My Book of Birds is packed full of stunning illustrations & incredible facts. From majestic golden eagles & snowy owls to brilliant ...

First published in 1901, this Australian classic recounts the live of 16-year-old Sybylla Melvyn. Trapped on her parents` outback farm, she simultaneously loves bush life & hates the physical burdens it imposes. For Sybylla longs for a more refined, aesthetic lifestyle -- to read, to think, to sing -- but most of all to do great things. Suddenly her life is transformed. Whisked away to live on her grandmother`s gracious property, she falls under the eye of the rich & handsome Harry Beecham. & soon she finds herself choosing between everything a conventional life offers & her own plans for a `brilliant career`. ...

My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense & generous hearted story about two friends, Elena & Lila. Ferrante`s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation & a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city & a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists. ...

What do ` Abu Sindi`, ` Timothy Sean Mc Cormack`, ` Saro`, & ` Commander Avo` all have in common? They were all aliases for Monte Melkonian. But who was Monte Melkonian? In his native California he was once a kid in cut-off jeans, playing baseball & eating snow cones. Europe denounced him as an international terrorist. His adopted homeland of Armenia decorated him as a national hero who led a force of 4000 men to victory in the Armenian enclave of Mountainous Karabagh in Azerbaijan. Why Armenia? Why adopt the cause of a remote corner of the Caucasus whose peoples had scattered throughout the world after the early twentieth century Ottoman genocides? Markar Melkonian spent seven years unravelling the mystery of his brother`s road: a journey which began in his ancestors` town in Turkey & leading to a blood-splattered square in Tehran, the Kurdish mountains, the bomb-pocked streets of Beirut, & finally, to the windswept heights of Mountainous Karabagh. Monte`s life embodied the agony & the follies bedevelling the end of the Cold War & the unravelling of the Soviet Union. Yet, who really was this man? A terrorist or a hero?” My Brother`s Road” is not just the story of a long journey & a short life, it is an attempt to understand what happens when one man decides that terrible actions speak louder than words. ...

Rosetta Costantino grew up in Calabria-the beautiful, mountainous region at the tip of Italy`s ”boot”-her father, a shepherd & wine maker, & her mother his tireless assistant. When her family emigrated to California, they recreated Calabria on their property, cooking with aubergines, tomatoes & peppers from their garden, fresh ricotta made from scratch & pasta fashioned by h&. A frugal people, Calabrians are master preservers, transforming figs into jam, canning tuna in oil & sun-drying peppers. The first cookbook of a little-known region, My Calabria celebrates the richness of the landscape & the allure of its cuisine. This is a cookbook for our time: a reminder of how ingenious & resourceful cooks can create a gorgeous local cuisine. ...

No matter how much of a cat lover you are, you have to admit those loving feelings can feel pretty one-way. Whether it`s in the form of treasure hunts around the house with small dead animals as the `treasure`, biffing your face for attention in the middle of the night, or the endless indecision about being inside or outside, cats
- a lot of the time
- are dicks. Thankfully, we can laugh about it, because thankfully (as this book shows) we are far from alone. Featuring over 100 photos of cats in all sorts of interesting predicaments, MY CAT IS A DICK shows that even when they`re playing up, cats have an excellent sense of humour. It just often comes at human expense.

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`A strange, haunting, & utterly original exploration of displacement & desire & a world apart from anything you are likely to read this year` Tea Obreht, New York Times Book Review` Fearless, delicate, beautiful, sad, haunting, & wonderful. A brilliant novel` Jeff Vander Meer Yugoslavia, 1980s: a 16-year-old Muslim girl named Emine is married off to a man she hardly knows. But what was meant to be a happy match soon goes terribly wrong. Her country is torn apart by war & she flees with her family. Decades later Emine`s son, Bekim, has grown up a social outcast in Finland; both an immigrant in a country suspicious of foreigners, & a gay man in an unaccepting society. Aside from casual hookups, his only friend is a boa constrictor whom he lets roam his apartment
- even though he is terrified of snakes. But one night in a gay bar, Bekim meets a talking cat who moves in with him & his snake. This witty, charming, manipulative creature starts Bekim on a journey back to Kosovo to confront his demons & make sense of the remarkable, cruel history of his family. It is a journey that will eventually lead him to love.
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`A strange, haunting, & utterly original exploration of displacement & desire` -- Tea Obreht, author of The Tiger`s Wife, New York Times Book Review ` Fearless, delicate, beautiful, sad, haunting & wonderful. A brilliant novel that mesmerizes with both itshumanity & its utter uniqueness` -- Jeff Van der Meer In 1980s Yugoslavia, a young girl named Emine is married off to a man she hardly knows. But soon her country is torn apart by war, & she is forced to flee with her family. Decades later Emine`s son, Bekim, has grown up a social outcast in Finl&, a country suspicious of foreigners. Aside from casual hook-ups, his only companion is a pet boa constrictor
- until one night in a gay bar, Bekim meets a talking cat. It is this witty, charming, manipulative creature that starts him on a journey back to Kosovo to confront his demons & make sense of the remarkable, cruel history of his family. & soon he learns that love can be found in the most unexpected places.
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A collection of one hundred inter-linked stories celebrating the twentieth century, by Germany`s most eminent contemporary writer. As the sequence of stories unfolds, a lively & rich picture emerges, an historical portrait of our century in all its grandeur & in all its horror. ...

Coloured by poverty & horrifying brutality, Gorky`s childhood equipped him to understand
- in a way denied to a Tolstoy or a Turgenev
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