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ROCKS IN THE BELLY Bauer, Jon ROCKS IN THE BELLY follows an unnamed male character through two parallel stories. In the first, he is an eight year-old only child, whose parents are repeatedly fostering boys despite the jealous turmoil it arouses in their son. This jealousy reaches unmanageable proportions when they begin to foster Robert, an older and more amiable child who forms a unique bond with his foster mother. As the bond grows, so too does the son’s struggle, building towards the moment he lashes out irreparably. Although his action is simple and petulant, the ensuing accident leads to repercussions that last for all of their lifetimes. Interspersed with this childhood recollection is our protagonist’s current experience as a twenty-eight year-old, returning home after ten years. With his mother terminally ill and his father dead, he is forced to tend his mother in her illness, and consequently confront his past. He hasn’t moved beyond that one devastating moment in his childhood, except to blame his mother for what he did to Robert; he hates her for it, yet also feels a strong need for her love and approval. But his mother isn’t that same strong woman anymore: now she’s dependent on his kindness and he the dominant force – a power he can’t help but abuse. ROCKS IN THE BELLY explores a child’s capacity for evil as well as good, the anatomy of guilt, hatred and blame, and the effortless destruction we wreak on one another in the simple pursuit of our own happiness. A graphic, visceral but often beautiful and funny novel, ROCKS IN THE BELLY reminds us that, statistically, the most dangerous place for a child is within their family. "Jon Bauer excels in this exploration of the mind of a child who, however intelligent and funny he may be, is nonetheless deeply unsure of himself. A notable first novel." - J M Coetzee Publisher: UK: Serpent's Tail; ANZ: Scribe; Dutch: Podium; German: Kiepenheuer & Witsch; French: Stock; Audio: Bolinda Schedule: Publication: February 2012 |
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CITY OF SINS Blake, Daniel The pulse-pounding new thriller featuring FBI agent Franco Patrese, in New Orleans on the hunt for a warped serial killer as Hurricane Katrina threatens the city. The first one was found with a rattlesnake in place of her missing left leg, and a mirror smashed into her forehead by an axe blade. Strange… but even stranger that she'd just told new FBI agent Franco Patrese she wanted to uncover a conspiracy as disgusting as it is unthinkable. In the sledgehammer heat of a New Orleans summer, the leads – and the bodies – pile up thick and fast for Patrese and NOPD homicide detective Selma Fawcett. They're inescapably drawn into an underworld murky even by the standards of the Big Sleazy. The case is wide open. What is the part played by St John Varden, the city's richest man, or of his son Victor, head of a high-end mercenary company? There's even a suspect far closer to home in the shape of Luther Marcq, Selma's ex-husband, who was dishonourably discharged from the military after the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. And, of course, there's Marie Laveau, the underworld boss and self-styled Voodoo Queen. As they try to piece together the connections between the seediest players on the city's stage, only two things remain certain – there are huge secrets hidden in these cesspools of corruption and crime, and some people will do anything to keep them that way.
And all the while, the city's apocalypse looms. Her name is Katrina, and she's taking aim…
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THE GREATCOAT Dunmore, Helen The setting is 1952, and everything is new and strange for Isabel. She’s recently married and has moved to a town where she knows no-one. Her husband Philip is a doctor who works all hours, and wouldn’t dream of allowing his wife to work. A clever, educated woman, Isabel now spends her days trying to get to grips with the tedium of housework and learning how to cook, and she’s lonely and vulnerable. To make matters worse, their rented accommodation is very cold. Hunting for extra blankets she finds an old “greatcoat” – a long, thick coat of the sort which was worn by servicemen during the war – and their landlady doesn’t seem to object to it being used. That night, while Philip has been called out again on a medical emergency, Isabel has been sleeping fitfully, covered by the huge greatcoat. She wakes from a disturbed dream to hear a tapping at the window: a strikingly handsome RAF officer in a similar greatcoat is there, smiling at her with a look of recognition. At first she’s terrified, but eventually lets him in. Thus begins the strangest of relationships – or perhaps it’s a continuation of one from the past? As her feelings for Alec deepen, she must also confront the question of who he really is and what has drawn him to her, and to this house.
THE GREATCOAT is a beautifully written story about the power of the past to imprint itself on the present, until the present is possessed by the past.
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A PERFECTLY GOOD MAN Gale, Patrick "Do you need me to pray for you now for a specific reason?” “I’m going to die.” “We’re all going to die. Does dying frighten you?” “I mean I’m going to kill myself.”
When 20-year-old Lenny Barnes, paralysed in a rugby accident, commits suicide in the presence of Barnaby Johnson, the much-loved priest of a West Cornwall parish, the tragedy's reverberations open up the fault-lines between Barnaby and his nearest and dearest. The personal stories of his wife, children and lover illuminate Barnaby's ostensibly happy life, and the gulfs of unspoken sadness that separate them all. Across this web of relations scuttles Barnaby's repellent nemesis – a man as wicked as his prey is virtuous.
Returning us to the rugged Cornish landscape of NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION, Patrick Gale lays bare the lives and the thoughts of a whole community and asks us: what does it mean to be good?
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NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT Gordimer, Nadine Jabulile and Steve are brought together by the fight against apartheid. They fall in love and marry at a time when their relationship is illegal, but find refuge in Glengrove Place, a humble apartment which becomes their first home together. Love and political activism keep their marriage strong in spite of the oppression. When apartheid ends, they are encouraged by former comrades and good friends to move to the suburbs with their young daughter Sindi. Jabu trains to be a lawyer and Steve becomes an academic at the local university; they have a second child and remain engaged with political and social concerns. On the surface they are a successful family and pillars of the local community, a symbol of the new united South Africa. But the political situation continues to be unstable: corruption is rife, poverty escalates dramatically and violent incidents soar. Against this tumultuous backdrop, cracks begin to appear in Jabu and Steve’s relationship. Steve has a fling in England at an international conference and Jabu becomes increasingly concerned for her children’s future.
