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Virginia Woolf's only autobiographical writing is to be found in this collection of five unpublished pieces.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.
...

In her long-awaited new book, Sister Stan draws upon her memories of childhood & the special moments of awareness & mystery which have nourished & enriched her life.

As she offers simple reflections to help us focus on the many gifts & blessings that surround us each day, she helps us to connect to our inner world, & the deep, nurturing silence that lies within.

...

Three skeltons are found in the basement of a pizza parlour.

The building is old, with a colourful past,

...

Tempe Brennan has come to Montreal from Charlotte in early December to testify as an expert witness at a trial. As Forensic Anthropologist for the province of Quebec, that's part of her job. She should be going over her notes, but she's freezing her behind off instead, digging in the basement of a pizza parlour. Not fun. Not with all the rats. & the cold. &, now, the skeletonised earthly remains of three people, three young women. When did they die? How did they get there? Homicide detective Luc Claudel, never Tempe's greatest fan, believes the bones are historic. Not his case, not his concern. The pizza parlour owner, the Prince of Pizza as Claudel calls him, found some 19th century buttons with the skeletons, another indicator of the bones' probable age. But Tempe has her doubts. Something doesn't make sense. She'll look at the bones in her lab & do Carbon 14 testing to establish approximate age. & she can analyse the tooth enamel to tell Approx. where the women were born. If she's right, Claudel has three recent murders on his hands. Definitely his case. Detective Andrew Ryan, meanwhile, is acting mysterious. What are those private phone calls he takes in the other room, & why does he suddenly disappear just when Tempe is beginning to trust him & to hope he might be part of her life? Looks like more nights at home for Tempe with a good book & Birdie, the cat. As Tempe searches for answers in both her personal & professional lives, she finds herself drawn deeper into a web of evil from which there may be no escape. Women have disappeared, never to return... Tempe may be next. ...

Pregnancy & childbirth remains a mystical & magical time, characterised by feelings of hope, uncertainty & worry. No matter how many scientific innovations come along, there's still room for home-grown beliefs & traditions handed down through the family. Couples buying a pram may still ask for it to be delivered after the birth, & some grandparents will shrink from tickling the baby's feet in case it grows up to have a stammer. Monday's Child is Fair of Face gathers together these beliefs & customs, explaining how & why they arose, in which parts of the country they have been particularly popular, & to what extent they survive today. Arranged thematically, it's the perfect book to dip into, & its mixture of familiar, unfamiliar & frankly bizarre beliefs makes for compelling reading. ...