Uncorroborated rumours abound that the sun was spotted briefly in England over a few days so far in May. So, was that our Spring?
Never mind. Whatever the weather there’s always time to read a good book. So here’s news of our latest published books, those upcoming, and recent books in our catalogue that offer an invaluable insight into current international news.
IN THE NEWS
SERIAL KILLER – CHARLES SOBRHAJ
Sky News has just reported: French killer Charles Sobhraj known as ‘The Serpent’ freed from jail in Nepal. This follows the Channel 4 documentary recently aired entitled The Real Serpent – Investigating a Killer.
We here at Bite-Sized Books thought the Channel 4 programmes were very weak, lacking in any new facts, and relied heavily on what we TV bods call ‘shaky camera’ dramatics – tiresome editing to create the illusion of ‘being there’, used when you’re stretching limited material to fill the slot.
We can afford to be critical because we’ve published the true inside story on Sobhraj: Hawk and Hyena – What Ever Happened to the Serpent.
Our author Farrukh Dhondy knew serial killer Charles Sobhraj very well. He still does. Having met him in the 90s, Dhondy tracked his movements across the world over years. He was continuously in contact with him. From Paris to London, Kathmandu to India, London to Nepal, this amazing true story exposes the truth behind Sobhraj, his many women, his murders, and his mercilessly cruel participation in world events.
Characters in this true-life story include Boris Johnson, then editor of The Spectator, former prime minister Tony Blair, the CIA and MI6 – among many others.
BUY ON AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/29ft94af
THE WEST’S RELATIONS WITH CHINA
Our relations with China have been doubly tested over the last few months and again most recently with, as the BBC reported: MoD data breach: State involvement cannot be ruled out in armed forces hack, says Grant Shapps.
The cleft stick of ‘being seen’ to challenge human rights, and yet seek international commercial partnerships, is constantly exposed and forces the UK to take a stance it might prefer to avoid. We have the new (alleged) data breaches and more recently the uncomfortable implicit support/mediation by China of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine
Financial Times China’s journalist in the UK, Yue He Parkinson, is a well-informed observer of Anglo-Chinese relations. Her brilliant book, China and the West – Unravelling 100 years of misunderstanding has been endorsed by Sir Vince Cable.
Yue writes in English about China, and in Chinese about the West, with the benefit of two mindsets combining Chinese and Western empathy and know-how. It’s the perfect background briefing.
Back cover copy:
We are witnessing the greatest competition between world powers in our lifetime, an unavoidable result of the post-colonisation era. In effect the Chinese are launching an equivalent of an international BLM movement against which an understanding of only liberal democracy or China’s society isn’t constructive.
This book offers a unique, neutral perspective that enables us to understand the competitive advantages, disadvantages, strategies and position of the US and China. For the first time, true Chinese mind-sets are vividly explained thanks to the author’s masterly and unique grasp of both cultures. We’re given the answers as to how China is able to compete with the US, ironically with America’s unwitting help, which gives the Chinese people often unfavourable perspectives on liberal democracy and demonstrates the West’s loss of a sense of national interest.
The book also graphically explains why the focus on purely Western values is actually dangerous for our long-term future.
BUY ON AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/kdzrcwa3
NEW BOOKS
2084 – DISCOVERING AMBYTOPIA
Paul Davies introduces this world in the introduction to the book: “Post neo-liberalism, post sado-populism, the unimaginably wealthy and powerful have created a global neo-age where need has been all but eliminated – so where is the human spirit now?”
The dystopian vision of Orwell’s 1984 is recreated in 2084 as amblytopia.
Nation states have been subsumed into a global world controlled by seven trillionaires. That world is grey and meaningless and there is no spur for human development or aspiration – a neo-age of amblytopia. Paradoxically imagination has become highly prized and yet trivialised.
How do individuals survive and live with themselves? What has become of the human spirit? Read this insight into the future and beware.
