It was 8.46 a.m. on 9/11 when Elia Zedeño, who had worked in the World Trade Center for twenty-one years, heard a booming explosion & felt the building lurch violently to the south. She grabbed her desk, taking her feet off the floor, & screamed, ...

From the gold potatoes at the Sun Temple in Cuzco, Peru, the muddy ones in Ireland & those grown in China for Mac Donalds chips, via Mrs Beeton, Charles Darwin, Lenin & Chairman Mao, to the mapping of the potato genome, the story of the spud is both satisfying & fascinating.
John Reader follows the thread of the potato
...

Jonathan Quinn, freelance operative & professional 'cleaner', is on a mission in Ireland
- purely as an observer
- but things

...

Jonathan Quinn, freelance operative & professional 'cleaner', is on a mission in Ireland
- purely as an observer
- but things

...

Suddenly risen to power & influence, Samuel Fairbrother, manufacturer & retailer of boots, shoes & clogs, decided that his new station in life deserved a more imposing residence. Accordingly he bought himself a thirty-four-roomed mansion situated on the outskirts of Fellburn. With the house came the butler, Maitl&, who at once made plain his belief that Samuel, far from the gentleman his predecessor had been, was no more than an upstart.

So began a clash of wills between master & man, at which Samuel Fairbrother discovered he was at a distinct disadvantage, for Maitland was well skilled in the art of maintaining his indispensability. Fairbrother, for his part, was only too aware that he dare not dispense with Maitland's services. & so an uneasy truce was declared between them.

As the years went by & the century turned, Samuel Fairbrother saw his children, one by one, leave the big house to make lives of their own
- all except his eldest daughter Janet who, by means of a legacy, was enabled to shape the destiny of her father's scattered family & effect the reconciliation that he thought was impossible.




...

West Ham United are widely considered to be one of the giants of English football. Originally known as the Thames Ironworks, the renamed club took the Second Division title in 1958 & 1981 & soared to victory again in 1964, 1975 & 1980 when they won the FA Cup. They also achieved victory in the prestigious European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1965. ...

The Vacillations of Poppy Carey opens with two key events: the departure of Poppy's thoroughly detestable lover, Edmund, ...