Frances Hardinge weaves a dark otherworldly tale in A Skinful of Shadows her first book since the Costa Award-winning The Lie Tree & Everyone should read Frances Hardinge Everyone Right now&
- Patrick Ness& Hardinge is a talent who deserves to be read by children & adults alike&
- Guardian When a creature dies its spirit can go looking for somewhere to hide Some people have space inside them perfect for hiding Makepeace a courageous girl with a mysterious past defends herself nightly from the ghosts which try to possess her Then a dreadful event causes her to drop her guard for a moment & now there&s a ghost inside her The spirit is wild brutish & strong but it may be her only defence in a time of dark suspicion & fear As the English Civil War erupts Makepeace must decide which is worse possession
- or death


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' Prose from a poet & a personal take on the spectacles' Chris Packham author of Fingers in the Sparkle Jar Shortlisted for Richard Jefferies Society & White Horse Bookshop Literary Prize 2017 Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2017 Britain is a nation of bird-lovers However few of us fully appreciate the sheer scale variety & drama of our avian life From city-centre hunters to vast flocks straight out of the Arctic wilderness much-loved dawn songsters to the exotic invaders of supermarket car parks a host of remarkable wildlife spectacles are waiting to be discovered right outside our front doors In A Sky Full of Birds poet & nature writer Matt Merritt shares his passion for birdwatching by taking us to some of the great avian gatherings that occur around the British isles
- from ravens in Anglesey & raptors on the Wirral to Kent nightingales & Scottish capercaillies By turns lyrical informative & entertaining he shows how natural miracles can be found all around us if only we know where to look for them A Sky Full of Birds is the perfect read for avid birdwatchers & a beautiful special gift for lovers of nature & poetic prose
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An old man looks into the fearful eyes of a burglar left to guard him while his brother is beaten; an Irish priest in a war-torn Syrian town teaches its young men the art of hurling; the driver of a car which crashed killing a teenage girl forges a connection with the girl's mother; a squad of broken friends assemble to take revenge on a rapist; a young man sets off on his morning run reflecting on the ruins of his relationship but all is not as it seems Donal Ryan's short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart & The Thing About December left off dealing with the human cost of loneliness isolation & displacement Sometimes this is present in the ordinary the mundane; sometimes it is triggered by a fateful encounter or a tragic decision At the heart of these stories crucially is how people are drawn to each other & cling on to love often in desperate circumstances In haunting & often startling prose Donal Ryan has captured the brutal beauty of the human heart in all its hopes & failings ...

Insults are part of the fabric of daily life But why do we insult each other? Why do insults cause us such pain? Can we do anything to prevent or lessen this pain? Most importantly how can we overcome our inclination to insult others? In A Slap in the Face now issued in paperback with a new preface William Irvine undertakes a wide-ranging investigation of insults their history the role they play in social relationships & the science behind them He examines not just memorable zingers such as Elizabeth Bowen's description of Aldous Huxley as " The stupid person's idea of a clever person" but subtle insults as well such as when someone insults us by reporting the insulting things others have said about us "I never read bad reviews about myself" wrote entertainer Oscar Levant "because my best friends invariably tell me about them" Irvine also considers the role insults play in our society they can be used to cement relations as when a woman playfully teases her husband or to enforce a social hierarchy as when a boss publicly berates an employee He goes on to investigate the many ways society has tried to deal with insults-by adopting codes of politeness for example & outlawing hate speech-but concludes that the best way to deal with insults is to immunize ourselves against them we need to transform ourselves in the manner recommended by Stoic philosophers We should more precisely become insult pacifists trying hard not to insult others & laughing off their attempts to insult us A rousing follow-up to A Guide to the Good Life A Slap in the Face will interest anyone who's ever delivered an insult or felt the sting of one-in other words everyone ...