When Jabu discovers Steve’s desire to emigrate to Australia and start a new life abroad, it is a turning point for the couple. In South Africa, their dreams of stability and a peaceful family life are constantly interrupted by the chaos around them. The Struggle continues, though not the one that either Jabu or Steve expected. At what point is it acceptable to put personal happiness above loyalty to country, family, friends and ideals?
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TONY HOGAN BOUGHT ME AN ICE CREAM FLOAT, BEFORE HE STOLE MY MA Hudson, Kerry Janie Ryan, having narrowly avoided the abortion clinic, is born into a matriarchal Aberdonian clan of fishwives famous for the ‘Ryan Temper'. It’s the 1980s, and the air is thick with Human League, greed, and the scent of Findus Crispy Pancakes; but the yuppie boom couldn’t be further away from Janie’s existence on the edges of society. Moving from women’s shelters to grotty B&Bs and crumbling council estates, Janie must protect both herself and her little sister Tiny from the disreputable men her mother brings home. Forced to witness unspeakable acts, she frequently escapes to her interior world to make sense of the brutality of their itinerant life. But as she grows up and hits adolescence with a vengeance, is she able to rescue herself from making the same mistakes as her mother? Funny, affecting and redemptive, Kerry Hudson's first novel is an intimate and authentic story about mothers, daughters, and what it means to grow up with only yourself to rely upon. Publisher: World English Language: Chatto & Windus Schedule: Publication: July 2012 |
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JUNIOR SCIENCE Jackson, Mick Published as an ebook original to tie in with Mick Jackson's appointment as the first writer-in-residence at the Science Museum, JUNIOR SCIENCE comprises three stories - 'Zero Gravity', 'The Answering Machine', and 'Back to School'. Originally commissioned by BBC Radio 4, they were broadcast in November 2011. Full of wonder, pathos and mystery, these stories are marked by Jackson's unique sensibility, exploring the way children start to become aware of the world around them. Publisher: World All Languages: Faber Schedule: Published November 2011 |
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PRAGUE FATALE Kerr, Philip September 1941: Bernie Gunther returns from the horrors of the Eastern Front to find his home city of Berlin changed, and changed for the worse. The blackout, rationing, the RAF, the S-Bahn murderer and Czech terrorists are all conspiring to make life very unpleasant. Now back at his old desk on Homicide in Kripo HQ, Alexanderplatz, Bernie starts to investigate the death of a Dutch railway worker, while starting something - of an entirely different nature - with a local good-time girl. But he is obliged to drop everything when his old boss, Reinhard Heydrich of the SD, the new Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia, orders him to Prague to spend a weekend at his country house. It's an invitation Bernie feels he would gladly have been spared, especially when he meets his fellow guests - all of them senior loathsome figures in the SS and SD. The weekend turns sour almost immediately, when a body is found in a room that was locked from the inside. The spotlight falls on Bernie to show off his investigative skills and solve this seemingly impossible mystery. And if he fails to do so, he knows what is at stake - not only his reputation, but also that of Heydrich, a man who does not like to lose face.
So begins the most diplomatically sensitive case of Bernie Gunther's police career.
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THE ZARENE ALPHABET Knox, Elizabeth Canny Mochrie, a 16 year-old schoolgirl, is packed off to spend the summer with her step-brother Sholto and his opinionated girlfriend. Sholto has a summer job interviewing the survivors of a 1929 coal mine disaster and they spend their time at Massenfer, where the mine was, and in the adjacent Zarene Valley, a paradise of orchards and apiaries belonging to the Zarene family. While Sholto is busy trying to coax an old, terrible story out of the locals, Canny is left to wander in the valley, and to ask questions. For instance, why can she find no one her own age, or even Sholto’s? Why is the valley populated almost exclusively by children under thirteen, who seem all to be in the care of only three adults (all over fifty)? What is the meaning of the strange hand-painted primers lining the walls of a nursery in a house she visits? Why, since the unfamiliar letters make no sense, can she almost understand them? And why can she not find a way through to the derelict house she can see on a rise at the head of the valley, a house apparently no one else can see? When Canny is finally able to reach the house - by exercising her wits and telling a lot of lies - she finds it isn’t derelict after all, and that someone is living there. Ghislain Zarene is hostile, convinced that Canny has been sent to spy on him, because no one ever visits him. In this trapped, unstable, unhappy young man, Canny recognises someone more like her than she’s ever met, and someone who holds the key to a gift that should be hers, but which she’s going to have to steal. Publisher: US: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Schedule: |
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CAPITAL Lanchester, John Pepys Road is a south London street of substantial late-Victorian houses. Built for lower-middle class families, over the years it has come up in the world and now, in 2007, it has reached a boom-time peak, the double-fronted houses going for around £2.5 million. Its inhabitants are a rich cross-section of old and new money, class and race. Roger Barker, banker at Pinker Lloyd, and his shopaholic wife Arabella, at No. 52 are archetypes of New Britain success, with their super-rich holidays, weekend country rectory and money to fritter. Albert Howe’s widow Petunia at No. 82 has lived there since the sixties, décor unchanged, and is sitting on a hidden treasure trove while dying from a brain tumour. The Kamals, who own the end house and convenience corner shop, are also key contributors to the local micro-economy. As is Freddy Kano, eighteen year old football prodigy from Senegal, head-hunted by the premier league club Hammersmith and housed with his father at No. 27. But Pepys Road needs more than its homeowners to maintain the social infrastructure. Zbigniew, the Polish builder, is crucial to the street’s housing up-grades, and Matya, the Barkers’ beautiful new nanny, may have a catalystic effect on their crumbling marriage. There is also the mysterious night-time intruder who has been graffiti-ing the street with the mysterious message ‘We want what you have’. All is not well in Pepys Road. The bubble of complacency and affluence may be about to burst.
John Lanchester’s ‘state of south London’ - and maybe the nation - novel is possibly the most enthralling, sinister, funny and subversive he has written. Capital is in meltdown!
