BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC & PROFESSIONAL
KEY TITLES
JULY-DECEMBER 2026
UK: Sarah Ailsby: Sarah.Ailsby@bloomsbury.com Europe: Jasmin Atkins: Jasmin.Atkins@bloomsbury.com
Mollie.Broad@bloomsbury.com
Introduction
Next season’s trade books combat rising levels of misinformation and social division by bringing together expert authors with readers who want to unlock fresh perspectives and understand the world and its people a little better.
With his trademark urgency, Slavoj Žižek offers a bold framework for interpreting current world events as Signs from the Future delivers an emphatic call to action that will appeal to readers of contemporary politics, philosophy, and cultural criticism. As questions around Artificial Intelligence continue to dominate public conversation, we’re exploring how Margaret Masterman and the Cambridge Language Research Unit sparked the idea of inking with Machines and thus invented AI. In the first biography of Mandela by an African scholar, Xolela Mangcu offers a powerful new lens shaped by his own deep knowledge of Black South African culture. Tyrants and Traders brings together myth and reality, revealing what new archaeological discoveries at the costal stronghold of Tintagel tell us about Arthurian legend. Vonnegut’s War is a compelling mix of biography, cultural history, and literary analysis that explores how Kurt Vonnegut transformed wartime experience into the modern classic that is Slaughterhouse-Five
New volumes in the Marvel Age of Comics series dive into Secret Wars, the first major comic book crossover event, spotlight Misty Knight, the trailblazing Black woman superhero, and take a look behind the scenes to witness how Marvel Explodes as a company in the 1960s and 70s. Fresh titles in our Object Lessons series ruminate on the cultural meaning of Glasses, the overlooked beauty and modern significance of Concrete, and the relation between the controlled Laboratory and the ‘real world’. Upcoming titles in the 33 1/3 series explore genres such as Alterlatino and Neo-Soul and iconic records like “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D and Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach.
Finally, I’m thrilled to introduce our new Business & Management list. We’re starting off with e TV MBA, a smart and funny introduction to business thinking through beloved screen icons from the Godfather to Bridget Jones – a terrific gift book and a practical, pop-culture-driven guide for professionals and fans alike.
Wishing you insight and inspiration for the months ahead.
Pooja Aggarwal, Director of Academic and Professional Publishing, Bloomsbury around continue to dominate public conversation, we’re exploring how
29 October 2026
240 Pages
Paperback
9781350601703
£19 99
Bloomsbury Business
Author location(s): United Kingdom
The TV MBA Business Lessons from Popular Culture
Rhymer Rigby
What can dealmakers learn from The Godfather? Can you use Bridget Jones’ Diary as a guide to career development? And what is Breaking Bad if not the ultimate manual for side hustlers?
The TV MBA explores the working styles, leadership qualities and business strategies of some of the most iconic characters in TV and film Referencing hundreds of well-loved scenes, characters and plot lines in pop culture, the book pulls out key management, careers and leadership lessons that can be enjoyed and absorbed by everyone – from graduate trainees and CEOs, to pop culture enthusiasts and cinephiles
Tackling themes ranging from emotional intelligence, teamwork dynamics and climbing the corporate ladder to disrupting markets, crisis management, and toxic cultures, Rhymer Rigby offers a unique blend of entertainment and business wisdom
Whether it’s Patrick Bateman’s personal branding in American Psycho, Mulder and Scully’s working relationship in The X-Files, how Professor Dumbledore deals with staff turnover at Hogwarts, or the fundamental failures of risk management in the Alien franchise, The TV MBA casts an eye over celebrated characters and scenes pulling out lessons and insights that apply to the real-world business environment
Rhymer Rigby is a journalist and author based in the United Kingdom He has written columns for the Financial Times and the Times and contributed to titles ranging from GQ and Conde Nast Traveller to the Guardian and Management Today Whilst he mainly covers business, he has also written on topics ranging from spending three days trapped in a blizzard in the Andes with no loo roll to eating deep fried tarantulas in Cambodia
The Future of B2B Marketing Harnessing
AI to unlock smarter decisions
Luan Wise
B2B marketers face unique challenges, including non-linear buyer journeys, multiple decision-makers, and long sales cycles, alongside the (mis)perception of their work being boring and lacking in creativity
Written by a seasoned industry practitioner, The Future of B2B Marketing: Harnessing AI to Unlock Smarter Decisions offers original insights and guidance into the evolving B2B landscape, showing how artificial intelligence can be applied at every stage of the buying journey – from capturing awareness from the right audience and generating quality engagement through to optimizing measurement and performance
It serves to both guide experienced professionals while also supporting those new to the industry, offering reminders, confidence-building, and practical approaches for navigating the everyday complexities of B2B marketing
Combining research, frameworks, case studies, and career-focused advice, this book helps marketers embrace new technologies and learn how to put AI into practice, using their own judgement and expertise to act effectively – and ultimately make smarter decisions
Luan Wise has over 25 years of agency, client-side, and consultancy experience She is a chartered marketer, fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM), and is currently pursuing a PhD by Portfolio at the University of Lancashire Alongside consultancy projects, Luan delivers industry talks and training workshops for professional bodies, university business schools, and organizations across the world
Author location(s): United Kingdom
3 September 2026
272 Pages
Hardcover
9781350598089
£25 00
Bloomsbury Business
Author location(s): Spain
7 January 2027
256 Pages
Hardcover
9798765166482
£25 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Tricia Cerrone: Florida, USA; Edward J van Luinen: California, USA
Proximity How to balance belonging
and difference in
today’s workplace
B Sebastian Reiche
Rapid advances in technology and digitalization have dramatically closed the boundaries that once separated us We can join a conference or collaborate across time zones without leaving our homes; conversing with colleagues on the opposite side of the world has never been so easy – so why do we feel so disconnected?
