Madeleine Albright

Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Monica Ali With its gritty Tower Hamlets setting, this sharply observed contemporary novel about the life of an Asian immigrant girl deals cogently with issues of love, cultural difference and the human spirit. The pre-publicity hype about Brick Lane was precisely the kind to set alarm bells ringing (we've heard it so often before), but, for once, the excitement is fully justified: Monica Ali's debut novel demonstrates that there is a new voice in modern fiction to be reckoned with.

Nazneen is a teenager forced into an arranged marriage with a man considerably older than her—a man whose expectations of life are so low that misery seems to stretch ahead for her. Fearfully leaving the sultry oppression of her Bangladeshi village, Nazneen finds herself cloistered in a small flat in a high-rise block in the East End of London. Because she speaks no English, she is obliged to depend totally on her husband. But it becomes apparent that, of the two, she is the real survivor: more able to deal with the ways of the world, and a better judge of the vagaries of human behaviour. She makes friends with another Asian girl, Razia, who is the conduit to her understanding of the unsettling ways of her new homeland.

This is a novel of genuine insight, with the kind of characterisation that reminds the reader at every turn just what the novel form is capable of. Every character (Nazneen, her disappointed husband and her resourceful friend Razia) is drawn with the complexity that can really only be found in the novel these days. In some ways, the reader is given the same all-encompassing experience as in a Dickens novel: humour and tragedy rub shoulders in a narrative that inexorably grips the reader. Whether or not Monica Ali can follow up this achievement is a question for the future; it's enough to say right now that Brick Lane is an essential read for anyone interested in current British fiction. —Barry Forshaw

Will Alsop

Karen Armstrong

Various Authors The credit crunch is one of those once in a generation moments when everyone stops to think about what things are really worth. This book suggests that there may be more important things than a new pair of Manolo Blahniks. It deals with helping us to realise that whatever our financial situation, our lives are incredibly wealthy already.

Simon Baskett

Harald Belker, Steve Burg, Scott Robertson

Lewis Blackwell, David Carson

Lewis Blackwell, David Carson

Nicholas Blechman

Mourad Boutros

Jeff Bridges Photographs from movie sets have always been packed with the curious itch of glamour and Pictures, actor Jeff Bridges' book of photographs, is no exception. Bridges has been taking on-set photos since the 1980s with a Widelux, an oddity without a shutter or viewfinder. The camera's moving slit makes for panoramic images (about the same aspect as a widescreen film) and even allows quick moving subjects to appear twice on the same negative. Hence these photos are not always crystal clear but nevertheless capture magic, a verisimilitude of being on the inside of the movie-making process. The wide field can show an actor and director foreground while the crew spins their own story in another part of the print—multiple stories written in light. Bridges often catches his fellow actors with an amusing twinkle in their eye whether preparing for scene or appearing twice in the same shot mirroring the comedy/tragedy masks. Bridges adds memories about the photos including a very funny off-colour story from The Big Lebowski set.

In the past, Bridges would give out self-published collections of his photographs to cast and crew as gifts at the end of a shoot. One might have spied these images in promotional items or magazines, but with Pictures fans of the movies can now have their own wonderful keepsake. —Doug Thomas, Amazon.com

Tim Burton Twenty-three illustrated gothic tales from the dark corridors of the imagination of the creative genius behind Batman, Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish. Burton's lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and tragedy of a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children - hopeful, yet hapless beings.

Orson Scott Card

David Carson

Charles Champlin

Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland

Michael Crichton Unless your species evolved sometime after 1993, when Jurassic Park hit theatres, you're no doubt familiar with this dinosaur-bites-man disaster tale set on an island theme park gone terribly wrong. But if Speilberg's amped-up CGI creation left you longing for more scientific background and ... well, character development, check out the original Michael Crichton novel. Although not his best book (get a hold of sci-fi classic The Andromeda Strain for that), Jurassic Park fills out the film version's kinetic storyline with additional scenes, dialogue and explanations while still maintaining Crichton's trademark thrills-'n'-chills pacing. As ever, the book really is better than the movie. —Paul Hughes, Amazon.com

Michael Crichton On the 45th floor of the Matsumoto Tower in LA, the headquarters of the Japanese Electronics Corporation, celebrities from the film and music world mix with the captains of industry and politics. On the 46th floor, the dead body of a young woman is discovered. By the author of 'Jurassic Park'.

