On a bleak winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence: he destroyed the legendary Golden Spruce of the Queen Charlotte Islands. With its rich colours, towering height & luminous needles, the tree was a scientific marvel, beloved by the local Haida people who believed it sacred. The Golden Spruce tells the story of the sadness which pushed Hadwin to such a desperate act of destruction
- a bizarre environmental protest which acts as a metaphor for the challenge the world faces today. But it also raises the question of what then happened to Hadwin, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances & remains missing to this day. Part thrilling mystery, part haunting depiction of the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, & part dramatic chronicle of the historical collision of Europeans & the native Haida, The Golden Spruce is a timely portrait of man’s troubled relationship with a vanishing world.
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In the Golden Step: A Walk Through the Heart of Crete, the famous walking correspondent Christopher Somerville undertakes a gruelling hike from the east to the west of Crete, relying entirely on a rather dodgy map, a compass & a walking stick -&, of course, on the famed hospitality of the Cretans. For Christopher Somerville this was a kind of pilgrimage, a journey unlike any he had undertaken in 20 years of travel writing. It was an expedition where he traded the usual comforts & certainties for a real physical & mental challenge, with no mobile phone or any other technological aids. The only plan for his journey was to begin in the east at Easter & finish at Whitsun in the extreme west, at the Monastery of the Golden Step
- whose gold step, legend says, can only be seen by those who have purged themselves into purity. During his 300-mile walk, he tackled four mountain ranges, high slopes & the numerous gorges of the west. Speaking only basic Greek & trying to follow a poorly way-marked path, Somerville had to rely on his own instincts when climbing mountain passes & crossing high plateaus, where villages are scarce & each night's accommodation was uncertain. He saw a Crete not many tourists encounter.
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In the Golden Step: A Walk Through the Heart of Crete, the famous walking correspondent Christopher Somerville undertakes a gruelling hike from the east to the west of Crete, relying entirely on a rather dodgy map, a compass & a walking stick -&, of course, on the famed hospitality of the Cretans. For Christopher Somerville this was a kind of pilgrimage, a journey unlike any he had undertaken in 20 years of travel writing. It was an expedition where he traded the usual comforts & certainties for a real physical & mental challenge, with no mobile phone or any other technological aids. The only plan for his journey was to begin in the east at Easter & finish at Whitsun in the extreme west, at the Monastery of the Golden Step
- whose gold step, legend says, can only be seen by those who have purged themselves into purity. During his 300-mile walk, he tackled four mountain ranges, high slopes & the numerous gorges of the west. Speaking only basic Greek & trying to follow a poorly way-marked path, Somerville had to rely on his own instincts when climbing mountain passes & crossing high plateaus, where villages are scarce & each night`s accommodation was uncertain. He saw a Crete not many tourists encounter.
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Heinrich Schliemann created his own myth
- the poor uneducated boy who became a millionaire & spent his fortune on excavating the
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The Golden Treasury is one of the most loved anthologies of English poetry ever published. The book was meticulously compiled by poet & scholar Francis Turner Palgrave, in collaboration with Alfred Tennyson, who was then poet laureate. It is arranged chronologically in four books which each celebrate a different era in the evolution of English poetry, from Elizabethan to the 19th century. All the greats are here, including Shakespeare & Milton, Marvell & Pope, Wordsworth & Keats. First published in 1861, it became the standard anthology for over 100 years. This Macmillan Collector`s Library edition

Includes:: a foreword by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, & is published to mark Macmillan`s 175th anniversary.

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Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother & a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone & rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, & down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich & the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated & in love
- & his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America & a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters & thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph
- a sweeping story of loss & obsession, of survival & self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity & fate.

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014. Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother & a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone & rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, & down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich & the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated & in love
- & his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America & a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters & thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph
- a sweeping story of loss & obsession, of survival & self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity & fate.

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A story about finding friendship when you`re lonely
- & hope when all you feel is fear. Twelve-year-old Matthew is trapped in his
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One snowy night in New York City, a successful but solitary goldsmith reflects on his life, & his unreliable memories intertwine & collide. Returning to the village where he grew up, he hopes with some trepidation that he will encounter Celia, 'the Black Widow', a beautiful & mysterious friend of his mother with whom he had a short & passionate affair when he was a teenager, before she rejected him. But instead he meets a young woman who opens doors onto a strange world, & takes him back in time. The Goldsmith's Secret is a remarkable story with a magical twist, of a love trapped between two parallel times, set Spain in the fifties, seventies, & in the last year of the twentieth century. In beautifully economical language, & with a structure as intricate & refined as a bevelled jewel, The Goldsmith's Secret is filled with intense nostalgia, memories & desires. Elia Barcelo has come to be known across Europe as a truly original voice, & her books as poetic works of great subtlety. ...

If you were bewitched by The Night Circus... If you were mesmerised by A Discovery of Witches... If you were enthralled by Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell... You will be enchanted by THE GOLEM & THE DJINNI Chava is a golem, a creature made from clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master, the husband who commissioned her, dies at sea on the voyage from Pol&, she is unmoored & adrift as the ship arrives in New York in 1899. Ahmad is a djinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop. Though he is no longer imprisoned, Ahmad is not entirely free
- an unbreakable band of iron binds him to the physical world. The Golem & The Djinni is their magical, unforgettable story; unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures
- until the night a terrifying incident drives them back into their separate worlds. But a powerful threat will soon bring Chava & Ahmad together again, challenging their existence & forcing them to make a fateful choice.

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