” Dear Adolf. Don`t start anything. It`s the Coal Trip.” The dark clouds of war are gathering over Europe yet the inhabitants of the south Wales town of Penddawn have other things on their minds. There`s rugby, of course, & religion, too, not to mention work, or the lack of it. Not to mention the annual trip to Tenby, & a chance to get sand in your shoes, & forget about both poverty & Hitler. But for one small boy the worlds of warfare & welfare mean very little: his mind is crammed full of books & the wonders they contain: he can dream of little else... The Last Coal Trip to Tenby is drenched in the warm sun of nostalgia, a heartwarming tale of abiding friendships, & a portrait of a community that`s as close knit as an old cardigan. It`s a novel written with vim & vigour & oodles of good humour, about a cast of endearing characters who will stay in the mind. ...

This is an autobiography in essays that conjures up a truly unique portrait of a world that is fast disappearing. Christopher Ondaatje is a true child of the British Empire. Born in Ceylon in 1933 & brought up on a tea plantation, he was sent as a teenager to boarding school in Engl&. But soon after Ceylon was granted its independence in 1948, his family found themselves destitute, & the young Ondaatje left school & got a job. From these beginnings there followed a series of commercial triumphs until 1988 when he abruptly abandoned high finance at the peak of his career & reinvented himself as an explorer & an author, focusing mainly on the colonial period. It is the curious encounters behind these often precarious adventures that make up this book. The stories tell of Ondaatje`s childhood days, his early life in Canada, his fascination with inexplicable events & local superstitions, & sometimes perilous travels researching his acclaimed biographies. Illustrated throughout with original images by Ana Maria Pacheco, ” The Last Colonial” lives up to the romance of its tantalizing title. ...

London, 1728. A young, well-dressed man is driven through streets of jeering onlookers to the gallows at Tyburn. They call him a murderer. But Tom Hawkins is innocent & somehow he has to prove it, before the rope squeezes the life out of him. It is, of course, all his own fault. He was happy settling down with Kitty Sparks. He should never have told the most dangerous criminal in London that he was bored & looking for adventure. He should never have offered to help, the king`s mistress. & most of all, he should never have trusted the witty, calculating Queen Caroline. She has promised him a royal pardon if London, 1728. A young, well-dressed man is driven through streets of jeering onlookers to the gallows at Tyburn. They call him a murderer. But Tom Hawkins is innocent & somehow he has to prove it, before the rope squeezes the life out of him. It is, of course, all his own fault. He was happy settling down with Kitty Sparks. He should never have told the most dangerous criminal in London that he was bored & looking for adventure. He should never have offered to help, the king`s mistress. And most of all, he should never have trusted the witty, calculating Queen Caroline. She has promised him a royal pardon if he holds his tongue but then again, there is nothing more silent than a hanged man... ...

` Anything you do in the past changes the future. The tiniest little actions have huge consequences. You might tread on an ant now & it might entirely prevent someone from being born in the future.` There`s nothing like the issue of evolution to get under the skin of academics. Even if their field of expertise is magic rather than biology. With the best & most interfering minds of Unseen University somehow left in charge at a critical evolutionary turning point, the Discworld`s last continent needs a saviour. Who is this hero striding across the red desert? Sheep shearer, beer drinker, bush ranger, & someone who`ll even eat a Meat Pie Floater when he`s sober. In fact, it`s Rincewind, a wizard so inept he can`t even spell wizard. He`s the only hero left. Still.. .no worries, eh? ...

The Last Crusade puts the reader on da Gama`s ships in the midst of a perplexing, terrifying, yet exciting new world & in doing so traces the ancestry of antagonism between the world`s two dominant faiths, Christianity & Islam. In 1498 a young captain sailed from Portugal, circumnavigated Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean, & discovered the sea route to the Indies, opening up access to the fabled wealth of the East. It was the longest voyage known to history; the ships were pushed to their limits, their crews were racked by storms & devastated by disease. However, the greatest enemy was neither nature nor the fear of venturing into unknown worlds. With blood-red Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East at a time when the old hostilities between Christianity & Islam had intensified. In two voyages that spanned six years, Vasco da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents. The Last Crusade is an epic tale of spies, intrigue, & treachery; of bravado, brinkmanship, & confused
- often comical collisions
- between cultures encountering one another for the first time. With the world once again tipping back East, The Last Crusade offers a key to understanding age-old religious & cultural rivalries resurgent today.

