When she meets the shop`s owner, a rebellious young painter, the veneer of the Communist world she once believed in begins to crack. Just as Leila begins to fall in love, she`s discovered by her comrades & forced to make an impossible choice. Set at the crossroads of Turkish, Persian & Russian cultures as the red banner of Communism bared down & the West beckoned, The Orphan Sky lyrically reveals one woman`s struggle to find her place in the world. ...

` Orthodoxy claims to be universal...` ` Since its first publication fifty years ago, Timothy Ware`s book has become established throughout the English-speaking world as the standard introduction to the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy continues to be a subject of enormous interest among western Christians, & the author believes that an understanding of its standpoint is necessary before the Roman Catholic & Protestant Churches can be reunited. In this revised & updated edition he explains the Orthodox views on such widely ranging matters as Ecumenical Councils, Sacraments, Free Will, Purgatory, the Papacy & the relation between the different Orthodox Churches. ...

George Orwell was an inveterate keeper of diaries. The Orwell Diaries presents eleven of them, covering the period 1931-1949, & follows Orwell from his early years as a writer to his last literary notebook. An entry from 1931 tells of a communal shave in the Trafalgar Square fountains, while notes from his travels through industrial England show the development of the impassioned social commentator. This same acute power of observation is evident in his diaries from Morocco, as well as at home, where his domestic diaries chart the progress of his garden & animals with a keen eye; the wartime diaries, from descriptions of events overseas to the daily violence closer to home, describe astutely his perspective on the politics of both, & provide a new & entirely refreshing insight into Orwell`s character & his great works. ...

Seattle, 1972: Neil Countryman & John William Barry, two teenage boys from very different backgrounds, are at the start of an 800m race. Their lives collide for the first time, & so begins an extraordinary friendship. As they grow older Neil follows the conventional route of the American dream, but the eccentric, fiercely intelligent John William makes radically different choices, dropping out of college & moving deep into the woods. Convinced it is the only way to live without hypocrisy, John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, drawing his oldest friend into a web of secrets & agonising responsibility, deceit & tragedy
- one that will finally break open with an unexpected, life-altering revelation.
...

Ryszard Kapuscinski witnessed & reported on major wars, coups & revolutions as they happened throughout the developing world & global South. In this distillation of his reflections on a lifetime of travel, he takes a fresh look at the Western idea of the Other: the non-European or non-American. Looking at this concept through the lens of his own encounters in Africa, Asia & Latin America, & considering its formative significance for his own work, Kapuciski traces how the West has understood the Other from classical times to colonialism, from the age of enlightenment to the postmodern global village. He observes how today we continue to treat the non-European as an alien & a threat, an object of study that has not yet become a partner in sharing responsibility for the fate of the world. In our globalized but increasingly polarized post-9/11 age, Kapuscinski shows how the Other remains one of the most compelling ideas of our times. ...

The first known inhabitant of St Helena
- long before Napoleon
- was a 16th-century Portuguese renegade. In 1506 Fernao Lopes,

...

The first known inhabitant of St Helena
- long before Napoleon
- was a 16th-century Portuguese renegade. In 1506 Fernao Lopes,

...

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave was shortlisted for the 2008 COSTA Novel Award. The novel is the story of two women, Little Bee & Sarah. Little Bee is a 16-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker who turns up on Sarah’s doorstep paperless & illegal after a brief but terrifying meeting on a Nigerian beach some years previous. Cleave`s novel alternates Little Bee`s traumatised but resilient voice as she observes the incongruities English life with the stubborn independence of Sarah, who struggles to maintain control as Little Bee`s arrival pitches her dynamic life into freefall. ...

Reissued to mark Sceptre`s 30th anniversary, with an exclusive new afterword by the author. Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers` Prize & Costa Novel of the Year, this international bestseller has become a reading group classic. We don`t want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story & we don`t want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn`t. & it`s what happens afterwards that is most important. Once you have read it, you`ll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don`t tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds. ...

Shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2015, Ben Fergusson`s critically acclaimed debut, The Spring of Kasper Meier, was the winner of the Betty Trask Prize 2015 & the HWA 2015 Debut Crown Award. The Other Hoffmann Sister is a gripping, evocative read about two sisters set in pre-WW1 Germany which will appeal to fans of The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. For Ingrid Hoffmann the story of her sister`s disappearance began in their first weeks in Southwest Africa... Ingrid Hoffmann has always felt responsible for her sister Margarete & when their family moves to German Southwest Africa in 1902, her anxieties only increase. The casual racism that pervades the German community, the strange relationship between her parents & Baron von Ketz, from whom they bought their l&, & the tension with the local tribes all culminate in tragedy when Baron von Ketz is savagely murdered. Baroness von Ketz & their son, Emil, flee with the Hoffmanns as the Baron`s attackers burn down the family`s farm. Both families return to Berlin & Ingrid`s concerns about Margarete are assuaged when she & Emil von Ketz become engaged on the eve of the First World War. But Margarete disappears on her wedding night at the von Ketz`s country house. The mystery of what happened to her sister haunts Ingrid, but as Europe descends into chaos, her hope of discovering the truth becomes ever more distant. After the war, in the midst of the revolution that brings down the Kaiser & wipes out the aristocracy that her family married into, Ingrid returns to the von Ketzes` crumbling estate determined to find out what really happened to her sister. ...