Academic Trade Key Titles January-June 2026

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC

JANUARY-JUNE 2026

KEY TITLES

Introduction

In such turbulent times, I’m especially proud of our trade list that offers readers the books to orientate themselves and join the debate, to discover and understand the unknown, or to contextualise and celebrate the familiar. Next season, once again, we’re publishing a wide gamut of academically rigorous research by renowned experts that readers can trust, with voices new to Bloomsbury and acclaimed authors with proven track records alike.

With Lydia Edwards, we’ve learned How to Read a Dress and Suit and now we’ll find out How to Read a Wedding Dress, with her lavishly illustrated guide to the evolution of bridal wear around the world and through the centuries. Following the success e Gutenberg Parenthesis, Jeff Jarvis tells the story of the linotype, a revolutionary machine that helped to create the mass market and mediadriven culture of today, in Hot Type. In e Godot Diaries, actor Lucian Msamati, seen on the screen most recently in Conclave, takes us on a backstage tour of the 2024 West End production with Ben Whishaw of one of the most iconic plays ever written. Revolutionary director John Doyle reflects on his career spanning five decades and across the Atlantic in Opening Doors, while Gina Waggott reveals the extraordinary life of one of the 1990s’ most unlikely pop stars with Scatman John

with her lavishly illustrated guide to the evolution of bridal wear of

For our new series Marvel Age of Comics, we’re looking towards the next batch of titles with books on e Ultimates, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Wolverine: Weapon X. We’re also adding to our well-established Object Lessons series of pocket reads on everyday things: In Ballot, Anjali Enjeti explores the psychological, cultural, and political significance of voting in an increasingly antivoting climate. The BBC’s Samira Ahmed contributes a vivid and personal exploration of the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night to our BFI Film Classics. And for 33 1/3, Yousef Srour decodes Frank Ocean’s Blonde, an album that is a contemporary classic, but has remained a mystery to so many.

And finally, looking to the best of our recent publishing, two new paperback editions offer useful reading for navigating the Trump 2.0 era. In e Art of Diplomacy, the former US Ambassador to the EU, Stuart E. Eizenstat, takes readers on a tour of the greatest diplomatic negotiations of the past 50 years. From Bob Bauer, leading legal adviser to the US Democrats, e Unraveling is updated with a new substantive chapter on ethics and politics in the second Trump administration.

Wishing you all a well-read 2026!

Jennifer Howell, Global Academic & Professional Marketing Director, Bloomsbury

How to Read a Wedding Dress

A Guide to Changing Bridal Fashion from the 18th to the 21st Century Edwards, Lydia

Lavishly illustrated in full color, How to Read a Wedding Dress displays annotated images of historical garments that outline important features and highlight how styles have developed over time, offering a fascinating overview of changing bridal trends over three centuries.

In this ideal companion to her bestselling guide, How to Read a Dress, Lydia Edwards offers a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of bridal wear around the world, from the Renaissance up to the modern day This guide explores prevalent trends and developments, including how the Victorian fashion for white silk (a break from the previous 18th-century tradition of the bride simply donning a ‘best’ dress) over the course of the 19th century developed into the now familiar and indeed ubiquitous cultural icon of the white wedding dress and veil Finally, she explores how today, brides worldwide are reimagining the past and incorporating ‘vintage’ style as an integral part of their big day and considers style choices influenced by gender identity fluidity and same-sex marriage

Equipping the reader with eclectic examples of bridal wear over the centuries, this is the ultimate guide to the wedding dress for students, researchers of fashion history, and anyone looking for inspiration for their big day

19 February 2026

256 Pages

400 color illus

Paperback

9781350293038

£24 99

Bloomsbury Visual Arts

Lydia Edwards is a fashion historian and Lecturer at Edith Cowan University and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth, Australia She gained her PhD from the University of Bristol and has taught at the universities of St Andrews, Dundee, and Western Australia (UWA) She is the author of the companion books, How to Read a Suit (Bloomsbury 2020) and How to Read a Dress (Bloomsbury 2017 and 2021)

5 February 2026

376 Pages

50 colour illus

Hardcover

9781350514089

£25 00

Bloomsbury Visual Arts

Charlotte Brontë's Life Through Clothes Houghton, Eleanor

Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told in this biography by the surviving witnesses to her life – the clothes that she once wore.

These garments were present as she penned Jane Eyre, as she walked the cobbled streets of Haworth, and as she stood with her fiancé at the altar in the summer of 1854 Yet, until now, their testimonies had remained unheard

Renowned Brontë scholar and dress historian Eleanor Houghton’s innovative, richly illustrated biography, Charlotte Brontë’s Life Through Clothes, finally gives voice to the gowns, bonnets, shawls, corsets, parasols and boots that make up the novelist’s wardrobe

Secrets are revealed in their very fibres Brontë’s steel busked corset tells the story of corporate espionage and forbidden love, whilst her striped, silk dress shows how she coped with the new-found pressures of fame When exposed to 21st century technology, a tiny sample of fabric from her ‘Thackeray Dress’ reveals important innovations of the Industrial Revolution going on around her and a black lace veil, worn after the deaths of her siblings, expresses how she dealt with repeated familial loss

These clothes, some of which still bear the imprint of her foot or the sweat from her pores, prove themselves to be far more than mere celebrity curios When ‘read’ alongside letters, portraits, her novels and the recollections of those who knew her well, Charlotte emerges as a woman altogether braver, more vulnerable, less isolated, less provincial, more fashion conscious than anyone ever expected Myths are shattered, preconceptions challenged, and, the real Charlotte Brontë, beyond the famous author, finally emerges

Eleanor Houghton is a Brontë scholar, writer and illustrator She studied English at the University of Oxford before being awarded a Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarship in History In 2022, in collaboration with the Brontë Parsonage Museum, she curated a large-scale exhibition on the surviving wardrobe of Charlotte Brontë An expert in 18th and 19th century clothing, literature and social history, she often works as consultant for film and TV, novelists and museums Her detailed drawings are widely sold and exhibited

11 June 2026

336 Pages

Hardcover

9798765123959

£17 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Hot Type

The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad Jarvis, Jeff

Hot Type is the epic story of the magnificent 19th-century machine that rendered Gutenberg’s movable type obsolete and opened the portal to the long century of mass media.

The Linotype mechanized the 400-year-old process of setting type one laborious letter at a time, and thus ignited an explosion of newspaper, book, and magazine empires The technology helped transform Mark Twain into a premier literary celebrity, but also cost him his fortune -- as well as his sense of humor and optimism The Linotype’s era was a bridge between Twain’s Gilded Age with its tycoons of steam, steel, and wire and today’s Gilded Age with its barons of bits and AI

This is a tale populated with wondrous characters: tragic inventors, malign media moguls, hand-typesetters called the Swifts who turned their craft into a spectator sport, and authors and journalists who chronicled the turmoil of their time, their every word molded into metal type by what some viewed as a thinking machine The Linotype would die at the hands of the computer, taking down with it printers’ unions and many a newspaper Its history provides an opportunity to examine the impact of technology on culture just as new technologies the internet and artificial intelligence manufacture their endless streams of words today

Jeff Jarvis holds the Leonard Tow Chair in Journalism Innovation and directs the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism He was the creator and founding managing editor of Entertainment Weekly, TV critic for TV Guide and People, Sunday editor of the New York Daily News, a media columnist for The Guardian, and president and creative director of Advance net He blogs at Buzzmachine com, cohosts the podcast This Week in Google, and is the author of six books: What Would Google Do? (2009), Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live (2011), Geeks Bearing Gifts: Imagining New Futures for News (2014), The Gutenberg Parenthesis (2023), and Magazine (2023) in Bloomsbury's Object Lessons Series

ALSO BY JEFF JARVIS

14 May 2026

224 Pages

15 color photos

Hardcover

9798881842413

£30 00

Bloomsbury Academic

19 February 2026

224 Pages

26 bw photos

Hardcover

9798881804824

£19 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Power, Grit and Glamour

The Women Behind Halston

Sturtz-Filby, Tamara

An intimate look at the Halstonettes the women who inspired legendary fashion designer Halston

One of the greatest fashion designers of all time, Halston defined and dominated the 1970s He was America’s first fashion superstar, a groundbreaking craftsman and a pioneering businessman who also exuded glamour, wit and charm More important than the million-dollar success and the movie-star status though was the powerhouse of incredible women that he surrounded himself with Without them there would be no Halston This is the untold story of those women

Power, Grit and Glamour: The Women Behind Halston highlights the entourage of models, often known as the “Halstonettes,” who not only worked with, accompanied, and supported Halston at every turn, but were fiercely loyal and loved him deeply Beginning with Eleanor Lambert, the ‘Godmother of Fashion,’ Tamara Sturtz-Filby charts the rise of Halston from every socialite’s hatmaker to creating his own named label, introducing readers to the women who guided him every step of the way to fame and stardom

Broken into three parts, Power, Grit and Glamour features exclusive interviews and quotes from those who worked with and knew Halston as well as fifteen color photographs that visually transport the reader into the world of 1970s fashion

Tamara Sturtz-Filby has been a journalist for over 30 years specializing in fashion, beauty, and women’s lifestyle She worked for Marie Claire and Harper ’s Bazaar for a total of twelve years, after which she freelanced for Vogue, Elle, Red, Grazia, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Evening Standard, ES Magazine, and The Sunday Times Tamara has written two books, Behind The Gloss (2023) and The Story of the Diamond (2023) and is currently finishing her third, The Little Book of Tiffany & Co (2025) She lives in the United Kingdom

A Four-Eyed World

How Glasses Changed the Way We See King Dunaway, David

A fun and informative cultural history of glasses that explores their origins, stigmas, future in technology, and more.

Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them unless we can’t find them Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history: Oxford scholar Roger Bacon pioneered the science of using lenses to see and then spent a decade in a miserable medieval prison cell for his hubris, for advocating that he could “fix” God’s creations by improving our eyesight Even today, people take off their glasses before having their picture taken because they have been taught that wearing glasses is somehow unattractive

A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See is the first book to investigate the experience of wearing glasses and contacts and their role in culture David King Dunaway encourages readers to take a look at how they literally see the world through what they wear by exploring everything from the history of deficient eyesight and how glasses are made to portrayals of those who wear glasses in media, the stigma surrounding them, and the future of augmented and virtual reality glasses He illustrates how glasses have shaped, and continue to shape, who we are and who we are becoming

A Four-Eyed World is the story of how we see the world and how our ability to see things has evolved, ultimately asking: How have two cloudy, quarter-sized discs of crystal or glass riveted together become so essential to human existence? Readers will find out through this fascinating and insightful cultural history of one of humanity’s greatest inventions

David King Dunaway, professor of English at the Universities of New Mexico and Sao Paulo, Brazil, is the author and editor of 10 historical and biographical books, including Huxley in Hollywood, which is currently optioned for a feature film by Mint-Productions, U K His books have been translated and serialized internationally to Time Out and The Sunday Correspondent in the U K , The American Way (America Airlines), and made the front page of the old Village Voice His book tours have included appearances on PBS, CNBC, and CSPAN’s Book TV, as well as dozens of regional and local stations He resides in Los Ranchos, New Mexico

16 April 2026

144 Pages

20 bw images

Hardcover

9798765163047

£20 00

Bloomsbury Academic

22 January 2026

288 Pages

20 bw illus

Hardcover

9781350412187

£25 00

Methuen Drama

There's a Criminal Touch to Art

How Ulay Stole Hitler's Favorite Painting and Redefined Performance Art Abramovic, Marina