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In this classic mystery from Michael Pearce`s award-winning series, set in the Egypt of the 1900s, the Mamur Zapt investigates the discovery of a young woman`s body at the site of a dam. Cairo, 1908. When an attempt is made to blow up a key regulator in the Cairo Barrage, the Mamur Zapt, British head of Cairo`s secret police, is called in to investigate. To make matters worse, the ceremonial cutting of a dam always requires careful policing, especially on this occasion as it is going to be the Last Cut. Which means the discovery of a young woman`s body at the site of the dam is extremely embarrassing. Is this the traditional ritual sacrifice? Or something more sinister? ...

Three of these stories were previously published in Victoria Hislop`s ebook collection, One Cretan Evening. In ten powerful stories, Victoria Hislop takes us through the streets of Athens & into the tree-lined squares of Greek villages. As she evokes their distinct atmosphere, she brings vividly to life a host of unforgettable characters, from a lonesome priest to battling brothers, & from an unwanted stranger to a groom troubled by music & memory. These bittersweet tales of love & loyalty, of separation & reconciliation, captured in Victoria Hislop`s unique voice, will stay with you long after you reach the end. ...

Every ending starts with a beginning; every beginning, an end. Boyd & Vita have been separated for six years when Boyd asks if he can move back into the house they still own, bringing with him his twenty-seven-year-old girlfriend, Honey. Of course Vita agrees: enough water has travelled under enough bridges since her marriage to Boyd ended & she is totally over him; nothing can touch her now. Boyd & Honey move in & everyone is happy, or so it seems. However, all three are keeping secrets. ...

Marina Benjamin grew up in London, feeling estranged from her family`s Middle Eastern ways, refusing to speak Arabic or eat their food. But when Benjamin had her own child a few years ago, she realized that she was losing her link to the past, inspiring a journey to Baghdad & into her family`s history. Her discoveries will haunt anyone who seeks to understand a country whose ongoing struggles continue to command the world`s attention. By turns moving & funny, ” Last Days in Babylon” is an adventure story, a riveting history & a timely reminder that behind today`s headlines are real people whose lives are caught in the crossfire of misunderstanding, prejudice & ambition. ...

By the end of the nineteenth century, Detroit, founded by the French as a fur-trading post, was thriving. In 1913 Henry Ford began mass-producing cars at his Model T plant, transforming the area into the Silicon Valley of its day. By 1920 it was the fourth largest city in America & by the mid-1950s General Motors had become the single biggest employer on earth. Here indeed was 'the most modern city in the world, the city of tomorrow'. But by the time Berry Gordy founded Motown Records in 1960
- thereby creating twentieth-century Detroit's other great assembly line
- the cracks were already beginning to show: big industry was looking elsewhere for cheaper sites, cheaper labour & better tax breaks; urban planning was in meltdown; corruption was rife; racial tensions were running high. The 1967 riots
- at the time the worst in US history
- left 43 dead, more than 7, 000 arrested & 3, 000 buildings destroyed. Detroit, a former beacon of the capitalist dream, had degenerated into an urban wilderness where unemployment ran at 50 per cent. With more guns in the city than people, the murder rate was the highest in America
- three times that of New York. Mark Binelli returned to live in his native Detroit after a break of many years. He tells the story of the boom & the bust
- & of the new society to be found emerging from the debris: Detroit with its urban farms & vibrant arts scene; Detroit as a laboratory for the post-industrial, post-recession world. Here's what an iconic rust-belt city now looks like & how it might transform & regenerate itself in the twenty-first century.





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