Category Archives: Travel Guides
A River in Egypt: Faber Stories
In his masterful story `A River in Egypt`, David Means paints a portrait of a moment. Cavanaugh and his young son are suspended; trapped in what a nurse calls `the sweat chamber`, where the boy will be tested for cystic fibrosis.Cavanaugh has brought distractions – spasmodic action figures, malformed toy trucks – but they do
Shroud for a Nightingale
The young women of Nightingale House are there to learn to nurse and comfort the suffering. But when one of the students plays patient in a demonstration of nursing skills, she is horribly, brutally killed. Another student dies equally mysteriously and it is up to Adam Dalgliesh to unmask a killer who has decided to
The Black Tower
Commander Dalgliesh is recuperating from a life-threatening illness when he receives a call for advice from an elderly friend who works as a chaplain in a home for the disabled on the Dorset coast. Dalgliesh arrives to discover that Father Baddeley has recently and mysteriously died, as has one of the patients at Toynton Grange.
Death of an Expert Witness
When a young girl is found murdered in a field, the scientific examination of the exhibits is just a routine job for the staff of Hoggatt`s forensic science laboratory. But nothing could have prepared them for the brutal death of one of their own. When the senior biologist is found dead in his laboratory Commander
The Country Life
Stella Benson sets off for Hilltop, a tiny Sussex village housing a family that is somewhat larger than life. Her hopes for the Maddens may be high, but her station among them, as au pair to their irascible son Martin – is undeniably low. What could possibly have driven her to leave her home, job
Little Boy
“A brave man and a brave poet.” Bob Dylan”Utterly extraordinary.” Guardian”A torrent of textual splendor.” Los Angeles TimesFrom growing up as an orphan in 1920s New York, to serving in the Navy at the D-Day landings in Normandy, to a vagabond life drinking in Parisian cafes, to befriending America`s greatest counter-cultural writers, Little Boy has
Millions of Cats
Wanda Gag`s timeless tale follows an old man who is looking for the perfect cat. But when he finds them the cats are all too lovely to leave so he returns with `hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats`. How will he choose which cat to keep?
Little Faith
Winner of the 2020 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award for Cicerone Fiction, with a Sense of PlaceFrom the celebrated author of `Shotgun Lovesongs`, “a heart-wrenching look at family and the American mid-west” Stylist”With its focus on spirituality and reverence for the joys of everyday life, Little Faith calls to mind Marilynne Robinson`s `Gilead`.” The New
Season Songs
Spring will marry you. A promise!Cuckoo brings the message: May.O new clothes! O get your house ready!Expectation keeps you starry.But at which church and on what day?In these poems Ted Hughes invites the reader to try and catch the spring (but she`s elusive); to take a closer look at the March calf; to listen to
The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy
When Rachel Cusk decides to travel to Italy for a summer with her husband and two young children, she has no idea of the trials and wonders that lie in store. Their journey leads them to both the expected and the surprising, all seen through Cusk`s sharp and humane perspective.
A March Calf: Collected Animal Poems Vol 3
Right from the start he is dressed in his best – his blacks and his whites.Little Fauntleroy – quiffed and glossy,A Sunday suit, a wedding natty get-up,Standing in dunged strawFor older readers than the first two volumes of Collected Animal Poems, animal life is seen afresh through the diversity and imaginative energy of this collected
Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom: Faber Stories
Lips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like `guilt, and guilt, and guilt`: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.`But what is the ninth kingdom?` she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. `It is the
The Thought Fox: Collected Animal Poems Vol 4
Cold, delicately as the dark snowA fox`s nose touches twig, leaf;Two eyes serve a movement, that nowAnd again now, and now, and nowSets neat prints into the snowBetween trees, and warily a lameShadow lags by stump and in hollowOf a body that is bold to comeAll the richness of the wild is seen through the
When we were Warriors
A body washed up on the beach…Evacuation to an old house with forbidden rooms and dark secrets…An animal rescue service…Set in World War Two, Emma Carroll explores the resilience, resourcefulness and inventiveness of children when their lives fall to pieces. Introducing some compelling new characters, as well as revisiting some familiar settings, these adventures are
Coventry
After the publication of `Outline`, `Transit` and `Kudos` – in which Rachel Cusk redrew the boundaries of fiction – this writer of uncommon brilliance returns with a series of essays that offers new insights on the themes at the heart of her life`s work. Encompassing memoir and cultural and literary criticism, with pieces on gender,
Original Sin
An Adam Dalgliesh MysteryThe Peverell Press, a two-hundred-year-old publishing firm housed in a dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames, is certainly ripe for change. But the proposals of its ruthlessly ambitious new managing director, Gerard Etienne, have made him dangerous enemies – a discarded mistress, a neglected and humiliated author, and rebellious colleagues and staff.
Innocent Blood
A stand-alone thriller from P. D. James.Philippa Palfrey, adopted as a child, believes herself to be the motherless, illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic father. At eighteen she exercises her right to find out the truth. What she discovers will change her life forever. Philippa enters a new and terrifying world and soon comes to realize
Cover Her Face
St Cedd`s Church fete has been held in the grounds of Martingale manor house for generations. As if organising stalls, as well as presiding over luncheon, the bishop and the tea tent, were not enough for Mrs Maxie on that mellow July afternoon, she also has to contend with the news of her son`s sudden
A Mind to Murder
A piercing scream, shattering the evening calm, brings Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh hurrying from his literary party to the nearby Steen Psychiatric Clinic, where he discovers the body of a woman sprawled on the basement floor, a chisel thrust through her heart. As Dalgliesh probes beneath the apparently unruffled calm of the clinic, he discovers that
Unnatural Causes
Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh has been looking forward to a quiet holiday at his aunt`s cottage on Monksmere Head, one of the furthest-flung spots on the remote Suffolk coast. With nothing to do other than enjoy long windswept walks, tea in front of a crackling wood fire and hot-buttered toast, Dalgliesh is relishing the thought of
