Search results for ""quercus publishing""

"Rhodes' depiction of disaster and ensuring PTSD has the ring of authenticity: he was at Hillsborough that fateful day" DAILY MAIL"A remarkable thing to read. It has immense power and is utterly compelling" SCOTT PACKIn 1989, 18-year-old John Finch spends his Saturdays following Nottingham Forest up and down the country, and the rest of the week trudging the streets of his hometown as a postal worker. Leading inexorably towards the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, the worst sporting disaster on British history, 'Fan' glides between 1989 and 2004, when the true impact of this tragic day becomes evident.Fan is a book about personal and collective tragedy. It's about growing up and not growing up, about manhood and about what makes a man, and about football's role in reflecting a society never more than a brick's throw away from shattering point.Dark, haunting and deeply personal, Danny Rhodes' heart-felt novel explodes with gut-wrenching emotion and exposes how disaster can not only affect a life, but change its course for ever.

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In 1989, 18-year-old John Finch spends his Saturdays following Nottingham Forest up and down the country, and the rest of the week trudging the streets of his hometown as a postal worker. Leading inexorably towards the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough, the worst sporting disaster on British history, 'Fan' glides between 1989 and 2004, when the true impact of this tragic day becomes evident.

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This mischievous roman a clef revolves around the interactions of five main characters. Victoria, barely twenty, finds herself acting as amanuensis to Laurence, an elderly man of letters, now blind, who lives in a ravishing house by the sea in northern Italy. Soon after her arrival, she indulges in a heady night of passion with Edgar, a youthful Englishman. Their subsequent union introduces Edgar's pretentious mother Lettice, who is jealous and suspicious of her daughter-in-law's prettiness and her ability to amuse Lettice's intellectual friends. While Victoria struggles to adapt to her new surroundings, Lettice, in a bid to maintain her own social superiority, attempts to thwart her every move in hilarious fashion. Enter Archie, one of the inner circle, whose relationship with Victoria provokes a scandal that threatens to destroy her. Darkly funny and deeply insightful, Lettice & Victoria is not just a love story with a fanciful and flawed female protagonist, but a wonderful portrait of English society.

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Yalo was a soldier on one of the many sides in Lebanon's sectarian civil war, before becoming a deserter and a thief, a nightwatchman in Paris, an arms smuggler, and then a rapist. And then he falls in love with his victim - who turns him in to the police. This novel is a modern Thousand and One Nights, a series of confessions extracted under torture, a recitation of all of his memories, all his sorrows, all his guilt - and of the other crimes his interrogators have him confess to. Beirut and the legacy of the wars of the Middle East are the texture of Elias Khoury's extraordinary literary achievement.

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Breslau in the 1920s is haunt of marquises and merchants, gamblers and gutter-rats. Eberhard Mock, the hardened Criminal Councillor, fits right in as he sways from the basements of grubby casinos to his beautiful young wife in their palatial mansion. But his beautiful young wife is feeling neglected. A series of sinister murders linked by the dates of past crimes has taken Mock out of the bedroom and into the archives. While Mock ransacks the city for clues, driven mad by the killer's tantalizing notes, his wife is seeking attention elsewhere. Engaging in perverted games with her less-than-innocent girlfriends, Mock's wife is being seduced by a mysterious sect which preaches the imminent end of the world.

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***Now the subject of a major sell-out exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum***She revolutionized how women looked. She banned corsets, shortened skirts and scented the world with Chanel No.5. Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel was an icon. But how closely did her carefully moulded image match the truth? Born illegitimate and raised in an orphanage - not by the two aunts that she invented - Gabrielle Chanel fought constantly to escape the mundane. She rose from back-street milliner to become the head of a vast business empire, and socialised with Picasso, Stravinsky and Cocteau. Edmonde Charles-Roux also reveals one of Chanel's best-kept secrets - her love affair with a prodigal German spy.Chanel's legend did not fade with her death, and nor has the mark of sheer elegance that she left upon the world of fashion. This is the living woman behind the vibrant legend.

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The year is 1949 and the Allied Powers' advance on Moscow in the wake of Nazi defeat has failed. As Stalin's tanks rumble through the streets of London, Winston Churchill decides to put an end to his life. Fast forward to 1989 and England is divided between the Soviets and the Americans, with the capital split in two. Metropolitan People's Police detective Harry Stark is called to investigate a corpse found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge. An American infiltrator tells him the body is linked to a dissident plot involving Churchill's notorious suicide...

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Skeletons are discovered in a wasteland behind Cockpit Lane, a poor largely black area of inner south London, and DCI David Brock and DS Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard's Serious Crimes Branch are called in to investigate. The discovery that the victims died during the Brixton riots, over twenty years before, lead Brock and Kolla on a dark and dangerous journey in which past and present come together in an intricate web of deception and intrigue as Brock encounters a formidable old antagonist, Spider Roach. In a desperate search to find a crucial piece of evidence, Brock and Kolla unwittingly set in train a series of events that erupt in a shocking, violent conclusion. Written with Maitland's characteristically vivid sense of character and place, "Spider Trap" is Maitland at his scrupulously plotted, complex and compelling best.

