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IN THE KITCHEN Ali, Monica At the once-splendid Imperial Hotel, Executive Chef Gabriel Lightfoot is trying to run a tight kitchen. But his integrity, to say nothing of his sanity, is under constant challenge from the competing demands of an exuberant multinational staff, a gimlet-eyed hotel management, and business partners with whom he is secretly planning a move to a restaurant of his own. Despite the pressures, all his hard work looks set to pay off. Until the discovery of a porter’s dead body in the kitchen appears to tip the scales. It is a small death, a lonely death – but it disturbs the precarious balance of Gabe’s life. Elsewhere there are already complications: Gabriel’s father is dying of cancer, his girlfriend wants more from their relationship, and the restaurant manager appears to be running an illegal business under his nose. Enter Lena, an eerily attractive young woman mysteriously tied to the death of the porter. Under her spell, Gabe makes a decision the consequences of which strip him bare, changing the course of the life he knows, and the future he thought he wanted.
IN THE KITCHEN is Monica Ali’s stunning follow-up to BRICK LANE. It is both the portrait of a man pushed to the edge and a wry and telling look into the melting pot which is our contemporary existence. It confirms Monica Ali not only as a great storyteller but also an acute observer of the dramas of modern life.
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THE SONG HOUSE Azzopardi, Trezza When Maggie Nix’s ageing hippy mother dies, Maggie decides she needs a job, something that will return her to the world. But the particular world she has in mind is that of her own childhood. She applies for the job of amanuensis to Kenneth Earl, a retired man living alone in his rambling house who wants to engage in a form of recollection of his own. Music has been the most important element in his life, and he intends to write a kind of musical memoir, which will recapture the feelings and ideas that every single one of his four thousand long-playing records aroused in him. As Maggie and Kenneth embark on this great task, they strike up an odd and strangely affectionate relationship. But what Kenneth doesn’t know is that Maggie stayed briefly in his house once before, under very different circumstances. Trezza Azzopardi’s work has been described as ‘scalding’ and ‘thrilling’. In her fourth novel the Booker-shortlisted author gives us another heart-stopping story written in a virtuoso style she has made all her own. Publisher: UK: Picador Schedule: Delivered; Publication: Spring 2010 |
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SOUL MURDER Blake, Daniel Introducing Pittsburgh detective Francesco Patrese: new to the homicide beat, he remains haunted by the fatal consequences of a split-second decision made years before. But the Steel City is no place for soul-baring. A noted surgeon is found burnt alive in his apartment; days later, a local bishop meets with the same grisly fate. While the streets of Pittsburgh simmer with unease, Patrese and his partner, veteran detective Beradino, search for links between the two victims. The murders coincide with the controversial release from prison of Mara Slinger – a Hollywood star married to the city’s dashing young mayor, Mara was convicted of killing her three newborn children but the verdict was overturned on appeal. With the city torn between suspicion and sympathy for the tragic actress, the police provide Mara with protection – but as the apparently random killings mount up, can anyone be safe? Can anyone be trusted?
Drawn into a harrowing conflagration of vengeance and betrayal, Patrese must face the spectre of his own past before he can uncover the pattern behind this bizarre spree of increasingly violent attacks. But with racial and religious tensions flaring up across the city in the wake of his investigations, Patrese will have to act fast to track down the killer and contend with evil in all its forms.
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TELESCOPE Buckley, Jonathan Daniel Brennan is severely disfigured, and lives a reclusive life in the house of his brother Charles. His carer, Ellen Symons, is the only person besides his immediate family whom he will permit to see him. Daniel passes his time reading, surfing the internet, and writing a diary. The narrative of TELESCOPE is this diary. Daniel is mercilessly honest both about himself and his family: Charles, Charles's wife Janina, and their sister Celia. In TELESCOPE, Jonathan Buckley explores the meaning and value of experience and the opposition between the 'fictive' and the 'true'. It is another bravura performance from a writer whose previous work has garnered superb reviews for its depth of vision and stylistic integrity. Publisher: UK: Sort Of Books Schedule: Delivered; Publication: Spring 2011 |
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THEIR FINEST HOUR AND A HALF Evans, Lissa THEIR FINEST HOUR AND A HALF was longlisted for the Orange Prize 2009 and shortlisted for The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2009. It’s 1940, France has fallen, and only a narrow strip of sea lies between Great Britain and invasion. The country’s needs are stark and obvious: allies, food, weapons and a morale-boosting, heart-warming war film, preferably one that will appeal to the American market. So as the phony war becomes the real war and bombs start to fall on London, work begins on ‘An Ordinary Wednesday’, an almost-true tale of bravery and rescue at Dunkirk. And since call-up has stripped the film industry of the brightest and best, it’s the callow, the jaded and the utterly unsuitable who are making up the numbers. There’s Catrin Cole, for instance, whose experience of writing copy for gravy advertisements catapults her into a job as romantic dialogue specialist, and Ambrose Hilliard, third most popular British film-star of 1924, whose agent is utterly failing to get him the roles he deserves, and Arthur Frith, whose peace-time job as a catering manager hasn’t really prepared him for his sudden, unexpected, elevation to Special Military Advisor.
And in a serious world, in a nation under siege, in a city visited nightly by destruction, they must work together to produce a slice of the purest entertainment…
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THE BRAVE Evans, Nicholas The motto of the boarding school to which eight-year-old Tommy Bedford is dispatched is 'Fortune Favours the Brave'. It’s England in 1959 and the school bristles with bullies and sadistic staff. Tommy, a quirky loner, obsessed with Cowboys and Indians, will need all the bravery he can summon – and not simply to cope with school. Everything at home is suddenly turned upside down when he learns that his sister Diane, a glamorous actress, is in fact his mother and that his elderly parents are really his grandparents. When Diane finds fame and falls in love with one of Tommy’s heroes, TV cowboy star Ray Montane, she snatches him from school and whisks him away to live with them in Hollywood. Suddenly all Tommy’s fantasies seem to have come true. With a handsome new president promising a New Frontier, the world seems golden and full of promise. But as the Cold War casts its shadow, the sinister side of Tinseltown starts to show through. When scandal erupts, Diane and Tommy are forced to flee to Montana. There, Tommy learns about the natural world and the cruel truth of how the West was won. He also has to learn at last the true meaning of bravery.
Unmasking the brutal reality behind the macho cowboy myth and how that myth affects the world today, THE BRAVE explores our quest for love and identity, the fallibility both of heroes and of parents, and the devastating effects of family secrets.
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TURBULENCE Foden, Giles In the early spring of 1944 a young weather forecaster, Henry Meadows, is summoned by his superior and told he is being posted to Scotland. The big push towards D-Day is underway, and the weather will be a vital factor in the plans of the Allied forces. But why Scotland, when Meadows' colleagues are all working on the south coast with the Americans? Meadows is told he must find and get to know a famous forecaster, Wallace Ryman, who has turned pacifist and will have nothing to do with the war effort. Ryman is known to be in possession of a theory which could have a crucial impact on the forecasting for D-Day, but which he will not impart. Meadows must ingratiate himself with Ryman, must spy on him. Thus begins Giles Foden's ambitious new novel, in which the weather is a great unfolding drama, one which will sweep Meadows up and then hurl him down again. Will he be able to get the information his superior so urgently wants, and make the crucial contribution he dreams of making to the war? The tide of events is about to turn, and suddenly Henry Meadows is at the centre of them.
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THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH Gale, Patrick When forty-something Laura Lewis is obliged to abandon a life of stylish independence in Paris to care for her elderly mother in Winchester, it seems all romantic opportunities have gone up in smoke. Then she runs into Ben, the great love of her student days – and, as she only now dares admit, the emotional yardstick by which she has judged every man since. She’s cautious – and he’s married – but they can’t deny that feelings still exist between them. Are they brave enough to take the second chance at the lasting happiness that fate has offered them? Or will they be defeated by the need to do what seems to be the right thing? Taking its structure from the events of a single summer’s day, THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH is a bittersweet love story, shot through with an understanding of mortality, memory and the difficulty of being good. In it, Patrick Gale writes with scrupulous candour about the tests of love: the regrets and the triumphs, and the melancholy of failing.
THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH is vintage Gale, and displays the same combination of wit, tenderness and acute psychological observation as his Richard & Judy bestseller NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION.
