In late June 1942, the dispirited & defeated British Eighth Army was pouring back towards the tiny railway halt of El Alamein in the western desert of Egypt. Tobruk had fallen & Eighth Army had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Rommel's Panzerarmee Afrika. Yet just five months later, the famous bombardment opened the Eighth Army's own offensive which destroyed the Axis threat to Egypt. Explanations for the remarkable change of fortune have generally been sought in the abrasive personality of the new army commander Lieutenant-General Bernard Law Montgomery. But as Niall Barr shows in this new interpretation, based on extensive original research, the long running controversies surrounding the commanders of Eighth Army
- Generals Auchinleck & Montgomery
- & that of their legendary opponent, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, have often been allowed to obscure the true nature of the Alamein campaign. This book is the story of how an army learnt from its mistakes. The focus on personality has blurred the continuity of experience that saw the Eighth Army transform itself from a tactically inept collection of units into a battle-winning force. Pendulum of War explores how the Eighth Army learnt from bitter experience to develop tactical & operational methods that eventually mastered the veterans of Rommel's Afrika Korps & provides a vivid & fresh perspective on the fighting at El Alamein from the early desperate days of July to the final costly victory in November.

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Viktor
- last seen in Death & the Penguin fleeing Mafia vengeance on an Antarctica-bound flight booked for Penguin Misha
- seizes

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When last we saw Viktor, in the final pages of Death & the Penguin, he was taking his seat aboard the Expedition to Antarctica plane, fearing for his life. Meanwhile, Penguin Misha was left abandoned in a clinic recovering from a heart transplant. Now, in Penguin Lost, we join Viktor for his brief stay in & escape from Antarctica to discover that, characteristically, he has fallen on his feet. Visiting, on his return to Kiev, Penguinologist Pidpaly's grave, Viktor mistakes an elusive child in white shirt & black shorts for Misha on funeral duty. He is first interrogated & then befriended by a Mafia boss who, while burying his contract-killed son-in-law, is also running for election as People's Deputy. Viktor helps in his campaign, & is rewarded with introductions to those able to further his desperate search for Misha, said to be in the zoo of the murderous Chechen Khachayev. For Viktor, it is both a quest & an odyssey of atonement; for the reader, an experience as rich, topical & black-humouredly illuminating as Death & the Penguin. ...

Milo's mum has laid an Egg, & it's due to hatch at any time. So when Mum has to go on a food-finding expedition, Dad has to look after the Egg. So it's up to Milo to deliver the Penguin Post mail. He delivers parcels of all shapes & sizes to all sorts of animals. As he is delivering the last parcel he realises there's an extra package in the mailbag, one that he needs to get home as quickly as he can... ...

The death of Adam Penhallow on the eve of his birthday seems, at first, to be by natural causes. He was elderly after all. But Penhallow wasn't well liked. He had ruled over his estate with an iron will & a sharp tongue. He had played one relative off against another. He was so bad tempered & mean that both his servants & his family hated him.

It soon transpires that far from being a peaceful death, Penhallow was, in fact, murdered. Poisoned. With his family gathered to celebrate his birthday, & servants that both feared & despised him, there are more than a dozen prime suspects. But which one of them turned hatred into murder?

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The original Boogie, reluctant hero of the South West Peninsular Path, was the Mongrel from hell. Mark Wallington's New Boogie, like New Labour, appears a much trendier & more wholesome incarnation -until, that is, Mark gets him on the Pennine Way. This is the big one in every sense. Clearly Boogie will do fine -but will Mark be up to the task? ...

When naughty Penny is walking in the woods one day, she is so surprised to find a couple pony-carting. Penny is so excited by wathching this new form of adult fun that she has to pleasure herself on the spot. Realising how keen she is to discover for herself what it is all about, she begins to investigate this bizarre world of whip & harnesses. Will she ever be able to win the highest accolade in their world of kinky games
- the honour of being a pony-girl?
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If we thought we could get away with it, this would be called ' Tails of the City'-It's a witty, warm, wonderfully eccentric novel which like Maupin's throws an irresistible concoction of San Francisco characters & life together, this time in a park & with their dogs. Inevitably the owners grow like their dogs, if they aren't already; they (that's the owners) pour out their souls to strangers in the park; they fall in love, requited & unrequited; they write poetry; they grow old, they worry, have affairs, learn French, cooking, horticulture
- life, with its ups & downs like the San Francisco streets, goes on- for Tobin, the ex-hippie poet gardener, who holds it all together; & for skinny Hillary Birdwood with her thick specs & wild silver retriever Tess; for the saturnine & sexy psychiatrist & his unlikely corgi; for Jake & his Aghan trio; for Anna Leone & Dr Hawthorne with Posy the bichon fries & Romeo the rottweiler; & Nigel, Chantal & Roger the standard poodle, & a whole host of others & their pooches
- all set against the irresistible backdrop of one of the most enticing & evocative cities in the world.

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