The Women's Studies Group (WSG) was formed 35 years ago to engage with all aspects of women's lives over almost two centuries, and within two years of its foundation it had members in 19 countries worldwide. This lively collection of 14 essays ranges over the whole period and a fascinating variety of topics. The 16th century nine-days' queen Lady Jane Grey was the centre of a circle of Protestant reformers, but as was customary at the time, Michelangelo Florio's dedication of his book to Lady Jane foregrounds her male relatives, evoking her role as an intermediary with influential men such as her father, the Duke of Suffolk. In a discussion of Fertility, Aphrodisiacs and Sexual Pleasure in Early Modern England, Jennifer Evans draws on the anxieties of Samuel Pepys and his wife to support the conclusion that aphrodisiacs at this time were considered to be a remedy, with sexual pleasure associated with conception. Gillian Williamson examines how the 18th century Gentleman's Magazine shifted the meaning of gentlemanliness to a more self-generated model, and how this in turn influenced definitions of femininity. Sarah Oliver writes about female sexual agency in the 18th century novel, covering the rape theme in Richardson's Clarissa and Eliza Haywood's best-selling Love in Excess, and finding in conclusion that Mary Hays's Memoirs of Emma Courtney destabilises the view that a master's sexual abuse of a female servant is acceptable. Brianna E Robertson-Kirkland ventures into the world of opera with the rivalry between prima donnas in the Pathetic and Virtuosic styles. In "Better than the Men" Peter Radford discusses women's speed, strength and endurance in sport, in which there was widespread participation in the 18th century, particularly running, and also their strength as hard labourers in the coal and other industries. 224pp, photos.

In 2007 Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett - who subsequently became known as "The Four Horsemen" - sat down in Hitchens's library and, over cocktails, began a conversation which was become a landmark point in modern atheism. The video was set to record and what followed, a rigorous, groundbreaking and enthralling exchange has since been viewed millions of times since first posted. This is intellectual enquiry of the very highest order - exhilarating, funny, unpredictable, sincere and probing. This book comprises the entire transcript of that conversation, presented in print for the first time, and is augmented by new material from the living participants, essays by Dawkins, Harris and Dennett. These are arguably as important as that original conversation, as they mark the evolution of each's thinking over the ensuing 12 years and also highlight particularly resonant personal aspects of this epic discussion. Each man contends with the fundamentals of human existence while challenging the others to articulate their stance on religion, spirituality and debate with people of faith and the components of an ethical life. And the icing on the cake is an extended foreword by Stephen Fry in which he characterises the protagonists as the Four Musketeers - Porthos, d'Artagnan, Aramis and Athos respectively - as he introduces the conversation and essays in his own inimitable style. Erudite, profound and with no little humour, a sparkling introduction to modern atheism. 134pp. Apologies for small remainder mark.

A penetrating look at near-future disruption as truly autonomous vehicles arrive. Anthony Townsend argues that the driverless car is a red herring. When self-driving technology infects buses, bikes, delivery vans and buildings, a wild future awaits. Technology will transform life behind the wheel into a high-definition video game that makes our rides safer, smoother, and more efficient. Meanwhile, autonomous vehicles will turbo charge our appetite for the instant delivery of goods, making the future as much about moving stuff as it is about moving people. Companies will link the automated machines that move us to the cloud, raising concerns about mobility monopolies and privatisation of 'the curb'. Our cities and towns will change as we embrace new ways to get around. The book explains where we might be heading with driverless vehicles, and the choices we must make as societies and individuals to shape that future. Extensively researched from many articles including curiously titled ones like 'The Rate of Decline in Licensing Was Already Slowing Down' and 'In The Future Commutes You Won't Have to Focus', 'The Cost of Traffic Control Grew Tenfold' and 'Car Was Cheap, Rugged and Simple to Repair?, the robots are coming! 318pp, line art.

Feudalism, war and life in medieval times condensed into one short and accessible book. Originally warriors mounted on horseback, knights became associated with the concept of chivalry as popularised in medieval European literature. They were expected to fight bravely and honourably and be loyal to their lord until death if necessary. Later chivalry came to encompass activities such as tournaments and hunting and virtues including justice, charity and faith. The Crusades were instrumental in the development of the code of chivalry, and some crusading orders of knighthoods such as the Knights Templar have become legend. By the 15th century advances in warfare had rendered knights obsolete, but the 'knight' had survived as an honorary title granted for services to a monarch or country and remains an icon of popular culture. This short history covers the extensive training, specific arms and armour, tournaments and the important concept of chivalry in chapters entitled 1066 and All That, Kingdom of Heaven, Longshanks, Braveheart, St Crispin's Day, Game of Thrones and Ivanhoe. A Casemate illustrated paperback, 160pp.