The definitive book on the theft of Hitler's favorite painting from the Neue Nationalgalerie and its importance to the history of art theft as well as the history of art On 12 December 1976, German conceptual artist Ulay stole Hitler ’s favorite painting from the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin It was art theft as conceptual artwork he hung the painting on the wall of a workingclass immigrant family then phoned the museum to let them know where they could retrieve it This is among the most famous performance artworks in history, and Ulay’s most iconic artistic action This unique and groundbreaking book tells the complete story of this art theft as artwork from three perspectives and with three authors While Ulay passed away in 2020, he recorded his own first-person account of the action in conversation with art historian Noah Charney This direct account from Ulay will provide one part of the book The action was conceived and undertaken along with Ulay’s partner at the time, Marina Abramovic, who is among the most famous living artists in the world her account of the action will follow Ulay’s in this book Finally, Noah Charney will write about the action and placing it within the context of art history as well as the story of art theft The result is the definitive book on this fascinating incident's importance to both the history of art theft and the history of art

Marina Abramovic, performance artist and founder of the Marina Abramovic Institute, has presented her work at major institutions around the world and at many international exhibitions; she performed with Ulay from 1975-88

Working in photography, video, and environmental activism, Ulay revolutionized performance and conceptual art, still influencing artists today His collaborations with Abramovic challenged conventions of art, gender, and relationships

Noah Charney, founder of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, has authored more than a dozen books and written for dozens of major publications He has taught art history for Yale University, Brown University, American University of Rome, and University of Ljubljana

The Cambridge Footlights

A Very British Comedy Institution Sellers, Robert

In the league table of the funniest universities in the world, Cambridge wears the crown Home of Britain’s oldest student sketch comedy troupe, the Cambridge Footlights, it has been a veritable conveyor belt of comic talent that’s been rolling for more than a century

From Monty Python, The Goodies and Not the Nine O’Clock News to Peep Show, QI and The Great British Bake-Off, its alumni are behind many of the shows that have entertained since the 1960s to today This book tells the story of the Footlights, chronicling its evolution from its creation in the 1880s to the present

The Footlights has long been a potential portal to fame: talent scouts, especially from the BBC, were in the habit of coming up to Cambridge on the lookout for comedy writers and material This book traces the journeys of its most distinguished alumni, including Germaine Greer, John Cleese, Douglas Adams, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Miriam Margolyes, Emma Thompson, Richard Ayoade, David Mitchell and Sue Perkins, among many others

Featuring interviews with numerous former Footlights alumni, and accounts of routines and revues, it vividly captures the desire of each successive intake to make their comic mark Through examining the impact of the Footlights on British popular culture and comedy over the last 60 years, it demonstrates how its farces, musical comedies, pantomimes and the famous May Week revues have both reflected the tastes of the times and served as a ‘nursery’ for generations of comic writers and performers In the world of comedy, it is a unique institution

Robert Sellers is the author of over 25 books on subjects such as cinema, theatre, television, music and popular culture These includes Raising Laughter: How the Sitcom Kept Britain Smiling in the '70s (2021), as well as authorized biographies of Oliver Reed, Kenny Everett and Ernie Wise, along with histories of Ealing Studios, Radio 1 and James Bond

22 January 2026

224 Pages

16 colour illus

Hardcover

9781350535961

£20 00

Methuen Drama

The Godot Diaries Behind the Scenes of Beckett's Play

Msamati, Lucian

A fascinating, behind-the-scenes diary account of working on a major production of Beckett’s iconic play from acclaimed actor Lucian Msamati

From his agent’s phone call offering him the role of Estragon, Lucian Msamati brings brilliantly to life the experience of co-starring with Ben Whishaw in James Macdonald’s celebrated production of Waiting for Godot in London’s West End With the likes of Jonathan Slinger as Pozzo and Ben Edden as Lucky, this production has some of today’s finest theatre actors bringing new life and meaning to Beckett’s 1949 play

Through rehearsal room highs and lows, workaday laughs and tears, literal stumbles and grumbles, we journey with Lucian, his fellow actors and creatives, and Beckett’s play, sharing in the personal and dramaturgical discoveries they make and the inevitable emotional contours of an experience as intense as this one

As the final curtain comes down (and Lucian’s trousers, too, as it happens) after the production’s four-month run, we feel intimately connected with Beckett’s elusive play and characters, slightly more able to navigate the play’s surprising twists and turns, and with a renewed sense of appreciation for the work and graft of an actor and all that comes with it

Lucian Msamati is an award-winning actor, writer, director and producer Born in the UK and raised in Zimbabwe by his Tanzanian parents, Msamati is a founding member of Zimbabwe’s acclaimed Over the Edge Theatre Company His film and TV credits to date include starring roles in The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Game of Thrones, Gangs of London, Doctor Who, Black Earth Rising, His Dark Materials, Kiri, Taboo, See How They Run, The Good Liar and Conclave His theatre credits as an actor include Amadeus, ‘Master Harold’ and the boys, The Amen Corner and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (National Theatre); Pericles and Othello (RSC); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Lyric Hammersmith); Little Revolution and Ruined (Almeida); Clybourne Park, Belong and If you Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep (Royal Court); Fabulation, Gem of the Ocean and A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes (Kiln, formerly Tricycle) Between 2010 and 2014, he served as Artistic Director of the acclaimed British African theatre company tiata fahodzi He is the author of Acting in the National Theatre Backstage Guides series (Methuen Drama, 2025)

Phone reveals an email from Lesley with the heading: Waiting for Godot.

My stomach flips. Dammit! I mutter to myself. I was home free! Ready to head off to other creative climes. What the actual flip is this? … ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!’

— From chapter “Act One, Scene Two: Vindication!”

22 January 2026

248 Pages Hardcover

9781350508521

£25 00

Methuen Drama

Opening Doors Reimagining the American Musical Doyle,

John

“In this honest, self reflective piece, John so beautifully and succinctly shares of his experience in theatre and the passion with which he pursues the opportunity to create art that is connective tissue for humanity and a reflection of the time we live in.”

(Cynthia Erivo, Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award-winning star of Wicked)

Director John Doyle is an unlikely revolutionary Described by critics as 'the saviour of the Broadway musical', the 'amazing Mr Musicals' and 'the man who changed the face of the American musical', his name alone has become synonymous with a style of reinvention that has opened doors to what commercial musical theatre can be in the 21st century

In his first book Doyle reflects on the 50-year theatrical journey taken by a boy who never dreamt it could happen to him Through simply working at his craft and trying to earn a living he gained a reputation for thinking outside of the box and is credited with helping create a new art form – that of actor-musician led musical theatre

From the Highlands of Scotland to prestigious regional theatres and Broadway, he has achieved multiple Tony Awards thanks to revolutionary productions of Sweeney Todd, Company and The Color Purple This reflective yet practical book tracks a rich and celebrated journey in theatre from one of its most important and recognized contemporary artists

Through anecdotes, industry insight and practical advice, this book inspires students of theatre both young and old to look into themselves and discover what makes each of us unique From working directly with esteemed artists such as Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman, John Kander and Terrence McNally to actors such as Patti LuPone, Chita Rivera, Judy Kuhn and Michael Cerveris, it also considers the challenges of programming and running a prestigious New York theatre at the height of Covid and against an ever shifting social background This book is a record of a remarkable career in the theatre that demonstrates how art comes from within and our journeys make us who we are

John Doyle has been Artistic Director of four prestigious UK theatres He has an extensive directing career in theatre, film and opera His credits in the US include Broadway productions of Sweeney Todd (Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical); Company (Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical); The Visit (Tony Nomination for Best Musical); The Color Purple (Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical); A Catered Affair (Drama Desk Nomination for Best Director of a Musical), as well as Carmen Jones (Lortel Award for Best Revival of a Musical); Peter Grimes (Metropolitan Opera); The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (LA Opera); and Road Show (The Public Theater) John has numerous theatre credits in London’s West End and throughout the UK Until recently he was Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company in New York City and a Professor at Princeton University, USA

I treasure the theatrical lessons I’ve learned from John and the friendship that has forever enriched my life. Now with this incisive, deeply personal, and entertaining book, John continues to open doors that will inspire and enlighten his readers just as he has for me.

— From the foreword by Patti LuPone

5 February 2026

240 Pages

15 BW Photos

Hardcover

9781493086337

£24 99

Bloomsbury Academic

28 May 2026

352 Pages

168 B/W Photos

Paperback

9781493076376

£33 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Popcorn Disabilities

The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies

Lopez, Kristen

You can learn a lot from the movies about sex and relationships, about business, about history Sure, there’s a fair amount of fantasy, wish fulfillment, and glorious hair to exaggerate everything, but for better or for worse, films remain one of the most important ways that viewers around the world learn about other people and cultures And almost since the dawn of the medium, movies have shaped the public’s understanding of and assumptions about disability

As a film critic and disabled person, Kristen Lopez speaks with particular authority on how disability is represented and too often misrepresented in movies Popcorn Disabilities is her impassioned but nonetheless fun and engaging survey of how Hollywood has dealt with disability over the last century As she reveals, even when they’re not just narrative props to help out an able-bodied protagonist, disabled movie characters are overwhelmingly white, affluent, and conventionally attractive, obscuring the variety of disabilities and the experiences of those who deal with them But she also explains where films have gotten it right and how the power of the medium can continue to be used to enlighten and educate in the future From little-remembered gems like Tod Browning’s Freaks one of the earliest well-intentioned attempts to show disabled characters as complex, three-dimensional human beings to contemporary films like Coda, My Left Foot, A Different Man, and many others, it challenges popular assumptions about disability while never losing sight of movies’ unique power, influence, and potential as a tool for social good

Kristen Lopez is a pop-culture essayist, critic, and editor whose articles have been featured by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, MTV, TCM, and RogerEbert com She was previously the Film Editor for TheWrap and the TV Editor for IndieWire, where she was nominated for a SoCal Journalism Award and National Journalism Award by the LA Press Club She is the author of But Have You Read the Book?: 52 Literary Gems that Inspired Our Favorite Films and the creator of the classic film podcast Ticklish Business

King Kong

The History of a Movie Icon Morton, Ray

King Kong’s 1933 debut was not just a terrifying monster movie, an epic fairy tale, and a tragic love story, it was also a landmark piece of cinema and the point of origin for deeply resonant cultural myth

Its legacy encompasses a vast cinematic universe that includes ten movies (and counting), as well as novels, comics, television shows, collectibles, and even a Broadway musical In this extensively updated edition of the classic book first published two decades ago, King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon is the definitive chronicle of the most famous ape in pop-culture history It spans the whole of the Eighth Wonder ’s filmography, chronicling in detail the conception, production, release, and legacy of each Kong movie beginning with the 1933 original, through Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake, and on to the newest movies that place Kong within an ever-expanding “Monsterverse ” Author and Kongophile Ray Morton also offers entertaining detours through the character ’s incarnations in other media, plentiful trivia, and reflections on the franchise’s enduring appeal Packed with photographs and based on extensive new research and exclusive interviews, this is by far the most complete and comprehensive guide to all things Kong

Ray Morton is the author of four previous popular film histories: King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson (2005), Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Making of Steven Spielberg’s Classic Film (2007), Amadeus: Music on Film (2011) and A Hard Day’s Night: Music on Film (2011), as well as the books A Quick Guide to Screenwriting, A Quick Guide to Television Writing, and A Quick Guide to Film Directing He has written multiple produced sitcom scripts, been a columnist for Script magazine, and works as a story consultant and script analyst