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COLLECTED STORIES Galloway, Janice Janice Galloway's stories have been described as 'lethally accurate' and 'fusing a nerve-exposing honesty with deep compassion'. Her subject is love, in all its quirky triumphs and sneaky defeats. Brought together for the first time, these stories demonstrate the extraordinary gifts of one of our finest writers. Publisher: UK: Vintage Schedule: Publication: September 2009 |
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THE TWISTED HEART Gowers, Rebecca When Kit, a literature student who works five times too hard and doesn’t care about the meaning of life, decides on a whim to go to a dance class, all she is really after is to lose herself in the steps. Can Joe, the shadowy figure she meets there, somehow draw her out into the real world? Or will she reject the tumult he represents, and instead retreat into the extremes of her imagination? Because Kit is about to stumble on a darkly absorbing mystery. What is the connection between the young Charles Dickens and the deranged slaughter of a prostitute known as The Countess? THE TWISTED HEART is a hugely enjoyable novel from one of Britain’s finest young writers. It brilliantly combines startling new insights into the macabre side of one of the world’s greatest writers with its own passionate fable exploring the insidious appeal of violence and the true nature of love. Publisher: UK: Canongate Schedule: Published |
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MIDNIGHT FUGUE Hill, Reginald It starts with a phone call to Superintendent Dalziel from an old friend asking for help. But where it ends is a very different story. Gina Wolfe has come to Mid-Yorkshire in search of her missing husband, believed dead. Her fiance, Commander Mick Purdy of the Met, thinks Dalziel should be able to take care of the job. What none of them realize is how events set in motion decades ago will come to a violent head on this otherwise ordinary summer's day. A Welsh tabloid journalist senses that the story he's been chasing for years may have finally landed in his lap. A Tory MP's secretary suspects her boss's father has an unsavoury history that could taint his prime ministerial ambitions. The ruthless entrepreneur in question sends two henchmen out to make sure the past stays in the past. But the lethal pair dispatched have some awkward secrets of their own. Four stories, two mismatched detectives trying to figure it all out, and 24 hours in which to do it: Dalziel and Pascoe are about to learn the hard way exactly just how much difference a day makes!
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THE WIDOW'S TALE Jackson, Mick A newly-widowed woman has done a runner. She just jumped in her car, abandoned her (very nice) house in north London and kept on driving until she reached the Norfolk coast. Now she’s rented a tiny cottage and holed herself away there, if only to escape the ceaseless sympathy and insincere concern. She’s not quite sure, but thinks she may be having a bit of a breakdown. Or perhaps this sense of dislocation is perfectly normal in the circumstances. All she knows is that she can’t sleep and may be drinking a little more than she ought to. But as her story unfolds we discover that her marriage was far from perfect. That it was, in fact, full of frustration and disappointment, as well as one or two significant secrets, and that by running away to this particular village she might actually be making her own personal pilgrimage. By turns elegiac and highly comical, THE WIDOW'S TALE conjures up this most defiantly unapologetic of narrators as she begins to pick over the wreckage of her life and decide what has real value and what she should leave behind. Publisher: World English: Faber Schedule: Delivered; Publication May 2010 |
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BEARS OF ENGLAND Jackson, Mick There is a stirring in the forest of history and through the mists of time come the bears. Their heavy tread and a distant cry can be heard resounding through the centuries: “Come, bears of England, come …”. Mick Jackson uses these proud, terrifying creatures to weave his strange and unforgettable story. From the Dark Ages come the spirit bears, haunting the villagers at night. Sin-eating bears consume the sins of the recently departed along with the bread and ale left out for them – until they decline the role of assuager of human guilt and oblige the townsfolk to take responsibility for their own actions. Gladiatorial bears in chains draw huge crowds until one decides he’s had enough: how will the people entertain themselves now that the bears have had their sport with them? Highly trained circus bears suddenly revolt and walk the high wire along their escape route. Bears who clean the Victorian sewers trade coins and rare pieces of jewellery fallen into the sewers; men steal from them at their peril. There are rumours of bears living among us, who have deliberately inveigled their way into society to live domestic lives. As each band of bears walk into exile, they head north and into the caves of the Derbyshire Dales and hibernation – until an old voice calls the Bears of England and they emerge into the winter snow, finally escaping into the icy waters of the channel. This is the last the bears see of England – and the last England sees of the bears… Mixing folk tale with fantasy and history with myth, the narrative that unfolds is dark, playful and filled with magical moments, as it marches ever forward towards a strange convergence. The author of THE UNDERGROUND MAN and FIVE BOYS has produced an adult fable with resonances for our own times, about the fear of the unknown and the triumph of strength over evil – with freedom being the ultimate goal. Or perhaps it’s just a delightfully witty and quirky book for those who love reading about bears? It’s for the reader to decide. Publisher: UK: Faber Schedule: Published |
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THE BILLY PALMER CHRONICLES Johns, Derek THE BILLY PALMER CHRONICLES brings together four short novels which describe the life of their eponymous hero from the age of ten to fifty-one. The first two books, WINTERING and WAKENING, were published separately in 2007 and 2008 to excellent reviews. They are now published in a single volume along with WESTERING and WANTING. In WESTERING, Billy is in his early thirties and living in New York. He has married an American, Alice, who is a theatre set designer, and is himself an editor, first at a literary magazine and then at a book publishing house. WESTERING is above all a portrait of a marriage, one in which Billy and Alice are discovering not only one another, but whether it is possible for two people to pursue careers in the arts and at the same time contemplate starting a family. In WANTING, Billy is middle-aged. Divorced from Alice, and three thousand miles away from both her and his teenage son Michael, he is back in London, and has taken up a career as an antiquarian book dealer. His relationship with Chloe, a cellist in her late twenties, is precarious, and he knows in his heart that it must end before very long. His father is dying, and he must come to terms with the idea of being head of the family. When the daughter of a recently deceased novelist writes to ask whether Billy will handle the archive, he finds himself going back to his beloved Somerset. And in returning to his past, he begins to be aware of the shape of his future. THE BILLY PALMER CHRONICLES is the story of a life, one which begins in the drab 1950s, in the shadow of Glastonbury Tor, and concludes in the London of the Millenium. It is an accidental life, perhaps, but nonetheless one that subtly yet powerfully draws the reader in.
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AN EQUAL STILLNESS Kay, Francesca AN EQUAL STILLNESS is a novel posing as a biography of a painter, Jennet Mallow. Born in 1924, Jennet grows up in Yorkshire. In the drab post-war years she forges an early career as a painter, both inspired and constrained by her marriage to another artist, David Feaver. The competing claims of marriage and family on the one hand, and art on the other, provide one of the principal themes of this novel. After a vivid period in southern Spain, Jennet and David return to England. In the 1960s Jennet's career blossoms, and she becomes a sought-after painter, despite personal complications and indeed tragedies. With her children grown up, and David Feaver dead of alcoholism, she retires to her beloved Yorkshire for her final, yet brilliantly productive, years. Francesca Kay is a wordsmith, and her depictions of landscape and paintings, as well as feelings, are often exhilarating. She has imagined a life in the round.
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IF THE DEAD RISE NOT Kerr, Philip Berlin, 1934. The Nazis have been in power for just eighteen months, but already Germany has seen some unpleasant changes. As the city prepares to host the 1936 Olympics, Jews are being expelled from all German sporting organisations. Forced to resign as a homicide detective with Berlin's Criminal Police, Bernie is now house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel. The discovery of two bodies - a businessman and a Jewish boxer - involves Bernie in the lives of two hotel guests. One is a beautiful left-wing journalist intent on persuading America to boycott the Berlin Olympiad; the other is a German-Jewish gangster who plans to use the Olympics to enrich himself and the Chicago mob. As events unfold, Bernie uncovers a vast labour and construction racket designed to take advantage of the huge sums the Nazis are prepared to spend to showcase the new Germany to the world. It is a plot that finds its conclusion twenty years later in pre-revolutionary Cuba, the country to which Bernie flees from Argentina at the end of A QUIET FLAME. Publisher: UK: Quercus US: Penguin; Dutch: De Boekerij; French: Le Masque; German: Wunderlich Schedule: Publication: 2009 |
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THE ANGEL'S CUT Knox, Elizabeth Boomtown Los Angeles, 1929: the movies have burst into song and speech, and aircraft into the skies at speed. Into this world of soundstages and speakeasies comes Xas, stunt flier and wingless angel, with his German passport and his broken heart, determined only to go on living in the air, to go on unimpeded, like a high altitude weather system, full of ice. What does it take to turn a wind?
Will it be Conrad Cole, movie director and aircraft designer, a glory-seeking king of the grand splash who is also a man sinking into his own sovereign darkness. Or will it be Flora McLeod, film editor and maimed former actress, who sees something in Xas that no-one has ever seen before, not even God, who made him, or Lucifer, the general he once followed—Lucifer, who has lost him once but won’t let that be the end of it.
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GLOVER'S MISTAKE Laird, Nick David Pinner is not content. A 35-year-old English teacher in a small private school in Marylebone, he isn't a writer or a boyfriend or a father. He isn't even a very good son. If he's not trawling pornographic websites, he's drinking with friends he doesn't really like or trying to avoid his neighbours. His new flatmate is James Glover, a barman whose life hasn't quite worked out either. And although he's a nice guy - a Christian and a small-town boy from East Anglia - he has certain fixed ideas about things. Into the lives of these two dissatisfied bachelors comes Ruth, a successful American artist who taught David when he was an undergraduate at Goldsmiths. Ruth meets Glover on David's doorstep and although she's 48 and he's 25, a relationship begins. David, as mutual friend, puts himself in the middle of it, and his interest in the couple grows obsessive, and eventually destructive.
GLOVER'S MISTAKE is an exploration into friendship, jealousy and the mind of a modern day Iago.
