Among the jumble of paperweights, plates, typewriters & general bric-a-brac in Mr Nakano`s thrift store, there are treasures to be found. Each piece carries its own story of love & loss
- or so it seems to Hitomi, when she takes a job there working behind the till. Nor are her fellow employees any less curious or weatherworn than the items they sell. There`s the store`s owner, Mr Nakano, an enigmatic ladies` man with several ex-wives; Sakiko, his sensuous, unreadable lover; his sister, Masayo, an artist whose free-spirited creations mask hidden sorrows. & finally there`s Hitomi`s fellow employee, Takeo, whose abrupt & taciturn manner Hitomi finds, to her consternation, increasingly disarming. A beguiling story of love found amid odds & ends, The Nakano Thrift Shop is a heart-warming & utterly charming novel from one of Japan`s most celebrated contemporary novelists.
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Based on Mailer`s own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two, The Naked & the Dead` is a graphically truthful & shattering portrayal of ordinary men in battle. First published in 1949, as America was still basking in the glories of the Allied victory, it altered forever the popular perception of warfare. Focusing on the experiences of a fourteen-man platoon stationed on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific during World War II, & written in a journalistic style, it tells the moving story of the soldiers` struggle to retain a sense of dignity amidst the horror of warfare, & to find a source of meaning in their lives amisdst the sounds & fury of battle. ...

Previously published as Naked Diplomacy. Who will be in power in the 21st century? Governments? Big business? Internet titans? & how do we influence the future? Digital technology is changing power at a faster rate than any time in history. Distrust is fuelling political uncertainty; inequality is fuelling economic uncertainty; & massive technological change is fuelling existential uncertainty. The scaffolding built around the 20th century global order is fragile, & the checks & balances created over centuries to protect liberty are being tested, maybe to destruction. Tom Fletcher, the youngest senior British ambassador for 200 years, considers how we
- as governments, businesses, individuals
- can survive & thrive in the 21st century. & how we can ensure that technology helps us create opportunity, improve security, outsmart the extremists, & make it easier for citizens to truly take back control.

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The Naked Guide to Bristol goes from strength to strength. It was first published in 2004 & has been regularly updated ever since. It`s already popular with students & those relocating to the city & is selling increasingly well to tourists. With that in mind, the fully updated 6th edition is released in Summer 2017

Includes:: fully updated fold-out map covers Front: Banksy & Bristol Street Art Map detailing the remaining major Banksy pieces in Bristol & the city`s street art hot spots. Back: The Bristol Cider Trail Map details all the city`s leading authentic cider houses & the Bristol Cider Shop. Also updated: Bristol`s Best Breakfast: The definitive guide to the best breakfast in Bristol. Student Bristol: Rosemary Wagg a PHD student at Bristol University has contributed a piece on the role of the University &, student life & the best bars, clubs & cake shops for students. Street Art Colour Section: Archive Banksy pictures & the latest pieces from Stokes Croft, Nelson Street & elsewhere. New Politics section: The Politics & Radical Bristol chapter has been completely rewritten to focus on the election of George Ferguson as Bristol `s first elected Mayor & his successor Marvin Rees. The rest of the guide has been completely updated to provide the essential companion to discovering the real Bristol.

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The Naked Guide to Bristol is the funniest, most comprehensive & best guide book to Bristol that there has ever been. Taking an irreverent sharp stick & puncturing inflated hype & spin wherever it finds it, this guide book gives you an up-close, in-depth &, above all, honest view of this great city. Take a grand tour of Bristol's architectural & cultural highlights, find welcoming pubs, lip-smacking eateries & wallet-emptying shops, & discover the history, politics & music of this counter-culture capital. It's all laid bare inside. ...

In 1865, as Darwin`s new theory of evolution begins to sweep aside old certainties, a young Jesuit priest & plant-hunter sets out into an unknown world. He is driven by twin passions: for science & for his faith. Travelling across the Eastern Steppes of Mongolia in the company of a Buddhist monk & a local horseman, Joseph`s journey is fraught with danger, both physical & spiritual. But it is Namuunaa, the gifted shaman woman who saves his life, who offers a greater challenge: she will teach him what it is to love. A story of East meeting West & of a love that transcends culture, faith &, ultimately, tragedy, this is both a novel on an epic scale & an astonishingly intimate story. ...

Saturnine & quick-tempered, the formidable North Sea is often overlooked
- even by those living within a stone`s throw of its
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Stanfords Adult Book of the Month January 2017 Saturnine & quick-tempered, the formidable North Sea is often overlooked
- even
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The powerful true-life story of a Brazilian boy who could have been a fisherman but instead became the biggest professional killer known to the world. Without moralising about mass murderer, The Name of Death attempts to show how such a career can be not so very different from other ordinary working lives. The portrait that emerges in this riveting narrative, based on seven years of phone conversations between Cavalcanti & Santana, is not only that of a man but also that of a country. ...

Umberto Eco’s modern classic The Name of the Rose”takes place at a truly transcendental time in world history, when mankind was on the verge of ideas & discoveries that would violently throw it into a world more like today`s. The year is 1327- Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, & Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective in a time when detectives had not even the title. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols & coded manuscripts, & digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are taking place under night’s elusive cover.A truly spectacular critical & commercial success on its initial publication, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages. ...