11 June 2026

240 Pages

22 color photos

Hardcover

9798881807313

£30 00

Bloomsbury Academic

30 April 2026

304 Pages

54 b/w images

Hardcover

9781493079599

£36 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Fashioning Hitchcock

Stories Behind the Costumes from The Lodger to Marnie Young, Caroline

A tribute to and examination of the contributions of costume designers to Hitchcock’s illustrious film career

With his keen artist’s eye, Alfred Hitchcock’s genius as a director lay in the visual universe he developed across a six-decade career In the many unforgettable moments from his movies, it’s the costume that enhances the storytelling; Tippi Hedren cowering from a mass of angry birds in her torn green dress, Cary Grant in a glen-check suit as he escapes a crop duster, and Kim Novak emerging from green mist in her ghost-like gray suit

For Hitchcock, clothes were a tool for suspense In Fashioning Hitchcock, Caroline Young details Hitchcock’s relationships with his costume designers to create an identifiable aesthetic through clothing Using archival material including letters, memos between producers and designers, wardrobe plans, and accounts of those who worked with him, Young paints the full picture of the use of costume in Hitchcock’s movies, and his key relationships with designers, producers, and actors to delve into the visual language, the obsessions, and the quest for beauty that defined his six-decade career Young also touches on how Hitchcock set out to appeal to a female audience, revealing his leading ladies’ wants and desires as they navigated their place in the world This is an essential addition to any Hitchcock fan’s bookshelf and insightful exploration of the role of costume design in filmmaking

Caroline Young is an author from Edinburgh, Scotland, who specializes in film, fashion and popular culture Her previous works include The It Girls: Glamor, Celebrity, and Scandal, Hitchcock’s Heroines, Living with Coco Chanel, Audrey in Paris, The Fabulous Frances Farquharson: The Colourful Life of an American in the Highlands, and Crazy Old Ladies: The Story of Hag Horror, which was nominated for both a Rondo Hatton Award 2023 and the 2022 Richard Wall Memorial Award

Hitchcockian Thrillers

Must-See Films in the Style of the Suspense Master Rebello, Stephen

During Alfred Hitchcock’s five-decade reign as the screen’s internationally celebrated Master of Suspense, he directed 53 motion pictures In such Hitchcock gold standard classics as The 39 Steps, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds, he staked his claim as the architect, the O G of the thriller He laid down the rules and rhythm of the genre, created an immediately identifiable visual style, experimented constantly with technique, pushed boundaries, tweaked censors, and shattered the expectations of his audiences -along with their nerves In exploiting his private fears and vulnerabilities, Hitchcock was as brilliant as making us think and feel as he was at making us scream and invading our nightmares His films elevated the form and were among the biggest box-office successes and most influential of their time They were and are emulated for their fashion sense and, more lastingly, even nudged the culture forward by liberalizing attitudes toward cinematic violence and sexual frankness

Hitchcockian Thrillers: Must-See Films in the Style of the Suspense Master is a curated, opinionated, authoritative, highly personal, lavishly illustrated guide to nine decades of international moviemaking featuring films by directors – beginning in the era of Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Sir Carol Reed and moving right up through today’s David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Martin Scorsese – who have all tried to ‘do a Hitchcock ’

Stephen Rebello is a well-known film historian, screenwriter, and commentator He has been invited to speak about Hitchcock and his work in England, Japan, China, Italy, and throughout the U S Stephen has been interviewed about Hitchcock on Today, Larry King Live, Good Morning, America, and numerous other national TV shows He has recorded three audio commentaries for Hitchcock films on DVD and Blu-ray, and recorded the audio commentary for the home entertainment release of the 2012 feature film Hitchcock, on which he was a screenwriter

19 March 2026

192 Pages

20 b/w illustrations

Hardcover

9781538195635

£25 00

Bloomsbury Academic

8 January 2026

272 Pages

16 b/w photos; Paperback 9781493074785

£21 99 Backbeat

Magic Moments

The Perry Como Story

Long, Matthew

This biography explores the inspiring story of one of the world’s greatest entertainers, from humble beginnings to superstar success

Matthew Long sheds light on the enduring popularity of the Italian American legend In a career spanning 65 years, Como perfected a style and approach to popular music that was timeless and cross-generational in its appeal Magic Moments provides fresh insights into the life of a man whose relaxed on-screen persona belied his strong work ethic and high standards, both personally and professionally After years of one-nighters on the road as a band singer, Perry was ready to give up singing at 30, but through the belief and insistence of his wife, Roselle, he would go on to become an international superstar From barber to balladeer, Perry Como’s story is one that epitomizes the “American Dream ”

Como’s prolific achievements on record and his pioneering contributions to the television medium are discussed in detail, supported by commentary from friends, colleagues, and critics Each chapter focuses on a specific period in the Como career and includes a recommended listening section Completing the study is an extensive, specially curated index of essential songs from records, radio, television and beyond

Matthew Long is a music historian, producer, and vocalist with a specialist knowledge of 20th-century popular music In 2005 he founded The Perry Como Appreciation Society and has since led and contributed to many projects concerning the Perry Como legacy As radio producer, his productions have been heard on the BBC and in North America He lives in Solihull, United Kingdom

Magnum Opus

The Unbelievable 15-Year Saga of Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy Greene

Jr , James

By 1993, Guns N’ Roses had hit practically every benchmark possible for a rock n’ roll band

Their eight-year journey had included an explosive and game-changing debut record, a selfindulgent but even more successful double album release, a handful of raucous global tours, and various front-page controversies over their lyrics, band members’ drug addictions, and lead singer Axl Rose’s rattlesnake temper

The most captivating part of the Guns N’ Roses story was just beginning, however A fifteenyear saga was about to unfold over the creation of the group’s sixth studio album, Chinese Democracy a perverse and jaw-dropping tale that would come to involve not only a small nation of diverse musical talent but also several figures from the world of professional sports, a multinational soft drink company, and the FBI Cultural critics couldn’t agree if the resulting work was unprecedented genius or a criminally mediocre

Magnum Opus: The Unbelievable 15-Year Saga of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy recounts in engaging depth and detail the long and often ludicrous road to the last mythic rock ’n’ roll album of the 20th Century Of course, Chinese Democracy was not released until well into the 21st Century, and Magnum Opus assembles a thrilling narrative of the mishaps, detours, and near-death experiences that accompanied the long journey to its release

Combining outrageous facts and never-before-told stories from as many direct sources as possible, this is the definitive story of a famously troubled album that will allow rock ’n’ roll diehards to finally separate truth from fan lore and outright fabrications

James Greene, Jr has previously written three books: Brave Punk World: The International Rock Underground from Alerta Roja to Z-Off, This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of The Misfits, and A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever

As a freelance writer, he has contributed to such publications as New York Press, Orlando Weekly, Crawdaddy!, and No Recess! He lives near Ding Dong, Texas

5 February 2026

288 Pages

Hardcover

9798881807078

£21 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Scatman John The Remarkable Story

of the World's Unlikeliest Popstar

Waggott, Gina

John Larkin – a fast-living, hard-playing, stuttering jazz pianist – overcame abuse, addiction, ageism, and obscurity to stage one of the most improbable debuts in pop music history by turning his greatest pain into his purpose.

At 52, Larkin was a recovering alcoholic and veteran pianist, haunted by shame because of his lifelong stutter His stutter meant he could scat-sing better than anyone else on the planet, grabbing and firing syllables like bullets – yet he couldn’t even say his own name But when a small, indie record label took a gamble on an oddball fusion of John’s scat-singing and dance music, his life changed overnight: Scatman John was born In 1995, his singles “Scatman (SkiBa-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” and “Scatman’s World” shot to #1 across Europe and Asia, turning a man who’d spent his life hiding into a global star Audiences were captivated by the absurdity and charm of a middle-aged man in a fedora, machine-gunning syllables over a dance beat But behind the novelty was a deeper story: John’s scat-singing was creative camouflage for his stutter – his music, a last-ditch attempt to survive When fame finally found him, he chose to reach others who felt broken or silenced, especially stutterers like him, by harnessing the one thing he was most afraid of: his voice

Based on rare archives and interviews with those who knew him best, this authorized biography is a redemptive, deeply human story of struggle, heartbreak, and triumph For anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider, this book inspires with a powerful message: your deepest fear can become your greatest strength, and your pain can become your purpose

Gina Waggott is a writer, editor, and former BBC professional with a background spanning broadcasting, journalism, and disability advocacy Her work has been published in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent, Reader ’s Digest, Significance Magazine, and over a hundred different websites for companies such as Microsoft and Amazon UK A covert stutterer, she is active in several nonprofits serving the global stuttering community and its allies

‘Th-th-th-’, John tried again. He stood there, trembling, trying to get something more than splintered syllables to come out of his mouth.

He gulped another breath.

‘Thhhhh …’ His cheeks were red, his mouth twisted. Time stretched, each second an eternity. Some kids snickered and nudged each other.

After at least a minute of futile attempts, John gave up, and fell silent. He looked at the floor. The familiar feeling of defeat washed over him. Someone laughed out loud. John burst into tears, and ran back to his seat.

He would be able to recite that newspaper article, word for word, for the rest of his life. As he sat there with his head buried in his arms, his shoulders hitching, he wondered if this was his destiny: to be forever imprisoned by his own voice.

— From the prologue

22 January 2026

424 Pages

24 b/w photos

Hardcover

9798881802714

£25 00

Bloomsbury Academic

11 December 2025

256 Pages

6

Punk Spirit! An

Oral History of Punk Rock, Spirituality, and Liberation Malkin, John

A wide cast of musicians and artists provide surprising and thought-provoking insights into punk rock from the lens of spirituality and liberation

Punk Spirit! is an oral history that examines this movement from many unique perspectives, bringing together well-known and cutting-edge bands including Sex Pistols, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, The Ramones, Gang of Four, Pussy Riot, Crass, Talking Heads, Propagandhi, The Slits, Bad Religion, Shelter, Rebel Riot, Blackfire, and many others

Punk Spirit! ventures into the emotional and personal experiences of punk artists and activists from around the world and highlights intelligent, thoughtful, and humorous discussions on liberation, spirituality, and living freely They discuss a myriad of topics from creativity and anger to freedom from suffering and the ways that punk rock has opposed or embodied religious and moral tenets Chapters dive deeply into a variety of interconnected realms of punk rock such as the subgenre of straight edge, Krishnacore and Taqwacore, evangelical punk concerts in southern California churches, illegal punk concerts in East German churches, anti-religious sentiment within punk rock, the vital connections between punk and self-expression, and the myriad ways punk rock has been combined with spiritual and religious traditions to illuminate ideas from science, atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other ways of being in the world

John Malkin is a journalist, musician, activist, photographer and filmmaker He is the author of Punk Revolution!: An Oral History of Punk Rock Politics and Activism , and his interviews and writings have been published in internationally including Adbusters, Punk Planet, Razorcake, Spirituality & Health, Z Magazine, Ode, In These Times, Sojourners, The Sun, Film International, Shambhala Sun, Tricycle, Friends Journal, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Monterey Herald, and others He lives in Santa Cruz, California with his wife and son

Unfinished

The Role of the Artist in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Cantor Santiago, Lucas

For most of his career, the Emmy Award–winning composer and producer Lucas Cantor Santiago was a self-described luddite Technology, he felt, was moving too fast, transforming the world and the arts with no regard for the cost in tradition, hard-won human wisdom, and tried-and-true methods of mastery

