A degree of mid-life crisis & a desire to escape encouraged David & Rob to spend seven weeks walking the length of the French Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The scene was perfect
- two friends walking one of Europe`s most picturesque mountain ranges, taking in its history, geography & people. But things aren`t all plain sailing
- tedium, drama & conflict arise, as you`d expect from two men spending so long together. Above all, The Hairy Hikers is a light-hearted tale of adventure that both serious ramblers & casual weekend walkers will enjoy. Buy your copy today!

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Married to a successful businessman, with a large house, a four-year-old daughter & another baby on the way, Sappho lives an enviable life. Yet a chance glimpse of a face from her past sends her reeling, uncovering potent memories she has never been able to share with anyone, & threatening her perfect life completely. Suddenly unable to care for her family, she begins a desperate search for the person she once fled from, & whose reappearance has had such an effect on her. Spanning three generations from 1970s Athens to present-day London, The Half-Known Life is a moving & intelligent story of the bonds that stay with us, no matter how drastically our lives may change. ...

All the best armchair travellers are sceptics. Those of the fourteenth century were no exception: for them, there were lies, damned lies, & Ibn Battutah`s India. Born in 1304, Ibn Battutah left his native Tangier as a young scholar of law; over the course of the thirty years that followed he visited most of the known world between Morocco & China. Here Tim Mackintosh-Smith retraces one leg of the Moroccan`s journey
- the dizzy ladders & terrifying snakes of his Indian career as a judge & a hermit, courtier & prisoner, ambassador & castaway. From the plains of Hindustan to the plateaux of the Deccan & the lost ports of Malabar, the author reveals an India far off the beaten path of Taj & Raj. Ibn Battutah left India on a snake, stripped to his underpants by pirates; but he took away a treasure of tales as rich as any in the history of travel. Back home they said the treasure was a fake. Mackintosh-Smith proves the sceptics wrong. India is a jewel in the turban of the Prince of Travellers. Here it is, glittering, grotesque but genuine, a fitting ornament for his 700th birthday.
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Dan promised he`d look after his siblings, but he hadn`t bargained on his scientist parents dying on a jungle research trip. The children decamp to crumbling Daundelyon Hall. Horrible Aunt Grusilla reigns supreme, tending her mysterious graveyard garden. But why are Aunt Grusilla & her servants each missing a finger? What are the hungry ` Cabbages` in the greenhouse? As Dan struggles to solve the mystery he encounters one final question: what`s the price of everlasting life? ...

Over 2, 000 place names are included. The text is clear & each country is given a different colour with a darker tone around the borders to accentuate the political mapping. In the oceans, undersea ridges & basins are named & the clever use of shading in the oceans gives a stunning effect when the globe is illuminated. Mains operated. ...

The recorded history of Hampstead goes back a thousand years. but it was only in the 18th century, with the first Hampstead Spa, that it became fashionable. Building took place on part of the heath l&, but local opposition stopped further exploitation of this picturesque open space favoured by artists & the general public. Hampstead retains many of its 18th century buildings & still has much charm, liveliness & distinctive character. This is a well illustrated book written by an eminent Hampstead expert & resident. ...

Choosing the glories of New York`s preeminent summer destination
- the Hamptons, Clinton captures the essence of beachfront life
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A new translation of George Simenon`s taut, devastating psychological novel set in American suburbia. The inspiration for the new play by award-winning playwright David Hare. `I had begun, God knows why, tearing a corner off of everyday truth, begun seeing myself in another kind of mirror, & now the whole of the old, more or less comfortable truth was falling to pieces` Confident & successful, New York advertising executive Ray Sanders takes what he wants from life. When he goes missing in a snow storm in Connecticut one evening, his closest friend begins to reassess his loyalties, gambling Ray`s fate & his own future. ` The romans durs are extraordinary: tough, bleak, offhandedly violent, suffused with guilt & bitterness, redolent of place.. .utterly unsentimental, frightening in the pitilessness of their gaze, yet wonderfully entertaining` John Banville ` One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.. . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories` Guardian `A supreme writer.. .unforgettable vividness` Independen ...

Snared between two cultures & two loves, one man is forced to choose...1564, the Kingdom of Granada. After years of Christian oppression, the Moors take arms & daub the white houses of Sierra Nevada with the blood of their victims. Amidst the conflict is young Hernando, the son of an Arab woman & the Christian priest who raped her. He is despised & regularly beaten by his own step-father for his `tainted` heritage. Fuelled with the love of the beautiful Fatima, Hernando hatches a plan to unite the two warring faiths
- & the two halves of his identity...
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What happens when an urban girl swaps her kitten heels in the city for karma in the country? It is a big year for Lucy
- she has
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