This is the story of Doaa, an ordinary girl from a village in Syria, who in 2015 became one of five hundred people crammed on to a fishing boat setting sail for Europe. The boat was deliberately capsized, & of those five hundred people, eleven survived; they were rescued four days after the boat sank. Doaa was one of them
- her fiancee Bassem, with whom she had fled, was not; he drowned in front of her. Melissa Fleming, the Chief Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, heard about Doaa & the death of 489 of her fellow refugees on the day she was pulled out of the water. She decided to fly to Crete to meet this extraordinary girl, who had rescued a toddler when she was nearly dead herself. They struck an instant bond, & Melissa saw in Doaa the story of the war in Syria embodied by one young woman. She has decided to tell Doaa`s story
- the dangers she fled, & the journey she risked to escape the conflagration in her homel&. Doaa is the face of the millions of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters & sons who risk everything as they try to escape war, violence & death. Doaa`s story will revolutionize how we see the thousands of people who die every year in search of a home. It will squarely face one of the greatest moral questions of our age: will we let more people die in boats & trucks, or will we find a way to help them?

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This collection of historic horrid happenings from across the country demonstrates that Christmas is not necessarily a time of peace, joy & goodwill to all men. Festive tragedies include the avalanche in Lewes, which destroyed several cottages in 1836, killing eight of the occupants & injuring many more, & the fall of a chimney in Bradford in 1882, which claimed fifty-four lives. There are fatal rail crashes in Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Cumbria & Scotland; freak weather conditions & devastating fires, such as the Christmas Eve fire in Glasgow that cost the lives of four firemen in 1927. The holiday season has witnessed a plethora of almost unbelievable accidents, such as the amateur mechanic who died with his head stuck in a car engine, the footballer who leaped into a quarry to retrieve a lost ball, & the Christmas party guest who fell down a flight of stairs & broke his neck. Among the chilling crimes featured here is that of Nottinghamshire man Edward Kesteven, who killed his wife on Christmas Day 1894, & the murder of Thirza Kelly in Norfolk by a local teenager on Christmas Eve 1900. Full of merry madness & hearty heartache, A Horrid History of Christmas will make you want to bypass the festivities altogether! ...

Maggie wants a house with lots of light. I need one with character. & what we do have in common doesn`t help either
- we`re both
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The setting is a comedy club in a small Israeli town. An audience that has come expecting an evening of amusement instead sees a comedian falling apart on stage; an act of disintegration, a man crumbling, as a matter of choice, before their eyes. They could get up & leave, or boo & whistle & drive him from the stage, if they were not so drawn to glimpse his personal hell. Dovaleh G, a veteran st&-up comic
- charming, erratic, repellent
- exposes a wound he has been living with for years: a fateful & gruesome choice he had to make between the two people who were dearest to him.A Horse Walks into a Bar is a shocking & breathtaking read. Betrayals between lovers, the treachery of friends, guilt demanding redress. Flaying alive both himself & the people watching him, Dovaleh G provokes both revulsion & empathy from an audience that doesn`t know whether to laugh or cry
- & all this in the presence of a former childhood friend who is trying to understand why he`s been summoned to this performance.


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`A work of great comic power qualified with firm & unsentimental compassion.`
- Anthony Burgess A House for Mr Biswas is V. S.
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A House in Corfu is the story of one of the most beautiful places on earth, still astonishingly unspoilt, on the west coast of Corfu. In the early 1960s, Emma Tennant`s parents, on a cruise, spotted a magical bay & decided to build a house there. This book is the story of that house, Rovinia, set in 42 hectares of land above the bay where legend has it Ulysses was shipwrecked & found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. It is also the story of the people who have been at Rovinia since the feast in the grove at the time of putting on the roof
- Maria, a miraculous cook & the presiding spirit of the house, & her husband Thodoros
- & of the inhabitants of the local village, high on the hill above the bay. Full of colour & contrast, A House in Corfu shows the huge changes in island life since the time of the building of the house, & celebrates, equally, the joy of belonging to a timeless world; the world of vine, olive & sea.

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When Suzanna Clarke & her husband bought a dilapidated house in the Moroccan town of Fez, their friends thought they were mad. Located in a maze of donkey-trod alleyways, the house
- a traditional riad
- was beautiful but in desperate need of repair. Walls were in danger of collapse, the plumbing non-existent. While neither Suzanna nor her husband spoke Arabic, & had only a smattering of French, they were determined to restore the building to its original splendour, using only traditional craftsmen & handmade materials. But they soon found that trying to do business in Fez was like being transported back several centuries in time & so began the remarkable experience that veered between frustration, hilarity & moments of pure exhilaration. But restoring the riad was only part of their immersion in the rich & colourful life of this ancient city.”A House in Fez” is a journey into Moroccan culture, revealing its day-to-day rhythms, its customs & festivals; its history, Islam, & Sufi rituals; the lore of djinns & spirits; the vibrant life-filled market places & the irresistible Moroccan cuisine. And above all, into the lives of the people
- warm, friendly, & hospitable. Beautifully descriptive & infused with an extraordinary sense of place, this is a compelling account of one couple`s adventures in ancient Morocco.


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Near Mount Etna in Sicily lies Casa Cuseni, a beautiful house built in golden stone
- & the home which Daphne Phelps was astonished
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An intimate portrait of Stephen Spender`s extraordinary life written by Matthew Spender, shifting between memoir & biography, with new insights drawn from personal recollections & his father`s copious unpublished archives. Stephen Spender`s life is a vivid snapshot of the twentieth century. Making friends with Auden & Isherwood while at Oxford, together they enjoyed adventures in Europe, becoming early opponents of the rise of fascism. Whilst pioneering modern poetry, Stephen later produced propaganda for the war effort
- establishing an enduring reputation for mysterious activity. Despite marrying Natasha Litvin, an ambitious young concert pianist, Stephen was often entangled with young men & never able to reveal his secrets, leaving her to introspective questions, as the artistic world of London circled them. In this elegant memoir, his son Matthew offers an intimate portrait of a father, a marriage & an extraordinary life.
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I was warned by all those who knew me that to take on a project like this was madness.` At the peak of her fast-paced career, presenter & interviewer Selina Scott bought a house in the Tramuntana hills of Mallorca. It was a dilapidated old farmhouse without even mains electricity or water, but she had fallen in love with the beauty & peace of the surroundings, & the promise of an escape from her high-pressured job & unwelcome tabloid attention. Selina begins to settle into Mediterranean life & spends time renovating the house. However, she soon realises that making the old house her home is going to be more difficult than she thought. From the unwelcome wildlife that insists on sharing her house, to dubious building work, locals both friendly & hostile, & a forest fire that threatens the whole valley, Selina`s new life is full of unexpected challenges. In this funny, elegantly written account of her Spanish years Selina tells us about the house that captured her heart, the neighbours that became friends, & those that didn`t, the hills & wildlife that enchanted her, the building work that nearly broke her &, crucially, the dog that found her, & changed every single one of her best laid plans! An uplifting story of escape, change & friendship. `A terrific read, beautifully written` Richard Madeley. ...