That changed, however, when Cantor Santiago was commissioned by Huawei, one of the largest technology companies on the planet, to collaborate with artificial intelligence and finish Franz Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony a successful experiment that attracted attention throughout the world Creating music in collaboration with a machine led him to question his long-standing assumptions about what music is, what technology does, and how the two have evolved together over the course of human history, from the first bone flute to today’s landscape of constant innovation and change

Drawing on Cantor Santiago’s extensive experience in the arts and tech worlds and his ongoing experiments with AI-powered musicmaking, Unfinished is an engaging and refreshingly optimistic meditation on the role of technology in music and the arts What is the current state of the art? How did we get here? Where do we go now? This book provides an informed perspective on what is lost but what we also gain when we bring our machines ever further into the creation of art in its many different forms

Lucas David Cantor Santiago is a composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist He has collaborated on projects with Lorde, The Wu-Tang Clan, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Warner Music, DreamWorks, Disney, NBCUniversal, Fox, Netflix and many others His music can be heard on the radio, on television, in major feature films, NFL football coverage (including the 2023 Super Bowl) and on concert stages In addition to numerous other awards and honors, Lucas is a two-time Emmy Award winner

His concert works include the final two movements of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony (finished with AI), the Softbank Sinfonia (a data-driven octet), New Composition #38 (a piece written by AI and produced by Cantor Santiago) and 24 Dedications, all of them recorded and performed around the world

14 May 2026

272 Pages

Hardcover

9798216368021

£21 99

Bloomsbury Academic

11 June 2026

304 Pages

25 b/w photos; 1 b/w illustration

Hardcover

9798216383208

£25 00

Bloomsbury Academic

A Little More Love

The Life and Legacy of Olivia Newton-John Hild, Matthew

An in-depth biography that closely examines the superstar ’s multi-faceted career, personal life, advocacy, and legacy

Olivia Newton-John was one of the biggest and most iconic global pop stars in history with estimated record sales of over 100 million and starring roles in several films, including Grease and Xanadu Her hit “Physical” was ranked by Billboard as the most popular single of the 1980s Behind all of this glitz and glamor was an extremely strong, kind, and resilient person with an unfailing, positive attitude in the face of personal tragedies and setbacks For decades, she bravely and publicly battled breast cancer while continuing her career and advocated for environmental issues, animal rights, and LGBTQ+ rights

This biography, based on extensive archival research and original interviews with many of her friends and associates, reveals the real person who was Olivia Newton-John Matthew Hild provides many never-before-shared insights into the star ’s life, including her humanitarianism and personal struggles, and dives deeply into her many famous records and lesser-known work, from her early start in Australia all the way to her last recording – a moving duet of “Jolene” with Dolly Parton

Matthew Hild is a lecturer of history at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA He is an historian and the author of Arrow Through the Heart: The Biography of Andy Gibb (2022)

All Summer Long

Conversations with The Beach Boys from Surfin' to SMiLE Beard, David

This unforgettable and in-depth exploration of The Beach Boys’ incredible output during their early to peak years, from 1961 to 1967, interweaves recollections by group members, family, friends, and musical colleagues

David Beard compiles a wide range of fascinating and eye-opening conversations and original interviews with the group and integral figures in the band’s history, including Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks, Bruce Johnston, Jan Berry, Dean Torrence, Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford, Ginger Blake, and many others All Summer Long is based on over 30 years of archival interview content and provides a wealth of fresh insights into the personalities, circumstances, and decisions that shaped the music created by one of the most enduring acts in popular music history

This book covers the early transformative years of 1962 –1963 when Brian Wilson was working at breakneck speed, as well as the influences of Jan & Dean It looks at Brian and The Beach Boys’ incredible leap forward in music, the changing arc of Brian’s creativity in 1965, the triumph that was Pet Sounds, the synergistic shift with “Good Vibrations” in 1966, and the outcome of the SMiLE recordings The subjects themselves take center stage in this book, sharing their recollections which allow their emotions to be fully conveyed Love, laughter, sorrow, and joy are captured along with the history of the groundbreaking and charttopping recordings Grab a board and get ready for the ride of your life

David Beard is Editor-in-Chief of Endless Summer Quarterly, The Beach Boys publication of record and the group’s sole officially endorsed magazine In addition to his 30+ years of researching The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, and the music culture in the pages of ESQ, Beard compiled and edited The Beach Boys’ official tour programs and a VIP hardcover coffee table book in 2015 and 2016 In 2021, he was responsible for organizing and, along with Rob Bonfiglio, co-producing the reunion recording “Add Some Music to Your Day,” which featured Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, David Marks, and the founding member ’s children under the name California Music

14 May 2026

256 Pages

Hardcover

9798881801250

£24 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Raps of Resistance

How Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole Reignited a Hip-Hop Tradition

McCool, Jeremy C

Kendrick Lamar and J Cole blazed paths that salvaged socially conscious rap at a pivotal time in history

Conscious rap, a subgenre of hip-hop music that engages in dialogue about social and political issues and often challenges systems of oppression, ascended with pioneers like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, A Tribe Called Quest, and other acts at the helm But in recent decades, it lost much of its favor in pop culture and mainstream hip-hop

Jeremy C McCool and Earl Hopkins explore the evolution of the subgenre and chronicle the rise of Kendrick Lamar and J Cole The two rappers are synonymous with chart-topping hits and platinum-selling albums, but their confessional poetry and soul-stirring lyrics establish them as the two biggest names in conscious rap within the new millennia They tackle issues such as drug addiction, poverty, systemic racism, and domestic violence while still appealing to mainstream audiences

McCool and Hopkins provide a fascinating look into Lamar and Cole’s ascension: their humble upbringings, their past personal and musical challenges, and their eventual rise to becoming the two most prolific rap artists of their time

Jeremy C. McCool is an Associate Professor of Digital/Global Media at West Chester University, USA He is a cultural critic and scholar whose work explores the complexities of hip-hop, social consciousness, technology, and Black identity His contributions have earned him honors such as Pittsburgh Magazine’s 40 Under 40 award and West Liberty University’s Hughes Lecturer distinction

Earl Hopkins is an award-winning arts and culture reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer As a hip-hop critic and historian, he has contributed high-profile interviews, album reviews, and rap history guides for Billboard, GRAMMY com, SPIN, and other platforms

The Great Book of Vintage Microphones

Massy, Sylvia

Grammy Award-winning music producer Sylvia Massy provides a visual tour through the fascinating world of vintage microphones with hundreds of original, full-color photographs

Based on one of the largest collections in the world, this book is for the appreciation of the art, technology, and history of microphones, looking at the first 100 years since the original invention – from the 1870s through the 1970s Discover microphones used by major figures, including the one used by every US President since Lyndon B Johnson, the epic microphone built for King George V, and the one used by Bruce Swedien for Michael Jackson’s hits

Microphones are abundant in our modern world: dozens of different technologies, millions of different uses Sylvia Massy and Chris Johnson expertly curate hundreds of microphones, from the rare and eccentric to well-known gamechangers, and provide interesting tidbits relating to their use, history, manufacture, design, and more This visually stunning book traces the microphone through a history that includes the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the Cold War era

14 May 2026

256 Pages

599 color photographs

Hardcover

9781540026231

£35 00

Bloomsbury Academic

Sylvia Massy has been producing, engineering, and mixing popular music for decades Renowned for her work with Tool, System of a Down, Johnny Cash, and Prince, just to name a few, Massy has received dozens of gold and platinum records, including awards for her work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sevendust, and Tom Petty A Grammy Award-winner, she is also the author of Recording Unhinged: Creative and Unconventional Recording Techniques

Chris Johnson is a prize-winning writer, recording studio owner, minister, and artist He strives to live art as a 24/7 lifestyle His stunning collection of vintage microphones includes historical pieces that date back to the 1870s He is the co-author of Recording Unhinged: Creative and Unconventional Recording Techniques

19 February 2026

240 Pages

20 BW Photos

Hardcover

9798881800420

£23 99

Bloomsbury Academic

28 May 2026

424 Pages

30 bw photos, 9 textboxes

Paperback

9798216275275

£19 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Out of the Rough

Ted Rhodes and His Fight Against Golf's Color Barrier

Taylor, Dan

The long-overdue biography of golfing pioneer Ted Rhodes

After winning The Masters in 1997, Tiger Woods paused to express gratitude to three African American golf pioneers One was Ted Rhodes As prolific as Woods would go on to become, his success paled when compared to that enjoyed during the 1940s and 50s by Rhodes

In Out of the Rough: Ted Rhodes and His Fight Against Golf ’s Color Barrier, Dan Taylor tells the remarkable story of Rhodes’s life and career He details Rhodes’s impoverished background, how he was barred from golf courses in his hometown by Jim Crow laws, and his rise to prominence in the sport Relegated to the all-Black United Golfers Association by a “Caucasians Only” membership policy adopted by the PGA tour, Rhodes shattered course records Befriended and supported by heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, Rhodes blazed a trail for Black golfers, becoming the first in more than fifty years to play in the US Open, suing for his right to play in the PGA, and becoming the first Black professional golfer to play in a PGA tournament and on the circuit

Ted Rhodes was one of the most impressive talents golf has ever seen, a man who achieved greatness amidst immense obstacles and a pioneer whose game and character opened doors for future generations of Black golfers Out of the Rough is a long overdue tribute to this golfing icon

Dan Taylor is a sports historian, baseball broadcaster, and former award-winning television sportscaster He is the author of six books, including Baseball at the Abyss: The Scandals of 1926, Babe Ruth, and the Unlikely Savior Who Rescued a Tarnished Game; Walking Alone: The Untold Journey of Football Pioneer Kenny Washington; and Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, which was a finalist for the Casey Award for baseball book of the year Taylor is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and contributes to their Biography Project He lives in California

The World Cup

A History of the Planet's Biggest Sporting Event, 2026 Edition

Lisi, Clemente A

The ultimate history of the World Cup

Every four years, the world’s best national soccer teams compete for the World Cup Billions of people tune in from around the world to experience the remarkable games unfolding live From Diego Maradona’s first goal against England at the 1986 World Cup to Nelson Mandela’s surprise appearance at the 2010 final in South Africa, these unforgettable World Cup moments have helped to create a global phenomenon

In The World Cup: A History of the Planet's Biggest Sporting Event, 2026 Edition, veteran soccer reporter Clemente A Lisi chronicles the tournament from 1930 to today, including a preview of the 2026 World Cup co-hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada Lisi provides vivid accounts of individual games, details the innovations that impacted the sport across the decades, and offers biographical sketches of greats such as Pelé, Maradona, and Lionel Messi In addition, Lisi includes objective coverage of off-field controversies such as the FIFA corruption case, making this book the only complete and impartial history of the tournament

Featuring personal interviews and behind-the-scenes stories from the author ’s many years attending and covering the World Cup, The World Cup is the definitive history of this global event

Clemente A. Lisi has worked as a journalist and editor for more than two decades In that time, he has been an editor at major metropolitan dailies such as the New York Post and the New York Daily News and served as a senior editor at ABCNews com He is the author of The U S Women’s Soccer Team: An American Success Story, A History of the U S Men’s National Soccer Team, and all editions of A History of the World Cup He lives in Brooklyn, New York