Steve Darnall, Alex Ross Having gloriously portrayed DC's apocalyptic future (Kingdom Come) and Marvel's glorious past (Marvels), Alex Ross turned his gaze to an even older American icon and, armed with Steve Darnell's eloquent prose, proceeded to look into its dark heart. The result is one of the more radical and beautifully presented pieces of political fiction of recent times. In an unnamed city, a vagrant named Sam wanders aimlessly, dressed in patriotic garb, struggling to remember his true identity. Plagued by inner voices, Sam careers into a time-travelling journey where he confronts America's darkest moments and his own violent past. Ross's art is, as ever, stunning, yet furthering his considerable talent of allowing fantastical figures to mingle with "the real world" (continued with Superman: Peace on Earth). Once again, Ross's coupling with a strong writer provides another cohesive and stunning collaboration, with Darnell complementing the frank visuals with some uncompromisingly direct criticism of America. Between them, they fabricate a journey in which Sam is thrust into a delusional kaleidoscope of America's worst crimes against itself. Sam witnesses historical events rife with betrayal, lies, bigotry and unstinting violence, bringing him to the hardest question of all: "Ask not what your country's done for you. Ask what your country's done to you". By the end of this often uncomfortably inquisitive, but unquestionably valid read, it is hard to escape the truth of Sam's savage accusation that America is naught but a glossy, vapid advertisement for a product that does not exist. Uncle Sam is a remarkable feat, never preaching, but candid in its portrayal of a culture that has morally eroded due to corruption and human fallibility. —Danny Graydon

Ron David, Susan David

Jeff Dickey Tells about the urban gateway to the Pacific Northwest, Seattle. From hiking the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainer to enjoying the seafood at Pike Place Market, the color introduction presents the city's highlights. This guide includes listings of top hotels and restaurants, information on the bars, shops and live music venues, and maps.

Scott Dikkers It's America's most popular newspaper, but there may be a few people out there who are sadly unaware of The Onion's mighty journalistic legacy. To combat this cultural illiteracy, Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers and his writing staff have assembled this collection of great front pages from the last one hundred years. Here is just a sampling of the headlines: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Boasts: "No Man Can Stop Me"; AWESOME! Nation Wowed by Tremendous Hindenburg Explosion; Martin Luther King: "I Had a Really Weird Dream Last Night"; Clinton Denies Lewinsky Allegations: "We Did Not Have Sex, We Made Love." And those are just the headlines; the stories themselves are all masterpieces of the journalist's trade. Of course, readers with delicate sensibilities may find some of these accounts a bit too risqué, and perhaps even tasteless. (Among the potential offenders: Rosa Parks's decision to "screw this bus shit" and take a cab.) But if you're looking for an antidote to all the 20th-century hoopla promulgated by stuffed shirts like Peter Jennings and Harold Evans—not to mention the best history book since 1066 and All That—then Our Dumb Century is the one for you. —Ron Hogan

Flint Dille, Robert Sheckley, Abigail Irvine, M.S. Murdock, Ulrike O'Reilly, Jerry Olton

Dale Dougherty

Michael Drosnin The original THE BIBLE CODE - a phenomenal bestseller across the world

Mark Ellwood, Nick Edwards

Michael Evamy Offers graphic designers with a reference source for logo design. This book contains more than 1300 logos grouped according to their focal form, symbol and graphic associations. It offers design consultancies, a resource to draw upon in the research phase of identity projects. It also offers alphabetically indexed logos.

David Fagundes, Anthony Grant

Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Richard Florida

Scott Frost

Neil Gershenfeld

Dave Gibbons, Frank Miller

Misha Glenny

Phoebe Gloeckner

John Gray Now viewed as a modern classic, this phenomenal book has helped men and women realise how different they really are and how to communicate their needs in such a way that conflict doesn't arise and intimacy is given every chance to grow.

Clive Grinyer

Matt Groening, Ray Richmond

Wallpaper* Group

Husain Haddawy

Mark Haddon The title The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (or the curious incident of the dog in the night-time as it appears within the book) is an appropriate one for Mark Haddon's ingenious novel both because of its reference to that most obsessive and fact-obsessed of detectives, Sherlock Holmes, and because its lower-case letters indicate something important about its narrator.

