With entertaining examples of just about every type of poem known to man, & wonderful illustrations, Gervase Phinn's new collection of poems for children makes poetry fun & thought-provoking. Cautionary verses, limericks, rhymes, conversation poems & free verse jump off the page in this hilarious book. Great fun to read aloud or keep children entertained quietly for hours. A fantastic collection from Yorkshire's best-loved poet & storyteller. ...

These Days represents one of the most strikingly original debuts in recent years & won the 2004 Forward Prize for Best First ...

An aircrash investigator haunts the hinterlands of an island
- around the isolated honeymoon hotspot, the Drome Hotel
- gathering

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When Ravi Kapoor, an over-worked London doctor, is driven beyond endurance by his disgusting & difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: ' Can't we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.' His prayer seems to have been answered when his entrepreneurial cousin, Sonny, sets up a retirement home, recreating a lost corner of England in a converted guesthouse in Bangalore. Travel & set-up are inexpensive, staff willing & plentiful
- & the British pensioners can enjoy the hot weather & take mango juice with their gin. These Foolish Things is a brilliant comedy of manners, mixing acute observation with a deeper message about how different cultures cope in the modern world.
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Dr Ravi Kapoor has reached the end of his tether. He is over-worked & exhausted; his South London hospital is out of funds; & reporters are hounding him about a pensioner, who for three days lay on a trolley in A & E, untended, the blood stiffening on her clothes. Even home life has become impossible, as his father-in-law, a disgusting & difficult old man, has been kicked out of his nursing home & has moved into Ravi's spare bedroom. But then that 'tip top man', his cousin, Sonny, has his brainwave, his 'great eureka'. These Foolish Things is about Dunroamin, a converted guesthouse in Bangalore, where Sonny opens a home for old people. Travel & set-up are inexpensive, staff willing & plentiful
- & the British pensionsers can enjoy the hot weather & take mango juice with their gin. Skilfully inter-weaving the stories of the inhabitants of Dunroamin, their characters & their families, Deborah Moggach has created a world in which hilarity is matched with the poignancy of getting old, & comedy with the darker issues of care in the community.
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Under the reign of Louis XV, corruption & intrigue have been allowed to blossom in France, & Justin Alastair, the notorious Duke of Avon & proud of his soubriquet ' Satanas', flourishes as well. Then, from a dark Parisian back alley, he plucks L-on, a red-headed urchin with strangely familiar looks, just in time for his long over-due schemes of revenge on the Comte de St. Vire. Among the splendours of Versailles & the dignified mansions of Engl&, Justin begins to unfold his sinister plans -- until, that is, Leon becomes the ravishing beauty Leonie.. . ...