All You Need
To Know...

 

The All You Need To Know series is published by Connell Publishing Ltd. It is the brainchild of Jolyon Connell, the founder of The Week and MoneyWeek – and also of Connell Guides, the study guides designed to help English and History students master their subjects. 

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The All You Need to Know series is still in its infancy but the aim is to cover a wide range of subjects. At the moment these are mainly historical, ranging from Max Hastings’s brilliant account of World War II to Piers Brendon’s wonderfully concise and anecdote-packed narrative about the rise and fall of The British Empire.

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We have also already branched out with two literary books – one on How to write well, the other on How to read a poem – and a fascinating account of the history of human sexuality by The Economist’s Charlie McCann.

Jon Connell says:

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“The origins of this series lie in a lunch I had with James Harding in London a couple of years ago. He was then head of news at the BBC but pondering a new project [called Tortoise Media, now up and running]. We discussed Connell Guides, which are aimed mainly at students, and he urged me to launch a new series of books – aimed at grown-ups. ‘There’s a tremendous thirst for knowledge out there,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you do a whole range of books with the title All You Need To Know?’

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“James was – and is – right and now here we are, with the first 14 titles in bookshops and available through our website. There are so many people who long to know more about history and about the forces which shape our world. But these are people with very little time and most modern books are dauntingly long.

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“The aim of this series is to do what The Week does: give you all you need to know in a brisk accessible form. I have tried to find authors who write vividly but with a real depth of knowledge – it’s a great formula, just what we all need.”

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The Economist said of our most recent publication, Sexuality: “In just 121 pages, Ms McCann cavorts through more than two millennia of fluid exchanges using humour, deft selection of fascinating anecdotes and an admirable resistance to polemics to accomplish what most of her predecessors have failed to do: provide a guide through “the ever-shifting constellation of meanings orbiting around sex in the West”.