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IT'S BEGINNING TO HURT Lasdun, James James Lasdun is one of the finest short story writers we have. His new collection features the story 'An Anxious Man', which won the inaugural Prospect/BBC competition in 2006. Other stories include 'Caterpillars', which will be published in Granta's December 2008 issue. Set in Britain, France and America (where Lasdun has lived for many years), these stories are beautifully crafted and carry a powerful charge. Publisher: UK: Jonathan Cape; US: Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Translation: Irene Skolnick; Media: Christine Glover, APW Schedule: Published |
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ALL THE COLOURS OF THE TOWN McIlvanney, Liam When Glasgow journalist Gerry Conway receives a phone call promising unsavoury news about Scottish Justice Minister Peter Lyons, his instinct is that this apparent scoop won’t warrant space in The Tribune. But as Conway’s curiosity grows and his leads proliferate, his investigation takes him from Scotland to Belfast. Shocked by the sectarian violence of the past, and by the prejudice and hatred he encounters even now, Conway soon grows obsessed with the story of Lyons and all he represents. And as he digs deeper, he comes to understand firstly that there is indeed a story to be uncovered, and secondly that there are people who want it to remain hidden, and will go to great lengths to ensure that it does. ALL THE COLOURS OF THE TOWN is a compelling novel, vividly written and unfolding in ways that neither Conway nor the reader can foresee. Its scene painting and its taut characterizations and dialogue drive the story along. But this is no exploitative thriller - it is a complex inquiry into themes of loyalty, betrayal and duty.
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TO DO AND DIE Mercer, Patrick Watch this promotional video for TO DO AND DIE on Amazon.
It’s the spring of 1854 and the British Empire, at the height of her power, prepares to go to war against the Tsar in the Crimea in an uneasy alliance with France and Turkey. Lt Tony Morgan, a young British officer previously untested in battle, is plunged into the blood-letting. From the slaughter at the River Alma, to the disastrous charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade at Balaclava, the abattoir of Inkermann and the grinding siege of Sevastopol, Morgan’s courage, leadership and endurance will face test after brutal test in the Crimea. |
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ACCORDING TO ARNOLD: A NOVEL OF LOVE AND MUSHROOMS Milton, Giles Meet Arnold Trevellyan - charismatic, exuberant and somewhat strange. His love of mushrooms is matched only by a passion for Flora, his wife of twelve years. One day, while searching for mushrooms, Arnold makes a wondrous discovery that will turn his world upside down. He abandons Flora and heads to the South Pacific, where he finds himself marrying the queen of a remote tropical island. But all is not as it seems in Arnold's idyllic realm. In a series of cassettes sent to his oldest friend, he reveals that he is trapped in an international conspiracy in which mushrooms hold the key to life or death. Funny, tragic and intensely moving, ACCORDING TO ARNOLD is essential reading for all women who think they know their partner - and all men who think the grass is greener elsewhere. Publisher: UK: Macmillan; French: Buchet Chastel/Noir sur Blanc Schedule: Delivered; Publication: October 2009 |
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SKIPPY DIES Murray, Paul Ruprecht Van Doren and his roommate Daniel ‘Skippy’ Juster are probably the two biggest losers in Seabrook College for Boys. Ruprecht is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Skippy is on the swimming team, but mostly likes to play Nintendo – that is, until he falls for Lori, the Frisbee-playing Siren from the girls’ school next door. Nobody thinks he has a chance, especially since his rival happens to be Carl, the sinister school drug-dealer. But some losers don’t know when to quit, and while Ruprecht attempts to open a portal into a parallel universe, Skippy, in the name of love, is rapidly heading towards a showdown in the form of a doughnut-eating race that only one person will survive… Hilarious and heartbreaking as a tragic SOUTH PARK, with an educational programme of its own that ranges from mermaids to M-theory to the real meaning of the poems of Robert Frost, SKIPPY DIES captures in painful detail the humiliations and joys of being thirteen in a world that craves youth but can’t stand the young.
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BITTERLEAF Okereke, Chioma Set in the village of Mannobe, BITTERLEAF leads the reader into a world that is African in nature but never geographically placed; exotic, beguiling, and yet reassuringly familiar. At the heart of the story is Babylon, a local musician and renowned lothario, who applies himself judiciously to both his roles in the village. However, when Jericho Lwembe returns to Mannobe, Babylon is caught under her spell and forced to re-evaluate his life. But his many attempts to lure Jericho are fraught with disaster. Using his music as a salve, he is confused when he discovers his abilities as a guitarist leaving him. Faced with the loss of music, the one thing he defines himself by, Babylon is a man altered. Spoilt by her time in the big city, Jericho returns to Mannobe and finds it - and herself - greatly changed. To make matters worse, she finds herself being pursued by a man with no background or breeding. Her desire to climb the greased steps of the social ladder and to marry a man, Daniel, from a prestigious family, colours her view of her once beloved hometown and its inhabitants. But when she discovers she is pregnant with Daniel’s child, the reality of her situation brings her crashing back down to earth. Engaging the witchdoctor for help, the near tragic result of her attempts to deal with her dilemma is only interrupted by Babylon. As the relationship between the two characters develops and falters, the fragile web of dependency holding village life together is gradually revealed. Publisher: UK: Virago Schedule: Delivered |
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IN THE FALLING SNOW Phillips, Caryl The streets of modern-day London are hectic, multicultural, and difficult to read if you are a white-collar, middle-aged man. Keith is a social worker who, following a brief affair with a colleague, finds himself living alone in a flat a few streets away from his wife, Annabelle, and his teenage son. His domestic problems, allied with growing tensions at work, profoundly undermine his peace of mind. Keith attempts to take refuge in a long-cherished writing project, and then turns his attention to the plight of his ageing father, but for the first time in his life he feels extremely vulnerable as a black man in English society. Annabelle met Keith twenty-five years ago at university, and she watches the man she married – against the wishes of her English parents – as he appears now to be losing his grip on his life. However, after three years of estrangement, she realises that despite her disappointment with her former husband, the pair of them have no choice but to close ranks and protect their son, who seems to have become increasingly involved with street gangs and a world that is entirely alien to them.
A brilliant and penetrating story of contemporary Britain, IN THE FALLING SNOW is Caryl Phillips’ finest novel yet.
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DARK WATERS Ross, Jack A young man’s partially dismembered body is fished out of the Everglades. His death is written off by the police as a suicide or drunken prank gone wrong, but scrawled on the palm of his left hand is a telephone number that investigative journalist Deborah Jones knows only too well: it’s hers. Only hours before his death, the victim tried to contact Deborah – but what had he wanted to tell her? Charged by his distraught parents to find out the truth behind their son’s death, Deborah and her partner, Miami Herald editor Sam Goldberg, enter the shadowy world of electronic espionage. They discover that the victim was involved in high-level hacking and had located incriminating pages that had been removed from the government’s official report into the events of 9/11. Convinced that a sinister ring of security service operatives was closing in on him, he disposed of the top-secret missing pages, leaving few clues as to their whereabouts. The pair must track down the documents before they fall into the wrong hands - but Deborah must fend for herself when Sam is left comatose after a brutal attack on them both. Whoever silenced the young hacker now wants Deborah and Sam dead too – but what secret could be worth this kind of deadly cover-up? Undaunted, Deborah sets out to trace the conspiracy back to its source; but as she realises just how high up the trail of corruption goes, the fearless reporter finds herself in very deep and dangerous waters indeed.
DARK WATERS is the gripping new thriller of treason and deceit at the highest level of government from REQUIEM author Jack Ross.
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TWO LITTLE BOYS Sarkies, Duncan When Nige runs over a Norwegian backpacker while attempting to save petrol, his life really turns to shit. He chucks the body in a nearby road works and runs to his best mate of fifteen years, Deano. Trouble is, Deano's not really the guy you should turn to in a crisis. This off-kilter tale of male camaraderie is a bizarre debacle from start to thrilling finish. Publisher: UK: John Murray; New Zealand: Penguin New Zealand Schedule: Published |
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CHEMISTRY FOR BEGINNERS Strong, Anthony Dr Steven J. Fisher is fascinated by the elusive nature of the female orgasm, proclaiming it 'the last great unexplored territory.' But for all his scientific candour about human sexuality in the lab, Dr Fisher is really just a shy chemist who is a beginners in the ways of love. Trock, a major pharmaceutical company, has sponsored his Oxford research team to develop the first pill to cure Female Sexual Dysfunction, and Dr Fisher is just weeks away from launching his miracle pill at their upcoming conference. When a beautiful and brilliant (and orgasmically challenged) PhD student named Annie begins participating in his study, everything Dr Fisher thinks he knows about women is turned on its head - and his research becomes more and more complicated with the addition of her perplexing data. Is it the pill making her feel this way, or is it love? What scientific phenomenon can explain the changes in his own feelings? With pressure mounting from the Trock, Annie's mystery must be solved by any means possible.
Cleverly presented through excerpts from Steven's clinical study and Annie's blog entries, CHEMISTRY FOR BEGINNERS gets to the heart of what makes us all tick, showing us that love is, in fact, all about chemistry.
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VOODOO HISTORIES Aaronovitch, David What 'dark forces' are at work (to quote both the Queen and Dr David Kelly) to make large numbers of educated people believe that their futures are controlled by malign, secret powers?
Conspiracy theories are no longer the province of a fringe minority – they have a strong following, at least to judge by the best-sellers’ lists. VOODOO HISTORIES will examine and question the development of the major theories that have shaped the world. Arguing that historically the consequences of such beliefs are almost always damaging, it will trace how the process of creating scapegoats to explain the sins of a bewildering world has led to social exclusion and hatred.