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'A captivating book - original, intelligent and very entertaining' Isabel Wolff 'Fane consistently focuses her smart, fluid prose and sophisticated thought on rendering a thoughtful, sorrowful and often highly amusing novel' The TimesPerdita Tree, the bored and beautiful wife of a Tory MP, believes that all women should have a magic door through which they can walk into a different life. So when she is kidnapped in Albania, she takes it in the spirit of one huge adventure. Adored by her kidnapper, who believes all things English are perfect, she is persuaded to rescue the Albanians from their dire history, and is vain enough to imagine that she can. The year is 1991, democracy is coming, but are the Albanians ready for it? And are they ready for Perdita?This book was featured at the Ways With Words Festival, Dartington, and the Chichester Festival, and was chosen for Waterstone's Summer Reads promotion, 2005.

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Laos, 1976. The monarchy has been deposed, the Communist Pathet Lao have taken over. Most of the educated class has fled, but Dr Siri Paiboun, a Paris-trained doctor remains. And so this 72-year-old physician is appointed state coroner, despite having no training, equipment, experience or even inclination for the job. But the job's not that bad and Siri quickly settles into a routine of studying outdated medical texts, scrounging scarce supplies, and circumnavigating bureaucratic red tape to arrive at justice. The fact that the recently departed are prone to pay Siri the odd, unwanted nocturnal visit turns out to be an added bonus in his new line of work. But when the wife of a party leader turns up dead and the bodies of tortured Vietnamese soldiers start bobbing to the surface of a Laotian lake, all eyes turn to Siri. Faced with official cover-ups and an emerging international crisis, the doctor enlists old friends, village shamans, forest spirits, dream visits from the dead - and even the occasional bit of medical deduction - to solve the crimes.

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A centuries-old conspiracy is about to explode into the present with devastating consequences. The first victim was forced to swallow stones. The second was whipped to death. The third was stabbed in the heart. A deadly serial killer is taking people down across London and New York. What did they all know? Why were they butchered? Who else is in the killer's sights? And how can they be stopped? Inspired by real events in the artist's life, The Rembrandt Secret is an incredible page-turner that combines deadly murder and the hidden truth behind one of the world's most famous artists.

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From the creator of the hit BBC drama Silent Witness, comes the gripping second instalment in the acclaimed Mark Lapslie series, sees the DCI come under attack from all sides. Perfect for fans of M.J. Arlidge and Angela Marsons. By now he had knifed, strangled, blown up, drowned, bludgeoned and tortured ten people. Ten people that he had never even met, and had no knowledge of...Carl Whittley is seemingly a murderer without a motive. He's just tortured a beautiful, young TV presenter to death and now he's planning to blow an anonymous commuter to pieces. Who will be next? What is the motive behind the attacks? And how will he strike? DCI Mark Lapslie needs something to do. He suffers from a rare neurological condition that has forced him to leave his family and avoid the police station. For his superiors, he is nothing but a nuisance to be avoided - and the spate of unconnected murders is just what they need to send him into retirement. Carl wants every death to be different. More violent, bizarre and shocking. But as Lapslie gets on the scent and the force brings in a profiler, Carl makes a new plan. He hasn't killed a policeman yet . . .Discover the other books in the DCI Mark Lapslie series: Core of Evil, Scream, Thirteenth Coffin and Flesh and Blood.

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In this chilling thriller from the creator of the hit BBC drama Silent Witness DCI Mark Lapslie is singled-out by a twisted killer. Perfect for fans of M.J. Arlidge and Angela Marsons. You will never have felt pain like it in your life. I want you to know ... there's nothing you can do to stop it - nothing you can tell me, nothing you can offer me...A woman screams in pain. Twenty-seven times, until she dies. The sound file was sent to DCI Mark Lapslie from an anonymous email address. Why is she screaming? Why would someone record that horrifying noise? And why send it to him? He soon learns that the file was sent from the hospital where he is being treated for synaesthesia - a neurological condition that cross-wires his senses so he tastes sound - and where his new girlfriend works. When a body is discovered, the most shocking murder scene Lapslie has ever encountered forces him to realise there is a violent killer out there, a killer whose method of choice is torture. Will Lapslie find the killer? Who will have to die before he does?Discover the other books in the DCI Mark Lapslie series: Core of Evil, Tooth and Claw, Thirteenth Coffin and Flesh and Blood.

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Terence is sick of people making a fuss of Alexander. His looks. His money. His fame.Who wouldn't resent so successful a son?Even if he is only ten years old.Joseph Connolly's brilliant new comedy of manners weaves together a domestic tableaux of characters - those with old-fashioned manners, tabloid manners, and no manners at all - in a satire on oedipal envy, neighbourly rivalry and the shameless stupidity of our fame-fuelled society.

