Books published by publisher J. Murray

Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and, most importantly, enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when listening. What does this book give you? Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making the process fun while you learn a wide range of new vocabulary. Controlled language at your level, including the 1,000 most frequent words, to help you progress confidently. Authentic spoken dialogues, to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability. Pleasure! It's much easier to learn a new language when you're having fun, and research shows that if you're enjoying listening in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration - 'it's too hard!' 'I don't understand!' Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way. Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories include key features that will support and consolidate your progress, including: A bilingual word list. Comprehension questions to aid your understanding. Full plot summary. As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying the stories, delighting in your improved range of vocabulary and grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners will make learning Spanish easy and enjoyable.

Award-winning handbook for girls and women on the autism spectrum, perceptive and wise reflections and advice . Gold Medal Winner in the Sexuality/Relationships Category of the 2011 IPPY Awards Honorary Mention in the 2010 BOTYA Awards Women's Issues Category Girls with Asperger's syndrome are less frequently diagnosed than boys, and even once symptoms have been recognised, help is often not readily available. The image of coping well presented by AS females of any age can often mask difficulties, deficits, challenges and loneliness. This is a must-have handbook written by an Aspergirl for Aspergirls, young and old. Rudy Simone guides you through every aspect of both personal and professional life, from early recollections of blame, guilt and savant skills to friendships, romance and marriage. Employment, career, rituals and routines are also covered, along with depression, meltdowns and being misunderstood. Including the reflections of over 35 women diagnosed as on the spectrum, as well as some partners and parents, Rudy identifies recurring struggles and areas where Aspergirls need validation, information and advice. As they recount their stories, anecdotes and wisdom, she highlights how differences between males and females on the spectrum are mostly a matter of perception, rejecting negative views of Aspergirls and empowering them to lead happy and fulfilled lives. This book will be essential listening for females of any age diagnosed with AS and those who think they might be on the spectrum. It will also be of interest to partners and loved ones of Aspergirls and anybody interested either professionally or academically in Asperger's Syndrome.

You Are a Badass is the self-help audiobook for people who desperately want to improve their lives but don't want to get busted doing it. In this refreshingly entertaining how-to guide, best-selling author and world-travelling success coach Jen Sincero serves up 27 bite-size chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice, easy exercises, and the occasional swear word, helping you to: Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviours that stop you from getting what you want. Create a life you totally love. And create it now. Make some damn money already. The kind you've never made before. By the end of You Are a Badass, you'll understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can't change, how to change what you don't love and how to use The Force to kick some serious ass.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the creator of the wildly popular xkcd.com, hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.Millions visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. Fans ask him a lot of strange questions: How fast can you hit a speed bump, driving, and live? When (if ever) did the sun go down on the British Empire? When will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than living? How many humans would a T Rex rampaging through New York need to eat a day?In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations and consults nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by comics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.

The Talmud says: 'If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.' This instinct, to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people, is hardwired into Israel's DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes preemptively. In this pause-resisting, eye-opening audiobook, journalist and military analyst Ronen Bergman - praised by David Remnick as 'arguably [Israel's] best investigative reporter' - offers a riveting inside account of the targeted killing programs: their successes, their failures, and the moral and political price exacted on the men and women who approved and carried out the missions. Built from interviews with Israeli Prime Ministers as well as high-level figures in Mossad - and the country's military and intelligence services - Rise and Kill First includes never-before-reported, behind-the-curtain accounts of key operations and is based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews and thousands of previously unseen files. From statehood to the present, Bergman traces the gripping events and thorny ethical questions underlying Israel's targeted killing campaign, which has shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East, and the entire world.

AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR'A gripping investigation of Israel's assassination policy' Sunday Times'Remarkable' Observer'Riveting' Daily Mail'Compelling' John le CarréWinner of 2018 National Jewish Book AwardFrom the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, the instinct to take every measure to defend the Jewish people has been hardwired into Israel's DNA. This is the riveting inside account of the targeted assassinations that have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes pre-emptively. Rise and Kill First counts their successes, failures and the moral and political price exacted on those who carried out the missions which have shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East and the entire world.'Exciting, sometimes moving and always considered ... a stunning feat of research and a riveting read' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

A vivid and brutal reimagining of Homer's Iliad, set in the Troubles of the late 20th century. That was the start of it. A terrible business altogether. Oh, it was all kept off the news, for the sake of the talks and the ceasefire. But them that were around that part of the country remember every bit. Wait now till you hear the rest. Northern Ireland, 1996. After 25 years of conflict, the IRA and the British have agreed to an uneasy ceasefire, as a first step towards lasting peace. But if decades of savage violence are leading only to smiles and handshakes, those on the ground in the border country will start to question what exactly they have been fighting for. When an IRA man's wife turns informer, he and his brother gather their old comrades for an assault on the local army base. But the squad's feared sniper suddenly refuses to fight, and the SAS are sent in to crush this rogue terror cell before it can wreck the fragile truce and drag the whole region back to the darkest days of the Troubles. Inspired by the oldest war story of them all, this powerful new Irish novel explores the brutal glory of armed conflict and the bitter tragedy of those on both sides who offer their lives to defend the honour of their country.