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THE SETTLER'S COOKBOOK Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin Warmly written and enticingly designed, this mouth-watering memoir from one of Britain's most high-profile and vocal immigrants explores the author's East African Indian roots through the shared experience of cooking. This is an appetizing exploration of the culture of the East African Indians who brought their cookery and quirks to Britain from Uganda and Kenya, their ancestors having transported them from Bombay and Calcutta. In lovely, intimate writing, it fuses the domestic and the social in the vein of Isabel Allende's APHRODITE or Ruth Reichl's TENDER AT THE BONE.
Through the story of Yasmin's family and the food and recipes they've shared together over generations,THE SETTLER'S COOKBOOK traces the history of her people's many journeys. The food she cooks now, in one of the world's most ethnically-diverse cities, combines the traditions and tastes of her family's hybrid culinary heritage. Here you'll discover how shepherd's pie is much enhanced by sprinkling in some chilli, Victoria sponge can be wonderfully enlivened by saffron and lime juice, and the addition of ketchup to a curry can be life-changing...
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A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH Armstrong, Sue Too often caricatured by the media as 'doctors of death', pathologists are medicine's key diagnosticians, on whom life itself often depends. Post mortems are in fact a very small element of what pathologists do. Primarily their job is to identify from specimens sent to the lab from clinics and operating theatres exactly what a patient is suffering from and what treatment he or she is likely to respond to. Pathologists are disease specialists - some are experts in diseases of the tissues, the brain or blood, others in diseases caused by bacteria and viruses; only a small proportion are experts in forensic science. In A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH Sue Armstrong encounters fourteen of the most eminent pathologists in the world, who work in fields as diverse as cancer research, the identification of bones in mass graves, and brain damage in deliberately shaken babies. The resulting book offers a fascinating snapshot of the practical, ethical and philosophical challenges facing contemporary medicine and powerfully conveys the excitement and drama of working at the interface of research science and practical medicine.
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH was originally published by Dundee University Press in October 2008 and will be reissued with new material by Canongate in Spring 2010.
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ACCOMPLISHED Barber, Laura What does it mean to feel accomplished in the modern world? In Jane Austen’s day it was clear enough. A graceful proficiency across a range of skills – from sewing and reeling, to riding and letter-writing – was the minimum requirement for a place in society and the prospect of making a good match. There may be fewer occasions for a dazzling display on the harpsichord these days, but the instinct to become a better version of ourselves (or even a different person altogether) is still with us: it is what prods us towards gym membership, makes us regret closing the lid on our childhood piano lessons, inspires end-of-holiday fantasies involving gîte-renovation and bilingual grape-stomping, and has us rooting for the underdog on a talent show.
In ACCOMPLISHED, Laura Barber puts such dreams of self-improvement to the test by giving herself a year to pursue seven different accomplishments. With the help of various experts and fellow enthusiasts, she will attempt to put charcoal to paper and a roast in the oven, as well as untangling her tenses, mixing the perfect cocktail, and discovering whether she really could have been a ballerina, and whether she ever can stand up and sing in public.
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SHAKESPEARE'S LOST KINGDOM Beauclerk, Charles SHAKESPEARE'S LOST KINGDOM is an unorthodox biography of Shakespeare that seeks to create an in-depth, psychologically penetrating portrait of Shakespeare by reconnecting the author to his works, since the writer of fiction cannot help but reveal his or her psychology. Its primary purpose is to deepen the reader's understanding of Shakespeare by freeing the author's voice, and with it his message. Taking the author’s own words as its cue, the book seeks to answer the fundamental - yet taboo - questions: Why did Shakespeare write the works that he did? Where is his voice in the plays? What was his message? What was his relationship with the Queen and Court, and how did he get away with his trenchant political satires of the ruling elite?
Having explored all these questions and built up a portrait of the author as he reveals himself in his own words, Charles Beauclerk offers a solution to the biggest question of all: Who was this man, and why did he conceal his true identity? The answers are as startling as they are illuminating.
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MELTDOWN ICELAND Boyes, Roger It is a truism that when America sneezes, Europe catches a cold. The subprime mortgage crisis, which began in America in 2007, unleashed a veritable epidemic of financial ill health all over the world. All European countries were affected, and the developing world also felt a chill. However it was Iceland, a tiny volcanic outcrop in the North Atlantic whose population of 300,000 had the highest GDP and counted itself the happiest in the world, which caught the worst cold. It has nearly killed them. For a few short years, the Icelanders deluded themselves that they were rich. Dour Reykjavik became the Capital of Cool. Rock musicians like Damon Albarn bought houses and stakes in pubs. Clubs boomed, the alcohol was expensive and the Krona was strong. All over the world people are trying to understand what caused the economic crisis and are asking themselves who is to blame. In Iceland that question is easily answered and the handful of bankers and politicians responsible have had to hire body guards, hole themselves up in their country houses and stay off the streets for fear of attack. Collaborating with the business editor of Iceland's leading daily newspaper, award-winning writer Roger Boyes tells the inside story of the bankrupting of Iceland and explains how it has ramifications for us all, from the private and public investors who trusted their money in Iceland's banks, to the workers in high street clothes stores whose owners no longer can pay for the shirts on their own backs. Writing with panache and colour, and drawing on interviews with everyone from the prime minister, Sir Phillip Green, the governor of the central bank, Bjork and the local fisherman, MELTDOWN ICELAND is an authoritative and compelling account of the financial destruction of this tiny, icy but vibrant country. Publisher: US and UK: Bloomsbury Schedule: |
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THE PLOT: A BIOGRAPHY OF AN ENGLISH ACRE Bunting, Madeleine Madeleine Bunting's father was a sculptor and a deeply conservative man with a passionately romantic attachment to North Yorkshire, and in particular a small plot of the moors. After his death, Bunting wanted to understand this combative parent and his love of his English acre; she also wanted to explore what belonging means in a highly mobile world. She set off on an extraordinary odyssey into the story of this acre of uninhabited, remote moor. Bunting discovered that it had been touched by surprisingly dramatic events over thousands of years. In prehistory the area was home to huge and mysterious Neolithic forts and earthworks; it was the site of one of England’s biggest defeats by the Scots in the Middle Ages; and the austere Cistercian monks who built the extraordinary Byland Abbey nearby owned the acre for 400 years. She traces how the Plot was used as a drovers’ road, the path for the thundering hooves of hundreds of cattle who walked over it for centuries; situated on one of England’s most dramatic escarpments, Wordsworth came and admired the view. Today millions of tourists come in his footsteps to contemplate the vast swath of land and sky. This is a landscape shaped by the needs of the sheep who patiently crop the moorland and the grouse slaughtered there every autumn. The farmers struggle to make a living from the land; Bunting’s father left his own mark on the landscape he fell in love with: as a penniless young artist he built a war memorial chapel there in 1957. By learning about the Plot, Bunting comes to terms with her father and reaches an understanding of his ideals. The Plot is an original, heartfelt and brave book which performs a deft and delicate balancing act between the deeply emotional and the political. By telling the story of one acre, Bunting charts how land has been and is used to produce food, meaning, myth and home. It shows what a contested, layered place England is, and what belonging to a part of it might mean to any one of us. 'A wonderful excavation of what a 'sense of place' might mean' - Robert Macfarlane, author of The Wild Places
'She paints a vivid, poignant picture of a corner of England, precious to her' - Simon Jenkins
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THE WEEKENDERS Chappell, Kate THE WEEKENDERS is a fun, unique guide to gorgeous and unusual weekends away in the UK. In these times of recession, more and more people are eschewing short breaks abroad to explore Britain instead, and Kate’s guide to the best and quirkiest places to stay will capture their imaginations. The book is categorised not by area, but by theme: foodie, romantic, seaside, city, etc., giving the reader a wealth of choice about somewhere new to go that suits not only their interests, but also their budget. As well as listing unusual and characterful hotels that don’t cost the earth, it contains extensive and enthusiastic advice on where to eat, what to do, and how to get there. These breaks offer comfort, style, and the excitement of discovery, right on our own doorsteps. Publisher: Schedule: |
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WAITING FOR THE ETONIANS Cohen, Nick Do you remember what life was like before the crash? When level-headed couples were still taking mortgages five times their joint income. When the middle class was divided between the haves and the have yachts. When her majesty’s government boasted that their “light-touch regulation” of finance had abolished boom and bust, and laughed hysterically at anyone who disagreed. By Christmas 2008, eight banks had been part-nationalised, Woolworths had disappeared, unemployment had reached nearly two million and the country’s debt had hit record levels. We are now a bankrupt nation. After the Great Crash of 2008, Americans could at least blame an incompetent right-wing government. But when the money ran out, Britain was ruled by left wingers who had grown up despising the “funny-money” men. And yet, like the most gullible investors on Wall Street, New Labour prostrated themselves before the snake oil charmers of financial capital.
Since they came to power in 1997, Nick Cohen has been taking the pulse of what has turned out to be the longest period of left-wing government in British history. Over a decade later, he reports from the sickbed of liberal England as battered and broken voters contemplate a remarkable shift. With splendid outrage and great compassion, WAITING FOR THE ETONIANS is an account of a country that, for the first time since the end of the Empire, is considering embracing the old ruling class it has despised for decades.
