` We-have-a-house-in-the-country?`. Lena nodded solemnly. ` Where?`. I almost shouted, briefly rattling the table. ` No, wait, don`t tell me
- it`s Todi in Umbria, right? The old manor house, the one with the lemon groves`! ` Alt-Globnitz`. ` Alt-Globnitz?`. Suddenly I felt cold. ` Alt-Globnitz. It`s a really nice place. You will love it`. In a desperate attempt to save his relationship with girlfriend Lena & take a break from the world of journalism, Germany correspondent Roger Boyes agrees to make a great escape from the easy urban lifestyle of Berlin & decamp to the countryside. Roger has hopes for southern Italy, but Lena has inherited a run-down old schloss in deepest, darkest Brandenburg. Needing a form of income, they decide to set up a B & B with a British theme. Enter unhelpful Harry & his Trinidadian chef cousin, a mad Scot to advise them on re-branding Brandenburg, some suicidal frogs & a posse of mad tourists. It all culminates, naturally, in a cricket match between the Brits & the Germans on an old Russian minefield. Farce meets romance in this follow-up to the successful ”A Year in the Scheisse”.
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One night in 1974, a young Frenchman secretly
- & illegally
- rigged a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade

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Reading a story to another person creates a bond between two people. It is often assumed that reading aloud is only for children, but the practice was once a common pleasure for adults too. The time has come to rediscover it. This simple yet powerful action connects us with our friends, helps us centre ourselves in the present & lets us focus gently on what matters. To Read Aloud consists of 75 extracts of an average 1000 words each, from writers ranging from Cicero to Lewis Carroll to Robert Macfarlane (alongside less familiar names). It is arranged under ten thematic chapters: Love, Loss, Lightness, Pleasure, Work, Nature, Change, Chaos, Wonder, & Coda: Delicacies for Discussion. A literary toolbox for well-being, To Read Aloud invites you to to take just ten minutes off, sit down with somebody you care about & share a passage of writing. ...

This book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014. ” The Catch-22 of dentistry”. (Stephen King). Joshua Ferris` dazzling new novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is about the meaning of life, the certainty of death, & the importance of good oral hygiene. There`s nothing like a dental chair to remind a man that he`s alone in the world`. Paul O` Rourke
- dentist extraordinaire, reluctant New Yorker, avowed atheist, disaffected Red Sox fan, & a connoisseur of the afternoon mochaccino
- is a man out of touch with modern life. While his dental practice occupies his days, his nights are filled with darker thoughts, as he alternately marvels at & rails against the optimism of the rest of humanity. So it goes, until someone begins to impersonate Paul online. What began as an outrageous violation of privacy soon becomes something far more soul-frightening: the possibility that the virtual ` Paul` might be a better version of the man in the flesh...” Frenetic, very funny, it confirms Ferris as a rising star of American fiction”. (Mail on Sunday). ” Glorious...A very, very funny novel”. (BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review). ” Dismayingly funny in the way that only really serious books can be”. (Guardian). Joshua Ferris was born in Illinois in 1974. He is the author of Then We Came to the End (2007), which was nominated for the National Book Award & longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, & The Unnamed. In 2010 he was selected for the New Yorker`s prestigious `20 under 40` list. To Rise Again At A Decent Hour has been shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize 2014 & the Dylan Thomas Prize 2014. He lives in upstate New York.

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Aged eighteen, Tessa Dunlop went to post-Revolutionary Romania to work in an orphanage
- to do something remarkable to help her
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`A delightful evocation of Irishness & of the author`s deep-rooted love of the very fields of home` Publishers Weekly Alice Taylor`s classic account of growing up in the Irish countryside, the biggest selling book ever published in Irel&. If ever a voice has captured the colors, the rhythms, the rich, bittersweet emotions of a time gone by, it is Alice Taylor`s. Her tales of childhood in rural Ireland hark back to a timeless past, to a world now lost, but ever & fondly remembered. The colorful characters & joyous moments she offers have made To School Through the Fields an Irish phenomenon, & have made Alice herself the most beloved author in all of the Emerald Isle. A must-have for fans of Alice Taylor. Illustrated throughout with evocative photographs, with a new introduction by the author, looking back at her breakthrough book twenty five years later. ...

The Atlantic salmon is an extraordinary & mysterious fish. In To Sea & Back, Richard Shelton combines memoir & deep scientific knowledge to reveal, from the salmon`s point of view, both the riverine & marine worlds in which it lives. He explores this iconic fish`s journey to reach its feeding grounds in the northern oceans before making the return over thousands of miles to the burns of its birth to reproduce. Along the way, Shelton describes the feats of exploration that gave us our first real understanding of the oceans, & shows how this iconic fish is a vital indicator of the health of our rivers & oceans. Above all, To Sea & Back is the story of Richard Shelton`s lifelong passion for the sea & his attempt to solve the perennial enigmas of the salmon`s secret life. ...

Now in its twelfth year, the Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa`s leading literary prize, & is awarded to a short story by an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere. This collection collects the five 2011 shortlisted stories, along with stories written at the Caine Prize Writers` Workshop, taking place in Spring 2011. ...

When a woman refuses to sit next to him on the bus, Rick Braithwaite is saddened & angered by her prejudice. In post-war cosmopolitan London he had hoped for a more enlightened attitude. When he begins his first teaching job in a tough East End school the reactions are the same. Slowly & painfully some of the barriers are broken down. He shames his pupils, wrestles with them, enlightens them & eventually comes to love them. To Sir With Love is the story of a dedicated teacher who turns hate into love, teenage rebelliousness into self-respect, contempt into consideration for others
- the story of a man`s own integrity winning through against all the odds.
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After returning from a pleasant holiday with his wife, Astrid, & their two children, Thomas walks out the front door. Thomas walks up the street. Thomas keeps walking. Astrid gradually realizes that her husband has not just gotten up early to go to work. She waits for as long as she can & then puts as much energy as she can into trying to find him
- coming to underst&, along the way, that there is little she can do if Thomas is striving to stay lost. In precise & hypnotic prose that cuts as cleanly as a scalpel, To the Back of Beyond is a novel that takes away the safe foundations of a marriage & a lifestyle to ask deeper questions about identity, connection & how free we are to change our lives. It is a graceful & resonant work from one of Europe`s most important writers.
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