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THE HEART BROKE IN Meek, James Bec and Ritchie's father was shot dead in an act of self-sacrifice when they were children. A generation later Ritchie, a producer of reality TV shows, wants to make a film with their father's killer; Bec, a malaria researcher, is looking for a set of rules to live by. When Bec rejects marriage to a powerful newspaper editor in favour of starting a family with the unworldly biochemist Alex, brother and sister's sense of right and wrong is put to the harshest test.
THE HEART BROKE IN is an old-fashioned story of modern times, an ambitious family drama of love, death and money in the era of gene therapy and Internet exposés. It asks the question where, in our half-Darwinian, half-religious age, human conscience resides.
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THE MAN WHO FORGOT HIS WIFE O’Farrell, John Wandering around a busy railway station, a confused man realises he has suffered a total memory loss. He doesn’t know where he lives or even his own name. When he’s eventually rescued, he is told that his breakdown has probably been triggered by his marital problems. But finally he comes face to face with the stranger he is supposed to be divorcing – and promptly falls head over heels in love with her. So it is that forty-something Vaughan becomes desperate to win the heart of this beautiful and vivacious woman. His only obstacle is that she’s already been married to him for fifteen years and now can’t stand the sight of him. It was bad enough all those years when he forgot what she’d told him that morning, forgot to pick up the dry cleaning, or forgot their wedding anniversary. But to forget their entire married life together – well, apparently women hate that.
THE MAN WHO FORGOT HIS WIFE is a funny and compelling novel about seeing one’s own life and marriage through completely fresh eyes. Along the way, Vaughan meets his own children as if for the first time, learns how to love his job again, and gradually recovers various memories, providing nostalgic flashbacks to all the milestones in their relationship and unpicking the mystery of why his marriage went wrong. Does his amnesia give him the chance to be a better husband and finally make his marriage work? Or is there perhaps one last memory he has yet to recover, which will blow everything wide open?
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DINNER AT MINE Smyth, Chris An ABIGAIL'S PARTY for the Come Dine With Me generation... When four London couples begin a dinner party competition among themselves, they say they want nothing more than some pleasant evenings and a few tasty meals – though surely there’s nothing wrong with a bit of subtle showing-off? But it soon becomes clear that there are few people more single-minded than the middle-class foodie in a competitive mood. Rosie thinks she’s on to a winner with her obscure Japanese salad ingredients, but will her husband Stephen do his part? Marcus entertains no doubt about his own culinary superiority, but can he rely on the palates of everyone else to recognise his refinement? And if Charlotte and Matt aren’t really a couple, cooking is bound to bring them together, isn’t it? Justin and Barbara are vegetarians, of course, which is a challenge. Particularly after the argument about “passive meat-eating”. The ingredients quickly start to combine in unexpected ways, and not everyone likes the taste of what comes bubbling to the surface. Suddenly dinner seems to be about so much more than food: this is a competition where there is more than one way to win… DINNER AT MINE is funny, fresh, and as sharp as a good Wasabi. Readers will devour it with relish, an uncomfortable sense of recognition, and a growing desire for something to eat. Publisher: UK: Simon & Schuster Schedule: Delivered; Publication: January 2012 |
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THE GREAT TAMASHA Astill, James THE GREAT TAMASHA is the riveting story of modern India - with its vastness and ever-proliferating complexities - told through the prism of the glitzy, scandalous and mind-blowingly lucrative Twenty20 cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League. When Lalit Modi, an Indian businessman with a criminal record, a history of failed business ventures and a reputation for audacious deal making, came up with the idea of creating a Twenty20 cricket league in India in 2008, the odds were stacked against him. International cricket was still controlled from London, where they played the long, slow game of Test cricket by the old rules. Indians had traditionally underperformed in the sport and the game was a national passion, rather than attracting the tribal following of a league sport. Adopting the highly commercial American model of sporting tournaments, merging the three powerful forces of politics, business and Bollywood, and throwing scantily clad western cheerleaders into the mix, Modi set himself three months to succeed. And succeed he did - dazzlingly. The emergence of the IPL, transforming cricket and transfixing India, is a remarkable tale. Cricket, as a unique national passion, is at the heart of the miracle that is modern India. As a business, it represents everything that is most dynamic and entrepreneurial about the country's economic boom: including the industrious and aspiring middle-class consumers who are driving it. Most intriguing, as an unholy congregation of the rich and powerful, conspiring grubbily, the IPL reveals, perhaps to an unprecedented degree, the corrupt, back-scratching and nepotistic way in which India is run.
This is a truly original book. It is about an ongoing reappraisal of Indian nationality. It is about rapid economic growth, outlandish corruption and crony capitalism. It is about India's emerging middle-class, their great optimism, industry and vulgar consumerism.
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A HISTORY OF DIARIES Bayley, Sally A history of diary writing from Pepys to the blogosphere. Publisher: Yale University Press (New Haven) Schedule: 2012 (HB) |
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A TWITTER YEAR: 365 DAYS IN 140 CHARACTERS Bussmann, Kate Where can you find first-hand accounts of the Arab Spring, the Japanese nuclear disaster or the Norwegian atrocities? Thousands of people thumbing their noses at celebrity superinjunctions? Politicians trading X-rated pictures? A babysitter mistaken for a cricket match? Darth Vader’s advice to disgruntled US voters? And Charlie Sheen being told to get off his ‘high whores’? The answer, of course: on Twitter. The first of its kind, A TWITTER YEAR is a review of 12 months as seen by the tweeting community, plus profiles of top users, fascinating stats and analysis. It captures the biggest events in current affairs, politics, science, culture and sport, from the emotion of the Chilean mine rescue to the panic at the London Riots, the death of Osama bin Laden to the demise of the News of the World, the excitement of the Royal Wedding to the loss of Amy Winehouse.
In the year the micro-blogging website celebrates its 5th anniversary, Twitter continues to grow at an incredible rate. There are now an estimated 200 million accounts all over the world, including those of Lady Gaga, the British monarchy, Lord Voldemort and a lot of pets. A TWITTER YEAR gathers together some of the funniest, sharpest and most insightful tweets to bring you a unique celebration of the way we talk now.