8 January 2026

256 Pages

Hardcover

9798881842406

£22 00

Bloomsbury Academic

22 January 2026

224 Pages

12 b/w photos

Hardcover

9798881805685

£25 00

Bloomsbury Academic

Healing Through Wonder How Awe Restores Us After Trauma

and Loss

Walker, Val

Val Walker's profound journey through trauma and spiritual exploration is both heartwrenching and inspiring This book beautifully captures the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of connection and awe A must-read for anyone seeking healing and understanding -- Shari Botwin, LCSW, author of Thriving After Trauma and Stolen Childhoods

Val Walker's story of healing began in her darkest moment

Homeless, running from a violent partner, and battling suicidal depression, she found herself sitting by a river holding a bottle of pills in one hand and a bottle of red wine to wash them down in the other Out of the twilight sky a majestic blue heron circled and landed just a few feet away Something in the heron's piercing eyes caused her to stop swallowing the pills In that moment, she realized that there was just too much beauty and magic in the world to give up Thus began a decades long quest to understand how wondrous encounters can spark healing from trauma and grief This inspiring guide shares healing stories sparked by wondrous experiences and unpacks the neuroscience that explains how wonder helps our brains and bodies heal

Val Walker is a rehabilitation consultant and blogger for Psychology Today, Social Self, and Health Story Collaborative She is the author of The Art of Comforting, which won the Nautilus Gold Medal Book Award, and 400 Friends and No One to Call With a Master of Science degree in rehabilitation counseling from Virginia Commonwealth University, she has led support groups for twenty-four years for people living with chronic illness, disability, grief, and trauma She lives in Boston and teaches and speaks throughout New England at human services agencies, medical centers, hospices, universities, and community education programs

The Soul Delusion

Barash, David P

The case against the soul and why life is better without one

The soul, like the Christian notion of the devil, has increasingly become contested, even for traditional believers Considered objectively, the soul is a strange notion, one entirely at odds with everything we know about how the world actually works And yet belief in the soul persists, among both the religiously inclined and non-believers

The Soul Delusion is a wake-up call, encouraging readers to think critically about something widely taken for granted Evolutionary biologist David P Barash takes a deep dive into the nature of the soul by reviewing the diverse and often conflicting notions of what the soul is supposed to be and revealing practical problems deriving from such delusive beliefs: how the soul-certain agitate against early and mid-stage abortions because of their insistence that an embryo has a soul, and thus, must be “saved”, even at the risk of the mother ’s health, for instance, and how soul-belief has provided marching orders for cruelty toward animals because of the claim that only we have souls and therefore animals don’t deserve protection

The Soul Delusion also aims to liberate people from fear of hell and free them to enjoy what poet Mary Oliver called “your wild and precious life ” It challenges the assumption that a soul is needed for people to live moral lives, while exposing the misleading nature of supposed near death experiences It also illuminates how being soul-free opens us to an appreciation of our wonderful lives in the real, the here-and-now, and the prospect of a future without souls

David P Barash is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington and has received numerous grants and awards A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed technical articles, published op-eds in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, contributed to The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Harvard Business Review, The History News Network, Psychology Today, among other publications, and has written, co-authored, and edited more than forty books He lives in Goleta, California with his wife, four cats, three dogs and a horse

22 January 2026

448 Pages

120 bw illus

Hardcover

9781350026469

£25 00

Bloomsbury Academic

I Think of You Constantly with Love The Letters of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ben Richards

Ludwig Wittgenstein met Ben Richards, a medical student, in autumn 1945. It was the beginning of a deep and tempestuous relationship which lasted until Wittgenstein’s death Their correspondence starts in the summer of 1946 and consists of more than 370 letters, notes, telegrams and photographs The final letter was sent a week before Wittgenstein died in April 1951

Often defined by his arrogance, difficulty and critical nature of others, Wittgenstein writes letters to Richards which give us another window into his character Their letters manifest an emotional closeness which is remarkable and unparalleled in Wittgenstein’s voluminous correspondence They leave no doubt that Ben Richards was Wittgenstein's closest friend in these last years of his life – indeed, perhaps the greatest love of his life

Now available for the first time, the letters between Wittgenstein and Richards provide a wholly new perspective on the last years of Wittgenstein’s life: his last years teaching in Cambridge, the resignation of his chair in Cambridge at the end of 1947, and the ensuing restless years spent trying to find a quiet place to do philosophy and complete his magnum opus, the Philosophical Investigations

Their letters are further proof of the extent to which Wittgenstein’s life was inseparable from his philosophy They are an opportunity to come closer to understanding the work of this intellectual giant, telling us more about the values and beliefs of one of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers

Gabriel Citron is Assistant Professor of Religion at Princeton University, USA

Alfred Schmidt is Assistant Director-General of the Austrian National Library

Ray Monk is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and biographer of Wittgenstein He is the author of Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (1991) and Inside the Centre: The Life of J Robert Oppenheimer (2012)

30 April 2026

144 Pages

Paperback

9781350573161

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Liberal Fascisms

Žižek, Slavoj

With an apparently contradictory and characteristically makeshift term, ‘Liberal Fascisms’, Slavoj Žižek captures the paradoxical nature of political populism.

To see this phenomenon as purely liberal and dictatorially fascistic is to expose liberalism and fascism as two sides of the same coin The concept offers a glimpse into the murky landscape of half-lies and double-truths that Žižek enters in this latest collection of urgent essays

From the economy and politics to ideology, these short texts work through the different faces of liberal fascism, structured around a trio of the universal, the particular, and the single: our global predicament; Europe and the Middle East; Trump’s America Peeling back the inadequate labels we hasten to pin on the phenomena that terrify us – like ‘post-truth'– to peer at the seeping wounds beneath them, these writings reveal the uneasy mixture of lies and truths that have always been stacked, matryoshka like, inside of one another

With no cure in hand, but a refusal to dispense with thought that is muddled and murky, the essays are timely and resolute From the so-called “death of truth” opens up the possibility for a new authentic truth or for an even worse big Lie And we must ask – what forms of justice are made possible by this disorder?

Liberal Fascisms is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers

Slavoj Žižek is a Hegelian philosopher, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, and a Communist He is International Director at the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities, University of London, UK, Visiting Professor at the New York University, USA, and Senior Researcher at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

OTHER BOOKS IN THE ŽIŽEK'S ESSAYS SERIES

5 February 2026

256 Pages

31 bw illus

Hardcover

9798881808556

£25 99

Bloomsbury Academic

22 January 2026

320 Pages

30 bw illus

Hardcover

9781350535701

£20 00

Bloomsbury Academic

The Green Sahara Regaining Paradise in the Face of Climate Change

Gaudet, John

A thoughtful exploration of how the Sahara Desert can be returned to its former glory as a green paradise while actively combating climate change

A green Sahara is something the world has not seen since 10,000 BC when the Sahara was a wet, lush region Grasslands, woodlands, tropical forests, and wetlands, the natural plant bounty of the ancient Sahara, provided residents with enormous flocks of birds, fish in abundance, indigenous grains and herds of wild game By 3,000 BC though the climate changed, the rains stopped, and the ancient green Sahara dried into today’s desert It had been the victim of a phenomenon that reminds us today of global climate warming, a tragedy that we have unwittingly brought upon ourselves But what if we could reverse the desertification of the Sahara, and bring back the green paradise of days passed?

In The Green Sahara: Regaining Paradise in the Face of Climate Change, John Gaudet explores the process by which climate change in ancient times converted a green paradise into an arid desert land, highlighting parallels to what is happening in our time But he also illuminates how an intense effort to create green energy is being made by several Saharan countries to build and operate enormous solar and wind farms As a result, a wave of green energy generated in the Sahara, the largest desert on earth, is about to swamp the world, and could lead to a regreening of the Sahara Desert If a new green Sahara happens, how will the world benefit?

Gaudet’s manifesto demonstrates how, in this fascinating case, climate change induced by man actually has the power to save the world and restore a beautiful piece of ancient history

John Gaudet, PhD, was a Fulbright Scholar who spent 17 years in Africa, first teaching at various universities and then as an environmental officer He is the author of Papyrus and Pharaoh’s Treasure His writing also appeared in National Geographic, The Washington Post, Salon, and HuffPost, among other publications

The Secret Life of the Hotel

Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918 Moss, Eloise

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in hotels?

Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which national and international prosperity have increasingly depended since the end of the First World War Yet hotels are also places where people can be anonymous; where murderers and thieves mix with adulterers and con artists; and where prejudice finds expression in who is refused access, and in the forms of ‘service’ provided by staff in the lowest-paid roles The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918 is the first book to uncover how hotels entrenched inequality, prejudice, and exploitation in Britain’s tourist sector, and in wider society and culture, during the 20th century

Eloise Moss delves into hotel murders, swindles, and scandals, including the history of Agatha Christie’s disappearance in 1926, the ‘Margate Hotel Murder ’ , and the divorce of Wallis Simpson in 1936 so she could marry King Edward VIII Moss’s exploration of the hotel also shines a light on the fight against the colour bar, the formation of the British civil rights movement, and the visit to London of Martin Luther King Jr

The Secret Life of the Hotel uniquely tells the story of Britain’s relationship with the world during the 20th century through the prism of its hotels, showing how their infrastructure and ‘welcome’ had profound consequences for women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ citizens, and people with disabilities

Eloise Moss is Professor of Modern British History at the University of Manchester, UK She is the author of Night Raiders: Burglary and the Making of Modern Urban Life in London, 1860-1968 (2019) Her television work includes the BBC’s Murder, Mystery and My Family, The Real Peaky Blinders, Uncanny, and the Channel 5 series Great Hotels Through Time She has also worked as historical advisor on the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? and Sister Boniface Mysteries

19 February 2026

248 Pages

Hardcover

9781350513655

£20 00

Bloomsbury Academic

Margaret Bondfield The Life and Times of Britain’s First Female Cabinet Minister

Sloane, Nan

A groundbreaking biography of Margaret Bondfield, the remarkable political pioneer and working-class woman who rose to become the first female Cabinet Minister in the 1929 Labour government.

Rising from modest semi-rural, semi-industrial origins in the West Country, and years of apprenticeship in shops in Brighton, Bondfield became the first woman to chair the TUC, one of the first female Labour MPs, the first woman to hold government office (1924) and in 1929, the first female Cabinet Minister

Most of her life was lived in the public eye, but what lay behind her public achievements? In this remarkable book, Labour Historian Nan Sloane looks beyond the public façade to reveal Bondfield's hidden personal story, from her complicated personality with a difficult background, a private life which was either secret or non-existent, and a lifelong struggle with imposter syndrome

Drawing on newly uncovered archival material, including Bondfield's own diaries, this is a fresh and vitally needed reassessment of Margaret Bondfield’s influential life and contribution A vital and timely biography that restores Bondfield to her rightful and prominent place in British political history

Nan Sloane is an author, speaker and trainer with an interest in the role of women in the public space, particularly in politics and the Labour Party Her books include Uncontrollable Women: Radicals, Reformers and Revolutionaries (2022), The Women In the Room: Labour ’s Forgotten History (2018), In Our Own Words: A Dictionary of Women's Political Quotations (2016), and A Great Act of Justice: The Flapper Election and After (2009)

2 April 2026

352 Pages

42 colour maps and 20 bw illus

Paperback

9781350520110

£19 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Roman Britain in Twenty Towns A Visitor's Guide

Hingley, Richard

From Hadrian’s Wall to Sulis Minerva’s spa at Bath and the public buildings and walled circuits of other towns, Britain has a wealth of Roman urban remains to examine

Designed for visitors wishing to explore the archaeological landscape, this user-friendly guide sets out a plan of 20 Roman towns – explaining how visitors can find the site and what they may expect to see Where appropriate, this book explores how the town developed from an Iron Age settlement or where it began life as a military fortress or fort Written by an expert in the field, each chapter addresses the following:

- An introduction to the history of the settlement, its origins and significance

- An outline of the main ancient sites and monuments, with concise information on museums

- Accessible maps of the archaeological features of each town

- An up-to-date summary of the recent work on each Roman town, supported by further reading

By following the footsteps of ancient peoples, this interactive guide offers users a fascinating picture of what can be seen at these urban centres

Richard Hingley is Emeritus Professor of Roman Archaeology at Durham University, UK He is the author of Hadrian's Wall: A Life (2012), Londinium: A Biography (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, winner of the 2019 Prose Award) and Conquering the Ocean: The Roman Invasion of Britain (2022)

5 February 2026

352 Pages

9 bw illustrations

Paperback

9781350475434

£21 99

Bloomsbury Academic

30 April 2026

256 Pages

13 BW Illustrations

Hardcover

9781538191729

£20 00

Bloomsbury Academic

North Korea A History

Seth, Michael J

North Korea is perhaps the most intriguing, infamous and enigmatic nation of our modern world Yet how many of us know its full history, and how it came to be? How can we understand such a strange, isolated state?

