With an introduction by Anne Enright Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, a story of civil war & a family`s unbreakable bond. How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to. As the daughter of white settlers in war-torn 1970s Rhodesia, Alexandra Fuller remembers a time when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. This is her story
- of a civil war, of a quixotic battle with nature & loss, & of a family`s unbreakable bond with the continent that came to define, scar & heal them. Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award in 2002, Alexandra Fuller`s classic memoir of an African childhood is suffused with laughter & warmth even amid disaster. Unsentimental & unflinching, but always enchanting, it is the story of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.
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In Peter`s own words: These are the stories of a not particularly brave safari guide... As a child I knew that I was afraid of heights, & while uncomfortable admitting any phobia, was glad to have only one. Then I met my first crocodile. Now I know that there are at least two things in the world that unhinge my knees with fear, sour my breath, & overwhelm me with an urge to squeeze my eyes shut & wake up somewhere else. In this companion to ” Don`t Run, Whatever You Do”, Peter Allison encounters ravenous lions, stampeding elephants & lovesick rhinos. He recounts his hairy, & often hilarious, adventures in a private section of South Africa`s famous Kruger National Park & in Botswana`s Okavango Delta, where desert animals from the Kalahari make their homes next to aquatic creatures like hippos, & where the unusual becomes commonplace. It is written with a wonderful, gentle humour evocative of Gerald Durrell. One can almost feel the heat from the campfire flames as the stories are told. ...

John & Laura have come to Venice to try & escape the pain of their young daughter`s death. But when they encounter two old women who claim to have second sight, they find that, instead of laying their ghosts to rest, they become caught up in a train of increasingly strange & violent events. The four other haunting, evocative stories in this volume also explore deep fears & longings, secrets & desires: a lonely teacher who investigates a mysterious American couple; a young woman confronting her father`s past; a party of pilgrims who meet disaster in Jerusalem; & a scientist who harnesses the power of the mind to chilling effect. ...

` Don`t Need The Sunshine` is a humorous journey around Britain`s seaside holiday destinations. John Osborne has never been a fan of going abroad somewhere hot on holiday. He blames the bigging up of `abroad` on his parents
- or at least their generation. In the 60s & 70s they started going on holiday abroad & came back with a taste for the exoticism of a bottle of vin de pays & a pain au chocolat. Who wanted a stick of rock & a donkey ride in the rain when Provence beckoned? Things were simpler in the olden days
- those post-war years when Winston Churchill urged the nation to go on holiday. In need of an escape, but without the funds or inclination for two weeks in the sun, John makes the curious decision to spend a year tracing his family holiday history. If a day trip to Cleethorpes was good enough for his granny, then why should it not be good enough for him? & if his bank manager doesn`t stop him, he might even splash out on a week in the Isle of Wight.

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The entity known (in one of many variants) as the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria (ISIS) has come to feature regularly in the news, & in our imaginations. The dreadful, Grand Guignol spectacle of beheadings, abductions, cages, flames & triumphalist proclamations arouses powerful emotions: disgust, rage, hatred, grief, a yearning for vengeance
- & the sense that something must be done. Yet, argues veteran political journalist Gwynne Dyer in this short, sharp, new book, the Western tendency is to overreact, time after time, to the threat posed by Islamist terrorists. ISIS is the most repellent of the bunch by far, yet the common perception that it is run by crazed madmen with no coherent strategy is sorely misleading. Even more difficult to accept is that the attacks they perpetrate actually have nothing to do with the West, & do not significantly increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks in Western countries, either; rather, they are designed to use Western overreaction as a stepping stone to seizing power in the states they are trying to overthrow. Intervening militarily will give ISIS precisely what it wants: a glue with which to bind its infernal project more tightly. In failing to recognise the ISIS phenomenon as a revolution calculated to court foreign intervention, the Western countries currently pondering the scale of their response risk playing into the hands of the extremists.` The revolution will eat its children, ` Dyer writes
- but only if the West resists the natural urge to do something big, & allows ISIS to play itself out. Intelligent & wryly articulated, Don`t Panic! is one of few new books on ISIS that will not date as events change.

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Don`t Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli
- Book 1 of the Mortdecai Trilogy, now a major motion picture starring Johnny
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The Okavango Delta, Botswana: a lush wetland in the middle of the Kalahari desert. Aged 19, Peter Allison thought he would visit for a short holiday before going home to get a `proper job`. But Peter fell in love with southern Africa & its wildlife & before long had risen to become a top safari guide. In Don`t Run, Whatever You Do, you`ll hear outrageous-but-true tales from the most exciting safaris. You`ll find out when an elephant is really going to charge, what different monkey calls mean & what do in a face off with lions. Sometimes the tourists are even wilder than the animals, from the half-naked missing member of the British royal family to the Japanese amateur photographer who ignores all the rules to get the perfect shot. Don`t Run, Whatever You Do is a glimpse of what the life of an expert safari guide is really like. ...

Sailors are a notoriously superstitious lot
- even if some won`t admit it. Years of taking to the water, at the mercy of uncontrollable
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This is a celebration of running
- & what lots of us think about when we run. Part escape, part self-discovery, part therapy,
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This is a celebration of running, & what lots of us think about when we run. Part escape, part self-discovery, part therapy, part fitness. Part simple childlike joy of running when you could be walking. Vassos Alexander shares the highs & lows of falling in love with running, from his first paltry efforts to reach the end of his street to completing ultra marathons & triathlons in the same weekend. Each of the 26.2 chapters also features a fascinating insight into how others first started, from Paula Radcliffe to Steve Cram, the Brownlees to Jenson Button, Nicky Campbell to Nell Mc Andrew. Funny, inspiring, honest
- the perfect read for anyone with well-worn trainers by the door (or thinking of buying a pair...).
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