Whilst we have never been so virtually close to each other, psychological boundaries stubbornly persist In fact, we have become more divided and disconnected over the past years, and study after study attest to increased levels of social and political polarization Many leaders and professionals feel ill-equipped to meet the challenges of the new world of work, as they struggle to motivate and engage an ever more diverse and distributed workforce
From recrafting our identities, reshaping our work aspirations, and reimagining the effective use of power, Sebastian Reiche explores how leaders and professionals can achieve proximity – that empowering sense of connection with their job and others – in an increasingly fragmented workforce Proximity also guides leaders and professionals to more effectively bridge divides in distributed and remote teams, and it gives organizations the impetus to empower and align their workforce, redesign work, and connect people across radical change initiatives
B Sebastian Reiche is a tenured professor of People Management at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, and he has been recognized as one of the world’s leading 2% of scientists by Stanford University and Elsevier His work has been widely covered by media and practitioner outlets around the globe, including The Economist, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and the BBC He teaches extensively in open-enrolment executive programs, and has designed, directed, and delivered customized Executive Education programs for numerous global organizations, including ACS Group, Allianz, Allied Irish Bank, Boehringer Ingelheim, Deloitte, Salesforce, and SAP
Collaborate to Compete A
Roadmap to Stronger Leaders, Happier Teams, and Big Results
Tricia Cerrone and Edward J. van Luinen
Two former Walt Disney Imagineering leaders and designers take on a major gap in team leadership: the lack of a reliable method for collaboration that consistently drives success, innovation, and efficient problem-solving while also minimizing burnout and interpersonal friction
Drawing on their experience at Walt Disney Imagineering and additional work with companies such as Sony, Heineken, and Mattel, Tricia Cerrone and Edward J van Luinen, Ed D share a practical approach leaders can apply in any industry, on any team, right away
At Disney, Tricia and Edward were tasked with co-leading a global high-stakes, multi-year initiative across 120+ disciplines; in the process of uniting creative, technical, and operational teams around shared outcomes, they developed and later refined the collaborative leadership skills and repeatable method presented in this book
Their simple, human approach centers on five everyday behaviors Generosity, Resourcefulness, Co-Creation, Action, and Gratitude guided by Noble Purpose and an Instant Implementation Roadmap The result is a clear, step-by-step way to build trust, unlock ideas, move faster, and sustain energy without new software, restructures, or big budgets And the ripple effects are powerful: greater innovation, faster decisions, healthier culture, organic professional growth, more resilient people, stronger ROI, and higher engagement
Tricia Cerrone is a leadership consultant, podcaster of Innovation Hackers, and an awardwinning author She is a former Creative Executive at Walt Disney Imagineering where she specialized in experience design, storytelling, and blue sky thinking Tricia lives in Tallahassee, Florida Edward J van Luinen, Ed D, is CEO and Board Advisor at Global Talent Builders, a worldwide recruiting, change, and workforce development company Fluent in French, he is a former talent development leader at Walt Disney Imagineering Edward lives in Pasadena, California
20 August 2026
232 Pages
30 colour illus
Hardcover
9781350519404
£20 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): United Kingdom
Tyrants and Traders Tintagel, Arthur and the Lost Kings
Ken Dark
Discover exciting new research illuminating the most mysterious centuries of British history
How Roman Britain ended is one of the most controversial questions in British history Unique among former Roman citizens in Western Europe, the Britons established long-lived kingdoms, resisting ‘barbarian’ political takeover for centuries Yet so little is known of them from written records that even the names of most of their kings are effectively lost to history
Packed with the latest discoveries and ground-breaking research, Professor Ken Dark brings the fascinating, but mysterious, world of these rulers and their kingdoms to life Archaeological evidence, along with re-analysis of the few existing texts, reveals an unexpectedly sophisticated society, connected to a wider international network of trade and cultural contacts than might until recently have seemed imaginable Ken Dark demonstrates through the latest archaeological discoveries that Tintagel – an eroded coastal stronghold in Cornwall, closely associated with the later legend of King Arthur – was a royal fortress and trading centre of one of the most important British kingdoms of this period
This is a historical period filled with memorable characters and stories: from the outraged churchman Gildas, attempting to reform the corrupt rulers he thought threatened civilized life itself, to St Patrick, who played a major part in converting Ireland to Christianity, to no less than King Arthur – whose historical existence Dark shows to be much more likely than usually supposed
Ken Dark is a professor at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, UK, and works on the archaeology and history of Europe and the Mediterranean in the 1st millennium AD A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Historical Society, he has written over 100 academic publications, including 15 books, and directed many archaeological excavations and surveys He is currently director of the Tintagel Hinterland Project, and widely recognised as a leading expert on the archaeology and history of the fifth- to seventh-century Britons
“The magnificent thirteenth-century ruins of Tintagel castle on a craggy coastal headland – Tintagel Head, or Tintagel Island as it is sometimes called – attract literally thousands of visitors each day of the tourist season. Slate cliffs tower above a broad sandy bay, Tintagel Haven (or ‘Castle Haven’), with its own waterfall. But what draws the crowds is the association – dating to at least the twelfth century, before the castle was built – between Tintagel and the Arthurian legend.”
— From chapter 1 “Tintagel: Where History and Legend Meet Archaeology”, page 13
1 October 2026
272 Pages
Hardcover
9781350522121
£20 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Washington, D.C., USA
12 November 2026
352 Pages
50 bw illus
Hardcover
9781350611252
£25 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Hong Kong
Mandela
The Aristocrat and the Revolution
Xolela Mangcu
The first biography of Nelson Mandela written by an African scholar, this groundbreaking book offers a radically de-mythologized take on a global icon of anticolonial liberation struggles
Leading sociologist Xolela Mangcu draws on original interviews and archival research – as well as on his own unique understanding of the complexities of Black South African culture –to offer an important corrective account of Mandela’s identity, character, and political career Mangcu not only sets the record straight about Mandela's Thembu, rather than Xhosa, heritage, but also uncovers a fundamental political pragmatism Mandela developed thanks to his family’s strategic alliances with colonialists and through his own Victorian-style education at leading British mission schools What emerges is a Mandela whose life story belongs less to the realm of hagiography and more to the realm of real-world struggle, with all the contradictions it entails
Xolela Mangcu is Professor of Sociology and History at The George Washington University, Washington, D C , and Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Center for Life Writing, Wolfson College, University of Oxford, UK He is author of Biko: A Life (I B Tauris, 2013)
The Invention of Asia
A Continent of Eight Parts Philip Bowring
Where did the concept of ‘Asia’ come from? Was this a term coined by the many communities that spanned this great continent, or was it a Western invention, imposed upon those lands and populations that were so ‘other ’ to themselves?