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'This novel is a real, out-of-the-blue original. I've never read anything like it' New York Times Book ReviewTHE BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE ITV SERIES STARRING KEVIN McKIDD AND VINETTE ROBINSON.THE MILLION-SELLING JAPANESE CRIME PHENOMENON, NOW A UK BESTSELLER.SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER.NAMED IN NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017.SIX FOUR.THE NIGHTMARE NO PARENT COULD ENDURE. THE CASE NO DETECTIVE COULD SOLVE. THE TWIST NO READER COULD PREDICT. For five days in January 1989, the parents of a seven-year-old Tokyo schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter's kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. They would never see their daughter again.For the fourteen years that followed, the Japanese public listened to the police's apologies. They would never forget the botched investigation that became known as 'Six Four'. They would never forgive the authorities their failure.For one week in late 2002, the press officer attached to the police department in question confronted an anomaly in the case. He could never imagine what he would uncover. He would never have looked if he'd known what he would find.Loved Six Four and want more Yokoyama? Then why not try Seventeen or Prefecture D . . .

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How do you know right from wrong when your certainties about life are slipping through your fingers? Phillip Snowe is a genius of the advertising world but what he can no longer do is sell himself to himself. Struggling to find meaning, he quits his career 'to give something back.' Julia, his wife, a brilliant and beautiful lawyer, fights her own demons, but with her intelligence and hard work, she believes she can keep them at bay. And so far she has. Into their lives comes Laura Cusack, a single mother torn between the demands of her young daughters and her own unfulfilled passions. Whose needs should you put first? Your family's? Your neighbour's? A complete stranger's? Or your own? And once you have made that choice, how do you live with yourself? Spanning three generations, this compassionate and surprising story - touching profoundly upon love, art, religion and the search for fulfilment - grips from first to last as it explores the moral and emotional complexities of modern life.

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Patrick is still in love with his estranged wife. Returning with their son after a trip to an amusement park, he begs, one last time, to reconcile with her. When she refuses, he is driven to thoughtless desperation: a bottle of sleeping pills, a bottle of whisky. And in his dying dream, he revisits that theme park of childish desire. There he finds the landscape - still garish and indulgent - has evolved. The attractions are religion, money and sex. The characters - costumed and acted - are transformed into Jefferson, Xunzi, Aristotle. And their purpose is to instruct Patrick in the pursuit of happiness throughout human history. But Patrick can only answer with his own story. He remembers falling in love with Louise. Recalls the enlightenment of their youth and the banality of their family life. He tells of their marriage, how it came under strain after the birth of his son; how he cheated; the unravelling of all his joy. Yet still his love persists. Beginning with the first line of Dante's Divine Comedy and taking Disneyworld, the Declaration of Independence and the canon of philosophy in its stride, What You Want is a literary feat: a novel written entirely in verse, depicting life in all its ordinariness. It gives voice to a new Everyman and brings forth an unparalleled modern epic.

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Break negative sleep patterns for better rest and happiness. We all go through patches when we find it hard to sleep. Either we have problems dropping off at night or we wake in the early hours with thoughts buzzing round in our minds. Sometimes it seems impossible to get that elusive night's sleep we so badly crave, but this book will show you how to break negative patterns, get more rest and improve your wellbeing. Dr Jessamy Hibberd and Jo Usmar draw on the very latest developments in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and popular psychology, to guide you through proven techniques to help you get your sleep patterns back on track. You will feel rested, happier, and immediately reap the benefits in your everyday life.Praise for the This Book Will series:'Top tips for making your life loads better.' Cosmo'The answer to all my problems.' Katie Piper'Take on January with new-found serenity with this series of self-help books' Stylist

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Great Irish Speeches contains 50 of the most stirring and memorable speeches in Irish history. From the political oratories of Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera to emotive addresses by the nation's celebrated poets, writers and musicians, all of the included speeches have had a remarkable impact on the course of Irish and world history. Each speech is preceded by an introduction, which places the address in context and underlines its historical significance, as well as an iconic photograph of the speaker. Presented chronologically, the collection provides tremendous insight into Irish history. Includes the following speeches: Eamon de Valera 'That Ireland which we dreamed of', Eamon de Valera 'The abuse of a people who have done him no wrong', John F. Kennedy 'Ireland's hour has come', Jack Lynch 'The Irish government can no longer stand by' Liam Cosgrave 'Mongrel foxes', Charles J. Haughey 'We are living away beyond our means' Joe Connolly 'People of Galway - we love you', John Hume 'Sit down and negotiate our future with us', Mary Robinson 'Come dance with me in Ireland' Maire Geoghegan-Quinn 'A necessary development of human rights' Seamus Heaney 'The achievement of Irish poets', David Trimble 'A cold house for Catholics' Joe Higgins 'Ansbacher Man', Gerry Adams 'Now there is an alternative', Ian Paisley 'A Northern Ireland in which all can live together in peace', Bertie Ahern 'This is what Ireland can give to the world'.

