Shantaram is a book of high adventure, great storytelling & moral purpose, based on an extraordinary true story of Gregory David Roberts’ ten years in the Bombay underworld. In 1978, gifted student & writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught & convicted, he was given a nineteen-year sentence. After two years, he escaped from a maximum-security prison, spending the next ten years on the run as Australia`s most wanted man. Hiding in Bombay, he established a medical clinic for slum-dwellers, worked in the Bollywood film industry & served time in the notorious Arthur Road prison. He was recruited by one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia for whom he worked as a forger, counterfeiter, & smuggler, & fought alongside a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. Shantaram, his incredible debut novel, is based on this ten-year period of his life in Bombay. The result is an epic tale of slums & five-star hotels, romantic love & prison torture, mafia gang wars & Bollywood films. A gripping adventure story, Shantaram is also a superbly written meditation on good & evil & an authentic evocation of Bombay life. ...

This is a raw, honest & amusing look at travelling through Asia & India. The true story of an Australian man on the run from himself, & a hit man, which sinks the reader into the swirling madness & paradoxical horror & beauty of India, portrayed without sentiment. Fleeing his shady Australian past, Aaron Smith travels to India & encounters a murder mystery, witnesses the tragic death of a friend, dodges terrorist attacks & a revolution & befriends a colourful cast of fellow characters fit for a Bollywood flick. ...

Don Mc Cullin has held many exhibitions over the years, including his first landmark show at the V&A in London nearly thirty years ago. As the greatest war photographer of his time, it is no surprise that his work is the subject of a huge exhibition currently being organized by the Imperial War Museum. The exhibition will open at the museum`s Manchester site in February 2010, where it will run for a few months & then open at the London museum a year later. The accompanying book will be a departure from the usual format of MCullin publishing & will be sized to match the original ” Sunday Times Magazine”, where so much of his work first appeared. Focusing on his important stories, the book will trace his entire career. Mc Cullin has been interviewed on film for many hours for this project & the edited transcriptions of those interviews will form much of the substance of his text. Mc Cullin`s little known colour work will be reproduced along side pages from the magazines & an assemblage of Mc Cullin`s personal material & documents. These include his cameras, boots & helmet, numerous passports & photographs of him at work on the battlefield, together with illuminating personal correspondence. ...

From Comrade Shakespeare Mc Nab who enlists the help of La Diablesse to retrieve his faltering career at a Caribbean broadcasting station, to the fourteen-year-old English girl who develops a terror of infi nity; from the electrifying description of a woman attacked as she lies sleeping, to the lyrical exploration of myths of El Dorado, Pauline Melville lures the reader into intriguing different worlds. The sheer malevolence of everyday life is offset with hilarity, making these stories both unsettling & funny. ...

To be alive is to be in perpetual change: growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, award-winning writer & doctor Gavin Francis considers the transformations in mind & body that continue across the arc of human life. Some of these changes we have little choice about. We can`t avoid puberty, the menopause, or our hair turning grey. Others may be welcome milestones along our path
- a much-wanted pregnancy, a cancer cured, or a long-awaited transition to another gender. We may find ourselves turning down dark paths, towards the cruel distortions of anorexia, or the shifting sands of memory loss. New technologies can upgrade us, & even without them our bodies can transform in rare, almost magical, ways
- with gigantism, or the sun-sensitivity & facial hair that led porphyria sufferers, once upon a time, to be suspected as werewolves. Medicine now has unprecedented power to alter our lives, but that power has limitations. As he helps patients face transformations both temporary & sustained, Francis draws on history, art, literature, myth & magic to show how the very essence of being human is change.

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Designed by the internationally renowned architect Renzo Piano & developed by Irvine Sellar, The Shard is one of the worlds most striking new skyscrapers & is now, at 310m, the tallest building in Western Europe. From 1 February 2013, people will be able to visit ” The View” on floors 68, 69 & 72 almost twice the height of any other viewing gallery in London from where they will experience a 360-degree, 40-mile view over one of the worlds most historic & exciting cities. Organized spread by spread, easy to navigate & as elegantly designed as the building itself, the official guidebook sets The Shard in the context of Southwark, one of the capitals most historic boroughs, before outlining the design principles & construction story of the building. Also included are Q& As with both the architect & the developer & fascinating facts & stats relating to this extraordinary building. Central to the books purpose as the official guidebook are a series of twelve high-resolution double-page panoramic photographs of the views from The Shard (three per compass point: looking left, looking right & looking down), each annotated to identify Londons key buildings, monuments & landmarks. An informative souvenir for visitors to The Shard, the book will also be available in the trade, making it available to all Londoners & visitors to the capital. ...

Nothing conveys our interdependence more compellingly than the food we eat. It builds our physical resilience, brings us joy, & strengthens our bonds with family & friends. The recipes in this uplifting book celebrate this truth. They come from the women living in the war-torn countries in which Wf WI operate. Recipes also come from renowned international chefs such as Alice Waters, Maggie Beer & Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, & humanitarians such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Emma Thompson, Richard Branson, Paul Mc Cartney & Mia Farrow. Illustrated with stunning photography of the countries as well as the food, they cover everyday dishes, family meals, & recipes perfect for sharing & celebrating. They range from traditional Afghani bichak pastries & Congolese sticky doughnuts, to spicy cashew & tomato soup, beef rendang & orange-scented almond cake. Interspersed throughout are inspiring stories from the women whose lives have been changed through the intervention of Wf WI. All the royalties from the book will support Wf WI`s farming & food training initiatives, as well as provide micro-financing in the eight countries in which Wf WI operate
- Afghanistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda & South Sudan.
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The tiny hermit crab loves his brand new shell. But sharing with a blobby violet anenome & a tickly bristleworm is getting a bit cramped! Join Crab, Blob & Anenome as they part ways, & only then discover how much they need each other, in this rollicking tale of sea, shells & friendship. Now in brand new board book format, this sparkling tale, with glitter on every spread, can now be shared with even the youngest children. ...

The tiny hermit crab loves his new shell. He doesn`t want to share it -- not with a blobby violet anenome & a tickly bristleworm. But life in the rock pool proves tougher than Crab thinks, & soon he finds he needs his new housemates in this rollicking story of sea, shells & friendship. ...

The Sharing a Shell Sticker Book is a must-have for fans of the bestselling picture book Sharing a Shell. It`s packed with games, activities & over 400 stickers. Perfect for birthdays, rainy days & school holidays
- a great gift for any child. From Julia Donaldson & Lydia Monks, an unstoppable picture book pairing, & creators of the modern classics What the Ladybird Heard & What the Ladybird Heard Next. Other Julia Donaldson & Lydia Monks sticker books to collect: Sugarlump & the Unicorn Sticker Book, The Princess & the Wizard Sticker Book & The Rhyming Rabbit Sticker Book.
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