This book argues that ‘Asia’ is a European creation, and goes back in time to show how and when this term was invented Unknown to ‘Asians’ until the 19th century, it grouped together a vast area of diverse cultures and peoples who were simply identified as ‘the other ’ in a world dominated by Europe
Arguing that far from being fixed and separate, Bowring shows how peoples of Europe and Asia flowed fluidly back and forth across the land mass over millennia Arguing that this continent should therefore be viewed as a series of 8 sub-continents interconnected through religion, trade, cultures and war, he shows how each sub-continent has its own unique history, but were also part of wider human, commodity and knowledge networks
Challenging our prevailing ideas of regional and national divisions, The Invention of Asia traces some of the major interactions of these subcontinents over the past 5,000 years From the great migrations of the central continent to the civilizations of Han China and the mighty Achaemenid and Hellenistic Empires, it shows how misleading the Europe-Asia division is, and why new terminology is needed to better reflect their geographical and cultural differences
Philip Bowring is a journalist based in Hong Kong and held the position of editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review between 1973 and 1992 He is the author of Empire of the Winds (Bloomsbury, 2018) and The Making of the Modern Philippines (Bloomsbury, 2022)
20 August 2026
336 Pages
1 bw illus Hardcover
9798765123959
£17 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): New Jersey, USA
Hot Type
The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad Jeff Jarvis
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
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 This revolution in media technology helped to propel Mark Twain into literary celebrity, but it also cost him his fortune – as well as his sense of humor and optimism
The era of the Linotype 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 Its history provides an opportunity to reflect on how technology changes culture just as new technologies – the internet and artificial intelligence –manufacture their endless streams of words today
Jeff Jarvis is the Emeritus Leonard Tow Professor of Journalism Innovation at the City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, a visiting professor at Stony Brook University, and a fellow at Montclair State University's Center for Cooperative Media 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 and cohosts the podcasts AI Inside, Intelligent Machines, and Breaking the News He is the author of six books, including The Gutenberg Parenthesis (2023) and Magazine (2023), both published by Bloomsbury
ALSO BY JEFF JARVIS
20 August 2026
280 Pages
13 bw illus
Hardcover
9781350580008
£20 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): South Carolina, USA
Vonnegut’s War
The Making of Slaughterhouse-Five
Susan Farrell
Banned, burned, and censored, Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five is widely regarded as one of the greatest (and most controversial) novels of the twentieth century Fusing vivid biography with popular history and close textual analysis, Vonnegut's War tells the fascinating story of the making of a modern classic and the writer that created it
New archival discoveries and recently released oral histories give us the fullest account yet published of Vonnegut's real-life prisoner-of-war experiences at Stalag IV-B and Dresden, which heavily influenced Slaughterhouse-Five A recently discovered trove of letters introduces us to his first wife, Jane Cox Vonnegut, and her influence on his writing Along the way, we also encounter UFOs and aliens, grapple with the shadow cast by the Vietnam war, and unearth the stranger-than-fiction tale of David Irving’s The Destruction of Dresden, the historical reference behind Vonnegut's writing about the Dresden firebombing
This book sheds light on one of America’s most beloved writers and explores how cultural forces helped to shape a modern masterpiece of storytelling
Susan Farrell is a Professor of American Literature at the College of Charleston, USA Susan has published two previous books on Vonnegut, founded the International Kurt Vonnegut Society in 2008 and has served as an officer in the organization ever since
“The prisoners were marched to their new home, a fenced-in and razor-wired compound on the southern bank of the Elbe River, which had formerly served as a slaughterhouse. […] They would be housed in a large, rectangular, concrete-block building that had originally been a holding pen and slaughter area for livestock. […] When they were first selected for the Dresden detail, fellow prisoners had joked about how lucky these 150 men were—assigned to work in a beautiful city safe from the war. But they soon discovered how much more grueling life was in the Dresden slaughterhouse than in Stalag IV-B.”
— From chapter 4 “Dresden”, page 56f.
Photo credit: Joseph Kelly
17 September 2026
256 Pages
15 bw photos
Hardcover
9798216448648
£21 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): California, USA
12 November 2026 240
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Tennessee, USA
The Girl Who Would Be Marilyn Monroe An Intimate Portrait of the Young Norma Jeane
Tony Castro
A thoughtful glimpse into the childhood of Norma Jeane Mortenson's childhood and how it shaped her into the iconic Marilyn Monroe for the 100th anniversary of her birth
At the fragile intersection of myth and memory stands a girl often eclipsed by the legend she became The Girl Who Would Be Marilyn Monroe dares to strip away the satin, the spotlight, the studio-invented shine, to reveal the tender child beneath: a girl marked not by fame but by longing Longing for love, for safety, for the kind of permanence the world never offered her This is not simply another biography It is a resurrection A candlelit portrait drawn from decades of first-hand research and rare interviews with those who knew her not only Marilyn the icon, but Norma Jeane the girl
Tony Castro draws on intimate conversations with famed entertainment writer James Bacon; Marilyn’s close friends: Frank Sinatra; actresses Susan Strasberg and Mamie Van Doren; actor and The Misfits co-star Eli Wallach; ex-husband Joe DiMaggio; and child star-turnedHollywood raconteur Skip E Lowe They offer unparalleled access into Marilyn’s earliest, most hidden self These are stories shared not as interviews but as confidences shaped by the trust of friendship And herein lies the soul of this work: a new and intimate rendering of the Marilyn we rarely allow ourselves to see Through these private recollections, we hear her voice not the whispery affectation of the screen siren, but the real girl’s voice, unvarnished, aching, often uncertain What emerges is not the blonde bombshell, but the child whispering to a mirror, trying on hope like a costume This is, at last, the story of Norma Jeane
Tony Castro is the author of nine critically acclaimed books, including Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son, DiMag & Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers, and Mantle: The Best There Ever Was A seasoned political reporter and cultural historian, his bylines have appeared in the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, and the Texas Observer, where he covered everything from presidential campaigns to sports He lives in Los Angeles
All About Anne Baxter
The Official Biography of a Hollywood Icon Lona Bailey
An authorized look at the life and career of Hollywood icon and Academy-Award Winning actress Anne Baxter
Anne Baxter ’s life was a vibrant tapestry of remarkable talent, personal resilience, and enduring legacy still relevant today even 40 years after her death Born into a family of extraordinary creativity as the granddaughter of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Anne was destined to make her own enduring mark on the world
All About Anne Baxter is the first authorized biography of Anne Baxter, enriched by insights and exclusive interviews with her daughters, friends, and colleagues It paints an intimate portrait of a woman who mastered her craft, defied expectations, and left a timeless mark on the entertainment world Lona Bailey explores her entire journey, providing a deeper and more comprehensive portrait of her as an artist, a mother, and a woman navigating fame, family, and the evolving entertainment industry Anne’s story is sure to inspire a new generation of readers to appreciate her artistry and the barriers she broke for women in entertainment