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On every page of this delicious book you will meet characters and situations that tell you this could only be New York. The parents who are determined to get their children literally to fly at the school production of Peter Pan - the Cambodian cashier at the local deli who is more Jewish than Gopnik's grandfather - his gloriously peculiar analyst who argues that a name can be damaging to the human psyche, saying Adam's name is very ugly - the birder who takes Adam to see the huge flock of feral parrots that have taken over Flatbush. No one knows how they got there or how they survive the brutal winters, but they do. And flourish on it. 'These birds are so bold. They are real New Yorkers. They have so much attitude'. Through the Children's Gate is written with Gopnik's signature mix of mind and heart, elegantly and exultantly alert to the minute miracles that bring a place to life.

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Music, Magazines & MayhemBetween 1994 and 1997, James Brown's loaded magazine became the must-buy and must-be-in publication of the decade. It won every award going, year after year, and came to define not only its audience but also a generation. Bright, loud, funny, provocative, ambitious and careless, loaded was read from the barracks of Afghanistan to the England dressing room at Euro '96. It captured a hedonistic lifestyle of alcohol, cocaine and more. The last great hurrah before the end of the century. It was the biggest noise in the golden generation of magazine publishing, rocketing from zero to half a million sales in a matter of months. What MTV had been to the 80s, loaded was to the 90s.ANIMAL HOUSE follows James Brown's remarkable career from a high school drop-out fanzine writer with few qualifications to NME features editor aged 22, and loaded founder at 27. In between, his mother died in tragic circumstances and gradually his own drug and alcohol use began to take over. Loaded's unexpected success legitimised (and paid for) James's lifestyle, and it wasn't until he crashed and burned at GQ, and went through rehab, that any sense of perspective kicked in.Recuperating on the island of Mustique whilst plotting his return with Oz founder Felix Dennis, James was asked by neighbour Lord Patrick Lichfield: "How on earth did you manage to sell so many magazines whilst taking so many drugs?"This book is his answer.

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THE NO. 1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR27 MILLION BOOKS SOLDWINNER OF THE GLASS KEY AWARDIn the penultimate thriller in the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling Department Q series, Copenhagen's cold cases division must hunt for a nefarious criminal who has slipped under the radar for decades.On her 60th birthday, a woman takes her own life. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck's desk, he can't imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen's cold cases division. It's a tragedy to be sure, but the cause of death seems to be clear. But his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is not in fact a suicide, but a murder related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.At Marcus' behest, Carl and the Department Q gang-Rose, Assad, and Gordon-reluctantly begin to investigate. However, they quickly discover that Marcus is on to something: Every two years for the past three decades, there have been unusual, impeccably timed deaths with connections between them that cannot be ignored. As they dig deeper, it transpires that these "accidents" are in fact murders by a very cunning and violent criminal.Faced with their toughest case yet, made only more difficult with COVID-19 restrictions and the challenges of their own personal lives, the Department Q team must race to find the culprit before the next murder is committed, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the killer is far from finished.Praise for Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series:'Everything you could possibly want from a thriller and much, much more' Kirkus'Adler-Olsen is the new "it" boy of Nordic Noir' The Times'Engrossing' Sunday Express'Gripping storytelling' Guardian'As impressive as it is unnerving' Independent

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'Hilarious and heart-breaking in equal measure and you'll root for Annie from the start ... I couldn't put this down' Daily MailThe old Annie Taylor knew who she was. She had bags of confidence and spent her evenings impersonating her idol Barbra Streisand, looking flawless in exuberant turbans and winged eyeliner. But nowadays she has more roles than she can count - mother, girlfriend, best friend, photographer, sister - and she doesn't feel like she's doing any of them justice. So when, unexpectedly, life propels her back to being the glamorous Barb, she finally has the chance to find herself once more... Equal parts moving and hilarious, More Than a Feeling delightfully questions whether we want to 'have it all' or just be happy in our own skin. Perfect for fans of Holly Bourne and Lucy Vine.

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A heartwarming saga of secrets, friendships and wartime spirit at the height of World War 2. For fans of Daisy Styles, Sheila Newberry and Lyn AndrewsA young German girl finds friendship, camaraderie and even love while working on Hampshire's south coast ferries - but will her new friends desert her if her nationality comes to light?'A gripping story packed with darkness and light, love and friendship, greed and betrayal' Lancashire Evening Post on The Factory GirlsVee Smith is 22 when she starts work on Gosport's ferries, taking a job left vacant by the men gone off to war. She soon makes friends with the other women workers, and together they enjoy nights out dancing in Gosport - keeping their spirits up despite the hard work, rationing and heavy bombing. Vee even feels herself falling for Sam, the skipper of the ferry and her unhappily married boss. But Vee has a secret: her real name is Violetta Schmidt, and she is half-German. If her true nationality is discovered, she and her mother could find themselves interned as enemy aliens - if their German-hating neighbours, or worse, Eddie, the man Vee ran away from after he got her false papers, don't hurt them first.Will Vee be able to keep her secret safe, and find some peace with Sam and her friends even in the midst of war?

