Focus On: Politics
Here are our politics picks for autumn/winter 2024! Have a browse through to help focus your gift buying for this season, and beyond!
Adventures in Art, Activism and Accountability (Led By Donkeys)
Led By Donkeys are political artists and activists. This book is an adrenalized journey through five years of resistance against the ineptitudes, corruption and greed committed by those in power in Britain. This book tracks the major moments from 2019 to 2024 when Led By Donkeys’ activism captured the public mood with high-profile interventions.
Within its pages (amongst other things): the Covid crisis of 2020; Boris Johnson’s struggles with truth and decency; Liz Truss’s battles with maths and markets; the climate crisis we are sleepwalking into; burgeoning corruption in Westminster; the war in Ukraine; a crashed economy; the cost-of-living crisis and much more. And they’re not done yet: a new government means new policies, new vulnerabilities, new areas of accountability. And with the Reform party on the rise, this is no time to be complacent… Shot from helicopters and drones, from iPhones and hidden cameras, here are over 200 images and text taking you behind the scenes, including footage seized then returned by the police, professional photography, maps, plans, designs and sketches, and of course the results – newspaper front pages, media response and public reaction.
Taken together, they tell the story of an extraordinary time and tactics to hold the powerful to account.
Let's Be Honest (Jess Phillips)
From culture wars to clickbait, it’s fair to say that politics has lost some of its integrity, and we’ve all suffered as a result. If it hadn’t almost wrecked the country with calamitous consequences in nearly every sector of public life, it would be funny. We’ve let our standards drop – but we deserve better.
Jess Phillips believes in democracy, and the people she meets give her cause for optimism even if sometimes politicians really (really) don’t. At once a laugh-so-you-don’t-cry takedown of the state of Westminster in recent years and a rallying battle cry for bringing truth back to politics, this book will make you angry, cheer you up and give you hope.
Strangeland (Jon Sopel)
At the beginning of 2022, after eight years of political reporting in the US, Jon Sopel returned home to the UK – and having spent almost a third of his career abroad, he found a very different place to the one he left. In Strangeland, his first book since launching the global hit podcast The News Agents, he asks: What is the Britain he’s come home to? In the US, Jon was the outsider looking in, firm in the belief that the common language of English masked our fundamental differences; in terms of values and beliefs, it seemed the British had much more in common with our European neighbours.
Strangeland is Jon’s account of how much that has changed. The US was a country he thought he knew well but didn’t really; returning home has been in some ways even more disconcerting – either Britain, the country he grew up in, has changed dramatically, or he has. Perhaps it’s both.
A trenchant analysis of politics, people, and everything in between, Strangeland is an unforgettable portrait of a country gone through the looking glass.
Now What? (Carol Vorderman)
We have a new government and have bid a loud goodbye to the Tories, but the issues that allowed the last government to mismanage and deceive us for so long lie deep. Amidst a landscape of economic turmoil and deepening societal fractures, we need to see a new age of accountability in our political system. With her characteristic outspokenness and irrepressible sense of humour, Carol Vorderman exposes the intricate web of influence responsible for our nation's unravelling and provides us with a toolkit for building a better and fairer Britain.
Part diary, part manifesto, part journey down the rabbit hole of British politics, this is the story of how 'an old bird with an iPhone' exposed the incompetence and lies of the establishment, and inspired countless others to find their voice and stand up for what they believe in.
Unhinged: A Parody (Ian Martin)
Boris Johnson has been a towering figure for decades in the worlds of politics, journalism and personal scandal. Somehow, he always bounces back. How does he do it? And how might we mere mortals elevate our piffling lives to the same levels of greatness? Learn how to be more like Boris in this parody companion to Johnson's own account of the last few years.
Inside you'll find easy-to-recreate social gambits, life rules and some great excuses that'll get you out of all sorts of tricky situations. Plus, learn how to trivialise everything with buffoonery, rebuild reality using various self-centred techniques, smash everything to pieces. Then try to fix it. And then smash it again...
Private Eye Annual 2024 (Ian Hislop)
The 2024 Private Eye Annual presents the year's best cartoons, jokes, parodies and topical sketches from the UK's most successful, best-selling news and current affairs magazine. Edited by Ian Hislop and illustrated throughout with cartoons, sketches and photo-bubbles, the Private Eye Annual has become both a seasonal institution and a perennial Christmas best-seller. The perfect gift for yourself or your friends and family.