Lona Bailey, PhD, is an award-winning Golden Age of Hollywood researcher and author of Uncredited: The Life and Career of Actress Virginia Gregg, Voice of Villainy: The Betty Lou Gerson Story, Mrs Radio: The Cathy Lewis Story, Some Small Nobility: The Biography of Joan Banks Lovejoy, and Wicked Witch of the West: The Enduring Legacy of a Feminist Icon Bailey has been featured in outlets like The Wolfe Den Show, Film Daily, and The Los Angeles Tribune She resides in her home state, Tennessee
12 November 2026
240 Pages
10 bw photos
Hardcover
9798216202349
£27 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Missouri, USA
12 November 2026
240 Pages Hardcover
9781350534957
£20 00
Methuen Drama
Author location(s): United Kingdom
Suits A Cultural History
Richard L Schur
Fifteen years after the show’s debut, take a look back at the pop culture phenomenon Suits and its place in the pantheon of famous legal dramas
The television show Suits (2011-2019) has succeeded wildly Reaching multiple generations of viewers, the show has become one of the most binged shows on Netflix long after its initial broadcast on USA Network in the 2010s Drawing on the history of the television lawyer, workplace dramas, and postmodern comedies, the show explores the moral compromises facing professionals in the high stakes world of corporate litigation Characters struggle with office politics, feeling like imposters, and finding family and community while working long hours They also clash with their clients and opposing counsel who frequently engage in morally dubious behavior and who are willing to do whatever it takes to win their cases
Suits: A Cultural History reveals how the show re-configures televisions tropes and provides insight into cultural attitudes about lawyers and the law, social status and ambition, and the increasing demands of work Suits is not simply a television show about rich, attractive lawyers involved in sometimes outlandish cases but a window into the viewers’ desires for family, community, and justice The show’s popularity as binge-worthy television also offers insight into how television production and viewing is changing
Richard L Schur, PhD, is a professor at Drury University, where he has served as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Center, Founding Director of the Law & Society Program, and the Director of the Honors Program He is the author of Parodies of Ownership and co-editor of African American Culture and Legal Discourse Schur has also written essays for The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Springfield News Leader He enjoys spending time with his family in the Ozarks
Deafiant
My Journey in Theatre Jenny Sealey
Jenny Sealey has spent her career to date championing the work of Deaf and Disabled artists and the importance of having their stories on our stages and screens Now, she shares her own experience as a Deaf theatre-maker and advocate in a highly personal book.
In this book, she discusses running disabled-led Graeae theatre company for the past 30 years She reveals her passionate and long-standing commitment to inclusivity and equality within the arts and how she and Graeae have made strides in the area, including the creative integration of sign language, captioning and audio description in performance Irreverent, frank and profound, Sealey is an inspiring spokesperson for disabled artists' rights, the importance of theatre within our cultural ecosystem and the power of performance to find connections and make positive change in the world The stories she shares in this book of growing up in a family where she suffered abuse and shame amongst her peers and teachers for her deafness are not easy to read, but they're crucial in understanding the unjust struggles that have accompanied Sealey on her remarkable journey
Jenny Sealey OBE has been Graeae’s Artistic Director since 1997 She has pioneered a new theatrical language entitled ‘aesthetics of artistic access’, embedding BSL (British Sign Language) and English, pre-recorded BSL, creative captioning and in-ear/live audio description into the heart of all productions She co-directed the London 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony alongside Bradley Hemmings and has won the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award and appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs She is an honorary fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Middlesex University, University of Kent, Nottingham Trent University and Rose Bruford College She received an MBE in 2009 for her contributions to disability arts and an OBE in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours
29 October 2026
232 Pages
Hardcover
9781350542624
£25 00
The Arden Shakespeare
Author location(s): Virginia, USA
The Complete Life of William Shakespeare Stratford, London and In Between
Paul Menzer
Shakespeare’s extraordinarily ordinary life condenses into a charming but brief biography in this arresting tale of love, loss and return
Beginning with the early departure to the final homecoming, Paul Menzer considers the wonder of Shakespeare’s story with the little facts we have about his life to guide us through the language and characters which define Shakespeare
Life events are glimpsed across Shakespeare’s wide-ranging output, be it personal quest and departure from a small town in The Taming of The Shew, the death of a father and the cruel loss of his own son in Hamlet, or retirement and old age in The Tempest’s figure of Prospero Menzer honours the well-known stories without neglecting the mysteries of why Shakespeare left Stratford, who he ran with in London and why he put down his pen to come home to Anne and his family again, and again
This edition is adapted from William Shakespeare: A Brief Life with an updated introduction, further connections between Shakespeare’s works and personal biography, new illustrations of Shakespeare’s journey between London and Stratford, cutting-edge scholarship and recent archival discoveries about Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway
Paul Menzer is Dean of Visual and Performing Arts at Mary Baldwin University, USA, where he is a Professor and Director of the Shakespeare and Performance graduate programme
“The biographer has only one advantage over their subject. They know when they’re going to die. And so the one thing we know that William Shakespeare did not know is how his story ends. Still, Shakespeare seemed to have a sense of his ending. In both legal and literary terms, Shakespeare did not die in testate – no loose ends, no unfinished business, as the London Times concluded. If the plotting of his plays is occasionally imperfect, his life made up for it. It has the rack-and-pinion precision of a perfect plot. An end that explains the beginning. A beginning that explains the end. And a middle to keep them apart.”
— From the Introduction, page 6
12 November 2026
288 Pages
32 b/w photos; 131 b/w diagrams
Hardcover
9798216275497
£20 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): New Jersey, USA; New York, USA
1 October 2026
296 Pages
29 b/w images
Hardcover
9798216437611
£25 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): California, USA
The Beatles’ Touring Era Inside
the Fab Four ’s Musical Artistry, Song by Song, 19621966
Kenneth Womack and Scott Freiman
World renowned Beatles experts provide groundbreaking insights into the Fab Four ’s artistry, from Please Please Me to the incredible heights of Rubber Soul and Revolver
Dive into the songwriting, musicianship, and production of some of the most influential popular music ever created In this revelatory assessment of the band’s artistic development from 1962 to 1966, Kenneth Womack and Scott Freiman provide accessible, close readings of songs – based on cutting-edge Beatles research – and tackle hard-hitting questions: What were the song’s origins, and how was it written? How was the song transformed in the studio? What instruments were used and how did that impact the song’s arrangement?