Everyone’s a suspect when murder is on the menu! Budding Poi rots & wannabe Sherlock Holmes will love every minute of hosting an evening of whodunit entertainment with Inspector Mc Clue&s A Slice of Murder This crime-busting game provides everything you need to serve up the perfect murder mystery dinner party! The gripping story is set at Panton Place an 18th century house built by Sir John Panton in Rutting-on-the-Rise a beautiful if isolated corner of Norfolk Panton Place is just location to spend a couple of days on a cooking holiday – a Weekend Mini-Bake as it is advertised However the rural tranquillity is shattered when celebrity chef Francis ‘ Franny’ Craddock is found dead late on Saturday night…particularly when it turns out he has been murdered! Suspicion falls on the guests but who would have wanted to kill him? The anticipation mystery & excitement begin before guests have even arrived as each of the guests or suspects will receive their invite & suggestions for suitable dress This all starts to set the scene for the forthcoming crime
- & by the end of the evening one of the guests will be exposed as a killer! A Slice of Murder Dinner Party game comes complete with game rules recipes & decorating tips Invitations for each of the characters are also included complete with booklets about their roles background information & even a few tasty secrets To complete the pack there is a CD to help set the scene on the night & of course provide the solution to the crime!A Slice of Murder Dinner Party game is for 6-8 players & suitable for ages teen & upwards
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play A male Parisian driving school owner who complains of feeling run down goes to see his doctor & is pronounced four months pregnant A delightful French farce from Jacques Demy starring the luminescent Catherine Deneuve Actors Catherine Deneuve Marcello Mastroianni Micheline Presle Marisa Pavan Claude Melki Mireille Mathieu & Maurice Biraud Director Jacques Demy Certificate PGYear 1973 Screen Widescreen 169 Anamorphic Languages French
- Dolby Digital (20) Stereo Subtitles English Duration 1 hour & 32 minutes (approx)
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Terry Pratchett in his own words With a foreword by Neil Gaiman Terry Pratchett earned a place in the hearts of readers the world over with his bestselling Discworld series
- but in recent years he became equally well-known as an outspoken campaigner for causes including Alzheimer's research & animal rights A Slip of the Keyboard brings together the best of Pratchett's non fiction writing on his life on his work & on the weirdness of the world from Granny Pratchett to Gandalf's love life; from banana daiquiris to books that inspired him; from getting started as a writer to the injustices that he fought to end With his trademark humour humanity & unforgettable way with words this collection offers an insight behind the scenes of Discworld into a much loved & much missed figure
- man & boy bibliophile & computer geek champion of hats orang-utans & the right to a good death

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'I will go in out of this dust & heat out of this dry glitter of vanity out of these toilsome futilities I will go & never return' Three disturbing mysterious & moving stories from Wells science-fiction pioneer Introducing Little Black Classics 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range & diversity of Penguin Classics with books from around the world & across many centuries They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California & the Russian steppe Here are stories lyrical & savage; poems epic & intimate; essays satirical & inspirational; & ideas that have shaped the lives of millions H G Wells (1866-1946) Wells's works available in Penguin Classics are Ann Veronica The Country of the Blind & Other Selected Stories The First Men in the Moon The Invisible Man The Island of Doctor Moreau Kipps Love & Mr Lewisham A Modern Utopia The New Machiavelli The Shape of Things to Come A Short History of the World The Sleeper Awakes The Time Machine Tono-Bungay The War in the Air & The War of the Worlds ...

An illustrated collection of 150 tiny stories each told in 140 characters or less 208 pages illustrated Miller James ...

Partly autobiographical this is the third title in Judith Kerr's internationally acclaimed trilogy of books following the life of Anna through war-torn Germany to London during the Blitz & her return to Berlin to discover the past Berlin is where Anna lived before Hitler when she was still a German child; before she spoke a word of English before her family had all become refugees Long before her happy new existence in London But Mama is there dangerously ill Anna is forced to go back to deal with questions of life & death to face old fears & to discover the past which she has so long shut away ...