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MEN OF WAR: COURAGE UNDER FIRE IN THE 19TH CENTURY NAVY Crane, David Between the Battle of Navarino in 1827 and the First World War, the Royal Navy did not fight a single fleet engagement. But that is not to say that it didn't see action, in the Greek War of Independence, in the Crimea, on the China station, and in the defence of Great Britain's many colonies around the world. The Victorian navy was for a long time one of adventurers and freebooters, the most colourful example being Frank Abney Hastings, who claimed descent from Charlemagne and who took a similarly belligerent view of the world. MEN OF WAR is the story of the Royal Navy during a time of profound change, leading to the ironclads and the set-piece battles of the 'war to end all wars'. Crane's vivid book also features William Peel, the fearless hero of Sevastopol, and James Goodenough, the evangelising sailor of the Pacific. A wholly original piece of work, MEN OF WAR is naval history at its finest. Publisher: UK: HarperCollins Schedule: Published |
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. . . AND SHE LAUGHED NO MORE Foster, Stephen In 2008 unfashionable Stoke City managed to grind their way into the Promised Land of the Premiership. Under the dour, pragmatic guidance of manager Tony Pulis they were never going to be pretty to watch. Lifetime Stoke supporter Stephen Foster describes a club with a chip on its brawny shoulders, whose tactics were built around heroic defiance of superstars earning 150 grand a week - and, of course, Rory Delap's long throw. AND SHE LAUGHED NO MORE, the sequel to Foster's bestselling SHE STOOD THERE LAUGHING, chronicles the blood, sweat and tears of an unlikely season when the Potters were rescued from their lower league nightmare and transported to the Theatre of Dreams at Old Trafford. Publisher: World Rights: Short Books Schedule: Publication: September 2009 |
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THE THOUGHTFUL DRESSER Grant, Linda For centuries an interest in clothes has been dismissed as the trivial focus of vain, empty-headed women. And yet: clothes matter, because how we choose to dress ourselves defines our identity. From the immigrant arriving in a new country to the teenager who needs to be part of the fashion pack or the woman turning forty who must reassess her wardrobe, the truth is that how we look and what we wear tells a story. And what a story. THE THOUGHTFUL DRESSER tells us how a woman’s hat saved her life in Nazi Germany; looks at the role of department stores in giving women a public place outside the home; celebrates the pleasure of adornment; and savours the sheer joy of finding the perfect dress. Here is the thinking woman’s guide to our relationship with what we wear: why we want to look our best and why it matters. Publisher: UK: Virago Schedule: Published |
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WILFUL BLINDNESS Heffernan, Margaret In the 2006 case of the US Government vs Enron, the presiding judge instructed the jurors to take account the concept of wilful blindness as they reached their verdict about whether the chief executives of the disgraced energy corporation were guilty. It was not enough for the defendants to say that they did not know what was going on; that they had not seen anything. If they failed to observe the corruption which was unfolding before their very eyes, not knowing was no defence. The guilty verdict sent shivers down the spine of the corporate world. In this book, distinguished business woman and writer Margaret Heffernan examines the phenomenon of wilful blindness. Drawing on a wide array of sources from psychological studies and social statistics to interviews with the relevant protagonists she examines what it is about human nature which makes us so prone to willful blindness. Taught from infancy to obey authority, and absorbing the importance of selective vision as a key social skill, people exacerbate their tendency to become institutionalised by joining organisations which are run by like-minded people. She looks at how hard-work and the information overload of the modern workplace add to the problem. And she examines why whistleblowers and Cassandras are so very rare. Ranging freely through history and from business to science, government to the family, this engaging and anecdotal book will explain why willful blindness is so dangerous in the globalised, interconnected world in which we live, before suggesting ways in which institutions and individuals can start to combat it. In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Margaret Heffernan’s thought-provoking book will force open our eyes. Publisher: UK: Simon and Schuster; US: Bloomsbury; Canada: Doubleday Schedule: Delivery: Spring 2010 |
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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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SERVING BIPPS Hubbard, Kate 'Bipps' was the name by which James Reid, chief physician to Queen Victoria, referred to his royal mistress in letters to Susan Baring, a maid-of-honour and his wife-to-be. SERVING BIPPS offers portraits of six members of the Queen's Household - a governess, a lady-in-waiting, a maid-of-honour, a private secretary, a chaplain and a doctor - whose years of royal service spanned the entirety of Victoria's long reign (1837-1901). Drawing on private papers, letters and diaries (some published for the first time), Kate Hubbard focuses on the years each of her subjects spent at court and on their individual relationships with the Queen. The latter, while a highly demanding and frequently exasperating mistress, invariably inspired devotion. The six courtiers here, while never less than devoted and keenly aware of the obligations of duty, are notable for remaining capable of clear-eyed assessment of their sovereign, of seeing, as it were, the Bipps within the Victoria.
More broadly the book illuminates the closed world of the Victorian court, in all its stiffness, pettiness and occasional comedy, while casting a beam of light on the Queen herself, sitting squarely at its centre as her household orbits around her.
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DESPERATE GLORY Kiley, Sam DESPERATE GLORY is Sam Kiley’s account of 16th Air Assault Brigade’s 2008 tour of duty in Helmand Province. He was granted an unparalleled level of access by the Ministry of Defence. For the whole of their tour he lived and worked, without minders or restrictions, with the Brigade as they fought alongside Afghan troops to expel the Taleban from the lawless Helmand Valley, witnessing the struggle of the 8,000 young men and women of the Brigade to stay alive as they endured the most extended and intense phase of the war.
DESPERATE GLORY is a vivid first draft of history, featuring an extensive and varied cast of characters: Major Hugh Benson of the Royal Irish, whose three sons and nephew were fighting alongside him; Mark Carleton-Smith, the dapper ex-Irish Guards officer who was in command of the whole operation; Jodie Kennedy, a “loggie” driver of the Royal Logistics Corps; and Afghan soldiers and locals trying desperately to carry on with their lives in the midst of the conflict.
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THE THRIFT BOOK: HOW TO LIVE WELL AND SPEND LESS Knight, India Feeling poor because of recession? Feeling guilty because of global warming? Feeling like you’d quite like to tighten your belt, but aren’t quite ready to embrace DIY macramé handbags? No need to panic. Put down the economy mince and buy this book instead – it’s a blueprint for living beautifully while saving money and easing your conscience. India Knight (no slouch when it comes to extravagance) shows you how even a dedicated consumer and child of the more-is-more 1980s can mend her ways, embrace the New Thrift, and find her life – and bank balance – dramatically improved in the process. She will show you:
• how to make wonderful dinners with very little money Above all, India Knight will show you that saving money and tightening your belt doesn’t have to feel like a penance – it can be both fun and glamorous (and a great deal more satisfying than buying the latest It-bag).
Try it – you have nothing to lose but your overdraft.
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WHOOPS! HOW CAPITALISM BROKE ITSELF Lanchester, John After years of unprecedented success when the world was becoming (im)measurably richer, free-market capitalism has suddenly imploded. The reasons why this happened are, for most of us, obscure. Money touches on our deepest emotions, our most intimate fears and hopes, which makes it all the more difficult to accept the reality that in a downturn this sharp, in face of an economic crisis so systemic, we are no longer in control of crucial aspects of our lives.
Writing out of a simple need to understand what just happened, John Lanchester will examine the global economic collapse through each moment of this intensely human drama – from the population of Iceland being told that their banks had simply run out of money to the people of Cleveland, Ohio, finding their homes repossessed and their city now part-owned by Deutsche Bank; from the billionaire who gambled on share-prices and lost on a massive scale to the government economists who based their vital calculations on an inherently flawed mathematical model. A vivid, witty and crystalline account of the otherwise daunting mess that confronts us all, WHOOPS! will trace the ways in which economics, politics and human psychology all converged at this crucial moment, provoking a series of worldwide convulsions that changed the very nature of modern life.
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ALL CONSUMING Lawson, Neal Shopping might seem like a harmless enough pleasure, but the facts are terrifying. Although we have grown progressively richer since the end of the second world war, levels of personal debt are sky-rocketing. We juggle credit cards, take out loans, and re-mortgage our overpriced houses to shop and shop and shop. And what are we doing with all this stuff? We throw away ever-growing mountains of rubbish. And even though one in seven of us in the West now owns a second home and the average house size is increasing, one of the fastest growing businesses is storage space. And it’s not just our wardrobes which are getting bigge: obesity is the physical expression of consumption gone crazy, and depression and mental illness increasingly manifests itself through shopping addiction. Shopping has filled our free time and impinged on what was once our free space. It has replaced religion, politics and ideology. In the wake of the most terrible terrorist incident on American soil, politicians informed us that shopping was now a patriotic duty. It has become all consuming. This book will be our wake-up call. Written in an accessible, unsanctimonious style by one of the UK’s most distinguished policy makers and political commentators ALL CONSUMING is designed to generate debate and promote action. And it will offer solutions as well as analyzing the problems of turbo-consumerism.
