From Zawn Organ, Cornwall to Zoar in Shetland via Zion Place in Somerset & Zulu Farm, Oxfordshire, The Z-Z of Great Britain provides an essential profile on each & every zed locale in the land &, thoughtfully, instructions on how to get there. Visit, perhaps, the hamlet of Zabulon in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Meet Gareth, Val, one dog that`s called Tim, another that isn`t, & have a go on the sit-on lawnmower. Z-Z also

Includes:: detailed maps & a unique rating system to cut the hassle of planning your next zedventure. &, for when you`re enjoying a pint at the end of the day in the The Half Moon, Zig Zag Hill`s local, Z-Z features a dazzling introduction to the tempestuous & often distasteful history of the letter at the very extremity of the English language.. .

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` The Zahir`, Paulo Coelho`s new novel available in paperback for the first time, incorporates exclusive new content including an extra section containing interviews with Paulo & plenty of information for those for whom the book just wasn`t enough. It begins with a glimpse or a passing thought. It ends in obsession. One day a renowned author discovers that his wife, a war correspondent, has disappeared leaving no trace. Though time brings more success & new love, he remains mystified
- & increasingly fascinated
- by her absence. Was she kidnapped, blackmailed, or simply bored with their marriage? The unrest she causes is as strong as the attraction she exerts. His search for her
- & for the truth of his own life
- takes him from France to Spain, Croatia &, eventually, the bleakly beautiful landscape of Central Asia. More than that, it takes him from the safety of his world to a totally unknown path, searching for a new understanding of the nature of love & the power of destiny. With ` The Zahir`, Paulo Coelho demonstrates his powerful & captivating storytelling.



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” We should never have come!” so said Aidan Hartley`s father in his final days, rising from a bed made from mountain cedar, lashed with thongs of rawhide from an oryx shot many years before. His words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back over 150 years through four generations of one British family. In The Zanzibar Chest, Hartley weaves together his family`s history, his childhood in Africa & his accounts of the continent`s horrendous wars, which he witnessed at first hand as a journalist in the 1990s. Burnt out from a decade of horror, during which three of his close friends were torn to pieces by an angry mob in Somalia, Aidan retreats to his family`s house in Kenya, where he discovers the Zanzibar chest containing the diaries of his father`s best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who died under mysterious circumstances more than fifty years earlier. Tucking the papers under his arm, Hartley embarks on a journey to southern Arabia in an effort not only to unlock the secrets of Davey`s life, but of his own. Travelling to the remote deserts where his father served as a British officer, Aidan begins to piece together the disparate elements of Davey`s story, a man who fell in love with an Arabian woman & converted to Islam, but ultimately had to pay an exacting price. At once a modern & a historic love story, The Zanzibar Chest is also an epic narrative charting the fates of men & women who embraced & were ultimately transformed by foreign lands. ...

Oman. The ancient land of frankincense, wind-swept deserts, craggy mountaintops & turquoise seas. Into this magical nation come three remarkable women, each facing a crossroad in her life. Rachel, an American war photographer, who is struggling to shed the trauma of her career. Now she is headed to Oman to cover quite a different story
- for a glossy travel magazine. Ariana Khan, a bubbly English woman who has rashly volunteered as Rachel`s `fixer`, a job she`s never heard of in a country she knows nothing about. & Miza, a young woman living far from her beloved homeland of Zanzibar. As the second wife of Tariq, she remains a secret from his terrifying `other` wife, Maryam. Until the day that Tariq fails to come home... As the three women journey together across this extraordinary l&, they quickly learn that, in Oman, things aren`t always what they appear to be... The Zanzibar Wife is a bewitching story of clashing cultures & conflicting beliefs, of secrets & revelations, of mystery & magic, by the author of the beloved international bestseller The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul.` As if Maeve Binchy had written ` The Kite Runner`
- Kirkus Reviews

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With such tantalising chapters as ” In Defence of Smuggling” & ” Lunch with Homer” this witty, eye-opening tapestry of writings on travel & a life spent as one of the 20th century`s most formidable adventuresses is Freya Stark at her luminous best. In chronological order, spanning an extraordinary 50 years, from 1919 to 1967, Stark`s writings range from eloquent musings on the nature of travel, of being a woman
- both writer & explorer
- in what was then predominantly a male world & jewel-bright stories from across the world
- Arabia to North Africa, Iran & India
- that captivate the reader with every sentence. There are romantic picnics under starlit skies on remote islands, meaningful moments of quiet in Mecca & Jerusalem & heartfelt accounts of encounters with a kaleidoscope of people. The Zodiac Arch resurrects many lost worlds, but it is also a lodestar for all those under the spell of wanderlust.