Discover the lyrical and musical elements that give these songs their magic and the techniques used by producer George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Geoff Emerick that add that extra spark, bringing these songs to fruition The unparalleled artistic journeys of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr as the Beatles are revealed here
Kenneth Womack is one of the world’s foremost writers and thinkers about the Beatles and Professor of English and Popular Music at Monmouth University, USA He is the author of Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans (2023) and several other books on the Beatles He serves as the music culture critic for Salon and has contributed to a host of print and web outlets, including Slate, Billboard, Time, Variety, USA Today, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, The Independent, and NBC News Scott Freiman is the composer, producer, and music tech entrepreneur behind the acclaimed PBS series Deconstructing the Beatles Over the years, he has presented his lectures to sold-out audiences nationwide and has spoken at colleges, universities, and corporations, including Pixar, Google, and Facebook He co-hosts the monthly Fab Four Master Class with fellow musicologist Kenneth Womack, with whom he leads annual Beatles-themed trips to Liverpool and London
Behind the Beehive
The Triumphs and Trials of Dusty Springfield Jerry Jamison
An incredible whirlwind of talent, transformation, and turmoil, the British pop icon’s life is detailed in this sensitive and heart-rending portrait
For most of the early 1960s, Dusty Springfield was the most popular and best-selling female recording artist in Britain, becoming the first bonafide British star to follow the Beatles In 1966, she was named as the top female singer in the world after a string of chart-topping hits including “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me ” Even Elton John – who had her posters covering his wall as a teen – idolized her With her signature peroxided platinum beehive hairdo and heavy black eyeliner, she became the poster girl of the swinging 60s
But behind all of this, Dusty was struggling with severe mental illness, erratic public behavior, violent mood swings, multiple personalities, drug addiction, and the terror of being exposed as a lesbian However, even in her darkest moments, Dusty’s star shined bright, remaining a force of charisma and humor Follow the soaring highs and devastating lows of Dusty’s career in this sympathetic, narrative-style biography based on meticulous research, peer accounts, and contemporary perspectives
Included is a foreword by Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits
Jerry Jamison has been an award-winning advertising copywriter for more than 40 years, with more than 30 national writing commendations During his career, he has authored more than two-dozen fiction novels, biographies, true crime books, and mysteries He is also a lifelong music enthusiast and has been recognized as a specialist in the 1960’s British Invasion era
10 December 2026
304 Pages
40 b/w photos
Hardcover
9781538188514
£25 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Massachusetts, USA
Livin’ on the Edge
The Life and Times of Aerosmith’s Joe Perry
Joe Milliken
From the streets of Boston to global stardom, the journey of Aerosmith’s Joe Perry embodies determination, perseverance, and survival through 6 decades of rock music history
Joe Milliken chronicles the guitar hero’s early life and meteoric rise to stardom, then Aerosmith’s tragic collapse and historic comeback He also explores Perry’s adventures as a solo artist, entrepreneur, and other band activities including the Joe Perry Project and the Hollywood Vampires Intertwining exclusive interviews with childhood friends, fellow musicians, industry professionals, and other contemporaries, Livin’ on the Edge is the definitive portrait of an iconic rock star who remains the blues-drenched, rock ‘n’ roll soul of Aerosmith
Growing up in the suburbs of Boston, Joe Perry was obsessed with the guitar from an early age In 1969, he met future bandmates Steven Tyler, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer joined to complete the classic Aerosmith lineup The band moved to Boston, endured 2 years of near-poverty, and on the very day they finally signed a management deal, found themselves holding a promoter ’s contract in one hand and a looming eviction notice in the other What followed would become one of rock’s most legendary roller coaster rides: An explosion of fame and fortune, clashing egos, addiction, internal conflict, and break up, followed by an unlikely and triumphant comeback – an undeniable resurgence that would lead to Aerosmith’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and cement their reputation as America’s greatest rock band
Creed Taylor
The Man Who Put Jazz on the Pop Charts
David Sutter
The life and career of a producer who sought to bring jazz to the masses
Creed Taylor was one of the most successful jazz producers of all time and one of the most controversial His career spanned five decades, in which he produced albums with legends such as John Coltrane, Ray Charles, George Benson, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Stan Getz, and Nina Simone In 1960, he famously founded Impulse! Records and signed John Coltrane, and in later years he produced at Verve Records where he introduced the US to Bossa Nova, producing "The Girl from Ipanema" and ultimately founded Creed Taylor Incorporated, which defined the sound of jazz during the 1970s One of the most sought-after jazz producers, he had a knack for enhancing an artist's commercial appeal without sacrificing their creativity Yet his approach did not win universal acclaim: having vastly expanded the audience for jazz, he also earned the scorn of genre purists who distrusted his commercial success
Written with the full cooperation of Taylor ’s estate, and based on years of interviews, this first biography of the man illuminates an era of dramatic change within jazz music From Taylor ’s childhood in Appalachia to his decades-long career at some of the genre’s most important labels, David Sutter ’s painstakingly researched book tells the full story of a man who did as much as anyone to broaden the audience for jazz
Joe Milliken is a freelance writer, music journalist, and the author of Let’s Go! Benjamin Orr and The Cars (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) Spanning 25 years, Joe’s writing has appeared on the National Recording Registry website at the Library of Congress, the New England Music Hall of Fame website, and in various regional and national magazines and newspapers 29
David Sutter has worked in publishing since 1980, and has contributed in various capacities to academic journals, popular magazines, newspapers, promotional materials, websites, textbooks, and trade books In 2014, he became the copy chief at Inc , the New York–based business magazine that focuses on entrepreneurs and independent, U S -based companies From 2017 until Creed Taylor ’s death in 2022, he worked with Taylor to prepare what was originally conceived as a co-written autobiography
Author
The Lost Studios Reconstructing the Great American Recording Spaces
Richard
Adlam
The definitive guide to the lost, lamented titans of American recordings studios
Record Plant Stax The Automatt Caribou Ranch These and other legendary American recording studios are no longer standing, but their legacies and distinctive sounds live on in countless stories and classic recordings, from Billy Joel to Captain Beefheart, David Bowie to the Pointer Sisters
Now, for the first time, comprehensive technical details, gear lists, dimensions, and more can be found in The Lost Spaces, architect-turned-producer Richard Adlam's unprecedented guide to the most significant lost studios in the United States From Atlantic Studios to Universal, Adlam provides painstaking, meticulously reconstructed diagrams and spec sheets accompanied by historical photos, anecdotes, and lists of the key albums and performers recorded in each space Whether you're an engineer, musician, designer, or all-around music geek, this is a one-of-a-kind resource preserving an essential slice of pop-music history
Richard Adlam, A K A "Fiasco," has worked on album projects from Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, Dua Lipa, Lil Wayne, Taylor Swift, One Direction, Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Iggy Azalea, and many others, including five Grammy-winning and fifteen Grammy-nominated records His company Replay Heaven specializes in carefully constructed "soundalikes" for use in studio recordings, club and hip-hop samples, and advertisements He is from Essex in the UK
15 October 2026
208 Pages
253 color images
Hardcover
9798765142875
£30 00
Backbeat
Author location(s): United Kingdom
“The recording studio has always been a magical place where creatives and technicians congregate to capture sound for the pleasure of our ears. Although many are still out there operating, a number of these great recording spaces have now been lost, with only a handful of photos remaining of the famous bands and artists that once filled the walls with sound. […] Some studios were great halls, former churches that were repurposed. Others were based on bespoke designs using the latest technology in acoustic architecture. All had one thing in common: inside, some of the greatest music in history was created, records that are as revered today as they were the day they were released.”
