Profile Books

Every schoolchild recognises their protagonists: the Avengers, the X-Men, your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. The superhero comics that Marvel has published since 1961 make up the biggest self-contained work of fiction ever created

Art is Magic is artist Jeremy Deller’s attempt to tie up the key works of his career alongside the art, pop music, film, politics and history that have inspired his work.

Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms.

‘Devil-may-care daring and biting humour . . . Think Rachel Cusk’s autofiction on skunk and OxyContin and you’re in the right ballpark’ The Times ‘Enjoyably mischievous and daring’ Financial Times ‘Ruthless, very funny’ New York Times Mona is a Peruvian writer based on a Californian campus, open-eyed and sardonic, a connoisseur of marijuana and prescription pills. In the […]

In twenty years behind the till in The Bookshop, Wigtown, Shaun Bythell has met pretty much every kind of customer there is – from the charming, erudite and deep-pocketed to the eccentric, flatulent and possibly larcenous.

If you were to master the twenty languages discussed in Babel, you could talk with three quarters of the world’s population. But what makes these languages stand out amid the world’s estimated 6,500 tongues? Gaston Dorren delves deep into the linguistic oddities and extraordinary stories of these diverse lingua francas, tracing their origins and their […]

‘I love these editions-so beautifully produced, so solid and permanent, just as Tove Jansson deserved.’ -Philip Pullman A beautiful collectors’ edition of this classic Moomin story, using original 50s and 60s cover artwork, a fold out map and gorgeous endpapers. When signs appear that a comet is heading towards their beloved Moominvalley, Moomin and his […]

‘I love these editions-so beautifully produced, so solid and permanent, just as Tove Jansson deserved.’ -Philip Pullman A beautiful collectors’ edition of this classic Moomin story, using original 50s and 60s cover artwork, a fold out map and gorgeous endpapers. In case you didn’t know, the Moomins are kind, loyal and welcoming creatures with smooth […]

Just My Type is not just a font book, but a book of stories. About how Helvetica and Comic Sans took over the world. About why Barack Obama opted for Gotham, while Amy Winehouse found her soul in 30s Art Deco….

The Olympic cycling sport of keirin was invented in Japan more than 70 years ago to raise money to rebuild the country after World War II. Now, fans bet billions of dollars a year on races, with the top riders earning huge sums. In each race, a pacemaker leads nine riders around a huge concrete […]

Twenty years ago Helen Franklin did something she cannot forgive herself for, and she has spent every day since barricading herself against its memory. But the sheltered life she has crafted for herself is about to change. A strange manuscript has come into her possession, and its contents have the power to unravel every strand […]

‘I love these editions-so beautifully produced, so solid and permanent, just as Tove Jansson deserved.’ -Philip Pullman A beautiful collectors’ edition of this classic Moomin story, using original 50s and 60s cover artwork, a fold out map and gorgeous endpapers. Moomins always sleep through the winter while the snow settles all around them, waking up […]

Nobody evokes the transformative joy of cycling the way Fournel does here … magical’ – Herbie Sykes “I ride to rest and to tire myself out; I ride to do myself good and to do myself harm”… one of the many cycling paradoxes explored in this unique and delightful book.”I’ve never got over this miracle” […]

From Mappa Mundi to Myst – the bestselling Just My Type author turns his gaze to maps. Maps have the most amazing stories – and Simon Garfield is the perfect author to tell them. This is a book that…..

‘Bernie Sanders has changed US politics forever’ – Owen Jones An inside account of Sanders’ extraordinary campaign – and a blueprint for future political action. Bernie Sanders stormed to international headlines after running an extraordinary campaign for the Democratic primaries that saw over 13 million people turn out to vote for him, and changing the […]

Schadenfreude – enjoying the pain and failures of others – is an all-too-famil- iar feeling. It has perplexed philosophers and psychologists for centuries but, in a time of polarised politics, twitter trolls and ‘sidebars of shame’, has never been more relevant. Recent studies have shown that we smile more at a rival’s loss than at […]

Swearing, it turns out, is an incredibly useful part of our linguistic repertoire. Not only has some form of swearing existed since the earliest humans began to communicate, but it has been shown to reduce physical pain, help stroke victims recover their language, and encourage people to work together as a team. Swearing Is Good […]

Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown – Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover’s paradise? Well, almost … In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides […]

The world can be an amazing place if you know the right questions to ask: How did carrots become orange? What’s stopping us from having a four-day week? How can we remove all the broken bits of satellite from orbit? If everything is so terrible, why is the global suicide rate falling? The keen minds […]

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018 ‘A masterpiece’ – Attica Locke ‘Strong, beautiful and beguiling’ – Observer ‘Destined to become a future classic … that rare book that should appeal to every kind of reader’ – Guardian When two English brothers take the helm of a Barbados sugar plantation, Washington Black – an eleven-year-old […]

What do we think about when we think about football? Football is about so many things: memory, history, place, social class, gender (especially masculinity, but increasingly femininity too), family identity, tribal identity, national identity, the nature of groups. It is essentially collaborative, even socialist, yet it exists in a sump of greed, corruption, capitalism and […]