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THE SUGAR GIRLS Calvi, Nuala The story of the women who worked at the East End's Tate & Lyle sugar factory. Publisher: UK: Collins Schedule: Delivery: March 2012 |
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THE HOUR BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF Coates, John In this time of financial crisis, a resonant and singular exploration of economic behaviour and its ramifications. Economists have long been hindered in their attempts to understand market bubbles and crashes by their assumption that financial behaviour is driven by purely cognitive processes, either rational or irrational. These economists could be said to practice ‘economics from the neck up’. By so doing they unknowingly maintain within Economics and Finance an ancient mind-body split, one we inherited from Platonism and Christianity. Yet such an assumption is today scientifically untenable.
In THE HOUR BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF John Coates draws on research in physiology and medicine to show how the body and brain evolved together and work in harness to produce our behaviour; how signals from the body can occasionally produce irrational exuberance and pessimism; and finally how market crises can lead not only to economic catastrophes but to medical ones as well.
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YOU CAN'T READ THIS BOOK Cohen, Nick After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism, and the advent of the Web which allowed for even the smallest voice to be heard, everywhere you turned you were told that we were living in an age of unparalleled freedom. YOU CAN'T READ THIS BOOK argues that this view is dangerously naive. From the revolution in Iran that wasn't, to the Great Firewall of China and the imposition of super-injunctions from the filthy rich protecting their privacy, the traditional opponents of freedom of speech - religious fanaticism, plutocratic power and dictatorial states - are thriving, and in many respects finding the world a more comfortable place in the early 21st century than they did in the late 20th. This is not an account of interesting but trivial disputes about freedom of speech: the rights and wrongs of shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre, of playing heavy metal at 3 am in a built-up area or articulating extremist ideas in a school or university. Rather, this is a story that starts with the cataclysmic reaction of the Left and Right to the publication and denunciation of the Satanic Verses in 1988 that saw them jump into bed with radical extremists.
It ends at the juncture where even in the transgressive, liberated West, where so much blood had been spilt for Freedom, where rebellion is the conformist style and playing the dissenter the smart career move in the arts and media, you can write a book and end up destroyed or dead.
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KITCHEN & CO. French, Rosie Back in 2009, the kitchen table was where Rosie French and Ellie Grace began sharing their food experiments with the world through their blog Salad Club. The popularity of the blog prompted the two to found a supper club in Ellie’s flat just above the Brixton market. For each session, 30 complete strangers would come together to enjoy three or four course meals for a donation. KITCHEN & CO. conveys the informal, improvisational character of Salad Club. Its 100 recipes illustrate the authors’ culinary adventurousness, which is built on a shared love for sourcing fresh produce from their local market, as well as unusual ingredients from ethnic supermarkets, wholefood shops and independent suppliers. The book is divided into the four seasons, with many recipes created around fresh seasonal ingredients. Think Gin and Juniper Pork with Leek and Parmesan-Stuffed Squash
for winter; Beetroot, Goat’s Cheese, Chorizo and Mint Salad for
spring; Eggy Focaccia with Cayenne and Rosemary for summer and Garlic Chestnut Mushrooms for autumn.
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SPITALFIELDS LIFE Gentle Author, The “In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London.” With these words, an elusive figure known only as the Gentle Author launched SPITALFIELDS LIFE as a blog over a year ago with the intention of writing ten thousand daily posts about neighbourhood life in all its colours and textures.
SPITALFIELDS LIFE is a love letter to many things: to pubs heavy with the memories of smoke and violence; to the transformative power of graffiti; to fresh beigels at any hour of a freezing night; to the unexpected pleasures of urban flora and fauna; to sad-eyed guardians of vanishing arts and to bright-eyed entrepreneurs brimming with innovations. It’s a remarkable document that teems with life; a spell-binding chronicle of an extraordinarily rich corner of London.
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RAVENSBRUCK Helm, Sarah On a marshy bit of land which once formed part of Heinrich Himmler’s country estate 50 miles north of Berlin are the remains of Ravensbruck concentration camp. Ravensbruck was a unique institution during the Nazi period - a concentration camp created for and staffed by women. Built to house 6,000 German political female prisoners at the beginning of the Nazi period, 160,000 women of all nationalities eventually passed through its gates. Resistance fighters, intelligence agents, communists and Jews were incarcerated and perished here. Among the anonymous thousands were many notable women – Gemma La Guardia, the sister of New York’s wartime mayor, de Gaulle’s niece, Kafka’s mistress and Odette Churchill. And a range of gory gynaecological experiments were carried out here on women and their foetus’.
The book will be much more than a catalogue of atrocity and depravity, however. At the heart of RAVENSBRUCK will be stories of heroism and survival. The narrative will centre on the experiences of women – from the farmer’s wife to the aristocratic intellectual - who had the resilience and mental and physical strength to withstand the systematic brutalisation and emerge from the camp against all the odds, alive. The book will interweave two narrative strands – that of inmates looking out and outsiders trying to comprehend what was going within – until the liberation of the camp by the Red Army, when the two stories naturally collide.
