The second title in Rick Riordan`s Trials of Apollo series
- set in the action-packed world of Percy Jackson. The god Apollo,
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Meili, a young peasant woman born in the remote heart of China, is married to Kongzi, a village school teacher, & a distant descendant of Confucius. They have a daughter, but desperate for a son to carry on his illustrious family line, Kongzi gets Meili pregnant again without waiting for official permission. When family planning officers storm the village to arrest violators of the population control policy, mother, father & daughter escape to the Yangtze River & begin a fugitive life. For years they drift south through the poisoned waterways & ruined landscapes of China, picking up work as they go along, scavenging for necessities & flying from police detection. As Meili`s body continues to be invaded by her husband & assaulted by the state, she fights to regain control of her fate & that of her unborn child. ...

Rafik Schami’s “ The Dark Side of Love” is a story of forbidden love set against the background of Arabic culture & endless feuds between clans. On publication it became international bestseller & here has been translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell.A dead man hangs from the portal of St Paul`s Chapel in Damascus. He was a Muslim officer
- & he was murdered. But when Detective Barudi sets out to interrogate the man`s mysterious widow, the Secret Service takes the case away from him. Barudi continues to investigate clandestinely & discovers the murderer`s motive: it is a blood feud between the Mustak & Shahin clans, reaching back to the beginnings of the 20th century. &, linked to it, a love story that can have no happy ending, for reconciliation has no place within the old tribal structures.“ The Dark Side of Love” is a novel which spans a century of Syrian history in which politics & religion continue to torment an entire people, while at the same time the stories from three generations tell of the courage of lovers who risk death sooner than deny their passions.A heartfelt tribute to the author`s hometown Damascus & a great & moving hymn to the power of love.
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Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection -- the schoolboy currency of Beirut. Dom`s upbringing was interspersed with terrifying days & nights spent hunkered in the family basement under Syrian rocket attack or coming across a pile of severed heads from a sectarian execution in the pine forests near his home. These early experiences left Dom with a profound loathing for the sanitized experiences of the modern day travel industry & a taste for the darkest of places. & in this brilliantly odd & hilariously told travel memoir, Dom Joly sets out on a quest to visit those destinations from which the average tourist would, & should, run a mile. The more insalubrious the place, the more interesting is the journey & so we follow Dom as he skis in Iran on segregated slopes, spends a weekend in Chernobyl, tours the assassination sites of America & becomes one of the few Westerners to be granted entry into North Korea. Eventually Dom journeys back to his roots in Beirut only to discover he was at school with Osama Bin Laden. Funny & frightening in equal measure, this is a uniquely bizarre & compelling travelogue from one of the most fearless & innovative comedians around. ...

Commissario Soneri returns home for a hard-earned autumn holiday, hoping to spend a few days mushroom picking on the slopes of Montelupo. This isolated village relies on the salame factory founded in the post-war years by Palmiro Rodolfi, & now run by his son, Paride. On arrival, Soneri is greeted by anxious rumours about the factory`s solvency & the younger Rodolfi`s whereabouts. Not long afterwards, a decomposing body is found in the woods. In the shadow of Montelupo, carabinieri prepare to apprehend their chief suspect
- an ageing woodsman who defended the same mountains from S.S. commandos during the war.
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The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion deliberately attacked & suppressed the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to `one true faith`. Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek & mild, going to their martyr`s deaths singing hymns of love & praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek & mild, they were violent, ruthless & fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth & the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong & had to be destroyed. From the 1st century to the 6th, those who didn`t fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial & physical. Their altars were upturned & their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces & their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written & utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian. ...

In The Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey tells the little-known
- & deeply shocking
- story of how a militant religion deliberately

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Ned & the magical Circus of Marvels are back in a third rip-roaring, page-turning adventure! The Armstrongs are both predator & prey, hunting for clues to help them fight the Darkening-King, while constantly watching their backs. This time it`s not just the world of the Hidden searching for them: the Josser world is intent on capturing the family too. Leading the search is the curious Mr Fox & his agents in grey, & they`ve found an ally who knows Ned`s every move. As the world of the Hidden begins to fall apart, its horde of Demons & Darklings threatens to spill out of the shadows at any moment. With his trusty mouse & Familiar, Lucy & George, Ned must travel from the snow-swept forests of Siberia to the cliffs of Dover in a desperate attempt to rally allies for a final st&. Fearsome enemies will become allies & old allies enemies, as Ned prepares himself for the final battle. ...

Young Chris is an astronaut. A very busy astronaut. Saving the planet from aliens is much more important than taking baths or going to bed. Because at bedtime the worst sort of alien appears
- darkness. But when Chris watches the first televised moon landing, he discovers that there is a dark out in Space that is much darker than he`s used to. It`s the darkest dark ever, & he realises that the unknown can be.. .exciting! The Darkest Dark is the debut picture book by Commander Chris Hadfield, international bestselling author of An Astronaut`s Guide to Life on Earth, with spectacular illustrations by illustration team, The Fan Brothers. Inspired by Chris`s decision to become an astronaut after watching the Apollo 11 moon landing at age nine, The Darkest Dark is an inspiring story about facing your fears & following your dreams.
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Young Chris is an astronaut. A very busy astronaut. Saving the planet from aliens is much more important than taking baths or going to bed. Because at bedtime the worst sort of alien appears
- darkness. But when Chris watches the first moon landing on TV, he discovers that there is a dark out in Space that is much darker than he`s used to. It`s the darkest dark ever, & he realises that the unknown can be.. .exciting! The Darkest Dark is the debut picture book by Commander Chris Hadfield, international bestselling author of An Astronaut`s Guide to Life on Earth & You Are Here, with spectacular illustrations by illustration team The Fan Brothers. Inspired by Chris`s decision to become an astronaut after watching the Apollo 11 moon landing at age nine, The Darkest Dark is an inspiring story about facing your fears & following your dreams.
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