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A memoir of brutality, heroism and personal discovery from Europe's dark heart, revealing one of the most extraordinary untold stories of the Second World WarIn the spring of 1945, at Rechnitz on the Austrian-Hungarian border, not far from the front lines of the advancing Red Army, Countess Margit Batthyany gave a party in her mansion. The war was almost over, and the German aristocrats and SS officers dancing and drinking knew it was lost. Late that night, they walked down to the village, where 180 enslaved Jewish labourers waited, made them strip naked, and shot them all, before returning to the bright lights of the party. It remained a secret for decades, until Sacha Batthyany, who remembered his great-aunt Margit only vaguely from his childhood as a stern, distant woman, began to ask questions about it.A Crime in the Family is Sacha Batthyany's memoir of confronting these questions, and of the answers he found. It is one of the last untold stories of Europe's nightmare century,spanning not just the massacre at Rechnitz, the inhumanity of Auschwitz, the chaos of wartime Budapest and the brutalities of Soviet occupation and Stalin's gulags, but also the silent crimes of complicity and cover-up, and the damaged generations they leave behind. Told partly through the surviving journals of others from the author's family and the vanished world of Rechnitz, A Crime in the Family is a moving and revelatory memoir in the vein of The Hare with the Amber Eyes and The House by the Lake. It uncovers barbarity and tragedy but also a measure of peace and reconciliation. Ultimately,Batthyany discovers that although his inheritance might be that of monsters, he does not bear it alone.

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The fifth edition of this indispensable history of photography spans the history of the medium, from its early development to current practice, and providing a focused understanding of the cultural contexts in which photographers have lived and worked throughout, this remains an all-encompassing survey.Mary Warner Marien discusses photography from around the world and through the lenses of art, science, travel, war, fashion, the mass media and individual photographers. Professional, amateur and art photographers are all represented, with 'Portrait' boxes devoted to highlighting important individuals and 'Focus' boxes charting particular cultural debates. Mary Warner Marien is also the author of 100 Ideas that Changed Photography and Photography Visionaries.New additions to this ground-breaking global survey of photography includes 20 new images and sections on advances in technology and the influence of social media platforms. An essential text for anyone studying photography.

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A gritty, emotional saga from a bestselling author. Perfect for fans of Dilly Court, Maggie Hope and Nadine Dorries.1915. As a child it never mattered to Blake that he has no mother, that no one knew who his father was. He was secure in his grandparents' love, happy on their farm in the Yorkshire dales. But when his grandparents die suddenly, Blake's world collapses.Taken in by a neighbouring farmer as hired help, Blake's life becomes focused on the land - and on his secret love for Annie, his employer's daughter. Annie may love Blake too, but she knows she doesn't want to spend her life on the farm. So Blake leaves for the busy shipyards of Sunderland, determined to make his name. He swears one day he will come back for Annie - but can he be sure she will wait for him?

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'Incredibly moving' Daily Mail'To Siri with Love is a beautifully honest and illuminating love letter to Gus, your typical atypical nonneurotypical human.' Jon Stewart'A moving and witty memoir with a big heart.' Nigella Lawson'An uncommonly riotous and moving book [that] will make readers laugh - yes, out loud - before sweeping them, finally, into a soul-spilling high tide . . . Technology's great promise may in fact be to summon, capture and display our most human qualities, both the darkness and the light, to pave avenues of deepened connections with others.' New York TimesWriter Judith Newman never had any illusions that her family was 'normal'. She and her husband keep separate apartments-his filled with twin grand pianos as befits a former opera singer; hers filled with the clutter and chaos of twin adolescent boys conceived late in life. And one of those boys is Gus, her sweet, complicated, autistic 13-year-old.With refreshing honesty, To Siri With Love chronicles one year in the life of Gus and the family around him -- a family with the same crazy ups and downs as any other. And at the heart of the book lies Gus's passionate friendship with Siri, Apple's 'intelligent personal assistant'. Unlike her human counterparts, Siri always has the right answers to Gus's incessant stream of questions about the intricacies of national rail schedules, or box turtle varieties, and she never runs out of patience. She always makes sure Gus enunciates and even teaches him manners by way of her warm yet polite tone and her programmed insistence on civility.Equal parts funny and touching, this is a book that will make your heart brim, and then break it. Warm, wise and always honest, Judith Newman shows us a new world where artificial intelligence is beginning to meet emotional intelligence -- a world that will shape our children in ways both wonderful and unexpected.