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HOW PAKISTAN WORKS Lieven, Anatol In the past decade Pakistan has emerged as a country of immense importance. Large, heavily populated, strategically placed between Iran, Afghanistan and India, Pakistan has since its creation just over sixty years ago been pulled in several different, irreconcilable directions. In the wake of its development of nuclear weapons, Osama Bin Laden's presence in its unpoliceable border areas and now the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, there is a clear need to understand this remarkable place. The large British Pakistani community, its links to Pakistan, and the attraction of some of its members to Pakistan-based extremist groups, also make Pakistan of vital importance to the United Kingdom. Anatol Lieven worked in Pakistan as a journalist and has visited the country frequently over the years. His new book will be a key work - the necessary background to gaining a serious sense of Pakistan and its place in the world. Far from seeing Pakistan as the chaotic disaster area often portrayed in the media, Lieven instead sees it as a country that does work, albeit with difficulty and under threat. Within limits, and by the standards of its region rather than the West, it is a viable and coherent state.
Combining history and analysis with anecdotes from Anatol Lieven's own extensive travels across the immensely varied landscapes of Pakistan, HOW PAKISTAN WORKS is both highly informative and enjoyable - a book that allows the reader to understand why Pakistan should be so important to us all.
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RUSSIA AGAINST NAPOLEON Lieven, Dominic RUSSIA AGAINST NAPOLEON; The Battle for Europe 1807-1814 is a major new history of Russia's role in the Napoleonic wars, based on years of work in only recently accessible Russian archives. This is history at its most dramatic: a tale of huge-scale campaigns and battles whose outcome hung in the balance until the last moment. But this book is much more than just military history: it is also, for instance, the story of how Russian espionage penetrated the most secret core of Napoleon's regime and contributed significantly to its overthrow. The book is peopled by giants such as Napoleon and Alexander I but also by serfs and ordinary soldiers. The mobilisation of Russian society for war and the immense sufferings of ordinary Russians are among its key themes. The book shows that in many ways the Russian horse was the key hero in the empire's defeat of Napoleon. In this era horses played the role of the tank, aeroplane and lorry on a modern battlefield and of all areas of Russia's war economy it was horses where Russian superiority was greatest and most decisive. This book not just fills a big gap in our knowledge but also puts the Napoleonic wars in a radically new and different global perspective. Publisher: World: Penguin Press; Dutch: Spektrum; Germany: C Bertelsmann Schedule: Publication October 2009 |
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READING THE ROCKS 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.
READING THE ROCKS 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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LIFE IS SWEET Miss Hope A splendid new book all about Miss Hope, her favourite recipes for old-fashioned confectionery, and a most delicious concoction of sweet stories, historical anecdotes and scandal to make the reader chuckle. Did you know that Montezuma drank 50 cups of hot chocolate a day in order to service his 50 wives? Or that Turkish Delight was invented as a medicine for sore throats? Roam through Miss Hope’s scrapbook and follow her diary as she makes coconut ice to take to the funfair, chocolate fish and chips for a trip to the seaside and hand-rolled champagne truffles to eat in bed. This beautiful book is a little nostalgic, really quite British and quintessentially Hope and Greenwood. Publisher: Ebury Schedule: Publication; 1st October 2009 |
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WITH A WORLD TO LOSE: THE DECLINE OF ENGLISH AND THE RETURN TO BABEL Ostler, Nicholas WITH A WORLD TO LOSE; The decline of English and the return to Babel By Nicholas Ostler For most of the last three centuries the world's dominant power has used the English language and the resulting spread of the language has been all-pervasive. In 400 years native English-speakers have spread from a small island on the periphery of Europe to become one of the world's three largest language groups in number, and the one most widely distributed across the world as a whole. More important, the English language has become the preferred international medium for business, science and to a very large extent, entertainment. Scholars such as David Graddol now claim that English is less a lingua franca and more a basic part of global education for business, like maths or computing.
So is the future of English set fair? This is unlikely, Nicholas Ostler suggests in this provocative and fascinating book. Drawing on his encyclopaedic knowledge of the origins of world languages, he argues that a clear lesson of history is that no language - however populous its speakers, confident its culture and advanced its technology - can remain indefinitely the world's lingua franca. Drawing on a great range of languages he analyses the political, commercial and social reasons why languages fall away as inexorably as they rise: English in the long term is even more exposed to creeping neglect and destructive reaction than many of the great linguistic reputations of the past, such as Akkadian and Aramaic, Sogdian and Latin, French and Portuguese. Can English look to its laurels?
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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: |
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THE MAGNIFICENT SPILSBURY AND THE BRIDES IN THE BATH Robins, Jane One day in the summer of 1910 Bessie Constance Mundy, a plain, not very bright young woman, went for a walk in the pretty Georgian streets of Bristol. Still unmarried at twenty-five, Bessie seemed destined for spinsterhood, until a chance encounter changed everything. During her walk Bessie fell into conversation with Henry Williams, a smooth-talking Londoner who dressed like a dandy and soon declared his love for her. It was Bessie’s misfortune that Williams was no Prince Charming, but rather a psychopath embarking on a career as a serial killer. She was to become the first victim of the infamous ‘Brides in the Bath’ murderer. His real name was George Joseph Smith and his trial at the Old Bailey in 1915 was so sensational that it knocked the First World War off the front pages of the popular press.
As Smith roamed the country marrying vulnerable women, and drowning them in their baths, a handsome young doctor named Bernard Spilsbury was in London, working obsessively to establish himself as the country’s leading forensic pathologist. It was his evidence that was to convict Smith, and establish Spilsbury as ‘the real life Sherlock Holmes’ and the father of modern forensics. THE BRIDES IN THE BATH uncovers the story of both men and their strange worlds, weaving together the two narratives in a work of history which is steeped in period atmosphere and reads like a detective novel.
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MY BODY: JOURNEY INTO FAMILIAR TERRITORIES Ross, Christopher The bestselling author of TUNNEL VISIONS: JOURNEYS OF AN UNDERGROUND PHILOSOPHER and MISHIMA'S SWORD returns to the subject he knows best: himself. In MY BODY, Ross provides a biography of the body at the midpoint of life, performing a tour d'horizon of the universal experience of middle age. Whilst examining and assessing the steady physical decay that the body endures, he investigates how this process might also be one of spiritual growth, for as Wittgenstein noted in his PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, the human body is the best picture we have of the human soul. This book will be a thinking man's aspirational guide to mid-life, a kind of manual for coming to terms with the tragic nature of a body in decline, a work that both accounts for how the body gets to be the way it is and considers the best ways to deal with it.
Interspersed with the story of the human body will be excerpts from Ross's own year-long journal on how he is coping with and addressing his own struggle between bodily decline and the desire to learn from it.
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KOESTLER: THE INDISPENSABLE INTELLECTUAL Scammell, Michael When Arthur Koestler and his wife Cynthia committed double suicide in 1983, a remarkable chapter in European culture came to an end. Koestler was a paradigm for a generation of mid-twentieth century writers who, having grown up in the shadow of World War One and the Great Depression, were inexorably drawn to the social, political and cultural conflicts caused by the immense upheavals of the time. First a Zionist, then a Communist, then an anti-Zionist and an anti-Communist, a scientist who was fascinated by the paranormal, Koestler was a man of contradictions. But whatever his position or concerns, he was always at the centre of the great ideas and events of his time. And in his writing, whether in novels such as DARKNESS AT NOON and ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE, or in non-fiction books such as THE GOD THAT FAILED, THE ACT OF CREATION and THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE, he was forever exploring the fundamental nature of things. Born in Budapest to Jewish parents, brought up during the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, eventually naturalized as a British subject, he was a restless man who moved constantly between Europe, America and the Middle East. Michael Scammell has spent the past twenty years writing what will unquestionably be the definitive biography of a fascinating and enigmatic figure. Publisher: UK: Faber; US & Translation: Random House Schedule: Delivered; Publication: February 2010 |
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A JURY OF HER PEERS: AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS FROM ANN BRADSTREET TO ANNIE PROULX Showalter, Elaine In 1977 Elaine Showalter published A LITERATURE OF THEIR OWN, a book about English women novelists of the 19th and 20th centuries which immediately established itself as a classic. A JURY OF HER PEERS is a counterpart of that book, looking at American women writers over a period of 350 years. From the Puritans to the Feminists and Postmodernists, this book constitutes the definitive account of writing by American women. Publisher: UK: Virago; US: Knopf; (Translation: Elaine Markson Agency) Schedule: Published |
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MY NAME IS DAPHNE FAIRFAX Smith, Arthur ‘My name is Arthur Smith, unless there’s anybody here from the Streatham tax office. In which case, I’m Daphne Fairfax.’ This has been Arthur's opening line at hundreds of stand-up comedy performances. In fact, he is neither Daphne nor Arthur. Friends and family know him as Brian. One of the ‘alternative comedians’ who shook up light entertainment in the eighties and nineties, Arthur (and Brian) is also a broadcaster, an opening bat for Grumpy Old Men, a West End playwright (his plays include 'An Evening with Gary Lineker') and a guest on innumerable radio and TV panel shows. In MY NAME IS DAPHNE FAIRFAX he reflects on the nature of comedy and his days as a scruffy kid on the bombsites of Bermondsey, a wild-haired undergraduate, a roadsweeper, an English teacher, a failed rock star, a boozed-up sexual adventurer and an intensive care patient who has been told never to drink again.
Hilarious, scandalous and rude, his memoir incorporates a tender tribute to his parents and a vigorous account of the peculiar business of being alive.
