A celebration of our female friendships, of our messy years, and of growing up together. Glittering with wit, heart, and humour, its a book to share with every woman youve ever been lucky enough to call a friend.

Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.

I know that love can be loud and jubilant. It can be dancing in the swampy mud and the pouring rain at a festival and shouting YOU ARE AMAZING over the band. Its laughing until you wheeze. Its walking along the street together on a Saturday night and feeling an entire city is yours.

I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing. Its lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where youre going to go that morning to drink more coffee. Its folding down pages of books you think theyd find interesting.

I know that love happens under the splendour of fireworks and sunsets, but also happens when youre lying on blow-up airbeds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in A&E or in the queue for a passport.

*****

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

A book every girl in her 20s needs to read

Ill never stop recommending this book

This is my comfort book! I LOOOOVE THIS BOOK TO MY CORE

I wish I could read it for the first time again

A Sunday Times bestseller, September 2022
TikTok Book Awards Winner, August 2023

The second edition of the acclaimed Routledge Companion to Aesthetics contains fifty-four chapters written by leading international scholars covering all aspects of aesthetics.

This companion opens with an historical overview of aesthetics including entries on Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sibley and Derrida. The second part covers the central concepts and theories needed for a comprehensive understanding of aesthetics including the definitions of art, taste, value of art, beauty, imagination, fiction, narrative, metaphor and pictorial representation. Part three is devoted to the topics that have attracted much contemporary interest in aesthetics including art and ethics, environmental aesthetics and feminist aesthetics. The final part addresses the individual arts of music, photography, film, literature, theatre, dance, architecture and sculpture.

With nine new and revised entries, and up to date suggestions for further reading, The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics is essential for anyone interested in aesthetics, art, literature, and visual studies.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019

'Expect vibrant, vivid and eye-opening descriptions of Middle Eastern life propelled by a tender storyline, all in Shafak's haunting, beautiful and considered prose' Vanity Fair

'Incredibly sensuous and poetic and evocative' Pandora Sykes

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'

For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which women use to wax their legs while men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends Leila made at each key moment in her life  friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . .

'Simply magnificent, a truly captivating work of immense power and beauty, on the essence of life and its end' Philippe Sands

'Elif Shafak brings into the written realm what so many others want to leave outside. Spend more than ten minutes and 38 seconds in this world of the estranged. Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann

'A rich, sensual novel... This is a novel that gives voice to the invisible, the untouchable, the abused and the damaged, weaving their painful songs into a thing of beauty.' Financial Times

'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi

*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE NOW ***

Michelle Obama is:

A First Lady of the United States of America.

A lawyer

An inspiration

As well as a writer, activist and feminist icon. Michelle was born and raised in Chicago, she studied and worked hard to become a lawyer, and then took to the international stage as First Lady.

This beautifully illustrated book tells the extraordinary story of Michelle Obama's life, perfect for young readers everywhere.

Explore other extraordinary lives:
The Extraordinary Life of Stephen Hawking
The Extraordinary Life of Malala Yousafzai
The Extraordinary Life of Anne Frank
The Extraordinary Life of Mahatma Gandhi
The Extraordinary Life of Rosa Parks
The Extraordinary Life of Serena Williams
The Extraordinary Life of Nelson Mandela

** FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR **

**Previously published as The Little Book of Lykke**

""A wonderful guide to happy living. It's based on hard evidence and written with a wonderful sense of fun"" Richard Layard, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE and author of Happiness

Happiness is just around the corner with this practical guide from happiness researcher Meik Wiking

Meik Wiking understands happiness better than anyone. In his role as Founder and CEO of the world's only Happiness Research Institute, he has travelled the globe interviewing the world's happiest people to discover the key components of happiness.

In The Key to Happiness, Meik explores the hidden treasures which can improve your happiness, and divides them into the six building blocks of happiness; togetherness, money, health, kindness, trust and freedom. For each happiness block he offers practical tips: for togetherness he encourages setting up a mini-library in your apartment building or starting a tool-sharing programme in your street; for kindness he suggests leaving a surprise gift on a stranger's doorstep, helping a tourist find their way or telling someone who means a lot to you that they do.

Drawing on social science, case studies and Meik's original research, this practical guide shows us that you can find happiness in a simple way of life. While Meik has travelled across the globe to discover the secrets of the world's happiest people, this book shows us that you can be just as happy where you are.

This book is the perfect guide on how to survive and navigate the modern world with a smile on your face.

""An inspiring and highly engaging exploration of what really makes us happy, all underpinned by the latest research"" Dr Mark Williamson Director of Action for Happiness

Tying into the official theme for the 2009 Inauguration, 'A New Birth of Freedom' from Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address, Penguin presents a keepsake edition commemorating the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama with words of the two great thinkers and writers who have helped shape him politically, and personally: Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson, complementing Obama's own inaugural address.

Having Lincoln and Emerson's most influential, memorable, and eloquent words along with Obama's much-anticipated historical inaugural address will be a gift of inspiration and a memento for generations.