BUY ON AMAZON – https://tinyurl.com/288n6a5v
MEET OUR AUTHORS ARTICLE ON PAUL – https://tinyurl.com/58xx9p26
A LIFE OF PROJECTS
TOOLS TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU DESERVE
Do you have a dream locked in your mind? Dissatisfied with what you’re doing, and would like to pursue a new path? Want to be far more successful? You’re browsing the right book!
A Life of Projects will enable you to assess your current situation and define the goals you want to achieve, through a series of searching and challenging questions.
By going through Walter Romano’s Questions Cycle you will be able to nail the path you want to follow, build your strategy, and acquire the insights and the tools you need to fulfil yourself in your work and your life.
Walter Romano is an executive and project coach for entrepreneurs and business managers and a project manager with more than twenty years of experience across multiple market sectors, managing complex projects and multicultural teams. He is a sought-after conference speaker, and a lecturer at business schools and corporate training centres. Walter is the author of two successful Italian business books and A Life of Projects is his first book in English.
“A thrilling deep dive into yourself.” Jonah Berger, Wharton Professor and Bestselling author of “The Catalyst”
“Learn how to…unlock your potential and turn your dreams into reality.” Dorie Clarke, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Long Game and executive education faculty, Columbia Business School
“A compelling guide for anyone looking to break free from the inertia of unfulfilled dreams…” Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author of The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
“…from the aspirational to the actual, from dreams to reality, from potential to a project.” Alec Ross, global best-selling author of The Raging 2020s and The Industries of the Future
BUY ON AMAZON – https://tinyurl.com/42eewyyk
THE $275 TRILLION GREEN REVOLUTION
WILL CONSUMERS BUY IT?
A new work by Sir John Redwood building further on best path to net zero
John Redwood, a fellow of All Souls College Oxford and a well-known commentator on economics and politics has produced this latest book on the Green Revolution.
Updating his previous work written ahead of COP 26 in Glasgow, he sets out the sheer magnitude of the ambition of the net zero campaigners. He stresses the need for massive investments in everything from renewable power to new factories, from changed domestic heating to new forms of farming. He draws out the huge costs and the difficulties of finding all the finance to carry through the plans. He points to consumer reluctance in many countries to buy heat pumps or electric cars, with most people so far finding them expensive and often not as good as the products they wish to replace.
He asks who will design and make the Beetle or Mini of the car revolution? Who will find the hoover of the home heating transition? How fast can industry go in replacing gas with renewable electricity? When will the grids and power cables catch up with the potential demand? Balancing the need for security of supply with affordability and low carbon objectives is proving difficult for many countries to achieve.
John Redwood is a businessman by background who has led industrial companies and set up an investment management business. An MP since 1987, he has been a government minister and was Head of Margaret Thatcher’s Policy Unit in her middle period in office.
BUY ON AMAZON – https://tinyurl.com/4x7atruh
THE KILLER WOMEN SERIES
We’ve published the third book in Atima Srivastava’s The Killer Women Series; The Crime She Didn’t Commit
Another blockbuster thriller hot on the heels of Atima Srivastava’s other bestsellers; It Takes a Girl, and Dark Waters. Both part of The Killer Women Series.
Shivani Srivastava has designs on the eminent Dr Shree. She doesn’t realise that, though separated from his wife, he is still married. So, when the glamorous Mala Sinha returns and starts getting in the way of her plans, Shivani accidentally runs her over in a pique of jealous rage. At first panicked, Shivani’s horror soon turns to high spirits as she realises it’s easy to get away with it. All she has to do is control the narrative. One by one, she tells them each a different lie and keeps all the plates spinning.
There’s her older brother Neel, kindhearted and willing to believe everything she tells him. Then there’s 10-year-old Krishna, Dr Shree and Mala Sinha’s lonely child. And Dr Shree’s old friend the debonair and well-connected Dyson, who turns up for a reason undisclosed. And Mala Sinha’s volatile boyfriend Gerald Griffin, who must be dealt with. And of course, there’s Nurse Natalie, who appears at exactly the wrong moment, but ends up helping Shivani get rid of the body—but now won’t go away. And a stranger in cowboy boots arrives and starts asking a lot of uncomfortable questions.