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WE WANT FALMER! Hodson, Paul On May 3rd 1997, Brighton and Hove Albion FC drew 1-1 away at Hereford to keep their club in the football league as the two sides played ‘the game of death’ to decide which club would be relegated to the Conference. This game took place at the end of a two-year struggle by the fans to save their club from extinction after Chief Executive Bill Archer sold the Goldstone Ground with no new stadium in place and left the club homeless. WE WANT FALMER! tells what happened next: how the fans turned a rearguard action to save their club into a positive and extraordinary campaign for a new stadium and a new life for Brighton and Hove Albion. The book chronicles a fourteen-year struggle, conducted with astonishing humour in the face of overwhelming adversity, taking the club from ground-sharing via a race track “temporary” home back in Brighton to a state-of-the-art stadium with eighteen-thousand season ticket holders and a management and team aiming for the stars: from no hopers to Premiership potential, in no small measure due to the fans' endeavour, imagination, and determination. Publisher: World All Languages:Stripe Publishing Schedule: Published November 2011 |
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JOHNSON'S LIFE OF LONDON Johnson, Boris London is special. For centuries it has been among the greatest cities of the world. But a city is nothing without its people. This sparkling new history of London demonstrates in one personality-packed book that the ingenuity, diversity, creativity and enterprise of London are second to none. Boris Johnson believes that in order to understand London one has to know about its past. The heart and spirit of London lies in its people, in the range of its cultures. Through its diversity and energy, London provides an environment which empowers people to create, and the impetus to invent. Boris Johnson’s new book explores the cross currents of influence between Westminster and the City, between the politicians and the wealth creators, over many centuries. JOHNSON’S LIFE OF LONDON celebrates many of the characters who have made this city great. It tells a chronological story of London but is written in the form of a relay race of biographies – some of very famous figures, some more obscure. It ranges from the Romans to one of the author’s predecessors as mayor, Dick Whittington; from John Wilkes (a strong upholder of the freedom of the press) to J.W. Turner; from Chaucer to Gandhi; and through to modern times.
Boris Johnson writes with wit and erudition, providing the reader with delightful insights. His book reveals London as none of us has seen it before, and the journey is exhilarating and surprising .
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HEAVEN ON EARTH: A JOURNEY THROUGH SHARIA LAW Kadri, Sadakat Although it is almost fourteen hundred years since the Prophet Muhammad first enunciated God’s law – the sharia – the way in which it has actually been applied remains shrouded by myth. In this ground-breaking book Sadakat Kadri, author of THE TRIAL: A HISTORY FROM SOCRATES TO O J SIMPSON, will demonstrate that however timeless divine justice might be, Islamic law was the product of human trial and error – and how, in societies from medieval Baghdad to Mughal India, the appeal to tradition was always countered by more open-minded and inclusive visions of Islam. Kadri, a London-based barrister, will travel from the Sufi shrines of his father’s Indian hometown to Pakistan, Turkey and the Middle East, in order to uncover that history and show how resurrected penalties such as stoning and amputation draw on political despair at least as much as they do on religious devotion.
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PAKISTAN Khan, Jemima Jemima Goldsmith was just 21 when she married Imram Khan, converted to Islam, began to learn Urdu and moved into his extended family house in Lahore. During the next decade she came to know and love Pakistan, “the land of the Pure”, in all its bewildering complexity and contradictions. In this book she revisits the country she got to know in the 1990s, undertaking a journey which begins in Lahore, moves north to Peshawar and Islamabad, and then heads down to Karachi. Along the way she encounters a dazzling array of people – the ordinary and the extraordinary - who illustrate the paradoxes of this remarkable country. Pakistan encompasses 165 million people, several hundred tribes and more than a dozen languages, and is a very different place from the land of bearded zealots and military dictators of Western stereotype. PAKISTAN will be accessible and anecdotal, a witty and revealing portrait of a country at the febrile epicentre of world affairs.
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TIME TO START THINKING: AMERICA AND THE SPECTRE OF DECLINE Luce, Edward America's unipolar moment is over. Within the context of the rapid ascent of others, Edward Luce looks at America's mounting domestic challenges at a time when its economy is neither delivering the goods to the country's middle class nor serving any longer as the obvious model for others to follow. America's struggle to refind its economic mojo has profound implications for the UK and America's other leading foreign partners. Luce analyses the deepening paralysis of America's polarised and lobby-driven political system, the deeply worrying trends behind America's stagnating education system, and the concern that America's ability to remain the world's leading innovator - the goose that has laid so many golden eggs - is also showing signs of weakening. The title, TIME TO START THINKING, implies that Obama's America has yet to face up to the consequences of a decline that is fast becoming reality. Publisher: UK: Little, Brown; US: Grove Atlantic; Dutch: Spectrum Schedule: Publication May 2012 |
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GENTLEMEN OF THE HAMMER Maddox, Brenda Why are kangaroos found only in Australia? What created the Niagara Falls? Why did horses have to be introduced to the Americas? How were volcanoes created? Why are the rock formations of the Alps so twisted? Did the Biblical Flood really happen? These were the kinds of far-reaching questions that a 19th century club of gentlemen scientists set themselves the task of answering – and their ground-breaking discoveries shaped the way we understand the world today. Based in a gaslit debating chamber by the River Thames, members of the Geological Society would roam the world to gather fossils, bones and rocks as evidence for their theories. With technological advances opening up the possibilities of science to the masses, geology quickly became the most popular and dynamic of the new sciences, and the Society’s findings were delivered to an eager public. But the Geological Society found itself at the centre of an intense debate that rocked society to its core. If a geologist could prove that the world was formed billions of years before human life emerged, then a man could deny the hand of God in creating the world. For some members of the Society, these geological revelations would enable them to develop yet more radical theories – Charles Darwin based his theory of evolution on the geological work done by his mentor Charles Lyell. But for others, including Lyell, the full implications of their work were a profoundly frightening prospect. Although he gave Darwin his public support and recognised his own role as the ‘missing link’ in the younger man’s research, Lyell was nonetheless a reluctant evolutionist who would struggle for the rest of his life to reconcile himself to the damage done to his religious beliefs.
GENTLEMEN OF THE HAMMER tells the compelling story of Lyell, Darwin, and the other key geologists of the era: men who first learned how to read the layers of rock and mud to tell a new history of the world, and who in doing so precipitated a severe crisis of faith and had as wide an impact as the ideas of Copernicus and Freud.
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MISS HOPE'S TEATIME TREATS Miss Hope A delightful collection of over 50 teatime recipes, from the wonderfully original and quirky confectioners, Hope and Greenwood. Celebrate the cream tea in all its guises. In this charming book, Miss Hope treats you to an array of teatime delights, from Potted Prawns and Scotch Eggs, to Marmalade Cake, Sea Salt Millionaire's Shortbread and Custard Tarts, all washed down with the perfect beverage such as a Sparkling Jasmine Tea or an Earl Grey Vodka.