Christopher is an intelligent youth who lives in the functional hinterland of autism—every day is an investigation for him because of all the aspects of human life that he does not quite get. When the dog next door is killed with a garden fork, Christopher becomes quietly persistent in his desire to find out what has happened and tugs away at the world around him until a lot of secrets unravel messily.

Haddon makes an intelligent stab at how it feels to, for example, not know how to read the faces of the people around you, to be perpetually spooked by certain colours and certain levels of noise, to hate being touched to the point of violent reaction. Life is difficult for the difficult and prickly Christopher in ways that he only partly understands; this avoids most of the obvious pitfalls of novels about disability because it demands that we respect—perhaps admire—him rather than pity him. —Roz Kaveney

Jonathan Harris, Sep Kamvar

Marcus Hearn Citing the eminent filmmaker's significant contributions to the movie industry since the inception of the Star Wars series, a tribute to Lucas's vision draws on exclusive interviews and unique access to the Lusasfilm archives to survey some of his most significant achievements.

David S J Hodgson

Robert Hunter

Tim Jepson

Steven A. Johnson As Steven Johnson explains with a rare lucidity in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, an individual ant, like an individual neuron, is just about as dumb as can be. Connect enough of them together properly, though, and you get spontaneous intelligence. Starting with the weird behaviour of the semi-colonial organisms we call slime molds, Johnson details the development of increasingly complex and familiar behaviour among simple components: cells, insects and software developers all find their place in greater schemes.

Most game players, alas, live on something close to day-trader time, at least when they're in the middle of a game—thinking more about their next move than their next meal, and usually blissfully oblivious to the 10-or-20-year trajectory of software development. No-one wants to play with a toy that's going to be fun after a few decades of tinkering—the toys have to be engaging now, or kids will find other toys.

Johnson has a knack for explaining complicated and counterintuitive ideas cleverly without stealing the scene. Though we're far from fully understanding how complex behaviour manifests from simple units and rules, our awareness that such emergence is possible is guiding research across disciplines. Readers unfamiliar with the sciences of complexity will find Emergence an excellent starting point, while those who were chaotic before it was cool will appreciate its updates and wider scope. —Rob Lightner

John Kao

Chip Kidd, Paul Dini

Naomi Klein We live in an era where image is nearly everything, where the proliferation of brand-name culture has created, to take one hyperbolic example from Naomi Klein's No Logo, "walking, talking, life-sized Tommy [Hilfiger] dolls, mummified in fully branded Tommy worlds". Brand identities are even flourishing online, she notes—and for some retailers, perhaps best of all online: "Liberated from the real-world burdens of stores and product manufacturing, these brands are free to soar, less as the disseminators of goods or services than as collective hallucinations".

In No Logo, Klein patiently demonstrates, step by step, how brands have become ubiquitous, not just in media and on the street but increasingly in the schools as well. The global companies claim to support diversity but their version of "corporate multiculturalism" is merely intended to create more buying options for consumers. When Klein talks about how easy it is for retailers like Wal-Mart and Blockbuster to "censor" the contents of videotapes and albums, she also considers the role corporate conglomeration plays in the process. How much would one expect Paramount Pictures, for example, to protest against Blockbuster's policies, given that they are both divisions of Viacom?

Klein also looks at the workers who keep these companies running, most of whom never share in any of the great rewards. The president of Borders, when asked whether the bookstore chain could pay its clerks a "living wage" wrote that "while the concept is romantically appealing, it ignores the practicalities and realities of our business environment". Those clerks should probably just be grateful they're not stuck in an Asian sweatshop, making pennies an hour to produce Nike sneakers or other must-have fashion items. Klein also discusses at some length the tactic of hiring "permatemps" who can do most of the work and receive few, if any, benefits like health care, paid vacations or stock options. While many workers are glad to be part of the "Free Agent Nation" observers note that, particularly in the high-tech industry, such policies make it increasingly difficult to organise workers and advocate for change.