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'Why is Laurie Graham not carried on people's shoulders through cheering crowds? Her books are brilliant!' MARIAN KEYESThe Early Birds is the feel-good and funny follow-up to The Future Homemakers of America that proves that no matter what life throws at you, great friends and regular cocktails will always see you through.Peggy, the southern belle. Kath, the pragmatist with the only Norfolk accent in New York state. Gayle, the preacher with healing hands. Mrs Colonel Audrey Rudman, forever keeping up the standards of the Officers' Wives Club. Lois, who's never had a thought she didn't voice. Loudly.Their menfolk may be long retired, but once a US Air Force wife, always an Air Force wife, and the bonds of friendship forged in base after military base are still going strong fifty years later. Time is rendering its Accounts Payable for all of them now: hip replacements, eye problems, forgetfulness and departures. In this hymn to lifelong female friendship, Peggy soldiers on through new upheavals, including her ex-husband Vern's Alzheimer's diagnosis, the death of one of her nearest and dearest, a life-changing house move and the world-shattering events of 9/11 with the help of her sharp-tongued, often eccentric, but always loyal group of friends.

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Perfect for fans of Neal Stephenson and Peter F. Hamilton: the blockbuster conclusion to the international sci-fi thriller by German's Number One thriller writer.It's 2025, and the Chinese and the Americans are going head to head on the Moon for helium-3, the rare mineral which will solve all the Earth's energy needs. But not everyone is happy.Billionaire Julian Orley's space-elevator revolutionised space travel; now he's taking a group of international movers and shakers on the trip of a lifetime: to the first-ever hotel on the Moon, hoping to woo them into investing in the future of humanity.But not all of Orly's guests are humanitarians: at least one is pursuing his own dark plot - and now there's a time limit. And how is this linked with the cyber-detective Owen Jericho, the dissident hacker Yoyo, oil magnate Gerald Palstein - and the mysterious organisation called Hydra, who have their own - not very charitable - plans for the universe?

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Stalking, addiction and obsession - Detective Claire Boyle returns in this gripping new psychological thriller from Sinead Crowley, for fans of Patricia Gibney and Angela Marsons.Dear Elizabeth, I've been watching you. I hope to see you . . . Soon. Liz Cafferky is on the up. Rescued from her dark past by the owner of a drop-in centre for older men, Liz soon finds herself as the charity's face - and the unwilling darling of the Dublin media.Amidst her claustrophobic fame, Liz barely notices a letter from a new fan. But then one of the centre's clients is brutally murdered, and Elizabeth receives another, more sinister note.Running from her own ghosts, Liz is too scared to go to the police. And with no leads, there is little Sergeant Claire Boyle can do to protect her.'Compulsively readable . . . an absorbing variation on the "domestic noir" genre' Irish Times'A crackingly paced thriller, featuring a totally believable female detective' Sunday Mirror

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Decades of evil have gone unchecked. Until now...'There are plenty of twists in this compelling and compassionate tale' SARAH HILARYDI Grace Fisher investigates the murder of a young doctor working at a summer camp for young girls with eating disorders. Professor Ned Chesham, the man behind the camp deep in the Essex countryside, is hailed as a miracle worker, but the murder of one of his team throws a spotlight on his work and the 'special girls' under his care.Grace Fisher is pulled from the murder investigation to head up a cold case review involving Chesham himself. She must tread carefully: Chesham has just been knighted, he has friends in high places and any suspicion about his work risks damaging his patients even further. But the deeper Grace probes, the clearer it becomes that there is something rotten at the heart of his treatment programme.As Grace peels away the lies that led to the young doctor's murder and uncovers the extent of the damage done to Chesham's patients, she realises how few people want her to get to the truth. Is there anyone she can trust with the horrifying secret of the special girls?THE SPECIAL GIRLS is a nailbiting thriller with a main character you will love and a final twist that will break your heartWhat people are saying about THE SPECIAL GIRLS:'The standout crime novel of 2017' CRIMESQUAD'A brave and harrowing novel' SUNDAY TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH'An utterly believable and chilling tale of the abuse of the vulnerable. Beautifully crafted, it has an intelligence and emotional heft that sets it above the usual crime novel. The best DI Grace Fisher yet' ANYA LIPSKA

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The scale of the cosmos can be baffling, with distances so vast and timescales to long that it's easy to dismiss them as being completely divorced from our everyday life. But in this new book Dr Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, shows you the myriad ways we are intrinsically connected to the rest of the universe and how everything on Earth - from the ground beneath our feet to the technology in our pockets - has origins in space. Discover how rocks from space reveal what conditions are like at our planet's core, how the desolate surface of the moon holds ancient clues to Earth's earliest life forms, and how buried treasure in the Nile reveals the watery past of Mars. Discover how the atoms of your own body were forged in the heart of a star, how you can see the echo of creation on your TV, and the ways in which technology developed for observing the most far-flung corners of space is now used to diagnose potentially fatal human diseases. The Intimate Universe is a curated tour of the most fascinating phenomena and discoveries in astronomy, revealing how we are inextricably, inspirationally linked to the cosmos.