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CHANGING MY MIND Smith, Zadie Split into five sections – ‘Reading’, ‘Being’, ‘Seeing’, ‘Feeling’ and ‘Remembering’ – CHANGING MY MIND finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both personal and cultural. This engaging collection of essays – some published here for the first time – reveals Smith as a passionate and precise essayist, equally at home in the world of great books and bad movies, family and philosophy, British comedians and Italian divas. Whether writing of Obama, Katherine Hepburn, Kafka, Anna Magnani or David Foster Wallace, she brings a practitioner’s care to the art of criticism, with a style as sympathetic as it is insightful.
CHANGING MY MIND is journalism at its most expansive, intelligent and funny – a gift to readers and writers both. Within its covers an essay is more than a column of opinions: it’s a space in which to think freely.
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MAKING AN ELEPHANT Swift, Graham As a novelist, Graham Swift delights in the possibilities of the human voice, imagining his way into the minds and hearts of an extraordinary range of characters. In Making an Elephant, his first ever work of non-fiction, the voice is his own. As generous in its scope as it is acute in its observations, this highly personal book is a singular and open-spirited account of a writer’s life. Swift brings together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry and interviews, full of insights into his passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family and other writers who have mattered to him over the years. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard, and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on history and memory that readers of Swift’s novels will recognize and love.
A journey through place and time, Making an Elephant is a book of encounters, between a son and his father, between an author and his younger selves, between writer and reader, and between friends. It brims with charm and candour, and tells of alertness to experience and a true engagement with words, in short, with what it means to feel that writing and reading are an essential part of living.
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CHURCHILL'S EMPIRE Toye, Richard ‘I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.’ These notorious words, spoken by Churchill in 1942, encapsulate his image as an imperial die-hard, implacably opposed to colonial freedom - a reputation that, with his campaign against Indian self-government in the 1930s, he had willingly embraced. Earlier, however, he had been known for his pursuit of conciliation after the Boer War, for his denunciation of the ‘frightfulness’ of the Amritsar massacre, and for his role in Irish peacemaking. As a youthful minister at the Colonial Office before World War I, his political opponents had seen him as a Little Englander and a danger to the Empire. In order to understand the shifts in Churchill’s standing, it is necessary to place him in the context of his times. He sprang to fame as a self-made imperial hero, on the back of colourful adventures in India, the Sudan and South Africa, but soon exchanged the army and journalism for the different demands of politics. His attitudes were rife with paradoxes. He was simultaneously an advocate of humane treatment for subject peoples and an unrepentant believer in Anglo-Saxon superiority. Viewing him alongside famous contemporaries such as M.K. Gandhi, J.C. Smuts, and Leo Amery (his schoolfellow and later Cabinet colleague) gives us an insight both into what was conventional about Churchill’s opinions and what about them was unique. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of Churchill’s lifelong involvement with the Empire, from his childhood schooldays to his final premiership in the 1950s. Drawing upon a wealth of published and unpublished evidence, from private diaries to African war poetry and the Eagle comic, Churchill’s Empire provides a vivid and dynamic account of a remarkable man and an extraordinary era. Publisher: UK: Macmillan; US: Henry Holt Schedule: |
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ADVENTURES IN THE ORGASMATRON Turner, Christopher This book is as much a history of the sexual revolution as a biography of one of the prime architects of the orgasmatron, the brilliant but deluded Austrian-Jewish inventor Wilhelm Reich. Reich began his career in Austria as a pupil of Freud’s and believed that sexual blockage was the root of physical and psychological illness, all of which could be cured by harnessing the body’s sexual energy inside a box. He pioneered a radical form of psychotherapy - vegetotherapy - which involved physical attacks on naked patients as they lay on the analyst’s couch.
Initially a committed communist, Reich’s political ideas were similarly unorthodox and subject to misinterpretation by the authorities. He believed that the family perpetuated bourgeois values and that its destruction, through the pursuit of free love, was the essential prerequisite to the creation of a communist society. Many dismissed his work as the delusions of a madman and eventually his activities drew the attention of the FBI. He was imprisoned for fraudulent trade in 1957 where he soon after died of a heart attack just before his ideas began to have widespread currency, as the sexual revolution, whose name he had coined, took hold. His school of therapy continues to be practiced to this day and it is still possible to build or buy orgone accumulators – the orgasmatrons of the title.
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RED HEAT: THE COLD WAR IN THE CARIBBEAN von Tunzelmann, Alex RED HEAT is the story of the how the USA and USSR played out Cold War tensions in the puppet theatre of the Caribbean. What neither had bargained on was that the puppets would come to life. Kennedy and Khrushchev might be the most familiar names in the story, but they were being manipulated by the Caribbean leaders. The narrative focuses on four outlaws who sought to establish their own visions of tropical paradise. From the Dominican Republic there is the paranoid dictator Rafael Trujillo, from Cuba the charismatic nationalist Fidel Castro, and, via Argentina, Che Guevara, who has the most famous face in history but whose deeds are hardly known at all. And from Haiti there is the deranged François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, a doctor who became a dictator and a voodoo high priest.
Kennedy became obsessed with stamping out communism and promoting democracy; Khrushchev panicked, and resorted to clumsy displays of swagger and belligerence. The result was decades of tyranny, conspiracy, murder and magic: the spiralling of the trade in illegal drugs, a new era of buccaneering on and off the high seas, and a narrowly evaded war that might have ended human life on earth. The story will also shed light directly on issues such as slavery, the war on drugs, and the situation in Guantanamo Bay.
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WE ARE YOUNG AND AT WAR Wallis, Sarah WE ARE YOUNG AND AT WAR will for the first time tell the story of the Second World War by weaving together the diaries of teenagers growing up on opposite sides of the conflict. Written without hindsight and with disarming directness, these diaries are a unique, unselfconscious record of one of the most devastating times in history, made by its most vulnerable witnesses and unwilling participants. Yet despite war’s constant presence, the diarists also write about their daily lives, first loves, school pranks - and their attitudes to the adult world. Whether fighting for survival or fighting their enemy, these are all ordinary teenagers, growing up in extraordinary times. Not all survive to see the war’s end.
Using a British and an American teenagers’ accounts as the key narrative threads, WE ARE YOUNG AND AT WAR follows the chronology of the war, interweaving their accounts with the diaries of other children living through the same times in war-torn Europe, and in Japan. What emerges is a picture of hope, suffering, fear, prejudice, love and hate. Throughout it will be a compelling read, with dramatic events narrated in real time by those in the thick of it. Through the voices of these young people and others who are trying to survive in an unpredictable and constantly changing world, an extraordinarily vivid and personal picture of the Second World War emerges, powerfully bringing alive the experiences of growing up in wartime.
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LIVING DOLLS Walter, Natasha Empowerment, liberation, choice. Once the watchwords of feminism, these terms have now been co-opted by a society that sells women an airbrushed, highly sexualized and increasingly narrow vision of femininity. While the opportunities available to women may have expanded, the ambitions of many young girls are in reality limited by a culture that asks them to see consumerism and self-decoration as their only proper occupations, and their bodies as their only passport to success. At the same time we are encouraged to believe that the inequality we observe all around us is born of innate biological differences rather than social factors. Drawing on a wealth of research and personal interviews, the author of THE NEW FEMINISM and one of Britain's most incisive cultural commentators gives us a straight-talking, passionate and important book that makes us look afresh at women and girls, at sexism and femininity - today.
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THE PIRATES' TREASURE: A TUMTUM AND NUTMEG ADVENTURE Bearn, Emily The third book in Emily Bearn’s captivating TUMTUM & NUTMEG series is a dramatic island adventure for this lovable couple of mice. When Nutmeg overhears that the children, Arthur and Lucy, are planning to spend the night by the stream at the end of the garden, she is horrified by the hidden dangers of the camping expedition and plans that she and Tumtum should go too. Having stowed away in the children’s rucksack, the Nutmouses set up their very luxurious camp by the river and prepare for a comfortable night. The trouble begins when General Marchmouse turns up, on his way home from a day’s beetle hunting. He spots Arthur’s toy boat by the children’s tent and bounds on board to explore. As the Nutmouses try to coax him off board the boat suddenly soars up into the air – and before they know what has happened Arthur has launched them on the stream.
Shipwrecked on an island the three mice soon discover that they are not alone; the vicious pirate Rats are moored on the opposite shore. In terrible danger, the mice send Arthur and Lucy an SOS in a bottle. The children are their only hope.
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THE TIME QUAKE Buckley-Archer, Linda When Peter told me that The Tar Man had lost possession of the device to my former master, Lord Luxon, I was afraid. For I knew Lord Luxon’s heart better, I think, than any man alive…Lord Luxon was that most dangerous of creatures, a good man who has turned bad. Kate Dyer and Peter Schock are just beginning to realise the full and terrifying consequences of time-travelling: each excursion that the children take into another century damages the time mantle of the universe, leaving the world vulnerable to devastating time quakes. Trapped once again in 1763 by the Tar Man, the children enlist the help of their loyal friend Gideon to track down both the elusive criminal and the anti-gravity machine that will put an end to time-travelling once and for all. But neither they nor the Tar Man have counted on the devilish ambitions of Lord Luxon. Like any self-respecting eighteenth-century villain with a time-travelling device at his disposal, Lord Luxon knows there is only one place to be: the land of opportunity itself, America. Rallying a troop of the King’s finest Redcoats to his fiendish cause, he is determined to change the outcome of the American Revolution and claim the territory for himself. By radically altering the course of history, his plan will tear the time mantle apart. Kate and Peter must race across time and space to foil Lord Luxon’s wicked scheme if they are to prevent the world from tumbling into chaos and catastrophe.
