Courland is an entity that no longer exists. With the Gulf of Riga to the north, the Baltic to the west & Lithuania at its southern border, & now part of modern Latvia, the region was by occupied by Nazi Germany & returned to Soviet Russia after the war, remaining largely inaccessible until 1991. Once ruled by descendants of the Teutonic Knights, it is now a nowhere land of wide skies & forests, deserted beaches, ruined castles & ex-KGB prisons. For years Jean-Paul Kauffmann has been irresistibly drawn to this place, the buffer between the Germanic & Slav worlds. His digressive travels at the wheel of a Skoda become an investigation into the whereabouts of a former lover, a search for an excavator of tombs, & he follows in the footsteps of Louis XVIII, for whom Courland was once a place of exile. Author of Voyage to Desolation Island & The Dark Room at Longwood
- 'a remarkable book which defies classification' (New Statesman), which won six prizes on its publication in France
- Kauffmann has come to be known as an erudite & witty observer of the world's most desolate reaches.

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Four members of the Coverdale family
- George, Jacqueline, Melinda & Giles
- died in the space of fifteen minutes on the 14th

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER`A compelling & moving story, expertly told, that will draw you in & keep you in its grip until the last page.` DAILY EXPRESS` Magnificent.. . his writing is evocative & perfect. His grasp of human loneliness & longing is beautiful & comforting.` MARIAN KEYES` Atmospheric, creepy & impossible to put down.` the TIMES`I raved about Holding two years ago.. . A Keeper is even better. A powerful, very sad story, beautiful writing, two time frames that are perfectly balanced. Outstanding. Will easily be one of my books of 2018.` JOHN BOYNE`A gripping, thoughtful tale about the search for identity, belonging & self-possession.` OBSERVER` Moving & darkly funny.` GOOD HOUSEKEEPING` Smart, well-written & thoroughly entertaining.` IRISH INDEPENDENT` It`s a sad & lovely book, brimful of tenderness & compassion, where the revelations of the past upturn the perceptions of the present.` SUNDAY EXPRESS` Charming & tender, a complete joy.` SUNDAY MIRROR` Perfectly crafted, a beautiful, gripping account of Irish memory & deceit. A terrific achievement.` ANDREW O`HAGANFrom the bestselling author of Holding comes a masterly tale of secrets & ill-fated loves set on the coast of Irel&. Dear Lonely Leinster Lady, I`m not really sure how to begin... The truth drifts out to sea, riding the waves out of sight. & then the tide turns. Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother`s death, intent only on wrapping up that dismal part of her life. There is nothing here for her; she wonders if there ever was. The house of her childhood is stuffed full of useless things, her mother`s presence already fading. & perhaps, had she not found the small stash of letters, the truth would never have come to light. 40 years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet but for the tireless wind that circles her as she hurries further into the darkness away from the cliffs & the sea. She has no sense of where she is going, only that she must keep on. This compelling new novel confirms Graham Norton`s status as a fresh, literary voice, bringing his clear-eyed understanding of human nature & its darkest flaws. ...

With prose that is every bit as raw, intense & bitingly honest as the world it depicts, Barry Hines` ”A Kestrel for a Knave” contains a new afterword by the author in ” Penguin Modern Classics”. Life is tough & cheerless for Billy Casper, a troubled teenager growing up in the small Yorkshire mining town of Barnsley. Treated as a failure at school, & unhappy at home, Billy discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk. Billy identifies with her silent strength & she inspires in him the trust & love that nothing else can, discovering through her the passion missing from his life. Barry Hines` acclaimed novel continues to reach new generations of teenagers & adults with its powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world. Ken Loach`s renowned film adaptation, ” Kes”, has achieved cult status & in his new afterword Barry Hines discusses his work to adapt the novel into a screenplay, & reappraises the legacy of a book that has become a popular classic. Barry Hines (b. 1939) was born in the mining village of Hoyland Common, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Leaving Ecclesfield Grammar School without any qualifications, Hines worked as an apprentice mining surveyor for the National Coal Board before entering Loughborough Training College to study Physical Education. Working as a teacher in Hoyland Common, he wrote novels in the school library after work, later turning to writing full-time. If you enjoyed ”A Kestrel for a Knave”, you might like ” The Call of the Wild, White Fang, & Other Stories” by Jack London, published in ” Penguin Classics”. ...

