We've all chatted with our hair stylist. But how often do our conversations reveal extraordinary stories of a life full of colour, glamour and drama? A Life in Colour tells the remarkable story of Aitch Peters, a leading international hair stylist, through a series of conversations with his client Jill King, at the Sassoon salon in the City of London. Through their conversations – lively, funny and at times shocking – Aitch’s inspirational story is told, from his humble beginnings in Dominica to a life of creativity, glamour and adventure. As Aitch styles Jill’s hair, his experiences, thoughts and creative inspirations are explored and brought vividly to life. Aitch’s career began when he walked through the doors of the Sassoon Academy in 1973. From there he rose to become a creative director in London, Munich and Los Angeles. His celebrity clients have included everyone from Mariah Carey, Faye Dunaway, Jody Watley, Tracey Ullman, Whoopi Goldberg and Nicolas Cage, to the Reverend Jesse Jackson and the First Lady of the Philippines. He’s worked with leading photographers including David Bailey, Annie Leibovitz, Lord Lichfield and Terry O’Neil, and his work has featured in Italian Vogue, Harpers & Queen and Tatler magazine. The book also describes the relationship between hair stylist and client. While Aitch and Jill appear to be the most unlikely of couples, they gradually come to appreciate the parallels in their lives and values. This innovative biography will appeal to those in the world of hairdressing, people who enjoy fashion, beauty and glamour, and anyone intrigued by an unusual story.

New collection of short stories from acclaimed Oxford-based South African author that tracks lives across continents from the perspective of the southern hemisphere – its light, its seas, its sensibilities. These are stories of people caught up in a world that tilts seductively, sometimes dangerously, between south and north, between ambition and tradition, between light and dark. Her characters are poised to leave or on the point of return; often caught in limbo, haunted by their histories and veering between possibilities. An African student in England longs for her desert home; a shy Argentinian travel agent agonizes about joining her boyfriend in New York; a soldier is pursued by his past; a writer's widow fends off the attentions of his predatory biographer. From story to story we walk through radically different worlds and journeys packed with hopes and ideals. Sharp, tender, and always arresting, these exquisitely written pieces crackle with luminous insights as characters struggle to find contentment – with their pasts, with one another, and with themselves.

Living languages change all the time, but many of us wish they didn't. For thirty years, Macquarie Dictionary editor Susan Butler has been in the front row watching Australians alternatively defend, reject, embrace and argue heatedly about every aspect of language usage. She has witnessed crusades against 'youse', ducked the missiles over the phrase 'man boobs', pondered the changing pronunciation of 'Beijing', recorded - controversially - the evolving meaning of 'misogyny' and wondered why on earth we still cling to the grammarian's flourish known as the apostrophe. Drawing on her own depth of experience, community consultation and the odd letter of outrage, Butler chronicles her unique adventures with the wonderfully malleable but strangely resilient beast known as the English language, and pays particular attention to the way Australians have trained it to fit their circumstances. Entertaining, insightful and occasionally irreverent, The Aitch Factor is the perfect book for word warriors, punctuation pedants and everyday lovers of language.

This fully illustrated study of the life and work of Scottish artist Craigie Aitchison (1926-2009) is the first book to cover the entire oeuvre of a painter whose distinctive and powerfully evocative style has earned him widespread critical acclaim and public popularity. Award-winning writer Cate Haste draws for the first time on original documents, family archives, letters, published interviews with the painter, and new interviews with those who knew Aitchison to explore the relationship of his life to his work, the influences which shaped his visual imagination, the emergence of his distinctive themes, and the development of his painting style.

What is life and where can it exist? What searches are being made to identify conditions for life on other worlds? If extraterrestrial inhabited worlds are found, how can we explore them? In this book, two leading astrophysicists provide an engaging account of where we stand in our quest for habitable environments, in the Solar System and beyond. Starting from basic concepts, the narrative builds scientifically, including more in-depth material as boxed additions to the main text. The authors recount fascinating recent discoveries from space missions and observations using ground-based telescopes, of possible life-related artefacts in Martian meteorites, extrasolar planets, and subsurface oceans on Europa, Titan and Enceladus. They also provide a forward look to future missions. This is an exciting, informative read for anyone interested in the search for habitable and inhabited planets, and an excellent primer for students in astrobiology, habitability, planetary science and astronomy.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1869.