How does advertising work? Does it have to attract conscious attention in order to transmit a 'Unique Selling Proposition'? Or does it insinuate emotional associations into the subconscious mind? Or is it just about being famous... or maybe something else again?

Throughout history, selling and entertainment have gone hand in hand - from the medieval pedlar and the medicine show, to generations of TV commercials featuring song and dance, comedy, and cartoon animals, right up to today’s celebrities who launch their own multi-million dollar brands.

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction “There Kevin Young goes again, giving us books we greatly need, cleverly disguised as books we merely want. Unexpectedly essential.”—Marlon James Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue’s gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers—from the humbug of P. T. Barnum and Edgar Allan Poe to the unrepentant bunk of JT LeRoy and Donald J. Trump. Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and What Is It?, an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution. Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans Grey Owl and Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. In this brilliant and timely work, Young asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of “truthiness” where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art.

John Hegarty is one of the worlds most famous advertising creatives. Packed with generous, engaging and witty advice, 'Hegarty on Advertising' contains over four decades worth of wisdom from the man behind hugely influential campaigns for brands such as Levi Strauss, Audi, Boddingtons and Unilever.

Our relationship with ads: it's complicated A must-read for anyone intrigued by the role and influence of the ad world, Seducing the Subconscious explores the complexities of our relationship to advertising. Robert Heath uses approaches from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience to outline his theory of the subconscious influence of advertising in its audience’s lives. In addition to looking at ads’ influence on consumers, Heath also addresses how advertising is evolving, noting especially the ethical implications of its development. Supported by current research, Seducing the Subconscious shows us just how strange and complicated our relationship is with the ads we see every day.

How can we sell more, to more people, and for more money? The marketing world is awash with myths, misconceptions, dubious metrics and tactics that bear little relation to our actual buying behaviour.

'A brilliant advertising copywriter and a great team leader. His ideas are equally applicable to writing a novel, making a film, launching a product, managing a football team, instituting life changes and any activity you can imagine. Genius' - Sunday Times Life is a zero-sum game. Drawing on Eastern and Western philosophy, and colourful characters from Picasso and Socrates to Warren Beatty, this book represents a lifetime of wisdom learned at the creative cutting edge. Predatory Thinking is a masterclass in how to outwit the competition, in ordinary life as well as in business. It is the philosophy that has underpinned Dave Trott's distinguished career as a copywriter, creative director, and founder of some of London's most high-profile advertising agencies.