— From the Introduction, page 8
17 September 2026
176 Pages
13 bw illus
Paperback
9781350612945
£14 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): South Carolina, USA
3 September 2026
248 Pages Hardcover
9798216370666
£24 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Dave Bradley: United Kingdom; Kelly Vero: Switzerland
The Love of Analog Meditations on Value
Darren Hudson Hick
Vinyl records Board games Paperback books Film A philosopher dives into the analog world to show what it offers us and what it says about our values
Packed with first-person anecdotes, hand-drawn illustrations, and extensive scholarship, Darren Hudson Hick takes us through the pleasure of board games and jigsaw puzzles and inside the values of materiality, care, and agency Hick moves from pinball machines and first editions to meditative cleaning and pottery to introduce us to key ideas in value theory, everyday aesthetics, virtue theory, and care ethics, alongside findings from psychology, anthropology, and sociology
What accounts for the resurgence of analog media? Why are we buying all this stuff? Hick approaches these questions from a pragmatist perspective a view that demands drawing on personal experience to better understand the values that pervade our daily lives The result is a lively and informed exploration of material culture that tells us a surprising amount about ourselves and how we live
Whenever we set up a board game, dust a record, load a roll of film, or sit down with a coloring book, we get to think about what we value The Love of Analog is a study in what's important to us It's a celebration of being human
Darren Hudson Hick is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Furman University, USA He is the author of Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, 3rd Edition (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Myth-Made Machines
The Stories Behind Artificial Intelligence
Dave Bradley & Kelly Vero
A fascinating exploration of how our understanding of artificial intelligence has evolved across centuries as depicted through the stories and media we create
Myth-Made Machines explores humanity’s complex relationship with artificial intelligence through the lens of our cultural imagination From ancient myths of automata to today’s disruptive technologies, this book traces AI’s evolution in our collective consciousness The narrative weaves through centuries of literature, film, and philosophical thought, examining what people believe about the machines that will assist or perhaps replace them Organized historically, it explores how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and contemporary works like The Matrix and Black Mirror have shaped our hopes and fears about machine intelligence, even as we embrace the likes of ChatGPT in the workplace
Dave Bradley has worked in the media for nearly 30 years as a magazine and online journalist, writer, editor, and event host and as a senior manager and consultant He has written and edited newsstand publications including PC Format, Planet PC, and others, and has written and published for online publications, including GamesRadar+, Pocket Gamer, and more He lives in Bath, United Kingdom Kelly Vero has worked in video games and technology for 30 years, from programming to senior management, working on titles including Tomb Raider, Halo series, and Subway Surfers Vero is an international keynote speaker and gamification and metaverse thought leader, regularly featured in lists such as Forbes’ 100 Women of the Future, an award-winning educator, and an award-nominated and bestselling author whose nonfiction works include Breaking Through Bytes: Women Shaping the Digital World She lives in Zurich, Switzerland
29 October 2026
128 Pages Paperback
9781350648449
£9 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Slovenia
Signs from the Future Slavoj Žižek
Part of the Žižek's Essays series
The old liberal world order is dying and yet new realities are consistently stillborn.
We are, as Slavoj Žižek argues in this arresting new book, stuck in time with only the 'morbid phenomena' of Gramsci's chilling words for company: 'the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid phenomena appears' These phenomenachaotic economic wars, new forms of Fascism, techno-feudalism, a return to colonial land grabs, planetary destruction and sanctioned genocides - overwhelm us at every turn What can we do, in such a desperate climate, to stem the flow of despair?
We might look to the great triumphs, successes and lessons of the past to guide our pathsifting the annals of history for insights which could disrupt our disastrous trajectory And yet, this historical knowledge doesn't seem to meaningfully disturb the ruinous repetitions we see throughout human history What might happen if we look to the future? Could it be that the realm of fortune tellers, star gazers and conspiracists is more predictable, knowable even, than we've allowed ourselves to think? Can we not read the 'morbid phenomena' that abound as concrete predictors of what is to come? From Gaza to Iran, Ukraine to the streets of Minneapolis and Venezuela to Sudan, are we not given such signs - a series of unfathomable and brutal events that, without decisive action now, will remain our future?
