The obituaries that appear in The Economist are remarkable because of the unpredictable selection of people to be written about, the surprising lives they lead - but also for the style in which the obituary is written. The selection for this book ranges far and wide, including Jean Bedel Bokassa and Pope Jean Paul II, Pamela Harriman and Harry Oppenheimer, Akio Morita and J K Galbraith, Jean Baudrillard and Syd Barrett, Estee Lauder and Hunter Thomson, Bip (the legendary mime artist Marcel Marceau) and even Alex the African Grey (Science's best known parrot).

The story of Perkin Warbeck is one of the most compelling mysteries of English history. A young man suddenly emerged claiming to be Richard of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower. As such, he tormented Henry VII for eight years. He tried three times to invade England and behaved like a prince. Officially, however, he was proclaimed to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a Flemish boatman. A diplomatic pawn, he was used by the greatest European rulers of the age for their own purposes. All who dealt with him gave him the identity they wished him to have: either the Duke of York or a jumped-up lad from Flanders. It is possible that he was neither. It is also possible that, by the end, even he did not really know who he was. In Perkin Ann Wroe tells again a marvellous tale that is on the brink of being forgotten. She also dissects the official cover story. In doing so she delves into the secret corners of European history and produces a portrait of the late fifteenth century...

'She's a genius, I believe, because she lights up every subject she touches.' Hilary Mantel A Spectator Book of the YearGoethe claimed to know what light was. Galileo and Einstein both confessed they didn't. On the essential nature of light, and how it operates, the scientific jury is still out. There is still time, therefore, to listen to painters and poets on the subject. They, after all, spend their lives pursuing light and trying to tie it down. Six Facets of Light is a series of meditations on this most elusive and alluring feature of human life. Set mostly on the Downs and coastline of East Sussex, the most luminous part of England, it interweaves a walker's experiences of light in Nature with the observations, jottings and thoughts of a dozen writers and painters – and some scientists – who have wrestled to define and understand light. From Hopkins to Turner, Coleridge to Whitman, Fra Angelico to Newton,...