The Lighthouse Stevenson is Bella Bathurst`s epic story of Robert Louis Stevenson`s ancestors & the building of the Scottish coastal lighthouses against impossible odds. ` Whenever I smell salt water, I know that I am not far from one of the works of my ancestors, ` wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in 1880. ` When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotl&, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father!` Robert Louis Stevenson was the most famous of the Stevensons, but not by any means the most productive. The Lighthouse Stevensons, all four generations of them, built every lighthouse round Scotl&, were responsible for a slew of inventions in both construction & optics, & achieved feats of engineering in conditions that would be forbidding even today. The same driven energy which Robert Louis Stevenson put into writing, his ancestors put into lighting the darkness of the seas. The Lighthouse Stevensons is a story of high endeavour, beautifully told; indeed, this is one of the most celebrated works of historical biography in recent memory. ...

The Lighthouse Trail in the Sierra Blanca just north of Marbella in a lavishly illustrated bilingual guide from Bio Gea Ediciones, prepared by one of the local residents with many years of hiking experience & extensive knowledge of the region’s flora & fauna. The Lighthouse Trail is a waymarked 5.5-km circuit on the southern slopes of Sierra Blanca, the closest to the Mediterranean of Andalucía’s mountain chains. The guide shows the whole trail on one aerial photo, cross-referencing various points to a route profile, photos & detailed, informative instructions. The introductory section provides general information about the area & its flora & fauna. The accompanying annex has over 200 excellent quality photos of local flowers & plants. All the text is bilingual Spanish/ English. Examples of fauna & flora are identified by their Spanish, English & Latin names. The guide is printed on high quality paper. ...

` To risk my life had to mean something. Otherwise what was it all for?` Gulwali Passarlay was sent away from Afghanistan at the age of twelve, after his father was killed in a gun battle with the US army for hiding Taliban fighters. Smuggled into Iran, Gulwali began a twelve month odyssey across Europe, spending time in prisons, suffering hunger, cruelty, brutality, nearly drowning in a tiny boat on the Mediterranean. Somehow he survived, & made it to Britain, no longer an innocent child but still a boy of twelve. Here in Britain he was fostered, sent to a good school, won a place at a top university, & was chosen to carry the Olympic torch in 2012. He wants to tell his story
- to bring to life the plight of the thousands of men, women & children who risk their lives to leave behind the troubles of their homelands. Many die along the way, some are sent back to face imprisonment & possible death, some survive & make it here, to a country which offers them the chance of a life of freedom & opportunity. One boy`s story is the central story of our times, & this memoir celebrates the triumph of courage & determination over adversity.
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` To risk my life had to mean something. Otherwise what was it all for?` Gulwali Passarlay was sent away from Afghanistan at the age of twelve, after his father was killed in a gun battle with the US Army. Smuggled into Iran, Gulwali began a twelvemonth odyssey across Europe, spending time in prisons, suffering hunger, making a terrifying journey across the Mediterranean in a tiny boat, & enduring a desolate month in the camp at Calais. Somehow he survived, & made it to Britain, no longer an innocent child but still a young boy alone. In Britain he was fostered, sent to a good school, won a place at a top university, & was chosen to carry the Olympic torch in 2012. Gulwali wants to tell his story
- to bring to life the plight of the thousands of men, women & children who are making this perilous journey every day. One boy`s experience is the central story of our times. This memoir celebrates the triumph of courage & determination over adversity.
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Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Alain Mabanckou left Congo in 1989, at the age of twenty-two, not to return until a quarter of a century later. When at last he returns home to Pointe-Noire, a bustling port town on Congo`s south-eastern coast, he finds a country that in some ways has changed beyond recognition: the cinema where, as a child, Mabanckou gorged on glamorous American culture has become a Pentecostal temple, & his secondary school has been re-named in honour of a previously despised colonial ruler. But many things remain unchanged, not least the swirling mythology of Congolese culture which still informs everyday life in Pointe-Noire. Mabanckou though, now a decorated French-Congolese writer & esteemed professor at UCLA, finds he can only look on as an outsider at the place where he grew up. As Mabanckou delves into his childhood, into the life of his departed mother & into the strange mix of belonging & absence that informs his return to Congo, he slowly builds a stirring exploration of the way home never leaves us, however long ago we left home. ...

NOW AN UNMISSABLE FILM STARRING BILL NIGHY, DOUGLAS BOOTH & OLIVIA COOKE. ` Mesmerising, macabre & totally brilliant` Daily Mail Before the Ripper, fear had another name. London, 1880. A series of gruesome murders attributed to the mysterious ` Limehouse Golem` strikes fear into the heart of the capital. Inspector John Kildare must track down this brutal serial killer in the damp, dark alleyways of riverside London. But how does Dan Leno, music hall star extraordinaire, find himself implicated in this crime spree, & what does Elizabeth Cree, on trial for the murder of her husb&, have to hide? Peter Ackroyd brings Victorian London to life in all its guts & glory, as we travel from the glamour of the music hall to the slums of the East End, meeting George Gissing & Karl Marx along the way. ...

Mma Ramotswe & Mma Makutsi have always relied on the advice of the classic guide to their trade, The Principles of Private Detection. But who is the eminent author, Mr Clovis Andersen, & what if he were to come to Botswana? That seems a very unlikely possibility, & yet.. . When Mr Andersen visits Botswana on holiday, he is delighted & intrigued to stumble across a roadside sign that reveals the existence of the No.1 Ladies` Detective Agency. Professional courtesy suggests that he call & announce himself. Meanwhile, Mma Makutsi & Phuti Radiphuti are embarking on married life & building a new house
- a tricky business under any circumstances but especially hazardous when the name of the contractor is the Joy & Light Building Company.
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Home of beautiful sandy beaches, quaint cottages & windmills
- Lincolnshire`s huge expanses of countryside & coast provides the
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` Stunningly good. Beautiful, smart, raw, sad, poetic & humane... It`s the best thing I`ve read for ages`, James Rebanks, author of THE SHEPHERD`S LIFE How does a line in the sand become a barrier that people will risk everything to cross? Francisco Cantu was a US Border Patrol agent from 2008 to 2012. He worked the desert along the Mexican border, at the remote crossroads of drug routes & smuggling corridors, tracking humans through blistering days & frigid nights across a vast terrain. He detains the exhausted & the parched. He hauls in the dead. He tries not to think where the stories go from there. He is descended from Mexican immigrants, so the border is in his blood. But the line he is sworn to defend is dissolving. Haunted by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. & when an immigrant friend is caught on the wrong side of the border, Cantu faces a final confrontation with a world he believed he had escaped. The Line Becomes a River is timely & electrifying. It brings to life this landscape of sprawling borderlands & the countless people who risk their lives to cross it. Yet it takes us beyond one person`s experience to reveal truths about life on either side of an arbitrary line, wherever it is. ...

It is the summer of 1983, & young Nick Guest, an innocent in the matters of politics & money, has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, & their children Toby & Catherine. Nick had idolized Toby at Oxford, but in his London life it will be the troubled Catherine who becomes his friend & his uneasy responsibility. At the boom years of the mid-80s unfold, Nick becomes caught up in the Feddens` world. In an era of endless possibility, Nick finds himself able to pursue his own private obsession, with beauty
- a prize as compelling to him as power & riches are to his friends.
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