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Eve is starting again. Newly single, unemployed and with a baby daughter, she joins the local mums trying to make their nearby playground the heart of the community. But not all games are innocent - and not all friends are true. When the rules change, Eve must forge her own independence - and realise that the playground is no place to hide from adulthood.

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Summer is gone, and the world is turning to ice.The Rondian Empress Lyra has lost her husband, her army is defeated and the deadly Masked Cabal have seized the Holy City. Her allies have abandoned her and her empire is spiralling into chaos - and her only weapon is a forbidden magic she dare not use. She can't survive alone - but who can she still trust?'Vibrant, memorable characters' - SciFi NowThe Eastern conqueror Sultan Rashid is victorious on the battlefield, but now he faces an enemy more deadly than Rondian knights: the winter. Unless he captures a major city to shelter his huge armies, his plans to overthrow the West face ruin in the snow. But standing between his men and safety is the remnants of a defeated army led by a general who knows all about fighting for survival.'An epic journey of ordinary people destined to change the course of history . . . alluring . . . gripping' - BoHoMind.comThere are no easy options left. Lyra and her fellow dwymancers must master their deadly magic, whatever the cost. Even those who believe themselves to be fighting for good must grasp the reins of power with cold-hearted determination, and use even the most terrible weapon, if they are to stop the world from falling apart . . . for ever.

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Hollywood superstar; Oscar-winning director; greatest stage actor of the twentieth century. His era abounded in greats - Gielgud, Richardson, Guinness, Burton, O'Toole - but none could challenge Laurence Olivier's range and power. By the 1940s he had achieved international stardom. His affair with Vivien Leigh led to a marriage as glamorous and as tragic as any in Hollywood history. He was as accomplished a director as he was a leading man: his three Shakespearian adaptations are among the most memorable ever filmed. Off-stage, Olivier was the most extravagant of characters: generous, yet almost insanely jealous of those few contemporaries whom he deemed to be his rivals; charming but with a ferocious temper. With access to more than fifty hours of candid, unpublished interviews, Philip Ziegler ensures that Olivier's true character - at its most undisguised - shines through as never before.

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'I have come to thank dark places for the light they bring to life.'Thomas Cook has always been drawn to dark places, for the powerful emotions they evoke and for what we can learn from them. These lessons are often unexpected and sometimes profoundly intimate, but they are never straightforward.With his wife and daughter, Cook travels across the globe in search of darkness - from Lourdes to Ghana, from San Francisco to Verdun, from the monumental, mechanised horror of Auschwitz to the intimate personal grief of a shrine to dead infants in Kamukura, Japan. Along the way he reflects on what these sites may teach us, not only about human history, but about our own personal histories.During the course of a lifetime of traveling to some of earth's most tragic shores, from the leper colony on Molokai to ground zero at Hiroshima, he finds not darkness alone, but a light that can illuminate the darkness within each of us. Written in vivid prose, this is at once a personal memoir of exploration (both external and internal), and a strangely heartening look at the radiance that may be found at the very heart of darkness.

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THE 12 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LEWIS TRILOGY AND THE CHINA THRILLERSAWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF THE CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY 2021'Enzo MacLeod is one of the most unusual crime solvers I have ever met.' BookBrowse'No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May.' New York Journal of BooksIn the third thrilling instalment of the series, Enzo is running out of time in more ways than one...FRANCE.A death sentence.Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Enzo Macleod is running out of time to crack the most confounding of unsolved French murders.A death threat.His daughter is nearly killed, Enzo is mugged - and then he is arrested. Someone is trying to destroy his character. Someone is framing him for murder.A deathly enemy.Killers from the past will stop at nothing to halt Enzo, who must use all his forensic skills to solve the case - before they succeed.LOVED BLACKLIGHT BLUE? Read book 4 in the series, FREEZE FRAME

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The critically acclaimed, breathtaking thriller: perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, CL Taylor and Kathryn Croft.Seattle Homicide Detective Alice Madison is bound to jailed murderer John Cameron and attorney Nathan Quinn by a debt that cannot be repaid, by a nightmare that changed their lives forever. When the remains of Quinn's younger brother - murdered as a boy - are discovered in a shallow grave, Madison vows to follow the trail of brutal deaths to discover the sinister truth. A sadistic killer stalks the investigation as demons from Madison's own past are unearthed and darkness closes in. How far is Madison prepared to go to save a life?Discover more Detective Alice Madison with the other books in the critically acclaimed series - The Gift of Darkness and Blood and Bone.

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Four teenagers are drawn from an Irish mountaintop into an enchanted land and gifted with great powers: but with power comes responsibility, and a vast evil has noticed their arrival . . . On the summit of the fabled mountain Slievenamon in Ireland there is a doorway to an ancient land of terrible power. The gate of Feimhin has lain closed for centuries, the secret of its opening long lost - until four orphans drawn together by Fate pass through the portal and find the enchanted but war-ravaged world of Tír, a strange land peopled by beings of magic. Here death waits at every corner, and they must learn to fight if they are to survive. And they'd better learn quickly, because their enemy, the Tyrant of the Wastelands, is growing in power.'The best fantasy novel I've ever read . . . an epic adventure that just does not stop!' said Glenda A. Bixler on Authorsden!