This new edition seeks to provide some answers to these questions Starting with its origins in the colonial period, Michael J Seth masterfully traces how North Korea transformed itself from a Soviet-style socialist state to the ultra-nationalist, dynastic dictatorship of the 21st century Born from 20th century Korea’s struggles to regain autonomy and achieve modernization, this book follows the story of how a single Korea with a shared ethnic and cultural heritage, evolved into radically different societies From the birth of the DPRK, through economic collapse, famine and failed revolution, it illuminates North Korea’s journey with an engaging understanding of the political, ideological, economic and social forces at play

This edition has been updated to examine recent developments in Korean history, up until 2025, and has analysed over sixty new publications from leading academics It also incorporates the experiences of prominent North Korean women and analyses the everyday life of ordinary North Koreans, as well as the country’s leaders Seth also uses his expertise to analyse and put more emphasis on Inter-Korean relations

Following the evolution of this uncommon nation, North Korea: A History uses the past to answer questions about the present, and above all shows North Korea as a society with a hard-working, long-suffering population who have made great sacrifices in the hopes for a better future

North Korea: A History is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers

Michael J. Seth is Professor of History at James Madison University, USA

A Hard Freedom

The Dreams and Trauma of North Korean Refugees Chung, Dan

Over the past 20 years, 33,000 North Korean refugees have escaped to South Korea, though their plight in South Korea is largely unknown to the Western World These North Korean refugees who have made it to freedom are struggling

Within South Korea, North Koreans find themselves in a land of plenty but can’t seem to move on For many, they are not in danger for the first time in decades but cannot turn off the traumatic memories from their lives in North Korea and the peril they faced during their escape After escaping North Korea, refugees travel the 6,000 mile modern day underground railroad in China and other Asian countries

Following on the authors' earlier title, Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World's Most Repressive Country and gathered from the author's work with the NGO, Crossing Borders, this book shares the real life stories of North Koreans trapped under the weight of lingering trauma, depression, and discrimination from South Koreans These stories help us to imagine what the future might hold for North Korea and North Korean refugees in a changing world

Dan Chung is the co-founder of Crossing Borders, and current Executive Director of the organization Dan is one of the foremost experts on the North Korean refugee crisis, with relationships with both organizations and scholars researching the ongoing developments of the Korean Peninsula

5 March 2026

288 Pages

Hardcover

9781399430227

£25 00

Bloomsbury Academic

28 May 2026

256 Pages Hardcover

9781399430807

£25 00

Bloomsbury Academic

Why Start-Ups Fail Avoiding

the traps on the path to commercial success

Bulkin, Bernie

A shocking 90% of start-ups fail Many of these failures don’t need to happen, but you need to understand the causes and how to avoid them – both as an entrepreneur and an investor.

From technology to the market, from leadership to money, there are numerous reasons why your start-up will fail Professor Bernard Bulkin – who has been at both sides of the investment table – talks you through the six major reasons why start-ups don’t succeed, and how to avoid them

Instead of accepting failure as inevitable, or believing that failing is good, this book looks at the main reasons why start-ups fail and how to turn them on their head Whether you’re a founder or an investor, if you’re going to put in the effort to make a company succeed, you should go in with your eyes open Bernie’s common-sense approach offers the experience of a venture capitalist who has been there and done that

Leadership at all levels makes a difference Using real life examples, and applying behavioural economics to venture decision-making, Why Start-Ups Fail helps readers understand what founders most often lack, and discusses the who, how and why of making a start-up succeed

Dr Bernard J Bulkin OBE has worked in venture capital for 21 years, investing in both Silicon Valley and in London, as well as being an Angel investor He has also founded, led and invested in some companies that have failed! He is an Emeritus Professorial Fellow of the University of Cambridge and has been a Vice President of the Energy Institute He has served on numerous company boards, from start-ups to large public companies His radio series, Environment on the Edge, was broadcast on Voice America and he has contributed to the Huffington Post and Guardian Business

The Pricing Sprint

12 Steps to Unlock the Power of Pricing Millar, Jenny

Have you ever felt that your business is leaving money on the table? Discounting under pressure, reluctantly raising prices, or struggling to articulate your value? These challenges are not just common; they’re identifiable, measurable, and solvable

Jenny Millar and Ann Padley have heard pricing described as a ‘guessing game’, ‘black box’, and even a ‘dark art’ In 12 actionable steps, The Pricing Sprint transforms pricing from a daunting number-crunching exercise into a collaborative and evidence-driven process that empowers teams with the tools to achieve exceptional business results with confidence

Packed with practical tools, actionable insights, and case studies, The Pricing Sprint guides leaders through the steps to consider customer needs, tap into the psychology of purchase decisions, and explore business data in new ways The result: pricing strategies that are customer-focused, market-aligned, and designed for growth – and a team that is engaged and ready to implement them

This is more than a book on pricing – it’s a masterclass in shaping a sustainable commercial strategy that aligns with your values, builds customer loyalty and delivers measurable impact

Jenny Millar is the Founder and CEO of Untapped Pricing A former eBay executive, she leads high-stakes pricing transformations and advises boards, investors, and CEOs on value strategy and commercial growth

Ann Padley is a Senior Partner at Untapped Pricing A strategist and educator, she brings deep expertise in human-centered design and advises scaleups and Fortune 500 organizations on how to embed customer insight and behavioural science into pricing strategy

Untapped Pricing is a leading consultancy trusted by leadership teams and investors worldwide to sharpen positioning, unlock profit, and accelerate growth through pricing

KEY SERIES

Marvel Age of Comics is a series of concise, affordable, beautifully designed books that explore the history of over 85 years of Marvel Comics.

[ Marvel series info] MARVEL AGE OF COMICS

Books in the series range from deep dives into a singular comic storyline, notable runs and works produced by creators who have made a special contribution to Marvel stories, the origins and evolution of a particular character, or social and progressive themes and historical moments that have been reflected in Marvel Comics.

Written by great writers who also happen to be comic book fans, Marvel Age of Comics blends personal narrative with a look back at comics history through the decades.

The books are brought to life using curated artwork from the comics and reproduced materials from Marvel’s digital archives creating a series that is perfect for both dedicated and new comic book fans alike.

14 May 2026

160 Pages

47 color illustrations

Paperback

9798765141649

£10.99

Bloomsbury Academic

The Ultimates

Adams, Ted

Explore the Stories Behind the Legends

The 1990s and early 2000s were a time of intense change and experimentation for Marvel Comics. Out of this emerged The Ultimates—a comic which would have an explosive impact on Marvel and the broader pop culture landscape.

Writer Mark Millar, with artists Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, and Paul Neary, reimagined the classic characters that made up Marvel’s premiere super hero team, the Avengers. Looking at them through a modern, post-9/11 lens, the creators treated the characters as super soldiers who reported to the US government.

Illustrated with full-color art, Ted Adam’s entry in The Marvel Age of Comics takes readers through Marvel of the ‘90s: the Marvel Knights imprint, the creation of the Ultimate universe with Spider-Man and the X-Men, and finally the Ultimates themselves. With its unique blend of grounded realism and over-the-top action, The Ultimates ensured that comic books and pop culture would never be the same.

Ted Adams is the founder of IDW Publishing, where he was CEO and Publisher for 20 years, negotiating deals to publish Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Trek, and many more. Under his leadership, the company won dozens of industry awards, including many Eisner and Harvey Awards. He was publisher of a line of Marvel comics aimed at kids and the prestigious Artist’s Edition line, which included many classic Marvel titles.

11 June 2026

160 Pages

25 color illustrations

Paperback

9798765131633

£10 99

Bloomsbury Academic

11 June 2026

160 Pages

25 color illustrations

Paperback

9798765138762

£10 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Womack,

Ytasha L.

Explore the Stories Behind the Legends

First introduced in 2011 by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, Miles Morales reconceived Spider-Man as African American and Latinx, and his debut marked a new direction in the saga of a beloved character

Miles Morales as Spider-Man is a coming-of-age tale of a smart, affable teen coming into his power From his reluctance to becoming a super hero to his desire to help others, to the rocky balance between his school life and super hero responsibilities, Miles is always at the precipice of making tough decisions choices whose consequences are as weighted in his personal life as they often are for the survival of the world

Illustrated with full-color art, Ytasha L Womak’s entry in the Marvel Age of Comics looks at the hugely successful reimagining of one of the most popular super hero characters of all time

Ytasha L. Womack is the author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture (2013), Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration (2023), and the graphic novel Blak Kube (forthcoming 2025) She wrote and produced the Afrofuturist and science animation and immersive experience Niyah and the Multiverse currently running at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago Ytasha lectures on Afrofuturism and the imagination for audiences around the world She is based in Chicago

Wolverine: Weapon X Rugg,

Jim

Explore the Stories Behind the Legends

Naked, bloody, and screaming in pain - this is the Wolverine that faced readers in the story arc Weapon X This was more than just the tale of how Wolverine got his adamantium skeleton and claws Legendary creator Barry Windsor-Smith challenged readers’ expectations of super hero stories and created Marvel’s most brutal and beautiful comic

In 1991, when Weapon X was first published, Wolverine was one of Marvel’s most popular super heroes For Weapon X, creator Windsor-Smith reimagined the super hero origin story as a postmodern cyberpunk horror story A shadowy organization abducts Wolverine in order to create “the ultimate killing machine,” and we are plunged into a story of basic, animalistic survival As Wolverine endures more and more trauma, the lines between reality and consciousness disappear

Illustrated with full-color art from this legendary storyline, Jim Rugg’s entry in The Marvel Age of Comics takes a deep-dive into one of Marvel’s most experimental and singular comics, and what many consider to be the definitive Wolverine story

Jim Rugg is an Eisner and Ignatz Award winning cartoonist, designer, zinemaker, and illustrator His books include Hulk Grand Design (2022), the Street Angel series, the PLAIN Janes (2020), Octobriana 1976 (2020), Supermag (2013), and Afrodisiac (2010) He is the cocreator of YouTube’s Cartoonist Kayfabe channel His comics are part of the Smithsonian permanent collection and the National Archives and he taught visual storytelling at the School of Visual Arts and the Animation Workshop in Denmark Rugg lives and draws in Pittsburgh

“An indispensable part of every cineaste’s bookcase”

[BFI series info]

– Total Film

“Possibly the most bountiful book series in the history of lm criticism.”

– Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment

“Magni cently concentrated examples of owing freeform critical poetry.”

– Uncut

Celebrating film for over 30 years

The BFI Film Classics series introduces, interprets and celebrates landmarks of world cinema. Each volume offers an argument for the film's 'classic' status, together with discussion of its production and reception history, its place within a genre or national cinema, an account of its technical and aesthetic importance, and in many cases, the author's personal response to the film.

2 April 2026

104 Pages

60 colour illus

Paperback

9781839029004

£12.99

British Film Institute

Touki Bouki

Galt, Rosalind

Djibril Diop Mambéty’s exuberant, inventive and urgent film Touki Bouki (1973) follows a young couple, Mory (Magaye Niang) and Anta (Myriam Niang), who dream of leaving their home in Dakar, Senegal for an imagined better life in Paris.

Rosalind Galt’s insightful study analyses Touki Bouki’s cinematic worlds as a narrative of postcolonial migration influenced by international film style, but nonetheless grounded in African visual cultures and critical perspectives. Touki Bouki highlights the intertwined histories of the postcolonial and the transnational, exploring how the aesthetic and political ideas found in the experimentation of cinematic modernisms and New Waves are as African as they are European.

Galt’s study interweaves a conceptual framework of world cinema studies and anti/decolonial theory with close analysis of Touki Bouki’s innovative audiovisual forms and its representations of desire and identity in postcolonial Senegal. Providing a detailed reading of the film’s themes and cinematic style, she argues for its classic status and for its enduring influence on world cinema.

Rosalind Galt is Professor of Film Studies at King's College London, UK. She is the author of Alluring Monsters: the Pontianak and Cinemas of Decolonization (2021), Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (2011) and The New European Cinema: Redrawing the Map (2006); the coauthor with Karl Schoonover of Queer Cinema in the World and the co-editor with Karl Schoonover of Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories (2010).

2 April 2026

104 Pages Paperback

9781839029394

£12 99

British Film Institute

A Hard Day's Night

Ahmed, Samira

How did a film made to capture a pop phenomenon become an enduring cinematic classic?

With warmth, wit and precision, Samira Ahmed reveals how the Beatles’ first film changed both the band themselves and pop music’s relationship with the screen

In a vivid and personal exploration, she shows how this black-and-white gem, shot in a documentary style and brimming with youthful energy, captured Britain at a moment of social transformation, with a portrayal of celebrity, camaraderie and media frenzy that still resonates today Drawing on her own experience of first discovering the film as a child and going on to work in the television industry, Ahmed shines a spotlight on the craft behind its enduring appeal With insights from members of the cast and crew, including her own new interviews, Ahmed highlights A Hard Day’s Night’s class and sexual politics, and adds a delightfully original analysis of the women in the film

In these pages you will be transported to a time when four young men from Liverpool, via the mass medium of television, changed the way Britain saw itself and the way the world saw Britain, revealing how, and why, A Hard Day’s Night has become a landmark of modern cinema

Samira Ahmed is a journalist, writer, and BBC broadcaster She presents Front Row on BBC Radio 4, Newswatch on BBC One, and has made acclaimed documentaries including Art of Persia (BBC Four), Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse, and I Dressed Ziggy Stardust (BBC Radio 4) In 2020, she was named Audio Presenter of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, and New Humanist, where she also writes a regular column She is President of the Twentieth Century Society, which campaigns to preserve modern architecture and design In 2023, Samira made global headlines when she uncovered the earliest known complete concert recording of the Beatles, captured at Stowe School in April 1963 A Hard Day’s Night is her first book

14 May 2026

104 Pages

60 colour illus

Paperback

9781839027130

£12 99

British Film Institute

Beau Travail Columpar, Corinn

Beau Travail (1998) is Claire Denis' bold, sensuous masterpiece Loosely based on Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor (1924), the film explores the complexities of desire, identity, and power within an all-male group of French Foreign Legionnaires stationed at a coastal outpost in the former colony of Djibouti, in East Africa

The film cemented Denis' position as a leading auteur and visual poet In this book, Corinn Columpar positions the film as a cinematic bid for freedom She examines its formal innovations - particularly the use of the gaze, voice, and movement - to explain how Denis produces exhilarating possibilities narratively, affectively, and ideologically, while also situating the film within the histories of art cinema and postcolonial filmmaking

Corinn Columpar is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies in the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto, Canada She is the author of Unsettling Sights: The Fourth World on Film (2010) She is co-editor of There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond (2009) and Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor (2022) She has published widely on feminist film theory, embodiment and representation in journals including Camera Obscura, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and Women Studies Quarterly

11 June 2026

112

Velvet Goldmine

Reed, Katherine

It’s 1984, and investigative reporter Arthur Stuart is trying to locate Brian Slade, the glam-rock superstar who faked his own death and vanished from the spotlight ten years earlier Todd Haynes’s kaleidoscopic glam-rock epic, Velvet Goldmine (1998), is an alternative history, bridging memory and fantasy, and a queer cult classic

The film was divisive on its release, but in this book, Katherine Reed reveals how the film's fans have since kept it alive through re-watches, re-listens, and fan fiction A celebration of high-camp fakery and gender-fluid sexuality, Velvet Goldmine is today as relevant as ever; In Haynes's words, it is part of a “long tradition of gay readings of the world " Reed weaves the history of the film with close readings of its cinematic references, songs, and style She reevaluates Velvet Goldmine in light of Haynes's other films, addresses its fraught production history, reveals how its main characters are clearly drawn from the lives of Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and more (in ways that serve to rewrite those figures’ real histories), analyses its soundtrack (situating the music in the context of Britpop of the 1990s and compilation film scores of the era as well as contextualizing the original, 1970s recordings), and examines the work of legendary costume designer Sandy Powell in creating believable blends of fantasy and reality in each character ’s wardrobe Like the film itself, this is not a linear history, but an exploration of how Velvet Goldmine intertwines voices and the ways in which it teaches us to create anew

Katherine Reed is Associate Professor of Musicology at California State University, Fullerton, USA Reed’s work on popular music, musical semiotics, and film music has appeared in Popular Music & Society, Music and the Moving Image, and the Society for American Music’s Digital Lecture Series She co-edited the collection Music in Twin Peaks: Listen to the Sounds (2021)

The Exorcist

Kermode, Mark

October 29, 2020

136 Pages

60 colour and 10 bw illus

Paperback

9781839021718

£12 99

British Film Institute

Jaws

Quirke, Antonia

June 26, 2025

104 Pages

Paperback

9781839023637

£12 99

British Film Institute

Die Hard

Lewis, Jon

October 16, 2025

104 Pages

60 colour illus

Paperback

9781839026522

£12 99

British Film Institute

Eraserhead

Henry, Claire

May 4, 2023

120 Pages

50 bw illus

Paperback

9781839025600

£12 99

British Film Institute

The Godfather

Lewis, Jon

March 24, 2022

104 Pages

65 colour illus

Paperback

9781839024580

£12 99

British Film Institute

Grave of the Fireflies

Wit, Alex Dudok de

May 6, 2021

104 Pages

60 colour illus

Paperback

9781838719241

£12 99

British Film Institute

“Though short, at roughly 25,000 words apiece, these books are anything but slight.”

– New Statesman

“Perfect for slipping in pocket and pulling out when life is on hold.”

– Toronto Star

“Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series never misses.”

– The Millions

Object Lessons is a series of concise, collectable, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Each book starts from a specific inspiration: an historical event, a literary passage, a personal narrative, a technological innovation—and from that starting point explores the object of the title, gleaning a singular lesson or multiple lessons along the way.

Featuring contributions from writers, artists, scholars, journalists, and others, the emphasis throughout is lucid writing, imagination, and brevity. Object Lessons paints a picture of the world around us, and tells the story of how we got here, one object at a time.

Fist mills, nelle

February 19, 2026

160 Pages

Paperback

9781501376634

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Stock Photo Supekar, Simona

February 19, 2026

176 Pages

15 b&w illustrations

Paperback

9798765108901

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Ballot

Enjeti, Anjali

February 5, 2026

160 Pages

Paperback

9798765126196

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Lipstick G'Sell, Eileen

February 5, 2026

160 Pages

36 bw illus

Paperback

9798765135587

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Snack

Dahn, Eurie

February 19, 2026

160 Pages

Paperback

9798765108840

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

“A brilliant series … each one a work of real love.” – NME

“Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren’t enough.”

–

[series info]

Rolling Stone

“For those of you who really like to know everything there is to know about an album, you’d do well to check out Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series of books.”

– Pitchfork

33 1/3 is a series of short books about popular music, focusing on individual albums by artists ranging from James Brown to Celine Dion and from J Dilla to Neutral Milk Hotel.

Genre: A 33 1/3 Series is a series of short books that guide you through the musical sub-genres that have intrigued, perplexed, or provoked you.

Stiff Little Fingers' Inflammable Material Dunn, Kevin

Situating the band and its groundbreaking debut within the context of The Troubles, this book explores the band’s complicated and controversial relationship with the Belfast punk scene, a scene that actively defied violent social divisions to create important non-sectarian spaces through which an “Alternative Ulster” was imagined and put into practice.

Stiff Little Fingers’ 1979 debut album, Inflammable Material, was the first independent album to ever reach the UK Top 20 and is regarded as one of the most influential punk releases of all time, containing the singles “Suspect Device” and “Alternative Ulster.” Inflammable Material was both a product of, and response to, The Troubles, the era of political violence in Northern Ireland that claimed more than 3,500 lives over three decades.

Though Inflammable Material was regarded as the clarion call for that scene, with anthemic songs now regarded as synonymous with the times, the band was often viewed with suspicion and outright hostility by many of their contemporaries.

5 March 2026

160 Pages

Paperback

9798765133248

£10.99

Bloomsbury Academic

Kevin Dunn is Professor in the International Relations Department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA. He is author of Global Punk: Resistance and Rebellion in Everyday Life (Bloomsbury 2016), Inside African Politics (with Pierre Englebert; 2013, 2020, and 2026), as well as the award-winning novel Vicious is My Middle Name (2022). Active in DIY punk scenes since the 1980s, he continues to perform in several bands, runs an independent record label, publishes various zines, and is a regular contributor to the influential DIY punk zine Razorcake

Mazzy Star ’s So Tonight That I Might See III,

Anthony Gomez

Anthony Gomez III explores how out of the commercial failure of the 1980s Paisley Underground genre, a Los Angeles that suffered one of the highest crime rates in the country, the rise of Chicano/a art in the public eye, and record label disputes, singer Hope Sandoval and guitarist David Roback form the influential dream pop band Mazzy Star.