There's also an insight into the art of teatime etiquette, including how to make edible garnishes and the all-important table decorations. Exquisitely designed with full-colour photography and all the charm and appeal of the Hope and Greenwood brand, this little gem of a book epitomises the beloved British tradition of afternoon tea.
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WHAT MATTERS IN JANE AUSTEN Mullan, John John Mullan is steeped in Jane Austen. In this book he will ask what makes her the greatest of all novelists, invoking Virginia Woolf's remark that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness. By looking closely at the intriguing minutiae of her fiction, the quirks and intricacies of her stories, he will bring her alive. Publisher: World English Language: Bloomsbury Schedule: Delivery: Autumn 2012 |
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SCARP Papadimitriou, Nick Nick Papadimitriou has spent a lifetime living on the margins, walking and documenting the landscapes surrounding his home in Child's Hill, North London, in a study he calls Deep Topography. Part meditation on nature and walking, part memoir and part social history, his arresting debut is first and foremost a personal inquiry into the spirit of a place: a 14-mile broken ridge of land on the fringes of Northern London known as Scarp.
Conspicuous but largely forgotten, a vast yet largely invisible presence hovering just beyond the metropolis, Scarp is a vast storehouse of regional memory. We join the author as he explores and reimagines this brooding, pregnant landscape, meticulously observing his surroundings, finding surprising connections and revealing lost slices of the past. SCARP captures the satisfying experience of a long, reflective walk. Whether talking about the beauty of a bird or a telegraph pole, deaths at a roundabout or his own troubled past, Papadimitriou celebrates the poetry in the everyday. His captivating prose reveals that the world around us is alive and intrinsically valuable in ways that the trappings of day-to-day life lead us to forget, and allows us to re-connect with something more authentic, more immediate, more profound.
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PENNY RED: NOTES FROM THE NEW AGE OF DISSENT Penny, Laurie In the space of a year, Laurie Penny has become one of the most prominent voices of the new left. This book brings together her diverse writings, showing what it is to be young, angry and progressive in the face of an increasingly violent and oppressive UK government. PENNY RED collects Penny's writings on youth politics, resistance, feminism and culture. Her journalism is a unique blend of persuasive analysis, captivating interviews and first-hand accounts of political direct action. She was involved in all the key protests of 2010/2011, including the anti-fees demos in 2010 and the anti-cuts protests of spring 2011, often tweeting live from the scene of kettles and baton charges. An introduction, conclusion and extensive footnotes allow Penny to connect all the strands of her work, showing the links between political activism and wider social and cultural issues. This book is essential for understanding what motivates the new generation of activists, writers and thinkers that bring creativity, energy and urgency to the fight against capitalism and exploitation. Publisher: World English Language: Pluto Press Schedule: Publication: October 2011 |
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BENJAMIN BRITTEN: A CENTENARY LIFE Powell, Neil Benjamin Britten was born into a family of dentists in Suffolk in November 1913. His musical mother knew that her youngest child was destined for greatness - he was going to be “the fourth B” after Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Ben did not let her down, precociously composing "Quatre Chansons Francaises" while still at prep school, and heading for London and a scholarship at the Royal College of Music after only two years at secondary school. In the 1930s Britten quickly established himself as the leading British composer, befriending and collaborating with a strikingly gifted circle of literary and musical friends including W H Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Lennox Berkeley and Frank Bridge. Later he met the singer who was to form the centre of his emotional and musical life, Peter Pears. Conscientious objectors, Britten and Pears headed for America before the war began, until intense homesickness, provoked in part by Britten’s reading of George Crabbe’s poem "Peter Grimes", drove him home to East Anglia in 1942 and gave him the inspiration for his finest opera. Together the men established the Aldeburgh Festival and Snape Maltings, which they ran with such flair. This centenary biography of Benjamin Britten will place the composer firmly in the East Anglian landscape which he loved so much. It will also tell the story of an openly gay “marriage”, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal, one which survived every pressure, including Britten’s series of attachments to young boys. Publisher: UK: Hutchinson Schedule: Delivery: Spring 2012 |
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HELLO WORLD: THE PLEASURES AND PERILS OF DESIGN Rawsthorn, Alice Alice Rawsthorn brings her vast experience to this definitive survey of design of all kinds over the past few decades, and demonstrates the central role that design plays in our lives. Publisher: World Rights: Hamish Hamilton Schedule: Delivery: Autumn 2012 |
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RED HEAT: CONSPIRACY, MURDER AND THE COLD WAR IN THE CARIBBEAN von Tunzelmann, Alex During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, the charismatic Fidel Castro, and his mysterious brother Raúl; from Argentina, the ideologue Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, the capricious psychopath Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a buttoned-down doctor with interests in Vodou, embezzlement and torture.
Alex von Tunzelmann's brilliant narrative follows these five rivals and accomplices from the beginning of the Cold War to its end, each with a separate vision for his tropical paradise, and each in search of power and adventure as the United States and the USSR acted out the world's tensions in their island nations. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life. Red Heat is an intimate account of the strong-willed men who, armed with little but words and ruthlessness, took on the most powerful nations on earth.
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1972 Williams, Dean 1972 is the true story of Dean Williams’ eventful life to date. Sometimes violent and sometimes sad, it is also filled with humour, hope and triumph. From early days of abuse and bullying in Grimsby, through teenage gangs and football hooliganism in the 1980s, to a drug- and alcohol-fuelled lost time of sexual ambivalence and psychosis, 1972 takes the reader on a fast, furious and surreal ride through the latter part of the 20th century. This memoir stands apart from other books in the genre, being thrilling and violent but also deeply moving. It incorporates a multitude of themes in one book, and does so in a way which is edgy and sexy and in-your-face. 1972 deals with its subject matter in an unsentimental way, taking the reader into realms they could not otherwise easily imagine, both physical and psychological. Publisher: UK: Simon & Schuster Schedule: Publication: June 2012 |
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KILL ALL ENEMIES Burgess, Melvin Everyone says fourteen year-old Billie is nothing but trouble. A fighter. A danger to her family and friends. But her care worker sees someone different. Her classmate Rob is big, strong. He can take care of himself and his brother. But his violent stepdad sees someone to humiliate. And Chris is struggling at school. He just doesn't want to be there. But his dad sees a useless no-hoper.
