This is the account of Thubron's 15, 000-mile journey through an astonishing country
- one twelfth of the land surface of the
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Few rugby players have matched the achievements of Welshman Mervyn Davies, the shrewd, gutsy number eight with the heart of a lion. In what was a remarkable but short-lived career, he won two Grand Slams, three Triple Crowns, earned 38 consecutive Wales caps, was captain of his national team, & played in two victorious Lions' tours. From the tail end of the 1960s through the first half of the glorious 70s period, ' Merv the Swerve'
- with that mop of black hair & trademark headband
- cut an iconic figure in the world's great rugby arenas. Teammates & opponents respected him, fans loved him, & he was a natural leader of men both on & off the field. Then, in March 1976, everything changed. Mervyn was leading Swansea in a semi-final cup clash when he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage. He began that fateful Sunday preparing for just another high-profile game but ended it fighting for his life. Wales, & the watching sporting world, could do nothing but wait & hope. & just when the odds seemed stacked irreversibly against him, Mervyn did what he had always done: he beat them. Mervyn's life story is one of what was, what might have been & what is. From locker-room tales to the loneliness of rehabilitation, Mervyn's account is funny, moving & honest. He writes about his many highs & lows, about losing rugby but regaining his life & shares his thoughts on the days he spent in shadow & in strength.

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Few rugby players have matched the achievements of Welshman Mervyn Davies, the shrewd, gutsy number 8 with the heart of a lion. In what was a remarkable career, he won two Grand Slams, three Triple Crowns, earned thirty-eight consecutive Wales caps, was captain of his national team & played in two victorious Lions tours.

From the tail end of the 1960s through the first half of the glorious '70s period, ' Merv the Swerve'
- with that mop of black hair & trademark headband
- cut an iconic figure in the world's great rugby arenas. Teammates & opponents respected him, fans loved him & he was a natural leader of men both on & off the field. Then, in March 1976, everything changed. Mervyn was leading Swansea in a semi-final cup clash when he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage. He began that fateful Sunday preparing for just another high-profile game but ended it fighting for his life. Wales, & the watching sporting world, could do nothing but wait & hope. & just when the odds seemed stacked irreversibly against him, Mervyn did what he had always done: he beat them.

Mervyn's life story is one of what was, what might have been & what is. From locker-room tales to the loneliness of rehabilitation, Mervyn's account is funny, moving & honest. He writes about his many highs & lows, about losing rugby but regaining his life, & shares his thoughts on the days he spent in shadow & in strength.





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Brougham is the stateliest of stately homes, but for Lady Artemis Deverill it proves a lonely, loveless place. Eleanor Milligan, born in downtown Boston, knows only poverty & a continuing battle against bullying brothers & a sadistic father.

From the moment Artemis & Ellie meet on a liner sailing to Irel&, they are destined to become friends. & when Eleanor

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In this fascinating history of two turbulent centuries in an apparently idyllic place, Shakespeare effortlessly weaves the history of this unique island with a kaleidoscope of stories featuring a cast of unlikely characters from Errol Flynn to the King of Icel&, a village full of Chatwins &, inevitably, a family of Shakespeares. But what makes this more than a personal quest is Shakespeare's discovery that, despite the nineteen century purges, the Tasmanian Aborigines were not, as previously believed, entirely wiped out. ...

'I am sixteen. I am as old as the century' It is 1916. Vincent is sixteen, on the brink of manhood. Vincent is aristocratic & privileged, frequenting the salons of Paris while France is at war & the city almost deserted of men. In that brutal summer, Vincent's beauty & precocity captivate two men: Marcel, some thirty years his senior, a writer & celebrated socialite; & Arthur, the twenty-one year old son of one of the servants, who is now a soldier at the front. Both relationships become love affairs of a kind
- of the mind or of the body. Vincent intuitively tries to keep his passions separate, but over the weeks of indolent Parisian summer & far-off war, confidences are made, absences endured, secrets revealed. All of these men will suffer, & Vincent will lose the last vestiges of his childhood innocence. In the Absence of Men is a stunning first novel: in its daring in representing Marcel Proust as a character, in the beauty of its prose & in its delicacy of feeling. It is a quite remarkable debut.
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The foundation stone of Jewish & Christian scriptures, the power of the Book of Genesis lies in its stories
- Creation, the Fall,
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