As their holiday unfolds, Colin & Maria are locked into their own intimacy. They groom themselves meticulously, as though there waits someone who cares deeply about how they appear. Then they meet a man with a disturbing story to tell & become drawn into a fantasy of violence & obsession. ...

Whether they're sitting at home getting stoned or getting cloned & sent to the other side of the galaxy, Jeremy Sheldon's characters are ultimately preoccupied with the important things in life: sex & food, love & football, masturbation & computer games. Sheldon creates a world where these regular recreational activities are pushed to extremes: a gang of bored friends competes to eat as much as they can in a supermarket sweep with a difference-a finalist at the World Tekken Championship falls in love with the only woman who can beat his Jin Kazama with her Ling Xiaoyu-a bitter divorcee finds himself obsessed with the state of Fred Flintstone's marriage to Wilma-Sheldon's stories read deceptively easily, like comic books, like watching TV, & are often gut-wrenchingly funny. They are also an acute look at what it is to be young, male & English. His characters are diffident, blocked, emotionally muted, caught between the momentum of their desires & the frustrating clutches of their anxieties. ...

Fully revised & updated edition covering China's new membership of the WTO & with a new introduction. ' Damning data & persuasive arguments that should set some Communist knees a-knocking.' Kirkus Reviews'A compelling account of the rot in China's institutions & the forces at work to end the Communist Party's monopoly on power.' James A. Dorn, Cato Institute, Washington D. C., Co-Editor of China's future: Constructive Partner or Emerging Threat? ' Quite simply the best book I know about China's future. Gordon Chang writes marvellously & knows China well. I hope everyone concerned with that country will pay careful consideration to what he sees ahead.' Arthur Waldron, Director of Asian Studies, American Enterprise Institute; Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania.'A tour de force not to be missed.' Willy Wo-Lap, Senior China Analyst at CNN's Hong Kong office & author of The Era of Jiang Zemin.' When he warns that China's two centuries of troubles are still not over, we had better take notice.' Andrew J. Nathan, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University; Co-Editor, The Tiananmen Papers. ...

Fully revised & updated edition covering China's new membership of the WTO & with a new introduction. ' Damning data & persuasive arguments that should set some Communist knees a-knocking.' Kirkus Reviews'A compelling account of the rot in China's institutions & the forces at work to end the Communist Party's monopoly on power.' James A. Dorn, Cato Institute, Washington D. C., Co-Editor of China's future: Constructive Partner or Emerging Threat? ' Quite simply the best book I know about China's future. Gordon Chang writes marvellously & knows China well. I hope everyone concerned with that country will pay careful consideration to what he sees ahead.' Arthur Waldron, Director of Asian Studies, American Enterprise Institute; Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania.'A tour de force not to be missed.' Willy Wo-Lap, Senior China Analyst at CNN's Hong Kong office & author of The Era of Jiang Zemin.' When he warns that China's two centuries of troubles are still not over, we had better take notice.' Andrew J. Nathan, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University; Co-Editor, The Tiananmen Papers. ...

The Coming of Bill (1920) is the nearest Wodehouse ever came to a serious novel, although the influence of the musical comedies ...

Barrytown, Dublin, has something to sing about. The Commitments are spreading the gospel of the soul. Ably managed by Jimmy Rabitte, brilliantly coached by Joel ' The Lips' Fagan, their twin assault on Motown & Barrytown takes them by leaps & bounds from paris hall to immortality on vinyl. But can The Commitments live up to their name? ...

What she produced is an eccentric & unofficial literary & social history from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, with an excursion to ancient Greece thrown in. she investigates medieval Engl&, tsarist Russia, Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian novelists & modern essayists. When she published this book Woolf's fame as a novelist was already established: now she was hailed as a brilliant interpretative critic. Here, she addresses her 'common reader' in the remarkable prose & with all the imagination & gaiety that are the stamp of her genius. ...

So Virginia Woolf described the 'common reader' for whom she wrote. This is her second series of essays, first published in 1932. Here she turns her brilliant eye on Lord Chesterfield's letters, the novels of George Gissing, the poetry of Donne: we meet Dr Burney & Beau Brummell, Christina Rossetti, Geraldine Jewsbury, Jane Carlyle, Mary Wollstonecraft & many others. This is an informal, informative & witty celebration of our literary & social heritage by a writer of genius. ...

John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists. Despite innumerable setbacks & challenges from outside competitors the ultimate success of the project can be attributed in large part to John Sulston ...

John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists. Despite innumerable setbacks & challenges from outside competitors the ultimate success of the project can be attributed in large part to John Sulston ...