The result: increasing in anti-immigrant sentiment, rioting on college campuses, and the return of open white supremacy to our politics. In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American and global institutions were in a state of decay, as the state was captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatens to destabilise the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to 'the people', who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole. Identity is an urgent and necessary book: a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continual conflict.

The second Discworld novel, revamped for new generation of readers. ‘Incredibly funny, compulsively readable’ The Times The Discworld is very much like our own – if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . 'What shall we do?' said Twoflower. 'Panic?' said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the best means of survival. As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld could do with a hero. What it doesn’t need is a singularly inept and cowardly wizard, still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world, or a well-meaning tourist and his luggage which has a mind (and legs) of its own. Which is a shame, because that's all there is . . . The Discworld novels can be read in any order but The Light Fantastic is the second book in the Wizards series.

The Untold History of the United States is filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick’s riveting landmark account of the rise and decline of the American empire – the most powerful and dominant nation the world has ever seen. Probing the dark corners of the administrations of 17 presidents, from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama, they dare to ask just how far the US has drifted from its founding democratic ideals. Beginning with the bloody suppression of the Filipino struggle for independence and spanning the two World Wars, it documents how US administrations have repeatedly intervened in conflicts on foreign soil, taking part in covert operations and wars in Latin American, Asia and the Middle East. At various times it has overthrown elected leaders in favour of right-wing dictators, for both economic and political gain. Examining America’s atomic history, Stone and Kuznick argue that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were militarily unnecessary and morally indefensible. They show how the United States has repeatedly brandished nuclear threats and come terrifyingly close to war. They expose how US presidents have trampled on the US constitution and international law and lay bare the recent transformation of the United States into a national security state. Using the latest research and recently declassified records, The Untold History builds a meticulously documented and shocking picture of the American empire, showing how it has determined the course of world events for the interests of the few across the twentieth century and beyond.

Ned Maddstone has the world at his feet. He is handsome, talented and about to go to Cambridge, after which he is expected to follow his father into politics. But an unfortunate confrontation with a boy in his school results in a prank that goes badly wrong and suddenly he’s incarcerated – without chance of release. So begins a year long process of torment and hopelessness, which will destroy his very identity, until almost nothing remains of him but this unquenchable desire for revenge. Inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo, Fry’s psychological thriller is written with the pace, wit and shrewd insight that we have come to expect from one of our finest novelists.