This is a Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer
- love, films & kidnapping in North Korea, the world`s wildest regime. Before
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A car hurtles down the driveway of a luxury villa in Switzerl&. The driver is a young woman, Lucia Bernardi. Inside the house, ...

Stan Barstow`s landmark ` Brit-Lit` novel of the sixties immortalized Vic Brown, the amiable working class lad from the North & led the way for author`s like Nick Hornby writing similar slice-of-life drama. Still as fresh & alive today, it spawned two sequels: The Watchers on the Shore (1966) & The Right True End (1976). First published in 1960, it has long been used as a set text in British schools. It has also been translated at various times into a film starring Alan Bates (1962) of the same name, a television series (1973) starring Clive Wood, a radio play & a stage play. A Kind of Loving was the first of a trilogy, published over the course of sixteen years, that followed hero Vic Brown through marriage, divorce & a move from the mining town of Cressley to London. This new edition

Includes:: an afterword by David Collard.

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The Afghan war will be remembered for its politics more than its combat. There were few, if any, major battles. The longest war in American history has left 1, 800 U.S. troops dead, fewer than half the number killed in Iraq. The violence is mostly confined to the farmlands, deserts, & mountains, playing out in small ambushes, hit-&-run attacks, & assassinations. The United States came to Afghanistan on a simple mission: to avenge the September 11 attacks & drive the Taliban from power. This took less than two months. The story of the next decade is about how the ensuing fight for power & money
- the power & money supplied to one of the poorest nations on earth in ever-greater amounts
- left the region even more dangerous than before the first troops arrived. At the centre of this story is the Karzai family. The president & his brothers began the war as symbols of a new Afghanistan
- moderate, educated, fluent with East & West
- the antithesis of the brutish & backwards Taliban regime. Now, with the war in shambles, they are in open conflict with each other & their Western allies. In their experience one can find a war`s worth of mistakes, squandered hopes, & wasted chances. Nothing encapsulates the essence of the war`s trajectory
- & the descent from optimism to despair, friends to enemies
- as neatly as the story of the Karzai family itself.





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A beautiful new novelty title from Mary Murphy that bursts at the seams with all kinds of kisses & cuddles from giraffes, mice, fish, bumble bees &...even elephants!! It's a total love fest! A giraffe kiss is gentle & tall...like this! Mwaaaah! Then there are kisses that are quick & small...others are fizzy & bubbly...some are even long & tooty-tooty! There are SO many different types of kisses, just turn the page to see! This split-page book, with its cast of loveable, cuddly-looking parent-&-child animals, will evoke lots of giggles, gurgles & smiles
- not to mention kisses
- from little babies! It is a truly delightful book for a baby & a parent to share. A great new baby gift! Mary's artwork is done with a dry paintrbrush effect that is utterly seductive, beautiful & bold. Look out for the glittery foil effect on the last spread, which will burst with kisses galore!

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This is a new series of beautifully-produced re-issues of some of the great classics of food & recipe-writing from the 20th century. In these days of celebrity TV cooks & their garish, over-hyped blockbusting tie-ins, there never was a better time for an antidote: the quiet rediscovery of great, unsung classics such as these. Each title will be handsomely presented as a gift book for the keen amateur cook & lover of food literature. Each title has been selected for the highest quality of the writing, not just the recipes, although all the recipes are superb. This series will become the ultimate library for lovers of great food & food literature. ”A Kitchen in Corfu” is an entrancing memoir of a foreign couple`s sojourn in the remote village of Loutses, on the higher slope of Mount Pantokrator in north-east Corfu. They describe their charming encounters with the villagers, who were never shy to share their time-honoured recipes. This is a cuisine that chimes with the times, using locally-pressed olive oil from the village`s own orchards, foraged wild ingredients such as herbs, shoots & greens, mushrooms, & other locally-picked delicacies. ...