Does Anything Eat Wasps? meets Information Is Beautiful: a journey through life, the universe and everything. From what actually happened in the big bang to the accidental discovery of Post-it notes, science is packed with surprising discoveries. Did you know, for instance, that if you were to get too close to a black hole it would suck you up like a noodle (it's called spaghettification), why your keyboard is laid out in QWERTY (it's not to make it easier to type) or whether the invention of the wheel was less important to civilisation than the bag (think about it)? New Scientist does. And now they want to take you on a whistle-stop journey from the start of our universe (through the history of stars, galaxies, meteorites, the moon and dark energy) to our planet (through oceans and weather to oil) and life (through dinosaurs to emotions and sex) to civilisation (from cities to alcohol and cooking) and knowledge (from alphabets to alchemy), ending up with technology (computers to rocket science). Witty essays explore concepts that zoom from how many people have ever lived to showing you how a left-wing brain differs from a right-wing one.

A mayor's inspirational story of a Midwest city that has become nothing less than a blueprint for the future of American renewal. Once described by the Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of," Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has now emerged as one of America's most visionary politicians. With soaring prose that celebrates a resurgent American Midwest, Shortest Way Home narrates the heroic transformation of a "dying city" (Newsweek) into nothing less than a shining model of urban reinvention. Elected at 29 as the nation's youngest mayor, Pete Buttigieg immediately recognised that "great cities, and even great nations, are built through attention to the everyday". As Shortest Way Home recalls, the challenges were daunting - whether confronting gun violence, renaming a street in honour of Martin Luther King Jr., or attracting tech companies to a city that had appealed more to junk bond scavengers than serious investors. None of this is underscored more than Buttigieg's audacious campaign to reclaim 1,000 houses, many of them abandoned, in 1,000 days and then, even as a sitting mayor, deploying to serve in Afghanistan as a Navy officer. Yet the most personal challenge still awaited Buttigieg, who came out in a South Bend Tribune editorial, just before being reelected with 78 percent of the vote, and then finding Chasten Glezman, a middle-school teacher, who would become his partner for life. While Washington reels with scandal, Shortest Way Home, with its graceful, often humorous language, challenges our perception of the typical American politician. In chronicling two once-unthinkable stories that of an Afghanistan veteran who came out and found love and acceptance, all while in office, and that of a revitalised Rust Belt city no longer regarded as "flyover country", Buttigieg provides a new vision for America's shortest way home.

The never-before-told inside story of how the Premier League became the wildest, richest, most popular entertainment business on the planet. How did English football - once known for its stale pies, bad bookkeeping and hooligans - become a commercial powerhouse and the world's premium popular entertainment? This was a business empire built in only 25 years on ambition, experimentation and gambler's luck. Led by a motley cast of executives, Russian oligarchs, Arab sheikhs, Asian titans, American tycoons, battle-hardened managers, ruthless agents and the Murdoch media, the Premier League has been carved up, rebranded and exported to a phenomenal 185 countries. The United Nations recognises only 193. But the extraordinary profit of bringing England's ageing industrial towns to a compulsive global attention has come at a cost. Today, as players are sold for hundreds of millions and clubs are valued in the billions, local fans are being priced out - and the clubs' local identities are fading. The Premier League has become the classic business fable for our globalised world. Drawing on dozens of exclusive and revelatory interviews from the boardrooms - including Liverpool's John W. Henry, Tottenham's Daniel Levy, Martin Edwards and David Gill at Manchester United, Arsène Wenger and Stan Kroenke at Arsenal, Manchester City's sporting director Txiki Begiristain, and executives at Chelsea, West Ham, Leicester City and Aston Villa - this is the definitive bust and boom account of how the Premier League product took over the world.

'This was a secret war whose battles were lost or won unknown to the public.... No such warfare had ever been waged by mortal men.' (Winston Churchill) Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, a country house called The Firs in Buckinghamshire was requisitioned by the War Office. Sentries were posted at the entrance gates, and barbed wire was strung around the perimeter fence. To local villagers it looked like a prison camp. But the truth was far more sinister. This rambling Edwardian mansion had become home to an eccentric band of scientists, inventors and bluestockings. Their task was to build devastating new weaponry that could be used against the Nazis. Led by the gung-ho Millis Jefferis, the men and women who worked at Churchill's Toyshop, as it became known, devised many of the key weapons of the Second World War. Their prototype limpet mine made possible the Cockleshell Raid on Bordeaux Harbour. Churchill said that this one raid alone shortened the war by six months. Next they pioneered the water bomb that closed the Rhine to German shipping. Although the team at Churchill's Toyshop proved extraordinarily adept, they were not working alone. Other country houses were also requisitioned and handed over to the specialists. Some focused on developing new weapons; some planned sabotage missions in occupied Europe; some became training schools for agents. But all were working towards a common goal: the destruction of the Nazi war machine. Collectively they were known as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.