But resistance is growing and the backlash against the brands has set in. Street-level education programmes have taught kids in the inner cities, for example, not only about Nike's abusive labour practices but about the astronomical mark-up in their prices. Boycotts have commenced: as one urban teen put it, "Nike, we made you. We can break you". But there's more to the revolution, as Klein optimistically recounts: "Ethical shareholders, culture jammers, street reclaimers, McUnion organisers, human-rights hacktivists, school-logo fighters and Internet corporate watchdogs are at the early stages of demanding a citizen-centred alternative to the international rule of the brands ... as global, and as capable of co-ordinated action, as the multinational corporations it seeks to subvert". No Logo is a comprehensive account of what the global economy has wrought and the actions taking place to thwart it. —Ron Hogan

Dean Kuipers

Sarah Lacy

Nabil Matar

Max McKeown

Syd Mead An excellent work from probably the most well known and one of the most respected production designer's and visual futurists in the world.

Syd Mead A grand selection from the vast repertoire of the most well known and probably the most respected visual futurist of the 20th and 21st century.

Tariq Mehmood

Frank Miller

Per Mollerup This critical exploration of trademarks provides an extensive source of international marks, together with a thorough explanation of their meaning and history. The author traces the origin of the trademark, and then discusses its development, style, classification and contemporary relevance.

Nicholas Negroponte As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for Wired, Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of Being Digital, which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for Wired about "being digital."

Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality (VR), holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.

In the last chapter and the epilogue, Negroponte offers visionary insight on what "being digital" means for our future. Negroponte praises computers for their educational value but recognizes certain dangers of technological advances, such as increased software and data piracy and huge shifts in our job market that will require workers to transfer their skills to the digital medium. Overall, Being Digital provides an informative history of the rise of technology and some interesting predictions for its future.

J.B. Nonell

Mark Ovenden

Sanjay Patel

Irna Qureshi

Joe Sacco Safe Area Gorazde is a harrowing documentary comic destined to become a classic of war reporting. In the waning days of the Bosnian war, Joe Sacco, the cartoonist behind the acclaimed Palestine, made several visits to Gorazde, a UN "safe area" that had been repeatedly attacked by Serb forces. He interviewed survivors of the Serb siege and assembled their recollections. Sacco depicts the atrocities of the war in simple, restrained panels, but his attention to detail is everywhere, from the accurate renderings of mortar scars on the landscape to the history lessons carefully embedded throughout the comic.

Sacco never descends into sensationalism or exploitation of the war's victims, but instead adopts a subjective gaze that places readers in hiding spots from which they can only catch glimpses of the murders and rapes. Sacco leaves the particulars of these crimes up to the imagination of his readers, which is appropriate enough given the unthinkable nature of what took place in Gorazde.

The real impact of Safe Area lies in Sacco's immersion in the daily life of Gorazde. While other journalists left Gorazde as soon as they had the clips they needed, Sacco lived in the town for weeks at a time, becoming a vicarious resident. Although the conflict was largely over by this point, Gorazde was still surrounded and Sacco was an eyewitness to his friends' struggle not only to survive but also to maintain their sanity.

Safe Area is not just a catalogue of horrors and a condemnation of international indifference; it's also a moving portrayal of the human capacity to endure almost any hardship. Sacco refuses to fall into any clichés about the triumph of the human spirit here—the people of Gorazde themselves reject such notions—but he does offer up Safe Area as a testament to its survival. —Peter Darbyshire, Amazon.ca

Joe Sacco

Marjane Satrapi

Mark Schultz

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Martin Cruz Smith

Tim Smith, Irna Qureshi The Grand Trunk Road is the oldest, longest, and most famous highway in southern Asia. This book uses oral testimonies, photographs and texts to explore its history, and shows why it was so crucial to the process of migration to Britain and how the close links between Britain and places along it continue to this day.

Roger Trilling, Stuart Swezey

Nick Udall, Nic Turner The Way of Nowhere is a business book by the UK's hottest change management consultancy who have led transformations in some of Britain's biggest and best known organisations. An invaluable resource for anyone who wants to make a creative difference in their lives and the lives of people around them.

Bruce Wagner

H.G. Wells

Daniel H. Wilson An inspired and often hilarious look at how humans can defeat the inevitable robot rebellion - as revealed by a paranoid robotics expert

Justin Wintle