During the First World War, just behind the eastern front, there was a forest, where Austrians & Hungarians used to hang deserters. To this place came Apostol Bologa, a young Romanian officer eager to serve his country. Born in a Romanian region of Transylvania which was then under Hungarian rule, he had naturally enough joined the Austro-Hungarian army. But soon Romania itself entered the war, & Bologa found himself fighting his own people. The Forest of the Hanged asks a fundamental question about war: namely, why does a man fight? Apostol condemns an officer to death for desertion & attempting to give information to the enemy. He watches the execution of the officer with satisfaction until he witnesses a fellow soldier`s grief & pity for the dead man. At this point his world shifts. His growing self-doubt & uncertainty lead him to question beliefs he once held without question. Unprepared for his own reaction when he is once again called to sit on a court martial, he finds that he too must go to the forest. This very rare, richly descriptive novel lays bare the inner conflict engendered by a total war, yet seldom expressed. ...

Colin Turnbull lived among the Pygmies as their friend for three years. He writes about their hunting parties, their nomadic camps, their quarrels & love affairs, their music & their ceremonies. His is a magnificent account of an earthly paradise & of a legendary & utterly delightful people. ...

The Forest People is an astonishingly intimate & life-enhancing account of a hunter
- gatherer tribe living in harmony with nature
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Clover has loved James for as long as she can remember, since before she knew what what love was. But fate seems determined to keep them apart. As children, Clover & James played beside a turquoise sea under cloudless skies, their Caribbean island home a place of pleasure & privilege, of lush lawns & tennis parties. In such a paradise nothing should obstruct the kind of happiness Clover dreams of, except that, as she discovers, true love is often harder than paradise allows for. & when Clover`s mother falls out of love with her husb&, a web of complications is woven that may take Clover a lifetime to unravel. If she ever can... Tender & true, The Forever Girl traces love`s unpredictable path to maturity with style, wit & feeling. ...

In wartime Berlin, Cioma Schonhaus discovered a way of turning his talent for graphic design to good use: he forged documents which helped save hundreds of Jewish lives. His first challenge involved painstakingly recreating each of the twelve long & 24 short feathers on German Imperial Eagle so that a pass stood up to scrutiny by Nazi officials. Many more forged documents were to follow, as the 20-year-old Schonhaus attempted to stay one step ahead of the authorities, who had him on their wanted list. Schonhaus is breathtakingly bold
- he gets himself arrested for wandering onto a military airfield & manages to talk his way out; he makes a complaint about the drunken behaviour of a policeman harassing Jewish diners in a restaurant; he goes cycling with a girlfriend in the countryside at a time when Jews were subject to curfew & banned from riding bicycles. On his final 1000-mile flight from Germany, he is forced to abandon his plan to jump on a goods train bound for Switzerland as too dangerous, & is left with the option of swimming across the Bodensee, or pedalling all the way... As those around him are one by one deported to the concentration camps, his is an astonishing story of wartime survival.
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The Forging of a Rebel is an unsurpassed account of Spanish history & society from early in the twentieth century through the cataclysmic events of the Spanish Civil War. Arturo Barea`s masterpiece charts the author`s coming-of-age in a bruised & starkly unequal Spain. These three volumes recount in lively detail Barea`s daily experience of his country as it pitched toward disaster: we are taken from his youthful play & rebellion on the streets of Madrid, to his apprenticeship in the business world & to the horrors he witnessed as part of the Spanish army in Morocco during the Rif War. The trilogy culminates in an indelible portrait of the Republican fight against Fascist forces in which the Madrid of Barea`s childhood becomes a shell & bullet-strewn warzone. Combining historical sweep & authority with poignant characterization & novelistic detail, The Forging of a Rebel is a towering literary & historical achievement. ...

David & Jo Henniger are on their way to a party at their old friends` home, deep in the Moroccan desert. But as a groggy David navigates the dark desert roads, two young men spring from the roadside, the car swerves & collides with one of the boys... Meanwhile, festivities at the house are in full flow. Under the watchful eyes of their Moroccan staff, the extravagant hosts attend to the whims of their glittering, insatiable guests as the party rages on into a new day. The stage is set for a weekend in which David & Jo must come to terms with their fateful act & its shattering consequences. ...

Grass grows almost everywhere. To most of us it is a common everyday thing, scarcely worth mention. Yet its influence on the life & character of an island people has been more profound that of the seas around our shores. As Britain's first farmers herded their cattle across the lonely hills, they made a momentous discovery. Working with stone axes to clear the ancient forest they found that in its place grew grass. For more than five thousand years Britain's grasslands have brought wealth & prosperity, building a powerful overseas trade. They fed the fast-growing towns of Tudor Britain, were the foundation of modern capitalism &, with parks & lawns, they civilised the city. Cricket, football & rugby now played around the world have their origins on the grass turf. ...

An international bestseller, this is a German soldier`s first-hand account of life on Russian front during the second half of the Second World War. When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue & constant deprivation. Posted to the crack Grosse Deutschland division, with its sadistic instructors who shoot down those who fail to make the grade, he enters a violent & remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, & all that matters is the brute will to survive. As the biting cold of the Russian winter sets in, & the tide begins to turn against the Germans, life becomes an endless round of pounding artillery attacks & vicious combat against a relentless & merciless Red Army. A book of stunning force, this is an unforgettable reminder of the horrors of war. ...

Bestselling author Charlie Connelly returns with a First World War memoir of his great uncle, Edward Connelly, who was an ordinary boy sent to fight in a war the likes of which the world had never seen. But this is not just his story; it is the story of all the young forgotten soldiers who fought & bravely died for their country The Forgotten Soldier tells the story of Private Edward Connelly, aged 19, killed in the First World War a week before the Armistice & immediately forgotten, even, it seems, by his own family. Edward died on exactly the same day, & as part of the same military offensive, as Wilfred Owen. They died only a few miles apart & yet there cannot be a bigger contrast between their legacies. Edward had been born into poverty in west London on the eve of the twentieth century, had a job washing railway carriages, was conscripted into the army at the age of eighteen & sent to the Western Front from where he would never return. He lies buried miles from home in a small military cemetery on the outskirts of an obscure town close to the French border in western Belgium. No-one has ever visited him. Like thousands of other young boys, Edward`s life & death were forgotten. By delving into & uncovering letters, poems & war diaries to reconstruct his great uncle`s brief life & needless death; Charlie fills in the blanks of Edward`s life with the experiences of similar young men giving a voice to the voiceless. Edward Connelly`s tragic story comes to represent all the young men who went off to the Great War & never came home. This is a book about the unsung heroes, the ordinary men who did their duty with utmost courage, & who deserve to be remembered. ...