WINNER OF THE HAWTHORNDEN PRIZE & THE RUTH HADDEN MEMORIAL AWARDTim Pears' prize-winning critically acclaimed debut about a hot summer in a Devon village where time seems to stand still This overwhelmingly hot summer everything seems to be slowing down in the tiny Devon village where Alison lives as if the sun is pouring hot glue over it This idn't nothin'' says Alison's grandmother recalling a drought when the earth swallowed lambs & the summer after the war when people got electric shocks off each other But Alison knows her grandmother's memory is lying this is far worse She feels that time has stopped just as she wants to enter the real world of adulthood In fact in the cruel heat of summer time is creeping towards her & closing in around the valley ...

With Duran Duran John Taylor has created some of the greatest songs of our time From the disco dazzle of debut single ' Planet Earth' right up to their latest number one album All You Need is Now Duran Duran has always had the power to sweep the world onto its feet It's been a ride
- & for John in particular the ride has been wild thrilling & dangerous Now for the first time he tells his incredible story
- a tale of dreams fulfilled lessons learned & demons conquered A shy only child Nigel John Taylor wasn't an obvious candidate for pop stardom & frenzied girl panic But when he ditched his first name & picked up a bass guitar everything changed John formed Duran Duran with his friend Nick Rhodes in the spring of 1978 & they were soon joined by Roger Taylor then Andy Taylor & finally Simon Le Bon Together they were an immediate massive global success story their pictures on millions of walls every single a worldwide hit In his frank compelling autobiography John recounts the highs
- hanging out with icons like Bowie Warhol & even James Bond; dating Vogue models & driving fast cars
- all the while playing hard with the band he loved But he faced tough battles ahead
- troubles that brought him to the brink of self-destruction
- before turning his life around Told with humour honesty & hard-won wisdom & packed with exclusive pictures In the Pleasure Groove is a fascinating irresistible portrait of a man who danced into the fire & came through the other side





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It is best known for its search engine but as Steven Levy explains Google's ambitions go far beyond internet searching It has moved into mobile phones computer operating systems television & is the most powerful company in the advertising business Its advertising business produces revenues so substantial that the company has no difficulty funding all its other projects The company has an unusual corporate culture which Levy describes The founders are often seen on Rollerblades there are exercise breaks for employees & certain foods are either free or minimally priced There is simultaneously an atmosphere of seriousness & playfulness What role this corporate culture plays in the company's success is one question that In the Plex will address For example every Googler has 20 time -- employees are allowed to spend 20 of their time on projects of their own devising No manager can prevent this Some successful corporate businesses have come from 20 time Levy provides the background on Google's decision to enter the Chinese market a decision that was controversial within the company at the time & which has recently made news as Google threatens to withdraw from China He explains how "cloud computing" is the next frontier for Google & he takes the reader into product development including products that should be reaching market around the time the book is published He explains what Google is doing to counter the rise of social networks such as Facebook (Google has its own social network) real-time competitors such as Twitter & the looming risk of government regulation because of its dominance of the internet ...

I read somewhere that the decision to emigrate comes from a need to breathe The hope of a better life is stronger than any other feeling My mother decided it was better to know I was in danger far from her; but on the way to a different future than to know I was in danger near her; but stuck in the same old fear At the age of ten Enaiatollah Akbari was left alone to fend for himself This is the heartbreaking unforgettable story of his journey from Afghanistan to Italy in an attempt to find a safe place to live ...

This book contributes to race & ethnicity studies through a focus on the small scale racialised dynamics of locality during a sharpening climate of crisis in British society -- 152 pages 8 black & white illustrations Hirsch Shirin ...

Award-winning original fiction for learners of English At seven levels from Starter to Advanced this impressive selection of carefully graded readers offers exciting reading for every student's capabilities A tragic love story is uncovered as journalist Clare Crowe goes to Switzerland to bring home a relative's body Clare's grandfather has been found frozen in a glacier 74 years after a climbing accident Clare knows this could make an interesting story for her newspaper but as she investigates her grandfather's last climb she learns that the accident wasn't as simple as she had first thought Paperback-only version Also available with Audio CDs including complete text recordings from the book ...

In the 6th century AD the Near East was divided between two great empires the Persian & the Roman A hundred years on & one had vanished for ever while the other was a dismembered bleeding trunk In their place a new superpower had arisen the empire of the Arabs So profound was this upheaval that it spelled in effect the end of the ancient world But the changes that marked the period were more than merely political or even cultural there was also a transformation of human society with incalculable consequences for the future Today over half the world's population subscribes to one of the various religions that took on something like their final form during the last centuries of antiquity Wherever men or women are inspired by belief in a single god to think or behave in a certain way they bear witness to the abiding impact of this extraordinary convulsive age
- though as Tom Holland demonstrates much of what Jews Christians & Muslims believe about the origins of their religion is open to debate In the Shadow of the Sword explores how a succession of great empires came to identify themselves with a new & revolutionary understanding of the divine It is a story vivid with drama horror & startling achievement & stars many of the most remarkable rulers ever seen
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As the dust settled after World War II America controlled half the world's manufacturing capacity By the end of the Cold War it possessed nearly half the planet's military forces spread across eight hundred bases & much of its wealth Beyond what was on display the United States had also built a formidable diplomatic & clandestine apparatus Indeed more than anything else it is this secretive tier of global surveillance & covert operations that distinguishes the US from the great empires of the past But even as it has secured an unrivalled power network through satellites drones & cyberwarfare recent years have seen America's share of the global economy diminish its diplomatic alliances falter & its claim to moral leadership abandoned Meanwhile China is emerging as the world's economic powerhouse poised to integrate the world island' stretching from Shanghai to Madrid & lay claim to the South China Sea The nineteenth century belonged to Britain & the twentieth to America Will China take the twenty-first? ...

A Christian pathway into mindfulness using the gospels poetry & storytelling 272 pages O Tuama Padraig ...

DANIEL LEARY IS CINNABAR&S MOST SUCCESSFUL SPACE CAPTAIN; HIS FRIEND LADY ADELE MUNDY IS ITS MOST EFFICIENT SPY BUT THEY&VE GOT THEIR HANDS FULL THIS TIME AS THEY FACE A Cinnabar Senator furious at losing an election still powerful enough to make her anger deadly The boy ruler of a star cluster who thinks he&s a god who can sign the death warrants of even Cinnabar officials if a mad whimsy tells him to A world of slaves & escaped slaves where the most savage beasts in the jungle used to be human An enemy base that could shrug off attack by powerful battlefleets which must fall to a single cruiser if Cinnabar is to survive From palace to reeking jungle from gunfights in grimy hangars to the flagship&s bridge during a sprawling space battle Leary & Mundy are in the thick of it again Watch the galaxy explode THE STORMY RED SKY ...