As a boy, Richard Kerridge loved to encounter wild creatures & catch them for his back-garden zoo. In a country without many large animals, newts caught his attention first of all, as the nearest he could get to the African wildlife he watched on television. There were Smooth Newts, mottled like the fighter planes in the comics he read, & the longed-for Great Crested Newt, with its huge golden eye. The gardens of Richard & his reptile-crazed friends filled up with old bath tubs containing lizards, toads, Marsh Frogs, newts, Grass Snakes &, once, an Adder. Besides capturing them, he wanted to understand them. What might it be like to be cold blooded, to sleep through the winter, to shed your skin & taste wafting chemicals on your tongue? Richard has continued to ask these questions during a lifetime of fascinated study. Part natural-history guide to these animals, part passionate nature writing, & part personal story, Cold Blood is an original & perceptive memoir about our relationship with nature. Through close observation, it shows how even the suburbs can seem wild when we get close to these thrilling, weird & uncanny animals. ...

Various snow & ice climbs in Britain are described in this book in a series of 60 essays. Each climb is described by a leading climber & the book offers a history of each climb. Ken Wilson has also written Hard Rock, Classic Rock & Black Cliff. ...

A witty portrait of rural England in the early twentieth century, the ” Penguin Classics” edition of Stella Gibbons` ” Cold Comfort Farm” is introduced by Lynne Truss, author of ” Eats, Shoots & Leaves”. When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire & damnation; their sons, lustful Seth & despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; & crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people. Armed with common sense & a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in h&. A hilarious & ruthless parody of rural melodramas & violet prose, ” Cold Comfort Farm” is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time. This new ” Penguin Classics” edition

Includes:: an introduction by Lynne Truss discussing Stella Gibbons` unconventional life & career & her joyously satirical voice. Stella Gibbons (1932-89) novelist, poet & short-story writer, was educated at North London Collegiate School & studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the ” Evening Standard” & published several books of poetry & short stories. If you enjoyed ” Cold Comfort Farm” you might like George & Weedon Grossmith`s ” Diary of a Nobody”, also available in ” Penguin Classics”. ” Brilliant.. .very probably the funniest book ever written”. (Julie Burchill, ” Sunday Times”). ” Literary bliss”. (” Guardian”).

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When Lia witnesses a disturbing scene on the way to work, she, like the rest of the city of London, is captivated & horrified. As details unfurl in the media the brutal truth transpires
- a Latvian prostitute has been killed, her body run over by a bulldozer & then placed in the trunk of a car to be found. As the weeks pass & no leads are found, the story quickly disintegrates but Lia can`t easily forget. So when she meets Mari in a late night bar one night she feels fate might have brought them together. Like her, Mari is a Finnish woman in London finding her way, somewhat of an outsider, very independent. But there is much more to Mari than meets the eye: she is a psychologist who possesses an unnatural way of being able to `read` people, see into their inner most thoughts & pre-empt their actions. She uses her `gift` to try to help people & has formed a close unit she calls the Studio, a kind of team of investigators, who are not beyond breaking the law to put the worlds to rights. Mari & Lia strike up a firm friendship & when Lia shares her plaguing thoughts about the murder, Mari thinks she & the members of the Studio can help where the police have failed. But Mari & Lia are about to step foot into extremely dangerous territory, especially as Mari has a will to control others, take vengeance on those she deems deserve it & use the Studio to unscrupulous ends.
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Six young people meet on an archaeological dig in a remote corner of Greenl&. Excavating the unsettling remains of a Norse society under attack, they also come to uncover their own demons, as it becomes apparent that a plague pandemic is sweeping across the planet & communication with the outside world is breaking down. Increasingly unsure whether their missives will ever reach their destination, each of the characters writes a letter to someone close to them, trying to make sense of their situation & expressing their fears & dwindling hope of ever getting back home... ...

Terrifyingly authentic, London-set debut crime novel with a psychological edge, by an ex-Met detective. Perfect for fans ...

Published for the first time in flipback
- the new, portable, stylish format that`s taken Europe by storm. A soldier wounded
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A soldier wounded in the Civil War, Inman turns his back on the carnage of the battlefield & begins the treacherous journey home to Cold Mountain, & to Ada, the woman he loved before the war began. As Inman attempts to make his way across the mountains, through the devastated landscape of a soon-to-be-defeated South, Ada struggles to make a living from the land her once-wealthy father left when he died. Neither knows if the other is still alive. ...

`A troubling, hammering & glorious novel` DAVID MITCHELL On the edge of the Antarctic Circle, in the years after World War One, a steamship approaches a desolate isl&. On board is a young man on his way to assume the post of weather observer, to live in solitude for a year at the end of the earth. But on shore he finds no trace of the man whom he has been sent to replace, just a deranged castaway who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name. The rest is woods, a deserted cabin, rocks, silence & the surrounding sea. Then night begins to fall.. . ...

When the world`s two largest steel producers went head to head in a bitter struggle for market domination, an epic corporate battle ensued that sent shockwaves through the political corridors of Europe, overheated the world`s financial markets & transformed the steel industry. Billions of dollars were at stake. At the heart of the battle were two men: Guy Dolle, Chairman & CEO of Luxembourg-based Arcelor, the world`s largest steel producer by turnover & Lakshmi Mittal, a self-made Indian industrialist & the richest man in Great Britain. Only one could prevail.. . ...