This is the first anthology of extracts from Black Lace with an exclusively contemporary theme. Seduction & mystery & darkly sensual behaviour are the key words to this unique collection of sensual writings from the female imagination. Worlds of secluded passion collide with unbridled erotic exploration, & scintillating characters delight in the thrill of total surrender to pleasure & decadent indulgence. ...

Roger Scruton is one of the most widely respected philosophers of our time, whose often provocative views never fail to stimulate debate. In Modern Philosophy he turns his attention to the whole of the field, from the philosophy of logic to aesthetics, & in so doing provides us with an essential & comprehensive guide to modern thinking. Considered by many to be the best philosophical primer since Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy, this book is a must for both the student & the general reader. ...

Mohawk, New York, is one of those small towns that lie almost entirely on the wrong side of the tracks. Its citizens, too, have fallen on hard times. Dallas Younger, a star athlete in high school, now drifts from tavern to poker game, losing money. His ex-wife, Anne, is stuck in a losing battle with her mother over the care of her sick father. & their son, Randall, is deliberately neglecting his schoolwork
- because in a place like Mohawk it doesn't pay to be smart.
...

These are the fortunes & misfortunes of Moll Flanders: born in Newgate Prison, twelve years a prostitute, five times a wife (once to her own brother), twelve years a thief & eight years a transported felon in Her Majesty's colony of Virginia. Daniel Defoe's rollicking tale presents life in the prisons, alleyways & underworlds of eighteenth-century London, & gives us Moll
- scandalous, unscrupulous & utterly irresistible.
...

When Molly wakes up in the middle of the night, she hears the sound of a step on the stairs. It could be a crocodile creeping up to catch her... Or a giant giraffe outside on the landing... Or an enormous elephant turning the doorknob & opening the door... Or even a night monster come to gobble her up...

But when Molly surprises the tiptoeing beast, she gets an even bigger surprise of her own!

...

When Molly wakes up in the middle of the night, she hears the sound of a step on the stairs. It could be a crocodile creeping up to catch her... Or a giant giraffe outside on the landing... Or an enormous elephant turning the doorknob & opening the door... Or even a night monster come to gobble her up...

But when Molly surprises the tiptoeing beast, she gets an even bigger surprise of her own!

...

Virginia Woolf's only autobiographical writing is to be found in this collection of five unpublished pieces. Despite Quentin Bell's comprehensive biography & numerous recent studies of her, the author's own account of her early life holds new fascination
- for its unexpected detail, the strength of its emotion, & its clear-sighted judgement of Victorian values. In ' Reminiscences' Virginia Woolf focuses on the death of her mother, 'the greatest disaster that could happen', & its effect on her father, the demanding patriarch who took a high toll of the women in his household. She surveys some of the same ground in 'A Sketch of the Past', the most important memoir in this collection, which she wrote with greater detachment & supreme command of her art shortly before her death. Readers will be struck by the extent to which she drew on these early experiences for her novels, as she tells how she exorcised the obsessive presence of her mother by writing To the Lighthouse. The last three papers were composed to be read to the Memoir Club, a postwar regrouping of Bloomsbury, which exacted absolute candour of its members. Virginia Woolf's contributions were not only bold but also original & amusing. She describes George Duckworth's passionate efforts to launch the Stephen girls; gives her own version of ' Old Bloomsbury'; &, with wit & some malice, reflects on her connections with titled society.
...