Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human Richard Wrangham In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: The habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as “the cooking apes”. MORE
Globalisation Fractures: How major nations’ interests are now in conflict Charles Dumas In his previous books, The Bill from the China Shop and China and America: A Time of Reckoning, Charles Dumas was the first to identify the existence and potential impact of the Eurasian Savings Glut – most importantly how it would push US mortgage borrowing to excess, precipitating the global credit crisis. As we now strive to rescue the international financial system, he points to uncomfortable truths about the conflicts ahead. MORE
Sew Your Own: Man finds happiness and meaning of life – making clothes John-Paul Flintoff What happens when a man, dazzled like most of us by hi-tech, happy to have his suits made by robots in New York, sets out to find the meaning of life? John-Paul Flintoff’s improbable and very funny book charts a journey through call centres and allotments, rat-catching and Savile Row tailors, to some kind of enlightenment. It is also a book about a man who learns how to crochet – in public. MORE
