Charles Handy's new book 'The New Alchemists' (Hutchinson, £16-99) will be published on 7 October. It is a fascinating study of 29 London based 'alchemists' who have, in their different ways, made something out of nothing; they have turned metaphorical base metal into gold. (They aren't all rich so, sometimes, the gold is metaphorical too!) The new alchemists are 'ordinary people who have gone on to do extraordinary things'.

Read Peter Honey's review of the book on the