Deep in the dewy forest sits an only, lonely panda bear. “I wish I had a friend, ” Panda sighs, as playful sifakas & graceful flamingos dance around him. But who’s that peeking through the bamboo? & can Panda work out how to be her friend? With stunning illustrations from Jonny Lambert (Little Why, Tiger Tiger, The Great Aaa-Ooo), The Only Lonely Panda is a funny & uplifting celebration of friendship & individuality. Perfect for little ones who are learning to make friends at a new nursery or school. ...

Deep in the dewy forest sits an only, lonely panda bear. “I wish I had a friend, ” Panda sighs, as playful sifakas & graceful flamingos dance around him. But who’s that peeking through the bamboo? & can Panda work out how to be her friend? With stunning illustrations from Jonny Lambert (Little Why, Tiger Tiger, The Great Aaa-Ooo), The Only Lonely Panda is a funny & uplifting celebration of friendship & individuality. Perfect for little ones who are learning to make friends at a new nursery or school! ...

Would you rather love the more, & suffer the more; or love the less, & suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question. First love has lifelong consequences, but Paul doesn`t know anything about that at nineteen. At nineteen, he`s proud of the fact his relationship flies in the face of social convention. As he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen. Tender & wise, The Only Story is a deeply moving novel by one of fiction`s greatest mappers of the human heart. ...

Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favourite Parisian street. ”I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs”, Sciolino explains as she celebrates the area`s rich history & vibrant lives. While many cities suffer from the levelling effects of globalisation, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. Sciolino reveals the charms & idiosyncrasies of this street & its residents-the Tunisian greengrocer, the husb&-&-wife cheesemongers, the showman who`s been running a transvestite cabaret for more than half a century, the owner of a 100-year-old bookstore, the woman who repairs eighteenth-century mercury barometers-making Paris come alive in all its majesty. The Only Street in Paris will make readers hungry for Paris & for the kind of street life that is all too quickly disappearing. ...

Pico Iyer has been engaged in conversation with the Dalai Lama (a friend of his father`s) for the last three decades-a continuing exploration of his message & its effectiveness. Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama`s position: though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the most remote, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism & technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity. Moving from Dharamsala, India-the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile-to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West where the Dalai Lama`s pragmatism, rigour, & scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, & the daily challenges of a global icon. ...

` Poetically written, absorbing, harrowing` The Times` The raw & emotional account of an optician whose family fishing trip suddenly placed him amid the human tragedy of hundreds of drowning migrants is a story that needed to be told` Fiona Wilson, The Times` An important book.. . I cried all the way through` Tracy Chevalier From an award-winning BBC journalist, this moving book turns the testimony of an accidental hero into a timeless story about human fellowship & the awakening of courage & conscience.`I can hardly begin to describe to you what I saw as our boat approached the source of that terrible noise. I hardly want to. You won`t understand because you weren`t there. You can`t underst&. You see, I thought I`d heard seagulls screeching. Seagulls fighting over a lucky catch. Birds. Just birds.` Emma-Jane Kirby has reported extensively on the reality of mass migration today. In The Optician of Lampedusa she brings to life the moving testimony of an ordinary man whose late summer boat trip off a Sicilian island unexpectedly turns into a tragic rescue mission. ...

From an award-winning BBC journalist, this moving book turns the testimony of an accidental hero into a timeless story about the awakening of human courage & conscience. `I can hardly begin to describe to you what I saw as our boat approached the source of that terrible noise. I hardly want to. You won`t understand because you weren`t there. You can`t underst&. You see, I thought I`d heard seagulls screeching. Seagulls fighting over a lucky catch. Birds. Just birds.` Emma-Jane Kirby has reported extensively on the reality of mass migration today. In The Optician of Lampedusa she brings to life the moving testimony of an ordinary man whose late summer boat trip off a Sicilian island unexpectedly turns into a tragic rescue mission. ...

Collapsing stock markets, melting ice caps, floods, tornadoes, terrorism.. . When it comes to bad news, we`ve never had it so good. Perhaps it is time to be a little more optimistic? That`s what Laurence Shorter decided. & that`s why he set himself the challenge of meeting the world`s most cheerful people. Surely with the help of Desmond Tutu, Richard Branson & Bill Clinton, Laurence can find the secret to inner happiness. But first things first
- how on Earth is he going to get to meet them?
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It is 1988 & Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds but still the dictatorship remains secure. Soon, & through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall. Nine-year-old Deqo has left the vast refugee camp she was born in, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes. Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined to her bed after a savage beating in the local police station. Filsan, a young female soldier, has moved from Mogadishu to suppress the rebellion growing in the north. & as the country is unravelled by a civil war that will shock the world, the fates of the three women are twisted irrevocably together. Intimate, frank, brimming with beauty & fierce love, The Orchard of Lost Souls is an unforgettable account of ordinary lives lived in extraordinary times. ...

Shortlisted for a 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award. In the summer after leaving school, a young botanist sets out to fulfil a childhood dream
- to find every species of orchid native to the British Isles. He has just a few months to complete his quest
- no one has ever done it before within one growing season- & it will require ingenuity, stamina & a large dose of luck. Like Two Owls at Eton & My Family & Other Animals, The Orchid Hunter I is a charming account of a precocious adolescent`s obsession with the natural world. As he battles the vagaries of the British climate in his clapped-out car, feverishly chasing each emerging bloom, Leif Bersweden takes the reader on a remarkable botanical journey. This study of the 52 native species is a fantastic gateway into the compendious world of orchids
- one that will open your eyes to the rare hidden delights to be found on the doorstep. Leif`s enthusiasm for his quest is infectious, as is the quiet conviction with which he keeps at it, showing how plant hunting can be the ultimate mindful activity.


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