Category Archives: Travel Guides
1914 the Year the World Ended
In this searing indictment of the rationale behind the First World War, Paul Ham argues that European leaders did not `sleepwalk` into war, but that they fully accepted and understood the consequences of the decisions they were making.In August 1914, the European powers plunged the world into a war that would kill or wound 37
1000 Years of Annoying The French
This is a new updated edition. Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? Non! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? Non! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. Did the French write “God Save the Queen”? Non!
Parliament: the Biography: Volume 1: Ancesteral Voices
The history of Parliament is the history of the United Kingdom itself. It has a cast of thousands. Some were ambitious, visionary and altruistic. Others were hot-headed, violent and self-serving. Few were unambiguously noble. Yet their rowdy confrontations, their campaigning zeal and their unstable alliances framed our nation. This first of two volumes takes us
The Cider House Rules
`The reason Homer Wells kept his name was that he came back to St Cloud`s so many times, after so many failed foster homes, that the orphanage was forced to acknowledge Homer`s intention to make St Cloud`s his home.`Homer Wells` odyssey begins among the apple orchards of rural Maine. As the oldest unadopted child at
A Prayer For Owen Meany
`If you care about something you have to protect it. If you`re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it`. Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend`s mother.
Like Water Like Chocolate
The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, “Like Water For Chocolate” is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit – and recipes. A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De
Chocolat
When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger to his flock – especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. As passions flare and the conflict escalates,
Tales of the City
San Francisco, 1976. A naive young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous – unmistakably the handwork of Armistead Maupin.
An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist
Born to parents who were enthusiastic naturalists, and linked through his wider family to a clutch of accomplished scientists, Richard Dawkins was bound to have biology in his genes. But what were the influences that shaped his life? And who inspired him to become the pioneering scientist and public thinker now famous (and infamous to
The Lassa Ward
In the summer of 2003, a perilous helicopter descent delivered Ross Donaldson, an American medical student in his twenties, into Sierra Leone. With abundant schooling but little practical experience, Ross wanted to save the world. Little did he know that by the end of his journey, it would be he who would need rescue. With
French Children Don`t Throw Food
The book everyone is talking about: how the French manage to raise well-behaved children, and have a life! Who hasn`t noticed how well-behaved French children are, compared to our own? How come French babies sleep through the night? Why do French children happily eat what is put in front of them? How can French mothers
The Blasphemer
He had always been scared of flying. Now, the fear is real. A plane crash. The water is rising over his mouth. In his nostrils. Lungs. As Daniel gasps, he swallows; and punches at his seat-belt. Nancy, the woman he loves, is trapped in her seat. He clambers over her, pushing her face into the
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
On 1st May 1915, the luxury ocean liner Lusitania sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool. Her passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone and its submarines were bringing terror to the Atlantic. But the Lusitania`s captain, William Thomas Turner, had faith in the gentlemanly terms
Life After Life
COSTA NOVEL AWARD WINNER 2013What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born
The Music Shop
` A beautiful novel, a tonic for the soul and a complete joy to read.` Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep.1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk ‘“ as long as it’s vinyl he sells it. Day after
A God in Ruins
Winner of the 2015 Costa Novel Award. A God in Ruins relates the life of Teddy Todd – would-be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot, husband, father, and grandfather – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face
The Ballroom
“Compelling, elegant and insightful”. (Observer). “Beautifully wrought, tender, heartbreaking”. (Sunday Express 5/5). “Moving, fascinating”. (Times). “A tender and absorbing love story”. (Daily Mail). “Unsentimental and affecting”. (Sunday Times). “Exquisitely good”. (Metro). 1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, where men and women are kept apart by high walls and barred windows,
Transcription
“An unapologetic novel of ideas which is also wise, funny and paced like a thriller” ObserverIn 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns
The Fat Years
Truth is not an option…Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one can care less. Except for a small circle of friends, who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that
The Road Between Us
1939: In a hotel room overlooking Piccadilly Circus, two young men are arrested. Charles is court-martialled for `conduct unbecoming`; Anselm is deported home to Germany for `re-education` in a brutal labour camp. Separated by the outbreak of war, and a social order that rejects their love, they must each make a difficult choice, and then