Roaming from the muddy straw-strewn fairs of 18th Century London to the neon and chrome of New York City, THE TIME QUAKE is the magnificent concluding part to Linda Buckley-Archer’s captivating Time Quake Trilogy. Teeming with a vividly-drawn cast of fortune-tellers, watermen, fire-eaters and singing dogs, this is an epic adventure about friendship and courage told with glorious vigour.
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MOLLY MOON AND THE MORPHING MADNESS Byng, Georgia Molly Moon’s parents think their daughter should try living a normal life. They hire a tutor and ban Molly from using her magical powers, but Molly is a time-travelling, mind-reading, time-stopping master hypnotist – even if she doesn’t go looking for adventure, adventure has a way of always finding her. A book written by Molly’s great-great grandfather has fallen into the hands of a swanky casino owner who can only have the wickedest of intentions in mind – for the book divulges the ancient secret of morphing, and whoever can master the ability to morph into the animal or human of their choice will be able to control the entire world in no time at all! Molly, her newfound brother Micky, and her trusty pug Petula find themselves on a hair-raising race against time to track down the book before it’s too late. But once the secret of morphing is out, who – or what – can they trust?
From the jungles of South America to afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace, MORPHING MADNESS is the fifth book in the Molly Moon series, and is crammed full with adventures and surprises!
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HALO Corder, Zizou HALO is the story of a girl in Ancient Greece. We first meet her when she washes up on the shores of the island of Zakynthos, and is taken in by a centaur family. They christen her Halosydne or Halo for short. Halo grows up in her loving centaur family, thinking nothing of the fact that unlike them she is not half-beast. When she is in her early teens she is captured by pirates and taken off to mainland Greece. Managing to escape, she is befriended by a young Spartan soldier, and eventually finds her way to Sparta. The Oracle of Delphi tells her that she was actually born in Athens, and that she must go there to be reunited with her parents. But Sparta and Athens are engaged in what is about to become full-out war. The story of Halo’s travels and adventures, and of her unravelling the mystery of her origins, makes for a wonderfully vivid and exciting novel. Publisher: UK: Puffin Schedule: Delivered; Publication: February 2010 |
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THE RUNAWAY TROLL Haig, Matt Samuel Blink is not having a good year. First, his parents got crushed to death by a log that fell off a timber lorry. Then he moved to Norway to live with his strict Aunt Eda, and nearly lost his life rescuing his sister Martha from the nearby forbidden forest. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s now got to start a new school. A school where he doesn’t speak the language and where none of the other boys want to sit next to him. A school where Cornelia Myklebust, the most spoilt and spiteful know-it-all on the planet, suddenly wants to be best friends with his sister. But then one night he hears a noise from under his bed. A sneeze. He looks under and can’t believe his eyes. It’s a one-eyed troll boy who has run away from the forest. Samuel finds out the troll has escaped because his mother had wanted to send him to the Bettering Tower, a place from where some troll children never return. Although Aunt Eda and Uncle Henrik have made him vow to have nothing more to do with the forest, Samuel agrees to hide him. But hiding a one-eyed troll who stinks of cabbage is no easy task. Especially as Cornelia Myklebust is coming to Martha’s sleepover, trying to find information about the forest for her land-developer father – a man who seems to hate Uncle Henrik for some strange reason. Oh, and that’s not even mentioning the search party of trolls who are coming out of the forest looking for the runaway, a party that includes the evil Betterer, who would just love to get his hands on a real live human child...
Samuel Blink returns for another weird, perilous and wonderful adventure in this sequel to SHADOW FOREST.
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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 Silverspring Water Company has a stranglehold on the city’s 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 Anselm Silverspring's ruthless power, as he 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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THE EYE OF THE FOREST Kerr, P B In their latest adventure, John and Philippa Gaunt find themselves tangled up in a spellbinding mystery that takes them deep into the heart of the Amazon jungle in Book Five of the bestselling CHILDREN OF THE LAMP series. When a collection of Incan artifacts goes missing, the Blue Djinn of Babylon dispatches the twins and Uncle Nimrod to recover them. Along the way, though, John and Philippa encounter their friend Dybbuk, who was drained of his djinn powers but is determined to get them back.
In a fury, he's headed to an ancient Incan Empire where he believes he can regain his strength. Dybbuk will stop at nothing . . . even if it means destroying the rain forest, opening a cursed portal, and disturbing the enchanted kingdom of the Incas that has slept for thousands of years. Can the twins stop their friend before he destroys everything?
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BLOOD NINJA: THE DARK MIST OF NIGHT Lake, Nick Ninjas: silent, deadly and impossibly skilled in the art of combat. Peerless assassins and spies, they pose a terrifying threat to the Japanese nobility. Yet no-one has ever seen them by day… For all ninjas are vampires. The source of their strength is also their greatest weakness - ghastly blood-sucking spirits, all but invincible in battle, they are vulnerable to one thing: sunlight. THE DARK MIST OF NIGHT is the first of the Blood Ninja series. It will reveal the long-hidden secrets of ninja society and tell for the first time the astonishing tale of their first great leader – the man who was ninja, samurai and Shogun. It is the story of Taro, a boy from a simple fishing village who is rescued by a ninja when his father is murdered, and who finds himself dragged deep into a bitter conflict between the rival Lords ruling Japan.
What is the connection between Taro and Lord Tokugawa? What could an ancient curse put on the Emperor’s house by an angry spirit possibly have to do with a fisherman’s son? Where will Taro’s love for Lord Oda’s daughter Hana lead them both? What is the Buddha Ball, and why are men and gods alike willing to kill for it? And can a ninja and a peasant ever rule Japan?
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THE SECRET MINISTRY OF FROST Lake, Nick An albino, half-Inuit and heir to a huge Northern Irish manor, Light has never exactly blended into the crowd. Since her father’s disappearance in the Arctic, she has felt more alone than ever before. Yet as she mourns for the father who was her whole family, Light starts to notice unexpected presences all around her. Surely the crows are behaving rather oddly? What’s that shadow that seems to slip out of the manor walls and walk like a human being? Who’s the tall figure lurking in the woods? And can that possibly be a man with a shark’s head? Suddenly the mysterious world in which her father moved invades young Light’s life with a bang. The Inuit folklore she vaguely knows comes alive all around her; the inscrutable, violent and sometimes horrific beings of the North seem to believe she has a role to play, along with her tattooed butler and their new shark-headed friend. Figures such as Setna, ruler of the sea, draw Light into their age-old intrigues whether she likes it or not. Different forces batter Light from every side, but ever-resourceful (and always ready with a cynical aside), she realises it’s time to take action herself. Soon she’s aboard an icebreaker bound for Nunavut. Yet she scarcely realises the power of those who have chosen her for their enemy – above all, the king of cold and head of an army of floating men, the heartless and terrible Frost.
A fast-paced, action-packed horror adventure novel, THE SECRET MINISTRY OF FROST takes Light to the heart of the uncompromising Arctic. Packed with weird creatures, terrible visions and gripping fight scenes, not to mention a flying walrus, Light’s story explores the instinct for revenge and the growth of friendship in even the harshest of surroundings.
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THE RING OF FIVE McNamee, Eoin The first book in a projected trilogy, THE RING OF FIVE is a spy story for young adults. Danny Caulfield is abducted from his family's home and taken to a mysterious place called Wilson's, an academy for young spies. Wilson's trains spies for the struggle against the Minkies, who want to break down the barrier between their world and ours. Through an accident of birth, Danny fits the profile of the lost member of the legendary Ring of Five, a cabal of the greatest spies in history who are now working for the Minkies. Danny is to be trained at Wilson's and then infiltrated into their world. As Danny's schooling in the black arts of spying progresses, he comes to understand what a strange place Wilson's is, rife with secrets and apparent betrayals. Are his teachers and his fellows all that they appear to be? And why do so many accidents seem to happen so perilously close to him? Is someone out to get him? Time is running out, as the Minkies menace the school, and somehow Danny must find answers to the many questions racking his mind. He must also prepare for the greatest adventure of his young life.
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THE WRONG SCHOOL Saunders, Kate Flora Fox is very unhappy about being sent off to boarding school while her parents are in Italy caring for her ailing grandmother. On the train to Prentice Hall, a weird nightmare makes things much worse. She wakes up to find herself in 1935; trendy, liberated Prentice Hall has turned into St Winifred’s, an extremely old-fashioned girls' school run by the formidable Miss Harbottle, and founded by the magically gifted Miss Beak. Flora’s sudden journey back through time has a secret purpose, somehow linked to her ancient grandmother and ‘the gift’ which Miss Harbottle says she must pursue if she is ever to reclaim her past and future life.
THE WRONG SCHOOL is a glorious period school story, spiced with time-travel adventure, rich comedy and the supernatural.
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