In Signs from the Future, Žižek's self-coined 'materialist prophesying' provides the tools to read worlds that have not yet been born but make their presence reverberate in the present nonetheless He asks us to address our lives as 'signs from the future', intimations that warn us but also prompt us - to action, resistance, reparation and the fragile possibility of hope
Slavoj Žižek is a Hegelian philosopher, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, and a Communist He is Visiting Professor at the New York University, USA, and Senior Researcher at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia He is author of Quantum History (Bloomsbury 2025) and Against Progress ( Bloomsbury, 2024)
OTHER BOOKS IN THE ŽIŽEK'S ESSAYS SERIES
12 November 2026
256 Pages
Hardcover
9781350642980
£20 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): United Kingdom
12 November 2026
256 Pages
Hardcover
9798881800178
£20 00
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Illinois, USA
Thinking with Machines Margaret Masterman and the Discovery of AI
Peter de Bolla
The untold story of the woman who invented Artificial Intelligence
Sixty-five years ago, a middle-aged woman working with a small group of collaborators out of a converted shed on the outskirts of Cambridge predicted the future of Artificial Intelligence Her story has been unknown and her work forgotten – until now
Beginning with an extraordinary discovery in the archives of the women’s college she helped found, Peter de Bolla pieces together the story of Margaret Masterman and the Cambridge Language Research Unit (CLRU)
As world powers raced to discover and exploit the capabilities of the first computers during the Cold War, Masterman emerged from obscurity to become an unlikely prophet of artificial intelligence Misunderstood, deplatformed and ultimately erased from history, Masterman and the CLRU not only cracked the problem of machine translation (MT), but accurately theorised how the ‘electronic brain’ might work – guided by Masterman’s vision of a computer that would be more than a machine, but a companion to human minds: A machine with which to do philosophy
This is the story of a woman nobody wanted to listen to, but whose uncredited work shapes our contemporary world
Peter de Bolla is Professor of Cultural History and Aesthetics at the University of Cambridge, UK Between 2014–2018 he was Director of the Cambridge Concept Lab He is the author of numerous academic works ranging from Wordsworth to American History, the sublime to human rights He was a founding editor of Granta magazine and has written regularly for Granta, The LRB and other literary periodicals and magazines
The Fourth Reformation
Gender, Sexuality, and the Struggle for the Future of Faith
Katherine Kelaidis
Contends that contemporary conflicts over gender and sexuality are not peripheral disputes within religion but the central forces reshaping the future of faith itself
Framing these struggles as a Fourth Reformation, Kate Kelaidis shows how debates over women’s authority, LGBTQ+ inclusion, family norms, and bodily autonomy have become the primary sites where religious traditions fracture, realign, and redefine their moral authority
Drawing on global case studies across Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other traditions, Kelaidis demonstrates how questions of gender and sexuality have replaced doctrine as the decisive boundary markers of religious belonging She traces how modern religious movements both progressive and reactionary mobilize gender norms to assert legitimacy, consolidate power, and forge unexpected political alliances In doing so, she explains why religious institutions increasingly function as engines of polarization rather than sources of shared moral meaning
Accessible yet analytically rigorous, this book offers scholars, students, and general readers a new framework for understanding why religion remains so politically volatile and why its future will be decided less by belief than by whose bodies, identities, and relationships are deemed sacred
Katherine Kelaidis, PhD, is Director of Research and Content at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago, USA, Research Fellow at the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, and Senior Editor at Religion Dispatches A sought-after expert on the intersection of religion and politics, Kelaidis has appeared on various media outlets as a commentator, including NPR and the BBC She has published articles and essays in The Atlantic, Conversation, Salon, and others, and is the author of Holy Russia? Holy War? (2022)
MARVEL AGE OF COMICS
Marvel Age of Comics is a series of concise, affordable, beautifully designed books that explore the history of over 85 years of Marvel 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.
15 October 2026
160 Pages
69 color illustrations
Paperback
9798765141694
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): British Columbia, Canada
Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars
The Epic 1980s Saga
Tom K Mason
Explore the Stories Behind the Legends
In 1984, Marvel’s Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter brought Marvel’s heroes and villains together for an epic battle that became the template for comic book crossovers and impacted Marvel’s storylines for decades, including major changes to the Spider-Man mythos and the introduction of a new villain
Within the 12-part storyline, characters who had never met before would find themselves thrown together to achieve a common goal They formed shaky alliances There were tremendous power struggles Teams within teams would form Relationships would be tested, and both heroes and villains would never be the same Neither would the Marvel Universe
Illustrated with full-color art, Tom Mason’s entry in the MARVEL AGE OF COMICS takes a deep dive into how Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars became the modern comics industry’s first true blockbuster
Tom K Mason is an Emmy-winning television writer with credits as writer, story editor or head writer on more than 600 episodes of childrens’ entertainment As a cofounder of Malibu Comics, he edited more than 1,000 comics and wrote close to 100 of them He was a founding editor of Bravura, the comic book imprint created by Howard Chaykin, Walter Simonson, Jim Starlin and others He recently wrote a Lilo & Stitch graphic novel, and currently co-writes the Captain Awesome books for under the name “Stan Kirby ”
15 October 2026
160 Pages
32 color illus
Paperback
9798216377719
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): New York, USA
12 November 2026
160 Pages
25 color illustrations
Paperback
9798765141755
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Louisiana, USA
Marvel Explodes From Bullpen to Big Business
Paul Levitz
Explore the Stories Behind the Legends
Starting in 1968 with the splitting of the three classic Marvel anthologies into separate titles for Iron Man, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, The Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Nick Fury Agent of S H I E L D , Marvel began an explosive arc of growth which culminated in becoming America’s largest comics publisher in 1972
Marvel Explodes tells the story year-by-year, exploring this decisive period from a creative standpoint – the expanded mythology, the new titles, and the writers and artists who would join to fuel the explosion – as well as a business one: the key transitions, including new distributor, owners, and opportunities
Illustrated with full-color art, Paul Levitz’s entry in the MARVEL AGE OF COMICS offers an eyewitness account of Marvel Comics in the years that established its greatness
Paul Levitz is a former President and Publisher of DC Comics and has written for many of DC's major comic books series, including Superman and Justice Society His story Legion: The Great Darkness Saga was voted one of the top 20 best comic stories of the last century by readers of The Buyers' Guide
Misty Knight
Iconic and Bionic
Angélique Roché
Explore the Stories Behind the Legends
In the mid-1970s, Misty Knight burst onto the pages of Marvel Comics Before Storm, Shuri, or Riri, Misty opened the doors of comics as Marvel’s first Black woman super hero
A detective and martial artist with a bionic arm that gives her heroic strength, Misty personified the uncurrent of independent Black media and the budding post-soul culture First appearing 1975, she broke down stereotypes to become one of the backbone characters of the Marvel Universe
Illustrated with full-color art, Angélique Roché’s entry in the MARVEL AGE OF COMICS takes a deep dive into the development of Misty Knight’s character and how she paved the way for future heroes
Angélique Roché is a journalist, producer, author, and professional host from New Orleans, LA She has been seen/heard on various outlets and platforms, including Harper ’s Bazaar, NBC News, NBCBLK, MSNBC, AMC/BBC, SyfyWire, Disney, Marvel Studios, ESPN, and Paramount+ She has hosted and produced series such as Brave New Pod, Geeksplain, Roles Ranked, SyFy Wire Rewind, and New York Public Radio’s (WNYC) Very Biggest Questions She is the co-author of My Super Hero is Black (2025) and her graphic novel Trinity City #1 (2023) She is currently the Harvard Divinity School’s Religion and Public Life Fellow for Arts and Pop Culture
“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.