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September 1799. William Pitt is attempting to force through anti-slavery legislation, but many have a vested interest in preventing this change and would go to dangerous lengths to stop it. Meanwhile, Tom Pascoe of the river police is grieving for the woman he loved and looking for solace at the bottom of a bottle. Tom's drinking has made him increasingly belligerent and unpredictable, so when he is called to investigate a body found in the Thames - that of an MP and a close associate of William Pitt - there's doubt whether he's up to the task. But Tom must pull himself together, or be dragged under; Pitt's life is in his hands.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE - AS IF THE ROYLE FAMILY WERE WRITTEN BY MARTIN AMIS!'Vibrant tragicomic slices of cosmopolitan Englishness' Independent on Sunday'A rich and compelling drama of life' Daily Mail'Connolly has a keen sense of the hushed emotional tenderness of English life and our silent shattering pain' Sunday TelegraphJim and Milly. Stan and Jane. Jonathan and Fiona. Winter, 1959. Three married couples: each living in England's Lane, each with an only child, and each attending to family, and their livelihoods - the ironmonger's, the sweetshop and the butcher's. Each of them hiding their lies, disguising sin, coping in the only way they know how.

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A young Parisian lawyer is found murdered, burned alive with a flaming tyre around his neck.For Lola Jost, retired police commissioner, the killer's methods are all too familiar. Her beloved assistant Toussaint Kidjo was dispatched in the same way five years before. Convinced of a connection, and aided by her loyal sidekick Ingrid Diesel, Lola reopens the Kidjo investigation on the sly.But the murdered lawyer turns out to be the protégé of a shadowy fixer known as "Mister Africa", who is heavily involved in the arms trade. And the official investigation becomes mired in a power struggle between the Paris police and a newly formed national intelligence agency.Lola and Ingrid have earned their reputation as amateur super sleuths who get the job done when the police can't - or won't. But the high-stakes world of international arms dealing plays by its own brutal rules, and this case could prove too hot for them to handle . . .

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A suitcase of stolen cash has brought three criminals together. One has a bullet in his side. One has blood on his hands. One has vengeance on his mind. Each has run from their past. Each will now fight for their future. A modern noir thriller, The Low Road highlights our desire to outrun our demons, and the dark consequences we face when we are forced to confront them.

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Master the design ideas that shape the world we live in today.In a series of 50 accessible essays, John Jervis introduces and explains the centralmovements, inventions and creative geniuses of design, tracing its evolution from the 19th century to the present day.From arts and crafts and typography to key movements such as art deco and Bauhaus, 50 Design Ideas You Really Need to Know is complete introduction to the most important design concepts in history.

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Quentin Tarantino is one of the most iconic and best loved movie directors of the last two decades. Whether he''s shooting up the Deep South, slicing through the Japanese underworld, blasting Nazi-occupied France or taking a flamethrower to ''60s Los Angeles, Tarantino is a director who combines a radical vision with a sense of history: making movies precisely the way he wants, to celebrate the movies he loves. Featuring insights into his inspirations - from martial-arts epics to Spaghetti Westerns - and dishing up fascinating details from his productions, this is an indispensable guide to Tarantino''s thrilling and sometimes controversial body of work.It takes in his searing debut Reservoir Dogs, the era-defining Pulp Fiction and the genre-subverting Django Unchained, among other modern classics, right up to his nostalgic masterpiece Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Above all, this is a celebration of a filmmaker who has arguably made a big

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Gangster movie, Western, film noir, rom com, screwball, musical, even the Biblical epic... There are few genres left untouched and untwisted by sibling visionaries Joel and Ethan Coen. Since 1984''s Blood Simple, the inscrutable brothers have effortlessly forged their own cinematic path, avoiding prevailing trends while crafting bold, stylish and witty movies that feel fresh and distinctive despite being deeply rooted in their creators'' filmic passion and knowledge.This is a definitive guide to that path, bringing the reader through Joel and Ethan''s 20 features (not counting the mezzanine) and exploring thethemes, the tropes, the gags, the familiar faces - while also taking in all the Coen curios that litter this quirkily winding byway.From Texas to Minnesota, from Homer to Shakespeare, from Bluegrass to Busby Berkeley, from wrestling to bowling, from lost hats to severed toes, this book covers everything that one might reasonably consider (to use a wor

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Discover the legendary story of Nike, where innovation and a signature swoosh took the world by storm.In this illustrated guide, style writer Josh Sims explores the rise of the world''s biggest sportswear company from its humble beginnings in Oregon to global fashion monolith. Featuring all of Nike''s most iconic designs, highlighting their industry-defining innovations and pop-culture influence, A Pocket Guide to Nike is an essential read for all style seekers and sneakerheads.

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