As worlds collide and lies explode, and the past is pulled into the present, Shivani falls into the vortex of a dark sensationalist scandal of international proportions.
Atima Srivastava was born in Mumbai in 1961 and came to London at age 10. She was a film editor for 16 years and then a university lecturer developing and teaching courses in Literature, Film and Immigration. She has published four other novels, as well as several screenplays and short stories and been a Visiting British Writer in Residence at universities in over 50 cities including Seoul, Mumbai, Mainz, Sophia, Bern, Koln, Lugano and Singapore.
BUY ON AMAZON – https://tinyurl.com/kjs36kx3
THE KILLER WOMEN SERIES ON AMAZON – https://tinyurl.com/mv9454ma
MEET OUR AUTHORS ARTICLE ON ATIMA – https://tinyurl.com/3nh5yh7k
…HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
Our boys in the basement are dropping in the final chunks of metal to publish a number of books over the next month or so….here’s an update on one.
THE FIRST TIME BUSINESS LEADER
CONGRATULATIONS! NOW WHAT?
OUR BUSINESS BOOK SERIES – FIRST TITLE
Ian Benn is one of our most successful business books authors. His new book – to be published in the next month – is essential reading for any new manager, and a timely refresher to the rest of us.
Back cover blurb:
Careers seldom progress smoothly. Usually, they advance in a series of surprising, sometimes ungainly jumps. One of the hardest to navigate is the leap from specialist to general leadership. After all, everyone knows what the sales director does; why you need a financial director; the purpose of the operations director. But what does a business leader actually do? How do you invest your time? Where should you focus? How do you create value? This concise book is designed for any new business leader. Through a series of examples, toolkits and checklists it will help you to start strongly with clarity of action and purpose from the beginning and throughout.
Ian is an advisor, investor, coach, and author. He brings experience from senior roles including SVP, general manager, managing director, CMO, CSO, and global head of strategy. Companies include Ingenico, FIS, Misys (now Finastra) and Unisys.
He is a member of the Pennies Foundation Advisory Board and, in addition, advises exciting early-stage tech start-ups including Sama Coaching and Sealit Technologies.
His books have addressed outsourcing and, more recently, “Write to Win: How to Produce Winning Proposals and RFP Responses”, also published by Bite-Sized Books.
PUBLISHED SOON
UK BOOK TOUR – RYAN BERNSTEN
EUROPEAN SPEAKER TOUR – 27 JUNE TO 11 JULY 2024
Ryan Bernsten, American author of the 50 States of Mind, will be in Europe on a book tour soon. In the lead up to the November US Presidential election, Ryan’s timely lecture series challenges the media presumption that the United Sates is irretrievably polarised politically – and shows us the path to a unified nation.
Already he has, for example, had a brilliantly successful meeting with the Carnegie Club in St Andrew’s University – and his presentation and discussion have been praised as offering a whole new insight into American politics.
If you’d like to host Ryan to come and speak, please contact julian.costley@bite-sizedbooks.com
Is America as divided as it seems? Oxford University graduate student Ryan Bernsten takes a 23,000-mile journey through all 50 states of his home country to answer that question. 50 States of Mind: A Journey to Rediscover American Democracy is a work of travel nonfiction in the style of Alexis de Tocqueville that takes readers on a long and winding journey through all 50 states to explore the complexities of today’s America. Leading with the desire to listen and overcome our preconceived notions, 50 States of Mind asks how we can infuse humanity and nuance back into political conversations to keep our democracy strong. The companion podcast “50 States of Mind,” featured in Condé Nast Traveler, showcases live interviews from the journey and is available on all podcast platforms.
Ryan Bernsten is a graduate of Northwestern University and Oxford’s Creative Writing Master’s program. He has written for The Oxford Political Review, USA Today, The Infatuation, and The Trevor Project, where he currently serves as Senior Managing Editor. Ryan is an award-winning playwright whose plays have been performed across the US and UK.
BUY ON AMAZON – https://bite-sizedbooks.com/shop/50-states-of-mind/