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. ...

Seeing double rows of elegant lime trees around the main square of his hometown of Colonel Pringles, our narrator
- who could
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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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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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With an introduction by Sebastian Faulks Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2004, a classic novel about class, politics & sexuality in Margaret Thatcher`s 1980s Britain. There was the soft glare of the flash -- twice -- three times -- a gleaming sense of occasion, the gleam floating in the eye as a blot of shadow, his heart running fast with no particular need of courage as he grinned & said, ` Prime Minister, would you like to dance? In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious Tory MP, his wife Rachel & their children Toby & Catherine. Innocent of politics & money, Nick is swept up into the Feddens` world & an era of endless possibility, all the while pursuing his own private obsession with beauty. The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst`s Man Booker Prize-winning masterpiece. It is a novel that defines a decade, exploring with peerless style a young man`s collision with his own desires, & with a world he can never truly belong to. ...

In February 1793 France declared war on Britain & Holland & by 1815, established dynasties & kingdoms were overthrown, the United States had been established as a world power & a new age was dawning. This was to be the longest, hardest & cruellest war ever fought at sea & while the war on land saw the rise of the greatest soldier ever known
- Napoleon Buonaparte
- the war at sea had the formidable genius of Horatio Nelson. In The Line Upon A Wind, Noel Mostert has achieved a work of unparalleled research & illuminating analysis. He has also brought us the story of the daily lives of the sailors on board the fighting ships. There are heroes & villains, captains so harsh that crews were goaded to mutiny & others whose concern for the welfare of their crews changed life at sea forever. It is a tale of ordinary men & extraordinary bravery, of the building & navigation of fearsome warships & of a period of tumultuous conflict, change & innovation
- maritime history at its very best.


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A deceptively simple adventure into the unknown using only paper, a pencil & a single line. Wreck This Journal had a simple premise: destroy the book in all the ways you can imagine. The Line is even simpler: find pencil, start a line. As you move through the pages of Keri Smith`s newest book, you`ll be asked to let your line meander, explore the book`s gutter, & jump around the edges of the pages. You`ll hide your line, cut your line & even let someone else take over your line for a bit. The farther you get into the book, however, the more you`ll discover that maybe things aren`t as simple as they first seemed. The line has a mind of its own, & it`s up to you to discover what`s at the end of the line (hint: it`s just the beginning). ...

Large ships have always evoked awe & nostalgia among shiplovers, & none more so than the giant liners of the nineteenth & twentieth centuries. They sailed the oceans with a wide range of passengers long before any other mode of long-distance transport was available to the ordinary man. Their sheer size & opulence were genuinely admired & frequently amazed at around the world, & the romance & tragedy surrounding them has ensured an enduring place in the hearts & minds of those who served or travelled on them as well as those who have only ever seen their like in literature or on film. Here, for the first time, the history of these vessels is recounted with full exploration into their design, construction & development, along with a social history of those who worked & travelled on them. The well-known perennial favourites such as ' Mauretania', ' Olympic', & ' Titanic', ' Bremen', ' Europa' & the ' Cunard Queens' will be looked at in a fresh new light in the context of emerging & changing lifestyles. The book also offers detailed information on some of the lesser known but significant ships such as 'l' Atlantique', ' Empress of Britain', & ' Cap Arcona'. The story is brought full circle with a discussion of the liner's increasing influence on cruise ship design & what is foreseen as the ultimate triumph of the ocean liner, the new Cunard ' Queen Mary II' project to initiate a new liner era for the twenty-first century. With both original & contemporary illustrations in both colour & black-&-white, this will be an essential work for liner enthusiasts & maritime historians alike. The illustrations alone are a goldmine of period pieces, industrial splendour & style. ...