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There was an old story about a king who asked his favourite wizard to create a magic mirror. This mirror didn`t show you your reflection. Instead, it showed you your soul
- it showed you who you really were. But the king couldn`t look into the mirror without turning away, & nor could his courtiers. No one could. What happens when we discover who we really are? & how do we come to terms with it? Fearless & original, The Zone of Interest is a violently dark love story set against a backdrop of unadulterated evil, & a vivid journey into the depths & contradictions of the human soul.
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There are certain things that Yuri Zipit knows: that being official food-taster for the leader of the Soviet Union requires him to drink too much vodka for a 12-year-old. That you do not have to be an Elephantologist to see that the great leader is dying. That Marshal Bruhah has been known to eat his own children, while Comrade Krushka is only fit to run a slaughterhouse, & that one of them has Yuri`s father somewhere here in the Dacha. That it`s a crime to love your family more than you love Socialism, the Party or the Motherl&. That, because of his damaged mind, everyone thinks Yuri is a fool. But Yuri isn`t. He sits quietly through another excessive state dinner & witnesses it all
- betrayals, body doubles, buffoonery. He`s starting to get the hang of this politics thing, but there`s so much to learn. Who knew that a man could be in five places at once? That someone could break your nose as a sign of friendship? That people could be disinvented? The Zoo is a cutting satire, told through the refreshing voice of one gutsy boy who will not give up on hope.
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There are certain things that Yuri Zipit knows: That being official food-taster for the leader of the Soviet Union requires him to drink too much vodka for a 12-year-old. That you do not have to be an Elephantologist to see that the great leader is dying. That Marshal Bruhah has been known to eat his own children, while Comrade Krushka is only fit to run a slaughterhouse, & that one of them has Yuri`s father somewhere here in the Dacha. That it`s a crime to love your family more than you love Socialism, the Party or the Motherl&. That, because of his damaged mind, everyone thinks Yuri is a fool. But Yuri isn`t. He sits quietly through another excessive state dinner & witnesses it all
- betrayals, body doubles, buffoonery. He`s starting to get the hang of this politics thing, but there`s so much to learn. Who knew that a man could be in five places at once? That someone could break your nose as a sign of friendship? That people could be disinvented? The Zoo is a cutting satire, told through the refreshing voice of one gutsy boy who will not give up on hope.
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London’s Zoo & its area in 1870 in a series of exceptionally detailed reproductions of old Ordnance Survey street plans for areas of larger cities which have undergone substantial redevelopment in the late 19th or the early 20th century, published in the Alan Godfrey Editions. The plans, printed in back & white, have been taken from the original Ordnance Survey mapping at 1:1, 056 & reproduced at 1:1, 760 – the equivalent of 36 inches (or one yard) to a mile. The maps provide an unrivalled, house-by-house picture of streets & individual buildings with inner courtyards, outbuildings, pavements, covered passages, etc. Many important institutions are named; within the National Galley on Trafalgar Square even the individual rooms (the map is from 1871, so no French Impressionists as yet!). On the reverse are historical notes about the area covered by the map, plus extracts from contemporary street directories. These maps provide a fascinating addition to Alan Godfrey’s huge series of some 2, 000 titles presenting reproductions of street plans at taken from the Ordnance Survey mapping at 1:2, 500 (25” to 1 mile) & reprinted at about 15 inches to one mile (1:4, 340). ...

The creation of a zoo in Dickensian London
- when only one other existed across the world
- is a story of jaw-dropping audacity.

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