Billie, Rob and Chris each have a story to tell. But there are two-sides to every story and the queston is... who do you believe?
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LUNCHTIME Cobb, Rebecca It's lunchtime for one little girl, but she's just not hungry. A visiting crocodile, bear and wolf, however, are starving. It's just as well that children taste revolting!
A beautifully illustrated tale of food, friendship and fun, LUNCHTIME is Rebecca's second solo picture book, and although wholly different in subject matter from her first, features the same stunning illustration style, child-friendly voice and warmth.
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THE INGO CHRONICLES: STORMSWEPT Dunmore, Helen An atmospheric and beautifully written adventure, from the award-winning author of the Ingo series.
Morveren lives with her parents and twin sister Jenna on an island off the coast of Cornwall.
As Morveren and Jenna’s relationship shifts and changes, like driftwood on the tide, Morveren finds a beautiful teenage boy in a rock pool after a storm. Going to his rescue, she is shocked to see that he is not human but a Mer boy.
With Jenna refusing to face the truth, Morveren finds herself alone at the worst possible time. Because when the worlds of Air and Mer meet, the consequences can be terrible…
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TO BE A CAT Haig, Matt You wake up. You are the same normal person you were yesterday. With human eyes and human hands and a human heart. Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. Except, sometimes it does. Sometimes, everything changes. And that’s what happened to me, Barney Willow, one morning last spring. The morning of my birthday in fact, but that wasn’t really important. What was important is that I woke up and, over night, I had turned into something else. Something so different that no-one could recognise me. Something too impossible to believe, for most people at least.
But if I have come to understand one thing in the last year it is this: the impossible is everywhere, if you know where to look.
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ICE ANGEL Haptie, Charlotte Zack and Clovis’ dad disappeared when they were very young. He used to drive his van, the Ice Angel, down from the family’s mountainside home into Rockscar City, to sell flavoured ices to the better off and dispense free, clean drinking water to its poorer inhabitants. The city's Water Company has a stranglehold on the water supply, so anyone else dispensing water is taking a big risk. But now Clovis gets the Ice Angel back up and running, and Zack uses the family’s secret spring and his dad’s old recipe book to create the most fantastic ices imaginable - crushed vanilla with ginger crystals, coffee and bitter chocolate with frozen crystallized orange spoons, and cherry and cream vanilla bombes. Zack and Clovis begin to make their own illicit night-time deliveries, and in a jazz club and at the radio station they meet people who knew their father and mother in the old days. But then they get first-hand experience of the Water Company's ruthless power, as its head Anselm instructs the police to destroy the Ice Angel. Will they be able to outrun the police, and continue their father's work? And is there a link between Anselm’s interest in trolls and their father’s disappearance?
Charlotte Haptie’s Otto books have been sold into seventeen languages. Her gripping new novel wonderfully displays her unique blend of magic, fantasy and adventure.
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FLORENTINE AND PIG HAVE A VERY LOVELY PICNIC Katzler, Eva The sun is shining and Florentine knows the best way to celebrate: a glorious picnic with delicious treats like apple and carrot muffins. But Pig has eaten the last apple! Now how can they bake their favourite muffins? Luckily, Pig may be small but he has a BIG idea for how to save the day . . . Introducing two delightful new characters, this lively and playful book includes recipes and more from the story for children and adults to enjoy making together.
Join in the fun with Florentine and Pig!
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CHILDREN OF THE LAMP, BOOK 7: THE GRAVE ROBBERS OF GENGHIS KHAN Kerr, P B When the ancient Italian volcano Mount Vesuvius erupts right before their eyes, djinn twins John and Philippa Gaunt know that a brand-new adventure has found them. Soon, they learn that volcanoes all over the world are beginning to erupt and are spewing a strange golden lava. It quickly becomes clear that there is a peculiar—and perhaps evil—force at work, causing these disasters. If the twins can’t figure out who is responsible, and stop him, an environmental catastrophe of epic proportions will devastate the planet. Will John, Philippa, and their uncle Nimrod be able to use their powers to save the day once again? Publisher: WEL: Scholastic US; German: Rowohlt; Norwegian: Cappelen Damm Schedule: Publication: November 2011 |
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BLOOD NINJA III Lake, Nick Lord Oda is dead – again – and Lord Tokugawa has taken command of his armies, making him the most powerful daimyo in the land. Powerful enough to stand against the boy Shogun, if he wanted. Taro’s true father still doesn’t know his son is alive, so Taro takes shelter with his friends at the monastery on Mount Hiei, close to his mother’s grave. It seems safe, up there on the mountainside, but unbeknown to Taro, the evil Kenji Kira is assembling an army of the dead… Meanwhile, just outside the capital city, Edo, an ancient volcano has awoken. The inhabitants live in fear of the dragon under the earth that threatens their homes. The boy Shogun puts out an appeal: the one who kills the dragon will be made a lord, and given land to rule over. Seeing his opportunity to finally deserve Hana’s hand in marriage, Taro decides to kill the dragon. First he must find the legendary sword Kusanagi, supposedly one of the treasures owned by the boy Shogun, but actually lost centuries before in the great sea battle between the Heike and the Genji - a sword now rumoured to be guarded by the dragon of the sea. It’s a quest that will take Taro to the watery limits of the country, to the lairs of dragons, to a terrible confrontation with Kenji Kira, and ultimately back to Shirahama, where everything began and some things, at least, will come to an end. But there’s something about Kusanagi that Taro has not quite realized: hold that sword, and you hold the divine right to rule Japan.
Finally, Taro is forced to make his stand, alongside his real father, Lord Tokugawa, and his oldest friend, Hiro, for dragons are not the only monsters on this earth, and Kenji Kira may be mad, but there is one thing he understands: the inevitable betrayal of living things. As the end of the journey nears, Taro learns the hardest lesson: that things are never as they appear, and that nothing and no one can be trusted.