Celebrating its 175th anniversary with over 17 miles of shelving and more than a million books, The London Library has become an unrivalled archive of the modes, manners and thoughts of each generation which has helped to form it. 'This little body of thought, that lies before me in the shape of a book, has existed thousands of years, nor since the invention of the press can anything short of a universal convulsion of nature abolish it.' Containing 'How Should One Read a Book?' by Virginia Woolf, Letter from Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins, Letter from Charles Dickens to George Eliot, Authorship by George Eliot, My Books by Leigh Hunt and The London Library by E. M. Forster, this is a book for all readers and writers who draw strength, solace or inspiration from the presence of books. Hear the words of some of the most illustrious figures of the last two centuries who have written, thought and worked in The London Library which was founded in 1841 by Thomas Carlyle in reaction to the 'museum headache' brought on by the crowds in the British Museum Reading Room. Over time some of these celebrated members have shared with each other or with an interested public their views on the delights, challenges and joys of reading, writing and living with books. From essays on dieting in the 1860s to instructions for gentlewomen on trout fishing, from advice on the ill health caused by the 'modern' craze of bicycling to travelogues from Norway, one of our favourites here is Leigh Hunt's My Books published in 1899. 'I looked sideways at my Spenser, my Theocritus and my Arabian Nights; then above them at my Italian poets; then behind me at my Dryden and Pope, my romances and my Boccaccio; then on my left side at my Chaucer, who lay on a writing desk; and thought how natural it was in CL to give a kiss to an old folio, as I once saw him do to Chapman's Homer.' Paperback, 92pp.

A series of pen portraits of some 40 individuals who helped shape the foundations of English prehistoric study including army officers, reverends, country squires and gentry, bankrupts, suicides, a probable illegitimate royal, a high clergyman, a tradesman and a farmer. As well as portraits, short biographies of each personality are embellished with appropriate illustrations, including digs, artefacts, archaeological sites and some of their more interesting tombs and connected activities. It's an entertaining and instructive who's who of pioneers of English archaeology beginning with John Yonge Akerman (1806-1873) whose investigations focussed mainly on the prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon periods. His unusual method of illustrating a series of Bronze Age urn burials found in a Wiltshire barrow and ring ditches he discovered at Standlake in 1857 are illustrated. With two to four pages per entry depending on the number of illustrations, 128pp in large softback.

How has the concept of religion been developed in the West? How might that concept frame and change what a religion means? How has Christian scholarship and history developed and how has this led to secularisation? Jack Miles connects Christian scholarship with Jewish developments and to a lesser extent Islamic developments and his closing section on religion and science and how it makes sense of our lives is very insightful and moving. How did our forebears begin to think about religion as a distinct domain, separate from other activities that were once inseparable from it? Starting at the birth of Christianity, a religion inextricably bound to Western thought, Jack Miles reveals how the West's 'common sense' understanding of religion emerged and then changed as insular Europe discovered the rest of the world. The story continues today in the hearts of individual religions and irreligious men and women. He draws on a remarkable wealth of sources across time and place in his short and sweet book. 152pp, paperback.

The writer and cartoon illustrator are both New York Times bestselling authors and Caldecott Children's Book Honor-winners. Here their winning combination presents a humorous story of Skunk. The black and white creature with the red blob on his nose waltzes through the city following the gentleman with the large glasses, tailcoat and red bow tie. Black and white and red all over, we visit the opera house where the Skunk sits on top of an old lady's head as she looks through her spy glasses, through the sculpture garden and the cemetery, on to the Ferris wheel, down an alley which was a dead end, into the sewers and finally back in the gentleman's bedroom. Guess who was waiting there for me? Nobody. The pages then turn to colour illustrations, the party begins, but can the man still find The Skunk? A big picture book for children of all ages and collectors of fine children's illustrated books, this is a slyly hilarious tale. Large format.

Science has acquired great authority and that authority has benefitted it all. This historical account of the relationship between public and the expert sheds important light on our current predicament. It shows what went right and wrong in modernity and how scientific discoveries and theories were received, showing that there is nothing obvious or inevitable about the social reception of science. Crease pulls this all off with the thinking of a philosopher, the precision of a scientist and the storytelling of a great biographer. He asks when does a scientific discovery become an accepted fact, and why have scientific facts become easy to deny? Crease answers these questions by describing the origins of our scientific infrastructure - the 'workshop' and the role of ten of the world's greatest thinkers in the shaping it. The provocative leaders and thinkers Kemal Atatürk and Hannah Arendt addressed the relationship between the scientific community and the public in times of deep distrust. Other chapters cover Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, Galileo Galilei and the Authority of Science, René Descartes Workshop Thinking, Gianbattista Vico Going Mad Rationally, Mary Shelley's Hideous Idea, Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity, Max Weber's Authority and Bureaucracy and Edmund Husserl's Cultural Crisis. Small illus., 319pp.

An ordinary day begins with a gorilla, a blonde and a gun. Mid 20th century Hollywood, and Clancy Sigal is just back from fighting in the Second World War and an abortive solo attempt to assassinate Hermann Goering at the Nuremburg Trials. Charming his way into a job as an agent with the Sam Jaffe Agency, he plunges into a chaotic Hollywood peopled by fast women, washed-up screenwriters, wily directors and starstruck FBI agents trailing 'subversives'. An ex-union organiser, Clancy soon falls under the radar of the FBI, who are desperate to haul him up before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Will he give up the list of nine names to save his skin? The lowest of the low, the talent agent Clancy represents Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Barbara Stanwyck and Tony Curtis and he becomes drinking buddies with Lorre. This is the era of the Hollywood Blacklist, and Sigal, like many of his contemporaries, is subpoenaed to testify before the HUAC. This nonagenarian's hilarious memoir is star-studded, riveting and poignant. He went on to emigrate to Great Britain where he met and began a four year affair with the writer Doris Lessing. He later co-wrote the movie Frida and died in 2017. 340pp, paperback.