Mazzy Star ’s So Tonight That I Might See was a slow, reluctant success Pushed by Capitol Records as an album for teenagers to make out during, as a record about girlhood, and as music for those uninterested in the era’s male aggression, the album’s reputation has been plagued by these forced connections ever since

Not that the band’s Hope Sandoval or David Roback ever publicly cared to dispel these notions They preferred to disdain publicity and offer their art without introduction But there is far more to the Mazzy Star story than media-reluctant musicians and corporate-generated narratives

5 March 2026

144 Pages

Paperback

9798765133552

£10 99

Bloomsbury Academic

11 June 2026

152 Pages

By tracing the hurried development of their second record, this book revisits how imposed mythologies have contributed to the marginalization of Hope Sandoval’s Mexican American background, and the band’s place in the larger tradition of Chicano music It combs through the histories of musicians involved in Sandoval and Roback’s prior projects to highlight how Mazzy Star formed partly in response to the rising violence and gentrification of their hometown Los Angeles Along the way, it ascertains the band’s interest in the American Southwest, 1960s psychedelia, and a surrealism which conjures the strange, dark shadows of everyday life in the US

Anthony Gomez III is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, USA He is interested in nineteenth and twentieth century American literature and popular culture In addition to his academic work, he is a published fiction author whose short stories have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Huizache, Shenandoah, New Letters, and Four Way Review Read more at anthonygomeziii com

Cher's Believe Phillips-Kivel, Lior

Featuring interviews with some of her well-known fans, including Ru Paul and Sean Hayes, this is a celebration of the album where Cher challenged the ageist pop industry and re-solidified herself as a force to be reckoned with

By 1998, Cher seemed fated to fade off into the pop sunset Her time of being half of pop music’s “It couple”, of releasing chart-topping singles, of having her own TV show, in starring in box office breaking movies, was coming to an end But then Believe and a new invention called auto-tune changed everything

Pop has always been a young person’s game, especially for women, and a new dawn of that obsessive youth was in full swing in the late ‘90s But Cher ’s return to inescapability at 52 years old making her the oldest woman to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 was a refusal to accept that model Full of fire, cutting edge choices, and a strong advocacy for one’s self, Believe was her giant musical middle finger to all those assumptions

The album confirmed her place as a pop icon, a queer icon, a feminist icon, and reminds us that everyone should believe they can be strong enough

Lior Phillips is a South African music and culture journalist originally from Cape Town, now based in Chicago, USA She writes about music, film, art, and more for international publications, including Dazed and Confused Magazine, The Recording Academy, Variety, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The Quietus, NPR, The Guardian, Consequence of Sound, and GQ South Africa In addition, she is the creator, producer, and host of This Must Be the Gig, a podcast dedicated to artists’ vital memories of their first gigs and passion for live music and performance She is the author of South African Popular Music (Bloomsbury 2023)

Violent Femmes' Violent Femmes Brown,

Nic

Through rare access to the Violent Femmes and their archives, this book investigates the creation of such iconic songs as "Blister in the Sun", "Kiss Off", "Add it Up" and "Prove My Love", as well as the album's recording process.

The self-titled debut from Milwaukee post-punk acoustic trio the Violent Femmes is one of those rare albums that seems to have altered the course of popular music and influenced just about everyone who heard it while also managing to operate almost entirely outside of the mainstream Released in 1983 to little sales or attention, the band was so iconoclastic that it couldn’t even engender support from Milwaukee’s anti-establishment punk scene Over the ensuing years, though, Violent Femmes managed to exert itself as an unstoppable cultural force, ascending the college radio charts and spreading through word-of-mouth

Violent Femmes didn’t sound like anything else when it was made, and it still doesn’t sound like anything else The album somehow exists both outside of time and as one of the most evocative and enduring artifacts of the alternative ‘80’s

Nic Brown is a writer, musician, and professor at Clemson University, USA He is the author of the memoir Bang Bang Crash (2023) as well as the novels In Every Way (2015), Doubles (2010), and Floodmarkers (2009), which was selected as an Editors' Choice by The New York Times Book Review His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Oxford American, and the Harvard Review, among many other publications

14 May 2026

128 Pages

Paperback

9798765133514

£10 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Frank Ocean's Blonde

Srour, Yousef

By contextualizing the lyrics, reevaluating Ocean’s post-album release festival run, and presenting new information about the songs’ production, the book decodes the enigma that is Blonde

Frank Ocean’s Blonde is a contemporary classic Sandwiched between Elvis Presley and the Sex Pistols at #79 on Rolling Stones’ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, Blonde defined a generation in the almost nine years since its release

Yet, the album is still a mystery to so many Besides a handful of interviews, a hefty 360-page zine titled Boys Don’t Cry, and Tumblr posts from around the time of the album’s release, Frank Ocean has distanced himself as much as possible from the album and the conversations involving it

It is one of the seminal works in the 2010s Afrofuturism revival, which this book highlights by pointing at the role of modern technology in society, including a dialogue about its misgivings and its ability to manipulate time, memory, and emotions It spotlights the summer leading up to the album, the album’s release, a track-by-track rundown illustrating the album’s narrative, along with a discussion about its lasting cultural impact

This is a man who headlined Coachella 2023 despite releasing only ten singles and no album in the eight years prior How did he manage to maintain such a prophetic status for all those years? The answer is simple: Blonde

11 June 2026

152 Pages Paperback

9798765133477

£10 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Yousef Srour is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and music journalist He has a column at Passion of theWeiss titled BAY AREA TYPE BEAT, he is a frequent contributor to the Vallejo Sun and Stereogum, and his work has been featured in Variety, FADER, Pitchfork, HipHopDX and more

Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love

Kardos, Leah

November 14, 2024

152 Pages Paperback

9798765106990

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Modest Mouse’s The Moon & Antarctica

Petit, Zachary

November 14, 2024

168 Pages Paperback

9798765106754

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Pulp's This Is Hardcore

Savidge,

Jane

March 7, 2024

168 Pages Paperback

9798765106952

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Madvillain's Madvillainy

Hagle, Will

March 9, 2023

160 Pages

Paperback

9781501389238

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly

Maner, Sequoia

August 11, 2022

152 Pages Paperback

9781501377471

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Black Sabbath

Darnielle,

John

June 5, 2008

112 Pages Paperback

9780826428998

£9 99

Bloomsbury Academic

2 April 2026

160 Pages Paperback

9798765123447

£14 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Minimalist Music

Grella, George

Minimalist Music looks critically into the music’s past, shows how the genre thrives across styles, and points the way toward minimalism’s ongoing future.

Minimalism as a genre is best defined not by any style or flavor but by its means Certain rhythms and chords in other music may identify things like jazz or bossa nova or reggae; take those same elements and put them through the processes of minimalism and you have minimalism with the hues of other musics

A still young genre with ancient roots, minimalism is much less any kind of style than a practice, a manner of making music Reviving those means and applying them to contemporary sounds and experiences, the pioneers of minimalism created a new and avantgarde music that immediately communicated its power to listeners of all kinds The global appeal of minimalism and the way the methods adapt to myriad styles open up a view into how music actually works as an art and an experience, how through time it connects in a fundamental way to how we as humans listen

Minimalist Music is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers

George Grella, Jr has written about music and culture for over thirty years for print and online publications, and has contributed to the Grove Dictionary of Music and the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry He is Music Editor at The Brooklyn Rail, publishes the Kill Yr Idols newsletter, and is the author of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Bloomsbury 2015) He has played jazz, classical, and improvised music from CBGB to Carnegie Hall

NEW IN PAPERBACK & NEW EDITIONS

2 April 2026

544 Pages

28 BW Photos

Paperback

9798216277651

£14 99

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

16 April 2026

296 Pages 10 BW Photos

£12 99 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

The Art of Diplomacy How

American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World Eizenstat, Stuart E

Now with a substantive afterword covering the start of the second Trump administration!

A riveting retelling of diplomatic history with praise from Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair, Ehud Olmert, and more.

Inside the greatest diplomatic negotiations of the past 50 years

In one readable volume, diplomat and negotiator Stuart E Eizenstat covers every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord Written from the perspective that only a participant in top level negotiations can bring, Eizenstat recounts the events that led up to the negotiation, the drama that took place around the table, and draws lessons from successful and unsuccessful strategies and tactics Based on interviews with over 60 key figures in American diplomacy, including former presidents and secretaries of state, and major political figures abroad, Eizenstat provides an intimate view of diplomacy as today’s history The Art of Diplomacy will be an indispensable volume to understand American foreign policy and provide invaluable insights on the art of negotiation for anyone involved in government or business negotiations The paperback edition adds a substantive afterword that presents the challenges and opportunities for the second Trump administration

Stuart E. Eizenstat has served as U S Ambassador to the European Union and Deputy Secretary of both Treasury and State He is also the author of President Carter: The White House Years (2018), The Future of the Jews: How Global Forces are Impacting the Jewish People, Israel, and Its Relationship with the United States (2012), and Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II (2003) He is an international lawyer in Washington, DC

The Unraveling

Reflections on Politics without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis

Bauer, Bob

Now with a new foreword by Harvard Law Professor and former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith, and with a new concluding chapter from the author on the unprecedented ethical challenges in the first year of Trump 2.0.

Essential reading for anyone interested in modern American politics, get the book that former President Barack Obama on X calls "a deeply thoughtful book" and says, "couldn’t be a more timely read "

Part memoir, part rumination on the declining moral compass of the American political class, The Unraveling is the first book to place restoring political ethics at the center of the renewal of American democracy Politics is a brutal game, but Bauer asks where does the line fall between the “hardball” of politics and attacks on the very foundation of democracy?

Looking back on 46 years in the political arena, Bauer tries to better grasp what has gone wrong and to understand what shaped his own decisions and actions He offers anecdotes, perspectives, and insights that are vitally relevant in our world today, including efforts in 2020 (and 2024) to defend our democratic system of elections from attack and distrust, and the struggles with social media, such as Meta, to combat disinformation in a post-truth politics

The expanded paperback edition includes a new concluding chapter highlighting the ethical failures of public institutions under the the second Trump administration law firms, universities, and the media, as well as the Trump administration itself and the imperative to do better in order to preserve the consent of the governed in American democracy

Bob Bauer has been involved in many of the biggest political struggles in the five decades since the post-Watergate 1970s He has been a leading legal adviser to the national Democratic Party and to its candidates on strategies for winning elections and protecting voting rights, and he has represented the party in national political conflicts and controversies

He was the chief counsel to both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns and was the President’s White House counsel Bauer is also now on the faculty of the New York University School of Law, teaching political reform and the ethical challenges facing lawyers in public life

Until Our Lungs Give Out

Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future

Yancy, George

January 22, 2026

400 Pages

Paperback

9798216371014

£14 99

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Beowulf

Poem, Poet and Hero

O'Donoghue, Heather

May 14, 2026

192 Pages

Paperback

9781350607507

£12 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Life at the Bottom

The Worldview that Makes the Underclass 25th Anniversary Edition

Dalrymple, Theodore

May 14, 2026

272 Pages

Paperback

9798216390701

£12 99

Bloomsbury Academic

Atatürk

Father of the Republic of Turkey

Gawrych, George W.

February 19, 2026

296 Pages

35 bw illus

Paperback

9780755658305

£14 99

I B Tauris

One Public

New York’s Public Theater in the Era of Oskar Eustis

Landis, Kevin

February 5, 2026

336 Pages

27 bw illus

Paperback

9781350283459

£19 99

Methuen Drama

Groundhog Day

Gilbey, Ryan

January 22, 2026

112 Pages

60 colour illus

Paperback

9781839029806

£12 99

British Film Institute

When Harry Met Sally...

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers

February 5, 2026

104 Pages

60 colour illustrations

Paperback

9781805750253

£12 99

British Film Institute

Double Indemnity

Schickel, Richard

March 5, 2026

88 Pages

60 bw illus

Paperback

9781805750215

£12 99

British Film Institute

Shoah

Vice, Sue

January 8, 2026

104 Pages

Paperback

9781839029882

£12 99

British Film Institute

if....

Sinker, Mark

March 19, 2026

112 Pages

60 colour illus

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9781839029929

£12 99

British Film Institute

Easy Rider

Hill, Lee

May 14, 2026

88 Pages

60 colour illus

Paperback

9781805750291

£12 99

British Film Institute