Glasses
Adam Geczy
Glasses are among the oldest and most commonplace prosthetics we have invented But what does it mean to wear glasses? There is more to the answer than correcting vision Glasses alter, enhance, and shield the way that we view the world, and the way the world sees us
Everyone has encounters with glasses, passively or actively, from reading glasses to sunglasses At times they are the main identifiers in a face (think John Lennon), and they signify extremes from nerdy and brainy to cool and sleazy They are alternately the most mundane of things on our bodies and potentially the most glamorous
Adam Geczy explores this most pervasive and accessible accessory and shows that it is both a conduit to and a barrier between ourselves and the world outside
Adam Geczy is an artist and writer who teaches at the University of Sydney, Australia He has published over thirty books on topics ranging across art, fashion, and comics His blog is itstartswithadam com
9 July 2026
152 Pages
2 bw illus
Paperback
9798765135556
£9 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): New South Wales, Australia
Concrete
Stephen Parnell
Concrete has an image problem Portrayed as boring, cheap, and thoughtless, it is often considered synonymous with bad architecture For many, concrete is architecture gone wrong – dogmatic, ugly, and as miserably grey as English drizzle
Stephen Parnell’s Concrete is an apologia of concrete, second only to water as the world’s most consumed material From the personal, intimate scale of jewelry to the monumental scale of Brutalist architecture, Parnell explores the personality of concrete and how it is embedded and embodied in everyday and familiar objects He revels in concrete’s ambiguity and contradictory qualities, from its sensitivity to the tiniest imprint to its immense compressive strength in hydroelectric dams, and traces how concrete is both the ultimate unaesthetic material as well as the quintessential building block of modernity
Stephen Parnell is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Newcastle University, UK, and Editor-inChief of the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Journal of Architecture He has written over 130 articles on architecture, has been a columnist for the Architects’ Journal and a contributing editor for the Architects’ Journal and Architectural Review He was runner-up in the International Building Press’s ‘Architecture Writer of the Year ’ award in 2011 and 2012
3 September 2026
176 Pages
18 bw illus
Paperback
9781501383700
£9 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): United Kingdom
Laboratory
Emily York
The laboratory stands as a powerful symbol in the public imagination: it is place for bodily dissections and monstrous creations, technological innovation and corporate secrecy, governments working in the public interest or government out of bounds, scientists as geniuses and saviors and evildoers, learning spaces from the 9th grade biology lab to the San Francisco Exploratorium, and more But what actually happens in a laboratory, why does it have such fraught connections to our hopes and fears, and how does a laboratory relate to the ‘real world’?
Quintessentially associated with the scientific revolution, the laboratory came to be a space to study ‘facts’ as natural phenomena, isolated and separated from emotions and biases Yet the laboratory is also intertwined with the messy ambiguity of the world and embodies the power and privilege of resources, expertise, and innovation
Laboratory examines the contemporary laboratory and its relation to a host of existential concerns about science, technology, and the environment
Emily York is an Associate Professor in the School of Integrated Sciences at James Madison University in Virginia, United States, where she teaches courses in holistic problem solving and in the social, ethical, and legal dimensions of science and technology She has served as an Associate Editor for Engaging Science, Technology, and Society Her work has appeared in NanoEthics, Configurations, Journal of Responsible Innovation, Engineering Studies, Journal of Integrated Global STEM, Teaching Ethics, and Science and Engineering Ethics
3 September 2026
160 Pages
Paperback
9798765121863
£9 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Virginia, USA
Gorillaz' Plastic Beach
Ihor Junyk
1 October 2026
160 Pages Paperback 9798765132852
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Ontario, Canada
The Cure's Disintegration
Andi Harriman
1 October 2026
144 Pages Paperback
9798765132982
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): New York, USA
Whitney Houston's I'm Your Baby Tonight
Brandon Tensley
12 November 2026
144 Pages Paperback
9798765132630
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Washington, D C , USA
Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads
Allison C Meier
12 November 2026
160 Pages Paperback
9798765133163
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): New York, USA
“Weird Al” Yankovic's “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D
Justin Remer
11 November 2026
144 Pages Paperback
9798765133088
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): California, USA
PAPERBACKS & NEW EDITIONS
The Glass Wall
Success Strategies for Women at Work – and Businesses that Mean Business, 10th Anniversary Edition
Sue Unerman
17 September 2026
272 Pages
Paperback
9781350603837
£10 99
Bloomsbury Business
The Art of Forgery
Master Forgers from the Renaissance to the Age of AI, Revised and Expanded Edition
Noah Charney
15 October 2026
280 Pages
38 colour illus
Paperback
9781350545137
£24 99
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Author location(s): Slovenia
Antigone
The 10th Anniversary Edition
Slavoj Žižek
15 October 2026
112 Pages
Paperback - with flaps
9781350618626
£10 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Slovenia
Describe the Night
Rajiv Joseph
6 August 2026
128 Pages
Paperback
9781350600188
£10 99
Methuen Drama
Author location(s): New York, USA
The Royale Marco
Ramirez
6 August 2026
112 Pages
Paperback
9781350602137
£10 99
Methuen Drama
Author location(s): New York, USA
Sophokles Antigone
Sophocles, translated by Anne Carson
6 August 2026
72 Pages
Paperback
9781350600379
£10 99
Methuen Drama
Author location(s): Ontario, Canada
Deep Blue Sound
Abe Koogler
6 August 2026
80 Pages
Paperback
9781350601024
£10 99
Methuen Drama
Author location(s): Vermont, USA
Good C P Taylor
10 December 2026
96 Pages
Paperback
9781350600898
£10 99
Methuen Drama
The Basque WitchHunt
A Secret History
Jan Machielsen
9 July 2026
344 Pages
33 bw illus
Paperback
9781350607514
£14 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): United Kingdom
Rockin' the Kremlin
My Incredible True Story of Gangsters, Oligarchs, and Pop Stars in Putin's Russia
David Junk, with Fred Bronson
1 October 2026
304 Pages
32 bw photos
Paperback
9798216461586
£16 99
Rowman & Littlefield
Author location(s): California, USA
The Kennedys at Cape Cod, 1944
The Summer That Changed Everything
Leigh Straw
6 August 2026
264 Pages
30 bw illus
Paperback
9781350640092
£12 99
Bloomsbury Academic
Author location(s): Western Australia, Australia
The Permanent Holdout
Jackson Browne, His Music, His America
Cornel Bonca
12 November 2026
224 Pages
Paperback
9798216465102
£16 99
Rowman & Littlefield
Author location(s): California, USA
Peter Asher
A Life in Music
David Jacks
20 August 2026
424 Pages
33 b/w photos; 29 bw spread photos (4CP in HB edition)
Trade Paperback
9798216460466
£21 99
Backbeat
Author location(s): USA
