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Passchendaele Nick Lloyd Penguin €13.99

The third Battle of Ypres, known as Passchendaele, is often cited as evidence of the futility and waste of World War I and of the bloody incompetence of the generals. Lloyd’s masterful reexamination of the fighting deconstructs many of the myths and paints a nuanced picture of a battle plan that, for all its flaws, came so close to success.

The Terranauts TC Boyle Bloomsbury €12.99

Based on a real experiment at the end of the last century, Boyle’s novel explores the human condition through the experiences of eight men and women locked in a self-contained ecosphere in the Arizona desert. The aim is to replicate conditions in outer space, but it’s the characters’ inner space that’s intriguing.

The Making Of The British Landscape Nicholas Crane W&N €13.99

This planet is 4.5 billion years old, but it’s sobering to realise how recently the world as we know it came into being. Only 10,000 years ago, these islands were joined to Europe and much of the North Sea was covered by the Dogger Hills. This epic book charts these incredible changes.