In this collection of fifty-one tales from the land of galloway, Alan Temperley pays tribute to the great Scottish tradition of storytelling. The tales are wide-ranging:heros, ghosts & solway smugglers;witches, martyrs, mermaids & fairies;reivers, monsters & colourful rogues. Here are Billy Marshall, King of the tinklers; Sawney Bean, the murderouscannibal;young Robert the Brube on the run in the heather; Trost, last of the Picts, who kept the secret of heather ale;the legend of Mons Meg; Claverhouse & Lagg, persecutors of the Covenanters;the famous poterguist of Rerrick;and many more. Simply told & unadorned, the stories bear the flavour of the region- mountain & forest, silver rivers & lochs, the wild Solway Firth, and some of the most beautiful rolling countryside in Britain. Origionally these traditional tales-ranging from rustic comedy to horrific murder-were told in crofts & rural cottages. They grew naturally out of the rich past & the land & the lives of the people-wonderful stories. And they are still as alive today as when they were first told. ...

From nineteenth-century Sweden to Renaissance Italy, Hansen weaves together exquisite stories in a searching & impressive enquiry into why things happen the way they do- Bolt has died & lies in his coffin reflecting on the past. An eccentric scientist, he devoted his life to a vast research undertaking
- collecting random incidents from the history of the species & finding the underlying pattern that connects them. His reveries lead him to tell two other tales
- one of a doomed lighthouse keeper on a Swedish island & another of rivalry among Renaissance artists
- & finally to tell a startling tale from his own early manhood.


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Tales of Protection is a novel about people in different places in different epochs
- contemporary Norway, nineteenth-century
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San Francisco, 1976. A naà ve young secretary, fresh out of Clevel&, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, & Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, & outrageous
- unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.
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' Until that moment, I hadn't realized how much I'd been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to.' They met at a party. It was hate at first sight. Ruth was far too beautiful, too flamboyant. Not at all Ann's kind of person. Until a chance encounter in the bathroom led to an alliance of souls. Soon they were sharing hankies during the late showing of Sophie's World, wolfing down sundaes sodden with whipped cream, telling truths of marriage, mortality & love, secure in a kind of intimacy no man could ever know. After years of shared secrets, guilty pleasures, family life & divorce, they face a crisis that redefines the meaning of friendship & unconditional love. This is the story of Ruth. Of Ann. & of all of us who wonder what we'd say if we knew we didn't have forever. ...

What happened to the great dictators of contemporary history, responsible for some of its most gruesome chapters? & do they still seem as terrifying as when they held power? An unrepentant Idi Amin lives in exile in Saudi Arabia & still meddles in African wars. Before dying, Bokassa proclaims himself the 13th apostle of the Roman Catholic Church & talks of his secret meetings with the Pope. Colonel Menghistu defends his Red Terror campaign. Mrs Hoxha, from her cell in Tirana, argues why the most isolated regime in the world was right to adopt a brutal Stalinist ideology. Paris-based Baby Doc Duvalier speaks about voodoo, solar panels, his women & his lost money. Mrs Milosevic defends the wars in the former Yugoslavia & declares her love for her husb&. Jaruzelski reveals his personal transition from son of an aristocratic family, to autocrat army general in sunglasses. Riccardo Orizio has tracked down these fallen tyrants & thrown a new light on people whose names have become synonymous with misery, death & terror for entire nations. ...

What happened to the great dictators of contemporary history, responsible for some of its most gruesome chapters? &, now that they are disgraced, or in prison, or exiled, or simply forgotten, do they still seem as terrifying as when they held power? Thanks to his conversion to Islam, the unrepentant Idi Amin lives in exile in Saudi Arabia & is still meddling in African wars. Before dying at his dilapidated mansion in Bangui, Bokassa proclaims himself the 13th apostle of the Roman Catholic Church & talks of his secret meetings with the Pope. Colonel Menghistu, still a guest of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, defends his Red Terror campaign. Mrs Hoxha, from her bare prison cell in Tirana, argues why the most isolated regime in the world was right to adopt a brutal Stalinist ideology & explains how it worked. Paris-based Baby Doc Duvalier, in his first interview after fleeing Haiti in 1986, speaks about voodoo, solar panels, the women of his life & how he lost all his money. Mrs Milosevic, clutching her Fendi handbag, defends the wars in the former Yugoslavia & declares her love for her husb&, Slobodan. Jaruzelski, entrenched in a furious legal battle in a Warsaw court, reveals his personal transition from son of an aristocratic family exiled to Siberia by the Soviets, to autocrat army general in sunglasses who defended Moscow's supremacy in eastern Europe. In Talk of the Devil Riccardo Orizio has tracked down these fallen tyrants & thrown a new light on people whose names have become synonymous with misery, death & terror for entire nations. ...