An old man looks into the fearful eyes of a burglar left to guard him while his brother is beaten; an Irish priest in a war-torn Syrian town teaches its young men the art of hurling; the driver of a car which crashed, killing a teenage girl, forges a connection with the girl`s mother; a squad of broken friends assemble to take revenge on a rapist; a young man sets off on his morning run, reflecting on the ruins of his relationship, but all is not as it seems. Donal Ryan`s short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart & The Thing About December left off, dealing with the human cost of loneliness, isolation & displacement. Sometimes this is present in the ordinary, the mundane; sometimes it is triggered by a fateful encounter or a tragic decision. At the heart of these stories, crucially, is how people are drawn to each other & cling on to love, often in desperate circumstances. In haunting & often startling prose, Donal Ryan has captured the brutal beauty of the human heart in all its hopes & failings. ...

Stephen Venables was in illustrious mountaineering company, high on the unclimbed & sacred mountain Panch Chuli with a circle of British climbers, including Chris Bonington, when, at 1am on a dark Himalayan night, his abseil failed & he fell disastrously, somersaulting from rock to rock & landing, seriously wounded, at the end of a rope suspended above a 50-degree ice field. A Slender Thread is the story of his arduous & almost miraculous survival, & of the brilliant, committed teamwork which brought him to safety. Accounts of his mountaineering exploits have won Stephen Venables both the Boardman-Tasker Prize for mountain literature & the Banff Mountain Literature Festival Grand Award. In 1998 he pioneered a new route up Everest’s biggest wall, at the same time becoming the first Briton to reach the summit without supplementary oxygen. ...

Want to know what life in America is really like? This book is a first-hand account of the experiences of one English family & their dog who lived in the USA for two years. It brings together all the thoughts & processes of the move, settling in, getting to know the neighbours & understanding the culture, written by someone who has been there & done it. It takes a down-to-earth, honest look at America from a British perspective, describing the differences between the two cultures & the reasons behind those differences. A little help goes a long way! By giving you the lowdown on what to expect & how to deal with it, this thoughtful yet lighthearted book will help you get the most out of your experience. Combining practical information, anecdotes, history, geography, psychology & much more besides, in one entertaining read, A Slice of Apple Pie is essential reading for anyone interested in learning more about life in America. ...

' However you attempt to justify it with thoughtful questions about history & provenance, writing a book about cake is an idea born of pure gluttony. I just like to think it was gluttony with an enquiring mind.' If there's one thing we Brits never say no to, it's stopping at four o'clock for a cup of tea & a slice of something tasty. After all, we invented afternoon tea. Ours is a land rich in moist, mouth watering flavours, of sponges & scones, fruitcakes & fancies. So what better way to capture a slice of Britain than to devour its many tea-time treats, slice by sumptuous slice? That's what Caroline Taggart set out to do one day
- nothing more energetic than taking a table by the window, & investigating one mouthful at a time what (other than geography) separates a Coventry God Cake from an Eccles Cake, or Grantham Gingerbread from Whitby Gingerbread. In her encounters with those people making traditional cakes, she unravels the stories behind why they originated, where & when they did, & meditates on their resurgence today, as we look to revive & celebrate local produce.
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It`s OK to slow down. Take a pause & focus on your breath. Let the other animals run around, you do you. Follow a serene & smiley sloth through a series of light meditations & daily reflections with this unexpected & snuggable guide. From simple breathing exercises & guided visualizations to the benefits of chewing your leaves slowly & staying present while hanging from a tree, this little illustrated book of mindfulness will help readers discover the path to a peaceful, philoslothical life. With playful advice & delightfully charming illustrations, this no-sweat approach to enlightenment is a sweet reminder to take it slow & smile. ...

Hans Fallada's raw, darkly humorous account of a town rife with corruption, greed & brutality, first published in 1931, was written as Weimar Germany collapsed around him. It is an extraordinary novel about the failure of governments & the failings of people. It is summer, 1929, & in a small German town a storm is brewing. The shabby reporter Tredup leads a precarious existence working for the Pomeranian Chronicle
- until he takes some photographs that offer the chance to make a fortune. In Kr
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Hans Fallada`s raw, darkly humorous account of a town rife with corruption, greed & brutality, first published in 1931, was written as Weimar Germany collapsed around him. It is an extraordinary novel about the failure of governments & the failings of people. It is summer, 1929, & in a small German town a storm is brewing. The shabby reporter Tredup leads a precarious existence working for the Pomeranian Chronicle
- until he takes some photographs that offer the chance to make a fortune. In Krüger`s bar, the farmers are plotting their revenge on greedy officials. A mysterious travelling salesman from Berlin, Henning, is stirring up trouble
- but no one knows why. Meanwhile the Nazis grow stronger & the Communists fight them in the streets. & at the centre of it all, the Mayor, ` Fatty` Gareis, seeks the easy life even as events spiral beyond his control. As tensions erupt between workers & bosses, town & country, Left & Right, alliances are broken, bribes are taken & plots are hatched, until the tension spills over into violence. Michael Hofmann`s colloquial translation brings this work of intrigue & foreboding to English readers for the first time.

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This stunning, atmospheric thriller set in war-torn Europe won the CWA Gold Dagger & has now been reissued with the Javier ...

This book is a lush & beautiful memoir of a very special house & a superb recreation of a bygone era. In 1967, veteran travel ...

West Germany, a simmering cauldron of radical protests, has produced a new danger to Britain: Karfeld, menacing leader of the opposition. At the same time Leo Harting, a Second Secretary in the British Embassy, has gone missing
- along with more than forty Confidential embassy files. Alan Turner of the Foreign Office must travel to Bonn to recover them, facing riots, Nazi secrets & the delicate machinations of an unstable Europe in the throes of the Cold War. As Turner gets closer to the truth of Harting`s disappearance, he will discover that the face of International relations
- & the attentions of the British Ministry itself
- is uglier that he could possibly have imagined.


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