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IN DARKNESS Lake, Nick This is a story that begins and ends in darkness... except that it ends in the light, too. It is the story of a teenage boy, a gangster from the slums of Haiti, who lies trapped in the rubble following the recent earthquake - thirsty, terrified, and alone. It is the story of how he came to be in hospital, how he lost what he truly loved, and the quest that drives his very existence. At the same time, it is the story of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the black slave who led Haiti's bloody struggle for independence in the eighteenth century. Because, in some strange fashion, he and the boy in the ruins of modern Port au Prince might well be one and the same... It is a story of violence, horror and foreign interference. It is not suitable for anyone under the age of thirteen - or maybe it is. After all, being under thirteen never saved anyone, especially in Haiti. It is a story of despair and desperation.
And, just maybe, it is a story of hope.
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SNAKES' ELBOWS Madden, Deirdre Barney and Jasper are both millionaires living in the town of Woodford. There any similarity ends. Barney has returned to his hometown after a very successful career as a musician. Jasper is a 'specialist in the area of material supplies for international conflict resolution'. Furthermore, Jasper doesn't at all like the idea of someone moving into the neighbourhood who might be even richer than he is. When Barney outbids Jasper at an auction for a famous painting, things really do start to get out of hand. Publisher: World English Language: Faber Schedule: Published January 2012 |
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JASPER AND THE GREEN MARVEL Madden, Deirdre Jasper has just been released from Woodford Jail, where he served a long sentence for some very naughty goings on involving a famous painting. And now he's looking for trouble once again. Ideally he would like a job such as a sofa tester or a food taster. But all he can see in the local paper is advertisements for jobs which seem to require actual work. He is about to discard the ad for a gardener at Haverford-Snuffly Hall when he learns that there is a story attached to this great house, a story concerning a priceless treasure. And so, despite knowing nothing at all about gardening, he gets the job. He has some help from his pet rats Toe-rag and Scum-bag, but even they can't tell him how to mow a lawn. Well, Jasper isn't interested in grass and flowers, he's interested in the Green Marvel, and he's determined to find it! Publisher: World English Language: Faber Schedule: Publication: January 2012 |
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THE GHOST ROADS McNamee, Eoin The nefarious leader of the Ring of Five, Ambrose Longford, is still determined to control both the Upper World and the Lower World. But Danny and his friends at Wilson's School for Spies stand in his way. As Danny struggles with his role in the spy world, Longford is attempting to bring down the other members of the Ring, to usurp all its power. Or is he? In this exhilarating conclusion to the Ring of Five trilogy, Eoin McNamee's twists and turns will have readers wondering who they can believe in this dangerous world.
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THE ADVENTURES OF THE NEW CUT GANG Pullman, Philip Lambeth , South London 1894 Meet the New Cut gang - Benny, Thunderbolt, Bridie and the Peretti twins - the greatest detectives since Sexton Blake. Who's passing counterfeit coins round Lambeth? Surely not Thunderbolt's dad, who's been arrested. And who's stolen the Worshipful Company of Gas-Fitters' silver? With a little help from some colourful (and not always willing) accomplices, our heroes are soon blazing hot on the criminals' trail.
Published together for the first time are Philip Pullman's classic tales of crime and detection: THUNDERBOLT'S WAXWORK and THE GAS-FITTERS' BALL.
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THE WHIZZ POP CHOCOLATE SHOP Saunders, Kate Welcome to the most magical house in London Oz and Lily’s family have inherited it, together with the mysterious shop downstairs. Long-ago, its famous chocolate-makers were clever sorcerers. Now evil villains are hunting the secret of their greatest recipe. The terrifying power of this magic chocolate could destroy the world. The children are swept into a thrilling battle, helped by an invisible cat, a talking rat and the ghost of an elephant.
A fantastic new adventure from the author of BESWITCHED and MAGICALAMITY.
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CHILKO Voros, Ria For thirteen year old Jakob, the summer is looking pretty bleak. His only friend has moved away, and no one else seems to have any time for him, except the girl who lives downstairs, but she’s a little weird. Then again, so is Jakob. A few months ago, he was in a car accident that killed both his parents – and though he’s unable to remember exactly what happened, he can’t stop turning it over in his mind. No wonder people leave him alone. Then out of nowhere a stray dog befriends Jakob, and together they begin to roam the city streets by night, discovering an exhilarating secret world where they can both taste a new kind of freedom. But as their nocturnal adventures take Jakob further and further away from the safety of home, the truth of that awful night starts to emerge. Will he be strong enough to face it – and who will be there for him when he does?
Exploring the heartbreaking loneliness of grief with sensitive assurance, CHILKO is above all a powerful and uplifting tale about friendship found in the most unexpected places.
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GEEK IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD Voros, Ria Gretchen Meyers doesn’t know exactly what she did wrong, but life is beginning to suck. As if having a semi-nudist family wasn’t awkward enough, she seems to have lost her best friend to the fanatical school swimming team, and her maths grade is so close to negative digits that only emergency tutoring can save it. So far, so high school. Then James/Dean rolls into her life – also known as her zit-faced tutor James, and his slightly less zit-faced cousin Dean. Kind-hearted rebels without a cause, they draw Gretchen out of classroom hell, and briefly the world seems full of possibility again. But then everything changes over the course of one awful night. Bewildered by harsh new emotions of grief and love, Gretchen realises she must now decide who she wants to be, and what it means to be loyal.
Written entirely in poems as self-confessed poetry geek Gretchen finds new ways of expressing herself, GEEK IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD is a tale of haiku, high-fives and heartache. It explores with rich humour all the anguished details of teenage life – unrequited crushes, younger sisters with enviable dating records, the comforting properties of chocolate brownies…A sensitively-drawn chronicle of the unnerving process of growing up, GEEK is above all a funny and heartfelt novel about a girl finding her feet.
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