Eddie knows her mum would love a Fluffy Squishy Itty Bitty for her birthday. The only problem is that she doesn`t know what a Fluffy Squishy Itty Bitty is, or where to find one! Join Eddie as she tours the whole town, trying to track down the perfect present. ...

”I`ve got you, & you`ve got me
- so we`ll be all right”... One day, adventurous Mouse sets off to find the moon with his Marvellous
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In The Marvels, Selznick crafts another remarkable artistic & bookmaking achievement that weaves together two seemingly unrelated stories-one in words, the other in pictures-with spellbinding synergy. The illustrated story begins in 1766 with Billy Marvel, the lone survivor of a shipwreck, & charts the adventures of his family of actors over five generations. The prose story opens in 1990 & follows Joseph, who has run away from school to an estranged uncle`s puzzling house in London, where he, along with the reader, must piece together many mysteries. Filled with mystery, vibrant characters, surprise twists, & heart-rending beauty, & featuring Selznick`s most arresting art to date, The Marvels is a moving tribute to the power of story. ...

” There is, ” said the marzipan pig, ”such sweetness in me!” From the inimitable team of Russell Hoban & Quentin Blake, the pair behind Captain Najork & The Twenty Elephant Restaurant, comes an enchanting story of a little pig made from marzipan. Fallen behind the sofa, nobody hears the lost marzipan pig`s cries for help. &, after many months, a mouse discovers him & eats him up, having never known such sweetness. But a longing to be loved passes from the marzipan pig to the mouse.. . & so begins a curious chain of events featuring a dancing owl, a glowing taxi meter, a buzzing bee & a pinky-orange hibiscus flower
- all triggered by the little lost marzipan pig. Each encounter more wonderful & more romantic than the last, just how far will the marzipan`s sweetness travel?
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English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when he makes the acquaintance of Turkish police inspector Colonel Haki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysterious Dimitrios
- an infamous master criminal, long wanted by the law, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated by the story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios` steps across Europe to gather material for a new book. But, as he gradually discovers more about his subject`s shadowy history, fascination tips over into obsession. &, in entering Dimitrios` criminal underworld, Latimer realizes that his own life may be on the line.
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Moving beyond travelogue, The Masque of Afric” considers the effects of belief (in indigenous animisms, the foreign religions of Christianity & Islam, the cults of leaders & mythical history) upon the progress of African civilization. Beginning in Uganda, at the centre of the continent, Naipaul`s journey takes in Ghana & Nigeria, the Ivory Coast & Gabon, & ends, as the country does, in South Africa. Focusing upon the theme of belief
- though sometimes the political or economical realities are so overwhelming that they have to be taken into account
- Naipaul examines the fragile but enduring quality of the old world of magic.

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Reportage resists easy definition & comes in many forms
- travel essay, narrative history, autobiography
- but at its finest

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In January 1895 Henry James anticipates the opening of his first play, Guy Domville, in London. The production fails, & he returns, chastened & humiliated, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost. In The Master Colm Toibin captures the exquisite anguish of a man who circulated in the grand parlours & palazzos of Europe, who was astonishingly vibrant & alive in his art, & yet whose attempts at intimacy inevitably failed him & those he tried to love. It is a powerful account of the hazards of putting the life of the mind before affairs of the heart. ...

Mikhail Bulgakov`s ” The Master & Margarita” is a fiercely satirical fantasy that remained unpublished in its author`s home country for over thirty years. This ” Penguin Classics” edition is translated with an introduction by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky, the acclaimed translators of Tolstoy`s Anna Karenina. In Soviet Moscow, God is dead, but the devil
- to say nothing of his retinue of demons, from a loudmouthed, gun-toting tomcat, to the fanged fallen angel Koroviev
- is very much alive. As death & destruction spread through the city like wildfire, condemning Moscow`s cultural elite to prison cells & body bags, only a madman, the ” Master & Margarita”, his beautiful, courageous lover, can hope to end the chaos. Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalin`s reign & circulated in samizdat form for decades, when ” The Master & the Margarita” was finally published it became an overnight literary phenomenon, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere. This luminous translation from the complete & unabridged Russian text is accompanied by an introduction by Richard Pevear exploring the extraordinary circumstances of the novel`s composition & publication, & how Bulgakov drew on carnivalesque folk traditions to create his ironic subversion of Soviet propaganda. This edition also contains a list of further reading & a note on the text. After finishing high school, Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) entered the Medical School of Kiev University, graduating in 1916. He wrote about his experiences as a doctor in his early works ” Notes of a Young Country Doctor”. His later works treated the subject of the artist & the tyrant under the guise of historical characters, but ” The Master & Margarita” is generally considered his masterpiece. If you enjoyed ” The Master & Margarita”, you might like Jonathan Swift`s ” Gulliver`s Travels”, also available in ” Penguin Classics”. ” One of the great novels of the 20th century, a scary, darkly comic allegory”. (” Daily Telegraph”).

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` Manuscripts don`t burn`. In Soviet Moscow, God is dead, but the devil
- to say nothing of his retinue of demons, from a loudmouthed,
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